Ottilie Colter and the Withering World

by Rhiannon Williams

  Ramona lengthened her strides. ‘In the beginning, he didn’t have a proper position with the Hunt. The king was always too cowardly to come anywhere near the dredretches. So he sent Wolt, his young cousin, in his place. He used the name Captain Lyre so that people wouldn’t alter their behaviour. Only the three conductors and his close friends know the truth.

  ‘He and I became very close, and his stays at the palace grew longer and longer. The king noticed and, when Wolt discovered that the rule of innocence was a lie, the king threatened my life to force him to keep the secret.’

  ‘But what’s this got to do with anything?’ said Preddy.

  ‘Wolt had other reasons for extending his stays,’ Ramona continued, as if there had been no interruption. ‘The king’s second daughter was born, and Wolt confided in me about his fears for the girl. I offered to watch over her, pretending she was showing an extraordinary interest in horses even as a toddler.

  ‘The king accepted it. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her. When she was in his presence, he was so increasingly hostile that we knew he would do something to remove her before long. She was barely three years old. We decided the only way to protect the young princess was to stage an accident. I pretended she’d been caught under the hooves of a panicked horse and took the blame.’ She gestured to her eyepatch.

  ‘Wolt whisked her as far away as he could. He was due back in the west anyway, so he took her to an orphanage in Wikric Town along the way. We planned to keep her there until she was old enough to go where the king would never dare to tread – the Narroway.

  ‘It didn’t go as planned – she ran away from the orphanage,’ said Ramona. ‘But Wolt tracked her down in the slum tunnels eventually, and offered her a job as a sculkie.’

  Ottilie’s head spun and she nearly tripped over her own feet. She knew the rest of the story! She had never known it was Captain Lyre who offered the job, but she did know a sculkie who had run away from a children’s home and lived in the Wikric slum tunnels.

  ‘After that,’ said Ramona, ‘Wolt took a position as a permanent director at the fort that hired her, so he could watch over her. I don’t think it was pure luck that the king sent me here too. I think he wanted me here as a reminder to behave. But that worked out perfectly for us, because I could look out for her too. I offered her riding lessons and watched her grow up …’

  ‘Skip,’ said Ottilie.

  ‘Skip?’ said Preddy.

  Ramona nodded. ‘Isla Sol.’

  37

  Pay For What You’ve Done

  Skip was the king’s daughter. It was dizzying and mystifying and a little bit sickening. What would Skip think? That horrible man was her father. He thought she was dead – wanted her dead. She wasn’t an orphan from the slum tunnels. She was an outcast, a princess in hiding, even from herself.

  Ottilie shook her head, trying to clear it. They were going to save Scoot. It was all that mattered right now. All she could focus on.

  They burst into the infirmary to find the partitions pulled back. Skip and Leo were there, sparkling clean and covered in bandages. Gully and Ned were not. They must have been sent back to their bedchambers.

  There was a strange air in the room. Something was wrong. The patchies were hovering back. The other beds were empty. Skip had tears running down her face. Ottilie’s chest tightened as she hurried across the room. She tipped her head, terrified of what she might see.

  The patch over Scoot’s heart was white.

  ‘No,’ said Preddy.

  Ottilie would not, could not, accept it. It didn’t feel real. It wasn’t real. There could still be time. A scrap of him might remain. She shoved the jar of water into Skip’s hand. ‘Pour it,’ she said. It was all she could manage.

  ‘What? Why?’ Tears dripped off Skip’s chin.

  ‘Please, Isla, just pour it over him,’ said Preddy.

  Skip’s hand shook as she tipped the water over the perfect white statue.

  Ottilie held her breath. The water scattered into rivulets, streaming off the stone and soaking the sheet. She watched it seep, waiting for magic. But it already felt wrong, like jumping off the ground and hoping to fly. It was too ordinary. Just water on fabric. A spilled drink. Washing left out in the rain.

  It hadn’t worked.

  It was their last chance and it hadn’t worked. Maybe they were too late, or maybe she had been wrong about the healing spring. Maybe the good deed had been done too long ago, or maybe they’d gone to the wrong spot. Maybe the water was just water.

  Ottilie’s legs buckled and she found herself on the ground, leaning against the bed. Preddy slid down beside her, sheet-white and shaking.

  ‘Get up,’ said Leo.

  ‘Shut up, Leo,’ Ottilie snapped.

  ‘No. Ott, get up!’

  There was something in the tone of his voice – something that made her jump to her feet. Ottilie looked at Scoot and coughed out a strange sort of squeak.

  It was like ice melting.

  It thawed from his heart outwards, creeping and seeping until he was him again, wearing the same clothing he’d had on all those months ago, still bloodstained and battle-worn, still torn from claws and teeth.

  No-one wanted to touch him. They all stepped back.

  Scoot took a huge, gasping breath.

  Feeling dazed, Ottilie tried to grab onto Preddy, but he crossed behind her, over to Skip, and kissed the very top of her head.

  Leo made an amused grunt and Ottilie laughed shakily, completely overwhelmed with joy.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ said a croaky voice.

  Ottilie whipped around. Scoot’s eyes were open and he’d propped himself up on his elbows. She flew to his side, settling a hair’s breadth away, still scared to touch him.

  His eyes roved over her matted hair, mud-spattered clothes and innumerable scrapes and bruises. His gaze flicked from Leo’s bandages to Ramona’s smile and finally settled on Preddy, who was scarlet in the face as he stepped awkwardly away from Skip.

  Scoot cracked a sleepy smile and said, ‘What have I missed?’

  No-one said a word. Ottilie didn’t even know where to begin.

  Finally, Skip broke the silence. ‘I’m really sorry, Scoot,’ she said. ‘Very glad you’re not a statue anymore. But before we get into that, can someone please explain what I just did?’

  The room was quiet. Skip held out the jar and jiggled it. ‘What was that stuff?’

  A single precious drop fell to the floor. They all watched it land, unable to explain.

  Ottilie looked back up at Skip, and her breath caught. She knew now why Seika Sol had looked so familiar. The youngest of the twelve witches in that circle looked just like Skip. How had she not put it together before? Varrio, too – there had been something familiar about his eyes, the only gentle feature of his wolfish face. Skip’s father’s face.

  ‘I’m magic, right?’ said Skip. ‘I’m a witch? How did you all know before me? Where’s Maeve? I have questions.’

  Ramona stepped forward. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  Still holding the empty jar, Skip glanced between Ottilie and Preddy with suspicion, and finally followed Ramona out the door. Leo made to go with them, but Ottilie yanked him back.

  ‘I want to know,’ he protested.

  Ottilie waited for them to leave before saying, ‘Skip’s the king’s daughter. Ramona and Captain Lyre faked her death.’

  ‘And Captain Lyre is actually Wolter Sol, the king’s cousin,’ added Preddy in a whisper.

  ‘And that water was from where Seika Sol led the fendevil over the Dawn Cliffs nine hundred years ago,’ said Ottilie. ‘It’s got healing magic.’

  Leo looked as though his head was about to explode. ‘Skip is Isla Sol? The princess who got trampled by a horse?’

  ‘Only she didn’t,’ said Preddy.

  ‘She’s the heir to the throne,’ said Ottilie.

  Leo was shaking his head. ‘She’s not. It goes to the closest male relative. There
’s never been an Usklerian queen.’

  ‘Try telling Skip that,’ said Preddy with a smile.

  ‘Scuse me,’ said Scoot.

  They all turned to him.

  ‘Umm …’ He waved his arms. ‘What?’

  They told him everything as best they could – everything that had happened since the battle at Richter – and when they were done, silence fell again.

  Scoot took a deep breath. ‘Can everyone stop staring at me with watery eyes!’

  Leo snorted, but Preddy and Ottilie kept staring.

  ‘I think I need some air,’ said Scoot.

  They helped him from his bed. He was stiff, he said, but otherwise fine. ‘Just feels like I overslept. Or under-slept. I dunno. Those things always feel the same.’

  His knees and ankles kept giving way, so Ottilie and Preddy, so different in height, became lopsided crutches for him. ‘That’s better,’ he said, as they stepped out into the lavender field. ‘I hate that place.’

  Skip and Ramona must have spread the word about Scoot’s recovery, because Ned and Gully came hurrying over, followed soon after by Alba and Montie. Even Maeve, who had never got on well with Scoot, joined them in owl form – landing on Gully’s shoulder, to his utter delight.

  They wandered the fields, warmed by laughter and sunshine. But in a beat, everything changed.

  Scoot stiffened.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Ottilie’s words came out slurred. She looked around, her vision fogging.

  Montie swayed. Preddy grabbed her arm to steady her. Alba fell to her knees and Scoot tripped down beside her. Leo lunged, but he was too late to catch him. Alba flopped over and her eyes slid shut.

  The world spun. Ottilie saw other people falling in the distance. Had they all been poisoned? But Scoot had just woken up. He hadn’t eaten anything. Neither had she, come to think of it.

  Preddy lowered Montie to the ground. Ottilie stumbled, and Ned caught her. She was on the edge of an abyss. Her body was shutting down as a blanket of darkness settled over the world.

  ‘She’s breathing.’ Leo sounded very far away.

  ‘It’s like they’re sleeping,’ said Gully.

  Ottilie blinked.

  ‘The rings,’ she heard Ned say. ‘The people wearing rings are falling asleep.’

  Ottilie forced her eyes open. She was on the ground. Beside her, she could vaguely make out Scoot struggling to stay upright.

  ‘Ottilie?’ It was Gully’s voice in her ear. ‘I’m going to take it off. You ready?’

  She tried to nod, but couldn’t manage it. Slowly Gully removed the ring from her thumb.

  The slumber whooshed out of her. She blinked and could see again. A vague sickness crept in. There were no dredretches near, but, without her ring, their massive presence in the Narroway was enough to weaken her. She could ward it off when they were at a distance. She was capable of at least that.

  Alba was near. Ottilie tried to shake her awake, but she wouldn’t budge. ‘Sorry, Alba,’ she muttered, and quickly slipped her ring off. But it was no good – she slept on.

  Preddy tried Montie’s, but the same thing happened. They wouldn’t wake.

  ‘Once it gets you, you can’t wake up!’ said Ottilie. ‘Quick, get Scoot’s!’

  Scoot’s eyelids were sliding open and slipping shut, over and over. He was fighting it hard. Leo got his ring off just in time, and Scoot sat up with a start. ‘Whoa!’ he said, clutching his head. ‘Twice in one day.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Gully stood up to look around.

  Maeve flew behind a lavender bush and then leapt out as herself, whipping off her ring and looking around nervously to see if anyone had noticed the transformation. But no-one was paying them any attention. Anyone who wasn’t on the ground was pacing frantically, or trying to wake the sleepers.

  ‘That’ll be all the fledges out,’ said Leo, looking back towards the main building.

  ‘And at least a third of the second tiers,’ said Gully.

  ‘And all the wranglers,’ said Ottilie, but even as she said it she realised … ‘And the king’s entire army!’

  ‘And every guard on the border to the Usklers,’ said Ned.

  A wave of panic rushed in. ‘Whistler’s followers will cut through them while they sleep,’ said Ottilie.

  ‘Maybe they’ll just pass through,’ said Gully. ‘To join Whistler.’

  But Ottilie knew better. Bill had said their plan was to attack the king’s army, not pass by them.

  ‘We have to stop her,’ said Ottilie, her stomach turning.

  ‘Ottilie!’ Bill came hurrying over, not bothering to hide. There was a little red bird clinging to one of his horns. Bill looked terrified beyond words. He fixed his eyes on Maeve. They must have been talking inside their heads. Maeve’s eyes stretched wide.

  ‘Look,’ she said, grabbing Ottilie’s hand and reaching for Bill’s.

  Ottilie felt someone take her other hand, but she wasn’t sure who, because she had swooped up into the air. Flying high above Richter, through skies of clearest blue, she had, quite literally, a bird’s eye view of the western border wall – the one that divided the Narroway from the Laklands.

  At first, she thought it was a row of pale grey flags. But as she circled lower she could see at least twenty bone singers along the parapets, their robes whipping in the wind, eyes glowing.

  Gracie Moravec was standing a little way back from the wall, astride the white wyler. Beyond, Ottilie got her first glimpse of the Laklands. It was green for a stretch, then brown, then a deadly wilting black as far as the eye could see. From that blackness, a mass of dredretches rolled like a wave, surging towards the Narroway – towards the gates that were wide open at the base of the border wall.

  38

  Deserters

  The bells called them to gather, but they couldn’t just leave Montie and Alba lying in the open. Leo and Preddy ran off to the Moon Court for explanation or instruction, while Ottilie, Gully, Ned and Scoot carried Alba and Montie into the infirmary.

  ‘How did she do it?’ Ottilie asked Scoot, as they lugged Alba through the double doors.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘If she could do this all along, why didn’t she make everyone sleep at Richter? It would have helped her win.’

  ‘She obviously couldn’t do it until now.’ Ottilie’s voice was strained – she’d barely had a moment to recover from the long flight, and everything that preceded it, and Alba was remarkably heavy for someone so small. ‘It must have had something to do with that pipe.’

  Scoot screwed up his face. ‘The pipe made of witch bones?’

  Ottilie nodded, still thinking. ‘We have to get to Whistler and find a way to force her to wake everyone up, now, before they get slaughtered in their sleep.’

  Bill was walking alongside them with his arms outstretched. At Ottilie’s words, he made a breathy muttering noise that sounded like, oh no.

  ‘But how are we going to get out there?’ Scoot nodded down at the ring they had put back on Alba’s thumb. ‘We can’t ward, Ottilie. Or can you now?’

  She swallowed and shook her head. She and Scoot had always been the worst at warding. ‘We’ll just have to try,’ she said as they heaved Alba onto the bed.

  Skip burst into the infirmary. ‘What’s happening?’

  Ottilie and Scoot whirled around.

  ‘Why aren’t you sleeping?’ said Scoot.

  Ottilie stared at the ring on Skip’s thumb.

  ‘It’s daytime,’ she said, approaching him slowly. She tipped her head towards Ottilie and whispered, ‘Did he come back a bit funny?’

  Ottilie managed a grunt of laughter. ‘All the people wearing rings are falling asleep,’ she explained, shaking out her arms. ‘Except you, apparently. Didn’t you see? Ramona wears one, doesn’t she?’

  Skip looked horrified, and then a little sheepish. ‘I don’t know where she is. I stormed off after she told me she staged a horse trampling when I was a toddler.’

 
; ‘Fair enough,’ said Scoot.

  ‘Blood,’ muttered Bill.

  Scoot looked disturbed. ‘Um, what, Bill?’

  Maeve answered. ‘Sorry. He got that from me.’

  ‘You’re having secret conversations in your head?’ said Scoot. ‘Creepy,’ he muttered.

  ‘What about blood?’ said Ottilie.

  ‘Whistler made everyone sleep,’ said Maeve. ‘Maybe she kept the people with Sol blood protected from the spell.’

  ‘Why?’ said Gully, removing the pillow from under Montie’s head – he had never considered them comfortable.

  ‘Maybe she couldn’t help it,’ said Ned. ‘Because she cast the spell, so her blood is protected?’

  Maeve nodded. ‘Could be.’

  But Ottilie had already thought of a darker reason. ‘Maybe she wanted to keep the king awake – I have a feeling she doesn’t want him to sleep through this.’ Whatever Whistler had been planning all this time, it was about to begin.

  The Hunt’s scouts reported that the dredretches were gathering in two distinct groups. One was headed to Arko and the other to Fiory. Ottilie knew there was already a horde heading to Richter from the Laklands.

  She didn’t know how much control Whistler and her bone singers would have over the Lakland dredretches, but, with Bill and Maeve’s help, she’d already seen them passing the border. They were moving across a coastal stretch that they usually avoided, led by those bound to the bone singers. It didn’t bode well.

  The huntsmen were preparing to defend the fort, but Ottilie had other plans. She and her friends gathered in the wingerslink sanctuary for their own meeting. Bill sat with his eyes closed, keeping in touch with the birds.

  ‘Once we find out where Whistler is,’ said Ottilie, ‘me and Leo and Maeve will go –’

  Skip kicked her heel into the barrel of eels beneath her. ‘Why you three?’ she demanded.

  ‘Yeah,’ added Scoot, from the floor by her feet.

  ‘Because we’re the ones who can fly,’ said Leo impatiently. ‘The rest of you won’t be able to get out without someone stopping you.’