Chapter 2
ten days and three territories of overland travel leaves Brielle cramp-legged and short-tempered.
Leicena wasn’t so terrible. The post carriage ran like clockwork, the roads were quiet and well maintained and every few hours they would stop at an inn for refreshments.
But Skylan, with its sprawl of mountainous tracks and lack of reliable coaches, never failed to dampen her mood.
She’s questioned agreeing to Nova’s idea more than once since they left the isle of Ennor, but thoughts of Lowri always brought her back to the plan.
To create a true Tresillian coven, one unlike the coven in which they both grew up, something to which Lowri could return home, a new future for them both, on their terms. A purpose, a plan, to rescue as many wraiths as they can, turning them into the witches they should have become.
Idealistic, perhaps foolish, but she wants to try.
She has to know if what Nova – Lowri’s familiar – and Tanith – Ennor Castle’s resident librarian – believe is possible can actually be done.
Now, two days deep in the thick southern forests of Stanvard, Brielle has to remind herself hourly why she agreed to this assignment. She is very ready for a warm bath, a roaring fire, a decent meal and to no longer be sitting in a box on wheels.
If you offered a bribe to the driver, we would be there by now, Hunter.
She glares at Nova, who gives a suspiciously un-catlike meow and begins licking her paws.
Nova chose Lowri as her witch when Lowri was just a young witchling, and ever since she’s accepted Brielle, though Brielle is not convinced the familiar altogether likes her.
It’s a mutual acceptance, if anything, balanced on the fact that they are both fiercely loyal to Lowri.
And while she is gone with Eli in another world they need a purpose, a distraction from dwelling too much on whether Lowri, the burned-out witch they both love, will make it back to them, whole and well.
They need to give her something to return to, a new coven, renewed hope. A future.
Their shared anxiety does not soften one to the other, though, especially now the journey is dragging on. And Brielle, usually so measured and calm, cannot help but show her irritation more frequently. ‘I’ll offer you as a bribe, shall I?’
Nova yawns, slouching on the seat across from her. Give it a try. I’m sure Lowri would love to hear how you frittered her beloved familiar away for a bit of comfort and faster travel.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Brielle snaps, crossing her arms and turning pointedly to face the window.
The trees flash by the carriage in a sea of dark green, and she ponders how Lowri is, where she is.
Has Eli managed to get her to his father’s world and has he found someone to help her?
Burnout in a witch can be fatal. And the way her sister was the last time she saw her, listless and ink-veined, her grip on the world around her tenuous at best …
Brielle swallows, blinking quickly to shift the image away.
No use dwelling on what she cannot control.
All she can do now is keep moving forward, and trust in Elijah Tresillian and his strange, otherworldly magic.
What is in her control, though, is proving more frustrating by the hour.
They should have crossed the border by now and be well on their way to a tavern of which she is particularly fond in the northern region of the principality of Lorva.
In fact, they should have left this stretch of the forest behind some time ago.
‘Driver,’ she calls, knocking on the ceiling of the carriage. ‘Driver, a word!’
Three hours later, with a considerably lighter purse, Brielle and Nova arrive at Tavern Lomask as night falls.
Much like the Inn Melusine on the Far Isles, Tavern Lomask has slumped and sagged since her last visit, as though weary of the world.
The plaster no longer gleams white, a beacon along this stretch of road for tired travellers, but instead sports a greyish hue, the colour of thin, autumnal rain.
The windows appear dingy, with only the faintest light shining through them, stiff curtains mostly drawn against the encroaching dark.
Looks friendly, Nova comments. I’ll be catching mice. Then she stalks off towards the back of the building before disappearing into the gloom beyond.
‘Friendly as a witches’ tea party …’ Brielle murmurs, reminding herself that she’s here for a rest and to gather any local gossip.
The five principalities of the Middenwilds are always rife with tales of wraiths, so when Nova suggested the idea, this seemed like the best place to begin.
She tries the dark wood front door and the hinges give with a groan.
She stumbles inside, finding a scattering of locals from the village a mile or so away, hidden off the main road through the forest, and the tavern owner with a polishing cloth slung over his shoulder.
Recognition softens his features, shoulders dipping in apparent relief as he makes his way behind the bar.
‘Hunter Tresillian. If I’d known you were coming …
’ He scratches his grey-streaked beard, sunken eyes swivelling to hers.
‘’Tisn’t safe at night. Not alone. Your driver should have known better. ’
Brielle smiles, leaning her forearms on the bar. ‘I paid him handsomely to get me here before midnight.’
‘The main road is rough between Valstra and Lorva now. No money for repairs, or so they say, and many avoid the nights and what lurks beyond the treeline.’
Now this sounded interesting. ‘You’ve had some trouble?’
‘Trouble is a polite way of putting it,’ the owner says as Brielle manages at last to fish his name out of her memory.
Gregor Kain. Kindly widower with two daughters.
The last time she visited, though, he was quicker to smile.
She could hear the music and merriment now, spilling from every corner. Or, at least, the ghosts of them.
‘How are the family?’ she asks.
Gregor stiffens and blinks. ‘My oldest girl, she turned seventeen a month ago and …’ He sighs then reaches for a bottle half full of a thick mauve drink, pours himself a tiny glass and downs it. ‘She changed. Became agitated, fearful. Had these outbursts she couldn’t control and then …’
‘The forest took her,’ a voice says. Brielle turns to find a girl with wild black curls, scrunched fists and gleaming eyes. ‘My sister, Liska, hasn’t returned since.’
‘Sad times indeed,’ Brielle says softly, eyeing the slightly younger sister. ‘Dreska, isn’t it?’
The girl bobs her head, not taking her eyes from Brielle. ‘She’s been gone two weeks.’
Brielle asks for a room to be prepared, orders a plate of pie and mash, which tastes of the woodsy herbs grown in the loamy, rich soil thereabouts, and washes it down with a glass of ruby blackcurrant wine.
She watches Gregor as he polishes glasses, grumbles with the other patrons about the trees being felled to make way for a new landowner’s plans a few miles away and sends Dreska off to bed.
In everything, he seems absent. As though his mind wanders, deep into the thickening night.
Pudding is a sweetened milk and bread dish, filling but burned at the edges.
Brielle chews it mechanically, listening to a group in the corner murmuring about the woods, the mist and the recent cries heard in the night.
She takes her leave as they do, all of them moving together in a pack, glancing behind their backs with chalky faces, lanterns held aloft.
Brielle walks slowly to the room prepared for her up the creaking staircase, just as Gregor bars the front door with a sturdy dark wood bar laced with metal after the last patron bids him goodnight.
She finds Nova waiting for her, curled up on the windowsill, eyes pale moons, flashing in the gloaming. ‘Told you the Middenwilds were our best bet. I believe we’ve found our first wraith.’
It appears so.
When she’s sure the innkeeper and his daughter are asleep, Brielle leaves the inn through the window, Nova like a shadow at her heels.
With a full set of blades in the sash across her chest and magic at her fingertips, ready to be released with a pinch of words, she walks into the foreboding forest. It seems to close in their wake, the moonlight soon extinguished, as though a great door made of leaf and bark has swung shut, trapping them within.
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 could lead to her death.
And something lurks in this forest. She can feel it.
Something is hunting her.
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, her old coven.
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 to the 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.’