Chapter 4 Lena
FOUR
LENA
The forest welcomed Lena back with a sigh.
Some of the tension in her shoulders lessened as she disappeared deeper into the embrace of the trees, their twisted branches stretching over her like a shield, the ground beneath her boots hard with frost. Even so, Lena’s footsteps were silent, the touch of someone as familiar with the darkness of the forest as it was with her.
This was her territory, and if the Fist were stupid enough to follow her here, then she would be ready for them.
She kept her pace steady, allowing her senses to attune to the familiar sights and sounds of the forest. The whistling of the wind. The gentle whisper of leaves across frozen earth.
Crack.
Lena froze as the unmistakable sound of a twig snapping beneath someone’s foot cut through the silence, sending the birds that had been resting in the safety of the trees soaring into the dark sky above.
Her bow was drawn in the space of a heartbeat, an arrow nocked a half breath later.
She pressed her back flush against the nearest tree.
Took a breath as she recalled her mother’s lessons.
Patience. Do not loose your arrow until the last possible moment, and it will fly true.
Lena released her breath, senses sharpening in the way they always did during a hunt.
There were at least three sets of footsteps, each heavy and clumsy, a sure indication they weren’t used to the uneven terrain of the forests this far west. She might have been outnumbered, but she had the advantage.
Her palms grew slick with sweat as she waited for them to draw closer.
She’d never taken a human life before. She didn’t know if she could.
The first time one of her arrows had found the heart of an animal, she’d spent weeks picturing its face.
The way the light in its eyes had faded like a star swallowed by a stormy night.
She’d eaten the meat to honor its sacrifice.
Had watched as her mother cleaned and tended to the fur, turning it into blankets for the children of a nearby village.
That deer had died so their people could live.
She’d hunted and killed dozens of animals since. It had gotten easier, over time, to ignore the childish part of her that wanted to weep for them. To tell herself, over and over, that it was for her people. Would she be able to do the same when the faces haunting her at night were humans?
The footsteps were closer now, loud enough that they drowned out the thumping of her heart. Her fingers tightened around her bow. These men weren’t innocent. For years they’d hunted down any who spoke out about their goddess. And if they found Lena, they’d take her to him.
Three more seconds and she’d need to fire.
Two.
One—
There was a flash of movement to Lena’s left, a great, hulking shadow amidst the darkness of the trees. Her breath caught at the familiar glint of bone-white limbs covered in patches of inky black fur. Wylfen.
She knew by the sharp ache in her wrist that it was the same wolf-like creature she’d commanded in Forvyrg. It was a certainty that thrummed through her like a song, ancient and sure. And just as sure was an instinct that the beast was on her side.
Her attention shifted to the three men in the woods. To the silver swords in their hands, sharp and bright against the backdrop of ash-gray trees. The wylfen had seen them, too. Its white, milky gaze latched onto them with intense focus, its legs twisting into a predatory crouch.
The arrow was still in her grip, ready to fly.
She could aim for the closest soldier. Take him out before he even knew what was happening whilst the creature from her mother’s stories took on the other two.
It would give her time to escape before the rest of the hunters came looking for their friends.
Or she could warn them. She would still have time to run, to lose them in the deeper parts of the forest, and at least they’d have a chance to survive.
Lena’s arm trembled from the strain. Time slowed before her, and the air around the soldiers started to change, the shadows fading as dozens of silver, shadowy threads wavered into existence.
They were the same threads she thought she’d imagined around the wylfen, the same threads that had appeared between her and Finaen just before she’d left.
Only this time, when Lena blinked, they didn’t disappear.
They wove between the hunters like a spiderweb. Faint, but real.
The threads of fate.
Something in Lena’s soul sang at the sight of them. The muscles in her body strained as she fought the urge to reach out to them, to twist and bend them to her will.
Again, that strange whispering curled at the back of Lena’s mind, like mist before a cold dawn, just out of her reach.
Ice-sharp pain spread along her wrist, crawling up her arm until she couldn’t think, couldn’t see.
The world before her swayed, flashes of snowy trees turning to the onyx walls of an imperial carriage.
And then a dark-haired boy with eyes like ice was sitting before her, his brow furrowed, mouth parting to form a single, horrifying word.
“Fateweaver.”
The moment was over as quickly as it had begun.
Lena jolted away from the vision, and the familiar bleakness of the forest wrapped around her once more.
Time caught up with itself in a flash of movement.
The hunter’s shouts of surprise. The unnatural snarl of the wylfen as it launched itself at its prey.
There was no time to warn them now, but she could still help. The creature had listened to her before; surely it would do so again? And if it didn’t …
Then you shall make it, the voice she’d heard earlier said. Once more, pain radiated from the mark on her wrist as the urge to reach out and weave the creature’s threads pulsed through her. Their fates are yours to command. Simply concentrate on their threads, and—
No!
Lena gritted her teeth, her mind filling with the warnings from her mother’s tales.
The Fateweaver’s existence was unnatural, her power believed by those loyal to the Lost Sisters to be a corruption of magic itself.
Some of the oldest, most forbidden tales even spoke of a Furybringer, a Fateweaver who had become so corrupted by her magic she lost control entirely, creating a cult dedicated to growing her power and destroying everything in her path, and whilst there had been no Fateweaver like her since, Lena could not—would not—risk following in her footsteps.
With that thought, the threads in the air began to disappear, and the world came rushing back in a clash of panicked shouts and unnatural snarls. The soldiers were now swinging their swords wildly, swiping at a creature they had no idea how to fight, but it wasn’t fear on their faces.
It was disgust. Anger. Hatred.
The same emotion she’d seen on the faces of any Fist ordered to visit the Wilds. As if the frozen huts and hungry people—her people—were beneath them.
As if they didn’t deserve the same chances to survive as the imperials did, simply because of where they’d been born.
She could help them. But that look on their faces … Lena had seen it before, on the night a unit of hunters had raided the village Kelia Vesthir and her daughter had been passing. The night Lena had hidden in the forest and waited for a mother who would never return.
Whilst these hunters weren’t the same ones who’d taken her mother from her, they had still taken too many innocent lives.
Lena wasn’t going to let them take any more.
And so, with one final glance at the creature from her mother’s stories, Lena lowered her bow and left the hunters to their fate.