Chapter 2
LYRA
For one suspended moment, no one in Edenlo moved.
Hundreds of birds tore from the western trees at once, black bodies cutting across the last bruised light of evening as if the forest itself had thrown them out.
They didn’t circle above the village. They didn’t settle on the eastern roofs or disappear into the fields beyond Nara’s bakery.
They flew east without stopping, a frantic living cloud breaking apart against the darkening sky until the last of them vanished beyond the ridge.
The scream had stopped. I could still feel it in my teeth.
My fingers remained curled around the broken protection cord hanging from my left wrist. Salt glittered between my shoes where the little linen pouch had burst against the stones.
The fire tower burned at the center of the square, orange again, high enough that its light should have reached every doorway.
It didn’t. The western road remained dark.
Beside me, Irelia’s hand tightened around mine. “That wasn’t part of Turning.”
“No.” Another branch cracked somewhere beyond the houses. Not a small sound. It was heavy. Then another. Closer. Across the square, Maia moved first.
“Everyone inside.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried farther than shouting would have. Ferin heard her. Elder Rina heard her. Nara stopped halfway through handing a cup of cider to a farmer near the ovens. Fenric lowered the torch he’d used to light the tower and stared toward the western road.
“Maia—”
“Get the children inside.” People began looking at one another. Voices rose. Someone asked what had made the sound. Someone else called for the lanterns to be relit. Fenric lifted both hands as if he could hold the square together by force.
“Everyone stay calm.”
“Don’t.” Maia crossed the square toward him, skirts catching around her ankles. “Get them inside. Now.” Fear. There it was again. Not caution. Not suspicion. Fear strong enough that Elder Rina didn’t argue.
“Children to the meeting hall. Move.” Edenlo broke into motion.
Parents grabbed little hands. Benches scraped across stone.
A platter hit the ground and shattered beneath running feet.
Tomas vaulted the fountain wall to reach Sela where she stood frozen, then lifted her into his arms. Nara stepped into the road and began directing people toward the hall, pushing children ahead of her, calling names and counting heads as they passed.
Maia turned once toward the western road.
Her face had gone pale. Then the horse screamed.
The sound came from behind the cottages.
Not a whinny. Not panic. Agony. Wood cracked.
A chestnut mare burst into the road with part of a fence rail tangled in her reins, foam streaking her mouth, her eyes rolled white.
People scattered as she charged through the edge of the square, kicked apart a basket of apples and disappeared toward the southern fields.
A figure crossed the road behind her. I stopped breathing.
At first I thought it was smoke. A narrow column of darkness slid between two cottages.
Then another. The flames on the fire tower bent toward them.
Every flame along the cedar frame pulled west at once, stretching almost horizontally though the ribbons above us hung still.
Ferin whispered under his breath. Maia heard him. Her face emptied.
“No.” The first shadow stepped into the road.
Every story I had ever heard about Shadowwraiths had given them too much shape.
Nara’s stories had made them creatures with claws.
Ferin had spoken of eyes like pits and mouths that never closed.
Children whispered about them after dark because monsters were easier to fear when you could imagine where their teeth were.
The thing standing at the western edge of Edenlo had no face.
It barely had a body. Darkness gathered itself into a figure that stood tall and was impossibly thin, smoke peeling from its limbs only to curl back into them.
Its shoulders shifted as though the shape beneath them could not decide how many joints it needed.
Where a face should have been there was only a deeper absence, that swallowed the firelight without reflecting any of it back.
Frost spread over the stones beneath its feet. Irelia’s fingers crushed mine.
“Lyra.”
“I see it.” A second shape slid out from behind the house.
Then a third. Someone screamed. The first wraith moved.
I didn’t see it cross the road. One moment it stood at the edge of the square.
The next it was beside Fenric. He swung the torch.
Fire struck the creature’s chest and vanished.
Not extinguished. Vanished. The burning end of the torch went black before Fenric finished the swing.
The wraith hit him. His body flew backward and broke through the side of one of the festival tables.
“Fenric!” Maia ran. So did Ferin. The wraith bent over Fenric as Maia reached him. She ripped the bone-handled knife from beneath her skirt and drove it into the creature where its shoulder should have been. The blade disappeared nearly to the hilt. The thing turned toward her.
“Maia!” She dropped. Its arm swept over her head.
Ferin threw one of the ash charms. It struck the wraith’s chest. Gold light burst across the square.
The creature shrieked. Every window surrounding us rattled in its frame.
The charm split through the center and fell in two pieces at the wraith’s feet, but the creature staggered backward.
“Salt! Sage! Anything marked. Use whatever you have!” A second wraith entered the square.
Then three more. Then I stopped counting.
People ran. Someone barreled into my shoulder hard enough to nearly knock me down.
A child screamed for her mother. A man dragged his wife toward the meeting hall while she twisted against him, trying to reach someone I couldn’t see. Maia had gotten one arm beneath Fenric.
“Lyra. Help me.” Whatever had frozen inside me broke. I let go of Irelia and ran. She came with me. Fenric was conscious when we reached him, but barely. Black veins spread beneath the skin around the wound on his shoulder, branching toward his throat. I crouched beside him.
“What did it do to him?”
“I don’t know. Move.” Maia shoved his arm over my shoulder. Irelia took his other side. Fenric tried to stand. His knees folded beneath him.
“Fenric. Stay with me.” His eyes opened but didn’t focus. Maia looked toward the meeting hall.
“Take him inside.”
“What about you?”
“Go.” Another scream cut through the square.
I turned. A wraith moved straight through the wall of the Caplins’ cottage.
The woman inside began screaming before the creature vanished from sight.
Maia shoved Fenric harder against me and Irelia.
We dragged him toward the hall. The doors stood open, people crushing through them faster than Elder Rina could organize anyone.
Tomas appeared in the doorway without Sela.
“Where is she?”
“Nara has her.” He ducked beneath Fenric’s arm and took most of his weight. “What happened?”
“A wraith touched him. We don’t know what it did.” Tomas’s face changed.
“Get him inside.” The hall had already become chaos.
Children crowded along the eastern wall.
Two men shoved the long council table against one window.
Elder Rina stood on a bench shouting names while people answered from every direction.
Someone had dragged blankets from the storage room and piled them beside the hearth.
Nara came through the doors behind us with Sela pressed against one hip and another child by the wrist.
“Tomas.” He looked up.
“Take her.” Sela immediately reached for him. Tomas took her and set her behind the overturned table. Nara crouched in front of her.
“Stay with Tomas. Do you understand?” Sela’s lower lip shook.
“Papa.”
“I know.”
“Where’s Papa?” Nara looked toward me for one fraction of a second. She didn’t know. Neither did I.
“He knows where to find you.” It wasn’t a promise.
A violent impact hit the hall doors. Everyone screamed.
The wooden bar jumped in its brackets. Another hit came before the room had settled.
The protection mark carved over the doorway flashed pale gold and dimmed.
A hairline crack split through its center. Ferin saw it.
“No.” The third impact ripped the upper hinge halfway free. Tomas lowered Sela behind the table and put both hands against the door. Ferin staggered toward him. Blood soaked half his sleeve.
“Sit down.”
“No.” The western window exploded inward. Glass rained over the floor. Darkness poured through. People stampeded away from it.
“Don’t let it gather!” Ferin shouted. The smoke crawling over the sill thickened. Arms began forming inside it. Shoulders. A head. Ferin seized a bowl from the nearest table and hurled the contents. Salt struck the darkness. The forming wraith shrieked and collapsed backward.
“Salt! Sage! Burn it if you have it!” Nara crossed the room, seized an entire basket of dried sage from the Turning supplies and dumped it into the hearth.
Smoke rolled upward. People tore protection bundles from their wrists.
Salt scattered across windowsills. Dried mint and yarrow hit the floor.
Someone began praying. The wraith tried to gather again.
Gold light flashed along the protection marks.
It recoiled. For one breath, the room believed we had stopped it.
Then a deep groan sounded from outside. Wood straining beneath impossible weight. Every person in Edenlo knew that sound. I turned toward the broken window. The fire tower leaned. The great central support had cracked halfway through.