Chapter Fifteen
Mortals were guided by the divine hand of their saint, who proclaimed these green wildlands Elysior after the purity of his will. Crowning himself with the thin sacred branches of a silver tree. Uncaring for the names that came before, only gazing to the horizon, for all the kings that would follow his word. Purity in the blood as the old gods bowed to the might of his mortal’s devotion.
– The Nameless Saint of Elysior, 1456
I found myself standing on a worn wooden floor, the bitter smell of healing herbs greeting us, as well as damp winter air. I should have remembered to bring a cloak, considering how harsh the winters could be in the outlying villages so far west.
The room was barren, old floorboards stained and scratched, the hearth unlit, leaving a dampness in the air.
A crash of breaking glass turned us towards the doorway of the plain and vacant room, a young healer – guessing from the white apron – frozen with shock in mid-stride at our sudden appearance. The jars he’d been carrying lay shattered at his feet and the herbs they’d held spilled.
His dark skin held a greenish hue, almost iridescent in the weak sunlight, like a fish’s scales or a patch of oil on water. His bright cornflower-blue eyes taking us in with disbelief.
‘Are you the assistant healer?’ Emrys spoke abruptly.
‘Yes,’ he half stuttered, glancing down at the mess at his boots, clearly unsure if he should clean it or answer the new imposing figure before him. ‘Who are you?’
‘I need to speak with the head healer,’ Emrys answered.
The healer straightened, glancing nervously down the hallway, but from the silence of this place he was alone.
‘That might be difficult … he’s dead, sir. We did send word a few weeks ago for assistance but heard nothing back. Then we sent another messenger a few days ago.’
So this was the healing house at Paxton Fields. From the derelict state of it, my heart ached for what kind of state the rest of the settlement was in.
‘It wasn’t Mr Thrombi, was it?’ I asked carefully around Emrys’s shoulder.
The boy frowned. ‘Yes, do you know him?’
‘He’s currently recovering under my care,’ Emrys replied, catching the boy’s focus once more. I resisted the urge to dig my elbow into his ribs. He needed to be less imposing. ‘He’s suffering dark sickness so I need to see the most recent records you hold.’
The healer’s eyes went wide.
‘Of course.’ He half stumbled over his own boot as he darted back into the hallway. Emrys moved to follow but I caught the sleeve of his jacket. His dark eyes met my own, and his brow furrowed with concern.
‘Stop being so intimidating. You’re unnerving him,’ I warned under my breath.
He merely blinked, confused by the command.
‘Be more … civil.’ I released his arm, stepping around him to follow the boy. ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t catch your name …’
‘I’m Devin Jacob.’ He smiled over his shoulder, stopping to give a little bow in greeting.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Devin.’ I smiled as he continued to guide us, Emrys giving me a pointed look that I ignored. ‘It doesn’t seem busy.’
‘There aren’t enough people left here to heal. They’ve left for the next village over.’ He continued, taking us around another corner and past the open main doors of the building. ‘The crops began to fail a few months ago and the winter was too harsh for them to survive.’
I stopped at the main door, looking out at a dirt road, vacant of beings who should have been working there. Empty market stalls stood in disrepair, rotten fruit still in their baskets.
Small, wooden houses leant drunkenly against each other, their windows boarded up. A forest surrounded the remains of the village, but there was something else here, a coldness on the wind that had nothing to do with the weather, mocking in its intensity unsettling the magic in my veins..
‘Lord Fairfax has jurisdiction here, doesn’t he?’ Emrys called, considering the same thing I was, worry creasing his brow.
‘His control has changed to his nephew, Lord Percy, with his ill health. The records are here.’ Devin waved us into one of the side rooms, only it was mostly empty, the floor covered in loose scraps of paper. One lone ledger sat on a table, too thin to hold any vital records. The shelves barren.
‘I want to see the logs for the past three months,’ Emrys asked, unconvinced, pausing for a moment before he seemed to remember something. ‘… Please.’
I couldn’t help my small victorious smile.
‘Sorry, sir, the investigating inquisitors told me to keep the doors locked.’ The boy practically winced, indicating a door down the hall with a large ominous magical lock in place. ‘They said it needs to be burned to stop any further contamination.’
‘Of course they did,’ Emrys drawled, clearly unconcerned by the mention of the Council inquisitors being present. ‘Mr Jacob, the village warden, isn’t still around, is he?’
The boy nodded. ‘Yes sir, just at the outskirts.’
Emrys smiled, a sudden charm radiating from him that startled me. ‘You couldn’t get him for me, could you? I think it’d be best to speak to him myself.’
‘Of course,’ the boy stuttered, bowing before rushing from the abandoned healing house. Emrys waited for the footsteps to vanish before he moved swiftly for the locked door down the hall.
‘What are you doing? That’s a double charmed lock,’ I hissed in worry, glancing over my shoulder down the corridor in case the boy suddenly returned. Or he wasn’t working alone.
Emrys paid me no attention, dropping to one knee as he took from his pocket a silver tool that he inserted into the lock, turning it slowly. White light illuminated his fingers as he laid them on the handle.
The locking latches sprung free easily as he quickly stood, pocketing his tool once more.
‘How did you do that?’ I whispered, watching as he opened the door, turning to let me enter first like a gentleman would.
‘I wouldn’t get far in a war if I couldn’t open a lock, Kat,’ he observed wryly.
I ignored the strange, pleasant sensation that rushed through me at the softness of my name on his lips.
I shook my head, refusing to be distracted by my own stupidity.
‘I thought war heroes’ skills were exaggerated to make Council dinners more entertaining, to make the old lords jealous and their young wives swoon?’ I teased.
The room was tiny, appearing to be stuffed to the ceiling with every piece of paper the village had ever used. Crates that once held vegetables and eggs were now bursting with files and ledgers.
‘Let’s keep my skills off the topic of conversation or we’ll both soon be in trouble,’ he replied sardonically, making the file almost slip from my fingers as he moved to another box and pulled out a pile to examine.
Looking at his profile and the serious concentration on his face, I couldn’t see him like that. As one of the King’s performers, lethal and seductive. Crippling resistance with threats and the lies they could extract so effortlessly.
Maybe I didn’t know him at all. Worried, I turned to the crates closest to the door, rooting through the papers unsure what I was looking for. I trained my eye on anything that could relate to magical sickness, or corrupted earth.
I was deep in my second box when I froze on a pile of sketches and the papers that accompanied them. Breath unsteady in my lungs.
‘What is it?’ Emrys asked at my side, somehow sensing my distress.
‘These are missing beings.’ I frowned, turning over another report. Seeing how they were all similar. ‘Why would they need to burn missing being reports to stem an illness?’
‘Maybe Lord Percy’s lies are catching up with him.’ He sighed, making me turn to see the tension in his jaw as he considered the mess before us.
A horrid realisation rushed over me. This was more than just cursed earth. Fey blood held magic. Magic that could be used to summon dark things. Rituals that meant death.
Some of them were fey girls. It wasn’t uncommon for fey girls to go missing, most nobility offering a high price and promises to those who bore their bastards, children they could pass off as mortal to breed magic into their lines. Only most of those girls weren’t seen again.
Emrys moved back to the other records in the far corner as I turned over the reports again, hating the bitter taste of fear that had coated my tongue.
A small cough caught my attention, taking me back to the hallway, another cough followed from just beyond the main doors. I went to the entrance, moving down a step and finding two small boys sat on a half-collapsed bench, just outside the healing house’s doorway. One was trying to wrap a bandage around the other’s thumb. They had a blue tinge to their skin, speckles of violet freckles and thick, dark-silver hair. Duvek, beings of the deep waters before they came to land. Creatures of great elemental powers before the purge. I didn’t think there were any magic-wielding duveks left, if the Council records were to be believed.
The boys continued to quietly bicker amongst themselves.
‘What seems to be the problem?’ I asked, startling the pair, who stood to attention like miniature soldiers.
‘Sorry, miss. I have a splinter,’ the younger boy muttered, looking down at his poor excuse for shoes as he held up his thumb for my consideration. ‘The mort tree got me.’
‘A mort tree?’ I ushered them back to sit down before I took his hand gently to examine his thumb. Just beneath the surface was the dark purple shadow of a splinter that I knew would burrow further into the flesh the minute an implement went near it.
‘They have the best berries,’ he offered quietly.
‘They also have the nastiest bite,’ I challenged, reaching into my pack and pulling out my healing kit, placing it on the ground so I could retrieve a salvor leaf. I laid it in my palm, allowing the heat of my magic to turn it to nothing but white ash. I dipped my finger in the powder and pressed it gently over the top of his thumb, watching the dark splinter beneath freeze in place. Stunned by a magic just as ancient as its own.
‘Are you a mage, miss?’ he whispered, leaning closer in wonder to see the points of my ears, so similar to his own.
‘No.’ I smiled, reaching into my pack for a sharp needle, making quick work of prying the dark object from beneath the boy’s skin, trying my best not to hurt him.
‘He’s been told three times to stay clear of that tree.’ His older companion sighed, coming closer to watch as the small thing came out.
‘The berries keep vanishing,’ the boy said with relief at the sight as I laid the dark worm-like splinter in my palm and reduced it to ash with a clench of my fist.
‘You can only pick mort berries during a full moon,’ I reasoned, getting back to my feet as I dusted the ash off my skirt. That was the tale my father had told me, cautious of my adventurous nature and the trees that grew beyond our house.
‘Where is this tree?’ I asked them, worried how far they had wandered to find it and on what cursed ground from the wars it was situated.
‘It’s over there.’ The boy pointed over my shoulder in the direction of the outskirts of the wood that surrounded the village, just down a small dirt path where some people attended to horses and moved carts through the village.
‘Maybe she’s a witch,’ his companion whispered.
‘She’s pretty enough to be one,’ the first boy replied loudly, forcing me to bite back a smile as I gathered up my healing pack.
‘You’ve stolen my line,’ came a sharp feminine voice from behind me, followed by the crack of a ripe apple being bitten. I rose to my feet in surprise, the boys darting away at the newcomer’s arrival.
Leaning on the stair rail mere inches away was a tall, lean woman. She wore a man’s shirt that hung provocatively off one shoulder, revealing skin covered in all manner of dark ink marks. The shirt was tucked into a mass of skirts, one side tucked into her belt, showing her worn, high leather boots.
Her auburn hair was braided back from her face and left to cascade down her back. She was clearly unbothered by the cold weather, considering me carefully before taking another bite of the fruit.
‘Are you one of the healers in charge?’ I asked, wondering where her apron was, or if she wasn’t a healer, what she was doing lingering around healing houses.
‘I hope not.’ She grinned, her amber eyes, heavily lined with dark makeup, flared a little brighter with amusement. ‘I see Emrys has finally arrived to cause trouble for us all.’
‘Do you want to speak to Lord Blackthorn?’ I frowned, unsure how she knew he was here.
‘He wouldn’t like that.’ She grinned wickedly, revealing that two of her teeth were fanged in the way some ancient feys were. ‘Besides, if I wanted to listen to lies, I’d listen to my own.’
Her words tangled inside my mind. A clear warning pressed between them.
Here , came whispered on the wind, turning my head sharply to consider the forest, seeing the strangeness to the trees and remembering the boy’s injury. Mort bark shouldn’t be here.
‘Who are you?’ I asked, turning back to the woman. But there was nobody there. Just an apple core on the ground where she had stood.
If she was ever there at all. My heart thudded in my chest with unease but I didn’t have time for her riddles as I moved across the village clearing to the beginning of the forest where the boys had pointed. I reached the wall of trees and had to pick up my skirts to avoid the brambles that had overtaken the grassy ground.
These trees were different to the others. Instead of dark trunks and luscious green leaves that would survive even through this winter, the bark was twisted and pale, aged beyond its years.
I’d seen erosion like this before, on trees too close to the sea and salty air. Only something else was eating at these, something stronger than salt and sand.
My father had spoken of a time before the wars, that no matter how far he moved from the centre of Elysior, he couldn’t escape a feeling that chased him on the wind. A strange sensation of wrongness, a fear in him that couldn’t be quelled. Something brewing like a storm he couldn’t see, only for it to break in the form of a war.
I’d believed it to be a story, but now I knew it wasn’t.
Despite my instinct to flee, I moved even closer. The trees pressed together so tightly that beyond was nothing but darkness. An endless gloom that seemed colder than the rest of the village settled here.
I laid my palm against the bark, feeling it crumble beneath the slightest pressure, the dust catching on the breeze. Dead.
I crouched down, rummaging in my bag for my sample jars, picking up what twigs and soil I could. Each left a strange sensation against my skin, a cold sting that didn’t go away even as I tried to rub some warmth back into my fingertips.
A bitter wind tore past me, forcing me to turn out of it only to feel it snag at my hair, plucking strands of it free with its ferocity. I reached back with disappointment to find my ribbon gone.
‘Do you ever stay in one place?’ Emrys sighed, sounding flustered from behind me.
He stood amongst the trees, somehow more imposing than even them. A reserved expression on his face and the stormy nature of his eyes as he came to a stop next to me.
‘Something is wrong with this forest. I—’ The rest of the words died on my lips as I saw my ribbon caught in his fist. His hand extended towards me in offering.
Beware of demons in the woods offering gifts of silk and stone . The fable whispered through my mind. Taunting me. Stories of maidens lured with forbidden kisses to dwell in the deep with their dark lovers.
‘Thank you.’ I took it gently, ignoring the warm brush of his fingers. Averting my gaze and hating the warm treacherous flush of my cheeks. But as I dipped my chin to consider the damp earth between us, all warmth abandoned me.
A dead folk lay just before my boot.
A horrid cold grief washed over me at the cruelty of it. Carefully I crouched, gently letting the small creature roll into my palm. Its head was made of a small bird’s skull, its limbs of moss and small stones. All tinged grey, so cold as if formed of ice, the magic that had made it dead.
‘Marov,’ I whispered in Kysillian. Rest now.
I ran my thumb over the skull, knowing it was too late for comfort as the creature became nothing but dirt in my palm, slipping easily through my fingers. Blinking back my childish tears, I looked to the hollow trunks of the wood, where they liked to hide.
‘Kat.’ Emrys reached for my arm cautiously.
‘I can’t see any more of them.’ I looked up at him, my fingers trembling, unable to wipe away the remains of what that small creature had been.
‘They’re … not fond of my presence,’ he replied carefully, dark eyes guarded.
I let him help me back to my feet before cautiously moving further into the wood. Emrys following silently like a dark shadow, reaching out to move the low branches for me and helping me over the thick tangle of roots. His firm hands brushing my waist, making our cold dismal surroundings more apparent compared to the warmth of his nearness.
I only stopped our wandering when I saw something peeking through the misty wood: the rubble of stone temples pressing through damp earth, runes carved on the smooth mossy stones. The ruins of sacred grounds. Fey temples.
They wouldn’t have been here in the times of the Kysillian Kings. Kysillians wouldn’t take kindly to worship of anything but their queen’s blood. To the chaos they wielded.
No, these ruins came after the ancient wars between chaos and death. Between Kysillian and Verr. Before the mortals arrived with their saintly King and corrupted the world.
This was a sacred place for fey to ask their ancestors for protection.
Yet unease crept through me as I moved through the overgrowth, seeing a simple flat stone of what remained of the altar. Fresh offerings still placed there. Animal bones, blessed crystals and herb bundles.
A shiver rushed down my spine that had nothing to do with the damp air. A chill not even the warmth of Emrys’s proximity could chase away.
‘Fey don’t leave their sacred grounds,’ I whispered, seeing that empty village and the evidence of how many had already abandoned it. Not unless all hope had failed. Just as folk didn’t just drop dead on soil that was made to protect them. ‘Something is wrong.’
Wrong with the earth. Wrong with the very creatures that lived upon it. Something in them turning from an unseen enemy. Something that didn’t exist in me. No, because I’d come before this. My blood knew too many things, knowledge it couldn’t give me with words.
Emrys stood there, and I knew whatever was in his blood must be as ancient as my own. Must be to endure this. To try an unravel the mystery we’d been left.
Yet there was an unease in him, eyes too sharp, like a sinner stepping onto blessed territory.
‘You’ve been to ruins before?’ I frowned, following his gaze to see what had put him on edge.
‘Not those belonging to the fey.’ There was a caution to his words and in the deep grey of his eyes. ‘The lords liked to hold their meetings in the most … unseemly of places.’
Of course. In the times of the Mage King, those lords had been just as submerged in the worship of the dark as their king had been. Including Emrys’s father, even if it had been a pretence.
‘Were you ever introduced to him?’ The question I shouldn’t ask. The name I wouldn’t say. The heart of all this cruelty, another man who’d torn this world apart for nothing but greed and darkness. Torn apart my life so easily despite being nothing but a story to me.
Emrys was silent for a long moment, the winter wind ruffling his hair as he considered me … as if trying to work something out.
‘No,’ he finally said, expression pensive. ‘I was seventeen when the lords rebelled. When they finally sprang their trap. Blood vows were made to him at eighteen.’
When his life had been plunged into the war. I would have been seven. Still safe in that cottage with my parents, tucked away from all of it.
Seventeen years, he’d lived under that king’s rule, or his family had. Seventeen years, they’d played that game, had to stomach it before finally they could act.
‘Too late,’ he added, reading every thought in my head. They’d acted too late. ‘They’d already sold their souls.’
Hurt gnawed at my chest but I forced myself to feel the cold breeze and smell the rot of the forest, to consider the chipped stone before me.
Something urged me closer to the stone, as Emrys moved with me, crouching before the long grass. He moved it aside, revealing another Nox offering. I reached out for his arm, stopping him from touching it. He watched me with mild concern, somehow sensing my fear. Not at the doll but at the words carved into that stone around it. Over and over again. Each gouging deeper than the one before.
Ancient prayers. Only they all said the same thing.
Temez . A word I knew. Deep in my heart I knew but I couldn’t remember it. Not here surrounded by so much fear.
‘They’re afraid.’ Afraid didn’t seem a strong enough word for what had settled over this place, what lingered in the dark beyond the wood, chilling my blood.
‘They have a right to be.’ His dark gaze dropped to consider the ashy ground. ‘This is worse than I first predicted.’
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small stack of torn and mud-speckled papers. He turned them over, showing them to be partially charred.
‘Some children found these while playing in the woods,’ he stood, taking my arm to guide us back the way we’d come. As if sensing the unease that had draped itself over me and wanting me away from those ruins.
I wasn’t paying attention to anything other than the burned papers he’d given me. The incantations written there were dark, scrawled and filled with hate. Wishes meant for the dark’s ear. Forbidden worship I hadn’t seen in years.
‘They’re bargains.’ Someone was asking for things from the earth. And fey were going missing.
‘I’ve visited two locations like this previously. The town of Marvia and a Beven settlement.’
‘What happened?’
‘They’re not there anymore,’ he replied. ‘They were consumed, and any survivors fled to other settlements or died en route. The Council dismissed it as a case of hysteria.’
Of course they did. My hands grasped at my skirts to contain my magic’s flare of rage.
‘Those creatures are too dark to be here by mistake.’ I hated the helplessness that began to overwhelm me in response to his words. Such creatures needed permission to exist and only the darkest of spells could give it to them.
He pulled in a deep breath, looking at the wood once more. ‘We’re lucky we got here before rebel scouts. They recruit best in places where people are desperate enough to join the cause.’
‘The Council should act more quickly then.’ However, the Council and the rebellion had more in common than they thought. Both wanting beings at their weakest points to mould them into the perfect followers, gathering up broken men and lost children and trapping them in whatever roles they deemed fit.
‘The minute you say a rebellion vow, you’re as guilty as the Council already deem you to be.’ Emrys’s words were filled with a dark truth that unsettled me as he continued to lead us back through the wood. The Council was allowing the rebellion to grow because they knew they could cull it easily.
‘Those are dangerous words,’ I found myself whispering. Dangerous words that might not get him killed, but they had greater implications for me.
‘I’ve been told that before.’ He smiled without amusement as we emerged from the wood, back into the clearing of the village. ‘Come on, we—’
‘Kat !’ someone shouted, the call echoing across the empty village from the healing house’s doorway.
Our attention turned to the main entrance just as William almost tumbled down the steps, hair in disarray from the rush of the portal’s magic. Breath panted though his lips as he came to a skidding halt, kicking up dirt, eyes wide with fear.
‘William?’ Emrys called, striding towards the boy with alarm.
‘It’s Alma …’ He half stuttered. I didn’t let him finish, picking up my skirts and racing across the distance between us. Emrys called my name but I didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
I’d failed her again.