Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

WREN

The next few days passed uneventfully.

Wren spent the mornings gathering fresh herbs. Her head always felt strange after her hair was cut, especially when she was moving about doing her chores, as if it was too light, somehow. In the afternoons, she worked with Elodie in the kitchen, preparing the herbs to be dried, or steeping them, or any of the other procedures she could do with her eyes closed. Elodie watched every step, pausing once in a while to rub her shorn head affectionately or correct whatever she was doing wrong.

She was always doing something wrong. No matter how small that error might be.

Wren had known for years that she just was not cut out to be a hedge witch like Elodie. She had an innate magical spark, that was completely obvious given… well, everything. But she didn't have the patience, the ability to deal with people or any sort of real acumen for the work. Not the way Elodie did.

She could learn the othertongue, bits of it, but it came haltingly to her lips. Elodie's magic wasn't her magic.

In other places she would have a different teacher, another path to follow. She'd read about the city of Pelias or the far- off College of Winter in Elodie's books, and heard travellers in the village talk about the Maidens of the Aurum or the rebel witchkind of Garios.

But Wren lived deep in the Forest of Cellandre, in the furthest corner of the kingdom. Half the forest was lost to the darkwood, and ofttimes only the great southern road offered safe passage. The village of Thirbridge was the nearest settlement and, after that, the distant border with Ilanthus was always a danger. Especially to witches.

And Wren didn't know what else to do. This was her whole life. She had never known anything else. Elodie had raised her, cared for her, loved her – in her way – for as long as Wren could remember. Her mother. Although that was never said.

They looked nothing alike. People speculated that she must take after her father. Where Elodie's hair was gold, Wren's was black as night. And while both were pale, Elodie's skin was touched with the sun, even on the greyest day, while Wren's might have been drenched in moonlight. Elodie had eyes like a cloudless summer sky and Wren's were dark, almost black and endless.

Unnerving, Pol had said once. Like they had no colour at all, just darkness.

‘Don't crush them, little bird,' Elodie chided. ‘Just cut them. What knife are you using?'

The wrong one. Clearly. Wren gazed at the mangled remains of the sweetbriar she'd been preparing. She'd have to throw that out and find some more tomorrow. It was too late in the day to gather it now. The buds would be closed. She scraped them off the board into the waste bin.

‘I'm sorry,' she sighed.

‘You didn't do anything wrong, you know? That boy is… he's not worthy of you.'

Was that it? Wren started to answer, to say no of course he isn't, but the words stuck in her throat.

Elodie seemed to understand. She was no stranger to regret and lost love herself. Though she never spoke of it, Wren had heard her cry out in the night, screaming in grief and pain, calling for Roland. Whoever he was. Wren hadn't asked in years, not since she was a child. She hadn't dared. Elodie never spoke of it. Just completely ignored any questions about that name, about her past, about Wren's father. About whether it was the same man or someone else.

Elodie sighed. ‘Why don't you get some fresh air? Take a walk? I have some things I need from the village if you want to go that far?'

Which might mean checking in on Lindie and the baby, or seeing Pol? A shudder went through Wren's body at the thought.

‘You don't have to,' Elodie added. ‘It's just supplies from the trading station. But they can wait. There's nothing urgent.' She said it gently enough. Elodie was just trying to give her something to do, something to take her mind off everything. Like Wren was a child who needed to be distracted. She needed to grow up and face her mistakes.

‘I'll fetch my cloak,' she murmured and tried to smile reassuringly. She ran her hand through her cropped hair nervously. It always took time to get used to it being this short. It wouldn't last of course. Hair always grew back, Elodie would say, as if that was a comfort. It really wasn't. ‘Do you have a list?'

Of course she did. Elodie was always prepared. She made lists constantly. As she had said, there was nothing urgent on it, but it did give Wren something to do. And sometimes she just needed to walk through the forest, in its green-gold light. She was one of the few people who could do so without fear of harm. The forest looked after her, that was what Elodie always said.

Ever since she was a child, the song of the forest had been her lullaby. She had dreamed she had friends there, children like herself who danced with her. Sometimes she thought she still heard echoes of their laughter in the birdsong, their whispers among the leaves.

She'd be home long before it was full dark anyway. She always was. Her days were as predictable as the tides. And they always would be. One day, when Elodie was old and tired, Wren would take her place as hedge witch. She'd find an apprentice of her own, if anybody wanted to learn the little she had to offer, and Elodie would doze by the fire until…

‘He would never have been good enough for you, little bird,' Elodie said as Wren opened the door, peeling back the wards so she could pass through with ease. ‘You know that, don't you? But somewhere out there, there's someone.'

How would she ever find anyone living here in the middle of nowhere, in the darkest forest, on the edge of the kingdom? Wren froze, her shoulders tightening under the green of her cloak. Someone? Maybe in her dreams. Part of her wanted to say something cutting and vicious, to tell Elodie not to make promises she couldn't keep. She hadn't had her happily ever after, had she? Whoever Roland was, he had been gone for all of Wren's twenty years and Elodie had been entirely alone.

Men had tried. Rangers, villagers, passing soldiers… Elodie was having none of it. Sometimes forcefully. More than one had limped away from her, cursing her name. More than one had vanished in the forest.

Between the darkwood's magic, and Elodie's, they didn't stand a chance.