‘It’s called Night’s Barrow. The burial place of savage queens and kings long dead.’ She nods slowly. ‘I wonder if he knowswhatyou can do… what the Fishwife said you can do…’
The breath leaves me as if I’ve been thumped on the back.And how might it know that?‘Maybe. Maybe. But I couldn’t dothat. I can’t heal anything that doesn’t have bones, no solid body. The shadow half is… shadow. And I cannot resurrect the dead.’ I rub my hands up and down my arms, trying to generate a bit more heat, but suspect the cold is internal.
‘I’ve given much thought to this, and I suspect that what it is, really, is the part that adores the hunt. The part that thirsts for blood and flesh, desires only the kill. If it somehow knows what you can do, might it not want to be whole again?’
‘Believe me, I know my limitations and there’s nothing for me to work with.’
‘It wouldn’t know that. It would only know – or suspect – what you can do to other things, people.’ She looks hard at me. ‘Perhaps you might be able to take advantage of that desire? To get close enough to it to do something?’
Destroy it.
‘How do you kill a shadow? I’d be lucky to get past the wish-hounds.’ A thought occurs. ‘Oh. The wish-hounds – they’d have obeyed his orders. If he wanted the green women torn asunder, the wish-hounds aren’t under your purview. Not natural things, are they?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not at all. But, if it –he– wants something from you, I’m sure he’d call them off.’
‘That’s a very bigifto hang my newly resurrected arse on.’
She raises a hand in acknowledgement. ‘But what if? What if under the guise of healing, you destroy what’s there?’
‘I’ve never tried that.’ Of all the things I’ve done, I’ve never donethat. ‘You’ve picked over my life with the mari-morgan, you know that I’ve healed people, changed them, but I’ve never pulled them asunder.’ That idea? The very thought of deconstructing a person, bone by bone, muscle by muscle, artery by artery? Like disarticulating a doll from the inside out?Thatthought is simply too awful. ‘I… I wouldn’t know how.’
The green woman shrugs again. ‘All things might be sundered, you just need to find where the joints are.’
I wonder if she was so nonchalant about pulling things apart before her sisters were hunted down. Does it matter, though? What she was like before she was wronged? In danger? Sheresurrected me, whether or not she would be able to recruit me. And she’s not the thing posing a threat, not the thing stealing children from Berhta’s Forge and leaving changelings in their place; not the thing using orphans as fodder to try and break the ward-line of my holding.
‘It’s been stalking around your home, Mehrab.’ She leans against the tree trunk, stretches out her long legs. ‘How long before it finds a way in? Somehow. Do you think it will simply give up, go away? It’s been killing my kind, stalking and hunting us for decades across the entirety of this enormous forest, wiping us out with such efficiency that we’re barely even a myth now. How long before it finds its way into this bower? How long before it –he– takes your little cottage apart and the girl and her strange and wonderful child as well?’
‘How do you know about Rhea?’ I’ve not given blood to the Black Lake since before Rhea came.
‘Resurrection allows for some… access. Forgive me my trespasses.’ The corner of her mouth lifts.
I glare at her. ‘I don’t know how to doanythingto him.’ I cover my face with my hands, am shocked by how cold they are. ‘Am I really alive? Properly? Because this chill—’
‘It will take time to come back properly to yourself. For the blood to warm itself once more. Be patient.’
I sigh. ‘There are books in the cottage, perhaps there’s something in there. I… must think on it.’
‘You’re inventive,’ she says. ‘Why, look at what you did to all those oak saplings. You adapted your powers to that end. I’m sure you’ll be able to figure something out.’ And there’s a threat ofif you know what’s good for youunderneath all that.‘More than one life is resting on what you do next. Because imagine what happens when it runs out of strange things to hunt and looks at the mortals.’
All the old tales say the god of the hunt is happy to pursue folk, men, women and children unfortunate enough to be caught up in the wild reel of the chase through their parents’ sins. But there have been no rumours, at least that I’ve heard, of other villages in this forest being attacked, no stories of deserted little hamlets mysteriously cleared. And Berhta’s Forge… there’s been no sign of him actuallybeingthere. The missing children have wandered, it seems. And Anselm, trampled to death. Poor Anselm – why him?
‘I must go back.’
‘Where precisely do you want to be?’ asks the green woman.
Briefly it’s on the tip of my tongue to simply sayAnywhere but hereexcept who knows where that might get me. Gods, especially very old ones, can be literal and capricious; who knows where I might end up? And I’ve no doubt the green womanisa god and I have obligations.
‘Berhta’s Forge,’ I say. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done.’
‘Remember your promises,’ says the green woman, as if I might forget the moment I’m free. I could tell her I’ve never forgotten a thing in my life, least of all my promises, even when they’ve been likely to lead to worse trouble.
‘I’ll remember.’ I nod and she returns the gesture.
‘Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready.’
And the world falls out from under me.
