by Ann Aguirre
I tug hard and envision the ribbon that connects to the bindings unraveling the book from the inside out, cover falling off, pages unbound, a broken vessel. Fierce resistance meets my efforts, a terrible game of tug-of-war, but I’ve weighted my side because the spell-wisp lands on a blank page and the words spread like spilled ink.
Give everything for love.
It’s not a spell, but my heart’s truth, and the shock of my devotion sends a magical ripple over the book, allowing me to dig in and unwind. Once the unspooling starts, the power bleeds in a spinning pinwheel. I can only absorb the shocks, even as I start to feel numb. How much of this can I withstand? Even the spirit realm grows dim, but I hang on, refusing to yield until the thrashing stops.
I tumble sideways as I pop out of spirit sight, and Njål catches me. He has no eyes for the grimoire, every iota of his attention locked on me. “Can you speak?”
Trembling, I hold up a hand and point, but my throat is too dry to ask, even in a croak. Fortunately, he follows my gesture to the carafe of water, and he fetches me a cup quickly, even bringing it to my mouth to let me drink. I take long, deep pulls, until my tongue no longer feels like a withered husk.
“I did it.”
After a stunned moment, Njål picks me up and whirls me around. “I’m starting to believe that you can set me free,” he says exultantly. “I never dared hope, before. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you, Amarrah.”
Thanks to the dream-walking, I do have some notion, but it’s unsettling to contemplate. I wrap my arms around his neck as he slides me down his body. My knees will barely hold me, but we’re almost there. I need to rest a few days before the final battle, but once I recover my strength, we’ll finish this.
For three days, I bide my time, eating well, doing the bare minimum in housekeeping and tending to the goats. I sleep a lot.
On the fourth day, I slip out of bed, crawling over Njål in the process; he spends his nights with me now instead of on watch in the east wing. Either he trusts me fully or he doesn’t think there’s any risk of the baron or baroness getting out. I wish I knew which it is.
It’s time. I will never be stronger or readier than this.
I fetch the heavy kettle I’ve been using for laundry and build a fire in it. Then I drop the grimoire into the flames, and the book screams as it catches, twisting and writhing as if I’m charring a live creature. The leather pops and sizzles, but it does burn. I tend the fire until ashes remain. Those I set aside in a ceramic crock.
To me, it seems reasonable that these ashes might weaken the baron and baroness. Certainly losing their anchors hurt them; even without checking the spirit realm, I sense their access to the tendril web has lessened. But I imagine throwing the ashes on them, watching them scream and writhe as if stung by a thousand wasps. I don’t know if anything will happen, of course, but at worst, I pelt them with proof that I diminished their power.
As I’m about to tackle the necklace, Njål steps into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing?”
I step back. “You can do the honors. The mallet is over there. Don’t hold back.”
He snags the meat mallet and strikes the fang with a blow so thunderous that it dents the worktable. The tooth explodes into shards and dust; I rake the debris into the kettle and drop the leather strap after it. That accomplished, I build another fire and leave Njål to tend it while I go milk Agatha.
It takes ages for bone to burn, and the kitchen smells horrendous. But eventually, I have a second container of ashes. There’s no way I’ll be able to eat until the smell fades, and my nerves won’t let me put the confrontation off for another day.
“It’s time for me to visit the east wing,” I say quietly. “Get the ritual dagger.”
“You already know, don’t you?”
I touch his cheek, stroking the strong ridge of his cheekbone. “You’re not that good at keeping secrets.”
“What’s your plan?”
“You fight them physically. Use the ritual blade. It’s imbued with their vile energies, and those wounds should be more debilitating. Use the ashes as well. I don’t know for sure what good it’ll do, but it can’t hurt.”
“And you’ll be . . . ?”
“Battling in the spirit realm to free you from this place. Guard me and destroy their bodies if possible. I’ll do the rest.” I hope I sound confident, for Njål’s life depends on me.
“Amarrah, I lo—”
“Absolutely not,” I cut in. “You’re not telling me about your feelings now. Say it when we’re both safe, understand?”
He leans down to kiss me. “Perfectly. It’s a promise.”
“Another one? Apparently I collect them like seashells.”
“I’ll keep them all, every last one. Let’s go.” He tucks the dagger into his belt and picks up the two ash crocks.
Njål leads the way to the east wing, a wretched place I’ve only been in my dreams. When he throws open the forbidding double doors, a draft of fetid air sweeps over me. Something here is wrong, deeply wrong. My flesh crawls as we move over the threshold. Here, the preserving magic has faded or never took, because the wood is rotten and the stones are crumbling away. There’s evidence of mice and spiders, webs and droppings, and a terrible, unearthly rasp fills the corridor, like something immense breathing through disease-riddled flesh.
He pauses just outside a chamber, and the smell, dear gods, the smell. The door is open, and I see why he’s not worried about them leaving. They cannot.
I have never beheld such a monstrosity. The baron and baroness have grown together, all entwined in vines of flesh, some rotting away, others tumorous, and they are rooted where they stand, desiccated and withered, but part of Bitterburn so completely that I cannot tell where they end and the floor begins. They cannot be alive, but they’re not dead either, and their eyes burn like gates into hell, gazing at me with avid hunger.
“You finally bring our guest to greet us, son.” That speech is barely intelligible, a loose and flapping tongue in a sideways mouth.
The room is a disaster; no furnishings remain apart from an old mirror, propped against the wall. Though I had no clue what I was asking when I told Njål to fight them, I can’t let horror overwhelm me. The plan hasn’t changed.
Njål aims a tender look at me and then charges the true beast of Bitterburn, slashing wildly with the dagger. Wounds open and maggots pour out. He’s entangled in the flesh vines, and I can’t leave him struggling, can’t drop into the spirit realm yet. Desperately, I shout, “The ashes!”
And he manages to tip the pot into an open wound. Even I didn’t expect such an intense reaction. The creature thrashes and shrieks, smoke pouring from the cut. It must feel pain because Njål fights free and deploys the other ash pot, and then the whole mass goes up in a pillar of flame. He gets singed as he dives clear.
“They’re still here,” he pants, landing hard next to me. “I feel them, crawling in my head. They’ll try to make me hurt you.”
“Resist. Fight with all your strength to protect me. It’s my turn.”
I close my eyes and set to work on all those tendrils, cutting and pruning, because this is my garden, not theirs. Yet even with the writhing strands cut, they’re still present. I can’t force them out of existence. Brute strength isn’t my gift. I have survival and cunning, not the power to move mountains. But the solution is within my grasp. It must be. I haven’t come so far, only to falter now.
The mirror glitters in the spirit realm, twinkling like a pond, and I give an experimental push. A few strands struggle but they pass through. Elated, I keep nudging, and something on the other side of the mirror helps, pulling with inexorable force. It’s like water falling over a cascade. Soon, every last trace of the baron and baroness are gone, vanished into the looking glass.
I pop out to tell Njål that I’ve done it, only he’s . . . fading. Light and motes of dust, his body swirls with an otherworldly glow. As winter yields to spring,
soon he’ll be gone entirely. In a dead panic, I dive back into the ether and snatch the fluttering ties that bind him to Bitterburn and keep him alive. There’s only one way to save him. I do it without hesitation, linking him to me, instead of this place. Cutting the ancient bonds would destroy him, so I embrace them instead.
If it means I only get half as long in this realm, and I spend every moment with him, it’s worth it.
31.
Gasping, I fall to my knees with the force and speed of that last working.
Hardly daring to look at Njål, I crawl over to him, afraid that it’s not enough, that I must watch him perish. But his color returns, the specter of death receding. Soon, he sits up and takes my hand, staring in awe. The air swirls with ash while the mirror flickers in the scant light, clouded, hateful shapes swirling in the glass.
“You gave me half your life,” he whispers.
“I’d give you all of it.”
“No. I won’t let you,” Njål says, wrapping me in his arms.
I settle against him, too tired to move. “If I can’t live without you, the opposite ought to be true as well. And I’ll learn to pull from the land. Not irresponsibly, like the baron and baroness did, only enough for us to live into old age without causing undue harm. But . . . that would mean we need to keep moving to spread the drain.”
“I’ve always wanted to travel. Is it truly over?”
“Let’s test it.”
I sweep the citadel with spirit sight and find that the wicked web is gone, no longer leaching from the world so that it threatens all life in the region. Njål helps me to my feet and I lean on him as we make our way back to the heart of Bitterburn. The kitchen still reeks a bit. Outside, in the courtyard, the ice statues are gone, a handful of sparkling dust where they once stood.
“I didn’t honestly think they could come back to life,” Njål says softly. “But I’m still sad. Is that strange?”
I take his hand crossways, palm to palm. “Not at all. I’m opening the portcullis. Go ahead, see what happens.”
Njål steps to the gate and pauses, gazing across the threshold with an agony of hope and indecision; his hesitation breaks my heart. Even if he can leave, I don’t know if he’s able to. The world has changed so much, and I wish to show him everything, but he might be afraid. Of being persecuted for his appearance or of the unknown.
Then he takes one step, another. Until he’s on the other side of the wall. No longer trapped, no longer entombed with a monster.
“Oh gods, I’m really free.” He throws both arms heavenward in exultation and spins, unfettered and joyous as I’ve never seen him.
I dash over to join him in the silly, celebratory dance, and the goats gambol over, stamping all over the snow. It’s too brisk to stay outdoors, but even the cold is different. Natural. Not the icy barrenness that drains all life. Njål shows no signs of wanting to go back in. For at least an hour, I watch him run around with the goats, up and down the path, until my toes feel frozen.
Smiling, I head back inside to make some hot drinks. Soon after, he comes up behind me and hugs around my shoulders as I steep the herbal tea. “I’ve no idea how I got so lucky. How did you do it? I thought they were unkillable, like fiends from a story.”
“I didn’t, exactly.”
“No?” Now he seems worried, turning me to face him. “Can they come back?”
“I don’t see how. They’re locked inside the mirror.” As best I can, I explain what happened, but it’s difficult since he doesn’t have spirit sight and he can’t sense the same things I can.
Finally he says, “I think I understand. The baroness used that mirror for scrying, so maybe that’s why it worked? It was already attuned to magic.”
I smile tiredly. “I don’t care about why. As long as they’re gone and you’re safe, that’s what matters most.” It occurs to me then. “You know, it’s odd but I have no idea what their names were, other than Baron and Baroness Bitterburn.”
“Neither do I,” Njål says somberly. “They used stolen ones for so long that I doubt even they remembered at the end.”
Maybe I shouldn’t ask right now, but . . . I kept my promise, and deals should be honored, even among loved ones. “I know there’s something you don’t want to tell me about the ritual. You promised to answer, after. What happened to Gilda?” I recall how she was strapped to the table in the bone room.
His joy fades, leaving his expression alarmingly blank. Stepping away, Njål turns his back and I immediately miss his warmth. Even his body temperature feels different now that he’s free, properly alive for the first time in ages.
“I killed her,” he says.
“You did?”
He gives the account in a neutral tone. “She was the first person I killed. Not the last. After I changed, the baroness attempted to steal her body. I tried to get us both out, but the room was warded and locked. They would’ve destroyed her and worn her like a glove. I killed her rather than let that happen. They punished me with these marks. Not for violence. For acting outside their interests. And for a long time, the sigils controlled me.”
Part of me is horrified and the other half wants to comfort him. He murdered Gilda . . . for the right reasons? Killed her body to save her soul. That’s not something I ever imagined I’d believe, yet I do.
“If it was me,” I say carefully, “I would prefer the quick end. You gave her soul another chance. If they had their way, she would’ve just been gone.”
“You’re trying to be kind. No need. I’ve done terrible things, so much that I probably don’t deserve to be free. For years I lived as their puppet. I fought in what you might liken to bear-baitings for their amusement. Against men, against creatures. And sometimes they forced me to perform . . . in other ways. For entertainment.”
I can imagine and it sickens me. Now I wish I hadn’t insisted on these revelations, because Njål must think I can’t possibly love someone like him. A monster. A beast.
“It’s not your fault. You were a child when you came, and later you were a prisoner. It’s not a crime to survive. I regret that you had to hurt others, because your heart is gentle and the memories pain you. But I am not even slightly sorry that you withstood those trials. Can I be glad instead?”
He turns then. “Of what?”
“That you were here waiting for me to find you.”
“Oh gods, Amarrah.”
In two steps, he has me in his arms, and I hug him so tightly that if he was smaller or weaker, I might well break his ribs. He will never look like other men, but I adore him exactly as he is.
“Do you hate that I’m a witch? You must be wary of mystic powers.”
He lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, not letting go of me. “I suspect only a witch could’ve saved me, and you would never hurt me.”
True, though I would burn down the world to protect him. Once we leave here, I’ll look for a mentor, someone to teach me how to use this power responsibly. But I doubt he’s ready to talk about our departure yet, and it’s best to winter within stout walls. I stretch up to kiss his chin.
“Do you have any clue why the ritual went wrong?” Idly I reach up to fondle his horns, and he lets me, deep in thought.
“Nothing certain. But . . . there were always legends in my family about how there might be frost giant blood in our line. And the baroness said something about an unusual reaction to the demon blood . . . I’m glad that I’m still me mostly, on the inside, instead of being used and discarded like a pair of old shoes.”
“Me too.”
“Do you have more questions?”
I nod, stroking his hair. “Just one. How did they end up like that?”
“They grew overconfident. With a beast like me on leash, who could stand against them? They brought a warlock in and used him as a jester. He fell in love with one of the ladies-in-waiting, and the baron . . . took her. To the bone room. The poor devil fought for the woman he loved to his last breath, and as he perished, he invoked a po
werful curse.”
“Used his own life to fuel it,” I say with a shiver.
“You’d know about that more than me.”
“I wonder . . .” That magical curse might have been the adhesive, collecting the energy of those who died. It might be why I sensed a secondary force trying to guide me, though nothing so organized or intelligent as the baron and baroness.
“What?”
“I’ve sensed a presence here. It seemed to be helping me, pushing me in the right direction. Could that be related to the warlock who died? Do you remember his name?”
“Cradock,” he answers at once. “I think he’s still in the bone room.”
“We should help them all rest now.” Though I have no intention of living here forever, it still feels like the right thing to do.
The next day, Njål and I descend to the bone room. Quietly I absorb the scene, seeing it with different eyes—the woman in green being dragged from the party and the man in harlequin garb gazing at her as he died. Theirs is a love story without a happy ending, and in my heart, I want to believe Cradock guided me because he hoped for a different resolution to our tale. Thank you, I mouth.
Then I set to work with Njål as we haul the bones, terrible and grisly work. It’s warm enough that the snow is starting to melt. Outside the walls, we level the earth and build a cairn. Njål seems to find it exhilarating, working in the fresh air. For me, it’s merely exhausting, but I’m not sorry as we finish up at the end of the day.
“We should say a few words,” Njål murmurs. “Have funeral rites changed? They used to say a prayer to Frigga.”
Some things are the same, but it’s fun to tease him. “We all worship trees now. Please close your eyes as I recite the litany of the alder.”
He pauses, as if he’s waiting for me to begin, then his eyes narrow. “You’re making a game of me,” he accuses.
“A little. Feel free to speak the old prayer for the dead if you remember it.”
