Chapter 4
With the sharpened knife and stolen dagger belt tucked in my pocket, I return to the cottage and spend the rest of the morning helping Mother prepare for the harvest feast. After dumping the last of the apples into a pot, I place them over the fire.
“I’m sure the hunters are fine.” Mother stands from her chair and wipes her hands on the towel cinched at her waist. With a slight frown, she glances out the window. “Probably enjoyed a little too much ale and wine last night.”
A few hours ago, I would’ve agreed, but I find myself less sure with every passing minute.
Gods, I need to be alone with my scrying dish. The thought to look for Finn’s father has struck more than a few times, but Mother is constantly at my side. The hurt she’d feel if she caught me…The betrayal of knowing all I’ve kept from her…
I can’t risk it. She’ll find out soon enough, but right now is not the time.
Later, I occupy my nervous hands by making myself useful outside.
I help Mr. Foley haul wood for the bonfires and assist elder Mena Shawcross in setting stones for our ceremony circle.
Mena’s family has lived in the vale for centuries, but she can trace ancestors from every break.
Having such a rich history has always fascinated me, even though I know so little about my own family.
Mena moved here from Penrith after she lost her daughter many years ago on Collecting Day.
She has no family now, but she and I have always shared a kinship.
As we press the rocks into the ground, she eyes me more keenly than I like.
Her wrinkled, pale skin is covered in witch’s marks—greenish blue like veins, shimmery like fish scales.
With age, her skill has developed, but the degree of magick supposedly required to serve at Winterhold is said to be too depleting for the old.
I have to think that means the Frost King finds the elders useless because the only other option is that he and the Witch Collector actually care what happens to the Northland people.
Mena goes to the cart, and I hold out my dirty hands for another stone, but she hesitates, then winks. “Your palms are calling to me today.”
Mena reads palms, something I’ve let her do a handful of times. She knows I’m reluctant and doesn’t press, but she likes to tease. She’s a dear friend, so I tolerate her prying mind.
I snatch a rock from the cart and place it on the ground, giving her a light-hearted smile. “What do they say?” I sign.
“That there are two things you need to learn. Or perhaps, not learn but come to accept. One,” she comes closer, smiles, and taps me on the nose, “is that you are more capable than you believe, dear one. Your strength is in your heart. And two…” She kneels beside me and pushes my hair over my shoulder, letting her hand rest there.
“Victory only comes through sacrifice, Raina. I don’t know what’s weighing on you, but I know you’re in turmoil.
I can see the burden. Most battles are hard-fought.
Something must always be lost if you’re ever to gain.
Don’t fear this. You will never move forward if you never leave things behind. ”
Crying is the last thing I want to do right now—I’ve cried enough for all of Silver Hollow—but tears rise unbidden anyway. I take a deep breath and blink them away.
“Thank you,” is all I can think to say. I don’t know what her words mean for me, but they’re likely the last words of wisdom I’ll ever take from Mena, so I tuck them away. Something of her to keep forever.
A short time later, after Mena and I finish the stones, Finn finally arrives with Tuck trotting at his heels.
Together, we stake torches and Tiressian flags around the green, but Finn is quiet, wearing a perpetual frown.
I know him so well. Behind that heavy brow, his mind is tearing apart what-ifs.
I also know that—while much of his concern is for me and what he fears I might do today—most of his worries are for his father’s whereabouts. Whether he can admit it or not.
If I could just get a moment to myself for scrying, perhaps I could find a way to ease him. But the village green is full of people, and our cottage is overrun with my mother’s friends darting in and out. And Finn?
He’s become my shadow.
The sun is warm enough that most of the dew has burned away, so when all the tasks are done, we sit on the grass, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, staring at the noon-day sky to the west. After a while, Tuck curls against my side, and I slide my fingers through his fur, though the act doesn’t hold its usual calming antidote.
My thoughts about the feast hunters dissipate, replaced with enough anticipation that my heart begins a steady thumping against my ribcage.
“I love you, Raina,” Finn says out of nowhere.
My thudding heart all but stops. I snap my head around, searching his boyishly handsome face. Why is he saying this to me now?
The second that thought hits me, I realize that I already know why.
“I felt you needed to hear that before doing something rash,” he says. He takes my hand and presses a tender kiss to my fingertips. “I love you, Raina Bloodgood. Forever.”
At first, I’m without words. I want to be giddy, like hearing him say he loved me used to make me feel. I want to be moved, so much that his confession changes my mind. It doesn’t, though, and I don’t know what to think about that.
“I love you, too,” I sign and rest my head on his shoulder. Those words are true, and I need him to know they’re true, but I can’t look at him with this other truth no doubt shining in my eyes. The one that says our love is not enough.
It never has been.
“Do you want to know why I hate the Witch Collector and the Frost King?” he asks.
I nod. His words from this morning haven’t left my mind.
I hate them, too, he’d said. More than you believe or will ever understand.
Finn’s reasons for loathing the two men are clearly different from mine.
He still worships Neri, and I can’t understand why.
Then again, no one from Finn’s family has ever been chosen on Collecting Day.
He doesn’t know how much it hurts or how much the need to blame those responsible can shatter the strongest faith and harden the most devout heart.
He leans closer and lowers his voice. “Because they took you from me. Maybe not physically, but we can’t have peace thanks to them.”
I lift my head and hold his gaze. “Then why not help me?” I sign. “Why not fight? Why not—”
He folds his hand around my fingers, silencing me.
“Because I would rather have this life, with you, taking my chances in a land I know, than a life out there”—he jerks his head south—“where I have no idea what dangers we might face. You think you want freedom, yet you never consider that maybe the kind of freedom you long for doesn’t even exist.” He tilts his head, like nothing about me makes sense.
“You and I aren’t capable enough with magick for the Collector to ever choose us, Raina.
It takes the most talented of the vale to protect the far reaches of the northern borders.
That is not us. Yet you’re willing to walk away from everything. For a dream.”
I yank my hands from his grasp, any moment of tenderness lost. “You cannot know who he will choose. And what if you one day have children? Would you want them to face this dreaded day every year as well? You are complacent, Finn Owyn. Willing to walk away from me and our future for the safety of a prison. Fear rules you.”
“Of course, fear rules me!” he snaps. “There is no love without fear, Raina! You’d understand that if you thought about anyone besides yourself and what you want!”
His words strike me hard as a fist. We stiffen, breathing hard, and the inch between us becomes a chasm.
Focusing my watering eyes on the horizon again, I do my damnedest not to think of all I could lose. I’m not only doing this for me—for a dream. I’m doing it for Finn and Hel and Saira, and anyone sweating with dread as we bide our time.
The God Knife is strapped to my thigh, and it’s so cold it burns.
Tuck’s warm body presses it tight to my skin, frigid as an ice stake.
I like the chilly reminder that it’s there.
The cold focuses me. Any moment, the Witch Collector will ride over the western hills, and if I can be strong enough, if I can just out-move Finn and the Witch Collector and anyone else determined to stop me, everything will change. For the better. I have to believe that.
Except noon passes without any sign of the Witch Collector.
Finn and I stare past the village outskirts to the valley beyond. Everyone else on the green stares, too. A village holding its breath.
“Where can he be?” people ask. “He’s never late.”
“Something’s wrong,” others whisper. “First the hunters, now the Collector.”
The halfling and human families grow tired waiting for the spectacle of Collecting Day, so they begin the work of preparing for the harvest supper. The Witch Walkers still linger, watching the horizon with a mixture of exhaustion and hope in their eyes.
I shake out of my daze, press a kiss to Tuck’s head, and get to my feet. Finn squints up at me, his face hard.
“I need some time,” I tell him. “Alone.”
He glances at his family sitting a few strides away. The worry on Hel and Betha’s faces makes my chest tighten.
“Me too,” he replies.
I spot my mother and avoid her as I weave through the crowd and head toward the cottage.
Inside, I snatch my scrying dish off the worktable and fill it with clear rainwater collected from the garden bucket.
With a quick jab, I prick my fingertip using a sewing needle and squeeze a single red pearl into the liquid, focusing on the first question at hand.
“Nahmthalahsh. Where is Warek, Finn’s father?”
The water will only show me the present—not the past and never the future. I must also know what I’m looking for. Exactly.
Staring at the glimmering surface, I conjure a thought of Warek.
The water turns violet, then ripples like a puddle disrupted by a stone.
An image forms, and I let out a deep breath.
Warek sits near his horse with his back to a large boulder.
He’s slumped over, legs outstretched, an empty flask lying in the dirt, inches from his hand. Mother was right. Too much drink.
At least that’s a worry I can forget. For now.
After changing out the water, I prick another finger and perform the simple ritual again.
“Nahmthalahsh. Show me the Witch Collector.”
The violet swirling slows and changes, stretching out and around until the surface grows still and flat, reflecting my answer.
The Witch Collector rides his dark horse through Frostwater Wood, head ever hidden beneath that black cloak.
Nearing what appears to be the clearing outside Hampstead Loch, he’s surrounded by bold, autumn colors flashing in the trees.
With a shuddering sigh, I toss the water out the window and steel myself for the coming night as quiet rage sparks to life inside me. I cling to it. Thrive on it.
Because the Witch Collector is still coming.
It’s only a matter of time.