by Kim Wedlock
The flurries loosed from the black veil were the most sinister yet.
Grass, soil, roots and roads were lost beneath a deepening white cloak. The landscape became tidy with a beautiful treachery. Straying was invited, leaping encouraged, and ankles were broken for the pleasure, while small villages, isolated homes and the downcast were thrown to the cold where hunger and hypothermia reined.
Cattle was sparse. Many fields were empty. What crops that could be harvested early had already been collected, while the rest had been left to freeze. Hunters wrapped themselves thickly and tracked the larger beasts, but the snow was quick to fill in their steps. Their findings were thin, and what they did manage to catch was leaner than the market demanded. Fishermen, too, were having less luck, but those willing to brave the ice lakes for the warmer core of the water brought in a better catch, and much of it was smoked and dried for harder days with enough held back to feed their own families.
The wilds appeared hopeless. Despite the unnatural regrowth of pockets of riven woodland, landscapes knitting themselves back together over equally unnatural scars, they appeared still, quiet and empty. Occasionally a bird might sing and shatter the void, or snow might slip from an overburdened branch, but the disembodied sounds only heightened the eeriness. All appeared not dead, but vanished, as though life had never graced it, as though the trees had no memory of squirrels' dreys nor the soil of rabbits' warrens, and neither could they imagine them. There was no sense of expectation, no preparation for anything. The forests had lost their purpose, and the life of the trees themselves seemed to have taken full precedence.
A fine snow, soft and gentle, drifted like fog between the silent yet virile trees and cast a pale, melancholy haze that greyed their black trunks. All colour seemed to have been frozen out of the world until the stark, orange coat of a fox broke the monotony, stalking effortlessly through the snow and revealing by its own presence the existence of lesser creatures.
But no one noticed it.
The world and all its struggles continued to pass by without consequence.
Four days vanished in their stupor. There was nothing to recollect; they rode along, blind and deaf, lost in a maelstrom of thoughts they tried desperately to escape whenever they noticed their entrapment, only to be dragged right back in. Strength to fight it on that fifth morning was thin.
An involuntary squeak drew Rathen's arm about Aria, but his dark, aimless eyes didn't retreat from their thousand mile stare.
Anthis watched him quietly. It wasn't difficult to guess at what was going on behind them. The doubts he'd had about his own abilities, the struggles he'd endured just by using his magic, the increasing peril, Aria's safety - he'd probably been toying with the idea of abandoning the matter already. But now that...now that that peril had come to a head, because he was the soldier among them, the experienced leader, he took it too personally. As though it was all a result of his own failing. He was probably only continuing to ride with them because he was still in shock.
His eyes brushed over Eyila as he looked around behind him. She had drifted into a familiar silence, but where before her grief for her people had stunned her into a perpetual trance, now she wore a sharper edge and a grim-set line to her lips. There were streaks of tears upon her face, but her expression showed not a trace of sorrow.
He shrank away, though her gaze, too, was lost, and looked towards Garon instead. He rode at the rear, as absent in his saddle as though he wasn't even there, and his eyes were beyond empty. Where the others had said little, his silence was the most profound, speaking only when it was necessary and with as few words as possible. The loss had affected him most of all, and no one had seen him sleep for days. His thoughts, Anthis couldn't guess at. Or he simply didn't wish to try.
Answering his rising discomfort, he returned his attention to their heading, drew the map from his saddle and noted the altered landmarks. For his own part, his shock had quickly given way to perplexity, but where Garon and Rathen alike had retreated from the role of leadership, he had seen little choice but to step up in their place. They couldn't let Salus get ahead of them, otherwise Petra's death would have been for nothing at all.
They hadn't discussed what they'd learned from the encounter; any observations made were still swilling around at the back of their thoughts, but if nothing else, they now knew for certain that both Salus and his people were more than happy to kill to complete their task. And, Anthis deduced, if they were all to just give up and call it quits, let him win and suffer the consequences, Salus probably wouldn't believe it.
But even as he picked their course and reasoned their destination with no small degree of doubt and second-guessing, the nausea that had set in a week ago with the recovery of the locket had begun to boil. He knew, though he couldn't bare to look at it, that he would be hounded by her father's murder for the rest of his life. He had no chance at all of making suitable recompense to the one person he knew it had hurt. He only killed those who deserved judgement, wherever he could help it, and had comforted himself in the knowledge that the world was better off without them. But, for the first time, he'd seen the damage one such judgement had caused. And that, he would never be able to hide from.
His blood froze in fright when a voice spoke up, melodic, if glacial, shattering the mournful stillness. The first needless words any had spoken in four torturously numb days.
And he wished she hadn't, for the question only stoked his guilt.
"He didn't," Anthis replied quietly while the others remained in the grasp of their thoughts. "She wasn't his target. He wanted to kill--"
"He wanted to kill Anthis."
Rathen didn't look around despite the intensity of the confusion in Eyila's eyes, while Anthis dropped his gaze remorsefully back to the map. The mage's voice was strangely hollow, rough with neglected use, and distant and disconnected, as though he was unaware of the movement of his own lips. "Salus was about to call the retreat. It was his only option. So they had to do the most damage in the smallest amount of time. A single, crippling blow..."
Her hard eyes sharpened. "Then why didn't he go for you?"
He chuckled bitterly. It was a low, rattling laugh filled with nothing but loathe and contempt, not all of which was for their enemy. "Because," his knuckles turned white around the reins, "I'm off-limits. Salus evidently wants me for himself. Next to me, Anthis was the biggest threat."
"But Garon was restraining--"
"He could have gotten himself out of that easily enough. And Petra was too far away to be a problem. But you were casting the binding. Their escape would have been harder if you'd managed."
"Then I was the--"
"But Salus thinks Anthis is our source of information," he continued, unaware she was speaking at all. "Without him, he thinks our plans will fall apart. We wouldn't be a threat to him. So if only one person could die, it should be him. And our attack would fail in the distraction. As it did."
Eyila abruptly spurred her horse forwards and drew in beside him, piercing him with her pale blue eyes, as frigid as the snow. Rathen didn't flinch. His own were still fixed miles away. It only envenomed her stare. "Why didn't you change?"
The plod of the horses' hooves sharpened as the covered ground turned momentarily from soil to stone. A sheet of rock, or an ancient flooring swallowed by time. Anthis found he had no interest at all in discovering which. Instead, he worked out the response Rathen refused to offer.
The need for a cool head had forbidden transformation during the chase, and by the time he'd understood what had happened, grief had already paralysed him. He guessed that was also how he'd worked out how and why it had happened at all. He'd had more than enough time to think on it.
But though Anthis had thought the matter over just as extensively, why she had dove in front of him to take the strike herself continued to elude him.
Eyila's impatient, accusing stare seared into him like frostfire. "Where did he come from, Rathen? You should have sensed him. Why di
dn't you sense him?!"
"I don't know!"
Aria squeaked in fright, but Eyila didn't flinch as he snapped around at last, turning his own ferociously grievous eyes upon her.
"He got out of the trap, somehow! Is that supposed to be my fault?!"
Anthis quickly drove his horse forwards and between them, and both of their black stares transferred condemningly onto him. He didn't let himself waver. The fault he held against himself was greater than all of theirs combined. "The snow has covered our tracks, but there's no doubt we're still being followed. We wouldn't be forgotten just like that. And we can't abandon our senses. If we let ourselves get caught because of this, Petra will have died for nothing. Giving up isn't an option. We owe it to her - it's not just Turunda we're doing this for anymore."
He held his breath and steeled himself as their glares smouldered for a long, awful moment, and sighed with relief when they finally snapped away and drew their horses out to their own distance. He may not have been a natural leader, but he had, at least, defused this incident.
They rode on in silence as he consulted his map again.
Even as dusk fell, no one had spoken since.
Anthis called a stop for camp, their horses weary, riders drawn, and, as had become routine, they ate without conversation. But none were interested in food; most plates were picked at and left alone, and Anthis's was little different. But he made certain that Aria finished hers.
As usual, Eyila fled almost immediately. He'd followed her a couple of times, and she always sat within a tree or upon a rock or overhang in search of meditation, and always with a blanket by her side. But she never seemed to find peace. She fidgeted, muttered, cursed and cried; while she'd found her people on the Wind, it offered no solace for her newest grief and did nothing to quell the deep and personal anger that had come with it. The loss of her village had sent her into shock, but there had been nothing she could have done for them. Petra, however, had died in front of her. No doubt she'd been over the event a hundred times trying to pick out what she could have changed, what she could have done differently, how she could have saved her. But if anything had presented itself...well, it probably only made her feel worse.
He shook his had sadly and slunk away, leaving her to her present spot in the boughs of an enormous elm.
Rathen and Garon were still sitting against the trees and sprawling roots nearest their modest fire, lost in their thoughts. Anthis left them alone and returned to his own distant spot to pore over the ditchlings' charcoal map, until small footsteps and the drop of a shadow drew his attention back to the camp.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm getting by." It took effort to smile up at Aria as he set the map aside. Her eyes were still red. "How are you?"
She needn't have answered. His heavy heart dropped even further as he watched her little lips, which tried and failed to find a smile, tremble and clamp together, tears spring into her eyes and her hands wring anxiously around her doll.
He moved to embrace her, until his own shame stopped him short. But she had already leapt upon the opportunity and surged into his arms, grasping him tightly and shaking as she cried into his chest. His defeated spirit settled itself deeper as his arms wrapped about her.
The sound of her sobs stirred Rathen from his distant stare, but he didn't come to her side. He seemed to drift back into thought as he watched them. Anthis wasn't sure if he'd imagined the accusation in his eyes. The mage was expressionless, but what else could he be thinking while he was looking at him? It had been his life that Petra had died for, and...why?
His shame rose and his hold turned rigid. Aria wriggled out of it and looked at him sadly. Her big, glistening eyes broke his heart all over again.
"I put Petra in my diary," she said timidly. "People need to know about her. But...I don't think I wrote it very well..."
"I am certain you did her justice. She would be honoured."
She nodded, but doubtfully. Even the bounce of her curls seemed unconvinced. Then her voice became strangely guarded. "The elves were clever, weren't they? They made all these things with magic in them. Things even Daddy can't do."
His smile was meant to be reassuring, but he wasn't sure he'd even managed to turn his lips in the right direction. "He'll manage the spell."
"I know. I didn't...mean..." Her eyes dropped briefly to her thickly gloved hands, then back to him. There was a dreadful hope in them, and one he knew with a horrible lurch in his gut that he was about to crush.
He sighed with soft resentment and pulled her in again. "I'm sorry, Aria, no. Not even the elves could do such a thing."
She nodded, but didn't cry again. She was terribly bright. She'd already known it was a desperate hope. But she stayed in his arms for a while longer, and Anthis held her close for his own undeserved comfort.
When they parted again, she sat herself on the edge of the log beside him and peered down at the map, dragging herself into an imperfect composure yet one still unsuited to a child. "Where are we going?"
"Whitemouth. But we're taking a detour to shake off anyone that might be following us. We'll head north a little more," he trailed his fingertip across the map, "then cut west into The Ghost Patch before following the river down to the coast."
"Is it working?"
He sighed unfavourably. "I hope so."
In time, everyone retired to their tents, but sleep eluded them all. A soft shuffling in the snow half an hour later told him that Garon had given up on the pretence and stepped outside to freeze out his thoughts instead, but the rest fought their nocturnal battles in silence.
Another quarter hour passed before Anthis followed Garon's lead to escape the internal assault.
The inquisitor stood like a spectre at the edge of the camp, still, dark and silent. But his usually straight and proud shoulders were rounded, and the slight cock of his head revealed the depth of his absorption. He didn't turn, deaf to the world, and Anthis stepped quietly to keep it that way.
Once out of the reach of the tents and any danger of intrusion, he steered his thoughts stiffly forwards and slumped almost immediately into a trudging walk, plagued by another kind of helplessness.
A ruin, at the bottom of the sea.
It was there, according to Salus's elf, but none among the historical society nor even amateurs had ever suggested the possibility. And even if he knew that it was there, getting to it was a whole other matter. He'd discovered ruins in the past, of course, including one or two of note, but the worst of them had been in swamps or snow. Not miles off of the coast, drowned and flooded for hundreds upon hundreds of years.
...But...what it could hold if it existed...it had the potential to harbour secrets, brand new insight into the lives of pre- or short post-magic elves. It could be the opportunity to make a discovery that would really rattle his peers' cages. They disliked him as it was, but for petty reasons; his youthful passion for the elves had propelled him into the profession, and his constant presence in isolated or overgrown ruins rather than libraries and discussion groups had given him more opportunity for discovery than they'd given themselves.
That impotent jealousy was precisely why they launched savage attacks onto almost every claim he made, and while he'd proven most of his cases, his suggestion towards the origin of elf, human and the rest had been perhaps just too much to swallow. And with so little proof, he'd offered it to them on a golden platter. He doubted if even the upturned rocks beyond Ramstead could change it. Nor even if the gods themselves slapped them in the face.
The gods...who just so happened to be a part of the greatest and perhaps most insulting discovery he or anyone else could ever make. A discovery he had no choice but to keep to himself, or risk both his career and perhaps even his life.
A discovery that made him feel sick in the darkest depths of his consciousness.
He turned away from the shake in his bones. None of that mattered. Not any more. In fact, the moment he'd spent entertaining it filled him with a kee
ning shame.
As a tenebrous shadow of blame and grief thickened, he turned away from that, too, and pinned his focus back onto the task at hand. Discovering new ruins and their secrets was of no consequence if their task failed. They had a job to do, and he had to keep everyone focused on it. Himself included. Otherwise...all this...it couldn't be for nothing.
He would find it, and they had the means to reach it. Rathen seemed to be getting a handle on whatever was aggravating his magic, and 'punching a hole in Salus's plans' had opened back up into a theoretical possibility. How Rathen planned to do it, he hadn't a clue, but Anthis's job was to get them there. That was all that mattered.
He walked on resolutely and forced a straight line into his shoulders, until a flicker of movement stole away his attention. He fell stone-still and stared through the trees to his right.
It was impossible for anything to hide in the snow even in the dark, and yet there was nothing at all to be seen. Or his eyes were flicking around too fast to spot it. He reined himself in with a careful breath and steadied his racing nerves.
He saw it in an instant.
A kvistdjur, but taller and more slender than those of the Wildlands, as though formed of the roots and twigs of another kind of tree. Her woven wolf-skull head bore branchlike horns that pointed upwards rather than reached out, and she watched him from around an equally narrow trunk, her firefly eyes blazing and unreadable. They gave no hint at all to the strike waiting behind him.
After a white, blinding flash erupted behind his eyes, all went black.
The next thing he knew was a thick pressure wrapped around his head and the dreadful sensation of hanging upside down. It took some time before he had the thought to open his eyes, and when he did so he found the world sideways and steadily throbbing. Slowly, he realised it was his own pulse.
It took longer still to push himself up on muscles that were painfully slow and heavy to respond, and decided, after a moment to gather his thoughts, that it was still night.
