40. The Crone
40
THE CRONE
S affron moved swiftly between the trees, branches whipping his face and leaving stinging marks on his cheeks as his pace remained steady despite the exhaustion in his muscles. Icy fingers tugged at his cloak as he passed, when they weren’t pulling his hair. His thoughts raced, heartbroken and ashamed and heavy, loud, enough to block out anything Taran might have said in warning, in instruction. Just focused on getting away.
If Saffron just kept walking, eventually the veneer would spit him out somewhere on the outskirts of Avren. It didn’t matter where or how far away. He could walk. He could perform the same veil spell he did to get to Luvon’s estate. He only needed to get past the snow on the ground, to Avren’s warm greenery.
He shoved his way through low-hanging branches, leaping over fallen logs and doing everything he could to keep his feet from getting tangled in roots and flattened brambles beneath the weight of the snow. He still tripped more than once, landing roughly on his stomach, but the snow was a welcome cushion each time.
Only when he lost his footing for the third time, falling face-first into the earth, did he first realize the snow beneath his feet was thinning. Its blanket remained on the earth in every direction, weighing down boughs of pine and yellowed fern tendrils, but sharp rocks met his palms as he crashed into the frozen whiteness. Proof he’d finally reached the boundary of the veneer. He was so close. Only a little farther, and he would be in Avren. He would be close to Cylvan again.
The clumps of snow long-gathered on fans of pine needles and piled like white nests between forked branches thinned. They dripped, striking his head and the back of his neck like pinpricks before slithering down the back of his high collar and making him shiver. He kicked his legs over a fallen log, practically crying out in joy when his boots splashed in a puddle of mud on the other side. Just on his heels, the snow remained patchy in places, a worn-through quilt with cotton bursting between seams—but in front of him, he knew Avren’s woods were reaching out to embrace him.
A deep, velvety green soon painted every leaf, fern, long grass; white mushrooms clustered in bouquets at the heels of tall birch and oak trees, all dripping with a chorus of raindrops to the loamy earth below. As he inhaled a chestful of air, it was rich with verdant smells he didn’t recognize at first; there was no low hum of magic on the air. It reminded him of the energy of the Kyteler Ruins, or the Finnian Ruins—which was a welcome sensation as well. The Finnian Ruins were so close. Even if it wasn’t the abandoned Queen’s Keep where he stumbled out of the trees into, even if it was somewhere else long-abandoned by humans and surrounded by protective iron, he didn’t care. He was just happy to find the snow long gone. He was happy to be anywhere in Avren’s forests. He would smell the salt of the sea soon enough.
Moving in as straight of a line as he could manage, Saffron still constantly checked over his shoulder to ensure no one followed behind him—only to suddenly trip over something tall and hard jutting out of the earth, sending him sprawling into the mud for a second time. Groaning, he pushed himself up, scowling at his scraped knee before searching for the perpetrator, and catching his breath when the familiar stone tablet caught his eye.
It took only a moment to recall where the resemblance stemmed from—a lecture he’d sat in in his earliest days at Mairwen. He could recall the lecture hall, all of the students crowded around him, the light-projected image on the wall, the sound of the professor’s voice.
Celtic knots… Also called knotted stones, this form of ancient epithet is older than any high fey records…
“Huh…” he mumbled. Getting back to his feet, he shucked off as much mud as he could from his stomach and legs, realizing he must have indeed stumbled out of the veneer along some sort of old human ruins. Maybe even a branch of the Finnian Ruins, considering how many little cottages were scattered around that place, only accessible by following winding trails into the trees. If he couldn’t find the ruins themselves, if he could find that lake where Letty’s cottage had been, that would be enough to supply his bearings to make it back to the city, at least…
Before turning to search again, though, Saffron’s curiosity got the better of him. He stepped closer to the carved stone idol, crouching on the balls of his feet to get a closer look. The sculpted edges were weathered down, porous and infiltrated with patches of moss burrowed in the textured sides; carved in the front, lines overlapped one another in a symmetrical, circular pattern, and Saffron exhaled sharply through his nose in indignation. That professor had scolded him in front of the whole class when Saffron insisted he’d seen knotted memory threads donning the same overlapping pattern, telling him ‘common memory thread manipulation was taboo’; ‘only the highest of oracles in Alfidel were allowed to manipulate memory threads’; ‘whatever he thought he saw certainly wasn’t a memory thread, but a tourist scam’ —but crouching in front of that Celtic knot right there, Saffron knew he’d been right all along. He wished he could drag that professor by their nose to come and see for themself, then to apologize to Saffron for calling him a fool in front of everyone else.
“I never thought meddling in your memories would come in handy even after all this time,” he said out loud, speaking to the wolf lingering silently in the back of his mind. When Taran still said nothing, Saffron frowned, but pushed the annoyance away. The beast always had his reasons.
Rising back to his feet, it was as soon as he lifted his eyes back ahead of him that Saffron spotted another Celtic knot only a few yards away. Biting back another curious smile, he approached, appreciating its slightly different pattern.
A third totem emerged from the ground a few yards further from that one. Then a fourth, then a fifth, before the sound of chimes in the wind caught Saffron’s attention, making him perk up. He held his breath, listening for a moment, then carefully making his way in their direction. A rumble of thunder and sprinkling rain combined into a light chorus as if summoning him closer, and he gladly went. Curious to know what he’d find on the other side; eager to get out of the rain and back to the capitol as soon as he could. Cylvan would be waiting for him, after all, with the sun already risen.
Through the curtain of trees and thick undergrowth, he finally spotted the edge of the wood, a broad clearing spreading like a stretched green blanket on the other side. He hurried his pace, thrilled to finally have a chance to see exactly where the veneer had spat him out. Imagining what he might see once he passed through the edge—only to stop right at the treeline with a frown, and an uneasy thump of his heart.
Ahead of him, there were only rolling hillsides. Green as the forest he’d stumbled from, dark and velvety under the overcast sky where they didn’t vanish into a thick fog draped over the landscape. Spots of white-wooled sheep grazed within a wide fence, the only sign of life apart from what he was certain was a silhouette of a building a little ways into the mist. It would have been enough to make him snap—had that partially-obscured little house not been the exact size of the cottage Ryder had once shown him. He really was somewhere on the edge of the Finnian Ruins, then. That little cottage may have even been the very same one Letty had stayed in, alongside the lake hidden beneath the mist. He nearly cried out in relief.
More chimes sang out to him as he emerged from the thickness of the trees, and he searched up the edge of the treeline to find them—surprised at exactly how many dangled from every branch. In both directions the trees ran, disappearing into the mist both ways and adorned with the jingling chimes for the entire length.
He shuffled between two thick bushes to continue his way toward the house—only to trip over yet another stone, that time at least catching his footing before crashing all the way down. Cursing, he yanked on his cloak where it caught on yet another—but that time, his heart thumped again.
More Celtic knots than he could count cluttered that area where he emerged, most hidden by the thick bushes and ferns that swallowed them, but obvious once he really looked. Like the chimes in the trees, more carved stones lined the edge of the forest in both directions. Wooden posts of various sizes poked out from amongst them, hammered into the earth in sporadic intervals and adorned with upside-down horseshoes and capped with bushels of long-dead rowan branches wrapped in ivy and pinned in place with gnarled iron nails.
A signpost stood out within in the thick grass a few feet away, and Saffron went to read it out of curiosity, only knowing a few of the Gaeilge words.
Warning... fey folk
Do not…
“Huh,” he repeated under his breath with a little smirk, wondering if one of Ryder’s witches had planted it, or perhaps someone from far earlier in time. He would have to come back to search for more points of interest when he had the chance again, he told himself, turning back to the issue at hand.
The nearest path was a sloppy, muddy mess, but the slippery decline was at least pitted with white stones to help keep one’s balance. He made his way to the mouth of it, slowly navigating down with two fistfuls of his cloak to keep it off the ground and help his balance. Not wanting to be caked in yet another layer of mud before returning to his prince.
Thankfully he didn’t have to go far to reach the cottage by the lake, squinting into the rain as the faded shadow materialized a little more clearly with every dozen steps. Just as the rain finally soaked through his hair, though, did Saffron suddenly stop. Standing in the middle of the muddy pathway, water spilling down his cheeks and the back of his neck as he realized with another sweep of his nerves—the house was not the one Letty had once stayed in.
Swallowing back the lump in his throat, he still took another handful of steps toward it, growing more certain as he went. Still—that didn’t mean anything. He was certain it was one of the scattered cottages outside of the Finnian Ruins, either way. There was no other explanation for the tongue-in-cheek stone knots and signs along the edge of the trees. Only other humans would have placed those. Considering their age, it may have even been rebels during the war. Saffron had simply stumbled out on the far side of the Finnian ruins, and just had to keep walking. Eventually he would find where he was going. He would find a familiar landmark to guide him back home.
His feet came to a halt again as he came within shouting distance of the cottage—realizing with a tight squeeze of his lungs that smoke billowed from the chimney of the cottage. There was—someone inside.
What do you think? He posed to Taran, secretly desperate for even an ounce of guidance. When the wolf still didn’t respond, Saffron silently cursed him for being so stubborn, but at least took it as a sign that Taran didn’t sense anything dangerous nearby. Perhaps some of Ryder’s witches had merely lingered behind. Perhaps it was some lost traveler taking shelter from the rain, no different than how he and Ryder had taken shelter in that hunter’s cabin from the snow. If anything—they might at least be able to give him some idea of where the veneer had spat him out.
The only question was whether or not to approach while wearing his glamour. Depending on who exactly stoked a fire inside would determine which would earn him a warmer welcome. He pulled up his wet hood in the meantime, hiding his ears until he could decide for the better.
None of the cottages outside the ruins were particularly fancy or ornately built, but that one was particularly worn-through nearly to the bones. Any ornamental carvings in the facade’s wooden beams had long worn away beneath centuries of rain; the thatched roof was in desperate need of replacement, dark and discolored where it absorbed rain and mildew like a sponge in muddy water. The entire thing leaned slightly to one side, propped up with beams of wood in an attempt to keep the slump at bay. Even those beams appeared older than Saffron was, nearly eaten through and leaving trenches in the earth where they’d slowly bowed beneath the gradual inevitability of the house’s demise.
Outside, more horseshoes were hammered over the doorway. Bowls of sour milk and honey were left to rot or kicked over along the base of the exterior walls, and had the rain not splattered into the congealed white liquid, diluting it, the stench might have made Saffron gag. For a brief moment he wondered if he’d only imagined the smoke through the chimney as more fog, leaving the house actually abandoned—but then one of the shuttered windows suddenly slammed open, and he nearly leapt out of his skin. Searching for the source, he met the bright green eyes of a wild-haired crone, who looked him up and down with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
“Where’n ye come from, then?” She asked, voice rough like it’d been a few days since last speaking.
“Um,” Saffron said, unsure how to answer. He glanced over his shoulder toward the distant trees, where the wind chimes continued twinkling in the breeze. The crone followed him with her eyes, before nodding that way herself.
“Show me yer ears, lad,” she said like a warning, voice thick in an unfamiliar accent and speaking in an equally strange form of Alvish that made it hard for Saffron to process at first. His mind raced when put on the spot so suddenly, looking back at her one more time, trying to decide which role was best to play. Deciding he would rather risk being outed as human, than anything else. He reached down into his doublet while pulling down his hood, subtly removing his hood and showing the round of his ears. To his surprise—and body-melting relief—the crone grinned wide at him with yellowed teeth.
“I see!” She exclaimed. “Which way ye come from, lad?”
“Erm—” Saffron bit his lip. Deciding to take another chance. “The veneer, through the trees.”
Her grin softened into clear surprise, raising her eyebrows.
“The king’s keep?” She said in a whisper, like it was a secret. Saffron nodded. She looked him over a moment longer, before narrowing her eyes again.
“Have ye heard the music of the moon’s harp?” She posed, next. Saffron’s heart pounded.
“Oh, yes!” He said with a little too much enthusiasm, scrambling to recall what Adelard had told him about that phrase. “I’ve—I’ve heard it close, and learned the song myself.”
“And how’d ye hear it, with the veil stitched as tight as it is?”
Saffron nearly mentioned the veneer again—before realizing, she wouldn’t have asked if that was already the answer. Staring at her a moment, his mind spun. His hand moved slowly, reaching into his bag. He removed the chain of access rings, separating the pixie ring from the others.
“I… became as slight as a pixie,” he said. A guess, by everything Adelard had told him of rings and pixies and the veil’s secrets. A bead of cold sweat dripped down his back.
“Oh, a chara!” The crone suddenly exclaimed, smiling broader than ever. “I was wonderin’ when ye’d come!”
Leaving the shutter hanging open, the cottage-hag hurried for the door, and Saffron caught a brief sight of what awaited him inside long before he was greeted face-to-face. A clay fireplace burning brightly, a cauldron tucked deep in the flames; sparkling crystals lining the mantle; a ram’s skull hanging from the chimney; an unfathomable number of horseshoes and other iron totems nailed into the sagging walls and support beams. In a flash, his mind whirled through every possible kind of wild fey the crone might be, though he came to no conclusion before the door swung open as forcefully as the shutter had.
Before he could think to return the chain of rings to his bag, Saffron was grabbed by the arm and yanked inside. Yelping, he stumbled over his feet, landing directly into one of the uneven chairs of the crone’s kitchen table. Barely righting himself before he tipped all the way to the floor, Saffron finally looked up again just as the woman quickly shut the door, then proceeded to latch at least four different locks down the side. Saffron swallowed back the urge to shout at her to stop, fearing he was about to become some wild thing’s dinner—voice only catching the moment he noticed arid steles and circles scattered throughout the house, despite being so worn it was clear they hadn’t been active in some time. He forced himself to relax, settling slightly back into the chair while pinching at the hematite wand tucked in his sleeve.
Inside, the house smelled of herbs and butter, soda bread, beer, even a little bit of humid peat. It was one main room, with a single door leading into a small bedroom on the opposite side. The inside was packed to the brim in every space available, whether it be the floor or the walls. Bushels of twigs, herbs, flowers dangled from wire across the sagging rafters; salt and scattered leaves dusted the table next to where Saffron sat, a loom draped in a project in-progress crowded the corner alongside the fireplace.
Even the old woman kicked footstools and woven baskets out of the way as she shuffled around, going straight for the nook of cupboards and shelves to peek into a dented copper kettle on one of them. She wrinkled her nose, popping the lid to scoop loose tea inside, then filling it with water. Hooking it on the same bar her cauldron hung over the fireplace, she finally turning back to Saffron while adjusting the round glasses on her nose. Only then didn’t Saffron spot rounded ears through her wild hair, and his tense muscles relaxed slightly more. He couldn’t help but imagine how long that old woman had been there by herself, wondering if she was as old as Baba Yaga, or perhaps even Adelard, considering where she lived on the edge of the ruins, her knowledge of the veneer. Had she been there since the war? Had Ryder known about her? Perhaps she’d even kept herself hidden during all of that time, too.
“Dangerous of ye to come knockin’ at my door with that ring in your bag and not on yer hand, you know? Put it on where it goes, so ye don’t get caught up in any trouble ye can’t pop out of,” she winked, before grabbing Saffron’s hand without warning. He smiled awkwardly, nodding and using his other hand to unclip the chain of rings. They all tumbled loosely into his bag, making him groan internally, but if anything—swapping the circlets gave him a chance to remove the opulent ring he still wore as well. Letting it drop to the floor with a small sound. No longer wishing to be reminded of it.
He shakily produced the pixie ring next, though, actually setting it on his finger made bile rise up the back of his throat. The crone seemed determined to watch him slide it on. Only once he did, did she smile and pet the back of his hand, shuffling back to her pot over the fire.
“You bein’ here tells me Master Deimne won’t be comin’ again anytime soon, will he? Damn him, how long’s it been now?” She rambled while preparing the tea—and Saffron barely heard what she said next. Ears ringing at the mention of that name.
“You tell him to come soon, I’m missin’ him sorely,” the crone went on. Unaware of how the earth turned beneath Saffron’s feet in a rush of alarm, evident by how she poured hot tear into a clay cup and handed it to him casually as ever. She had to be mad—didn’t she? Truly mad? “Got plenty to tell him ‘bout the folk comin’ around askin’ for him, too. Gonna put me in an earlier grave than I’m meant, shufflin’ them all off without suspicion, ‘specially with this brat he’s foisted on me. Reminds me too much of he himself whenst he was a bairn, when I think about it much.”
Saffron wished to say something, but he had no idea what. He opened his mouth, dry and numb, hoping some words might spill out.
“And—when was the last time Master D-Deimne came to see you?” he asked. Her answer would tell him what he needed to know—whether or not, in her clearly long-term isolation, the crone’s mind had been lost to the rain and the mist. He didn’t know what exactly he hoped to hear. “Was it when he brought the—the ‘bairn’?”
“Aye,” she sighed, scraping the edges of the cauldron over the fire and filling the room with the rich aroma of meat stew. “Don’t think the thing’s eaten more than a bowl since they was brought here. Always goes for my fingers when I try, a’course… Young master won’t be thrilled to hear I wasn’t able to get close enough to take those unsightly horns off ‘em, either…”
Saffron stiffened. His dry mouth clenched on itself, throat tightening up until hardly a raspy exhale could escape him.
“Oh?” he managed, voice tight. His hand gripping the clay cup squeezed hard enough to turn his knuckles white and make his fingers tingle. The fire in the hearth was suddenly deafening; the scraping of her spoon along the edge of the cauldron was enough to make his bones vibrate. Surely, through her strange accent, like modern Alvish rolling over a Gaelige tongue, he’d only misheard. “Their—their horns, huh?” He had to pause, attempting to drink some of the tea in the cup, nearly choking on it.
“Aye, ugly little growths. Tried to tell him to find someone else, his mother won’t appreciate havin’ those to worry about when she comes, but he insists. He always insists, even when I know I know better. Hardly even knew his mother before he went through the veneer, himself. Perhaps for the best, seein’ all what went and made her mad… Havin’ horns to worry ‘bout will only make her madder, I know…”
The crone rambled. She dumped a splatter of meat stew into a shallow bowl, offering it to Saffron. He took it without thinking, moving numbly to accept whatever she gave him.
“Go on, eat some, then,” she said, and Saffron obeyed, tilting the hot stew into his mouth. “Most goin’ to waste since I ain’t botherin’ to offer any to those folk always comin’ ‘round lately. Glad to see a face not hidden b’neath one of those dreadful veils. You wanna talk about what’s truly unsightly , it’s them veils.”
Saffron choked, before forcing himself to chew. The hot hunk of potato melted in his mouth and burned all the way down.
“The folk who keep coming around looking—looking for—Master Deimne—they’re witchhunters?” He croaked. His hands began to tremble. His thoughts clicked together, before being frantically snapped apart again in an instant. He didn’t want them to piece together. He didn’t want to follow those connections as they slipped into place, one after another, and another, and another, a long and fast-moving chain he soon could not keep up with.
“Callin’ themselves priestesses again lately,” she muttered bitterly. “Thinkin’ I’m just some ancient thing that can’t remember when my dear princess first called ‘em to her cloister. Not botherin’ to know I was the very first one of ‘em, too. Nothing now like they used to be. Just shells of what they once was. New ones’re plum-stupid, too, think I can’t tell when they’re usin’ that dirty-human itch and lyin’ to my face. But I kept the bairn secret, even from them. Just like Master Deimne told me. Don’t know if they even know they’re here, in his mother’s cottage. New witchhunters always just askin’ ‘bout the young master, askin’ if I know where he is. Not knowin’ by usin’ that new name of his I can tell right away they ain’t any folk I could trust.”
“Right,” Saffron said, shrill, sharp like a blade slicing up his throat. His heart pounded faster than should have been possible, making his body tingle with heat, about to lift out of the seat of his chair with the pressure. Speaking in a rush, barely aware of each wore as it tumbled from his mouth. “Foolish of them to think they can get away with that—especially trying to trick you like that—which name are they calling him by now? He’s so clever with the ones he picks, isn’t he? To keep Avren folk off his tail.” Saffron yammered through his teeth. He had no idea what he was saying, but—he had an idea. A horrifying, terrible idea weighed down beneath the perpetual and insurmountable realizations his mind forced on him like a hot-white brand to the nape of his neck.
Witchhunters asking about him. Using that new name of his.
Master Deimne. Dear princess. Priestesses, cloister.
My dearest Adone and Deimne, and those who watch over them…
“Some call him Master Finn O’Daire, actin’ so smug when they do,” she scoffed. Saffron’s ears rang louder, deafened as if the distant chimes rang just behind him. “But the real new ones—the ones who don’t know any better, who wear their veils pinned in their hair with shiny trinkets like it’s some fete accessory—” she scoffed, “—come knockin’ on my door thinkin’ utterin’ ‘Ryder Kyteler’ will get me to tell ‘em anything. Wonderin’ why utterin’ that name makes me snarl and spit at them. The nerve, speakin’ the Kyteler name on my doorstep after everything that one moonfevered bitch did to sweet Arya. Even Master Deimne knows better than to repeat it when he comes by.”
Finn O’Daire. Ryder Kyteler.
He is much, much older than any of us could have ever guessed.
Deimne. Master Deimne. Proserpina’s Deimne.
Saffron’s ears knelled; they crashed with the sound of rushing blood, as everything flooded his mind in an attempt to remain upright. To remain in his body, to string thoughts in one piece. Loud, deafening, keening sounds that marched in rhythm with his heart. Pounding so hard it made the tea in his held cup ripple.
Ryder Kyteler was Queen Proserpina’s son. Half-human, half-fey. Perhaps even hers and Adone’s. Her human lover.
“‘Nough chatter now, let me show you the wee bairn since that’s why you’re really here, ain’t it?” The crone puttered around the kitchen a moment again, her voice dull and muddled as if speaking underwater. Perhaps it was Saffron who was beneath the surface. Sunken deeply, buried beneath snow and ice, mud and lichen, far beneath any surface of any air to breathe. Silently suffocating, unable to think, hearing only the sound of his own heart and the ringing shrill of understanding.
“… Will have to only peek through the slider, though, since they still try to claw out any eyes that look too long. Had to tie ‘em up recently ‘cause they kept threatenin’ to cut their pretty hair off, and you know how disappointed the queen would be if she woke with horns and her new hair chopped off.”
The crone laughed, the sound of it echoing through the thick mound Saffron’s mind layer prone beneath. He forced himself to hear it. He forced his bones upward, to hook around the sound and pull himself upward. Into the air, again. To be there, fully, entirely, to witness this horned bairn the crone spoke so possessively of. As if they already belonged to her Princess Aryadna. To Queen Proserpina.
Still, when Saffron attempted to stand, he nearly tumbled straight back to the floor. The old woman didn’t notice, just shuffling her way toward a door at the back of the kitchen, grabbing a lantern as she went. The smell of crisp rain washed through every hole needle-pricked through him in that brief conversation, striking him with a breath of clarity as bright as the tip of his obsidian knife. As sure as the point of his wand, still tucked beneath the cuff of his sleeve.
He followed without any more questions. He heard only that name spoken again and again in the crone’s unique voice, Deimne, Deimne, Deimne . He wished Taran would say something. He wished Taran would confirm—or deny—the terrible, astounding, impossible thing Saffron had just realized of the man he’d chased across Alfidel. The man he’d once trusted to help with his magic. The one Saffron thought could only possibly betray him as deeply as being half-fey while telling no one. The one who always knew too much, without explanation. The one who the veil refused to make an oath with.
Into the fog, the crone went without worry. Saffron trailed on her heels. She said nothing else to explain where exactly they headed, just hummed a song Saffron didn’t know, though it didn’t make the atmosphere any more pleasant.
If the thick fog wasn’t unsettling enough, the sound of chimes from the distant treeline within the fog made his nerves flush and chitter nervously. He hadn’t been able to ask where exactly the veneer had lead him, in all the old woman’s ramblings—but learning what he did about Ryder, and her relation to him, Saffron was certain he did indeed stumble out somewhere in proximity to the Finnian Ruins. Where else would Ryder allow someone like her live? Where else would witchhunters know to go and ask her about Ryder’s whereabouts? About Deimne’s whereabouts. About Queen Proserpina’s firstborn son’s whereabouts.
Saffron was going to be sick.
Eventually a second cottage appeared through the mist, and Saffron let out the nervous breath he’d been holding. More chimes dangled from the house’s eaves, interspersed with crossed pieces of iron and bells, garlands of protective herbs and flowers woven into one another, more iron horseshoes and nails hammered into the hard mud exterior. It made Saffron’s nose and throat burn, lifting his hand to his mouth as several shiny silver talismans interspersed with the iron flashed in the lantern light, next. There was nothing to indicate they were made of opulent bone ash like all of the silver in Alfidel was, and Saffron was certain he hadn’t seen any floating barbs over the Finnian Ruins on Anysta’s map. He didn’t spare a thought for why . He had no strength left for curiosities like that.
“Lemme take a peek first, see if they’re where they should be,” the crone said, putting a hand up for Saffron to wait, before reiterating yet again: “Last couple’a times they tried to claw out me eyes when I moved the slider.”
Saffron rooted his feet in place as the crone walked unevenly down the rest of the path to the door. Using the staff carrying her lantern, she banged it against the door, making Saffron jump when she roughly called out: “Ye better not try your claws on me again, fiend! I’ll happily cut off more than your nails this time if ye don’t show me a bit of respect, hear me? Behave good and nice like you’re s’posed to.”
No response came, but Saffron was back to holding his breath. The old woman waited another moment before grabbing the knob of a viewfinder hidden amongst the markings and nails on the door, peering inside before turning back to Saffron with an approving nod.
“They’re where they should be in the back, come’n see for yourself. Perhaps finally learned to behave so’n they don’t get the lash again.”
Saffron said nothing. He stiffly moved forward, keeping his eyes first on the crone in case she was attempting to entrap him herself, only sliding his gaze toward the viewfinder when the door got in his way of passing.
Inside the cottage was dark, with all the windows boarded closed beneath the weight of the herb garlands and protective iron tokens. It smelled of humid sweat and mildew through even the slight opening of the gap, and he nearly covered his mouth again. He ran his eyes over the dark shadows inside, trying to find exactly what the old woman spoke of as being ‘where they should be in the back’.
His eyes found the one she called ‘the bairn’, and his lungs filled with agony as deep and burning as a long inhale of fresh yew.
Even from the distance, he knew Daurae Asche’s long, cornsilk hair; their curling horns; even the whiskey-gold color of their eyes that looked right back at him through the slit in the door. Full of hatred, disdain, a threat to anyone who dared come closer to where they hid in the darkness.
“Even in such a state, and with those loathsome horns—they look so much like Princess Aryadna, don’t you think?” The crone asked, voice soft but giddy. “Only a matter of time ‘fore Master Deimne brings her threads back. Just ye wait and see how well I know they’ll fit.”
One final, incomprehensible realization clicked into place in Saffron’s mind. The last one he wished for anything but to recognize, to accept. But staring at Asche through the gap in the door, he knew. Ryder Kyteler—Deimne—sought his mother’s memory tapestry, with Daurae Asche as her intended woven vessel.