Blowing air through his teeth, Rhun stays. He takes his place in the line of boys, sending them all a supportive smile. Per, and Darrick Argall, the Parry cousins, and Bevan Heir.
Vaughn removes a glass vial from his coat pocket and with great ceremony dumps it into the fire.
A gout of flame screams up, and the smoke turns as white as the moon, as white as the Bone Tree.
The signal to the women: We have begun.
Rhun breathes the smoke, finding it softer than he expected, comforting. His lighthearted mood remains, tinged only by wishing Arthur hadn’t gone. But they had their moment in the woods this morning, and that is all Rhun needed. This is his time, his own moment to be what he’s always been meant for.
Lord Vaughn calls, “Tell me, Per Argall, what makes you the best?”
Per clears his throat and says hesitantly, “I’m young and fast—the fastest. I... yes.”
“Tell me, Bevan Heir, what makes you the best?” Vaughn asks.
Bevan, nineteen and thick in shoulder and head, says, “I have a plan, to alternate running with hiding. I can play this game with our devil, and make the night of the Slaughter Moon worthwhile.”
And so Sy Vaughn calls on every potential runner to have their say. Darrick Argall claims to be the bravest and kindest. Ian Parry says he’s practiced every day of his life. Marc Parry tells the men his mother has always known it, and dreamed he would be the saint, and he would like to be everything his mother dreams he can be.
When it is Rhun’s turn to say what makes him the best, he shrugs and only offers, “Nothing but my heart, sir.”
It is so earnestly done, the gathered men and boys nod along, and because Arthur is not present to sneer, nobody does.
•••
THE GRACE WITCH ARRIVES INa beautiful blue and cream dress, with a wreath of bones and yellow flowers around her neck, and a heavy horse skull cradled in her arms. Her cheeks are bright from the exertion of hiking here with the heavy thing, and bright from hope and fury and love. She smells like a bitter salve she stirred under her mother’s instruction, bled into, and with which she anointed herself.
Rhun waits at the fore with Sy Vaughn.
When she sees him, her lips part and she murmurs the litany of saints. “Bran Argall. Alun Crewe. Powell Ellis. John Heir. Col Sayer. Ian Pugh. Marc Argall. Mac Priddy. Stefan Argall. Marc Howell. John Couch. Tom Ellis. Trevor Pugh. Yale Sayer. Arthur Bowen. Owen Heir. Bran Upjohn. Evan Priddy. Griffin Sayer. Powell Parry. Taffy Sayer. Rhun Ellis. Ny Howell. Rhys Jones. Carey Morgan. Baeddan Sayer. John Upjohn.”
Together, everyone says, “Rhun Sayer.”
She sets the horse skull on the ground and unwraps the blessed and embroidered shirt. She glances up at Rhun, who, with the help of his father, removes jacket and shirt. The Grace witch steps forward and lifts the new shirt over his head. As he fills it out, she whispers his name again and again. The men join her, his name becoming an invocation, a hiss, a wind all its own.
The witch unties the wreath from her neck and wraps it around Rhun, then leans up onto her toes to kiss his mouth as she laces it at the back of his neck. Hidden in the flowers is the disarticulated jaw of the sacrificed horse. If the witch kisses the saint with a little more passion than usual, none make comment.
She unstoppers a metal box tied to her belt and smears her thumb in the dark ointment, then touches it to Rhun’s lips and forehead. A bitter smell rises fresh.
Mairwen stands back, arms spread, full of nerves and fire. Rhun’s father helps him back on with his coat and hunter’s hood, but then Vaughn lifts the horse skull and sets it over the hood, hiding the last dark flash of Rhun’s eyes from her. She pants in shallow gasps as the Parry cousins put a cape of horsehair over Rhun’s shoulders, and Bevan Heir ties the tail so it spills like a crest down his back. Here Rhun is fierce and frightening, half man, half beast, and evening has arrived.
The horse skull grins down at her, one half of it caught in the burning light of the dying sun. Orange and pink bleed down that west-facing side, catching on the blocky teeth in the back of the skull. The light sharpens the long nasal bone into a dagger and blackens the eye cavities. The bottom jawbone hangs down from rope against Rhun’s chest like a plate of armor, crushing some flowers in the wreath. He is hardly knowable, but she does know that leather jerkin, the deep oxblood of his hunting hood, his plain brown leather bracers. She knows those hands, and the thighs, too, wrapped in trousers, hiding the skin she touched and dressed herself only hours ago.
Mair’s breath catches.
The saint steps to her and holds out his hand. The pale edge of the saint shirt peeks out from his jerkin. Her charm. The entire valley’s charm. Mair finds his eyes, only a glint in the shifting shadows beneath the skull, and gives him the most meaningful glare she can.Survive, she mouths.No matter what.
Taking her by the waist, he tilts back his head so some rays of light can cut beneath the long skull and across his mouth.I love you, he mouths back.
Then Rhun tosses his head like a horse, prancing and spreading his arms. Inviting the Grace witch to join him.
He holds out his hand again and Mairwen takes it. Their fingers weave together, and Rhun leads her away.
•••
TOGETHER, THE SAINT AND THEwitch dance and skip down the mountain, breathless. The men follow, murmuring his name, clapping their hands, Lord Vaughn joining at the end.
Together, the saint and the witch knock on every door in Three Graces, calling the town to join them too, to dance in a long, twisting line toward the Devil’s Forest for the Slaughter Moon. Through houses and gardens, along cobbled alleys, through the square they weave, trailing a snake of people behind.
