18. Letting the Dark in

SIX WEEKS LATER

As she passed the curtain on her way to the rack, Rahn grabbed Aesylt, drawing a delightful shriek he swiftly sealed with a kiss. An adorable moan rolled up from her throat. She smiled against his mouth before pecking him and sliding away.

"Wouldn't want to be late for morning meal. First thaw hunt is a taxing day," she said, then squealed when he palmed her ass from behind to give her one last kiss on the back of her neck. Her stiffness eased off, as her words drifted into a sigh. "Or... We could not eat."

"I cast my vote for starvation," Rahn murmured, snapping her back against him.

"With me, you'll never go hungry, Scholar." Aesylt winked with an impetuous and utterly calculated drag of her teeth against her bottom lip. The sultry dusk in her eyes lingered a moment longer. She'd never exactly been shy with her desires, but over the past six weeks of exploration, she'd shed every last bit of self-consciousness. She was clever, intoxicating, and insatiable. He wondered if it were possible to be in a state of longing for enough duration to actually die from the effect, but if so, he'd already be in the ground.

Say the words, he nearly demanded, but it was Pieter he was thinking of when he straightened, kissed the corner of her mouth, and said instead, "The gods are testing me today. But you're right. We still need to visit the blacksmith to seal our notes for the scout as well."

Pieter had been their "ally" for weeks now, secreting their notes out through his personal scout, who then hand delivered them to the Reliquary in the Easterlands. Helpful Pieter, always ready with a solution to every problem. Rahn had been vehemently against his involvement in any way, until Aesylt showed him the exact method they used to carry messages that required extra safeguard. A metal tube, sealed by fire on each end, that could only be opened once without destroying the container. If tampered with, the Reliquary would know.

It still made Rahn nervous, but Aesylt had insisted she and Pieter had made peace after what had happened that day in the tower. She was smart enough to decide for herself, but he still didn't trust the man's helpfulness. It wasn't jealousy—not anymore. He didn't think Pieter was interested in Aesylt that way, but the man was interested in her work, more than he had any reason to be, and it was worrisome.

If Pieter ever found out what they were actually doing, there'd be war of another kind.

Rahn had lost mental count of how many times he and Aesylt had consummated their work under the hazy light of the celestial skies. Only in his notes, most of which had already been sent off to the Reliquary, did the numbers live. All he knew was the beautiful blur of frozen time and perfect symmetry. Losing himself in the work... in her... watching the soft snow paint the land through the last throes of wintertide, he'd let go of his guilt and embraced every beautiful, torturous moment with her in the land of no consequence.

They'd experimented plenty within the bounds of the final rung, slipping into the ballroom level of their research: mutual release, sex while inebriated, tracking the changes in stimuli during the different phases of the moon, and trialing positions he'd not realized were possible. There were other variables to test, but there was nothing keeping them from ascending to the battlefield level either. She'd made it clear from the beginning that nothing was off-limits, but there were things on the list that seemed dredged from his darkest, most forbidden fantasies. Things he'd never done with any woman.

Rahn would happily drown in the abyss with Aesylt, which was the problem.

"Meet you at the stables, Scholar." Aesylt snatched the roll of paper with a silly grin and skipped on ahead of him, her pale hair swaying with her hips as she disappeared out the door and down the long steps.

His smile faded when she was out of sight. The light of her presence was replaced by the dark memories of hearing her call out for her brother, Hraz, in her sleep, a mournful cry that had no answer. On some nights, it was for her father. But it had started a few days after they'd consummated their relationship. His own nightmares had begun around the same time, and he didn't yet know what to make of them or what might connect their research to the memories.

Aesylt's Nok Mora was his version of the Passage. Better left unaddressed. Un-remembered. But he wondered what happened to the unaddressed, un-remembered pieces. They hadn't died with the past.

He couldn't ask, because questions about the past were impossible for him too. He couldn't bear to do that to her. The only power he had against the darkness were the nights under the stars when they made their own light.

And once Drazhan concluded the business with the Barynovs in the Cross, it would all end.

Aesylt had the business of the research notes well in hand, so Rahn grabbed his cloak and prepared to head to the keep. But as he shrugged the furs over his shoulders, he noticed a stray scrap of paper under her desk. He quickly leaned to reach for it, worrying she'd forgotten a page, and skimmed the words.

I lack the words to describe what's been happening to me. I have never felt more myself than I do with him. I remember what it is to know strength now. To know it can come from so many other places than trauma and war and strife. But the closer he brings me back to myself, the more the past returns, mocking me, as though there's work to be done and I'm failing to do it. Work I don't have the faintest idea how to begin. Memories I can't quite access and truthfully don't want to. Everything comes with a cost, it seems. Everything?—

Hands shaking, Rahn dropped the paper. Aesylt's private notes. He doubted she'd meant to include something so personal in the Reliquary package, so the page must have slipped out when she'd compiled the roll.

He almost tore the paper trying to feed it through the small gap between the drawer and the top of her desk.

Aesylt rode beside Pieter,several paces behind Rahn and Lord Dereham. They all pulled their heads low as sharp bands of sunlight reflected off the melting snow. All around them, by the dozens—hundreds, she thought, watching them stationed every ten yards—were guards. Mostly for her protection, she'd been told by Lord Dereham. As their host, he refused to leave his treasured guests at the keep when he had the means to safeguard them. They were surely homesick by now, he'd said, and it was important to keep their minds busy.

Other hunters streamed behind them, townsmen fortunate enough to be invited to one of the most important days of the year for Wulfsgate.

Aesylt wasn't the only woman on the hunt, but there weren't many. Neither Nyssa nor Lady Dereham had come. Only the women on the lord's council had been invited to participate.

There was a fleeting period every year in the far north that belonged to no season. Some called it the "in between," others "the deep breath." It was the portend of what was to come. If the ground thawed, there was hope for a few weeks more of relief. If not, they hung their heads and prayed for a better next year.

With Wulfsgate being farther south than the Cross, their springtide was often more than a whisper, and they actually celebrated the passage of autumnwhile. But both micro-seasons were treasured and never taken for granted. The first thaw meant a greater variety of beasts emerged, harkening an urgent hunt to restock the meat stores for all the village. The Derehams had a long-standing tradition of involvement in the many traditions that kept life moving in the capital.

"You're unusually quiet this morning," Pieter remarked. She hardly heard him over the prattle of conversations ahead and behind. She'd been perfectly happy riding in silence.

"Am I?" Aesylt's breaths slowed by will alone. Her heart had been a cataclysmic mess ever since she'd handed the last notes to the scout, though she didn't know why.

"Your first hunt?"

That prompted a snorting laugh from her. "No."

"Your first potential kill then?"

A hard fist gripped her heart, but it was gone just as fast. "Not my first kill either. We do learn to hunt in the Cross. We just have to travel far beyond our own woods, and it comes with its own host of challenges."

"Do the Vjestik have an annual tradition like this one?"

She almost couldn't believe he'd asked the question, and when she turned toward him in disbelief, she saw a flash of regret in his eyes. "You mean the one where we send our boys into the forest, praying they'll return, so we can finally hunt our own forests again? And since they almost never do, we then pay twice as much as the meat is worth to Wulfsgate so we don't starve?"

"I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head with a tortured look upward. "I was trying to make conversation, and I wasn't thinking. We can talk about something else."

"I'm fine not speaking at all," she muttered, training her eyes on Rahn several paces ahead.

"I really am sorry, Aesylt. You pick the topic. Anything you want. I won't refuse."

She started to roll her eyes when an opportunity formed in her mind. Rahn thought she was na?ve in her trust of Pieter, but he was their only path to the Reliquary for the time being—and for who knew how long, as the news from Witchwood Cross had been the same for weeks... more riots but no move from the Barynovs that would turn tensions into outright war—and his guard had slowly lowered around her in return. Her show of trust in him was as much a matter of needing his help as wanting him to believe she believed his aid was purely altruistic. Men had been underestimating her for years.

"If you want a conversation so badly, tell me where you've been for the past eight years," she said with a haughty smirk, indicating she knew exactly how his answer would go.

Pieter straightened in his saddle, and she thought that would be the end of it. "You really want to know why my family won't look me in the eyes and often pretend I'm not even in the room?"

"I've only asked a dozen times."

His face scrunched in thought, his gloved hands readjusting on his reins. "How much, if anything, have you read about the villages scattered among the foothills of the Seven Sisters of the West?"

She'd actually read little about the seven-peaked range in the Westerlands, but it was purely because she'd not gotten her hands on any books or pamphlets. Back when Imryll was the sole architect of the concept of The Book of All Things, her original vision had included travel across the kingdom, but once the Reliquary took over, and co-opted the project as their own, the institution had limited their scope to the Northerlands. "Not much."

"Ah." Pieter grinned. "My boyhood tutor, Gillibrand, first introduced me to the old stories about the women and their magic there. I was fascinated from the start. I may have a book you can take with you, though it's fraught with more fiction than fact, I'm afraid. Most of what's been written about these villages has been lost or destroyed, which, of course, only fascinated me more."

Aesylt flicked a glance his way to show she was listening, hoping he couldn't read how interested she was.

"There are dozens of these villages. Not all are matriarchal, but many are. The ones with rare magic anyway. Magic that most in the kingdom assume is fantasy, or prefer it be. Gillibrand, though, he believed in all of it. Wholly. He'd been to several of the villages himself and had seen, with his own eyes, women who could transmute water into liquid gold or create an entire garden of blooms with a pass of their hands. More, he'd claimed to be present for more than one instance of anastasis."

Aesylt's blood froze. "Resurrection?"

Pieter nodded. "I didn't believe it either. Not then anyway. Magic has been a part of our kingdom for thousands of years, as long as we have memories to pass down the generations. Now, the Medvedev... No one knows what they can do. They don't live under our kingdom's purview, so I'm not including them in this. But among our own, there are some deeds that have always been beyond what we know of magic. Anastasis is only one example, Aesylt, of what the cunning women of the Seven Sisters are capable of."

The Vjestik were a nomadic people who had called many places home, but according to the kyschun, they'd originated from one of those small villages in the foothills of the Seven Sisters. Something within Aesylt warned her against mentioning it, in the same way she never volunteered the fact that she had Medvedev blood from her mother's side. "I assume you're going to tell me you went there."

"Gillibrand and I went together." Pieter reached up to scratch his neck. The din of conversation had softened. Pieter's voice lowered as well. "I never intended to stay so long, but what I saw there turned me from a scholar by hobby to one by profession. I knew I'd never be happy playing politician, and I had a decision to make. Then Gillibrand died suddenly."

"How?"

"Slipped and fell from a mountain path one day when he was collecting different species of plants."

"But you were surrounded by women who could raise the dead."

"There can be no resurrection without a body." Pieter's mouth quirked.

Aesylt frowned and looked again at Rahn ahead. For some reason, she thought of her notes—not the official ones sent to the Reliquary but the ones just for her. The ones she still wasn't sure why she'd written at all, except she'd felt oddly compelled, almost against her will. Even when the light is brightest, the darkness calls. There can be no light if one cannot recognize the absence of it. I've been living in the gray for so long without ever knowing it. She cleared her throat. "And you stayed to continue his work?"

"Silence, friends!" Lord Dereham called from ahead, turning to repeat himself several more times. "In half a tick of the sun, we'll reach the staging area. Turn your thoughts inward and your prayers to the Guardians, who alone decide how much bounty we return to our village with this afternoon."

Aesylt glanced at Pieter, who seemed relieved to be done with the conversation.

He'd said more in those few minutes than in the entire month they'd been in Wulfsgate. But it still didn't explain the enmity with his family or what led to him to forsake his birthright... what had made Lady Dereham so convinced he was never coming back that she had another child in her middle age to protect the ascendancy.

Somehow, she'd get him to tell her the rest of his story.

But it moved to the back of her mind as she mentally steeled for the moment she'd been quietly dreading for days.

Rahn helpedthe men set up the camp. It consisted of two long assembled tables, one housing a row of weapons, and the other, longer and broader, for dressing the meat of the beasts they felled that day.

He counted fourteen hunters, besides Rustan, Pieter, Aesylt, and himself. He didn't know if that was a lot, but it felt excessive, especially with the obscene number of guards stationed around the forest perimeter. There were also a dozen young men who were there solely to retrieve the felled animals and dress them while the hunters worked. Lord Dereham had explained that while there were always regular hunters bringing in game for fresh meals, the eighteen hunters gathered would restock the meat stores at Wulfsgate Keep, as well as the emergency reserves for the city.

Rustan rubbed his gloved hands together with a tight look at his son. He then turned toward Rahn with a smile. "Your first hunt?" He nodded. "Of course it is. Nothing to hunt in Duncarrow, and the Cross only hunts when the boys win. Or if they can weather the capricious forests between their town and ours."

Rahn glanced Aesylt's way to gauge her response to the almost callously casual way they spoke of the Cross's deepest wound, but she was busy perusing the weapons table. She'd only been eight the year Drazhan had won the Vuk od Varem—and Rahn hadn't asked, but he couldn't imagine much celebratory hunting had occurred after Drazhan had returned to a village in rubble—and before that there hadn't been a victor in years. Hunters violating the agreement between the wulves and Vjestik, thinking themselves clever or above the law, didn't return home with breath in their lungs. The only animals the Vjestik were sanctioned to kill were those unfortunate enough to wander out of the forests and too near to town, or, as Lord Dereham had said, in the forests beyond their borders, and those were more perilous than their own.

The only explanation Rahn could muster was that she'd learned to hunt in the celestial realm with her brothers, same as she'd learned to fight and die.

"And that is their way," Rustan said. "However..." He tapped another man on the shoulder, who then raised a stick, painted in dark green, into the air. Everyone went silent and gathered close, drawing a tight circle around the lord. "This year, half of what we kill belongs to our friends in Witchwood Cross." He glanced at a stunned Aesylt. "Gold-free, and no taxes due. They've had a troubling year, and we're going to make it a little less so. So, lads, ladies, bring your best today, for we'll need to take enough game to make up the difference."

The hunters nodded and dispersed, each heading to the table to choose their weapon. Aesylt approached with a dazed, faraway look. "Lord Dereham, your kindness is... greatly appreciated. But the Cross will pay for what is ours."

"You will pay when I accept your gold. And today, I do not." He smiled and clapped a hand onto her shoulder. "Don't feel you have to take part, cub. Sit and watch, breathe in the warmest air we've had in months, and enjoy some time away from your tiny tower. You're perfectly safe here."

"Respectfully, my lord, I will do my part like all the others. I came to help, not to watch."

Rustan's brows knit. Soft concern speckled his eyes. "Then might I suggest the crossbow? It's the quickest to learn, the simplest to maneuver?—"

"I'm comfortable with traditional bows and spears."

"The spears are only for the boar, which we rarely see, and only a few of my men have the skill to use them humanely. Most will carry bows or crossbows because we're mainly after deer, elk-kind, and grouse. And land fowl if they're foolish enough to wander through while we're here."

"I know, my lord."

Rustan glanced at Pieter, who could only shrug. Rahn's sense of danger had spiked considerably during the brief exchange. His concern for Aesylt was so irrational, it had him envisioning the feasibility of swaddling her in his cloak, tossing her over his shoulder, and riding her back to the keep, where she'd be safe from whatever unidentified danger seemed to be waiting for her in the forest.

But he had no basis for his concern. Only a feeling.

"We have one new hunter with us today, our once-duke, Scholar Tindahl. He has better odds of walking away without a kill than with, but we wish him good fortune," Rustan announced to whoever was still listening. "Rahn, I hope you're not afraid of a little blooding."

"Blooding?"

Aesylt found a bow she liked, wrapping her fingers in the grip and pulling back the string in several quick tests. She nodded at it and grabbed a full quiver, which she strapped to her shoulders. Her expression was lined with cool confidence, but there was a darkness in her eyes that left him with the same, paralyzing fear that something terrible was about to happen.

Rahn stepped in beside her. "I suppose I should start with the crossbow then, from what Lord Dereham said?"

She stretched her arm past him and slid the metal contraption his way. "Here's how you load the bolt. You want the metal ones, not the arrows we use with the bows. Make sure it's lined up right down this scoring here, along the stock, or you'll misfire." She secured it, lifted the weapon, and aimed it away from everyone. "This hook here is called a trigger. But you won't pull it until you have your target perfectly in your sights, which you can do by aligning it... Like this, see? If shooting in the sky, pull a half-second earlier than you believe you should. If shooting on land, aim for the heart as much as you can. Never the gut, if you can help it."

"Why?"

"They take longer to die, and that's not how we honor the beasts that keep us fed. If we cannot offer a swift death, we shouldn't take the shot," Aesylt answered. "And, whatever is still in the stomach and intestines of the beast can sometimes contaminate the meat around it and make part or all of it inedible, which is not only a waste of food but of the life taken." She sighed and glanced back at the table. "Don't be one of those men who thinks because he has a good arm he'd be deft with a spear. You'll either maim the beast or yourself, so just... do not."

Rahn was impressed, though her sureness did little toward easing his growing dread. "You really do know what you're doing. Mind if I come along with you?"

Aesylt shrugged, but quickly shook her head. "Stealth is key to a successful hunt. We need to stay as quiet as we can while we wait for our moment. I'm already at a disadvantage with all these guards pretending to be shrubs." She slung the bow over her shoulder and reached for one of the remaining spears. She tossed the shaft, caught it with a strange smile, and lowered the sharp end toward the ground. "My advice is to stay as close to camp as you can, in case you need help. There will always be one or two men here at all times, refreshing their cache, and the dressing boys will be on quiet patrol throughout the afternoon."

"You'll be fine out there alone?" His sense of danger intensified with the suspicion she had other reasons for wanting to be alone.

"Would you ask any of these men the same question?"

He sighed in capitulation. "As always, you remind me to check my sensibilities." He fought the urge to kiss her. It had become so natural—too natural. He was terrified they'd slip in front of the wrong person and that what they'd been doing in the cool tower room would become obvious to everyone.

"See you at dusk," she said as she walked away.

Aesylt marchedthrough the melting forest with purposeful breaths that matched her full stride. She passed several men she only recognized from the ride to the woods. They weren't spaced out nearly enough for her liking, and a couple seemed to even be partnering up. There was a reward at the end for the hunter who brought in the greatest weight. A gold cache, if she recalled, but she hadn't really been listening, any more than she'd listened to the men whisper-prattle as they'd set up their blinds.

She adjusted her spear higher in hand when she reached a thicker patch of brush. The bow was small, like one given to a child, but it was the same kind she'd learned on. Killed with.

Tell them, girl. Tell them all how the king sends his love.

Aesylt staggered a step at the unexpected recollection, her vision flickering. She choked back the soldier's cruel words, returning them to their safe compartment, where also lived the sensation of the monster's spit running down her face and the horror of his trailing laughter as she rocked, shaking, on her father's bloody bedroom floor.

Aesylt blinked hard and pushed on. She hadn't seen a hunter in a while, and all she could hear was the occasional crunch of an animal and the heartbeat drumming between her ears. Her breathing labored, involuntarily allowing more holes to open in her mind, releasing what was inside.

She climbed to her feet, slipping twice on her father's blood. Sobs shook her; tears blinded her. The competing stenches, every one of them unthinkable, had her fading. Father and Hraz were gone. Drazhan was still in the forest, if he was even alive. The celestial realm called, and it would be so easy, so easy...

"Nien," she hissed under her breath. "This can't happen if you don't allow it." She slung the bow tighter over her shoulder and grunted as she climbed a small embankment overlooking a modest valley.

She didn't remember the walk from her father's apartment to the gates of Fanghelm, but suddenly she was standing on the road. Smoke and flame burned to the east... the west. She headed south, toward the village, where most of the screams were floating from.

Aesylt closed her eyes tight and lengthened her limbs, focusing on being present, on leaving the past behind her. Lord Dereham's offer was beyond generous, and her people desperately needed the meat, now more than ever with the town under siege and another failed Vuk od Varem behind them. She could actually help her village if she pushed through her discomfort, a win she desperately needed after being at the center of their present troubles.

The main road was littered with bodies. Bloodied. Charred. Some seemed to have died while running away from something, others while facing it head-on. There were hands, feet, and heads strewn about in a way that was so surreal, her mind convinced her a dream was the only explanation.

She screamed when she saw Niklaus's mother clinging to a hitching post, her mouth frozen in the horror of death. Beside her were both of her dead brothers-in-law, kyschun who were only in the village one week a year, the week of the Vuk od Varem.

Smoke blinded Aesylt as she wondered who would replace them under the mountain, if there was anyone left to replace them.

Wheezing, she opened her mouth wide to take in more air, but it sent a billow of smoke straight into her lungs. She collapsed, but something caught her. She looked up and obscured through tears was the sobbing face of Nik.

Aesylt, shaking her head to clear the ash, wiped her face on her arm and spread her tools out across a tan blanket in a methodical line, cataloging and counting them. Last of them was the flare she was supposed to fire off when she was done, to signal to the dressing boys where to collect the carcasses.

She glanced into the tree she'd leaned both weapons against. She could climb it, but she and trees weren't on the best terms after the Dyvareh. But the spot she'd chosen had plenty of brush cover, and she'd still have clear sight into the valley below, where several animals had already emerged to enjoy the thaw.

Aesylt counted her arrows. Forty. Her bow might be designed for a child, but she'd taken one of the larger quivers, sharing a glare with a hulking redheaded man who'd looked at her like she was being wasteful and ignorant. He didn't know though. None of them did. Not even Rahn. He was perhaps the one person she might be able to talk to, but he was the last one she wanted knowing every smirk and sneer of the demons within her.

"Aes. Aes! It's you. It's you. Ancestors help us, it's the end of the world." Nik panted and sobbed, bowling over before standing, his hands tugging his hair in a silent scream.

"Nikky, look at me. Look at me." She didn't know why she'd said it. "Where are the men who did this?"

"Did you hear? Drazhan has returned with a heart." Niklaus clawed at his sooty neck, his tears cutting trails down his blackened cheeks. "Praise the Ancestors."

"What? What?" Aesylt reached for both of his hands, batting at them. "Is that true? Is he back? Did he truly win? Where is he?"

"I saw him. I don't know. I don't know where anyone is." Niklaus shook his head, his eyes traveling the remnants of their once-great village. His lower lip curled into his mouth. "My mother, Aes. My...."

Aesylt threw herself into his arms. "Ota and Hraz too, Nikky. They took their heads. I saw..." She couldn't finish.

They held each other, sobbing, until Val's cracked voice cut through the haze."Most of the king's men have gone, but there are three at the north end of town." He sniffled and turned back the way he'd come.

"V!" Aesylt cried and folded him into their embrace. Everyone else was gone, but two of her friends were there, and they'd avenge their people. They'd crawl on their hands and knees to Duncarrow if they had to, but they'd do it together. "Oh, thank the Ancestors you're all right. You're both..."

"Both of my sostras, Aessy. Both of them." Val cleared his throat, coughed, and spat black phlegm onto the snowy road. "Those men aren't leaving this village."

Aesylt wiped her filthy face with blood-stained hands. She dabbed her tears on the sleeve of her nightgown and looked toward Fanghelm. "My father has a private armory."

Aesylt blinked harder. She had an arrow ready. She brought the magnifiers back to her face and scanned the valley, shrugging her shoulder to remove the weighted ache. Her chest was so tight, she had to sit tall to take deep breaths. This is not that day. This is the day I help my people. Leave the past in the past.

There were too many young beasts milling about, and though the men loved their tender meat, she refused to hunt anything but the mature ones. She spotted a buck grazing near a small spring and nocked her arrow slowly. It was almost too big for the bow, the size difference causing her hand to shake, but she closed one eye, steadied, and took aim, then waited for the buck to look her way, to expose himself so she could offer a respectful, painless death.

Heart shot. Instant.

The buck collapsed to the half-melted ground.

Aesylt exhaled. She set the bow aside and cradled her hands together to stop the tremors.

The boys both picked swords, too heavy for their growing hands, but Aesylt went for her father's hickory bow. She'd trained on something much smaller, but she wasn't hunting hare.

"None of the king's men leave this village today," Aesylt said to them both, echoing Val's earlier message of resolve. "And when we've sorted it, we need to feed what's left of our people."

"With what? They burned our meat stores. They torched our gardens." The weight of the sword Val had chosen made his left side sag.

"My brother has returned with the heart of the wulf." Aesylt hoisted the heavy quiver until the straps were secure over both of her shoulders. "The forests belong to us now."

"Then we should find him, Aessy! He's the steward now. We need a leader."

"Tak, well until he shows up to do so, it falls to me. The last Wynter of Witchwood Cross," Aesylt said, locking eyes with Val and then Nik. "I don't know how many are left of our people, but there will be even less if don't stop these terrible men. We protect. We defend. We feed. All right?"

The boys wore identical looks as they examined her, reading her words. Reading her. There was an ocean of sadness behind their eyes, but at the edges was fear—not of the men who had taken everything from them, but of her.

She was afraid too, but if she stopped to think about it, about anything, she'd shrivel into a wraith of grief and never again rise.

"All right?"

Val glanced at Nik, who raised his brows back. Finally, they both nodded.

On their way out, Val grabbed a spear.

One grouse. Then another. Aesylt nocked, aimed, fired, nocked, aimed, fired.

Both fell to the earth.

The three of them crouched along the inner wall of the north battlement. Val and Nik recited names as they spotted people they knew, those still among the living. Every name was a bolt of warmth on the coldest day of her life. Not all had been lost.

Aesylt clutched the bow, stringing the icy air through her teeth and into her lungs, where she held it. Movement caught her eye, so she rose onto her knees, peering through the gaps in the wall to see two of the king's men laughing as they inspected their loot bag.

Saying nothing to the boys, she rose, drawing an arrow in a slow slide. She nocked it, her hands unsteady as she took aim.

One of the men spotted her, and they both startled. It was too late. Aesylt loosed the arrow, and it sliced through the first man's neck. The second man bolted, leaving his spoils behind. Val and Nik scrambled to their feet, heading for the stairs, but by the time they reached the ground, the remaining man would already be gone.

Panting and desperate, Aesylt grabbed the spear propped against the wall and returned to the spot where she'd fired her arrow. She saw her father's panicked eyes—scared for her, knowing he'd never learn her fate because his was already sealed—as his head was taken from his body. She saw Hraz screaming, his arms out for her as the sword plunged into his chest from behind. The entire, torturous day bubbled up from within, a dangerous brew that had her backing up and charging the wall, her arm releasing the spear with enough force to send her flagging over the stones. The air stilled, allowing space for the ghastly whisper of the weapon hurtling from the battlement. The man looked up in surprise, and that was what killed him. The hesitation. It was the last expression he made as the spear struck him in the gut.

"Ancestors keep us," Niklaus whispered as he pulled her back over the wall to safety. "Val, she's fading."

"Our people need to eat," Aesylt murmured and drifted away.

Aesylt swooned, the tree catching her before she could fall. She registered pain in her hands and saw they were already blistering from the force of her grip. Rain had set in, but the bowing needles were sheltering her from most of it. The sun was already past the center of the sky, so she'd been out there for hours—except that wasn't possible. She'd only just set up her station.

Yet her quiver was half-empty.

She grabbed the magnifiers to scan the valley. Her breathing stopped.

Nock. Aim. Release.

Nock. Aim. Release.

Nock. Aim. Release.

"Aesylt, it's past dusk. We need to get back, find shelter." One of the boys. She wasn't sure which.

Nock. Aim. Release.

Nock. Aim. Release.

"Aessy, we have more than enough for now. We can come back tomorrow. We have all season."

Nock. Aim. Release.

Nock. Aim. Release.

Nock. Aim. She fell to her knees and tried to stand, but the ground wobbled.

Arms folded around her from behind. She screamed, but then hands were peeling away the bow. Both boys held her as she thrashed and sobbed, and they were crying right along with her. Though her face was buried in Nik's shoulder, she saw a pile of carcasses as tall as Val. Deer, elk-kind, air fowl. So many. They'd taken down so many. How, how had...

No, not they. She.

"You've done enough," Nik whispered.

Aesylt woke with her face on the wet ground. She sputtered through the melting snow and sat up, finding it was dark. Her quiver was empty.

And she wasn't alone.

Down in the valley, four or five dressing boys were working to pile the results of her hunt. She reached for the magnifier, but boots drew her gaze upward, where she found Lord Dereham peering down at her in distress.

"I found her!" he cried, lowering to a crouch. The world upended as she left the ground. She saw Pieter collecting her bow and empty quiver. Another man rolled her instruments up and took them away. "Aesylt, what happened? Why didn't you signal us?"

She shook her head because she didn't know. A powerful swell of nausea rolled up from within, and she closed her mouth tight to fend it off. Light from a torch swung across her vision.

"We have a count, sir." Why did the man sound so concerned? "Three bucks, two hares, six grouse, and..." He hesitated. "We found a sizable boar with a spear through him."

"That cannot be right," Rustan said. He shifted Aesylt in his arms. "Twelve kills? She was out here alone?"

"All day and evening," said someone else. "Nearest post was Baron Silver, a half mile to the east."

"It's not possible." Pieter. "That's double what anyone else brought in. And a boar? Really? Count again."

"Aesylt!" Rahn's voice cut through the confusion. She heard thrashing in the bushes, desperate crunches of boots in slush. "Is she... Lord Dereham, what happened?"

"Too soon to say." Rustan sighed through his teeth. "Can you stand, cub?"

Aesylt nodded and he set her down, but Rahn was straightaway at her side, one arm around her waist. Her head rolled back, her eyes fluttering as she met his troubled gaze. "Told you I could hunt, Scholar."

Rahn's face was frozen in worry. "I never should have let you go off by yourself." He steadied her tighter against him. "We need to get her back. Now. She's freezing."

"I'm fine," she murmured, and her eyes rolled closed.

She watched her friends tell the gathered crowd where to find the meat. There was no joy in the village square, but there was hope. They wouldn't starve. Whatever was left of them anyway. Vaguely, she realized their losses would actually mean more food to go around.

Bonfires raged with the fuel of over a thousand bodies. Someone had counted, but she couldn't remember who. Her father and brother were in there somewhere, their bodies at least. Their heads were on pikes greeting visitors to the Cross. She needed to get them down. There was so much to do.

Drazhan had left the wulf's heart on the steps of Fanghelm, but no one knew where he'd gone. Aesylt only knew he wasn't dead, because she could still feel him. If she had the energy, she could even find him, using the private, secret channel in their minds they'd discovered when she had still been in nursery.

Fezzan Castel came to where she was huddled on the steps of a tavern. He sat beside her and, for a long time, said nothing.

"I had my men take down your father and Hraz, cub. They've been secreted away somewhere safe, until we can honor them." He waited for her to say something, but there was nothing to say. It was just another task completed and a million more to go. "We've replaced them with the men you killed. Any still foolish enough to linger will carry that message back to the king."

"The two I killed are nowhere near what they've taken from us," Aesylt stated, shivering.

"Two?" Fezzan cocked his head. "Aesylt, you killed ten of the king's men today."

"What?" Those were the words that finally made her look up. "No. That was someone else."

"It's all right, cub. Val and Nik told me everything. You're a hero to our people. Who knows how many others would have died if you hadn't?—"

"They're wrong." Aesylt shook.

He steadied a hand on her shoulder. "You really don't remember?"

"I said it wasn't me, Fezzan!" Her entire body convulsed, but it abruptly stopped when a woman's arms gathered her from behind with a gentle shushing sound. Asa Castel, Fezzan's wife. She was Aesylt's late mother's cousin, who had always felt more like her teta, just as Fezzan was like an onkel.

Aesylt relaxed some. The haze of fires blurred into a line of orange and smoke.

Fezzan nodded to himself, squinting at the row of fires. His voice broke. "The wife and I will take you with us tonight. Maybe for a longer spell even. Get you cleaned up. Hopefully some rest. It will be all right, cub. I promise it will be all right."

Rahn saton one side of the bed, Imryll the other. Aesylt hadn't regained consciousness since the forest. They'd taken her straight to Imryll's bedchamber, upon Rahn's insistence. He couldn't know if Aesylt was injured until Imryll laid hands on her, and Rahn wasn't letting the Dereham healer anywhere near Aesylt with her so unstable.

Physically, she was fine. Just some blisters on her hands and a thin scratch where her face had been resting against the ground. They'd had to wash blood off of her, but none of it had been hers.

Rahn had wanted her to ride back with him, where he could keep a close eye on whatever was happening to her, but Lord Dereham had insisted they clear out one of the wagons and use the pelts to keep her comfortable. The man's face was pallid when he'd said, You don't seem nearly as surprised as the rest of us, Scholar.

He'd been stunned, actually, but even in his shock, his first thought had been how he was going to protect her.

Still, he'd ridden close to the wagon, and it was a good thing, because if anyone else had been staring into the back at the young cub lying in a pile of furs, they might have noticed her blinking in and out of existence.

"Rustan is going to want answers, Rahn." Imryll stroked Aesylt's brow with the back of her hand, sighing. "Truthfully, I do too."

"If I had answers..." Rahn squeezed one of Aesylt's hands in both of his. He didn't need to note Imryll's soft disapproval. "I'm so worried about her, Imryll."

"That much is quite clear."

Rahn closed his eyes and turned his face toward the warm hearth. "She's been dreaming recently... I hear her call for Ezra and Hraz. She sounds so small and afraid, so unlike herself." He pursed his mouth. "But she won't talk about it with me. Maybe you'll find more luck than I have."

"Even with me, there are things she can't bring herself to say," Imryll said softly, still passing her hand along her sister-in-law's brow. "If Drazhan had only let her talk of that night when they were younger... if he hadn't fled just as the village was rebuilding and families were moving on. He cannot see that, for all her strength, she is using thin gauze to heal decaying wounds. As long as she had purpose, she could keep moving. But when he came back after years away and her purpose disappeared, even the gauze was no longer effective."

"You can't force someone to address their trauma."

"I suppose you would know." She smiled thinly. "But she's different with you, since you came to the Cross. She has purpose again. Even when we're all so worried about matters back home, she's come alive. So why is this resurfacing for her now? Is it the situation with Val?"

Aesylt disappeared again. Imryll made a frustrated sound.

Rahn stared at the empty spot, the shape of Aesylt still embossed in the dent of the pillows, the wrinkles of the sheets. "I suppose that in order to peel back the curtains wide enough to allow yourself to experience the light, you risk letting the dark in too."

Imryll frowned, considering his words. "Tell me again what happened when you found her."

"I was... several paces behind Lord Dereham when he spotted her, and by the time I got there, he already had her in his arms, where she was shaking and... speaking nonsense, fragments of words or thoughts." Rahn shook his head at the empty bed. "She said something about bonfires, soldiers. She'd wake up long enough to be confused about all of it and then slip away again. Thank the gods she didn't starwalk when all those men were watching." He'd had no choice but to let Imryll in on Aesylt's secret after the first time she'd disappeared right in front of them. "But, Imryll, it was the stack of carcasses." Rahn breathed deep to recall just the facts, not the way they'd made him feel. "She insisted it wasn't her who had done it, but the animals were already in a neat pile in the valley when the dressing boys found her. They looked sincerely scared when they told Lord Dereham about it. About the boar, her spear still stuck in his throat. Now the birds, of course, those are easy to move. Even the deer, perhaps, if you balance your weight properly. But the rest? There's a reason they put those boys in pairs when they go out to retrieve the carcasses. For some game, they even send three."

"So it's impossible."

"I know."

"But you're not proposing a more reasonable explanation either. So what are you suggesting, that she has beyond-human strength?"

"Do you remember what I taught you about how people are capable of impossible feats in certain heightened scenarios? How something within us kicks in to protect us or others. It's how mothers can lift fallen carts off their injured children when under ordinary circumstances, they could barely tilt it. We don't have a name for it yet, but there are instances of this happening everywhere, all throughout history. No one yet knows why, but we will one day."

Imryll squinted, then nodded. "What I remember is that the other students didn't believe you."

He almost grinned. "Few appreciated my lessons as you did."

"But Aesylt wasn't in danger out there, was she?"

"You should have seen the size of Dereham's guard." Rahn startled when Aesylt reappeared. He again took her hand, tighter this time, as though it would do anything to keep her from leaving. "But there's more than one way to be in peril."

"Don't I know it," she muttered, standing. With a stretch, she glanced out the window, where the thaw had ended as quickly as it had begun. Fresh snow had already carpeted the ground in the few short hours they'd been back. "We had a scout from Eastport today. Tasmin sent a letter to Teleria that she may extend her visit in Whitechurch."

"Why?" Rahn shook his head.

"She didn't say. But it worries me. Marius is a skilled manipulator. He handled me like a marionette, and I fear..." She sighed. "Tasmin is wise though. I have to trust she knows what she's doing. Anyway, whatever my fears about her situation thousands of miles away, we have a bigger problem closer to home."

"Which is?"

"No one has seen Marek since they reported him having disappeared."

"Even if he did come here..." He gestured around with his hand. "He'd get no more than a step before he was cut down. You've seen the amount of guards Dereham has."

"If he came in sword swinging, yes." Imryll turned toward him. "But you don't know the reason the Barynovs felt so comfortable tossing around the word koldyna."

"Weak men only know how to engage in weak reasoning."

She laughed. "It's because they have a koldyna in their own employ." She ground out the last word. "And before you ask why Drazhan has done nothing about it, he's tried. They deny it. We can't prove it, and if we can't prove it, we cannot make a public accusation without subjecting ourselves to the same laws he's trying to hold them to now. But we know it's true."

Rahn warmed Aesylt's hand between his. Every time she'd returned from starwalking that evening, her hands were like ice. "And what could a koldyna do... that a sword could not?" He asked slowly, uncertain if he wanted the answer.

"Koldynas don't respect any rule of law. They answer to the demon realm. We cannot know what their limits are. We don't even know what they are, other than they come from some remote hovel in the Seven Sisters. Presumably." Imryll crossed her arms with a look down at the bed. "She'll stay with me tonight. Tomorrow, we'll talk more."

Rahn braced even before saying the words. "I'm not leaving her side until whatever this is passes."

Imryll closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and laughed. "You're not even trying to hide it anymore, Adrahn. I hope for both your sakes you know what you're doing. You think because we're not in the Cross, word won't reach my husband? That the walls here talk any less than the walls of Fanghelm?"

"If you want me to deny that I care about her, I won't. But you're making more of it than there is, Imryll, and I would expect more nuance from you, given how many nontraditional friendships with men you've had in your own life," Rahn said, watching her eyes widen with each word. He sighed, easing off on the unintended chastisement. She'd asked him a question, and she had her answer. He stood. "Drazhan looked me in the eye and made me promise I would keep his sister safe. Aesylt wanted to hunt alone today, and I should have pushed harder to stay together. I could have... I might have prevented this—whatever this is. When she wakes, I need to be here, not a thousand yards away in a tower. If she needs me, and I'm not here... Well, it can't happen."

"If she needs you, and you're not... Rahn, I mean this as your friend, but are you listening to yourself? The words you choose when you speak of her?"

He scoffed in indignance. "I choose to speak of her as someone who respects her and who has promised not to let her down."

"Unlike her brother, you mean?" Imryll's eyes clouded.

Rahn's fingers tightened at his sides. "Aesylt's relationship with her brother is hers to define. I can only speak to the man I aim to be."

"One who talks in circles and says nothing of use," she said, disgust curling the edges of her mouth. "Unless it's about your treasured research."

"Our treasured research, Imryll. This was your passion. I'm just here to help."

She snorted and pivoted, glancing at him sideways. "For a man embroiled in a lifelong love affair with truth and facts, it astounds me how easily you can avoid your own when its inconvenient."

It wasn't inconvenient. It was inefficient. Long ago, he'd learned to store such inefficient feelings where they couldn't destabilize the parts of his life that gave him purpose. Some people found comfort in processing their emotions, but that was not his experience. He stubbornly pointed at a chaise on the other side of the room. "I'll sleep there."

"So it's not enough to have chins wagging about you and Aes. Now you want them to talk about us too?" She lifted her shoulders in exhausted defeat. "Fine. Stay. We'll just tell the truth, say you were worried about her. No one needs to know you're in love with her."

Rahn threw up his hands, heat flooding his neck. "I'm not in love with her, Imryll, for gods' sake!"

Her eyes narrowed. "But in return, you promise me you'll leave me out of whatever is going on between the two of you. Because I would lie for you, and I would lie for Aesylt, but I will not lie to my husband. Ever." She reached for a quilt lying on the back of a tall chair and tossed it at him. "You're both adults. You don't need me to remind you of the consequences. Just don't look surprised when the fates come to collect their due."