Chapter 8
brielle stills, every inch of her focused on the cold touch of the blade against her throat. A thousand thoughts chase each other across her mind as she calculates her own odds, and that of Dreska’s.
‘A strange way to greet a hunter,’ she says softly, chancing a glance to her side, taking in as much detail as she can.
The hand holding the blade is covered with a rough brown glove, the kind worn by foot soldiers.
His jacket sleeve is deep green, almost black, equally rough spun and designed to blend with the forest. A ranger, perhaps?
Or a man from one of the nearby Lorvan towns, bent on slaughtering the beast casting fear in these parts.
‘You’re fortunate it’s only me that you’ve found out here tonight. ’
‘Fortunate?’ He chuckles softly before retracting the blade. ‘Brielle Tresillian, I am counting my blessings.’
Brielle inhales sharply and spins, a dagger from the sash at her chest pressing into this stranger’s own throat in less than a heartbeat.
She blinks in surprise, finding a young man she recognises.
Rue, who she met at the court in Highborn.
His hair is a little longer than when she saw him there, blond streaks telling a tale of time spent outside the marble halls of the court over the past few weeks.
Yet there is that same quiet gentleness about him, so at odds with the people for whom he works and the sense of unease they elicit.
‘An ambassador for the ruling council of Arnhem, now this is unexpected. You are alone?’
He holds up his hands, showing his palms. ‘I always travel alone.’
Brielle weighs how much danger he presents, how much Dreska faces, and decides that, right now, it’s minimal. She could disarm Rue if it came to it. His lips twitch into a smile as she replaces the dagger in her sash. ‘What are you doing here, in a northern forest of Lorva?’
‘I could ask you the same,’ he says, leaning against a tree trunk, crossing his arms. ‘Unlikely place for an assignment. Your coven usually favours requests from Leicena or the mining region of Valstra at this time of year. Can’t be much advantage to accepting anything from these parts.
Not enough coin. Unless Coven Septern have fallen on hard times? ’
‘An unusual assignment, shall we say. One no hunter would usually wish to handle.’ Brielle realises he may not yet know that she has broken ties with her coven.
Which means he believes she is still an ally to the ruling council, a fact that she can most definitely turn to her advantage.
‘I am out of favour at my coven since, well … I must prove myself.’ She coughs discreetly, hoping he catches her meaning, that she failed to capture and bring in Mira.
He nods, as though in understanding. ‘When we met, you didn’t mention where your work takes you. ’
‘I did not,’ Rue agrees, and she is struck, like the first time they met, that his accent and manner seem unplaceable.
He’s someone who can blend quite seamlessly.
Someone with a canny knack for observing.
But, in all her travels, she likes to be able to place a person, to learn quickly what makes them tick.
With Rue, she is unsure. ‘My work brings me to the Middenwilds this season.’
‘Developing good relations with the principalities?’ Brielle asks.
‘Of a sort,’ Rue replies cryptically. ‘The ruling council are always seeking good terms, trade deals and allies. In Lorva, Kir …’
‘Hindelvach?’
Rue blinks as though swiftly calculating a response and smiles. ‘You know, I haven’t visited the court there recently.’
Brielle senses the lie, the slight stiffening of his tone, but decides not to press him. Whatever he’s keeping from her regarding that principality, there are better ways to uncover the truth. She’d rather he believed her an ally. For now, anyway.
‘Nice evening for a wander in the forest,’ she remarks, watching him. ‘A little far from the court of Lorva, though.’
He only smiles again, looking past her to the fog-laced air seeming to bounce off a curved, invisible surface. ‘What are you up to, Hunter?’
Brielle shrugs. ‘This and that. If I were you, I’d move back to the road, find somewhere to bed down for the night.’
A growl rakes the air, and she swears. But Rue just settles in more comfortably against the tree trunk, seemingly unaffected by the nearby cries of a wither beast. ‘I can see you are unafraid. Which means you’re hiding something.’
‘As are you,’ Brielle says softly. ‘Let’s play a game. One truth, one question.’
‘Seems reasonable. Ask away.’
‘What is the ruling council’s interest in the Middenwilds?’
He chuckles, shaking his head. ‘Straight for the jugular? All right. The ruling council want to establish a trade route. A way of bringing materials from Valstra through one of these territories.’
Brielle frowns in confusion. The locals at Tavern Lomask did mention the felling of trees by a landowner, as though they were being cleared.
It seems Rue has been busy indeed, if Lorva has agreed to that.
But why through the Middenwilds, with its border of Skylan on one side, the sea on the other?
The sea that no one has dared cross for decades due to the vast monsters lurking in its inky depths.
The last crossing by a merchant left a fleet torn in two, with horrifying whispers of krakens and worse feasting on human flesh.
‘But the sea route through the Straits is established. It’s—’
‘Owned by Skylan, a territory that raises exorbitant levies to line its dwindling coffers.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘My turn. Is that a witch you’re hiding in that fog behind you? Or a creature?’
She crosses her arms, contemplating her response. ‘I don’t see why I should tell you.’
‘Fair’s fair, Hunter.’
‘It’s a girl who is nearly a witch. I am trying to save her from becoming a wraith.’
‘Ah,’ he says, eyes flaring wide. ‘That doesn’t sound like an assignment from your coven at all. I’ve had few dealings with Coven Septern, and this doesn’t strike me as a valuable venture. Or one to earn you clemency.’
‘Was that a question?’
A smile dances at the corner of his mouth, and she wonders if he’s realised he’s been led towards a lie. That she is not working for her old coven at all. ‘Merely an observation.’
A cry, more girl than beast, ricochets around the clearing and Brielle turns to see that the mist is slowly dispersing.
She steps closer, heart in her throat, searching for any sign that Clarus is over for Dreska.
That the witch has survived. ‘Stay back,’ she says quietly to Rue over her shoulder.
‘If she marks you, she may think you’re a threat.
She might not be in her right mind just yet and a new witch is often extremely powerful for a short burst.’
Brielle steps closer, approaching carefully, and finds Dreska standing in the centre of the clearing, hands limp at her sides.
Her eyes are closed, ebony smoke snaking up her wrists.
The phantom shape of a wither beast lies motionless at her feet, fading quickly to nothing but dust. Brielle exhales softly, the relief leaving her dizzy, fast replaced with something harder. Stronger.
Victory.
Dreska opens her eyes and turns to her. ‘Am I a wraith?’ she asks. ‘Am I a danger?’
‘No.’ Brielle smiles, closing the distance to place a hand on her shoulder. ‘You survived Clarus. You fought your very self, and won, and now I can train you. Welcome, witch, to your new life.’
A twig snaps and Brielle turns, seeing Rue walking away. He looks over his shoulder just once, raising a hand in farewell before he is swallowed up by the forest and the night.
She feels a strange kind of melancholy, an ache, as though there is suddenly an absence in her life.
It’s uncomfortable and odd, but Rue has somehow lodged himself inside her thoughts and she’s not sure how to shake him free.
It must be the mystery of why he was really here, she reasons.
Her head has never been turned by a young man before, especially not one allied to an enemy.
Frowning, she turns her attention back to Dreska, the witch pale and shivering.
But it’s not time for a warm fire and celebrations just yet.
Now Dreska has embraced her true self, she must figure out how to untangle the curse she placed on Liska.
‘Can you feel the shape of your power now?’ she asks Dreska. ‘Can you sense the form of the curse on your sister?’
She bites her lip and nods slowly. ‘I think so. We were arguing, and I wanted to banish her to the woods so badly, and all I could see was my own hurt and pain. All I could feel was how out of step I was with everyone around me. I’m so sorry. It was cowardly and selfish of me.’
‘I do not ask in order to judge you,’ Brielle says softly. ‘Only to help you figure out how to release Liska from her torment.’
‘That makes sense,’ Dreska says, a ridge forming in the centre of her brow. ‘It … it was like tonight, a rush of so much energy that I could barely contain it, and I hurled it at her.’ She sighs. ‘Except tonight I absorbed it and confronted it all.’
‘So, what is the opposite?’
She presses her lips together, eyes softening. ‘Love. Acceptance.’
‘And do you think you’re ready? If I give you the witch words to shape your thoughts and turn it into an unravelling spell?’
‘Yes,’ she says fervently. ‘I’ll do anything to save Liska. Anything to take it back.’
‘Good,’ Brielle says. ‘We have an hour before dawn.’
Hunting down Liska takes barely any time.
When they find her in a nearby clearing, Dreska moves straight for her, embracing her.
Her sister shakes, crying quietly in her wither-beast form, the sound like a continuous low huff of breath.
Brielle utters the witch word for Dreska to use and, for a moment, the forest grows still and watchful, the very air sharpening and pinching with the scent of burning and metal.
Then Dreska whispers the witch word, Retexene, over and over, as Brielle taught her, and slowly the air calms, the scent of the forest returning: rain and loam and fresh leaf.
And, as Brielle looks on, the magic takes, and there are two sisters, crying quietly together. She smiles, a contented twitch of her lips, and motions to them to follow her, leading the witch and the girl away from the woods in which they were lost, and back to their world beyond.
When they return to Tavern Lomask – Liska rushing ahead to her father – Brielle senses Dreska’s hesitation as she hangs back, giving her sister and father space. ‘I could have cursed her to that life forever.’
‘But you didn’t. You found a way to unpick it,’ Brielle says.
‘Only with your help.’ Dreska bites her lip. ‘I can’t stay here. Please, take me with you. On your assignments or back to your coven. Please, Hunter.’
Brielle eyes her steadily. ‘I had planned to speak to you and your father of this. You will need to join a coven anyway now. You will need to train your power.’
‘Then let it be with you,’ Dreska says, rounding on her.
‘You have shown kindness and you haven’t judged me.
And no one else came to help. No one else would – I realise that now.
The world is big and our corner of Lorva is small, and coin makes the world turn, but we have little to spin it in the direction we wish. ’
Brielle nods. ‘So be it. I’ll speak to your father.’
Brielle accepts the praise of the tavern owner, Gregor, for returning his lost daughter, but refuses the coin. Instead, she bargains for something else. An apprentice.
‘I have need of one such as her,’ she says over a pint and a plate of wild forage pie.
‘On assignment, there are often lodgings to secure, laundry, coin to change, messages to send. She would be a help.’ Brielle chooses not to mention that the daughter Gregor thought he had is actually a witch.
She has learned over the years that prejudice can follow shock and she wishes for Dreska to reveal who and what she is at her own pace.
Gregor scratches his beard, regarding Dreska. ‘And you wish to go?’
She nods quickly, dark hair gleaming, her telltale ebony fingernails hidden inside the gloves she hasn’t taken off. ‘I wish to see the world. To find my place within it.’
‘Then I see no reason, now that Liska is found,’ he rumbles.
‘And I wish to remain,’ Liska adds, tucking a wisp of hair back neatly into her bun. ‘And hear of Dreska’s adventures when she returns.’
So, the following day, Brielle leaves Tavern Lomask with a complaining Nova (Hunter, I’d only just discovered the mice), a witch and a rucksack overflowing with supplies.
They walk to the nearest town and from there procure a coach and driver, and head up north to the mines of Valstra.
Brielle keeps a weathered eye on Dreska, but the witch seems more at home in her own skin than ever before.
‘So why Valstra?’ she asks as they begin their bumpy journey out of the northern forest of Lorva. ‘Why not into Skylan, or another principality, or …’
Brielle drums her fingernails on her knee, impatient to reach the next stop.
And all the while pushing away thoughts of Rue.
‘Because covens send their best hunters to Valstra to work for the mine owners, but the actual folk that work the mines are all but forgotten. There are always murmurings of wraiths in those parts. Families haunted by creatures that couldn’t let them go. ’
Dreska swallows. ‘What I could have become. You’re saving them, the wraiths?’
‘Trying to. Me and Nova here,’ she says, glancing to the familiar at her side. ‘Although she’s yet to prove her usefulness.’
All in good time, Hunter.
‘Did your coven send you to do this? I’ve never heard of any coven caring about anything but coin.’
‘They did not,’ Brielle says with a small smile. ‘It’s a personal assignment. I’m building a new coven, one based on a different set of values. One that does not just stand by and allow things to happen. One that gets involved and helps to make things better.’
‘That sounds like the kind of coven I’d like to be part of,’ Dreska says with a smile. ‘I could still become a wraith, couldn’t I? If I don’t train?’
‘I’ll train you,’ Brielle vows, trying not to think of Lowri and the last time she saw her, drained and depleted, a husk of a witch. ‘I’ll train all of you, as I promised.’