18. Where It Ends
Where It Ends
The final day
There was nothing to herald the day as anything different from the score that came before.
At the onset, it dawned cold and damp. I burrowed beneath the covers of my bed, lingering until I finally emerged to face another day of training alongside those who couldn’t see me, to hunt alone, the sound of my voice my only companion.
My father was already up and dressed for work in the smithy when I surfaced from my room.
He absently bit into a crusty loaf of bread with a crunch, standing at the kitchen window, staring outside, where fresh snow fell in a light spray.
He didn’t bother to butter or lather his bread with jam even though butter and jam sat in our larder.
The widowed Mrs. Jameson brought him her famous raspberry jam at least every fortnight, the invitation bright in her gaze .
. . letting him know he was welcome to more than her delicious jam.
Da was oblivious to the enticement. Or he simply didn’t care.
Eating was an afterthought for him. He consumed just enough to survive. Long gone were the days when he sat at the table and broke his fast as we had all done together, family gathered, our voices overlapping as we shared our plans for the day.
At the end of the day he ate his stew or porridge straight from the pot out of the serving ladle. Fewer dishes. Less work. He was ever industrious with his time. I couldn’t blame him for such rudimentary living. He was alone, after all. Or at least he thought he was.
He hadn’t had a haircut in years. Not since Meya forced him to sit for a trim. He tied the gray-streaked black strands back with a leather strip. Nor did he bother with shaving. His beard was bushy and long and in dire need of a good brushing.
He wasn’t taking care of himself, but there was no one here to hold him accountable. I worried what the future held for him. Who would look after him in his dotage?
I knew from Henrik’s single visit years ago and his subsequent letters that he wanted Da to come live with them in the Borg.
His family was thriving there now. As the most fortified city in the Borderlands, it was the safest place to be whilst Penterra waged war with itself.
To say nothing of all the other dangers.
Bandits within our borders. Raiders from the Crags.
Pirates from the coast. Invading soldiers from Veturland.
The threats were as ceaseless as the tides.
Nothing in Da’s deeds or words indicated that he was even considering picking up and moving to the Borg, and I couldn’t understand what was keeping him here. All his family was gone. As far as he knew, I was gone.
My gaze tracked him as he draped his thick fur cloak over his sharp, jutting shoulders and wrapped a wool scarf over his head and mouth several times in a practiced move before stomping out into the cold and making his way to the smithy.
I lingered a moment, contemplating the day ahead. Eventually, after I trained with the guard, I would end up in the woods. It was how I ended every day, but first, I decided I would call on Maretta.
I found her rocking leisurely in her chair, knitting needles working in a frenzy even though the old woman moved slower and slower these days. Her body did not possess the fleetness of her fingers.
Finally, at a hundred and eighteen, she took less to her feet, staying home more often and emerging less and less.
As expected, I supposed. I’d never heard of a human living so long, which only seemed to corroborate that she had some witch blood in her, some vein of magic buried deep below, sustaining her.
People still came to see her for her many remedies and treatments. The need for her services was ever-present. The villagers took care of her, providing everything she needed.
I helped myself to the basket on the table that someone had brought her. It was overflowing with baked goods. I bit into a fluffy biscuit with a murmur of appreciation, enjoying the sound of Maretta’s clacking needles.
It was a market day, so after visiting with Maretta, I took myself to High Street and browsed the bounty of wares there, pausing when I spotted Isak’s mother, looking stern and cheerless as she haggled with the fishmonger.
I’d never seen her smile again after Ulrika’s funeral. Not that I felt much compassion for her after the way she treated my friend. She could have handled things differently. She did not even attend Linnea’s funeral, and the slight still stung when I saw her now.
Isak had left a few years ago for the bigger seaside town of Porthavn to the southeast. I was glad for the children . . . and Isak. They got away from here, from his wretched mother who would never honor Linnea’s memory, from this place where so much tragedy would always haunt them.
They would have a better life in Porthavn. A fresh start. This town was cursed. Over time I had convinced myself it was not only me, but also Isstad.
I turned away from the unsmiling woman and browsed a little longer, lunching on some roasted nuts and dried fruit as I went, knowing I stole nothing. That was something at least. Thanks to magic, I would never deplete anyone’s meager food stores.
I left the market and joined the guard, training with them until a fine sheen of sweat coated my skin.
Dusk was approaching when they broke for the day, so I took to the woods and resumed my never-ending quest, sheathing my sword at my side.
The dagger strapped to my trouser leg was a solid and comforting weight.
I lifted my face to the cold air. The snow had stopped, and an icy breeze dried the sweat from my skin as I walked through the forest, over ground I knew better than the lines and curves of my own hands.
I briskly stalked through the crowd of trees, moving through the mental grid I’d constructed long ago as the night settled around me.
Gradually, I realized it felt quieter than usual. It was just my footsteps in the eerie stretch of silence. Even the wind had died and fallen flat.
There was a stillness that didn’t usually exist in these trees teeming with life, with all manner of pulsing things that stirred and hummed and rustled.
It reminded me of another night, ten years ago, when magic swept over the land. Unleashed from its cage, it had crept out to feed, to feast.
And found me.
I unsheathed my dagger, hands trembling with anticipation.
Could it be her? Had she finally returned?
I plunged deeper into the woods, my strides quickening, racing in tempo with my heart as I let impulse and intuition guide me.
Something was coming.
Something was here.
The air before me was so dark I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face. I stopped to catch my breath, leaning against a tree, and that was when I smelled it. Drawing deep gulps of air into my lungs, I tasted it.
Smoke.
Lifting my nose, I sniffed, feeling very much like a beast of the woods then. Turning in a swift circle, I set out and followed the smell, my pace accelerating until I was running for the village, home. My stomach knotting and dipping as the scent intensified, hitting my nose, acrid and pungent.
Fire.
As I neared the village, red-gold light ribboned through the trees and I felt the rising heat on the air. A red miasma spread across the sky, pushing out the night.
No, no, no, no. Not my home. My people. Da.
I ran faster, harder, arms and legs pumping, blood throbbing in my veins, casting me down the hill into the melting heat, through air that thickened, crackling and popping and hissing.
I jerked to a hard stop atop the hill overlooking the village and took in the scene.
The impossible scene.
The town aflame beneath winged giants. Attacking. Devouring.
It was too late.
I was too late.
Cinders snapped and danced on the wind, reaching my body, singeing me, the fiery flecks searing through my clothes. I ignored the pain—could only stare, gawk.
Now I knew.
The magic I felt in the woods tonight derived from no witch. It was this. Them.
Dragons.
Beasts that shouldn’t be . . . diving through the night that glowed red, their wings flapping, agitating the air with such power that I felt the breeze they stirred where I stood.
The heat from the burning village pulsed toward me, followed by the stink of death. I staggered back, a gust of embers-soaked wind tearing at my eyes, tugging my hair.
It was all gone. Friends. Villagers. Neighbors. My father. Da.
Da.
I would never have a chance to talk to him again. He would never look at me with recognition. That had always existed as a possibility, as a hope. Never would I embrace him. Never would I tell him I’m sorry and that I loved him. That chance was forever lost.
Invisibility did not protect me from the world—from the poisons of this life.
I felt the scalding heat, the stinging hiss of those flames radiating across the distance.
Maybe I should walk into Isstad and let myself die alongside everyone else, become the ghost I once thought myself to be. I contemplated this.
The village in the valley below, my village, was a nest of climbing flames, devouring all. It was more than ready and willing to consume me, too.
The choice was mine.
My body decided first. Perhaps it was instinct, this urge to keep going, the will to survive.
I took several sliding steps back, my boots dragging a jagged path through the snow.
My legs felt like lead, a struggle to lift, and still I moved, one step after another . . . until I couldn’t.
Until I collapsed, broken, falling on my back, staring up at the night through blurry eyes, gasping, sobbing as the snow soaked through my clothes—into my skin, into muscle, finding its way into my very bones, into the marrow of me.
I wasn’t invulnerable to discomfort, to pain, to death. The years had proven that. I’d endured cuts and scrapes. Blisters, bruises, even a deep splinter that festered and took weeks to work itself right.