Pressing my forehead to the trunk, I close my eyes and try to slow my breathing. There must be some other remedy, some knowledge still tucked away in the recesses of my mind that will save him.
Though the land has been oddly quiet since we crossed the border, a deeper stillness settles in the surrounding brush. Goosebumps spring up along my arms and icy tendrils lick the tender skin between my shoulder blades as the heavy weight of awareness grows thick in the air and my lungs deflate.
After a single deep, shuddering breath I spin myself around, fists held up in front of my face as I squint into the darkness, ready to face whatever monsters have found me in the depths of the forest. Swearing under my breath, I nearly trip over my own feet in my fearful spinning rush. I stagger back, my spine slamming against the oak.
Graceful.
My head whips toward a low cackle coming from a small patch of deeply darkened shade. I will my eyes to focus on the form of an old,decaying crone sitting atop a large, mossy boulder a few feet away, chastising myself for not bringing a weapon into the strange and unfamiliar woods.
A long, tattered cloak hangs draped around her shoulders, its large hood pulled low over the crown of her head. Her hands and eyes are bound by an abundance of frayed rags. She tips her head to the side, observing me from behind the moth-eaten cloth as I shift my feet into a defensive stance.
Unperturbed, she smiles, a near toothless grin pulling at the corners of her thin, colorless lips. The few teeth she has are blackened by decay much like the fingernails protruding from her bindings; these she taps rhythmically on her thigh. Every nail is caked in filth, split into the bed of her fingers, and broken in a jagged array along the tips.
With a long, slow sweep of her head, she takes me in from foot to head curiously, each of us weighing the other.
“Who are you?” I demand, forcing strength into my voice.
“Does it matter?” she rasps in an unnaturally high pitch that raises the hair on the back of my neck.
I guess it doesn’t, but her answer is in no way relieving, so I try another approach. “What do you want?”
“I came to ask that question of you.” She grins, pointing a crooked finger at me. “Your need called me. It drew me from my home and brought me here. So, tell me, what is ityouneed, child, and let us strike a bargain.”
I weigh my reply, only hesitating for a second before telling her about the herb I seek. The shadow master is running out of time, and I doubt there is danger in the small truth I offer her. I would rather not end the life of an old hag living deep in the forest, and even as that thought attempts to pass through my mind unexamined, I can hardly bring myself to believe that she is not more than she appears.
“Such a simple request,” she crows, “I can give you what you seek.”
Her hand disappears beneath her cloak and when it reemerges, she holds a tall sprig of latrice between her fingers. Unlike the herb littering the forest floor, this sprig is abundant in the unseasonable flowers declaring it to be exactly what she claims.
I step forward, reaching out my hand to take it, stumbling, my back slamming into the tree again when her face quickly transforms into adarkening mass of pointed teeth. I tense when an inhuman growl rips out of her chest in warning. When I don’t make another move for the sprig her face settles back into the haggard, wrinkled crone I’d first seen.
“You may have it, for a fair price,” she coos, with what I think must be a sad attempt at a warm and reassuring smile.
“I have nothing to trade,” I explain, trying to keep the desperation from my voice.
A guttural cackle rolls from her lips, and she clicks her tongue.
“Grant me a piece of the lie that binds you, and it is done. A small sliver, hardly noticeable. And make your choice quickly, child, before the venom reaches his heart.”
My blood runs cold, a knowing grin splitting the crones face.
How does she know? And what in all of Terr is she asking me to trade for his life?
“Will it hurt me?” It’s the only thing I can think to ask, the only thing I really need to know, and no matter what her answer might be, I’m not entirely sure I can be dissuaded from accepting her offer.
“No. But once the thread is removed it’s only a matter of time before what remains begins to unravel.”
Good enough.
“It’s a bargain then.”
She reaches out to me, and I assess the threat that she could easily become as I step toward her reluctantly, grasping her outstretched hand. My eyes widen in shock. A familiar beat brushes over my skin, like the cool waves that drift up and down the La’tari coast when I would lay in its deep sands as a child. A push, and then a pull. Something foreign and yet so familiar that some deep part of me calls it home. It’s as if the very pulse of Terr is rushing out of her, caressing my skin, beckoning me to join in the rhythm of all who have come before me and all who will come after.
“It is done,” she says simply, dropping my hand and offering me the herb she pinches between two knotted fingers.
Regret, longing, want, more emotions than these play in my mind as the beat of my world dies without her touch. She examines me curiously and I school my features, pushing any lingering questions far into the back of mymind.
Moving slowly, I gauge her reaction. When she makes no move to shift into the toothy creature she had before, I snatch the herb from her grasp and shuffle back, out of her reach. My heart thunders within my chest, out of relief or fear I cannot say.
