Brielle tightens her jaw, attuning her senses. Places like this, moorland and river and thick tumbles of woodland, are where she feels most at home. There is a different set of rules to follow here; this is not a place governed by manners and laws and skin-deep civility like the courts of the continent. It’s raw and wild and real. If she missteps, ignores an instinctive tug, it couldlead to her death. And something lurks in this forest. She can feel it.
Something is huntingher.
She isn’t afraid, exactly. She hadn’t felt true fear on any assignment after she stalked the vile wyvern that killed her mother and left their carcasses scattered across the snowclad heights of the Spines. Nothing, except Lowri’s pale features, a shade too close to death, has caused real fear in her since then. But, still, she never ignores that tug in her middle. Tonight, she is wary. A twig snaps under her left boot as she prowls through the trees towering tall as giants, branches crowning their tops as if they have formed a new night sky. She listens, and she waits.
There wouldn’t be another hunter here in these woods, of that she is sure. Not enough coin in these parts to tempt a coven away from the assignments in Valstra – ridding fire sprites from the rich merchant mines, or the creatures infesting the courts across the continent, searching for jewels and shiny trinkets. No coven would have sent a hunter to a lone tavern owner who might not pay more than a couple of coins and a hearty meal. Certainly not her coven, or, rather, heroldcoven. Brielle licks her lips, listening intently as the forest at night awakens. So strange to think of Coven Septern that way, so absolute and final. But Brielle does not dwell, moving onwards, even in her thoughts. No, she is the only witch here tonight.
A huff, like a trembling exhale, sounds a little way tothe east, accompanied by the thuds of a creature and then a thin, warbling wail. It shakes the damp air around her, the noises of the forest fading to silence. Brielle swallows, keen senses homing in on the creature that has made those sounds. Whatever it is, it’s large, lumbering and sad. She quirks an eyebrow at Nova just ahead of her.
A creature, but it feels…odd.
‘You’re a lot of help,’ Brielle murmurs, moving towards the warbling and the shifting trees. She emerges into a clearing and quickly retreats under the cover of the branches. In the centre is a creature, slumped against a single tree with bone-pale bark and long, curved limbs, stripped of leaves. Brielle bites her lip, calculating its size and heft, the witch words needed to incapacitate it and whether she could still just slink away, unseen.
It’s a wither beast, round and covered in silver fur, with the features of a bear, huge catlike eyes and paws with claws several inches long. Her heart drums in her ears as she calculates, blinking quickly. To disturb a wither beast, particularly a female … She takes another step back and winces as a twig cracks beneath her boot.
The wither beast’s eyes snap to hers.
Brielle holds her breath as the great creature rises, swaying as it stands, and she walks forward to greet it. There is no use in bolting now. It would only give chase and, given its size and those claws, she doesn’t fancy her chances of getting away completely unscathed. She draws a blade, taking up a stance, eyeing it as it pulls in a breath … and sobs.
‘What in skies?’ Brielle says softly as the wither beast slumps back sadly against the tree. It has a human voice. The cry of a girl, the same wailing cadence. ‘But, if you’re not a wraith—’
‘She’s not.’
Brielle whips round as a figure steps into the clearing wearing a ruby-red cloak, drawn low over their forehead to cover their face and hair. ‘Show yourself.’
The figure draws back their hood just as the wither beast sobs again softly. ‘My sister isn’t a wraith, nor is she a wither beast.’
Brielle’s eyes widen as she takes in the wild black curls, the gleaming eyes. The daughter from the inn. Dreska.
‘It’s you!’ she says, shaking her head. How did she not realise? ‘You’re the wraith.’
‘Not quite yet, but I fear it won’t be long until I disintegrate. Until I can no longer control what is inside me, what is bleeding out,’ Dreska says, the first hint of fear creeping into her words.
This other daughter of Gregor, the younger one, who must be around sixteen, turns her gaze on the wither beast, sorrow and desperation changing her features completely as she holds out her hand. Brielle notes her nails, ebony black, smoke ghosting around them. The sign of a witch whose power is leaking out of her, who may be using too much of that power, or who is not fully in control of it.
‘I didn’t mean to do this to Liska,’ Dreska says. ‘Please help us. Save her. Change my sister back.’
‘she’s fading.’
Strong arms circle Lowri, lifting her up. All her choices have brought her to this, a bed in a castle, a lonely path in the dark, moving further from herself. Burnout is fatal in a witch and she used far too much of her power. She delved too deep; she knows that now. But she would do it all again. For herself, for her home, for her family. If only it hadn’t cost her so much.
She opens her eyes just enough to know it’s Eli who lifts her, and finds her cousin’s calm, capable eyes staring back at her. He’s always protected her, is as much a brother to her as Caden, and as she senses the thrum of his heart pressed to her ear she remembers a shell he gave her on one of his visits to the coven house, so she could listen to the ocean surrounding Ennor and feel as if she was there with him and Caden. She clings to that memory now as Eli steps towards a threshold that didn’t exist before. One forged of darkness and silence and power.
They slip out of Ennor Castle, out of her entire known world and into a shadow that is not a shadow at all, but a doorway. And on the other side is forest. It warps as Eli steps, then steps again, twisting into shadow, then snow, then a mountain range. So many places, but never the right one. Never the right doorway.
‘Eli,’ Lowri whispers, but her voice is a thread. She clings to him, fighting to keep her eyes open. This is not like traversing between shadows. This is not a spell.
This is something else.
‘Hold on, Lowri. I just have to find the right doorway.’
They step into a library, then through trees on the side of a mountain. She catches a glimpse of people on broomsticks, towering buildings set on top of sheer cliffs. They see people from other places, other worlds. And still Eli keeps stepping.
Then the sky blanches to grey, a steady drizzle misting a garden surrounded by trees, that forest she first saw. No, not a forest, not with these carved marble stones, these flowers neatly arranged, already picked.
A graveyard.
Lowri can feel Eli’s heart pounding inside his chest. He’s holding the necklace, the eight-pointed star tight in his fist, the chain draped over his fingers, glowing softly. His link to this world. She raises her eyes to his and finds he’s staring over her head, to where a single black-clad figure stands before a grave. The drizzle thickens to rain that slips down her cheeks, but sheforces her eyes to stay open. Fights to stay awake. Eli carries her to this figure by a gleaming black gravestone, flecked with white and carved with a name.
