ã€ŠLetters from Sledgegrassã€‹


 The Mirror in the Pit

    Transcribed by Song Sparrow, Seeker to the Old King

    Reefer¡¯s Edge market square, Age 5.8 U.C.

    I sit speaking with a retired guard of Longan¡¯s Keep. He¡¯s agreed to speak with me on the condition that I buy him a drink. It¡¯s early morning¡ªhe¡¯s contracted to a local fisherman, and they set sail before the sun rises¡ªso we sit leaning against the dock poles, sipping steaming cups of satcha. [Unnamed] keeps with the tradition of the Plains, even though he¡¯s been gone from them since his twenty second year and wears his gray hair in a long braid down his back. He tucks it into his belt on the boats to keep it from twining with a fishhook. He takes a deep breath and begins his tale.

    -::::::-

    My armor never weighed as much as it did that bleak day we followed Aril down the dragon¡¯s hole.

    I grew up admiring Aril¡ªshe was most of the reason I chose to join the guard after I left ma¡¯s farm. Sis and I¡¯d watch her ride in from patrol in those early winter days when people first went missing, and the ground was too hard to till under the snow.

    She wore this armor¡ªwe¡¯d spot her on the road a mile away, it was polished to shine more like a pearl than steel. You can¡¯t find armor like that on the Plain, and people liked to gossip in those days that Aril had charmed a benefactor from Samwhin.

    Ma stopped us going to town frightful-quick, though, when those missing people started popping up. The first charred corpse appeared overnight on the road through the Partways Plains.

    Sis had a friend in the scavenger¡¯s guild at the time. He said the body looked like it¡¯d been walking towards the Keep. He also said it split open like a thin sack of meat when his party tried to move it. The boy had his eye on sis at the time, so I would have taken this for a turn at catching her attention, if not for the red footprints his riding boots stamped into the snow.

    Two years later and I was on the guard when Longan¡¯s own daughter went missing. The Lord ordered Aril assemble a squadron to search for her on the Plain, and I was honored to be one of the ten men she selected.

    The guard had been sent in search of the missing before, but this time was different. Trying to find your way through sledgegrass is nearly impossible without a compass, but it had stopped snowing two nights before, and the Lady had left tracks.

    When we found the hole, and the tracks leading down it, I immediately felt off. This was my first time doing anything more than standing intimidatingly outside the Keep and overseeing training exercises. I should have been excited, or nervous, or something, but the hole¡­it¡¯s like every feeling I had got sucked in. Aril kept a tight grip on complaining, but the silence as we dismounted was unusual and I knew the others felt it too.

    We filed in after Aril. I was third in line behind her, and the licorice braid of her hair bounced against her fine silver armor. I focused on it thumping her back until we were so deep, we wouldn¡¯t have known up from down if not for the torches.

    Then we found the mirror. At the bottom of the pit.

    It was just¡­ hovering there, shining this lightning-bright light. A river the color of a clear summer sky trickled out of the rocks and reformed in a smooth, snaking trail to its base and seemed to flow into it.

    The mirror was almost exactly wide enough for a person to stand in. I think about that all the time.

    Aril ordered us to spread out all around it, so we stood in a circle gripping our swords, none of us sure what to do. We¡¯d come expecting to gut a monster¡ªa dragon, we¡¯d thought¡ªbut this was strange enough on its own. I was standing to the side of the mirror, and it looked like a sliver in the air it was so thin, like staring along the sharp edge of a knife. The river didn¡¯t reappear behind it.

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    No one was surprised when Aril hefted her shield and moved to stand in front of the mirror.

    I had a clear view of her face from where I was¡ªit was a face like an anvil, unchanging and solid. I¡¯d seen her take a fist to the nose without flinching. I¡¯d seen her bury friends without a shimmer in her eye.

    I should have known something was wrong right away.

    Aril began to look curious. It started as just a slight raising of her eyebrow, but then she was relaxing her shield arm, taking a half-step closer. I still wonder if I could have gotten to her in time if I¡¯d moved then.

    But then, Aril wasn¡¯t just curious, she was fascinated. She had the look ma did the day sis was born, like no one had ever seen something so beautiful. I wanted to know what she saw.

    Aril went from rapturous to horrified in a second.

    She choked, dropped her sword and shield, and yanked at her armor. There was a smell, like the time our horse barn burned down. Smoke was curling from Aril¡¯s collar; her hands were scrabbling with the ties on the side of her breastplate. Her beautiful silver armor was glowing brighter than ever, like the end of a cattle brand.

    She screamed, and that¡¯s what snapped us out of it. We moved to help her, but even as I drew my sword, thinking to cut the armor from her torso, I knew it was too late.

    She was still screaming when her skin started bubbling, then splitting open. I watched Aril¡¯s face melt and drip to the floor like wax.

    None of us heard when she stopped screaming because we were already running, shouting for our own sakes. Someone stumbled and the only torch that wasn¡¯t Aril¡¯s fell into the water. I was blind, dragging myself along the wall, desperate to get as far away from the mirror as possible.

    There was only one way out and we collided against it in a deafening clang of steel, but the opening was narrow. We¡¯d had to come through it single file, and we¡¯d have to leave the same way.

    There was nothing but shadow in front of me, but I didn¡¯t care, not when the only source of light was a flashing blaze behind me. It¡¯s amazing, how it feels to pound against someone like there isn¡¯t flesh beneath the armor. I tore my gloves clawing at the man in front of me. I¡¯m still not sure who it was.

    The flashing got brighter, someone started shrieking at the back of the pile and it seemed to never stop, his voice captured in that dark hole forever.

    Then it got hot. The heat was at my back and more people were screaming, so many voices I couldn¡¯t tell if one of them was mine. The sweat dripping down my back felt like it would boil.

    It hit me then; we were moving out too slow. The few men up front were going to be the lucky ones¡ªthey might squeeze out from this chamber while the rest of us got cooked alive.

    I was not going to be of the lucky ones.

    Ma used to tell me this story about a man who thought he could cheat death. He ordered his servants to cover all the mirrors in his house the day he died; something about death not being able to find you if it can¡¯t see you.

    I couldn¡¯t remember how the story ended¡ªI still can¡¯t¡ªbut it was all I could think about, so I closed my eyes and laid curled on the ground, trying not to move. I¡¯ll admit I wept. My friends were tripping over me while they melted, sealed inside hot metal cans.

    I just wanted it to stop¡­ it did, eventually.

    There I was panting, breathing ash into my mouth, and I realized I was tasting my friends on my tongue.

    I don¡¯t know how long I laid there, too scared to move. The mirror must have gone dark because eventually it got cold again, and when I tried prying my eyes open, I couldn¡¯t believe how black it was.

    I crawled to the surface. There were greasy black spots seeping into the ground at the mouth of the cave. They were the people who made it out ahead of me¡ªnot so lucky after all.

    I don¡¯t know why I survived. Maybe it was because I kept my eyes closed. Maybe I was the only one who didn¡¯t look in the mirror. Maybe whatever monster was down there got full and got tired of watching me tremble at its feet.

    The scavenger¡¯s found me walking up the road the next morning. They thought I had been touched by the cold; I was shaking so hard it took three of them to help me onto a horse. All I could think about were the bodies we¡¯d found on the road¡ªthey¡¯d made it that far only to die nearly in sight of the Keep.

    Some days I wake up and still feel it¡ªthat old worry that I haven¡¯t escaped it yet, that my skin will start boiling and my face will slough off into my hands.

    I left home after that. Ma was real upset about it, but I couldn¡¯t stay on the Plain anymore. Not when every shadow between the sledgegrass looked like a puncture wound bleeding nightmares. I galloped my horse through the Partways so hard he had to be reshod at the next town.

    I don¡¯t know if the Keep ever stopped people going missing, or why they kept wandering down a hole to look in a mirror. I¡¯ve never told anyone about it, only that ma and sis need to look after each other, that they should never go off the main road.

    But those aren¡¯t the things that leave me sleepless, all these years later.

    From that first moment lying between the sledgegrass, struggling to breath, I¡¯ve wondered what Aril saw in the mirror. Whatever it was, it was no dragon.

    And when I wake up in the night, my wife and son still asleep, I come and sit here and stare out at the water. The way the moonlight catches a wave; it shines just like Aril¡¯s fine armor. I still don¡¯t know who gave it to her.

 Where Blood Meets Water

    Transcribed by Mouse Writ, Seeker to the Old King

    On the long, bumpy road to Badgerpool, Age 5.8 U.C.

    My Dear King,

    I see now why you have sent me on this journey, although I am still sour about it. The palace horse you sent with me, thoroughbred and young, went lame three nights ago. It¡¯s this damned Capellen sand, Your Highness¡ªgood steeds weren¡¯t meant to plod like this. Indeed, I have only seen the widest wagon wheel and the sturdiest ox pull through with any success. Although my purse is heavy with good gold coin¡ªwhich I am grateful for¡ªit was not enough to convince my last innkeeper to sell me even the shaggiest of his horses, not once I¡¯d told him I intended to ride it all the way to Badgerpool.

    ¡°Ride him into the ground, yar more like to do.¡± That¡¯s what he said to me.

    I¡¯m walking now, My King, with at least ten nights between me and that little withered town at the foot of Skyclipse¡ªalthough I can already glimpse the white peaks on a clear day. I will find your good stories, and then perhaps you will send me somewhere warmer. Certainly, Inlay has a host of stories to share, and I hear the humidity is good for old bones.

    But ignore me, you know how I can be. As you¡¯ve told me many times before.

    I am no longer alone on this road. The other afternoon, I set out from a town in eastern Capelle and collided with a wagon train. It was only three carts strong and driven by a group of travelers looking even more pallid than myself. By the chance of our timing, I walked along with them for a while, trailing behind in the back with a young woman waving a staff, trying to herd a group of sheep over the dunes.

    I commented that they seemed to be making a better job of it than we were and offered her a pour of brandy. She introduced herself as [unnamed] and welcomed me to share their fire for the night.

    Although I am homesick for Samwhin and the sledgetrees, Your Majesty, I will admit that nights on this seam where water meets desert, are an experience unlike any other. You sit as a single drop of ink sits in the center of a vast, clean canvas; the crisp sky stretched taught from horizon to horizon. It makes an atmosphere excellent for storytelling.

    That night, I camped with the travelers. We crowded around a fire burning green and orange from the sea-logged branches we¡¯d collected¡ªthe only wood to be found for miles. Usually, times like these can be passed with singing or merry chatter, but these folk let the silence settle in beyond awkwardness. I asked [unnamed] why her company was so drawn, and never have I seen such a storm of shadow befall so young a face.

    I do hope you enjoy what she told me, My King:

    ¡°You ought to stop thinking of us as people. That¡¯s a start. That might keep you from getting it.¡±

    I asked her what she meant by this.

    ¡°There¡¯s something inside us. That¡¯s why we¡¯re out here. We haven¡¯t stopped moving for two summers. A lot of people remember that fractal age for how many crops died. We remember it for something else.

    ¡°You should be careful drinking from streams. Sometimes things turn bad a long way off and the water moves through the ground. We learned that once the hard way; lost half the herd to a bug.

    ¡°But then again, maybe we didn¡¯t learn enough, since a summer later, we learned a lot harder.

    ¡°You see these veins? You see how blue they are, right?

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure you really want to hear this story.¡±

    I tell her that I¡¯m out in this dessert for the purpose of hearing stories people might not want to hear, so there is no better person to tell. Her companions huddled around the campfire remained quiet, but they were watching us, waiting to see what she¡¯d decide.

    ¡°Our town was small, set between the Steps and the sledgegrass plains. At the end of each harvest, we¡¯d gather to sit and drink and watch the moon rise over the highest Step, and we¡¯d cheer and dance long into the night on one of the last warm days before the leaves fell. A harvest festival where fewer than three couples got married, we considered slow. Living was hard, but we were happy.

    ¡°It¡¯s important you realize we were happy, that no dark thoughts brought this Calamity on us.¡±

    I told her that no Calamities have been recorded for near thirty ages, and they are hardly drawn to dark thoughts

    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t a Calamity, then it was a dark magic. We¡¯ll believe it was a Calamity¡ªjust nature remolding itself after too long staying the same. Better to think that it was for a reason, even if it¡¯s one outside our understanding.¡±

    Her words sparked the urge for proper debate, Your Majesty, but I resisted, and steered her back to the story.

    ¡°There was this boy¡ªI can¡¯t bear to think his name now¡ªthat lived in our town. His family¡¯s home was on the river and his pop was a carpenter. This boy and I, we¡¯d steal the scrap planks his pop cut for repairs and decorate them with leaves, and braided grass, and scraps of cloth for sails, and push them into the current of the river. Most of them toppled over before they got any real speed, but the ones that we¡¯d been good about, we chased until we collapsed.

    ¡°His ma and mine thought they were good at sneaking, but my boy and I learned to hide beneath the window outside his kitchen when they thought we were playing. We giggled hearing them talk about what a good husband and wife we¡¯d make each other one day.

    ¡°One day, years after we¡¯d last raced boats on the river, I heard at the market that this boy I loved was sick and bedridden, so I begged and borrowed some broth from my ma and went to visit him.

    ¡°The summer was hitting its peak and if was hotter inside than out, but I figured that was good; sweating¡¯s supposed to be good for getting an illness out of you. And my boy, well, he needed all the cures he could get.

    ¡°He looked like a fallen log curled into his bed. That was the first thing I thought when his ma bid me take the broth in to him.

    ¡°All along his arms and neck, his blood was black and bulging in bark-like patterns under his skin. His arms were laying stiffly on top of the blankets, but I was too scared to take his hand, afraid of feeling what I knew I would if I touched him¡ªthe bumps of those raised veins.

    At this point, [unnamed] began running her thumb over the inside of her own wrist, and she didn¡¯t stop for the rest of her story.

    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    ¡°I fed him some broth, but he wasn¡¯t talking, only watching, and I left in a hurry. It was the last time I saw him. It was for the best¡ªI¡¯ve got enough people¡¯s faces haunting my dreams and his is the least of all for it.

    ¡°By the next moon, everyone was sick, or at least that¡¯s what it felt like. My ma and pop were no exception. The only people who didn¡¯t get sick are what you see around this fire.

    ¡°It took a few days for my folks¡¯ blood to clog and push like it wanted to escape through their skin. A few more days after that, they stopped talking, stopped eating, stopped relieving themselves when I carried their heavy bodies to the outhouse.

    ¡°But they didn¡¯t die. Instead, they laid there, skin bulging like it was filled with black snakes, and flicked their eyes while they watched me move around the house like I wasn¡¯t their daughter they were seeing. I stayed up more than one night crying next to them, returning their unblinking stares, asking them to talk to me, just talk to me and tell me what I needed to do.

    ¡°I was fetching water for them one morning when I smelled smoke coming from upriver. The fields were brittle dry, so I took my full buckets and ran after the smoke trail, thinking I¡¯d need to act quick to put out a brushfire before half the town burned. It wasn¡¯t a brushfire; it was by boy¡¯s house. [Unnamed] over there,¡± she gestures to a haggard fellow under a hood opposite the fire, ¡°he and I just barely managed to put it out.

    ¡°I found my boy¡¯s remains exactly where I¡¯d last seen him, in his bed, next to what must have been his ma. His pop was in there too, lying between them. They were three black, twisted things, curled around each other.

    ¡°I can¡¯t prove it, but my boy¡¯s pop wasn¡¯t sick¡ªhe wouldn¡¯t have let them all burn like that unless he¡¯d intended it. Now we know he had the right idea.

    ¡°More days passed, and my family didn¡¯t change. Instead of sitting up asking them to talk to me, I sat up just watching them back. I had stopped wondering if they didn¡¯t recognize me and started wondering if what I saw could still be recognized as my folks. While I sat, I thought about the knife in the kitchen and what my boy¡¯s pop chose to do.

    ¡°It was another hot night, and I was feeling stretched, cleaning the sweat from my ma¡¯s observant face, when¡ªshe moved. It was just a switch at her mouth, but it was more than she¡¯d done since she¡¯d become bedridden.

    ¡°I thought, she¡¯s getting better. I thought the nightmare was coming to an end, and I thanked calma I hadn¡¯t used the knife. I woke the next morning feeling fresh, hoping to see my ma rustling from sleep, or even resting with her eyes closed, but both my folks were gone. There were just blankets on the floor.

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t worried¡ªI was excited! Finally, my family was well enough to stand. I thought I¡¯d go outside and find them fussing over the dead crops, and they¡¯d get on me about needing to prune them.

    ¡°I ran outside, then all around the house. Ma and pop weren¡¯t there. I went next door, thinking maybe they¡¯d gone to see [unnamed] like they sometimes did for a cup of tea. But [unnamed] was outside his house too, looking around the side of his barn like I had. Both our sick ones had gone missing.

    ¡°Soon there were more of us, all looking for the people we¡¯d lost. Is this a joke? We asked. If it was, it was a mean one.

    ¡°By the afternoon, there was only one place left to search, so we headed for the river.

    ¡°We found them all standing in a cluster behind the black skeleton of my boy¡¯s house. They were up to their thighs in the water, looking downstream, not talking to each other. The air stank of sour milk and bile, and a buzzing frenzy of flies swooped at their faces unnoticed.

    ¡°I spotted ma and pop and called out for them. They turned towards me at once, but so did every other person in that river. We all stilled, nailed to the riverbank by sightless eyes, waiting for something to happen, but when we didn¡¯t make any more noise, the sick turned just as smoothly back down river.

    ¡°We were deliberating who should be the first to wade in and begin pulling people out when [unnamed] shouted. He was pointing at the water.

    ¡°Blossoming around where the sick stood, the river was swirling with black. Soon there was a long ribbon of it flowing from them and disappearing out of sight. When I looked back to find my folks, I couldn¡¯t tell them apart¡ªtheir skin was covered in black, bleeding globs. It was bubbling out of their mouths, their eyes, from the hollow of their throats, the bends of their arms, seeping through their clothes, and when it hit the water¡ª

    ¡°It was their veins, boring out of their skin, popping out of them in chunky, black ropes. They hung in the water, stretched out like boats vying for the current, still moored at one end to the bodies they¡¯d come out of. Most of the ropes were longer than I was tall and so abundant that it called to mind a lady¡¯s long hair, fanned out in the bath. I have no idea how they fit inside my ma and pop without bursting from their casings.

    ¡°No one was deliberating going into the water anymore, not when those things that used to be our blood were sliding past each other, flexing, tangling, searching.

    ¡°Then, snap, snap, SNAP! Just little pieces of bodies pulled too taught, breaking like wet guitar strings. The first artery released downstream, curling, and twisting over itself as though delighted. Then another went, and another.

    ¡°Once untethered, bodies started splashing into the water, limp, lifeless. That¡¯s what they were¡ªbodies, not our people, not my ma and pop.

    ¡°I think now they had been dead flesh for a long time, maybe ever since their voices died. And we¡¯d been letting them sit in our homes, watching us water them as uselessly as we watered our crops.

    ¡°No one went in to retrieve their remains, so they floated downstream, hounded by the descending flies.

    ¡°By that evening, the river was clear again, the crickets chirped, the moon rose over the Steps, but our town was gone. The sheep outnumbered us.

    ¡°We packed our bags and left that night. We paid as much due as we could and marked every tree along the river between our town and the sea, so no one thinks to drink from it. We paused for a while in a port town, and though the people were kind, none of us felt right sitting and sharing ale like we were regular folk. We packed and left again. We haven¡¯t stopped moving since.¡±

    Our fire had crumbled to cinders and sparks by the time [unnamed] finished her story. Everyone else had left for their wagons and bedrolls, even though it was early, and the fire was still putting up a shield against the cool night. Of course, I had many questions, Your Majesty, but most of them were unanswerable:

    What caused this sickness? Why did it affect this little town in one of the most remote regions of Samwhin? Is it still alive in their river?

    Instead, I asked her only two questions. The first was, ¡°What was the marking you left on the trees? I should like to recognize it, so I don¡¯t mistakenly sip water from your old river.¡±

    She told me¡ªrather frostily¡ªthat the symbol, SK, means ¡°sick¡± to anyone who knows anything. She said in Samwhin, it means something else, too, but it is not important to this story and would only harm your heart, My King.

    Lastly, I asked her, ¡°Why haven¡¯t you all settled down somewhere new? Surely you¡¯ve denied yourselves the comfort of a home for long enough.¡±

    [Unnamed] rolled up her sleeve to her bicep and revealed to me her arm. In the pale crook of her elbow, a network of raised black veins laced outwards. She rolled her sleeve back down, and it was a valiant fight I fought not to scoot away from her.

    ¡°I told you¡ªit¡¯s in us. We aren¡¯t dead yet, but we don¡¯t feel like people anymore either. Whatever we are, we¡¯re meat, toting those things around. One day they¡¯ll rip out of our bodies just like they did the rest of us. A tenth of an age ago, that spot on my arm was small enough to cover with a coin.¡±

    [Unnamed] said more after that, but it wasn¡¯t worth sending to you, Your Majesty; just all the meandering regrets of someone who knows she¡¯s dying.

    <hr>

    I will interject here that among the letters found in the Old King¡¯s chambers, was a note marked from the far southern coast of Capelle. The letter was unsigned, and in a rough hand; not from one of the Old King¡¯s Seekers.

    The letter, short as it is, I have transcribed below:

    ¡°To the man who was once our King,

    What¡¯s in us is taking us now, sir, but we will use our last chance to kill it while it¡¯s still trapped. Send good people, watchful people, to see that our sacrifice has worked. We have paid more than our due, so we leave it to you, now, to even our books.¡±

    The note was received in age 1.7 U.C., long after the war for The Grove began, and so there is no evidence that any such good, watchful people were ever deployed to Capelle. It is impossible to know for sure, but the lettering is titled in the Samwhin style¡ªI believe this to mark the conclusion of the wandering tribe Mouse Writ encountered.

    Signed,

    Mercurial Lascar, Age 1.5 Until Calamity

    <hr>

    The next day, I let their train wander ahead of me until they disappeared over a dune. I was not sorry to see them go.

    I do hope you have appreciated this story, My King. I will gather more for you when I eventually reach Badgerpool to finish my quota, though I cannot imagine what kind stories you hope I¡¯ll uncover in that small, icy town that I could not find while sipping tea on Inlay. The lands out here are strange, and I am eager to be off the road.

    In Your Servitude as Always,

    Mouse Writ

 Silver and Bone

    Transcribed by Murk Lake, Seeker to the Old King

    [Location Unknown], Age 5.6 U.C.

    Vanesqua Vossier was a man who liked parties. Lush, lavish parties that left his face flushed and his throat sore for days after. It was an easy addiction to feed¡ªhe was born rich, with a third eye for business that opened on his first summer apprenticing the most successful merchant behind the Seawall.

    Before his second-and-sept age, he¡¯d secured a contract running barrels of dye from Capelle to Inlay. And it was the best dye, the colors distilled brighter than reality; red more ruby than rose, yellow brighter than buttercups, and blue so smooth and hot, the Fox herself may one day have it embroidered on her bridal shawl.

    By the time Vossier reached his fifth age, he was wealthy enough to afford the kind of party that would serve as his best and last.

    He hired a passenger vessel named The Silver Spirit and sailed into the western port of Inlay, coming in off a week spent on the island belt, and hauling a boat full of his closest friends and business partners. They marched through the portside beach camps and bonfires then down into the bowl of the island. There, they reveled for three days within spitting distance of the Tower of Fire drinking, dancing, singing, fucking, smoking, telling stories, growing sleepy, passing out in high, pillowed beds with their second or third partner of the day, waking up with hangovers, and doing it all again, until someone with a cherry mouth and plump hips whispered something in Vossier¡¯s ear about skinny dipping.

    Vossier liberated an amber bottle of rum from behind the bar and followed those plump hips up the city¡¯s slopes, over a low stone wall, and into a boggy thicket of manicured jungle interspersed with native coffee and mango trees. At the center of the garden was a raised, flat stone with a bubbling pool at its center. They slipped into the water and circled each other, whispering about how they¡¯d get in trouble for sneaking onto grounds owned by Inlay¡¯s most prestigious Reliquary, and getting closer to each other with every shiver. Then it was steaming, her lips so wet, so tender, the drink so hot in his veins, Vossier had to clamber out of the water to clear his head in the fresh air.

    He wandered through the trees, running hands over silken leaves, swinging his half-empty bottle at mosquitoes, until he came nearly to the edge of the garden, close enough to the Tower of Fire that its undulating light washed through the tree canopy. Vossier was plunged into a world of stark contrast; every bright spot igniting crimson, and every shadow cutting black. Vossier settled onto a rock and sipped, watching the light dance like a crab might from its burrow on the sea bottom.

    A strange log was silhouetted in front of Vossier, and his eyes slipped along its smooth swells and dipping hollows. And something stringy, lichen or grass, banding it, almost like hair.

    Was that hair? Was that a log?

    Was it moving? Or was that just the light.

    Vossier stood and stumbled closer, perhaps thinking in a moment of drunken wisdom that he¡¯d fetch a light. But there was no more light, only Vossier in a fiery, glowing jungle. And a log, just a log. He¡¯d check and see that¡¯s what it was.

    A broken limb jutted from the log¡¯s top, ragged shards at the stump, but soft and fleshy at its base. Shoulder height¡ªhe shook this thought from his head. Get closer, closer.

    Vossier was weeping, he thought it was him making that noise. The bottle had fallen to the ground, swallowed by soft blackness and gone forever. The log was slim, its edges outlined in red. The weeping was cresting in wet cracks. Vossier stepped over the log, straddled it so see its front illuminated, and¡ª

    <hr>

    Vossier wobbled through the door of the inn an hour after he¡¯d left it, and he was alone. He hunted through the crowd for his closest friend from his early years on Capelle, one he¡¯d known since he was young enough to skip stones, and who now is named Prisoner 94. Vossier herded 94 into a corner and told him to get everyone together; they were returning to the ship.

    It had been a week, and each bright morning had begun stretching longer than the last, so while there was grumbling as the party climbed back to the beach, it was out of obligation to Vossier¡¯s ego, rather than a disdain for returning to one¡¯s own bed.

    They cast off, and while most took up chairs on the deck in a cleared area separate from the crew¡¯s workings and got back to drinking and reveling in the time they had left, Vossier disappeared into his quarters.

    The party did not see Vossier emerge for three days, not to socialize, not to eat, not even to spend a sunny afternoon on the black-sand beaches of Volcanawa when the ship stopped to replenish its rations. The party began joking that Vossier had indulged more than any man ever could and was now paying his due unloading sea-churned guts into all the fancy vases they¡¯d glimpsed adorning his quarters.

    On the morning of the fourth day, Prisoner 94 braved a knock on Vossier¡¯s door. There was no answer, but the man had grown up with Vossier, and knew from childhood illnesses that the merchant was more likely to sit in bed demanding he be treated like a king than hide away in silence when he felt more than a sniffle. 94¡¯s concern was so great, he pushed the door aside and stepped in without being invited.

    Vossier¡¯s quarters were the nicest on the ship, nicer even than the captain¡¯s with high windows overlooking the oncoming horizon, and ornamented with drapes and baubles the merchant had purchased along the island belt. But the view was obscured by tightly closed drapes of thick Capellan make, and only the cleanest slivers of light escaped around their edges with the swaying of the ship. On a wide, four posted bed, Vossier lay atop tucked silken sheets, his arms relaxed at his sides, face blank and staring at the plank-board ceiling.

    94 announced himself and Vossier rolled his head to face his childhood friend. Even in the dark, grey hairs shone at the merchant¡¯s temples and the lower lids of his eyes were dragged and baggy. Vossier had never looked old before.

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    Vossier asked his friend how long they¡¯d been sailing. When 94 told him it had been four days, Vossier sat up, curling from the mattress one vertebrae at a time.

    ¡°I think I¡­ did something,¡± said Vossier, and began running his fingers over his lips. ¡°Or I¡­ saw something.¡±

    ¡°What did you see?¡± 94 asked.

    A peculiar look crossed Vossier¡¯s face, a ripple over smooth water. ¡°I don¡¯t remember,¡± he said.

    <hr>

    On the morning of the sixth day, The Silver Spirit was leaving Beakscoop¡ªthe last notch on the island belt¡ªand plunging into the five-day stretch across the Barrel to Capelle¡¯s Harbor of Jewels.

    In the night, a man named Rona¡ªwhom Vossier had invited in the hopes of securing a trade agreement for bolts of silk¡ªrose from bed, and snuck an apple form the kitchen below deck. He sat munching alone in the dark, cutting slices and popping them into his mouth using a short blade with a handle of carved opal.

    At least, he¡¯d thought he was alone.

    A hand shot from the darkness and grabbed the blade. Before Rona had time to shout, the knife plunged into his neck and he died, apple still in hand.

    This was the conclusion the party came to when they discovered Rona¡¯s body that morning. No one had an explanation for the body¡¯s bloodlessness, or the clean, white neck wound still clutching the blade up to its opal handle.

    There was discussion with the captain¡ªthe party wanted to return to Beakscoop and escape the confines of the vessel holding them in close quarters with a killer. But the captain overruled them; crimes committed over the Barrel were lawless, and the murder of a Capellen merchant would need to be delt with in Capelle.

    Guards were set at the party¡¯s bunks, but most sat up through the night¡ªnot certain that one of the men guarding them wasn¡¯t hungry for their lives.

    No one thought to inform Vossier. The man had not been seen by most of the party since leaving Inlay and so he slipped from their minds in the face of larger Calamities.

    Until Prisoner 94 was roused in the night by the man himself.

    94 followed Vossier onto the deck. Vossier was looking better¡ªless drawn, his skin less sagging¡ªin fact, he looked much better. Against the light of the moon his silhouette seemed broader, taller.

    ¡°You need to lock me in,¡± Vossier said to 94. ¡°You need to stand guard at my door¡ªI think I may have¡­¡±

    94 didn¡¯t need Vossier to finish to understand what his old friend was confessing to, but with every question he asked, Vossier only grew more frantic, more hounded.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± he hissed, hands petting through his silver hair, tears glistening in his eyes. ¡°I don¡¯t know why! I don¡¯t know what!¡±

    94 agreed to stand guard at Vossier¡¯s door¡ªnot to prevent someone from entering in the night, but to keep the man locked away from the rest of the ship. He slung a bar across Vossier¡¯s door and sat with his back to it, a long sparring blade he¡¯d previously only carried to stay in line with the fashion, laid across his knees.

    He did this for two nights, never hearing a sound behind Vossier¡¯s door.

    The Silver Spirit crossed the center of the Barrel and with several day¡¯s buffer between them and what happened to Rona, the party began relaxing back into old habits. They were only two days from the Harbor of Jewels, and they were beginning to think of the stories they¡¯d tell at their homecoming¡ªhow they¡¯d been trapped on a ship with a killer, and bravely returned to seek an investigation in the name of justice.

    After an evening¡¯s respite lounging on deck with the goal of finishing the casks of rum they¡¯d purchased on Volcanawa, they were able to forget that one of them had likely stuck a knife in another¡¯s neck.

    94 did not join them. Instead, he settled in to carry out his duty once again, keeping watch over Vossier. The night was still and warm. 94 counted stars and did not slumber. With the pink glow of sunrise, he rose and stretched, finally catching the hope his friends had felt the night before.

    Only one more day to Capelle. The call of seabirds already echoed abovedeck.

    He climbed upwards, ready to break his fast before finding some sleep. His boot stepped onto sun-polished wood and squelched.

    94 peered down and realized he¡¯d stepped on a finger. But not a regular severed finger¡ªnot that 94 had seen many¡ªbut he knew they weren¡¯t meant to be as spongy as this one was. It popped under his boot like a fat silkworm.

    It occurred to 94 that the call of seabirds was closer than he¡¯d thought, too close for them to be flying above the ship. He followed the sound up to the crew¡¯s deck.

    A pile of alabaster bodies sat beneath snapping white sails. Seabirds dove at them, gouging beaks into eye sockets and stomachs, unspooling bloodless entrails.

    There must¡¯ve been thirty corpses, everyone on the ship. Everyone but him and Vossier.

    One night remained between 94 and Capelle. He didn¡¯t know how Vossier escaped his quarters without leaving through the door, but he had no intention of ending up a bloodless piece of fish-meat. If he was going to survive, he would have to confront his friend, if he was still that. Something told 94 it would be unwise to wait until the sun went down.

    94 held his sword ready and pushed open Vossier¡¯s door. The room was much brighter than before¡ªone of the huge windows was shattered and the heavy curtains flapped open on either side of the hole. The bed was shredded, feathers and something white and wet smeared the walls. It stank bizarrely of overripe fruit and cinnamon. 94 spotted the top of Vossier¡¯s head sitting in a shadowed corner, his hair shining like a silver helmet. 94 crept in front of him, keeping the tip of his sword pointed in front of him.

    Vossier was curled over himself, his face buried in his knees and arms wrapped around his stomach. 94 called out to his old friend. He still had hopes of reaching the man he had known so well. After all, as inexplicable as Vossier¡¯s methods were, the man had clearly chosen to spare him.

    ¡°It¡­ won¡¯t¡­stop,¡± Vossier was panting. ¡°I can¡¯t¡­ make it¡­ stop!¡±

    Vossier, looked up at 94 through bloodshot tearing eyes, blood dribbling from his lips, and unfolded his arms from around his middle.

    94 fell backwards, clutching his sword desperately. Where Vossier¡¯s hands had been, were two oozing stumps, the flesh blackened and crumbling like charcoal around a slimy, protruding mass. Staring through the sharp lens of fear, 94 realized the white object was too spindly and opalescent to be Vossier¡¯s arm bone. It looked more like three thin spears meeting together in a point.

    ¡°It hurts, it hurts. Nothing makes it stop!¡± Vossier moaned, and as he spoke a clod of what was once his forearm broke off and fell to the floor.

    94 was able to pull his eyes from Vossier¡¯s corroding limbs to watch his mouth move. He spoke like he was chewing rocks. There was a faint crack and another large chunk of flesh detached from Vossier¡¯s arm. He titled his head back and howled in pain, and behind his teeth, 94 saw three rows of bloody, needlelike fangs.

    ¡°Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop,¡± Vossier was muttering.

    And that¡¯s what Prisoner 94 did.

    That night, he wrapped his old friend¡¯s corpse in the Capellen curtains¡ªprobably colored with the very dye Vossier once traded¡ªand he rolled him into the ocean.

    When asked why 94 would do this by the Capellen guard, he explained that despite the sword driven through the center of its chest, Vossier¡¯s body began moving when night fell. Not reanimated, he claimed, but swelling and deflating like a bladder, like something inside was breathing.

    The Capellen guard is not known for its leniency on murder, and without Vossier¡¯s corpse, the culprit was obvious. Instead of being hailed as a hero or a survivor, Prisoner 94 was thrown in a water cell to await trial by the Queen.

    Luckily, our people got to him first.

    We bundled him out under cover of night and put him on a ship to His Majesty¡¯s Island, where he has been set to dig for His Majesty¡¯s purpose.

    The chipping away he does under supervision of the Select has not removed the clarity of Prisoner 94¡¯s memory.

    I understand now, My King, why you bid me visit the island. It is not to record the futile pleas of a man who does not realize he¡¯s already been buried. You had a much greater purpose in mind¡ªto extract that which cannot bleed or die: stories.

    I will continue with my quest.

    Until Calma,

    Murk Lake

 Sinsula

    Transcribed by Songsparrow, Seeker to the Old King

    Writhe and Dive, Inlay, Age 5.6 U.C.

    Mellow is one of the most requested companions at the Writhe and Dive, and so has earned lofty apartments with a view of the courtyard¡¯s hot springs. We sit cross legged on her balcony, cushioned by pillows of crushed velvet while she sucks on a long pipe and takes in the plucks of a harps and laughter below with hooded eyes. I have a harder time focusing on the patrons¡¯ activities when I have a clear view of Inlay¡¯s slopes and all its wrapped around us like folds of rolled parchment.

    Inlay is not the largest volcano on the island belt, but it is the only one to have blown its top. There is no record of when the island transformed from a smooth, black, sloped mountain common on the island belt, to the crater it is now. Students of history at the island¡¯s Reliquaries take this to mean that the eruption happened before 30 U.C., before libraries were lost in the last great Calamity to rock the Sledge.

    Knowing the island¡¯s nature as a volcanic pit, one might mistake the phantom cloud wavering above Inlay¡¯s splintered shell for smoke. But push through the peddlers lined along the ports, and resist lingering on the beaches crowded with statues of glass and sand, climb the stone steps over the lip of the island, and you will discover lush jungle cooked in culture, cradled beneath an eternal halo of steam.

    There is no winter on Inlay. There is also no rain, or snow, despite the frosty sea surrounding it. The center of the island¡¯s bowl plunges below sea level and water captured on Inlay¡¯s shell trickles through the streets. The miniscule waterfalls evaporate on contact with what is either¡ªdepending on which Reliquary you visit¡ªthe largest artistic installation in the world, or an inexplicable remnant from Cataclysm: The Tower of Fire.

    The spire of clear glass stands taller than the Samwhin palace and pulses red with untapped volcanic potential. Most visitors who aren¡¯t on Inlay for business, will admit they came for the Tower of Fire, and the sheltered weather generated by waves of steam arising from its base.

    It is within this soup of steam and fire that I have spent the past three days hiking up and down the bowl of clouds¡¯ winding streets, badgering innkeepers and merchants to locate a woman rumored to have a peculiar curse. That woman is Mellow.

    When I ask her if it¡¯s true that she has more than one heart, she cups my cheek and presses my ear to the softness of her chest. An out-of-time hummingbird flutters behind her breastbone. Another long drag from her pipe is all she needs to begin her tale.

    -:::::-

    I was born to a large family on Beakscoop, the oldest of seven brothers and seven sisters. The island is mostly birds, so living there, it sometimes felt like we were the only people in the world.

    We had no reason to care for money, so long as we stayed on the island. We ate, drank, and built our homes as the birds did; catching fish, eating fruit, sleeping in hammocks of woven vines and leaves. But there came an age when my body grew long limbed and restless, and I wished to stretch my wings. My mother filled a sack of sliced fruit and dried boar for my journey and my family covered my cheeks in kisses and tears before sending me off with assurances they would always be there, waiting with open arms should I get homesick.

    I needed gold to get on a ship, so I went to the island¡¯s only port and picked up work escorting travelers across the island. People come to Beakscoop for one of two reasons. One is because they¡¯re rich and curios to see the giant birds I grew up calling long beaks. Those visitors I took to the bottomless pools dotting our island and told them to dive in, which they did, happily. The others are researchers. They¡¯ll talk for hours about the anatomy of birds and the history of the surrounding islands but arrive with entire bags filled with scrolls and books, as though they don¡¯t realize their object of study is several days¡¯ hike over hills packed with dense jungle. I built a frame for my back and charged extra to carry their shit.

    I worked through one winter and one spring, but Beekscoop isn¡¯t known for its trade and passage on the luxury vessels that did come through was expensive. I soon realized I would need more gold than I¡¯d thought to live anywhere but on the island. At the rate I was finding work, it would take an entire age before I could afford to stretch my wings. My heart ached for my family and our life in the trees. Nights I stayed up late longing for home and pondering my return became more frequent.

    Then one day, a ship with black and yellow sails pulled into port. Five men dressed in fine leather carrying light packs and curved swords at their belts swaggered into the port¡¯s inn. The ship didn¡¯t even drop anchor before setting sail again. I let the men settle in before approaching them at the bar and offering my services as a guide. Their leader, a man with a black beard and narrow green eyes, studied me while he chewed.

    ¡°What do you know of the surrounding islands?¡± he asked.

    I¡¯d never been to the surrounding islands, but jungle was jungle and despite how sturdy these men were compared to my usual clients, they were clunky enough to struggle through thickets of vines and mud. I him so.

    ¡°We¡¯re headed to Sinsula,¡± he said. I¡¯d gotten decent at hiding my unfamiliarity with mainlander words, but he unrolled a map and pointed out the island anyway¡ªa narrow crest of land north of Beakscoop.

    I did recognize it. My grandmother used to point to it on clear evenings and tell us children about the legend of the chimera; a monster said to haunt the only island on the belt where no birds will land, and devour the hearts of trespassers.

    ¡°You children must never set foot there,¡± she told us. ¡°The chimera has been hungry a long time, waiting for someone to ride out of its prison.¡±

    My grandmother also told us stories of dragonflies carrying misbehaving children away in the night and dropping them in the ocean for the sharks, and princesses that could decipher magical incantations on the pits of mangos. They were wild tales, but as a child of the forest, my grandmother¡¯s words had been as real to me as the trees.

    And perhaps those old fears still lingered, because the price I named was beyond what any reasonable person would pay. Enough that one journey to Sinsula would more than equate to my passage off Beakscoop.

    The man with the green eyes only smiled and unstrapped a sack of gold from his belt. ¡°Half now, half later,¡± he said as he placed it in my hand. He was not a reasonable person.

    There was only one boat at the port sturdy enough to reach Sinsula, but I lied and told them I needed time to find oarsmen with a scoot large enough carry the six of us. Really, I wanted a night to sift through the decision I¡¯d made and decide if it was worth ignoring my grandmother¡¯s warnings. But the men were anxious to get going and claimed they¡¯d already arranged for a boat. So, we left that afternoon.

    We hiked to a cove north of port and found a sleek boat with four oars tethered in the shallow water. Not even growing up exploring every inch of Beakscoop had I seen the cove before, as it was well hidden under a rocky, tree-covered shelf. It worried me, that these men knew something about my home that I didn¡¯t. But my future was close enough to touch and I was afraid of losing it, so I emptied my head of questions. I told myself these were wealthy, well-planned men capable of arranging for boats to appear where they needed them.

    We climbed aboard, four men taking up the oars without question and I was left to sit at the front of the ship with the green-eyed man. They had not offered their names or asked me for mine and the silence that persisted as we glided into the water implied it would remain that way.

    We bumped over the sandy beach of Sinsula before sunset. The island was small, with hardly enough forest to hide danger¡ªjust widely spaced saplings with so few leaves that building a nest would have proven difficult. All my life, I¡¯d grown up under a canopy of birdsong, but Sinsula sat quiet in the ocean, no more alive than a stone. My grandmother was right about the birds.

    Night was approaching, and I expected the men would want to set up camp on the beach before exploring the island the next morning, but the green-eyed man pulled a wooden disk from his bag and faced the forest. I was taller than him and was able to peek over his shoulder to study what I thought might be a large compass, but without any spinning needles or marks for North. Instead, it was smooth wood polished to a shine. Patterns of engraved dots were charred into its rim and a single cross sat at its center overlaying a half circle. The man with the green-eyes glanced to the sky and turned the disk before shouldering his pack once more and pointing into the trees.

    ¡°That way,¡± he said. The sweetened his tone and gestures to me. ¡°Lead the way.¡±

    I¡¯d never thought sand to be loud, but on the quiet of Sinsula, it churned beneath our feet like crashing waves. I was more concerned that no one had handed me anything to carry on out close-lipped trek. These men had a destination in mind. At one point, a banded crimson snake slithered onto the path, and I halted them to let it pass. There were no gasps, no questions, only dispassionate observation, and impatience to be on our way. I began to wonder what my purpose was if they had no need for a guide.

    The sky bled from pink to inky purple and the five men pulled torches from their bags. The man with green eyes handed his to me, but I couldn¡¯t bring myself to return his small smile dancing in the flickering shadows. They walked behind me in a row, a school of tuxedoed whales herding a seal towards the shore.

    I thought about the boat still resting on the beach and wondered if I could outrun these men should I need to flee. But they had done nothing of concern so far¡ªother than pay me more gold than I¡¯d made in almost a tenth of an age leading people on far more strenuous climbs. For the moment, I kept my head and focused on the pouch of gold in my pocket.

    At the crest of the island¡¯s shallow ridge, the forest opened into a tight clearing with a flat, square stone resting at its center. The five of them halted. None of us were out of breath and I thought it odd they would want to rest so early, until the green-eyed man once again consulted his wooden disk. He looked to the half-lidded moon overhead and grinned.

    ¡°We¡¯re here,¡± he said and the other four dropped their packs without being told.

    ¡°What¡¯s ¡®here¡¯?¡± I asked. The green-eyed man reached into his pack and pulled forth a mallet. He gripped it by its long handle and started towards me. I waved my torch towards the trees, searching for an opening, but it was too late. They had me boxed in, their curved swords drawn. The green-eyed man stopped within arm¡¯s reach. I wanted to fly so badly back to the cradle of my family¡¯s forest, I thought wings might spring from my shoulders. Instead, the green-eyed man grabbed my hand holding the torch and exchanged it for the handle of the mallet.

    ¡°Fortunes long forgotten,¡± he said and pointed to the square stone. ¡°Open it.¡±

    The mallet was heavy in my hand, heavy enough I could crack the man¡¯s skull with a single swing if I was quick enough. I imagined the give of his bones, slick blood covering my hands, compromising my grip, the shink of the four swords at my back slicing though my guts.

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    I climbed onto the stone at the center of the clearing. It was smooth as glass and warm under my feet. In the moonlight, my reflection stared back at me. She looked terrified.

    I gripped the mallet with both hands and raised it high overhead. Open it, he¡¯d said, so I swung down. A crash like thunder split the night and a crack snaked from where my mallet had struck to either diagonal point on the stone.

    I swung again, and again, and again until my arms felt like they might twist from my shoulders. There was something in the stone these men wanted, a treasure. As I swung, I planned mt escape. As soon as they stepped closer to retrieve whatever it is they wanted from the rubble, I would dash into the trees and risk my luck reaching the boat before they did. I hefted the mallet one more time, the stone now pebbles beneath my feet, when something shiny caught my eye. I let the mallet fall to my side and climbed back onto the sand.

    ¡°There,¡± I pointed, my heart pounding as I waited for them go for it. None of them moved.

    ¡°Pick it up,¡± said the green-eyed man.

    My mouth was dry, my chest heaved, I barely had the strength to keep the mallet clutched in my hand. Somewhere, a canopy filled with hammocks and fruits and birds was calling for me to run into Sinsula¡¯s slim forest, to the beach, to home. Anything but stand still another second in that silent clearing, on the island from my childhood nightmares.

    ¡°I won¡¯t,¡± I told him.

    The green-eyed man frowned and drew his sword. ¡°You will.¡±

    I did. With shaking hands, I reached back into the remains of the stone and dug until I uncovered a small golden statue the size of a human skull and in the likeness of a coiled snake. Red gems and pointed ivory fangs sparkled in its split face, and despite my hammering, it was unscratched. I gripped it in both hands to pull it lose and suddenly it felt as though my skin was trying to peel away from my fingertips. The metal was searing hot. I fell back onto the sand twisting and kicking, trying to get away from the heat, but my hands wouldn¡¯t let go. I was crying, and I looked to the circle of men, hoping against all sense that one of them might help me. They kept watch.

    Slowly, the heat faded and my tears stopped. One by one, I pried my fingers from the statue and cradled my hands to my chest, certain they were blistered to the bone. But when I checked my palms, they were smooth and cool against my cheeks.

    Boots appeared in front where I was still laying curled and shaking in the sand. The green-eyed man didn¡¯t spare me a glance as he crouched and plucked the statue hesitantly from the ground my its delicate neck.

    I waited, wanting it to burning him as it had me, but the snake only sat cold and still in his palm. He held it up to the light of the moon and studied it with sparkling eyes.

    My breathing was slowing, but my heart wasn¡¯t. A strange feeling overtook me, like a rockslide was tumbling through my chest. I felt for my pulse. Badum, badum, baudm.

    My heart was racing and beating out of time. Bad-badum-bad-badum-bad-badum. It was too fast for me to keep breathing, too fast for me to survive. But my breath stayed even, there was no pain, just too many heartbeats.

    One of the men spoke and broke me from my focus. ¡°What about her?¡± They had all put their packs back on, the snake statue gone from sight. The green-eyed man met my gaze and drank in all the hate and fear I sent his way. I hope he felt sick from it.

    ¡°Leave her,¡± he said. ¡°She¡¯s served her purpose. It¡¯ll come for her soon.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s coming?¡± I demanded, but my voice sounded quiet over the crash of my heart. ¡°What did you do to me?¡±

    The men ignored me and turned to leave. As the oldest, I¡¯d never been quick to cry, but in that moment my body turned to an ocean begging to spill from my eyes. I scrambled to my feet, ready to chase after them, ready to do whatever I had to if it meant getting onto the boat and back to my forest.

    ¡°I want to go home,¡± I cried and grabbed the green-eyed man by the back of his shirt. ¡°Please, don¡¯t leave me here!¡± The world snapped to black. When I opened my eyes, I was face down in the sand, my jaw aching. The bastard had punched me in the face.

    I cradled my cheek and sat up slowly, only to come nose to nose with the point of the green-eyed man¡¯s sword. He opened his mouth to say something, when¡ª

    A voice shrieked from down the island slope. Boars make similar noises when their legs break in hunter¡¯s traps¡ªtheir cries are so wrought with rage you can feel their pain in your soul.

    We all froze, the only movement a tremor in the tip of the green-eyed man¡¯s sword. When the echo disappeared, he barked an order and the other four fanned out, cursing and waving their torches around the clearing, trying to poke a hole through the blanket of darkness holding us in.

    ¡°I thought you said it would only take her,¡± hissed one of the men.

    ¡°It will,¡± the green-eyed man said, but his eyes were wide, and he didn¡¯t sound so certain. Finally, he turned his blade from me to the trees. ¡°It¡¯s coming for her, not us. The first one to touch it gets the curse.¡±

    Sinsula must have disagreed, because at that moment a branch snapped just beyond the trees, then there was the whisper of sand as something heavy slid over the ground. We turned slowly; our ears glued to whatever was out there circling us. When it was nearest to me, it stopped.

    All I heard was my heart, beating too fast to be real. Badum, bad-badum, bad-badum. This couldn¡¯t be real. I couldn¡¯t tear my eyes from the darkness between the trees.

    Branches groaned as they were forced apart, making room for something glittering and green that crawled into the moonlight. All feeling fled my body as I took in a creature with long, scaled forearms which dragged a round body wider than a man¡¯s shoulders behind it. Plates of scales overlapped its chest and up its neck to meet the smooth face of a man with slitted red eyes. His lips and jaw were stained with tracks of blood from where yellow fangs cut down past his chin from a mouth too small to house them.

    The creature scanned the clearing and our unmoving forms. When it saw me, it hissed, and a black hood flared open on either side of its face. Its body whipped back and forth, propelling it closer like a fish through water.

    My stomach was soup, my heart a cacophony of pounding drums and I scooted backwards on my elbows. Get up, I thought, get up, get up, get up! But my legs weren¡¯t listening.

    ¡°Where is it?¡± the green-eyed man shouted, waving his sword vaguely in the direction of the monster; the chimera, straight from my grandmother¡¯s stories.

    Too petrified for words, I pointed, but the fools may as well have been blind. The chimera¡¯s eyes contracted, nearly squeezing the dark slit of its pupil closed as it refocused on the men. It split open its bloody mouth and shrieked. I clamped my hands over my ears, the sound so sharp I was afraid it might pierce them. The men jumped. At least they could hear it.

    ¡°Run,¡± whispered the green-eyed man and he backed away from where I was pointing. ¡°While it¡¯s distracted!¡±

    The chimera moved, reaching black-clawed hands towards my ankle, either to grab me or shred through my flesh. But it¡¯s attention flickered once more as the men began backing away into the forest. The creature¡¯s body swelled with tension and a wave of sand flew into my face. When I looked back through bleary eyes, the manticore was gone.

    Someone screamed, then coughed wetly. Something dark and warm splashed against my shoulder, then washed across the ground. I looked up. The chimera had its long teeth sunk into the green-eyed man¡¯s neck and it shook him like a doll while he kicked, spraying droplets of blood over the rest of us.

    One of the men shook himself of his shock and slashed his sword blindly in the chimera¡¯s direction. I imagine all he saw was the green-eyed man¡¯s body convulsing in midair. When his sword met nothing but air on his first swing, the creature raised its arm and batted him away, the limb crashing into his body as my mallet had cracked through stone. He flew across the clearing, towards a tree. Crunch.

    The green-eyed man stopped twitching, but blood still spurted from his neck, and the creature wasn¡¯t done. It drove its talons deep into his chest and tugged, jerking the man¡¯s body like a bird yanking bark from a tree. With a snarl and a squelch, the green-eyed man¡¯s heart detached from behind his ribs. The chimera held the glistening organ up to the moon, its face rapturous. Its jaws opened wide, then wider still. Its cheeks stretched thin and translucent until a man¡¯s entire head could have fit inside the jagged cave of its mouth. It slid its lips over the man¡¯s heart and chewed.

    The green-eyed man¡¯s body thumped to the ground at my feet. His eyes were still open, staring at me.

    Badumbadumbadumbadum.

    Time sped up, my body no longer numb, but burning, pulsing with too many hearts, and I sprang to my feet. I glimpsed the creature turning to where three men still stood, white faced and gaping, then I was crashing through the forest and branches where clawing at my eyes. I had no torch, so I chased the downward slope. Screams rang behind me, then grew faint as I stumbled, fell, scraped my hands and knees before finally I burst onto the beach and spotted the black beetle of a boat.

    Badumbadumbadumbadum.

    The chimera screamed. It was getting closer.

    I slammed all my weight into the boat and didn¡¯t worry about the men who might still be alive on the island. It slid into the water, and I paddled madly away from the shore. I was barely past the breakers when the chimera slithered onto the beach. It¡¯s red eyes glowed hot and it wove back and forth at the water¡¯s edge, spitting, and hissing. Then it dove into the water, its long green tail slipped below the surface.

    I willed strength into my arms and paddled harder. Every wave knocking against the boat had me looking over the side, expecting to see a human face and a mouth wide enough to swallow me whole.

    It took me all night, but eventually I made it back to Beakscoop and dragged myself ashore where I collapsed into the sand. The boat pulled away in the current and I let it go. I laid there in the morning light, listening to the chittering of birds, and watching the water rush across the sand, waiting for the chimera to drag itself ashore and rip my heart out. But the chimera didn¡¯t come.

    Bad-badum-um, bad-badum-um, bad-badum-um.

    When I was strong enough, I walked into the warm embrace of my forest. The sack of gold coins from the green-eyed man was still heavy in my pocket. My heart still beat large and wild. I couldn¡¯t make sense of it, but I didn¡¯t care; I was alive, and I was home.

    I walked to the eastern edge of the island and found my youngest brother sitting in a mango tree, swinging his legs. The sight of him was like rousing from a nightmare. I ran to him, waving and calling out his name. But when he looked down at me, there was something missing from his eyes. Badumbadumbadumbadum. When he climbed down, I hugged him to my chest, trying to will all the love and relief I felt into him.

    ¡°I¡¯m back,¡± I cried into his shoulder. ¡°I missed you so much, I never should have left.¡± When I released him, he shrugged and wandered away.

    Badumbadumbadumbadum.

    The beating in my chest swelled. There wasn¡¯t enough room for its pounding, but I ignored it and followed my brother through the trees, my pulse barely faster than my racing feet. My family appeared, hanging from the trees, weaving nets, chopping fruit, but they greeted me with blank faces, as though I was a stranger.

    ¡°I¡¯m back,¡± I said.

    ¡°Of course, you had left,¡± they said and returned to their business.

    BADUMBADUMBADUMBADUM.

    My heart grew larger still, until its frenzied beat filled my entire body, and I burst into tears. My family paid me no mind, stepping around me like they might a stone in their path.

    I climbed into a tree and wept as I hadn¡¯t since I was a little girl. My body ached for someone to hold me, but no one came, so I wrapped my arms around my knees and wished the pounding in my chest would go away.

    That night, something scratching at the base of my tree woke me, and I had to remind myself that my racing heart didn¡¯t mean I was dying.

    Hisssssss.

    I knew before I looked what I would see¡ªthe face of a man with glowing red eyes and the body of a giant cobra.

    From the ground, the chimera snarled and dug its talons deeper into the bark, but it didn¡¯t leave the ground. I watched it through the night, clinging to the shaking branches every time it slammed its body into the trunk. Morning came and it gave one final hiss before slithering away into the forest. I climbed down and found my family one last time.

    ¡°I have to leave,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s not safe for you while I¡¯m here. Something is coming for me.¡± I wanted them to tell me it would be alright. I wanted them to wrap their arms around me and tell me that they loved me as they once had. Instead, they nodded.

    There were no lunches of sliced fruit, no tearful goodbyes, only the pounding of my heart fading to a distant thrum with every step I took away from my home.

    But the beating never really stops¡ªyou heard it.

    I didn¡¯t have enough gold to start the life I¡¯d planned, but I did have enough to get to Inlay. It wasn¡¯t until I started at the Writhe and Dive that the chimera reappeared one night. It was coiled just at the edge of that pool, down there. Patrons walked past it like it was nothing, they still do. I don¡¯t set foot on the ground at night, and it won¡¯t come up here. Maybe it¡¯s afraid of heights. I don¡¯t know.

    Whenever it¡¯s close, my hearts beat harder. That¡¯s what it does, whatever this curse is. It fills you with the heartbeat of everyone who¡¯s ever loved you, then seals that love away where you can¡¯t touch it. A devourer of hearts, just like my grandmother said.

    All I have left now are memories of dragonflies and mangoes, and days spent living as the birds did. Now, I have the chimera. One day, I think I might just lead it out of here and feed it the hearts of every man from a ship with black and yellow sails. You know the ones¡ªthey sit like yellow jackets in Inlay¡¯s harbor. They all read the same thing; Samwhin.

    <hr>

    I have been to the establishment where Songsparrow found Mellow. Although she visited many ages ago¡ªnearly thirty years ago, if we¡¯re going by old time¡ªthere are still those that remember a woman claiming to have multiple hearts. She disappeared shortly after Songsparrow collected her story. Perhaps she left on her quest to dismantle the Samwhin navy. If so, it appears she was largely unsuccessful.

    I have found no records to suggest why a Samwhin navy ship would have been sent to deliver treasure hunters to Beakscoop.

    Signed,

    Mercurial Lascar, Age 1.5 Until Calamity

    <hr>

 Skyclipse Dive

    Transcribed by Mouse Writ, Seeker to the Old King

    Skyclipse Dive, Age 5.8 U.C.

    My Most Noble King,

    It is with a heavy heart I write to you. By now, you will have heard of the Calamity that befell Skyclipse Dive, and learned the fate of your Inaugural Listener. Montclay was a good man, from a good family. I hear Morganridge stonemasonry rivals the Talented and adorns walls as far north as Inlay. A tragedy indeed.

    It was Montclay who welcomed me into the Dive. Townsfolk near the base of the Skyclipse mountains refer to them simply as ¡°white wall¡±, and the name speaks for itself. Jagged, black-tipped peaks which from afar seem likely to skewer a star, widen into a seamless horizon of snow upon approach to the city. It is true what they say¡ªa man would need to climb higher than the clouds before he found a pass to the other side. Certainly, it cannot be done. I spent my final day on the open road trudging through a knee-deep wasteland of slush, and I can say with certainty, no one in their right mind would attempt to cross Skyclipse by any means other than the low road around the cape. It is shocking to me that Montclay was willing to live here so long when even the thinnest sliver of ice would have sent him sliding into a broken neck, the way he hobbled around. But the fellow was resilient; I found the old Listener waiting for me at the city limits, though he was bundled in a cloak that made him look three times larger than he was, and he¡¯d fallen asleep leaning on his cane.

    I stayed with Montclay in the Listener apartments at the Dive. They¡¯re large enough to host an entire family of nobility, but Montclay¡¯s wife died many years before, and had no interest in remarrying. The love he had left, he dedicated to his work, and his King. You will find it hard procuring a replacement so devoted.

    Still, it would have been nice to at least have a few servants running around. With just the two of us, Montclay¡¯s portion of the fortress echoed with cold, no matter that he ignited every hearth (of which there were six) each evening.

    It is strange, this city without walls. The lights of homes below the Dive outline a saddle sloping from the mountain¡¯s base to the frozen tip of the cape, completely exposed. One evening Montclay and I took tea in his library, overlooking the city though storm-sanded windows, and he explained to me the beauty of Skyclipse; a land made neutral by nature. With solid icy shores facing out, the white wall at its back, and slippery, narrow roads the only means of entry on either side of the cape, Skyclipse could rebuff anything short of an attack from all sides at once.

    I did not add my own suspicions, which are that no King or Queen would ever seek ownership of such a bleak land, with ground too frozen to till and winds to rip the flesh from one¡¯s bones. Despite having the high ground, without any walls, I still cannot purge the image of a strong breeze peeling it all up and sending it tumbling into the sea.

    Not to say that one would ever feel at risk in Skyclipse Dive. Never in my time on the Sledge have I bumped into so many guards and watchmen while trying to navigate such slippery streets in so many layers. I hope you do not take offense, but even His Majesty would have been waddling.

    I will admit, I might have over-delayed my departure to Badgerpool. But I wagered a few extra nights spent soaking old bones in a hot bath would only ease me to the journey. As you will now have heard, it¡¯s only through this good chance that I was able to escape the Calamity which befell Badgerpool, and nearly took Skyclipse, along with several of its beloved citizens, to Calma.

    Two days into my stay at the Dive and it had not stopped snowing. I caught Listeners after Council (the Volcanawan Listener is an old friend from my mercantile days; I recommend never taking him for a round of snaps) and insisted to them that it was the height of summer¡ªit was too early for it to be snowing!

    Even Montclay and the Capellen Listener¡ªa man who Montclay mourned never seeing eye to eye with¡ªagreed; snow is common at Skyclipse, regardless which time of year.

    The city watch, however, is not known for taking chances. That evening I saw them swinging from ropes and dangling in front of the Dive¡¯s upper casements. They swung like spiders, methodically pausing at intervals on the snow shield¡ªthe inverted V of stone and metal crowning Skyclipse Dive.

    ¡°They¡¯re checking for cracks,¡± Montclay said. The old fellow was frightfully silent in those slippers of his; I nearly dropped my tea! He pointed a crooked finger up the mountain side, which had been rounding out with each passing hour. ¡°Making sure it will hold should the snow loosen.¡±

    I was skeptical why Skyclipse should need a shield taller than that of the Samwhin Interior (which is taller than the one in Capelle, you¡¯ll be pleased to hear) when the only snow I had encountered was powdery as a dandelion, if a biting one.

    Until that night, when I was jostled awake, and my bed creaked in the roll of what I thought was thunder. But thunder doesn¡¯t roll through ground, so I hurried down to the library and joined Montclay in staring openmouthed out the apartment¡¯s sweeping windows.

    A rockslide of snow was spilling over the shield and down onto Skyclipse. The slurry carried with it solid chunks of ice the size of small hills, which it sent launching beyond the Dive, arcing into the air, and speeding towards buildings in the center of the saddle. They landed with a boom and the flagstones vibrated beneath our feet. We could do nothing but watch as these bergs exploded against the ground, flattening buildings and consuming people fleeing from the square below.

    I spent the next day on the edge of my seat in the library, watching as two women with a Talent for fire and water each (water is a Talent I¡¯ve not seen in Samwhin. Apparently, they wear leather in rainstorms, but perhaps Montclay was prodding my fancy) attempted to melt the remainder of the larger ice chunks, so a chain of shovelers could haul it away. Others in the black uniforms of the watch strapped wicker frames to their feet and fanned into a line. They crawled along the drift, prodding into the snow with long sticks, pulling empty sledges behind them.

    The captain of the watch arrived at the Dive just after lunch to give a report to the Listener¡¯s Council. Montclay was able to sit me in the back of the council chamber to learn what had happened: the largest snow slide on record, the captain said, nearly large enough to qualify as a True Calamity. The snow shield did not crack. It was overtopped.

    Only fifty-six more years Until Calamity. Us wizened folk are lucky, Your Highness, as we won¡¯t be around to see just how much the world will change in the ages to come.

    Despite my position at the back wall and my exceptional inability to fidget, the captain spotted me. ¡°The roads are currently inaccessible,¡± he told me, in front of everyone. ¡°The Speaker¡¯s guild is issuing requests across the Sledge to send people with elemental Talents to clear the snow and assist in extending the snow shield. Until that time, you¡¯ll have to remain with us.¡±

    I did attempt to find a solution, My King, as I knew how insistent you were I reach Badgerpool with haste. But the captain had been right¡ªthere were no ways out until someone arrived to clear the roads. The ice sheet just off the shore was not solid enough to walk around the cape in summer, the shores surrounding Badgerpool¡¯s beaches were studded with rocks sharp enough to pierce any ship¡¯s hull, and I expect not even you would suggest I climb the ¡®white wall¡¯.

    As night approached, the figures with the long poles stopped, having pulled nearly a dozen unmoving forms from the snow on sledges, and they hadn¡¯t even made it halfway across the mound. Their faces flashed to the sky, and they tucked their poles under their arms and hurried away. A mandate was issued from the watch: seal our doors, windows, and chimneys tight, and do not go outside for any reason. Another storm was coming.

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    When I asked Montclay how bad a storm must be for no one to be allowed outside their home, he pointed to the snowdrift below, its mass burying a quarter of Skyclipse Dive.

    ¡°Ah, see? There¡¯s no need to fret. They¡¯re taking care of it now.¡±

    Figures in black appeared once more, this time covered so entirely in furs they might have been coal in a snowman¡¯s smile. Again, they fanned into a line and proceed across the snow, moving faster now that they weren¡¯t stopping every few paces to check for a body. To either side of them, they shook a green liquid from watering cans, turning the paths behind them the color of vomit after a meal of onion stew (I also recommend never trying my Volcanawan friend¡¯s onion stew).

    ¡°What is it they¡¯re spraying?¡± I asked.

    Montclay¡¯s fingers tangled in his beard. ¡°They say they use it to kill bugs. Although I¡¯ve never heard of an insect that can thrive in snow, and I¡¯ve never seen one in all my years here. But perhaps that means it¡¯s working. Ask me what the substance is? Hardly a clue. They order it in from some specialist in unclaimed east. Can you believe? He¡¯s a poisoner. If I were Captain Sinclair, I¡¯d be more weary dealing with those. The only person who can trust a poisoner is himself. Sneaky, very sneaky.¡±

    I settled in for a long night¡¯s rest, having not been able to find sleep after the monstrous night previous. Despite not entirely seeing the captain¡¯s point, I checked the windows to my chamber before pulling the covers around me. I noted there was a crack in one of the crosshatched panes but paid it no mind when the heavy latch slid closed.

    I had not even counted my last sheep when my door rattled. I braced my legs for the chill and dashed to my robe before wandering over to see what Montclay was doing banging on my door so late in the evening. But after rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I saw that it wasn¡¯t my door handle rattling, but my entire door, jostling in it¡¯s frame as though being assaulted by rocks.

    Something tinged at my window and I spun around to see what it could have been¡ªthe apartment was easily one hundred feet above the nearest building. The night was black, and it was snowing outside.

    The door shook. A shout echoed somewhere further into the house, a short yelp as though surprised. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to approach the door, so I called out, hoping to hear from Montclay, or a guard that could explain what in calma was going on.

    Two more tings at my window and I whirled back around. The thin crack had thickened. The snow was moving oddly; turning sharply, seeming to drift upwards at times. I shuffled closer to inspect it but kept one eye on the door¡¯s hinges, which were seeming flimsier by the moment.

    Should you acquire a new generation of Seekers, Your Majesty, I recommend training them in the sword. It will feel a worthwhile lesson once out in the corners of Sledgegrass.

    I stared into the snow and studied its hypnotic trajectories, when a snowflake paused in midair, then flew upwards. I stared after it. Ting! I lurched backwards, crashing into the stone floor, jamming my back for what I expect will be days to come. Ting! Ting!

    The snow was cracking into my window. Only it wasn¡¯t snow. It had wings.

    Another silver edge split across the windowpane. Then another.

    I called out for Montclay one more time but didn¡¯t wait to hear the answer as one last bug flung against my window, and the glass shattered inwards.

    I sprung to my feet (or the nearest equivalent these knees will allow) and flung myself towards my wardrobe. Despite the size of the apartment, its bedrooms are cozy, and the wardrobe was only three steps away. Still, I was not fast enough. Three stings, as though from a hornet, bit into the back of my knee. I crashed face first into wooden back of the wardrobe and flailed to pull its doors closed.

    Not a second after I closed myself into darkness did the swarm barrage into the doors. I held the latches closed, gritting my teeth and trying to ignore the single bug that had made it inside the wardrobe with me. It stung my shoulder, then my stomach, then my cheek, each pinch more painful than the last. A slip of the scarf I¡¯d hung on the wardrobe¡¯s handles outside was trapped in the door, so I grabbed it and was able to tie it so the doors stayed shut.

    I swatted at the bug in the wardrobe with me, and eventually crushed it against the wall with my traveler¡¯s hat. It fell into my hat, and I held it under the shaking sliver of moonlight escaping through the cracks in the door. My mind must have been rattled in the assault, because at first glance, I mistook the creature for a miniature woman.

    In my hand, was a white insect, with wings translucent as the ice over a pond. Two long arms, which folded back into bloodied pincers, grew from a plated chest. And two tails sprouted from the bottom of its abdomen, both ending in stingers.

    I checked the sting on my arm, praying the creature wasn¡¯t venomous. Only, I hadn¡¯t been stung, I had been bitten. My calves, neck, face, arms, everywhere the frightful bug stung me, was covered in craters the size of a knuckle and streaming blood. Calma, the things were planning to eat me alive.

    I crouched in the closet, my heart pounding every time the rattling at the wardrobe doors picked up again. Finally, after however many countless hours with my knees bent and my back sore, my skin sticky with blood, waiting to see if the bugs would return once more, footsteps charged into my chamber. I swung the doors open to see the captain of the watch.

    He helped me from the wardrobe to the bed but left to let me change into more appropriate clothing. An astute man, Captain Sinclair.

    When I emerged, it was to find Montclay¡¯s apartments in shambles; statues toppled, tea sets overturned, inkwells spilled over fine Samwhin rugs. The captain told me they suspected the bugs got into the rest of the apartment through a chimney flue. I confirmed the apartments were always nearly as cold as the night outside.

    The captain took me to Montclay¡¯s rooms. There was something piled in the middle of the floor, like dirty snow. Or a skeleton, with wet tendrils of sinew holding its expression in an agonized scream.

    The short cry from the night before came back to me. The bugs must have eaten through Montclay¡¯s vocal cords before he could finish dying properly.

    With all exits out of Skyclipse still blocked, I spent the rest of the day with my friend from Volcanawa, rushing around his stone house lower in the city, boarding the windows. I was not the only one who had seen a corpse that morning. Where the town square sat, still buried, red welts had appeared in the otherwise clean snow. The watch dug into them and pulled out corpses as chewed clean as Montclay¡¯s.

    They came again that night with the snow¡ªthe bugs¡ªand we did not sleep. But no one died.

    The next night the snow fell, but the bugs did not come. Or the night after. Or the night after.

    And finally, the ships came, and the Talented set to clearing the roads. Teams of dogs pulled sleds over the ice and men in spotted seal furs rolled barrels into the watch¡¯s sheds. I knew it must be the same potion they had been spraying the first night after the snow slide.

    I asked a large man with a shaved head of tattoos who was pointing directions, if he knew the identity of the potion¡¯s manufacturer, and what it was supposed to do if not kill bugs, since it hadn¡¯t been effective that wicked first night.

    The large man looked down his nose at me¡ªan easy thing to do, My King, I took no offense¡ªand smirked. ¡°It does kill bugs,¡± he said and spit something vile and globular near my feet. ¡°And it kills things that attract bugs.¡± He kicked a barrel as someone rolled it past and nodded to the bloody mountain of snow still engulfing the square. ¡°You get a slide like that, lots of people get trapped under there, warm and moving around, trying to climb out?¡± He shruged. ¡°If the manti came down on you it¡¯s because you left your dead for alive, and they got the scent of all that heat in their waters. Up north, we know how to salt our ground properly.¡±

    ¡°North, you said? There¡¯s no chance you¡¯re from Badgerpool.¡± I had to ask.

    The man shook his head, no. ¡°Farther north.¡±

    He would not tell me the name of the poisoner.

    And still, I received more dire news. As the road to Badgerpool had given way, the watch got a clearer view of the white wall. They saw that a large shelf of snow had been chiseled away right above the little town.

    I am afraid there is no way to retrieve your good story from that iced-in community any longer, for there is no way it would have survived what Skyclipse Dive nearly didn¡¯t. Badgerpool is gone Your Majesty.

    But I will continue my quest.

    I flashed a bit of gold to my tattooed friend and begged passage on his ship. I have left this letter with the Listeners to send for delivery once passage opens. I would have contacted you through a Speaker, but I remembered your rules to take cautions when delivering these stories.

    As you read this, I suspect I will already be on Inlay. With no immediate direction, I wagered the island would be ripe for stories.

    I suppose you may be able to reach me through Songsparrow, for I do not yet know an address for my lodgings. She has been sending me sketches of places she¡¯s visited on the island since you sent her there, but they¡¯re all of libraries!

    It¡¯s for the best I¡¯m there with her, My King, she hasn¡¯t yet learned to see past her research, and stories live in places unexpected.

    In Your Unyielding Servitude,

    Mouse Writ

    P.S. My King, you will also find attached a small sample of the concoction the eastern poisoner made for Skyclipse Watch. Montclay was right¡ªno one can trust a poisoner unless they¡¯re kept in hand. And even then, only the master holding the leash. There¡¯s more than one reason why a poisoner on the continent selling magic should not be ignored.

    <hr>

    I will interject once more, only to note that Badgerpool is very much still intact.

    Signed,

    Mercurial Lascar, Age 1.5 Until Calamity

    <hr>

 Land Lost

    Transcribed by Songsparrow, Seeker to the Old King

    Skyclipse Dive, Age 5.6 U.C.

    My King,

    I fear this will not reach you before I die, if it reaches you. I¡¯ve always preferred to count my eggs after they¡¯ve been laid, but that¡¯s not possible today. Today, the sun is warm, and the ocean is singing beautifully. I hardly have anything left to complain about. But that¡¯s not the sort of story you¡¯ve taught me to tell, so I will start from the beginning.

    Since Mouse Writ arrived on Inlay nearly a fractal age ago now, he¡¯s been steadily working towards taking over my apartments¡ªhonestly, I¡¯m not sure what he plans to do with all the bobbles he¡¯s bought when it¡¯s time to move on to the next story. So when I received your order to leave for the north, I was not sad to see that steamy island go, or those cramped rooms with that pack-rat of a man.

    Mouse Writ claims he¡¯s been in your service for nearly three ages. I¡¯ve never questioned your taste before, Sir, but there¡¯s no sense in holding back now. He likes to say that stories are found in the most unexpected places, at the most unexpected times, so there¡¯s no sense in searching them out. I suppose that philosophy is what landed me on an overbooked passenger ship headed to the cape of Skyclipse Dive, and then on to Badgerpool. A town which, according to Mouse Writ, was demolished in a recent Calamity.

    I can¡¯t help but point out with hindsight, that a bit of searching on his part would have prevented my situation. But I¡¯m trying to set myself free of grudges before I die, so all I will say is this:

    Thank you for the opportunity to chase what eluded your most storied Seeker.

    I¡¯d gotten used to the bucket of heat captured on Inlay, so when we set sail, I was embarrassingly unprepared to face the winter sea. I was shivering on deck when I met a young woman, almost young enough to be called a child, who I will call Little Bird.

    No, I will not be sending her name. I wrote to you last month that Mellow disappeared from the Writhe and Dive, and even [unnamed] has stopped his correspondence with me. Mouse Writ was unconcerned. But then you stopped responding to my letters.

    Whether it came with that final story from Badgerpool or from a frozen island north of the Barrel, this was always going to be my last letter to you.

    Little Bird noticed me on deck, dropping my pen from the numbing cold as I tried to write in my journal, she took me to her quarters. Little Bird was travelling alone, but rich grandparents had purchased her the only private room abord The Sheppard, aside from the captain¡¯s own cabins. They were hardly larger than a broom closet, but still, they¡¯d been stuffed to overfilling with trunks of blankets and warm clothes, as well as spring blouses, silk skirts which would have been instantly ruined in the constant snowfall, and shoes from the sturdy sealskin boots on her feet to delicate laced sandals which would have caught her a chill even in Capelle¡¯s relatively temperate winters. Her grandparents didn¡¯t believe in her travelling unprepared, and we took every advantage.

    She lent me furs and soft leather gloves, so supple I hardly noticed them while gripping a pen. And in the evenings, after we¡¯d waited in the long line of passengers for our dollop of greasy fish stew, we retreated to her room and draped ourselves in the fine silks and jewels (who travels alone on a ship of northerners with a crate full of jewels?). We told each other stories.

    Don¡¯t worry, none of them were yours.

    ¡°Once, there was a dragon,¡± I¡¯d say. ¡°And he¡¯d filled his trove so deep with gold, he sometimes dove in for a swim.¡±

    ¡°But dragons can¡¯t swim,¡± she¡¯d say.

    ¡°Exactly,¡± I¡¯d say. ¡°Which is why the next thing he stole was a fisherman. He showed the fisherman his hoard and promised him as much gold as he could carry if he taught the dragon how to swim.¡±

    ¡°A dragon would never part with his gold. They¡¯re far too greedy,¡± she¡¯d say.

    ¡°That¡¯s what the fisherman thought too. So, when the dragon wasn¡¯t looking, the fisherman pulled the biggest hook he had from his belt and anchored it around a boulder at the far end of the trove. When the dragon climbed in and clung to the side, the fisherman said, ¡®When you can dive to the bottom at the far end of the cave, I will have taught you how to swim, and our bargain will be fulfilled¡¯.¡±

    ¡­ and on we went, our story growing every time Little Bird tried to catch me in a contradiction, until all the threads tangled, and we toppled into laughter.

    It was on such a night that The Sheppard sank.

    At the time, I knew we must have bumped an iceberg¡ªnot unexpected since we were half a day away from Skyclipse¡ªbut it stopped Little Bird and I mid-story, for we felt the jolt in the planks beneath our feet. We looked at each other, both thinking the same thing; that knock had come from below.

    We both stumbled as the ship stopped rocking on waves, and the sound of water disappeared, as though we had suddenly run aground. It wasn¡¯t possible¡ªwe¡¯d been on deck moments before with no land in sight. I told Little Bird to stay in her room, but when she followed behind me onto deck, I didn¡¯t stop to dissuade her.

    The deck was slippery with ice and we were still dressed for our evening, wearing the laced sandals and silk dresses from Little Bird¡¯s grandparents. I¡¯d been in such a rush, I¡¯d only barely remembered to grab hold of my journal, and neither of us thought to grab our coats.

    Clutching ourselves for warmth we shuffled for the railing. The crew were frantic around us, dashing from one side of the ship to the other, not glancing from their work once at the two women in summertime evening wear. We leaned over the railing on our bellies, looking directly down at the sea. Only there was no sea, because the ship was souring through the air, lodged atop a shiny mountain of black and white blubber. The creature was so vast, I doubt it noticed it had caught us on its back. Had it been volatile, it could have crushed us against the surface with a flick of its vertical tail. The fin moved slowly side to side, looking nearly as sharp as the black-topped peaks of Skyclipse disappearing in the south.

    The creature must have only emerged for a breath or to gather its bearings, because the captain had hardly given up on ordering the crew when the creature dipped its long nose, pointed and grey like a shark¡¯s, back into the water and began to dive.

    The world tilted, the wood slipped, and The Sheppard groaned as we knocked loose from our foothold on the creature¡¯s back. We caught air, and in that moment of weightlessness, Little Bird and I caught each other, and I wrapped her in my arms. A heartbeat later, we smacked into water. Cold shards seemed to slice through to my bones, stealing all my air in a single shocked cry. Then when the water softened, it sucked us deeper. We hung just high enough to avoid the path of the creature¡¯s tail as it propelled downwards. The shadowed ghost of a man was kicking below us, and he was not so lucky. His body silently crumbled in half on impact, all the air exploding from his lungs, and he spun away sinking akimbo in the dark.

    Little Bird grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled. We kicked for the surface, while all around us bulky forms fought to free themselves of the heavy furs pulling them deeper. Though I could not feel anything beyond the heat at my center, I kept my arm linked with Little Bird¡¯s as we kicked, scared that if we become separated, a desperate soul might grab hold and never let go. The air in our lungs gave out still several feet below the surface, and we broke into the winter air coughing up seawater. Around us was nothing but water and sky, land lost.

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    The Sheppard was gone, but several trunks had escaped its hold and floated to the surface. Working together, we were able to shovel the contents of two into the ocean and flip them, so they floated on pockets of air. We found a delicate balance on top of them by holding onto each other. Little Bird was just small enough to curl entirely onto the wood, but I was not so lucky. Blame it on my mother¡¯s long legs or my father¡¯s inflexible joints, but I could not entirely curl my feet onto the trunck without tipping it over. So, I let them hang. It wasn¡¯t long before they began to pulse with scorching heat before disappearing from my senses entirely.

    The Sheppard could not have been knocked far off course when it sank, but the current that squeezes between Skyclipse and Inlay is the most ferocious water on the Sledge and it had spit us beyond the Barrel into uncharted ocean.

    There¡¯s not much to tell of those days spent on the water, other than we were thirsty, and too cold to sleep, and our fingers and toes turned black. In my case, the blackness nearly reached my knees. I remember staring at them as they dipped in and out of the water, and not noticing until it had disappeared with the next wave, that one of my toes had fallen off.

    All my toes, except for the largest on my left foot, on which I¡¯ve worn a gold ring since I was a baby, had withered and dropped into the sea by the time our trunks bumped into ice.

    Little Bird, though small due to age and stature and frozen nearly as stiff as I was, did not let me die on the ice sheet.

    ¡°An island¡¯s right there, Miss Bird,¡± she said as she crawled on her hands and knees over the ice, one arm hooked in mine and dragging me. I told her to leave me, but she refused to listen¡ªa willful child, and strong. Unused to being denied anything. ¡°It¡¯s right there. We¡¯re almost there. It¡¯ll be better there.¡±

    It was better there. We melted snow in our mouths and got our first drink in days. I instructed Little Bird on how to build a snow burrow. I packed snow into bricks and slid them towards her to stack above the hole she¡¯d dug.

    ¡°I-is it alright that they¡¯re b-b-black?¡± she asked me over and over through chattering teeth. ¡°I can¡¯t feel them. And your l-l-le-legs, Miss Bird¡­¡±

    Frostbite this extreme was beyond the scope of my survival training, so I told her it was alright that our fingers and toes were black. And I didn¡¯t talk about my legs, which at that point still showed flushed red flesh down to the backs of my knees.

    I slid on my belly into the burrow, but with no body heat, it was still too cold to keep us alive, so I had to send Little Bird out once more for branches, the driest she could find in the snow. We didn¡¯t have an ounce of magic between us, so it was after hours, long after the sky grew dark¡ªor maybe that was just in my head, it was so cold¡ªthat Little Bird cried out in victory. A single spark had flown from the branches she¡¯d bene rubbing in her hands. It took several hours more for her to send a new spark onto the pile of brush she¡¯d pulled together. At least, I think that¡¯s what happened. I remember waking up warm, a fire sending rivulets of water trickling onto the floor of the burrow. Little Bird was curled into my side, weeping through grit teeth and cradling raw red fingers to her chest as her blood thawed.

    A week later, and our bellies were filled with fat fish Little Bird had found slumbering in one of the island¡¯s frozen pools. We¡¯d kept the fire burning, afraid if it went out, we might not be able to start it again. Each night we lit a second fire on the beach, hoping to see the lanterns of a ship¡ªany ship¡ªon the horizon. The color started returning to Little Bird¡¯s toes and both of our hands.

    A week after that, and I concluded that the flesh below my knees would not make the same recovery. Each day, I¡¯d watched it turn gangrenous. The little white bones on the tops of my feet were showing. The feet were starting to turn into a liquid. I was dragging around a body that was half-corpse. I¡¯d be a full-corpse soon if I didn¡¯t act quickly.

    I tried to hide what I was doing from Little Bird. The girl had proven her strength, but I didn¡¯t want her involved. But I had no legs to walk on, and though she was born to sheltered blood, it wouldn¡¯t have taken a fur trapper to follow the trail I left behind when I crawled on my elbows back onto the ice, to the two trunks we¡¯d floated in on, still sitting at the edge of the ice sheet.

    When Little Bird found me, I¡¯d managed to tear one of my nails from its bed prying at the metal bands holding the trunk¡¯s planks together. I hadn¡¯t gotten a single nail out, so I¡¯d laid down, and decided succumbing to the cold might not be the worst way to die. She¡¯s such a smart girl. She didn¡¯t say a word, only left and came back with the wooden spear she¡¯d been using to punch holes in the ice for fish and a flat stone.

    I should have thought of that, I thought. But as I watched her methodically demolish the trunk, emerging with splinters in her fingers and a straight band of shining steel, I suspect I would have only gotten in her way.

    In the burrow that night, we took turns running a stone along the metal band¡¯s length until it was sharper than even the Assassin of Samwhin¡¯s blades.

    ¡°Once, there was girl, stranded and alone on an island amidst a snowy sea,¡± I¡¯d say.

    ¡°I¡¯m not alone, Miss Bird,¡± she¡¯d say.

    ¡°So, every night, she lit a fire on the beach, and though she was alone, and though she¡¯d seen no ships for more nights than she could remember, she stayed warm and alert, and never gave up hope that one day, she¡¯d make it back to her home on Capelle.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t say that.¡±

    ¡°She stayed strong, and resilient, and she caught fish. And though she was sad she was alone, one night a ship saw her fire and took her home.¡±

    Morning came, and I didn¡¯t let myself wait. The frostbite was above my knees. I considered once more crawling away and freezing to death, but Little Bird had taken to curling around me for warmth when we slept, and strength forages strength. If Little Bird survives this, it will be because she¡¯s strong.

    We sat in a cleared patch of snow, and I sent Little Bird away to retrieve a burning log for¡­ after. Something to cauterize the wound. I told her I would wait until she returned to begin, but I lied.

    I waited until I was certain Little Bird was far away sifting through the logs on the beach, and I clutched the metal band at either end, hovering the saw we¡¯d made over my thigh, just above the knee.

    I told myself I wouldn¡¯t scream.

    I failed.

    It was all red pain and steamed blood.

    In that moment, I thought about a man trapped in a cave, hiding from his death, and a woman with a monster lurking in her shadow. I would survive this, I would, I would, I would¡­

    I passed out. I don¡¯t think I even hit the bone.

    When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to be awake and alive. Fire was sizzling under the roof of our dripping burrow. It was near enough that had I rolled to the side I would have burned, but it still wasn¡¯t warm enough to stop my shaking. Little Bird was curled into my side, but she wasn¡¯t asleep. At the bottoms of my thighs was a scalding heat unlike any pain I¡¯d ever known. My throat was too sore to scream.

    ¡°I did it,¡± she whispered. ¡°So, you have to live now.¡±

    I am trying, but I¡¯ve made her no promises. Another week has passed, and with each day, the pain has grown. I¡¯m not sure how that¡¯s possible, but it has. I¡¯ve spent the past five days, sitting with my lower half buried in the snow. The pain is manageable, but I worry.

    I¡¯ve been dreaming about crawling inland and hiding behind one of the island¡¯s skeletal trees, snuggling under a blanket of snow. In my dream, the sky is painted with strokes of glowing green and purple lights, and each stripe begins with a mouthful of sickle-like teeth.

    I¡¯ve done an adequate job of hiding my pains from Little Bird. I can tell because she spends more days on the beach now, less concerned with watching me. She¡¯s been piling the fire higher and higher, searching, always searching the horizon for ships, even in the day, when there¡¯s no chance of someone spotting her. The opportunity for me to disappear is there.

    But strength forges strength, and I¡¯ve never been one to wait for the stories to come to me. A ship may come. There is still a chance.

    But I fear my time is running out. Yesterday I awoke to a new pain and checked the flesh around my stumps¡ªthe blackness is back, creeping up my right thigh, thin red lines up to my hip. I must not have cut high enough.

    Little Bird doesn¡¯t know. And she won¡¯t tell her. Even if I thought I could make the cut again, I doubt I¡¯m strong enough to survive it this time. I can¡¯t remember how I did it the first time. Everything is so fuzzy now.

    I have no bottles to float this message in, so I will have to leave it with Little Bird, should I die. Though I have warned her to send it from afar, and not under her own name. Mouse Writ would call me over-cautious.

    My one regret, My King, is that I never made it to Badgerpool, to find the story you¡¯re so eager to collect. I hope you find it, whatever it is you sent us out here for. I hope you find it, and I hope it kills you, as it has me.

    With All My Heart,

    Songsparrow

    Seeker to the Samwhin Throne

    Little Bird, remember the story? Once, there was a brave young woman, stranded in a winter sea. Despite her fear and her sadness at having been left alone, she was stronger than any dragon. She was braver than a knight, more determined than fate, and smarter than the oldest witch on Sledgegrass, and she was going to survive.

    Every night, she kept her fire burning. She built it so high, it kissed the stars. No ships came, and no ships came, but she didn''t give up. And when she made it home, she finished her own story.

    <hr>

    It¡¯s true that this letter was not found floating in a bottle.

    It was folded in an envelope along with a large golden ring amidst the papers hidden in the Old King¡¯s study. The letter¡¯s seal was unbroken and stamped with the oyster crest of Capelle. I would like to believe that it was sent to the Old King by Little Bird, after she made it home.

    I suspect I am the first person to read it.

    Signed,

    Mercurial Lascar, Age 1.5 Until Calamity

    <hr>

 Dark Places

    Transcribed by Murk Lake, Seeker to the Old King

    Capelle, Exterior, Age 4 U.C.

    I¡¯d like to think it¡¯s your desire I¡¯m tracking, and not my own nose for blood that keeps leading me into these dark places. All the stories these days are riddled with monsters, and the Moonlighter in me is growing restless with finding little more than words at the bottom of each rabbit hole.

    But I may have finally found a trail to what you¡¯ve been seeking. Once I¡¯m close enough for my magic to sink its teeth in, there will be no shaking it off.

    My search didn¡¯t start off fruitful. No relics to hunt this time, or orders to follow. Only rumors, and only a Seeker would put value in those. But as rumor moves from one village to the next, it grows plump on the vine, ripe for truth. Sit in a bar for long enough and you¡¯re bound to catch tales stranger even than what I¡¯ve sent you over the ages; Calamity toppling Skyclipse, monsters made of smoke and liquor, talking fish, all heard from a friend of a sister of an enemy of a friend. But truth is often simple, and this story was not so hard to believe.

    It started in Deck¡¯s Crypt¡ªwith a name like that, you won¡¯t be surprised to learn it¡¯s a border town, Capellen side. Beneath a sliver of silver moon, a wounded man, or a wounded animal, peeled from the vast night and limped inside, drawn to the laughter and light of an inn. Now the murders there outnumber the lawkeeps two to one.

    Though I drove my horse into a race with the wind, by the time I pulled rein in Deck¡¯s Crypt, the moon had blinked and opened its eye once more, and everything was gone, even the floors of the inn. Torn out, the lawkeeps said. No amount of scrubbing could separate that much blood from wood, so it had to go. They¡¯re replacing it with stone¡ªless difficult to stain, and more resistant to Calamity. I¡¯m sure the next monster to roll through will appreciate it.

    I followed shambling footprints northeast into Capellen shrubland, where I shared a fire one night with a haggard traveler and his apprentice. The apprentice was impatient to get moving¡ªkept her cloak pulled low over her eyes the entire time¡ªbut her master was friendly with his flask and warned me of something they¡¯d passed down the road. Bandits, he thought, if particularly wrathful ones.

    I spotted the broken ribs of the wagon the next morning. A torn scrap of tarp had caught on a splinter sparkling with morning dew, and waved on a breeze, still begging for mercy. The amount of blood inside a human body can fill a milk can. I believe that; you would too if five times that had soaked through the soles of your shoes up to your ankles. But I¡¯ve never known bandits to bite flesh from their victims. Or leave valuables behind. Amongst the corpses I collected three coin purses and a silver ring holding a fleck if emerald. Miniscule valuables: barely enough to settle a Moonlighter, but not so little to have been overlooked by thieves. Call it the price for burying them.

    Things became complicated when the next rumor of slaughter came from the Capellen Exterior. I asked myself what kind of monster could slip so easily past city gates. But either Capellens doesn¡¯t think to record who enters their city, or the Queen has instructed them not to answer for a Samwhin crest; either way, the gate guards remembered no monsters passing them by. Minnows in a shark¡¯s pond, all of them.

    At least this time, I got there before the blood dried, and the city watch is better at sticking to procedure than the lumps they post at the gates.

    It was a woman and a little boy. Both dead, with chunks taken out of them. The bite marks were still fresh, and whatever had chewed them up didn¡¯t attack because it was hungry. A wolf after prey strikes for the throat. The mother had fought back¡ªa cookpot large enough to cook a whole piglet had been knocked from the hearth, and now stew will need to be scrubbed from the floors as well as blood. Maybe they should have considered stone.

    The city watch stuck on those clues like ants in honey. It must have been the act of a cruel stranger or a rabid dog¡ªperhaps those are more rampant in Capelle than they are in Samwhin.

    But the mother died with a knife in her hand, and for all the struggle she put up, the blade was clean. Yellow jackets are fragile but try to crush one in your hand and no threats of death will stop it from stinging. So, either the monster was too quick for her, or she had reason to hesitate before stabbing the thing she saw rip out her son¡¯s throat.

    I kept this detail to myself and stalked after the watch as they questioned the neighborhood, keeping to the shadows with my pen ready to strike. Capelle has the same order as a rats¡¯ nest, and its citizens treat it with all the respect of one. Door to door, the answer was the same: ¡°No one saw nothing¡±, and ¡°Yar can take your questions elsewhere¡±. I was able to parse one thing from amidst the grammar¡ªthe mother had a husband, away trading cases of wine for wool along the border. His name was Sabe Leric and the neighbors knew him for his pies. He sounded the type of man a wife might hesitate to stab.

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    The story began to take shape: something at the border had changed Sabe before he went to Deck¡¯s Crypt, and he tore blood from bodies using nothing but fists and teeth. He must have awoken horrified and run back into the surrounding shrubland, or whatever he had become wondered away to find a new prey. It navigated alone until a wagon train appeared on the same narrow road. They might have seen a man covered in blood and stopped to help, or he might have chased them down, and Sabe had a second night bathed in blood and moonlight.

    But then Sabe must have woken up, or maybe he was never asleep, because after that he ran for home, where things are safe and make sense. But when Sabe entered Capelle, the monster came too, and now Sabe had no home left. He¡¯d run off somewhere, probably still digging soft tissue from between his molars.

    Sabe was a creature on the run, but with no safe places left to turn and something in him with the drive to kill, he could have gone anywhere. But guilt is as much a reason to get stuck somewhere as love, and if Sabe was still human, he¡¯d be carrying enough guilt to anchor any ship.

    I started by checking the dark places.

    Capelle has no Reliquaries, and no escape hatches worming beneath it. The tunnels it does have are channels for the city¡¯s filth and not even rats could bear the stench. But while Capelle is known for its dye and silk, they are less known for the coal its treasures are forged from. Silk shops line the Harbor of Jewels like colorful birds, and don¡¯t mention that they purchase their product raw from the Exterior, where it is spun by little creatures below ground. I could think of no darker place than a den of silkworms.

    I went at night, as I prefer to do. They say all Moonlighters are lockpicks. This is untrue¡ªonly successful Moonlighters are lockpicks, and I can¡¯t abide failure. Especially not in Your Majesty¡¯s service.

    I found Sabe lodged at the bottom of the second den I checked, beneath a shop nestled close to the city wall.  The darkness was cramped with the scent of soiled decay and old sweat, bedded with leaf litter and soft, white silken cocoons. Sabe was curled like a cornered wolf, watching me with eyes that seemed lit from within by unnatural embers.

    ¡°Don¡¯t come closer,¡± he rasped, and held out his hand to stop me, but retracted it when he realized the rusted stains on his skin. I doubt he was thinking when he wrapped his lips around four fingers and sucked. Like the wild animal he was, his attention drifted, and he began tearing a hangnail from his cuticle. ¡°It wants to¡­,¡± he muttered, not to me. His nailbed gave and he absently licked the blood from his lips before swallowing. ¡°It wants, it wants¡­¡±

    I already knew this, my Moonlighter magic choked on it as soon as I¡¯d stepped from the stairs. All treasure is, is bobbles with want poured in¡ªit¡¯s what makes anything valuable. Treasure in the hand of a Moonlighter is completion. But wanting hopelessly is an elixir spilt, wasted on the air, until nothing is left but the vessel. Sabe was a husk when I found him, with no more spark in him than the fat little worms popping under my boots.

    Sabe shut his eyes and rocked in short bursts. The hand he pressed over his mouth did little to hide the globs of thick, brownish saliva dribbling from his chin, and my hope for collecting the story thinned. I reached for my belt, not sure if I should be drawing the dagger or the pen.

    ¡°That¡¯s a lot of blood on your hands, Sabe.¡± Sabe shook his head and howled into his hand. I waited for him to calm. ¡°But maybe it wasn¡¯t you who put it there.¡± Sabe¡¯s eyes clicked open, and they glowed red as coals. I dropped my hand lower for the dagger. ¡°Tell me what happened. I can help you.¡±

    I did still have hope of salvaging him, Your Majesty, but you can only train dogs to dig, not wolves, or whatever it was inside Sabe. As interesting as he was, the Select would have put him down for rabid.

    ¡°It was the grove,¡± he whined and crawled towards me on his knees, breathing like a bear climbing from its den. When he bared his teeth, blood was crusted black under his gums. ¡°And the lights! Oh, the lights.¡± Sabe cackled and dropped his head, staring at his hands, filthy from days of slaughter and scrabbling among worms like an animal. ¡°It wants¡­ it wants¡­¡±

    ¡°What does it want?¡±

    Clear questions and plenty of room to elaborate foster storytelling. But it was too late; Sabe had stopped answering. And whatever had been sleeping inside him woke up. Luckily, I already had my dagger in hand.

    His death was quick, if bloody, but I¡¯ve gotten good at cleaning up my messes these past years. A den of silkworms scrubbed clean draws less attention from the watch than a body in the basement.

    I have questions, Your Majesty, as I¡¯m sure you do too.

    This isn¡¯t the first time I¡¯ve heard stories of strange lights. North of Skyclipse, they say you can see spirits in the sky on clear nights, glowing green and yellow. I hear Mouse Writ abandoned his mission to investigate these tales from Badgerpool.

    He only saved you time sir¡ªa town like Badgerpool would have taken a foul liking to someone who reeks so much of spring. But, then you sent Songsparrow too, and she¡¯s been gone many years.

    Badgerpool is not the only place to be chasing stories of lights in the sky. My magic grows more ravenous, and my want is pouring out. Perhaps I will find something valuable to feed it at the border, amongst a grove.

    That is where I will go next.

    Until Calma,

    Murk Lake

    <hr>

    You¡¯ll recall what the Old King thought of that, Sire.

    Signed,

    Mercurial Lascar, Age 1.5 Until Calamity

    <hr>

 Outcasts

    Transcribed by Mouse Writ, Seeker to the Old King

    Unclaimed East, Age 3.9 U.C.

    Your Majesty,

    Do you remember the days when we were quick to spring on opportunities? Now everything takes twice as long, and when it doesn¡¯t, I¡¯m harried. Too many memories to sort through every time a decision needs to be made.

    I don¡¯t mean this as an excuse for why it¡¯s taken me nearly a year to leave Inlay after receiving your commands. Until few weeks ago, my hunt for the poisoner was nothing more than correspondence with merchants and trackers in the east (letter writing the only part of investigating I have any knack for)¡ªpeople who are used to having their boots on the ground. Like Murk Lake, the slime; Moonlighters are used to hunting, and that one seems to have a taste for it. And yet, it¡¯s me¡ªyour oldest and most accomplished Seeker¡ªthat you¡¯ve chosen to send to Unclaimed East on a manhunt. But as you reminded me in your order, it is not my place to question these things. Sometimes I worry you know me a little too well.

    A tome¡¯s worth of correspondence letters sent east until one finally threaded the needle. A salt farmer, originally from Squidrich¡ªonce in our youth, she spent a spectacular summer failing to teach me how to swim¡ªlives in an in-ground hovel just east of Capelle¡¯s mountains. She cast herself there many years ago when her sister vanished after a storm at sea; it would seem her luck has only gotten worse, because one day while stretching her legs on the slopes of the foothills, she found what looked like a shallow graveyard, unnatural shrubs growing out of each mound.

    I had never been to Unclaimed East, but I knew it would be no seaside walk. Travel over the Barrel to Capelle¡¯s Harbor of Jewels is pleasant enough by ship¡ªfleeting, if nothing else¡ªbut only birds travers the dunes east of Capelle, the long slopes of the border mountains, and the last lawless little towns claiming to be kingdom-side and spit out the other end looking noble.

    My eyes were too dry and my feet too sore to be bothered by the illegible weather-stripped sign posted outside the small collection of residences drilled into the eastern face of the border mountains. I never did catch the town¡¯s name (if it was that), but I can presume it was Lizardpit, or Doomdesert, or something equally as tragic¡ªthey do take Calamity seriously out there, though I can¡¯t begrudge them for it. When the view is nothing but low scrubland feeding the flat ocean beyond, it does feel like the sky may fall at any moment.

    That evening I asked my friend from Squidrich what she thought of this, as she hosted me under her dug-out roof with a platter of exotic meats she would not tell me the origins of. She only shrugged, and I wondered over her that night, kept awake by the nerve on my spine that refuses to accept circumstance. Perhaps the east¡¯s obsession with Calamity was not what drove her to dig a hole in the least interesting land on the Sledge, and disappear inside.

    Perhaps one day soon I will hear what you think of my musings.

    In the meantime, I expect you¡¯ve heard by now that the mission did not go according to my plan, nor yours. So, I promise to tell everything exactly as it happened:

    A hard night¡¯s rest in my contact¡¯s burrow, and the sunrise found me standing among the last drag of the foothills, searching for a morbid garden. The team of Select you had sent were already picking their way around the poisoner¡¯s body farm when I arrived¡ªmurderous little ravens hunting for scraps in their black coats and glassy-eyed masks.

    I try to avoid planting myself in the footpath of poisoners, so when I spotted the sprout of a witch the Select had brought with them, watching warily on a hillside, I saw no harm in leaving the dead behind to introduce myself.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t expect to find a witch on the hunt.¡± Never mind that I¡¯ve never seen Talented swallow well with witches around, not even the Select, but the boy hardly looked old enough to fetch me an inkbottle, let alone hunt a poisoner.

    ¡°They need me to see the magic,¡± he said without feeling. His eyes remained trained on the farm below and Select weaving between the scattered grave mounds, inspecting where holes had been dug and plants had been left to dry. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to be looking for traps,¡± he grumbled, and shot me a frustrated glance from the corner of his eye. ¡°They call me Jem.¡±

    Jem seemed a quill ready to tear through paper if pressed to hard, so I resigned myself to a morning devoid of pleasantries. I sat and stretched the arches of my feet, breathing in air smelling of warm dirt and salt.

    By the time the four Select filed back to us, the steady coastal wind was batting grave dust from their dark flapping coats, and Jem had nearly chewed a blister into the hard line of his lip. I clambered to my feet, preparing for introductions, but I was beneath notice. The shortest of the black-masked party stepped in front of Jem, arms crossed and expectant.

    ¡°He didn¡¯t leave any magic behind,¡± Jem reported to the woman, face to her feet. She seemed to be studying him, and he eventually brought his wrist up to rub the crusty dryness of his eyes.

    ¡°Good to see I didn¡¯t need to peel your eyes for you,¡± the woman said, her voice hollow behind the smooth plain of her mask. She snapped her fingers and Jem flinched. Over her shoulder and the other three in her party straightened their spines. ¡°Sniff the permitter for tracks, Wolf, before this wind blasts them away.¡± One of the Select left to stalk the permitter of the farm.

    ¡°We¡¯ve missed him by no more than a day,¡± I interjected, contemplating how Wolf could spot tracks from behind his bulbous, opaque lenses ¡°My contact spotted a man marching with a shovel over his shoulder headed this direction just yesterday.¡±

    The woman¡¯s masked face slid to me, and I saw only myself reflected in the shininess of her covered eyes. This was no reason to withhold politeness, so I held out my hand.

    ¡°Mouse Writ, Seeker to the King. Although today, I suppose I¡¯m more of a bounty hunter.¡±

    Really, My King; even to you, that must sound ridiculous.

    The Select gripped my hand in her own briefly before snatching it back into her coat. ¡°The only bounty you will find here, Seeker, is the good grace of your King. And that will be enough.¡± She pointed at two Select standing silent behind her, though she must have known I had no hope of telling them apart. ¡°That¡¯s Shrike and Louse. You may call me Fly. We¡¯ll do the catching. The boy¡¯s supposed to do the tracking,¡± Jem swallowed and pulled his coat closer to him. ¡°And you¡­ remind me what I¡¯m supposed to do with you.¡±

    There¡¯s no reasoning with someone who¡¯s only interested in the good grace of her king, so I flicked my pen from my pocket.

    ¡°Cataloguing your heroics.¡±

    She didn¡¯t speak to me for the rest of the day. I followed along at the end of the party. The six of us had horses, but we led them by the reins as Wolf walked out front, pausing every now and then to pick out the trail the poisoner had left behind him. Jem was next to him, his head gliding side to side as he scanned the landscape for things only a witch can see.

    Night descended and no moon rose to chase away the darkness. We built a hasty fire of dried twigs and scrub brush. The Select warmed their hands for a moment before disappearing to their own corners of the camp to eat from their own packs of food without their faces being seen. Jem and I remained at the fireside, but we too ate dried scraps we¡¯d bundled into our own packs¡ªno communal stews when a poisoner¡¯s about.

    ¡°How did you find yourself wrapped up in this?¡±

    Jem narrowed his eyes at the fire and coiled his spine. ¡°They brought me,¡± he said quietly.

    ¡°You don¡¯t sound certain.¡±

    Jem wove his fingers together and clutched them in his lap, sitting tense. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you want me to say.¡±

    The way he snapped his mouth shut implied it wasn¡¯t an invitation for suggestion, so I tucked my journal away, and resigned myself to a somber and silent journey with my companions.

    Fly was the first to keep watch as we slept. Her footsteps were lost to the hum of insects chirping from hidden corners of the plain, but every now and then I awoke having felt a shadow pass over me as she circled. The next time this happened, I squinted a single eye open and caught her silhouette. Yellow moonlight illuminated her gloved hand, tense on the handle of her belt knife. I had to remind my racing heart it wasn¡¯t us she was hunting out in the dark.

    The grunt of someone hitting the dirt jolted me awake. I rubbed grit from my eyes and rolled over to see Jem sitting up from where he¡¯d fallen, rubbing a spot on his cheek that was beginning to bloom red. Fly stood over him, her masked face stoic, but her shoulders expanding with furious breath.

    ¡°We brought you to do one thing, and you¡¯ve already failed,¡± she said, her voice flint. Her head tilted at an angle. ¡°I¡¯m not sure you have a reason to be here any longer.¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t¡ªI was asleep,¡± Jem stuttered, and scooted away when Fly reached forward with straight arms, bringing her palms down like she might cradle Jem¡¯s face between them.

    It seemed I was needed, so I ignored the creaking of my sleep-stiffened joints and hustled to Jem¡¯s side, bending to offer the boy a hand. He stared between Fly¡¯s frozen palms and my own outstretched one. He was clearly displeased with either offer, but he accepted mine in the end. Fly dropped her hands to her sides, but her face lingered on Jem.

    ¡°Has something happened?¡± I asked Fly before her silence could wind Jem any tighter.

    Fly tucked her hands into her pockets and turned to stare in the direction of the sea. The two other Select were crouched over their fourth, who laid on the ground as though still asleep.

    ¡°Shrike was on watch this morning. He¡¯s dead.¡± She turned and her eyes shone my own back at me. ¡°It was the poisoner.¡±

    ¡°How can you be certain?¡±

    Fly¡¯s head rocked to Jem, and he spoke hurriedly under her scrutiny. ¡°I can see the colors of his magic. Now that I¡¯m awake,¡± he added.

    Fly made a wet smacking sound behind her mask and grabbed the fabric of his coat. I followed close to Jem¡¯s side as she pulled him towards Shrike¡¯s body, though I¡¯m not sure what I would have done to intercede had she decided her approach was too gentle handed.

    Louse and Wolf rose from their crouches as we approached, revealing their fallen fourth. The black mask still covered his face and not an inch of skin showed to indicate what might have caused his death. Fly thrust Jem forward and the boy stumbled before scanning the corpse.

    ¡°It¡¯s right here,¡± he said and reached a hesitant hand for Shrike¡¯s neck.

    One of the two Select¡ªeither Louse or Wolf, I¡¯m not sure which¡ªslapped his hand away and knelt to pull back the collar of Shrike¡¯s shirt. Beneath the fabric, the side of Shrike¡¯s throat stretched smooth and bruised over a bulge, just large enough to crick his neck at an angle.

    ¡°Check it.¡±

    Before I could comprehend what Fly may mean by this, the kneeling Select pulled a small blade from his belt and slashed straight over the protrusion. I tugged Jem with me behind the Select before anything ghastly could emerge.

    . ¡°Be careful,¡± I warned, but Fly did not look up. The kneeling Select didn¡¯t hesitate to reach into the wound, folding back the flaps of skin to slip his fingers inside to pull forth an object. He held it up for Fly to see and even I couldn¡¯t resist getting closer to discern what it was¡ªa brown speckled egg, too large to have come from a hen.

    ¡°A goose?¡±

    The Select placed the egg in Fly¡¯s palm and she stared down at it. A gust of wind threaded the ends of Fly¡¯s coat, and she clutched the egg in her fist.

    ¡°How did you not sense this?¡± She asked, and Jem paled, opening his mouth, then closing it again.

    ¡°Poisoners are tricky,¡± I reminded her. ¡°Their craft isn¡¯t as simple as imbibing potions with magic. Shrike could have walked into a spell concocted to lay dormant until the moon was full, or until after he¡¯d fallen asleep, or until the temperature dropped.¡±

    Fly loosened her grip on the egg before bringing her arm back and tossing it away in an arc. Fly was a Heavy, I realized as the egg disappeared out of sight before touching ground. I released a breath I¡¯d been holding when after a few heartbeats, Fly¡¯s actions triggered no further magic.

    ¡°We¡¯ll need to be wary of more than just the magic Jem can see coming,¡± I insisted.

    Fly twitched her fingers and her knuckles popped before she tucked her hand back in her pocket. ¡°I suggest you save your opinions for your letter,¡± she said. ¡°We¡¯re leaving. Wolf, find the trail.¡±

    The two Select moved to find the trail and kick dirt over the remains of the fire. They paid no more mind to Shrike¡¯s body. Had I not already stood in Fly¡¯s path once that morning, I would have insisted on a burial, but with that frightful mask, I wasn¡¯t sure whether to interpret her silence as fury or simple uncaring. As it was, the next hour saw us following the same trail Wolf had found the day before.

    We did not fall into any more traps and Jem saw no more signs of magic for the next two days and nights¡ªnot for lack of trying, the poor boy¡¯s eyes were blown bloodshot at the end of each day from studying the landscape so closely.

    Sensing that he was the only other reasonable member of our company, I tried to get a better read on him each night after the Select moved off to the shadows, but Jem held his past close and regarded me with more suspicion than I was due. Even the meager conversations I was able to drag out of him ended the moment Fly reappeared. Though she never said anything, it was clear to me she was using something to needlessly threaten the boy (an opinion I thought I¡¯d save for my letter to you).

    The third night was approaching, stretching the shadows of the low mountains long onto the plain, and Wolf was stopping every few minutes to find the trail. We were losing our one lead to the wind. But Fly could not be told that. She drove us onwards faster than ever.

    Before night could take us completely, a structure appeared dark against the setting sun. The monument grew large¡ªa pyramid stacked of round boulders, either a tribute to Calamity or the remnant of one. At its foot was a steepled house of planks and hide, shadows flickering from the firelight within.

    Fly stopped us.

    ¡°Wolf, scout ahead, confirm if it¡¯s him,¡± she pointed at Jem who was chewing his lip, staring at the house on the horizon. ¡°Take the witch with you.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps it would be better for Jem to inspect the area from afar, where he can see magic across the plain,¡± I tried to say on the boy¡¯s behalf, but Wolf was already walking away, and a single nod from Fly had Jem chasing after him, despite the disheartened twist of his mouth.

    I squinted to make them out in the dim. Nearly to the camp, the smaller figure trailing behind which I took to be Jem, stopped in his tracks. Wolf realized Jem had stopped two paces too late. A distant shriek split the night. The hard-cut edges of Wolf¡¯s shadowy figure smoothed and sunk.

    ¡°Are they¡ª¡± I didn¡¯t get a chance to finish asking Louse and Fly what they thought had happened, because at that moment, Jem turned towards the mountains, and bolted.

    ¡°Calma,¡± Fly growled, then she was dashing off into the night as well. I stood awkwardly with Louse.

    ¡°Are you supposed to go after her?¡±

    Louse shrugged and began casting about for twigs to build a fire. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to follow her orders.¡±

    Night crept in fully and I was unable to sleep. I paced from one end of the camp to the other, torn between squinting to see wanting to see what had befallen Wolf and not wanting to miss movement that might indicate Fly or Jem returning.

    The moon was full and my eyes were growing heavy. Louse had already laid down to sleep when I heard footsteps to the west. Two figures appeared in the firelight. In the front was Jem, one of his eyes black and swollen closed, the other damp and angry and trained on the ground in front of him. Behind him, walking close as a shadow was Fly. At the fire, she shoved Jem to the ground next to me and turned to nudge Louse awake with the toe of her boot.

    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    ¡°Why did you run?¡± I asked Jem. He only shook his head and looked away from me.

    ¡°Start gathering stones,¡± Fly was saying to Louse as he stretched and climbed to his feet. ¡°Meet us at Wolf¡¯s body.¡± Louse nodded and lumbered off into the dark.

    ¡°Stones?¡±

    ¡°Steppingstones,¡± Fly said evenly, and kicked dirt over the fire, leaving us in darkness for our eyes to adjust. ¡°Jem¡¯s going to show us where to place them. And then, he¡¯s going to be the first to cross them.¡±

    I looked to Jem to see if he could make sense of this, but he reacted only with a bitter, ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am.¡±

    We got to Wolf¡¯s corpse before Louse did. Corpse may be the wrong word¡ªthere was no flesh or bone, only a shining dark stain and black cloth.

    ¡°Stop,¡± Jem said when we were within several paces of the stain, his voice empty as air.

    We waited and Louse arrived with an armful of stones. Each one I could have hefted alone, but together they were a load only a Heavy could have carried. Louse dropped them at Fly¡¯s feet.

    ¡°Pick one,¡± Fly said to Jem and pointed at to the monument, the light from the house snuffed out for the night, the poisoner inside it asleep. Jem lifted a stone and stepped in the direction of the death stain, his arms trembling despite its manageable size. ¡°Start laying a path. We¡¯ll follow once you¡¯re done.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± Jem said, looking from Fly to the monument. Sweat running from his brow and ver his swollen eye. ¡°It¡¯s too far and the magic covers all of it; I-I¡¯ll fall.¡±

    ¡°Surely, it would be more practical for someone with a Talent for strength to complete this. And in the light of the morning¡ª¡±

    ¡°Suggest one more thing,¡± Fly snapped to cut me off. ¡°And it will be you laying the stones.¡± I stared at her, mouth agape and most undignified while I tried to find my words again. ¡°The King said you were to be protected on this mission, but I think it¡¯s this story he¡¯s after, not you. What should it matter to him if it¡¯s me who writes it, and not his Seeker?¡±

    Jem spent the rest of the evening laying a path through the poisoned section of the plain surrounding the poisoner¡¯s home, picking up one stone at a time and wobbling out to the end of what he¡¯d already built to place it before returning for another. Louse continued to gather stones and Fly watched on, maybe worried that Jem may try to run again. None of us found any sleep that night

    Before the chilled blue of early morning could dissipate under the sun, Jem returned a final time, pale and shaken but finished laying the stone path. Under the light, it became clear that the patch of sand it ran through was pinkish in color.

    ¡°Lead the way,¡± said Fly, opening her arm for Jem. Perhaps now numb to the danger, or simply too tired to protest, Jem turned and began his careful walk along the path towards the house. Fly followed close behind, nearly walking on his heels, seemingly unconcerned with falling into whatever magical trap had liquefied the man in her charge.

    Louse followed after me, leaving no room for discussion on whether or not the Seeker would be allowed to remain in the safety of the camp. When the path ended and our feet found solid ground, I was sweating despite the chill.

    The poisoner¡¯s house was not meant to be permanent¡ªthat was clear once we were closer¡ªthe walls held together by wooden splints and cowhide shuddering in the early curls of wind. Next to the house were young sprigs of berries and wildflowers growing from neatly ordered mounds of soil. Another body farm¡ªsome of the corpses buried in a layer of dirt so thin, it had eroded away in the night¡¯s breeze, exposing dead parts.

    Fly herded us to the side of the monument. Now that were in the vicinity of the poisoner, I found myself walking in Jem¡¯s footsteps. He may not have been able to every trap, but he was safer than the rest of us.

    ¡°Tell me what you see,¡± said Fly to Jem when they had reached the shadow of the monument.

    Jem chewed his lip and dragged his eyes from one side of the plain to the other. ¡°There¡¯s nothing, just the field surrounding us,¡± he said, but hesitated and glanced at Fly¡¯s poised form warily. ¡°I can¡¯t see inside.¡±

    It was from Jem¡¯s face more than her¡¯s I figured she was deliberating whether to drag Jem with them into the poisoner¡¯s lair.

    ¡°You two will stay here,¡± she hissed in a whisper. ¡°You will not make a sound.¡± She and Louse turned back to the poisoner¡¯s home and spread out to either side. I held my breath. Even with two Heavies, there was no guarantee they¡¯d be able to stop a poisoner without the element of surprise.

    Jem shifted next to me uneasily.

    ¡°They¡¯re clearly professionals. They¡¯ll end this quickly,¡± I told him.

    ¡°It¡¯s not that,¡± said Jem, his voice high and quiet. His eyes flitted across the plain and he pointed to a spot in in the distance. ¡°The magic was weakest there last night. It¡¯s worn off by now.¡± He gripped me by the elbow, his fingers cold and bony even through the fabric of my coat. ¡°If we run now, they¡¯ll be too busy dealing with the poisoner to catch us.¡±

    ¡°Why are you trying to run away?¡± I winced and gestured to his bruised face. ¡°Aside from the discernable.¡±

    Some manic energy that had been shining through Jem¡¯s tired eyes recoiled, and he go of his grip on my arm..

    ¡°Who are you to them?¡± he asked as he backed away. ¡°Aren¡¯t they making you dig?¡±

    At that moment, wood snapped as Fly and Louse ripped the house open from either side. The leather split and unfurled over the small room within, containing stacked notebooks, small white animal bones littering bloodstained dirt, a raised workbench holding a host of vials and silver knives, at its corner, a tangle of shelled insects with beaded, coiled tails scrabbled over each other at the shock of sunlight. In the center of it all a white sheet fought against a doughy figure sitting bolt upright, looking between Louse and Fly closing in from either side.

    I remembered that Jem had asked me a questions, but the boy was gone. Footsteps mussed the pinkish dirt across the gap in the poison field. Already he was disappearing over the gentle slope of the hills. He had been right¡ªthe Select were too absorbed in handling the poisoner to notice he¡¯d fled. And it was no time to distract them.

    Fly and Louse circled the poisoner like they might a field mouse. The poisoner heaved in panting breaths, each one shuddering loudly through his broad chest. He watched them from under a sandy mop of bangs and slowly reached down to untangle his legs from the blankets.

    In a single blink, two things happened. The poisoner ripped something from under his thigh and drew it over the meat of his inner arm. Rabid at the movement, Fly whipped her arm forward, a flash of silver flying from her fingers and cutting across the poisoner¡¯s cheek, slicking his face red from a cut just under his eye.

    The posioner yelped and tumbled from his cot, landing in a pile of bloodstained sheets clutching his face. The Select pounced as one, the glassy eyes of their masks cool and unblinking. Behind the cot was a dusty tangle of limbs and shouts. One of the poisoner¡¯s socked feet struck the leg of his workbench and the cage of insects cracked against the ground. The scorpions spilled forth, scrabbling for the shadowed crevasses of the monument. I pulled myself onto the nearest boulder to avoid them.

    There was a frustrated grunt amidst the tent. The poisoner thrashed and bucked, but the two Heavies held him firm, Louse gripping his legs to keep him from kicking and Fly standing curled over his head, where she¡¯d planted a boot on the back of his neck. His cheek was slicked red from the cut just under his eye, the blood weeping into the wiry tangle of his beard.

    Fly tugged the edges of her gloves firmly down her wrists and wiggled her fingers.

    ¡°No more tricky things from you, eh?¡± Fly leaned weight onto the boot at his neck. He hissed into the dirt, the deep lines of his face twisted in fury, but he kept his mouth clenched shut.

    Fly cocked her head, but when he remained silent, she shrugged and eased off his neck. The poisoner twisted with limited freedom and flailed his arm to try and dislodge Louse from his legs, but the big man caught his fists and pressed them together behind his back.

    ¡°Be sure to gag him,¡± Fly told him, and bent to pull a rope which had been holding the structure together from the wreckage. She flung it to Louse. ¡°I don¡¯t care if we need carry him to the King bound on a platter; things have already gone wrong enough to put up with more poison.¡±

    I cleared my throat and Fly¡¯s head swiveled to where I had slid from my perch on the monument¡¯s boulder, the scorpions now hidden from sight. Her mask drifted to the footprints across the plain to the hills beyond, all signs of Jem gone from the horizon.

    ¡°You did nothing to stop him,¡± she said, her voice deceptively even. I¡¯m certain if I could see her face, she would have been licking her fangs.

    ¡°Your orders were to stay quiet, my lady,¡± I reminded her. Fly¡¯s fingers twitched as they had the moment before she¡¯d thrown her knife at the poisoner. I don¡¯t have the reflexes anymore to be picking fights with Heavies, but my mouth thinks its younger than it is. Fly¡¯s arm jerked and I flinched back, but instead of palming a knife, she brought her hand to her own throat and squeezed.

    Air wheezed and gurgled behind Fly, and she whirled back to Louse. The Select remained crouched over the poisoner, who¡¯s hands were half-tied behind his back. He was digging one of his gloved hands into the collar of his shirt, exposing flushed red skin and straining arteries. He choked again and brought his other hand off the poisoner to claw at where his mask was tied behind his head. The poisoner snorted and wriggled from beneath Louse, the ropes shaking lose from his wrists.

    He didn¡¯t get far, though. Fly stomped over, kicking Louse out of the way as she went. The big man collapsed into the sand pulling at his mask.

    ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Fly rasped at him.

    Louse seemed not to hear her at first over his panic, but then he clenched his hands into fists and lay flat on the ground, his neck convulsing as he struggled for air.

    Fly returned her boot to the poisoner¡¯s back, knocking him flat onto his stomach from where he¡¯d been rising onto his hands and knees. The air escaped from him in a huff of laughter. Fly reached shaking fingers to his face and ran her gloved hands through the blood still coating his cheek. She held it up¡ªa mist was slowly rising from the fluid, distorting the air above it in ripples.

    ¡°Could it be shredding your organs?¡± the poisoner wandered aloud, the smile clear in his voice. ¡°Or maybe it¡¯s strangling you both from the inside out, growing uncontrollably and spreading. Maybe your blood will boil and bubble, blister, and ooze.¡± He sniggered.

    Fly could only wheeze in response, so instead, she raised her fist like she was clutching a hammer and swung it down onto the poisoner¡¯s scrabbling hand. There was the muted crunch of bones beneath flesh and he screamed.

    Fly panted, partially collapsed on top of him, her hands fisted in his sleepshirt as though she might try to rip him in half. But the poisoner¡¯s blood was still foaming, releasing toxins around her face. Her chest convulsed and she coughed wetly. Louse lay twitching in the dirt, still apparently watching Fly with what remained of his consciousness.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t antagonize her just yet,¡± I said, and the poisoner blinked up at me as though seeing me for the first time. I took no offense¡ªI am used to being overlooking in the presence of more threatening counterparts. ¡°Her blade is quicker than poison.¡±

    With an unexpected flourish of cooperation, a knife appeared in Fly¡¯s hand, though she fumbled it in her grip before pressing it to the back of the poisoner¡¯s neck.

    ¡°You¡¯re right, hunter,¡± he said. ¡°But if I¡¯m dead, who will give them the antidote?¡± I let my eyes widen, but kept my mouth closed. Sometimes, collecting a story is easy as leaving someone ample opportunity to tell it.

    A tremor racked through Fly as she tried to pull in a breath past what sounded like tar in her lungs. The movement pressed the knife¡¯s blade further into the poisoner¡¯s neck, and his smirk vanished with a curse. He pointed a finger on his good hand towards the bottles scattered over his workbench.

    ¡°One of those over there¡­ but which one?.¡± He winked, the action as comforting as a fly¡¯s wing brushing my cheek. ¡°But the others¡­ acids, poisons, nightmares in little bottles.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯ll tell us which is which?¡±

    ¡°Not for free, hunter,¡± he smiled, and Fly, despite seeming to no longer be breathing, pulled her hand from where she¡¯d been messaging her throat to grab the poisoner¡¯s hair and yank, rocking back on her heals with her whole body. He hissed, ¡°Maybe not for a price, either.¡±

    ¡°Not for any price?¡± I asked and eased my knees into a crouch so to better meet his eyes. ¡°You need only name it.¡±

    Fly jolted as though snapping to from a dream. The leather of her gloves creaked as she fought to keep the grip on her blade, but her entire frame was swaying in a current with no air. Another minute, and the only thing standing between myself and the poisoner would be dead weight.

    ¡°You¡¯re looking to hire a poisoner?¡± he burst out, dirt flying from the heavy roll of his laughter. ¡°Most of my clients prefer not to meet in person.¡± His moved his broken hand and choked. ¡°And I usually insist on it.¡±

    ¡°Hire is one word for it,¡± I said, trying to ignore the droop of Fly¡¯s shoulders. This was taking too long. I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder and estimate how quickly I could dash through the same gap Jem had taken. ¡°You¡¯ll be coming with us to serve the King. Whether you¡¯ll be working from a cell or an estate of your own is entirely up to you.¡±

    ¡°The King? Of Samwhin?¡± This time when the poisoner smiled, it was sharp as venom. ¡°Known for his generosity, is he?¡±

    ¡°You won¡¯t be harmed. You¡¯ll be doing the same thing you¡¯ve always done. Just on our side of the border, where we can keep you safe.¡±

    The poisoner grit his teeth and shook his head. ¡°I have no ¡®side¡¯, only clients and enemies. And clients turned enemies. Sometimes, enemies turned clients.¡± He shrugged. ¡°The only safe land is no land at all. I¡¯ll take a knife to the back now over an angry mob, or a king¡¯s noose around my neck.¡±

    Louse had stopped moving. Fly¡¯s head had fallen forward, the angle of her spine balanced over her hips the only thing keeping her from toppling. The knife still rested in a groove of flesh at the poisoner¡¯s neck, but her grip looked slack.

    ¡°There must be something you want,¡± I insisted. ¡°You¡¯ll be well kept, given unlimited time and resources.¡±

    ¡°But kept, nonetheless,¡± the poisoner said.

    At that moment, the hilt of the blade slipped form Fly¡¯s fingers. The poisoner heard the clink of metal against gravel and bucked,. Fly crumpled to her side, one hand flapping weakly at her throat. The other stretched for the fallen blade.

    The poisoner ignored Fly and rolled to his knees.

    ¡°His mistrustful majesty wants a poisoner,¡± he said slowly, glancing to the westward mountains. ¡°Had you been from Capelle, I might believe you, but that¡¯s a little too poetic.¡± He scratched his beard, then began picking the dried blood clumped under his fingernails. ¡°I already have unlimited time and resources.¡± He spread his arms wide and gestured to the empty sweep of scrubland surrounding us, the contents of his fingernails black and crusted. ¡°Out here, the Sledge is simple, and quiet. There¡¯s nothing else I want that you could give.¡±

    ¡°Then you admit there is something you want.¡± My whole body was tensed to run, but Fly¡¯s fingers were still twitching. ¡°Something better than all¡­ this.¡±

    The poisoner eyed me, his face serious, his voice flat as he said, ¡°What every poisoner wants; to be left alone, by any means necessary.¡±

    He opened his mouth and sucked in a deep breath. Though I now realize it was ridiculous, I found myself bracing for dragon¡¯s breath, but it didn¡¯t come.

    The poisoner¡¯s face paled, and red bubbled from his lips. He twisted, reaching behind his shoulders. A knife stuck straight from his back, directly between his shoulders. Behind him, Fly¡¯s arm dropped limply from where she¡¯d plunged it. A breath squeaked from behind her mask¡ª if it was her last, she¡¯d decided to take her failed mission with her.

    The poisoner¡¯s body convulsed, but I caught him firmly by the meat of his shoulders.  I cheld him upright at arm¡¯s length, and held my breath, trying to duck below the trail of poisonous gas simmering from the wound in his back.

    ¡°That one¡¯s a Healer,¡± I rasped, and pointed to Louse. Calma only knew if the man was even still alive, but panic makes humans see what they want to see. I gambled it would be no different for a poisoner. ¡°It¡¯s not too late to save yourself. Just tell me which one is the antidote and he¡¯ll heal you.¡±

    His flesh was cold and sticky beneath my palms, a miniscule layer of skin the only thing separating me from his deadly magic. If I let him fall though, the Select would die, and I wanted at least one of them by my side when I had to explain this whole disaster to you.

    His face was white as the sun overhead and shining, his lips blooming re, steam rising from his mouth. When he gurgled unable to get air, a spark of panic flew into his eyes. He glanced from Louse to beside the workbench, where a misty green bottle which I had thought might hold wine had fallen.

    I crawled for the bottle and the poisoner folded, boneless and choking. The bottle was half full judging from the weight and secured tightly with a cork. Figuring it was too late to worry about overdoing it, I lifted the lower half of Louse¡¯s mask and poured half the antidote into his mouth. Curiosity nearly got the better of me when I repeated the process with Fly and two golden fangs flashed beneath her lip, but I¡¯ve been respectful of people¡¯s modest for seventy years. I didn¡¯t intend to change then just to see the rest of Fly¡¯s face.

    The poisoner was already dead by the time I set the empty bottle down. There would have been no time to save him even if Louse had been a Healer.

    His blood was forming a steaming pool from beneath his back, its toxins rising in the wind, so I set about dragging Fly and Louse away from the corpse. Fly, I dropped at the base of the monument in hopes the shadow would keep her cool. Louse, I could only pull two paces before I laid in the shade myself to realign the angle of my back. Louse seemed a sturdy man, he and was fine in the end.

    Fly roused around midday, just in time to snatch the last sip from my water skin. Louse sat up to massage his head just afterwards. It was nightfall though before they were well enough to stand.

    The pinkish hue had all but disappeared from the sand surrounding the poisoner¡¯s camp, but we were careful to step carefully in Jem¡¯s fading footsteps as we left. From the swallowing shadows of the sloping mountains, something chittered and laughed amongst the crescendo of insects, ready to descend onto the body we¡¯d left behind.

    ¡°In case it doesn¡¯t appear in your letter, I intend to make it clear it was not me who let the witch escape.¡± Despite the unrelenting pace she had set, Fly¡¯s throat was still swollen, and her voice rasped painfully. We were on the long trek back to the nearest mountain hovel where we would stop for the night before continuing into the kingdoms, and even Louse was flagging.

    ¡°You had no more need for him, and I was only doing as you told, as I¡¯ve explained,¡± I said, and then, because my tongue is quicker than my brain when my feet are sore, I said: ¡°Besides, I was growing tired of seeing you treat him like a beast of burden.¡±

    ¡°Not my beast of burden,¡± Fly shook her head. ¡°The King¡¯s.¡±

    I am in the shadow to the Steps as I finish writing this, My King, the sun baking their stark stony faces. To the south is the Partways Plain, its towering stalks of sledgegrass verdant this time of year, and beyond that, Reefer¡¯s Edge meeting the uncharted ocean. Before me is a line of sledgetrees I know well¡ªthe last barrier before the Samwhin Palace completes my horizon.

    I expect you know my intentions to return home by now¡ªthe wagon train with my luggage from Inlay will have arrived as effectively as any letter.

    I¡¯ve been considering whether it was time to return home to your side some years now, but it was this mission that finally set me.

    When you convinced me to let myself be sent away, you said it was for stories. But this land has changed since that day nearly twenty years ago now; from your doing, if what I hear is true.

    Mistrustful majesty: since returning to Samwhin, it is not only a poisoner I¡¯ve heard call you that. Two ages ago¡ªeven two years ago, when you were still responding to my letters¡ªI would have disregarded this as angry talk sparked by a bad crop season, or the ridiculous dread we can¡¯t help but inherently feel as prophecy counts down.

    Now, Songsparrow is gone. You¡¯ve never told me if you discovered what happened to her, though you¡¯re willing to risk a team of Select trying to retrieve a poisoner for your leash. Perhaps you find it more thrilling handling hounds that would rather bite you than obey.

    I feel more like a hunter nowadays than a Seeker. An old friend in Capelle works closely with the city watch¡ªhe wrote to ask me if I knew of a Seeker who¡¯d been lurking around at the time something was slaughtering people in their homes. He thought they might have found the killer¡¯s body buried in the Exterior, and he had questions for this Seeker with the long dark hair and golden eyes.

    I always wondered why you insisted on bothering with a Moonlighter. Now, I worry it¡¯s because you knew even then that you were lying to me about why you were sending us out here. About what you thought might be in Badgerpool, of all places.

    The time for stories from afar has ended, My King. It¡¯s time to focus inward, on fixing what it may not be too late to save. Calamity is nearing, and though we may not live to see it, for the sake of your people, we must keep the kingdom strong and mobilized. Ready for defense. It will be your son ruling then, or your children¡¯s children, and it will not be in a horror story of magical lights, or mirrors, or disease that he will find the tools he needs to hold the people together. Let us be sure we are leaving him the right tools.

    Should this letter arrive in your hands before I do, I suggest using the time left between us to think on what you really want to say to me. And take the sorry state of my knees and lower back into consideration.

    Sincerely Yours,

    Mouse Writ

    (https://pin.it/2R0yhb9</a>)

 The Grove

    Transcribed by Murk Lake, Seeker to the Old King

    Stitchem River, Southern bank of the Drop Ditch, Age 3.9 U.C.

    I¡¯ve been walking the beach at night. It¡¯s the only remedy I¡¯ve found for the tightening coil of longing-sickness infecting the roots of my stomach. When my boots are edged close enough for the river¡¯s exhale to fog the leather, the individual cords of the squirming black mass beneath the wide surface of the Drop Ditch become apparent. They¡¯ve settled the water smooth as tar and in red and green waves of reflected light, the bottom half of my lungs ease open and I¡¯m able to breath deep without vomiting.

    Dragging myself up the beach each purple morning, away from the island and beyond the dark eclipse of water surrounding it, drives the illness to a pointed peak. I¡¯ll lean over the backs of moss-covered boulders dotting the otherwise flat landscape and retch until I¡¯m light enough to continue. Back in my tent, sleep comes after I¡¯ve dried my mouth on bread and satcha, and before the sun finishes dispelling the roll of mist marching in from the coast.

    The soldiers in camp have seen me, I know. Plenty are eager for the night¡¯s watch. Crusty eyes are preferable to what the lights might slip into their dreams. I imagine they¡¯ve told Major Montess about my walks. The first day he rode in, eyes focused on the needlepoint trees piercing the heart of the Drop Ditch, the major swung down from his horse and ordered no one set foot on the buffer of stony sand between us and the water. Most everyone¡¯s had an easy enough time following the major¡¯s first rule. The only tracks in the sand aside from my own are huddled around a wet gash below the boat, which has widened each day its hull is slid down and back from the water.

    But Montess has said nothing to me. He likely hopes I¡¯ll get too close and be pulled under, like those first six soldiers who were sent across to the grove. That was back when we were still learning the rules here and whatever sent them fleeing from the trees was more terrifying than a swim through black water. Like those soldiers, one wrong step and I¡¯d be drowned from the inside out. The blood in my veins would harden into the muscle fibers of some other organism before they burst out of me. I¡¯ve skipped stones out over the river, trying to get one to land on the island, but each has caught and held still at a single touch to the surface, then slipped under without so much as a ripple. There would be no splash or fighting for the surface; the Drop Ditch would suck me under in a single swallow. Unfortunately for the major, I¡¯m sharpest when balanced on a razor¡¯s edge. And should Montess get tired of learning that lesson and join me on the beach one night, I keep a knife made of bone tucked in my sleeve. I hear a nick makes a monster, and a twist in the gut makes a corpse. It¡¯s dispatched a man with magic in his eyes, it would carve Montess like fish flesh.

    The distance between us has improved our relationship. When the nausea grew too constant to write, I told Montess I was moving my tent upstream beyond the Saviors¡¯ camp, and his faced opened so wide his tongue threatened to loll from his mouth. It¡¯s not uncommon for a moonlighter to find himself on the outskirts¡ªor in my case, the outdungeons¡ªbut I¡¯ve never known a samwhin to shed so many scales over the more palatable Talents.

    The Speaker¡¯s Guild sauntered in and erected a black and white striped monstrosity in the center of the major¡¯s bootcamp the day after my last letter to you. Montess can be observed each morning stalking around it, pretending to be counting his men while he rips through a side of stale bread like a balding seal. If his posturing didn¡¯t draw so much attention, he could get away with letting the sparks he flicks from the end of his pipe land more strategically.

    I¡¯ve had daydreams about it all going up in smoke; the Guild¡¯s quarters are the brightest match in the tinderbox, but the largest are the Reliquaries¡¯ encampments to either side of us. Blue long-tents of the Savior Sect were killing a field of grass along the shore upriver before Montess had finished setting the crease on his bedroll. Reliquaries, for all their nosing around when the fun starts, prefer to rest their heads next to clear water. Montess preferred it too. But when the white flag bearing the cloaked figure for the Sect of the Lost Solider appeared one clear morning a day¡¯s walk downstream, it was an awe if Montess could walk from the mess tent and back without a blue robed Savior getting under his feet.

    I recall writing to you about all the hand waving and jangling of silver rings and pendants that was supposedly evidence of the Saviors¡¯ right to ¡®support the King¡¯s cosmic mission¡¯. Rumors of the white Reliquary spread from the blue to the soldiers. Now, everyone¡¯s convinced the white tents downstream are hiding a cult of self-mutilating, fairytale-obsessed madmen, lying in wait to snatch whatever¡¯s in the grove for themselves.

    Irony is often lost of those who think they see so much. Even more is lost on the Saviors, from whom I have amassed a sizable collection of silver pendants under my bedrolls, parted from their chains so easily, I sometimes wonder if my knife remembers them.

    ¡°Mightn¡¯t a moonlighter be useful in the grove?¡± A blue cloaked grey-beard muttered next to me the other day. His eyes flicked too often to where I sat perched on a boulder for his sidle to be happenstance. I shrugged and we watched the six drawn faces packed in the boat slide out over the black water¡ªsoldiers made sacrifice at that point, being fed to whatever hides behind the island¡¯s sledgetrees.

    Don¡¯t feel bad; it does them no harm to admit it. The smart ones flee in the night. And the truly foolish ones we find in the morning, twisted up in sopping bedrolls, peeled open by the knives of capel assassins.

    If Montess is worth a hair off his beard, Capelle makes similar discoveries come morning. But my hope is waning; each week, a coffin-laden wagon departs south for Samwhin, but I¡¯ve not seen a single bandaged stiff sent north.

    I don¡¯t count the ones who die on the island¡ªand they are dying, no matter how Montess dances around the word.

    ¡°Useful?¡± I asked the Savior and brushed the feathered end of my quill under my nose¡ªa trick I learned to stave off sea sickness. ¡°Maybe, but not to be trusted. Whatever relic you¡¯re hoping to steal for yourselves, you¡¯ll want it caught by better hands than mine.¡±

    The man was so lost in huffing off, he didn¡¯t notice the opalescent glint of my knife when I snipped free the eye-pendant he had dangling from the end of his beard. You¡¯d think Reliquaries would be less offended by thieves stealing from them when they make it so easy.

    It was a relief when Capelle arrived the morning after the last full moon, towing its own rank and file of fodder and an outbreak of what could only be the Red Hunters in tow behind them. It¡¯s all Sect drama; nothing sours a Savior quite like a Hunter, even if they¡¯re standing in two different kingdoms. The presence of all three Reliquaries at last quieted the fussing around camp in a way Montess¡¯ orders couldn¡¯t. Now, we only cross paths when the sun is at its highest, and we stand around holding our breaths, waiting to see if the screaming will start.

    It always does.

    Calma knows what the white think of the noises. Since the day one poked his way into camp, his eyes hidden behind a bandage wrapped around his head, and declared his Sect was ¡®here only to observe¡¯, I¡¯ve not seen one. Their camp could be abandoned for all I can make out. I¡¯ve considered wandering over, if for no other reason than to see their sunken eyelids. I heard from a man I met on the road that if you look underneath one, their eyes are still in there, but different. They¡¯re smaller and sharper, and they look back at you from deep inside the squishy pink part of the brain.

    It saddens me I¡¯ve become so desperate for something new to ignite my interest. I long for a break in the pattern. Though nights are when the sickness threatens to crush me flat and the crackle of desperation is the most suppressing from the bodies in the camps, it¡¯s the only time I feel I can think.

    This grove¡­the head of a needle plunged from the deepest crevasse beading the Stitchem, it¡¯s all there is to focus on when the lights come out and the distant dunes and hills, which in the day circle us like a pack of misty wolves, feel poised to descend.

    It makes me hot and shivery, but maybe that¡¯s the pressure of focused desire that¡¯s been building, since no one else seems to feel it. Something is going to happen here. It has to. I hope it does. The value of whatever¡¯s in the grove is growing by the day. It¡¯s making me act unlike myself. I¡¯m becoming dangerously disappointed when noon arrives and the soldiers die. If a capel soldier were to emerge holding a bundle in his arms tomorrow and walk on water straight into the Hunters¡¯ tent, I¡¯m concerned I¡¯d be driven to commit treason, if only it meant I could touch it.

    When I was too young to be making promises, I swore to myself I¡¯d never to help anyone in the military. But that was before, when I was directionless. Now, I¡¯ve felt this, and I know what I want¡ªI might not know what it is, but I know it¡¯s that same thing you want. That puts us on the same side, don¡¯t you think?

    To get what I want, I need to know what¡¯s been killing all these soldiers. It¡¯s one thing to see monsters in your dreams, but I wanted to see them awake, so last night, I took my spyglass. Or Sabe¡¯s eyeglass, I should say.

    It clicked in my belt against my knife as I walked under the hooded gaze of the bloodshot moon. It was the very same knife that had killed the monster inside Sabe and removed a clean sliver from his cornea before I buried him between two steep dunes outside Capelle. This thought comforted me as I watched the shadows between the sledgetrees shift and yawn, pitiless black against the green and red sky. Though Prisoner 94¡¯s story has made me careful not to let the opalescent shard pierce my own flesh, I¡¯ve taken to sleeping with it under my pillow.

    I¡¯ve learned to ignore the watchmen along the river, as they have learned to ignore me. They were too concerned with the lights in the sky and the camp across the river, who might be watching them back, to bother when I stood with my boots teasing the water¡¯s edge and held the spyglass to my eye.

    My spyglass no longer widens my view¡ªthe lenses Sabe¡¯s cornea is encased between are ordinary glass¡ªbut I didn¡¯t need to see closer to see more.

    You asked me to write to you of any movement at the grove, and after two months of Montess¡¯ daily failure, movement is exactly what I saw.

    The wind singing in over the northern desert quieted and as the camps on either side of the river lay awake in the silence, my skin tightened under the prickle of an invisible stormfront. A glut of fruitless longing clogged the sky above the grove in weeping billows, too dark and heavy to possibly stay aloft. It¡¯s no wonder my stomach¡¯s been near torn in half since coming here.

    If I hadn¡¯t been paying it only half a mind, the corner of my eye might not have caught the movement on the island. I looked away from the anvil coalescing above us and moved the glass over the trees. In the cavernous pockets of shadow between them, the grove moved again¡ªit was a small shadow, small in the way a wasp feels small squeezing inside your ear, moving steadily across the island. It turned no stone and brushed no branch.

    The muscles in my legs bunched and burned, then as though it were already happening, I saw myself plunging into the Drop Ditch. The river parted oily and deliberate around my fingers and I couldn¡¯t get a strong enough hold on it to keep from sinking. Water passed over my eyes and the lights in the sky began to fade as I held my breath. Something was pressing into my ear, something else up my nostril. Still, I fought to get to the island, and with every inch I got closer, sweetness of longing fulfilled washed along my bones. Blunt-headed creatures wormed under my skin, threaded themselves through my arteries, and congealed. Veins popped lose, and slippery tubers squeezed free.

    I felt no pain, so I was able to convince myself it was not real.

    At once, I was whole again but fleeing east, over the foothills to the ocean on the other side of the continent. I thought about how, when I got there, I would dive into warm, clean water and swim. I would swim out until I was too tired to paddle another stroke and something with teeth pulled me under. I ended up clawing for air either way, and I wanted to get away, as far as I could from the yawning agony clawing from inside the grove.

    The next blink, and it was morning¡ªthe spyglass had rolled from my stiffened fingers, and for a moment I panicked because the wet moss on the boulder I was leaning against had soaked my back; I thought it was ocean water. I grasped at the place between my heart and my belly and pressed my hands over unbroken skin.

    But still, even as the rest of the camp rose around me, lining up, already mourning the six of their number who will go in the boat today, I struggled to believe there wasn¡¯t a hole through me. It isn¡¯t real, but it¡¯s like a well¡¯s been drilled through my center, and at the bottom is¡­ something that isn¡¯t mine.

    In the scrap of intentional sleep I managed before the sun rose, the lights striped the insides of my eyes. They had mouths. They whispered something in my ear and I shuddered awake to scrabble for a pen, but I couldn¡¯t remember what they¡¯d told me.

    That all feels like very long ago. The sun is bright today, and warm, and Montess is reading the six names of who will fill the boat.

    I haven¡¯t told the major about the shadow in the grove; his soldiers are already shaky enough. They watch the boat sitting moored on dry land like it might turn into a viper. What would I tell them that could help, when so much of what I saw may have been a dream?

    It¡¯s beginning to show that Montess is doing his best to make this appear like role call at the palace¡ªjust another training exercise, just another missive into the kingdom. I think they¡¯d be under less stress if he organized for them to be stolen in the night and tossed in the boat blindfolded. If they aren¡¯t paling at the boat, they¡¯re glaring across the water at the Capellen side, and from the looks on their faces as they watch those purple cloaks ready their own ship to sail across, you¡¯d think they¡¯d rather we were going to war.

    Montess called the fifth name and paused. He glanced to the old Speaker standing in line next to him and hardened his jaw. On-loan Representative of the Guild, Sarina Mayloft has used her shield of gold and silver hair to ward off Montess¡¯ pointed glares the past several mornings, and today was almost no different. Before the major could grind his teeth on his pipe in defeat, his captain made the least-tactical whisper I¡¯ve ever witnessed.

    ¡°The sixth spot should be for a Speaker,¡± the captain hissed to Montess, loud enough even I heard from where I was half hidden behind a tent.

    Montess crunched his teeth in an agonizing grind but said nothing to contradict him. The camp stood silent, watching Sarina as she blinked slowly and turned to Montess.

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    The major bought himself time by sucking an angry drag from his pipe and narrowing bloodshot eyes at the captain. I wonder if he¡¯ll be demoted for this; Montess¡¯ been playing a persistent middlegame with the Speaker¡¯s Guild for weeks now.

    ¡°The time¡¯s come to try something new,¡± Montess said, and now that he¡¯d finally found his way onto the hook, he had no choice but to speak with driving force. The soldiers lined before him exhaled at once. Even the ones already chosen for the boat lifted their eyes hopefully from the Drop Ditch.

    The hair along my arms prickled, as though lighting had struck nearby. Despite the warm sun on my cheeks, I lifted the spyglass from my belt and surveyed the grove. A towline was stretched across the river on Capelle¡¯s side¡ªthey¡¯d cast off quickly, not that it will matter¡ªbut otherwise the shadows were still. Whatever magic roiled above the treetops last night was gone. I ran my tongue over my teeth to convince them there was no need for chattering.

    ¡°The Guild¡¯s contract was made with the King of Samwhin, major, not you. If you¡¯d like to renegotiate its conditions, you may take it up with him.¡± I set the spyglass aside in favor of my pen to keep pace with Sarina¡¯s recitation of the Guild¡¯s mantra.

    ¡°Do you suggest he stop by with a pen and his seal?¡± Montess demanded.

    If possible, Sarina¡¯s expression smoothed even further, and Montess¡¯ beard bunched. It went unspoken, but both were surely thinking about how the notion was doubly ridiculous because you haven¡¯t been seen leaving your chambers for weeks now. Maybe your afflicted with a longing sickness of your own.

    ¡°That contract was written assuming there¡¯d be something for your people to report on this side of the river,¡± Montess spoke over the sudden silence. ¡°But the only place we need eyes is over there.¡± Montess threw his arm towards the grove.

    Whispers passed amongst the soldiers and Sarina¡¯s mouth tightened.

    ¡°The wording of the contract was conjured, negotiated, and approved under the power of the King¡¯s own council,¡± she said with her face forward, eyes focused over the heads of the soldiers and on the Speaker¡¯s tent. ¡°It¡¯s through no fault of the Guild the specifications of the agreement weren¡¯t chosen more carefully.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re weighing words on a page over the lives of men and women.¡± Montess said lowly.

    There he goes, showing his hand again, admitting his company¡¯s lives are on the line. It won¡¯t matter that their deaths have been obvious since the first boat of soldiers ran screaming from the center of the island and into the clutches of the water¡ªthere will be more deserters tonight.

    ¡°Not over the lives of my men and women,¡± Sarina corrected. ¡°It is my responsibility, above all, to protect the rights of those in my charge. Just as it is your responsibility, sir, to reach the grove and whatever rests inside it. If you wanted firepower, you should have sent for Elementals. Speakers are not soldiers.¡±

    Montess didn¡¯t show any sting on his face, but you and I know it must have been there, because he has sent for Elementals.

    I¡¯ve been intercepting his birds with a stone and sling for weeks now. Of course, I tie the letters to fresh birds and set them on their way to you once I¡¯ve had my look. The monotony has rooted so deep, I might bother intercepting yours too, if you sent him any in return. I haven¡¯t received any letters from you myself, lately. Are you still there, King, holding tight to the leash?

    The Speakers have wondered out of the Guild tent having heard the argument outside, and Sarina looks over her doe-eyed flock like a ram with a crook. Montess is chewing his pipe so hard I swear a splinter¡¯s broken free and disappeared between his teeth.

    When he pulls the pipe away, he shouts a final name¡ªAbaline, from his own company¡ªand the last soldier trudges to the boat, her eyes hard and unseeing.

    If the deserters weren¡¯t decided before, they are now. Montess¡¯ leadership inspires it in people. There might even be a mutiny. More than one set of eyes is dogging the billow of the captain¡¯s cape as he storms away from Sarina and Montess, not waiting for the gene

    -:::-

    Murk Lake¡¯s letter was found floating on a gust of wind above the ashes of the camp several days after it was written. I discovered it three weeks ago after the Old King¡¯s body was taken from his chambers for casting, amidst crumpled notes shoved beneath his bedding. The notes were scribbled on thin sheets of parchment, their creases softened, and the lines smeared. I doubt a Seeker would have sent such a poor report.

    It is with these scribbles, and Murk Lake¡¯s singed draft recovered from the wreck around the Grove¡ªwhich I pulled from beneath the mattress folded in a crisp square¡ªI¡¯ve made conclusions about that day twenty-four years ago.

    It was not soldiers Murk Lake saw Capelle sending to the island that morning.

    Elementals training for assignment with the Select practice for years to cover half the range needed to ring the Drop Ditch in flame.

    In one sketch of the aftermath, charcoal presses heavy over squares outlining the soldier¡¯s encampments on either side of the river, ringing the outline of the fire¡¯s burn.

    It feels like a long time ago, but you remember when we fed a marrow wick you stole from the palace kitchen into a bladder filled with lamp oil, trying to create what we imagined fueled Capelle¡¯s sparkboxes. You¡¯ll recall the bald pink faces we sported for weeks after. We were so sore the Old King took pity and didn¡¯t bother with more than a lecture. It seems Capelle¡¯s had better luck perfecting the power they package.

    The day Capelle lit the Drop Ditch on fire, I was on a self-imposed lockdown in the library with old Speaker Sivil, trying to make sense of the Guild¡¯s contract with Skyclipse Dive while you were off somewhere outside, likely sticking rabbits in the woods. I remember with perfect clarity how the crack of his porcelain teacup hitting the tile rattled my teeth.

    Speakers lie flat on the periods of their watch, and Sivil was not scheduled for dictation at that hour. He collapsed as though his supporting lines had been gathered and severed at once and I was not quick enough to catch him¡ªyou¡¯ll remember the weeks he spent grumping around the palace with a broken wrist, entirely overdone with patience, and quick to swipe with the pointed end of his cane whenever he caught us sneaking behind him in the hallways¡ªbut when his slack mouth animated and began moving against the tile, I flipped him onto his back and readied my quill.

    I could not have known the significance of the message coming through, and it would not be for twenty four years that I¡¯d be going through these letters and see the name Murk Lake again. I knew only that whether the message be unlawful or legitimate, it needed to be dictated.

    Enunciate; teacher still tells me that when she catches me visiting the Guild, as though I¡¯m still the stray sneaking around her feet to send her friend secret codes, not a woman rushing to fulfill the duties of a Listener. I won¡¯t apologize for the eyerolls I¡¯ve sent her, but there¡¯s a reason she used to make us write out our letters clearly before bothering with a Speaker. The message was quick and unplanned, and I may have missed a word or two of Murk Lake¡¯s final words to your father. I admitted this fact to him bitterly later, convinced missing such a detail would have him setting me back in my training. That did not happen.

    I remember your father from when I was first taken into the palace¡ªhe used to be a big man, with a barking laugh that made half his council jump when he unleashed it in the throne room. It gave me a fright each time I heard it, but the hunched figure he withered into those last few years was even more terrifying. That day, though, after I slammed open the doors of his study and could barely keep myself seated long enough to tell him what had happened, his laugh hit me so hard around my head I dropped the goblet of wine I¡¯d been fiddling with. It left that purple stain on the ivory you keep covered with a rug.

    He snatched the message from my hands and disappeared it somewhere behind him before pulling me up and holding me in front of him by my shoulders. He was still a big man then, and his grip was so sure I almost didn¡¯t notice that he was standing barefoot in the spilled wine.

    He told me things like this happened to the Guild all the time. He thought I¡¯d understand how tempting the Guild must be to pranksters, with all their fuss and rules. You and I had certainly given in and tormented Sivil on more than one occasion. I left the Old King¡¯s chambers feeling very silly, but giddy for having been in his presence like I had not been since I was child in awe of Samwhin¡¯s Interior.

    Three weeks ago, I was thinking about that conversation when I saw a puddle of ruby wine spreading out from under the doors of the Old King¡¯s chambers. It had been years since he¡¯d left his chambers, but against all odds I was bracing myself for his crack of laughter when I undid the latch and his body fell at my feet, and a knife¡ªI still argue he¡¯d only been holding it to defend himself¡ªwas gripped in his bloodless fingers.

    It was after you¡¯d been swept away to prepare for coronation that I was sorting through the Old King¡¯s affairs, trying to prepare what I could for you before heading to the Dive, that I noticed my own handwriting sitting atop a pile of yellowing letters in his bedside drawer, and pieces started coming together.

    -:::-

    ¡°¡ªtalking, unless you¡¯d rather I¡ªugh.¡±

    Sivil¡¯s mouth opened and closed. He grunted as though under strain, but the evenness of his breath did not match the tone of the voice he was channeling.

    ¡°Whoever¡¯s got the other end of this, write, if you know what¡¯s good for you. I¡¯m Murk Lake, and I don¡¯t have the hands for it right now.¡±

    He chuckled, and it came through the old Speaker dry and distant, the racks shaking his body and making the loose skin pooled against his throat wobble.

    ¡°They coat these little boats in tar out on the Reef, but the fire didn¡¯t stick to this one. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s leaking. I¡¯m not getting in it if it¡¯s leaking. Swimming¡¯s not¡­ no, don¡¯t swim.¡±

    Sivil made a strangled noise as Murk Lake exerted himself.

    ¡°I thought I¡¯d picked one of the smaller ones, but Speakers don¡¯t make anything easy, do they?¡± He chuckled again but cut off which a hacking cough. I moved to wipe spittle from Sivil¡¯s lips, but had to scramble to dip my quill in ink when he shouted:

    ¡°I thought you wanted the treasure for yourselves! You¡¯re welcome to hop in, hah!¡±

    Sivil¡¯s mouth floundered and twisted, trying to convey noise caught in the background. Sweat beaded his brow, and I checked his pulse, but it was not so elevated I worried about the strain. The voices behind Murk Lake faded and he fell into a rhythmic beat of breath, Sivil¡¯s pulse evened again.

    ¡°You know, there wasn¡¯t any need for all this trouble with your black dogs. It¡¯s not like I haven¡¯t caught them slipping in and out of my shadow since leaving the prison. I felt them over the water that first night you had me plopped me in a boat for Inlay. It¡¯s been amusing, pretending not to see them sniffing at my heals, but everyone wants something¡ªit¡¯s impossible for a moonlighter to ignore the stink. I¡¯d have thought even you knew that. Was I not supposed to notice them?

    ¡°They make poor guards now that they¡¯re out here on the Sledge. They didn¡¯t stop me stealing Reliquary property on Inlay, or from using that property to bleed a man dry in Capelle. Now they won¡¯t even get their feet wet to keep after their charge?¡±

    Murk Lake shouted the last line, and his mania came through almost gleeful. Sivil gurgled as Murk Lake hocked something from deep in his chest and spit.

    ¡°You did promise it would be a fruitful partnership, and it has been. Better on my end than yours, though. Why not one last story, for all the good times? You get a story; I get the treasure. Maybe I¡¯ll let you buy it back from me.¡± Murk Lake grunted, as though having been struck in the stomach. ¡°No, no, maybe not.¡±

    There was silence for a long while and I checked Sivil¡¯s breathing again to assure myself that he was not slipping away. His Talent was still clouding his eyes, the veins in them swelling bloodshot. If we¡¯d been at a Guild house, an attendant would have stood by with a dropper to wet his eyes. As it was, I could only try to close them, but they sprang open again. At last, Murk Lake swallowed thickly.

    ¡°It can¡¯t be right, but the smoke¡¯s cleared just over the island¡¯s lip. The trees, they aren¡¯t touched. It¡¯s like¡­ but I swear, that fireball came from the heart of the island. I was¡­ I felt it when I...

    ¡°Skulls, what am I doing?¡±

    Murk Lake pants.

    ¡°No, no, no. Bloody¡ªmove! Why can¡¯t I¡­?¡± More heavy breathing followed by forced calm. ¡°Boat¡¯s stuck. The water¡¯s got a hold of it.¡±

    When Murk Lake next made noise, Sivil grit his teeth and hissed. I believe this is the point at which the boat came to rest on the Grove¡¯s shore. I imagine his first step onto the island was a hesitant one.

    ¡°A black robe, a white robe, six pockets, and a copy of your frightful contract, but nothing sharper than a toothpick. Wake up. Snap out of it!¡± He breathed. ¡°Calma.¡±

    Sivil opened his mouth wide and made an awful rocking gasp, his chest rising as though trying to push something out. Murk Lake groaned long and low.

    ¡°Float, damn you!¡± He retched again. ¡°Take me back. Not at night, it¡¯s not supposed to be night yet¡­

    It took Murk Lake minutes to get himself back under control. ¡°Fine! Fucking fright; you¡¯re coming with me.¡± He must have lifted the kidnapped Speaker onto his shoulder and walked on, over the stony shore of the unblemished island towards the stand of sledgetrees and the pathways snaking into them. ¡°You won¡¯t have me,¡± he mumbled between breaths. ¡°See this here? I¡¯ll kill you if you get close. I¡¯ve gotten out of worse with this scrap of bone. Haven¡¯t you heard; magic favors the moonlighter?¡±

    Nothing answered him. Later, he laughed again, high and thin.

    ¡°Alright, I see you, now go away. It¡¯s not night; you¡¯re not allowed out yet. You want to get inside my head? I already tried listening to the dreams! The others were too scared, but whatever you want, I¡¯ll¡­ just show me what you want. Yes, I¡¯m good at finding things.¡±

    He must have been walking slowly, or in circles. The Grove, for all its mysteries, is no wider than the shortest sledgetree on its shore.

    Suddenly, Murk Lake¡¯s breath stilled. ¡°Stop¡ªcome out.¡± A pause. ¡°I can see you!¡±

    When Murk Lake next spoke, his voice was far away. He must have set down the Speaker he was carrying. ¡°That¡¯s a nice trick, but you can copy me all you want, I¡¯m still the one with the knife.¡± Murk Lake chuckles, but it¡¯s quick, scared. ¡°What stone? I said, come out from there.¡±

    Murk Lake curses. ¡°Don¡¯t think I came here blind!¡± His voice grows more and more faint as he walks away from where he laid the Speaker. ¡°I can feel you want something. Give me what I want, I¡¯ll get you what you want. Let me go back to shore and I¡¯ll find it for you.¡± No one answers him. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll look. Just show me.¡± Quiet breaths. ¡°What mirror?¡±

    I sat with my pen ready, waiting for what felt like minutes to record the rest. Sivil¡¯s lips parted dryly, and he screamed.

    I dropped the quill to cover my ears. As quickly as it had come, the cry stopped, and Sivil bolted upright coughing. I ran then for the palace guards and sent for the Healer. I shook the message to dry the ink as I ran next for your father¡¯s study.

    -:::-

    I¡¯m sorry for not telling you all this before I left, but these letters your father collected, they are incomplete.

    I wanted to tell you at the coronation, but it was too soon. Your father kept so much to himself these past few years, and I know you¡¯ve felt the distance harder than most, regardless of what you¡¯ve said. I thought, let the Old King be cast in stone before I start reshaping your image of him.

    The only way to Skyclipse Dive form Samwhin these days is over the Barrel, or around the Island Belt. The ice sheet should be solid enough this time of year for a ship to land at its edge. And I will be taking a ship, but before beginning my duties, I¡¯ve taken my company to the Grove.

    It is a small island with black, stony shores, not even so wide as the palace greenhouses. The forces which Murk Lake described years ago as ¡®bootcamps¡¯ have swollen into armies, though no one has begun using the word ¡®war¡¯. They linger inland, away from the river and the black iris of the Drop Ditch. A few scraps of charred wood still litter the shore. A captain showed them to me through his spyglass and explained it¡¯s what remains of the Guild¡¯s tent. Now, the stripes and colors of Reliquaries and Speakers sit nearly a mile from the rest of the garrison. They¡¯ve erected stables so people can ride in as needed and leave again before nightfall.

    I asked the captain if he¡¯s had strange dreams.

    ¡°Aye, but come nightfall, they¡¯re no stranger than what you¡¯ll see with your eyes open,¡± he pointed to a patch of sky above the Grove, the snow-laden clouds were beginning to blush with stripes of red light.

    I did not stay to have dreams of my own. Before you tease me for being suspicious, I am on a timeline to begin my duties as your Inaugural Listener. But the Grove was not all that I wanted to see. I directed my company to continue downstream from the Drop Ditch. A ship is waiting for us where the river meets the ocean.

    I found myself riding close to the riverbank once the black water was behind us. The Stitchem flows turbulent and clear outside the range of the Grove, carrying cool mountain water down from the Steps and filling midnight-deep pools with still water. Otherwise, the land on the south bank is flat and green, the soil dark and perfect for tilling. But there is not a homestead in sight at this part of the border. On the trunk of every other tree, a mark has been carved: an S with a line bisecting it, like a worm cut down the center, a mark for the King of Graves. It may tarnish the memory of your father, but the nickname Mouse Writ spoke about is real, and we will have to work carefully to make sure it remains his alone.

    It is the night before I set sail for the Dive. I am cold already, but I can¡¯t bring myself to drift away under the warmth of my tent yet. I sit bundled under a wolf¡¯s pelt, stoking the last embers of our fire and I can¡¯t help but survey the sky behind us. But there are no strange lights, only clouds and drifting snow. Still, I wonder what I would see if I had Murk Lake¡¯s spyglass. Would there be something moving in the shadows, having followed us from the Grove? Would I see a stone? A mirror?

    I will have more time to think on these questions later¡ªa lifetime of time unless the Reliquaries are right about Calamity. Though I am writing this letter to you from the border¡ªyour Inaugural Listener in title if not in location¡ªI have one final stop to make before I take my post and send these letters to you. The Old King¡¯s Seekers are gone, but the road to Badgerpool is open, and I intend to visit.

    Signed,

    Mercurial Lascar, Ward of the Old King, Inaugural Listener to Skyclipse Dive

    Age 1.5 Until Calamity

    <hr>

 Badgerpool

    Dear Raigan,

    I¡¯ve been lost in memories recently, remembering things about your father I had forgotten about. Like the tune he always hummed before banquets. It itches that I can¡¯t remember how it went. Or the glass figurine of a rabbit he used to hold down the papers on his desk in the summer when all the windows were cranked open to let a breeze through¡ªwhatever happened to that thing? There was broken glass on the floor when I found him. Maybe it fell.

    There¡¯s one memory I can¡¯t seem to get out of my head, and it¡¯s one you and I don¡¯t share.

    It was a cool winter night at the palace, during that strange time when you first began courting your now wife. I was halfway through my learning as a Listener, and we were so caught in our own worlds, days sometimes passed without glimpsing each other. When a knock came late at my door, I thought it must be you. But it was your father I found standing in the hallway.

    I¡¯d been awake reading over how the Merchant¡¯s Council partitioned the rights of Reliquaries on Inlay, so I let him in gratefully. He was holding a bare candlestick in his hand. It was half burned down, and he didn¡¯t seem to notice the drying trails of wax covering his knuckles and the signate ring marking him King of Samwhin.

    When I was little and barely confident enough to walk from one end of the palace to the other on my own, your father used to visit in the evenings with a book in hand, and we¡¯d whittle away the blue hours reading in our respective corners. It had been a long time since he¡¯d done that¡ªyears, even.

    But that night, there was no book in your father¡¯s hand, and he was missing the bashful smile that said he was trying to help without making it too obvious. His cheeks were drained of color and there was an oily sheen at his temples when he stepped into the greater lamplight of my room. He became transfixed staring at the arched window set into my wall. It was a moonless night, but his eyes were flashing bright, and it was hard to believe there wasn¡¯t something illuminating them.

    ¡°I¡¯ve had the strangest dream,¡± he said in a low voice. ¡°A ghost asked me for a favor.¡±

    He told me that in his dream, he¡¯d stood in a forest in front of an archway made of thin stone. On the other side of the archway, there had been a child sitting and drawing something on the ground. The creature seemed dangerously vulnerable where it sat next to the gargantuan trunk of a sledgetree, but it jabbed at the ground with a predatory sharpness. It wasn¡¯t drawing but working its way down a scattered column of ants, crushing them one by one. Not a child after all.

    I dropped my book closed and let it rest heavy in my lap. ¡°What did it ask you for?¡±

    The Old King stood with his back to me, staring out over the gardens. The window was just wide enough that he could have jumped through without brushing his shoulders against its frame. I had the sudden urge to pull him away from the ledge, but he was a king, not a toddler, so I kept my hands folded.

    ¡°It asked me to find something for it.¡± He sounded confused. ¡°Some sort of component.¡± His nose was nearly touching the glass and his breath fogged against it, making a halo plume around his head, then disappear.

    Ever since finding these letters from your father¡¯s Seekers, I¡¯ve been waking up distressed to find myself on unfamiliar bedrolls and an unforgiving ache in my knee. It takes a while for me to remember that I am not seventeen anymore, waking with my arms folded over a book and your father asleep in the chair next to my window, too lost in thoughts after telling me about his dream to have realized he¡¯d been falling asleep.

    This morning (yesterday morning; it¡¯s past midnight now) was no different. But there wasn¡¯t time for tears or overthinking. I was in Badgerpool, and I only had so much time.

    The sheen of heated sweat coating my skin cooled once I climbed out from under the thick, scratchy sheets and left me shivering. I hurried to wiggle by toes into the boots I bought special from a merchant out of Squidrich, lined inside with hide from a seal and nubbed with little spikes on the bottom. They¡¯re atrocious and heavy at the end of my legs, but without them I doubt I could walk from one end of Badgerpool to the other without breaking my neck, and that¡¯s only a few blocks.

    I stood carefully on a stool to peak out the small window high on the wall of my room, wobbling when my huge boots almost slipped off the seat. I¡¯d been grateful to get a window at all when we¡¯d arrived numb and dripping with piles of fresh snow on our shoulders only hours before. The room next to mine, the tavern below us, and the dark blocky houses huddled along the streets were sealed up tight as coffers. It made sense when I brought my face close to the glass and the tip of my nose stung; windows do little to keep out the cold.

    Approaching on the narrow road leading away from the Dive, the Tavern is easily the tallest structure in sight at four stories. It lifts from the center of town with a lantern the size of a portly child swinging from its prow and overlooks the snow-packed square below like a lighthouse amidst a vast frozen sea. The innkeeper¡ªa man named Mikron with huge dark eyes and a black braided beard he keeps slung over one shoulder¡ªdidn¡¯t blink when our party of four stumbled in from out of nowhere in the night and he herded us all the way to the top with an unimpressed shake of his head. I¡¯d sent a messenger many weeks ago to reserve the rooms for us and was glad for it. Every door we passed on the way up creaked with activity.

    Icicles the size of my leg hung from the eve above my window, but through their teeth was a view of steep shingled rooves shrugging off snow from the night before in clumps, and a wide building at the end of the street with a wooden porch that served as the mayor¡¯s house, and beyond that the flat dip of the frozen lake to the west of Badgerpool.

    To the east, I remembered from our bleary walk in, was the white wall of the Skyclipse Mountains, and the deep gouge of the snow-pit standing between them and town. It¡¯s the deepest pit ever measured in the north. At a mile wide, and nearly as deep, it can swallow a snowslide down whole.

    Mouse Writ must not have done his reading before deciding to abandon the town for lost, but you remember how restless he could be in a library, and how good he was at getting out of things. Remember when he convinced your father the summer catch in Squidrich required his oversight? He¡¯d schedule it during the week of Open Council. I¡¯d be left to dictate the endless trail of grievances brought forth by citizens lined up and down the streets, undaunted by waiting outside in such nice weather. Meanwhile, he was off wandering the beach and swallowing fresh oysters. I miss him. It wasn¡¯t fair we lost them both so close to each other.

    Anyway, as I was peeking through my window yesterday morning, squinting over a fresh glaze of snow, I caught movement out on the lake. Figures covered in dark furs were moving towards shore, hauling long poles and heavy nets over their shoulders.

    I cursed and climbed down. With my detour to the Grove, I had a day, maybe two to spare looking around Badgerpool before my absence was noticed at Dive, and I¡¯d already missed the morning fisherman.

    My guards¡¯ room is next to mine. I¡¯d thought there would be three of us, so I only requested the two rooms. But then you¡¯d insisted I take that little Select apprentice, Miser. There was room for him to bunk with Brawin and Cerla, even if it meant sleeping on the floor. But when Brawin flung the door wide after only the second pound of my cane, I scanned the room and there was no sign of him.

    ¡°You¡¯re up early, m¡¯lady,¡± came Cerla¡¯s tired voice. He sat up on the side of his bed, scrubbing his hands over the peach fuzz on his cheeks. Both men were half changed into their leathers; thick enough to stop a knife, but lighter and warmer than armor. They must have heard me struggling with the stool and gotten up themselves. It wouldn¡¯t surprise me¡ªthe walls at the Tavern are more like screen board. Brawin snores like a bear on a full stomach.

    ¡°Where¡¯s Miser?¡± I was more worried he¡¯d wondered off and gotten into trouble than anything. The Select are brutal and smart, and fully capable of taking care of themselves, as he¡¯s been sure to remind us.

    ¡°He left to take a¡ªI-I mean, to relieve himself, my lady.¡± Brawin coughed into his hand on the guise of clearing his throat.

    Cerla worked his foot into a sock. ¡°Yeah, and the little grub never came back.¡±

    The way Brawin squinted at Cerla reminded me of teacher¡¯s face when she was contemplating swatting me with the end of her quill for being insolent. Brawin was a big man, late in his years with excellent posture and a squared beard that made him look perpetually stern. Cerla, either not paying attention or having come to know Brawin past his outward appearance, didn¡¯t pay him any mind and continued fumbling with his laces.

    ¡°Get your boots on,¡± I snapped, only feeling a little bad when Brawin startled. By the time they fastened all their buckles, we¡¯d be lucky to catch any of the night fishers before they locked themselves away to sleep for the day. ¡°We¡¯re late. I¡¯ll be waiting for you downstairs.¡±

    Brawin grimaced. ¡°Perhaps it would be wiser to wait up here, Lady Lascar.¡±

    Behind him, Cerla wobbled, balancing on one leg trying to get his boot on and watching to see how I would take this. I met his overly concerned eyes and he glanced away hurriedly.

    ¡°I¡¯ll have more than enough time to act wisely later,¡± I told Brawin plainly, and headed for the stairs.

    Behind me, he cursed and thudded back into the room to pull together the rest of his clothing. ¡°Hurry up!¡± I heard him tell Cerla with thinly veiled panic.

    I shook my head. All there is to getting anywhere is putting one foot in front of the other, and I can certainly do more than that without two watchdogs licking at my heals. What does it matter if I need my cane for it? Since we¡¯ve ridden out of the Interior, you¡¯d think I need someone to follow me around making sure I don¡¯t catch the ends of my hair on fire with how close those two cling to me.

    As for my third apparent guard, he was already downstairs.

    Miser leaned back against the bar top, one hand fiddling with a stack of gold coins he¡¯d made. The other he had resting casually on his hip, right above the hilt of a knife in his belt. His black bearskin coat was draped over the barstool behind him so that the claws still hanging from its arms scraped against the floor like it might be trying to crawl away.

    Even though it was early, the Tavern hosted a scattered crowd. Most of them leaned over steaming bowls of brown porridge, but only a few were eating. Instead, they stared open and hungry at Miser and his stack of gold. I made my way over. The sound of my cane clicking against the stone was steadying.

    ¡°Miser,¡± I said to him cordially and grabbed the barstool next to him. I positioned it so that when I sat down, the gold was blocked from most of the room. I leaned my elbow on the bar and said softly, ¡°If you don¡¯t stop showing off, you¡¯ll have everyone in this room looking for the best place to sheath a knife in your spine.¡±

    Miser tilted his head slowly from side to side, as though listening to a song. I despise whoever decided the Select need to look so much like wasps in those masks.

    ¡°You¡¯ve got such a gentle heart, Miss Mercy,¡± he said and flicked the stack of coins with his gloved finger.

    They toppled and went scattering loudly over the bar top, pounding like little picks into the icy silence. I tried to disguise my horror as one clattered to the slate floor and bounced on its end. It rolled all the way to the other side of the room before thudding against someone¡¯s boot and dropping thunderously still.

    The woman the boot belonged to paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth and turned to regard us. She had a cap of curly grey hair and deep wrinkles around her eyes and a mouth that bespoke a wide smile, but when she looked Miser up and down, her expression was anything but cheerful.

    She pushed her chair slowly away from the table, its legs making a wooden screech against the slate, and I held my breath as she looked down to see what had struck her.

    ¡°Pick it up, if you want it,¡± Miser said to the woman, and I gripped the stool beneath me so hard my nailbeds hurt.

    He remained slouched, but I¡¯d seen him slip the small blade from his belt and dance it over his fingers enough times to know he was reaching for it.

    I swear brother, someone it going to strangle the wheeze out of that boy before this trip is done.

    The woman¡¯s face remained calm as she stooped to pick up the coin. When she eased to standing, turning the gold between her fingers, I wasn¡¯t the only who watched her raptly. Even Mikron paused in throwing a fresh log into the hearth as she walked slowly over to Miser and me.

    The woman was a head taller than Miser, and she held her shoulders as though there were an iron bar running through them. I was glad in that moment that Brawin and Cerla were not there; Miser was making a spectacle all on his own without them trying to stand in her way.

    The woman ran her thumb over the coin, studying it through a cut of short, grey lashes and frowned. She reached between us and dropped the coin on the bar top, unflinching even as her eyes stared into Miser¡¯s masked face. ¡°Save your money for Lakeday,¡± she said coldly.

    She glanced at me as she turned, but there was nothing more to it than marking my face. She lumbered back to her table and tucked her chair in. When she raised the spoon and began eating once more, I relaxed back in my seat. The other patrons must have felt the same because the room filled with the sound of spoons scraping against bowls.

    Miser plucked the coin from the countertop and pocketed it with a small chuckle.

    ¡°Count your fortune well that didn¡¯t end in blood.¡± I looked up to find Brawin standing behind me with his arms crossed over his chest disapprovingly. Further down, Cerla waved Mikron over to order breakfast.

    Miser drummed his fingers hollowly against his mask, just over where his lips were hidden. ¡°But fortune does so well in blood. Speaking of which, I¡¯m running late for an appointment. Lady Lascar.¡± Miser snatched up my hand and pressed his mask to it in a mock kiss. When I pulled it back, I had a small scrape from the wood where the skin was thinnest over my knuckle. He waved cheerfully at the woman with the grey hair on his way to the door; luckily, she ignored him in favor of her food. The door snapped closed loudly behind him, returning the bar to comfortable gloom.

    At this point, the only thing that surprises me is he hasn¡¯t gotten us run out of town. Or stabbed. From the little I¡¯ve seen of Badgerpool, stabbing is more likely.

    If I didn¡¯t know better¡ªand I only do, brother, because at the time I¡¯m writing this letter, you still don¡¯t know about my detour¡ªI¡¯d say you insisted I travel with a Select only to prevent me from getting anyone in this town to talk to me.

    Mikron arrived with three bowls of porridge. I was anxious to get going but couldn¡¯t deny I was hungry. I fumbled with my spoon though when he reached under the countertop and lined three glasses barely larger than thimbles in front of us.

    I looked at Cerla in disbelief. ¡°Did you order drinks?¡±

    ¡°What? Of course, I didn¡¯t,¡± Cerla said, already swallowing down a spoonful of porridge. Brawin didn''t looked convinced.

    Mikron hefted a lidded clay jug from underneath the counter. He set it down with a thunk and pulled the lid off. ¡°Rubs aren¡¯t for buyin¡¯,¡± he said seriously.

    Have you ever heard of a ¡®rub¡¯? I had not, and would have preferred never to encounter one. Mikron must have kept the pot under the counter so the drink could be poured quickly. Before there were too many questions.

    The drink slid over the broad spout of the pot thick and white and even with Mikron¡¯s steady hand, some spilled over the glasses and pooled beneath them. He clapped the lid back onto the pot and left us with the drinks, not bothering to clean up what had spilled.

    Brawin pinched one small glass between his fingers and brought it to his face. He sniffed and recoiled. ¡°I don¡¯t recommend that,¡± he said and set it back down.

    Cerla dipped his finger into what had spilled. ¡°Ugh, why is it sticky?¡±

    I bent down and sniffed my own glass. It smelled of milkfat and lamp oil. ¡°Brawin¡¯s right. It¡¯s very kind of him to offer, but I don¡¯t think we should¡ªCerla.¡±

    It was too late. Cerla smacked the glass back down onto the table, his eyes scrunched closed, and his cheeks flushed red. He held his mouth open as though he might try and regurgitate what he¡¯d just drunk.

    Brawin rubbed a hand over his face, leaving his thick eyebrows spiked in odd directions.

    ¡°What?¡± Cerla said and swallowed thickly. ¡°Everyone was¡ª¡± hiccough ¡°¡ªlooking.¡±

    I checked around the room. Cerla was right. Mikron was glancing up at us from where he¡¯d returned to stoking the fire, although the room was getting stuffy with heat already. A few people were nodding approvingly at Cerla, though they were still eyeing Barwin and me skeptically.

    I stared at the drink again and considered the state of my stomach. The little that had spilled looked to be drying into a tacky paste, welding the bottom of the two undrunk glasses to the countertop.

    ¡°No,¡± I said aloud. ¡°No, I¡¯m not drinking that.¡±

    Brawin¡¯s warm hand patted my shoulder. ¡°There is some time for wisdom, my lady.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Cerla said. He blinked rapidly and appeared unaware that he was swaying. ¡°It wasn¡¯t so bad. Maybe you sho¡¯ try some.¡± Brawin caught him when he tried to stand from his chair and tilted towards the ground instead. ¡°Whoops.¡±

    ¡°Brawin.¡±

    ¡°I know, my lady,¡± Brawin hurried to say, looking somewhere between distressed and furious as Cerla leaned bodily against him and draped an arm around his shoulders. ¡°Just wait here, I¡¯ll put him back in the room.¡±

    Cerla nodded in agreement. Halfway to the stairs, Brawin lost patience dragging him and lifted him over his shoulder before racing up the stairs. Chuckles sounded around the room.

    ¡°Your friend is pure of heart,¡± Mikron said as he trundled back over to where I sat. He stared between me and the two remaining glasses suggestively.

    ¡°He is,¡± I said carefully. ¡°Unfortunately, we¡¯re only here for a short time, and I¡¯d hate to dilute my experience with drink.¡±

    Mikron furrowed his brows, his huge eyes searching my own. ¡°You¡¯re going to miss Lakeday?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± I said. He¡¯d mentioned something about Lakeday when we¡¯d come in last night as well, but I¡¯d been too tired ask about it. I guessed it¡¯s what had the Tavern¡¯s rooms filled up. ¡°And it¡¯s very unfortunate.¡±

    Mikron¡¯s face darkened and he swung his beard from over his shoulder. It arched over his belly and hung almost to his knees. He tugged on it sharply.

    ¡°Is Lakeday something that happens out on the¡­ what is the lake¡¯s name again?¡± These were not the questions I¡¯d been hoping to ask, but it was a start. Mikron had treated us warmly enough so far, and if I got him talking, I may be able to lead one thing into the other.

    I¡¯d made a mistake, though, because Mikron leaned away as though I had bad breath. ¡°The lake¡¯s Badgerpool,¡± he said.

    ¡°Oh, right.¡±

    His eyes narrowed at me suspiciously. ¡°If you¡¯re not here for Lakeday, why are you here?¡±

    That was a question with a complicated answer. How could I explain that I was here in search of lights in the sky, and stones and mirrors, and how it all might explain your father¡¯s death? How it might prove that he¡¯d been killed. That he didn¡¯t¡­because he wouldn¡¯t¡­

    The proof was here somewhere, I knew it, but I didn¡¯t know how to ask Mikron for all that.

    I was saved from answering by the steady thud of boots over stone. The woman with the grey hair was marching toward us, a scowl carved into her face. I braced myself for a confrontation, the edge of the bar digging painfully into my back. She lifted a hand, and I froze. I¡¯ve never been in a fight before. I wasn¡¯t even sure what I¡¯d done to cause one.

    ¡°Wait¡ª¡±

    I stopped. She was reaching behind me.

    The barstool Miser had been using to hold his coat clattered to the ground as the woman hauled a man in front of her. He looked young, barely out of his second age if I had to guess, with white-blonde hair tied back in a short ponytail at the back of his neck. The woman held him by it like she might a kitten by its scruff.

    ¡°Give it back, Callum,¡± the woman said to him, her voice level and dangerous as a butcher¡¯s block. The boy twisted and clawed at her arm, but she held firm. ¡°It¡¯s Lakeday, you know the rules.¡±

    The boy stopped struggling and barked an incredulous laugh. ¡°I know the rules? Funny you¡¯re telling me that, when you let Til¡ª¡±

    He cut off with a hiss when the woman¡¯s calm anger broke into a snarl, some spittle escaping her lips and she tightened her grip painfully on his hair.

    ¡°There¡¯s no need for¡ª¡± She cut me a look and I clicked my mouth closed. Teacher would love her.

    ¡°Give her back her money,¡± she said again, her voice straining for calm.

    Instinctually, I reached for my belt. My coin purse was gone.

    ¡°She¡¯s not even staying for Lakeday. You heard her!¡± Callum whined, but the woman didn¡¯t budge. Mikron watched on from my side, his face impassive. ¡°Fine.¡± Reluctantly he pulled my purse from inside his coat and dropped it on the counter. ¡°Sorry,¡± he muttered without meeting my eyes.

    He must have known that¡¯s what the woman wanted to hear, because she let go of his hair at last. The second he was free, Callum ran for the door and slipped outside. The woman watched him go, her grey hair shadowing her face like thunderheads.

    From the corner of my eye, I noticed Brawin¡¯s boots, sewn with a border of Samwhin silver, appear on the stairway and I breathed an involuntary sigh of relief.

    ¡°Watch out for that one.¡± I startled; the woman was talking to me. Being the center of all her focus made me want to squirm in my seat. ¡°You can¡¯t trust a word he says.¡± She glared at me for emphasis and stepped away right as Brawin came hurrying over.

    ¡°Are you alright? What was that about?¡± He looked between me and the woman as though considering whether he should be going after her. I turned back to Mikron, but he had left and was filling the cup of someone at the back of the room. He and the man where whispering together and glancing at Brawin and I suspiciously. My opportunity was lost.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, come on.¡± I took a huge bite of my otherwise untouched porridge and climbed to my feet. My leg had stiffened while I¡¯d been sitting so tense, and I tried to shake it out under my gown without Brawin noticing. ¡°Let¡¯s go, we may catch the fishermen before they retire.¡±

    There was one other bar in town¡ªsmall and unnamed. No windows, of course, and no rooms for rent above it. It sat perched on the edge of the lake and there were boot prints leading to the front door that I found that encouraging.

    It shouldn¡¯t have been possible, but word must have already somehow spread of our interactions at the Tavern, because Brawin and I barely had time for our eyes to adjust before the barkeep spotted us and scooped two small glasses and a clay pitcher from beneath the counter.

    ¡°Oh no, please,¡± I tried to dissuade her.

    Her eyebrow arched and she filled one glass right to the brim before sliding it towards me and the other in front of Brawin. She shook her hand to rid it of the droplets that had escaped over the glass and gotten onto her fingers.

    I smiled at her bravely. ¡°I¡¯d much prefer a cup of hot wine, if you have it.¡± When she raised her chin in challenge, I added, ¡°Although I do appreciate the pour, and I will absolutely pay for it, as well as my companion¡¯s.¡±

    Brawin glanced at me gratefully, but the barkeep wasn¡¯t charmed. She leaned forward on her elbows. In the heat of the bar, she wore a sleeveless shirt and her biceps bulged. The lobes of her ears were stretched wide around what looked like wolf fangs.

    ¡°Rubs aren¡¯t for buying, little rabbit,¡± she said and dipped her finger into the puddle that had escaped onto the countertop. She sucked the pad of her finger into her mouth along with a drop of milky liquid. ¡°But if doesn¡¯t fit your tastes, I¡¯ll go and fetch you a cup to lay your money on.¡±

    She pushed away and we were left standing awkward as ducklings in a dark wood. I looked around, but the few people clustered inside watched us just as guardedly from behind their cups as those at the Tavern. The barkeep returned with two steaming cups of wine smelling of a sharp spice that made my mouth water, but my stomach still flipped when she poured the two rubs back into the clay pot with a long drizzle and moved away from us before I could ask her a single question.

    Do you remember what Mouse Writ used to tell us? There are two surefire ways to get a story from someone¡ªshare a drink and know when to shut up. Maybe teacher was right to scold me for not paying attention. I¡¯d thought my training as a Listener would give me some advantage that a Seeker might not have, but how am I to listen when I can¡¯t get anyone to speak?

    I gulped the wine to keep my spirits up and waved Brawin back out into the cold. I decided to try the lake next, since the baffling holiday surrounding it seemed to be the only thing anyone could talk about.

    ¡°Keep it for Lakeday,¡± yet another man grumbled to me, glaring resentfully at the coin I had offered him for showing us to the lake shore.

    ¡°What is Lakeday?¡±

    He looked at me baffled, then grumbled something and walked away.

    There are no more than five streets running through town, all of them ending at the lake. I could have found the frightful thing myself and not had to endure the man stiff shouldering all my small talk.

    I looked up at the sound of shovels scraping over ice. A group was working to clear a patch in the center of the lake. They were spread out in a ring around a tall stone pillar sprouting from the center of the water and rising almost as tall as the Tavern. With people next to the stone, I¡¯d be surprised if it¡¯s base wasn¡¯t thicker than a sledgetree. The shovelers dodged skillfully around holes cut into the ice, each one just large enough for the early morning fishers to drop a line for the sluggish creatures still alive and swimming in the frigid water. As they cleared more ground, others followed behind them and began erecting colorful tents.

    We weren¡¯t the only newcomers to Badgerpool out walking along the lake and observing the activity. I spotted other outsiders strolling in pairs, or alone. They were easy to distinguish with their own blank-faced protectorate trailing behind, keeping a watchful eye on the shadowed alleys their convoy ignored in favor of the view. One couple we passed were wearing broad brimmed hats that would have stacked up like a cake if it were snowing, and appeared to be wearing jewel-crusted fishnets wrapped around their necks.

    ¡°Lady Lascar, please,¡± Brawin begged me under his breath when we passed them.

    I patted Brawin¡¯s arm. It isn¡¯t the worst admonishment I¡¯ve received for staring. You¡¯ll remember teacher tugging my braids before I grew accustomed to ducking my head for the foreign company your father sometimes hosted.

    The only group I saw without protection was a cluster of three clerics, wearing the thin white robes of the Savior¡¯s Sect. They ignored the couple in hats and moved together out onto the ice, headed for the shovelers.

    I question if there aren¡¯t still eyes under the bandages that wrap their heads in and if those bandages aren¡¯t thin enough to see through. I also question if their robes aren¡¯t warmer than they look; they don¡¯t move as though they''re half-frozen. Outside of the shovelers on the lake who walk on the ice like they were born to it, the Saviors fluttered gracefully as a snow drift.

    ¡°What do you think they¡¯re up to?¡± I asked Brawin as I watched one of the clerics hold his bare hands up to the face of one of the shovelers.

    ¡°What they¡¯re always up to, my lady. They¡¯re searching for the Savior.¡±

    The white cleric bowed in thanks to the shoveler and moved on to the next, his hands outstretched.

    ¡°15 years left until Calamity. They¡¯re cutting it close, aren¡¯t they?¡±

    Brawin shrugged. ¡°Is it ever too late to save the world?¡±

    I looked at Brawin. In Samwhin, it¡¯s impolite to ask what people believe about Calamity. Some have been known to faint when reminded of the date. But it was just Brawin and I. ¡°So, you believe what the Reliquaries say? I wouldn¡¯t have taken you for a nihilist, Brawin.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s my job to prepare for the worst-case scenario, my lady. The end of the world is about the worst-case something can be.¡±

    ¡°And, are you prepared?¡±

    Brawin squared his shoulders. ¡°I¡¯m always prepared for death, ma¡¯am.¡±

    What is they¡¯re teaching soldiers in Samwhin, brother? I for one, am in no way prepared for death, or defeat of any kind. Which is why I grew increasingly frustrated as the day wore on and eventually ended and I had not succeeded in getting a single person in Badgerpool to speak more than two words to me.

    When we slumped back into the Tavern that night, my moral was low and the next person who told me to save my coin for Lakeday was getting a cane in their big toe. Cerla was back at the bar, sipping from a glass of chilled water bigger than his head with his short brown hair slicked flat against one side of his head.

    Brawin clapped a firm hand on his back in greeting. ¡°Sleep well?¡±

    Cerla groaned and sucked his lips between his teeth, looking for a moment like he might vomit.

    I flicked my eyes around the room, sweating in the heat from the hearth and irritated. ¡°Where¡¯s Miser?¡± I was getting tired of asking that question.

    Cerla took another tentative sip of water. ¡°Asleep, upstairs.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± This surprised me. Miser never went to sleep before us, and he was always out of bed first, even on our earliest mornings. So far as I¡¯d seen, the boy didn¡¯t sleep at all.

    I¡¯d had a suspicion for a while that Miser snuck off somewhere to sleep during the day so he could wander at night without us noticing. Why, I had no idea, but if he was sleeping now, he must be resting up for something big.

    I let lose a yawn. ¡°I think I¡¯ll turn in as well.¡±

    Brawin smiled at me warmly. ¡°Very wise, Lady Lascar. We can try again tomorrow. Just remember, we need to leave by¡ª¡±

    ¡°By midday, yes I know.¡±

    I was due to arrive at the Dive for the first Listener Council of the winter season the day after tomorrow. If they had no record of my arrival by at least the night before, letters would be written, and parties sent out in search. A whole fuss I¡¯d rather avoid.

    Upstairs, I sat on my mattress to give my leg a rest, but I did not lay down. I waited and thought over the questions I¡¯d gathered since discovering your father¡¯s letters. My chances of finding my proof of his murder were looking bleak, but whatever Miser was up to was one mystery I could solve.

    Not much later, footsteps crept down the hallway and the door next to mine opened and closed softly as Brawin and Cerla turned in for the night. I climbed off my bed and sat down on the stool with my ear pressed to the door. I waited.

    Determination kept me awake the way it always has when I¡¯m focused on something. Heavy clouds had rolled in outside and the glow of the Tavern¡¯s lamp was shining along the windowpane when I at last heard a squeak in the floorboards.  He made no more noise than a rat skittering from its den, but I was certain Miser had just clicked the door closed behind him.

    I sat up and watched his shadow move across the crack beneath my door. Trained guards are light on their feet even in plate armor, but they could not have walked the creaking hallway without making a sound.

    I twisted my cane in my hands and counted to thirty before following. The short hallway outside was dark and biting with cold. Holding my cane under my armpit to keep its tapping from waking Brawin and Cerla, I clung to the bannister and limped down the stairs.

    Mikron was still up, but the bar was otherwise empty. He paused where he knelt shoveling ash from the hearth to watch as I hobbled to the door, but otherwise ignored me.

    Northern night blistered cold over my cheeks as I pushed open the door. I followed the fresh footsteps leading around the corner of the inn and down one of the narrow side streets, then out onto the wider main street. Miser was headed for the lake.

    I didn¡¯t look closely into the shadows between buildings in case I should see eyes looking back. It was so cold, I told myself, no amount of furs would allow anyone to sit outside and still in the snow without freezing them through. There was nothing to be afraid of.

    It was still clear, the clouds overhead not yet shedding their weight, and Miser¡¯s footsteps picked an even line of craters down the center of the main street. But I did not see him ahead of me, not even when I rounded the corner of the mayor¡¯s porch and the only place left to go was the flat slice of the lake.

    I crossed over the street¡¯s end and sunk to my ankles in the deeper snow on the lakeshore. I stared grimly at the trail; Miser¡¯s footsteps paced twice more in front of me and stopped.

    Wind loped over the rolling white landscape and flew into my face. My eyes watered and I reached back for my hood. A dark appendage appeared in the corner of my eye and tugged the fur of the cloak low over my eyes. I swung my cane wide, but it passed through air. Behind me, Miser was standing, one hand scratching his scalp through the thick lining of his own coat.

    ¡°You¡¯re out late, Miss Mercy.¡± The round eyes of his mask caught the moonlight and hung magnified and disembodied from within the cavern of his hood. ¡°And with no one to protect you.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t call me that.¡±

    ¡°Why? Are you not merciful, my lady?¡±

    ¡°That depends. Where were you going?¡±

    His attention drifted away from me, skittering over the lake then to the lights still shining greasy and yellow from the mayor¡¯s window. ¡°Oh, there¡¯s not too many places to go around here. Aside from the obvious, of course,¡± he jabbed his thumb skyward then hid his hands into his coat pockets abashedly. ¡°Try to get anywhere else and you end up walking in circles. You know the feeling.¡±

    The fabric was huge on his slight form, making him look like a round hen balanced on spindly legs. Still, I did not like that I couldn¡¯t see his hands as much as I could not read his face.

    ¡°Speak plain, Miser.¡± I could not resist glancing up, but there were only clouds. ¡°If you¡¯re out for a walk, I¡¯ll walk with you.¡±

    ¡°The King doesn¡¯t keep Select for strolling,¡± he snapped. He seemed to swallow, then hummed and the sound echoed from behind his wooden mask. ¡°And I don¡¯t think my friend will like you. She doesn¡¯t like anybody, these days. She loved the Old King. Maybe even more than you did.¡±

    It was easy to push down the well that opened in my heart, I¡¯m growing more used to it by the day. It was harder to ignore the sudden feeling of eyes at my back. There was only us out in the cold, I reminded myself. Even the earliest fishermen wouldn¡¯t be awake for hours.

    ¡°The closest thing you have to a friend here is me. The mission you have is mine.¡± I pointed the end of my cane at him¡ªit has a metal cap on the end. I like that people can hear it clicking when I pace, but it¡¯s also the closest I¡¯ve ever come to carrying a weapon. ¡°And I am telling you to take a stroll with me. We¡¯ll talk, like good friends do.¡±

    Miser sighed, his whole body rising and falling as he dropped his shoulders. ¡°This is becoming embarrassing.¡± It took me a moment to realized he didn¡¯t mean for himself. I¡¯ve never actually hit someone with the cane before. But, like a vulture scenting rot, Miser¡¯s head ticked to something over my shoulder and he seemed to forget I was there. He giggled, high and sweet, and pointed with his pinky.

    The whisper of voices carried over crunching snow and I turned to look despite my instinct to keep Miser in my line of sight. A huddle of people had come down from the mayor¡¯s porch. The man in front carried a flickering torch, the light revealed a closely trimmed dark beard adding shape to a round face.

    I had not spoken to the mayor, which was impolite for a Listener. I had spotted him several times standing on his porch sucking on a pipe, overseeing the clearing of the lake in a toe-length robe embroidered with black thread. He was dressed in the same robe tonight, clutching the hood to keep it from blowing off the crown of his head.

    I made out four people behind him. Two were hauling a third between them, and at the end of the party was an unmistakable tuft of grey hair¡ªthe surly woman who had returned Miser¡¯s coin this morning. The snow parted around her calves like waves cut by a clipper.

    ¡°What are they doing?¡± I wondered aloud.

    I glanced back when I got no answer. Where Miser had been standing, footprints lead behind the bar Brawin and I had visited that morning.

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    I chased down his trail, wincing at the sounds my feet made, and threw myself behind the corner of the building. The alley was quiet, and the wall was cold even through my glove. I could not see further then the length of my arm.

    ¡°Miser!¡± There was no answer, even though he must have been close enough still to hear me.

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t my fault!¡± The voice came from the group, getting closer to my hiding place. It sounded familiar. I edged closer to the corner.

    The mayor held his hands out for balance as he stepped onto the shoveled surface of the lake. He didn¡¯t slip, but it looked to be a close thing. ¡°Bruna saw you.¡±

    The other four followed him. The woman at the end didn¡¯t seem to notice the change in surfaces.

    The boy being held at the center--by what I now saw were two men--grumbled; ¡°She would have, wouldn¡¯t she?¡±

    The mayor¡¯s voice grew faint as they moved further in, heading in a straight line for the lake¡¯s center. ¡°She wasn¡¯t the only one,¡±."

    Callum¡ªI was sure it was him from the tuft of blonde hair poking out the back of his coat¡ªwas docile for a moment. It didn¡¯t last long. He thrashed and kicked the knee of the man holding his left arm. The three of them fell as one, arms flailing to keep from landing face-first on the ice. He might have gotten away, but the woman with the grey hair wrapped her arms around Callum¡¯s shoulders and lifted him, kicking, into the air. It was enough for the men to regain their hold on him.

    Callum¡¯s teeth flashed in a snarl under the torchlight. There was a shadow of scruff on his cheeks, but compared to other beards in Badgerpool, it made him look like a child.

    ¡°Keep an eye on him, Bruna,¡± the mayor said unnecessarily, and was quick to walk further in, taking the torchlight with him. The woman with the grey hair¡ªBruna¡ªand the others followed behind in the same steady pace they had been.

    I considered the alleyway and the tracks Miser had left. He was either gone or toying with me. I kicked snow over them. I¡¯d made it across town with only myself watching my back¡ªI could manage Badgerpool on my own for a little while longer.

    When the group was far enough onto the lake the torch was only a matchstick hidden mostly by the scattered tents that had been erected that morning, I crept after them. The ice groaned deep below my feet and I hesitated to bring my cane down too firmly.  It was only through luck I made it all the way to the first tent without slipping. I crouched behind it just long enough to check that I hadn¡¯t been spotted before dashing to the next one.

    At the last tent, the uncleared line of snow piled thigh-deep next to me and the mayor and his party stood a stone¡¯s throw away. The monolith of stone rose behind them. I was wrong before; up close it was taller than the Tavern. Darkness seemed to coalesce around it a shade darker than the rest of the landscape despite the torchlight, and us small and exposed.

    Bruna pulled something metal from a strap along her back and lowered to one knee. The grind of her saw cutting through ice rattled my teeth. The mayor bounced on his feet and held the torch dangerously close to his face, probably trying to get warm. Callum sucked in a huge gulp of air and blew it from his mouth like pipe smoke. His arms hung limp in the grip of his captors, his focus narrowed on Bruna and the ice. The uncleared snowbank rippled in a low wind and I edged closer to the tent.

    Bruna stopped sawing and something that had been winding tight in my chest relaxed, but then she rose to her feet and stomped down onto the patch of ice. A shoulder-width circle depressed under a sheen of clear water. She pulled from her belt a hook, as long as her forearm and with a sharp point at the end. When the ice bobbed unevenly back to the surface, she brought the hook down like a hammer, its end piercing the cold slab of lake with a bandy crunch. She hauled the cylinder out of the water and stepped away.

    ¡°This is the second time this season, Callum,¡± the mayor said and rubbed his eyes. ¡°Next time the furs stay on. Be glad for Mayor Rookra¡¯s passing; she¡¯d have done it already. And if you¡¯d made it off the ice, she¡¯d have dragged you back out a second time, just for it being so close to Lakeday!¡±

    A muscle twitched along Callum¡¯s jaw but he stayed quiet, his eyes wide and stuck on the black circle of water. When he moved his arms to wrap around his center, the guards let him.

    The mayor looked him up and down and gripped his robes tighter against a gust of wind. ¡°Do you need a push?¡± Callum met the mayor¡¯s eyes briefly, his expression dark. The mayor pursed his lips and nodded to the guards. They stepped away, but not far. A threat hung between them.

    In a jerky motion, Callum bent and begin unlacing his boots with shaking fingers. The bare flesh of his feet touched the ice and pinkened immediately. He undid the ties of his coat then the shirts underneath, unwound the long scarf from his neck, shimmied out of his pants and the woolen trousers underneath until he was standing naked and hunched against the cold.

    I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from hissing in sympathy; he was thinner than I would have thought under all the furs. I didn¡¯t want to watch him shaking, so I watched Bruna instead. She bore the sight, her mouth grim.

    The mayor was here. This was an administration of justice. That did not stop my tongue from sitting dead and dry in my mouth. In Samwhin, a thief may face anything from the stocks to the headman¡¯s axe, depending on the magnitude of his crime, but always in the light of day.

    ¡°Alright,¡± the mayor said his voice tight as though he were the one bare in the cold. The two guards placed their hands on Callum¡¯s shoulders and maneuvered him closer to the edge of the water. ¡°We can count down, if you¡¯d like.¡±

    Callum was shaking furiously, his breath quick and shallow. At the Mayor¡¯s question he dropped his arms from where he¡¯d been clutching them around his center for warmth and took a single shuddering breath. He shot one last glare at Bruna; he got nothing back but a blink.

    ¡°Just d-do it,¡± he said though chattering teeth.

    Without another word, one of the men¡ªthe one who¡¯d suffered the kick to the knee¡ªpushed. Callum¡¯s feet slipped over the edge, and he let out a small cry. Then he was gone, vanished under the surface with hardly a splash, the cloud of his breath still clinging in the air.

    I didn¡¯t realize I¡¯d let out a gasp until the light wavered. The mayor swung the torch and studied the flat landscape. I pulled myself further behind the tent just in time to escape notice and bit into my glove. I held my breath and counted the seconds. How long could someone survive in that water?

    ¡°It¡¯s cold tonight.¡± That was Bruna¡¯s voice. I chanced looking back around the tent. Her tone was flat, but her hands were fists at her sides and her eyes were on the mayor.

    He shuffled his feet. ¡°Yes, best to get this over with. Bring him up,¡± he said to the guards.

    The same man who¡¯d pushed Callum in plunged his bare arm into the water without question. Callum¡¯s head broke though the surface, and he sucked in a breath. The two men had him hauled out of the water and set down next to his pile of clothes before his next one. They drew away from where he lay curled in a quaking ball. His skin was white, the back of his neck blooming red.

    The mayor handed his torch to one of the men and knelt. He placed a hand on Callum¡¯s shoulder and said something to him I could not hear. Callum nodded frantically and sniffed. The mayor stood and wiped his hand off on the side of his robe.

    ¡°Cold indeed,¡± he grumbled and reclaimed the torch. ¡°Back to bed.¡± He nodded towards the shore and began trekking back, the two guards at his side.

    Bruna bent at the waist to pick up the saw from where she¡¯d left it and paused.

    ¡°Next time, you keep your mouth shut,¡± Bruna said to Callum once the other three were out of earshot. ¡°Then maybe I don¡¯t need to watch you so closely.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not me you need to watch,¡± Callum spat through clenched teeth and reached a shaking hand to drag the coil of his scarf closer to him.

    Bruna watched him, then shook her head and stood with the saw in hand. She caught the other end of his scarf under the toe of her boot. It slipped from Callum¡¯s trembling fingers, and he growled in frustration. ¡°You, y-you...¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to see you die out here, Callum. It¡¯s a fool¡¯s death. Are you a fool?¡±

    Callum said nothing, he didn¡¯t look at her. At last Bruna removed her foot from the scarf and stalked off after the retreating firelight. The lake fell dark and quiet once more, the bleak outline of the stone pillar the only thing to be made out against the starless sky.

    I kept my breath even and quiet as I waited for my eyes to adjust in the ambient light from the shore. Now that the mayor and the others had left, I could hear Callum scuffling over the ice, cursing between bouts of chattering teeth as he tried to pull his clothes back on.

    I unfolded from my hiding place.

    It was still difficult to see, but I could make out Callum¡¯s features. His face was pale from the cold and he moved shakily, tremors lancing down his back on every other breath. He¡¯d pulled his pants around his waist; they were too large on him, coming up past this navel and cinched around the hollow of his stomach with a piece of twine. He sat on his rump trying to pull a boot onto his foot. His fingers slipped, and he cupped them to his mouth for warmth.

    Ice creaked beneath my foot, setting the whole lake shuddering.

    Callum¡¯s head snapped up, his eyes hunting as though looking for wolves. When he spotted only myself, he assessed my cloak¡ªthe one you gifted me before I left, dyed using honeysuckle and lined with white fox fur¡ªand put his back to me, snatching up his boot to try again.

    ¡°Last Lakeday, a white robe came through. He wanted to feel the face of everyone in town. It¡¯s fun to humor them; this one kept poking at my dimples.¡± He grinned wide over his shoulder at me, showing the dips in his cheeks. The expression held no warmth though and he turned back to his boot. ¡°No hero to be found in them, I guess. The next day, he came out here and hopped in a fishing hole, right over there.¡±

    I looked at the hole he¡¯d just been submerged in. I¡¯d been trying to ignore it. Each time I blinked, it felt like dark water swallowing over my eyes.

    ¡°He took that bath with his clothes on,¡± Callum continued. ¡°Those white robes must be heavier than they look because he stayed under. Clothes ¡®ll drag you to the bottom.¡±

    I leaned heavily on my cane to keep the weight off my bad knee and sat at his feet. He watched me but tried to hide it with another tug at his boot.

    ¡°Why did you tell me that?¡±

    He rubbed his nose on his bare shoulder. ¡°You out here to feel the lines of my face?¡± He got the one boot on and reached for the other, his fingers still too clumsy with cold to try tying them.

    ¡°No.¡± I tugged off my gloves and picked up the ends of his laces. A firm tug closed the gap between the leather and his goose pebbled skin. ¡°But I¡¯ve had as much luck making you out as that white cleric must have.¡±

    Callum leaned away from my proximity, but he did not stop me. ¡°You¡¯re one of those southland nobles,¡± he said staring at the crystal ring on my finger that distinguishes me as a Listener. Transparent, for truth. It¡¯s edges are still sharp, even though it was cut for me an age ago. It used to chafe me badly, but I¡¯ve since grown thick calluses on the insides of my fingers. When I get to the Dive, they will give me a second ring. A sapphire one, for wisdom. I wonder what new scars that will leave me.

    Callum¡¯s finger¡¯s twitched like he might try to touch it, but he snatched his hand away.

    With some effort¡ªmy knuckles are not as demure as they used to be¡ªI wiggled the ring from my finger and weighed it in my palm. After a moment¡¯s thought, I held it out to him. ¡°You can look closer if you¡¯d like.¡± I¡¯m not marked for wisdom yet, brother.

    Callum¡¯s looked me straight in the eye for just a moment, then checked around us to make sure no one was looking. ¡°Are you sure?¡± He sounded so young. The moment the question left his lips, he tightened his fist like he¡¯d let something slip.

    I handed him the ring anyway. I could tell he was afraid to stop watching for what I might do, but he gave in quickly and curled over a little. He turned the gemstone, thumb feeling over the rough, glittering surface. His lips parted like he might try to bite it, but at the last moment he froze. He gave it back, looking a little embarrassed.

    With its weight back in my palm came relief. The Dive could make me another ring if Callum had decided to try his luck stealing this one¡ªI calculated it once; this much crystal is worth 10,000 gold; enough to start a farm in Samex, and I don¡¯t necessarily carry this cane around for beating up street ruffs¡ªbut had I lost it, I could never have truly replaced it.

    ¡°A friend gave me this ring.¡± I almost stopped myself from saying it aloud but was surprised to find I didn¡¯t mind sharing the thought. I skinned my knuckle a bit working the ring back on my finger, but I hardly felt it, it was so freezing out there. ¡°He died, just a few weeks ago.¡±

    Did you know, that¡¯s the first time I¡¯ve said it out loud?

    I realized Callum was looking at me strangely and reaching slowly for his coat as though he wasn¡¯t sure if he was allowed to move. I pushed the remaining clothing over to him with my cane so he would resume covering himself from the cold.

    ¡°Why did they do this?¡± I asked him, meaning the punishment the mayor had delivered.

    Callum smiled without humor. The creases of his face were set deep for so young a man, and one of his canines was chipped. His pointed nose and jaw made him look a bit like one of the starved foxes I¡¯ve seen some of the nobility keep for sporting hunts.

    ¡°They do this sometimes when they¡¯re trying to make me learn something I won¡¯t forget.¡± He said it jokingly, but it wasn¡¯t enough to mask the resentment.

    ¡°And did you learn it this time?¡±

    He grinned roguishly. ¡°Always do.¡± The look was diminished when he wrapped his scarf at last back around his long neck and it looped around four times before he ran out of fabric.

    ¡°What could you possibly have done to deserve that?¡±

    He looked at me again like I might be trying to rattle him somehow. ¡°Like you don¡¯t remember this morning,¡± he grumbled and got to his feet. He watched me slowly climb to my own. The cold tweaked at my knee, but I made it to standing with my shoulders back.

    ¡°You know, it is like a lordling to forget the value of money,¡± he said, and I sensed he was gathering for something. ¡°I bet you wouldn¡¯t have even noticed it missing. But then, it wasn¡¯t even your fault, was it? I¡¯m no moonlighter; no one would have said anything if Bruna had just let it go.¡± He tucked his hands deep into his pockets. ¡°You never actually said what you were doing out here, all alone without the muscle in your shadow.¡±

    I thought of my pointless need to best Miser. He hadn¡¯t been wrong; the Select¡¯s business here would only be yours, not my own. You would have no other good enough reason for making him come all this way just to escort me when I already had Brawin and Cerla.

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure what I was trying to do.¡±  I exposed my throat to examine the fogging winter sky; it was starting to snow. ¡°I had at least hoped I¡¯d see some color in the sky while I was here.¡±

    ¡°You are backwards. No one wants to see the lights.¡± Callum shifted his heel a small step backwards. ¡°You should count your luck twice you¡¯re only here for Lakeday. They don¡¯t come out in winter. More fishers in Badgerpool cast out at night in the summer than anywhere in the north, even though the lake isn¡¯t frozen and the silverdon aren¡¯t biting. Some people get the aurora in their dreams at night. Visions. It scares them.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s them?¡± I asked.

    Callum looked like he wanted to get off this dark plain as much as I did, so I wasn¡¯t surprised when he shrugged and shuffled in the direction of shore. He walked just slowly enough for me to limp after him.

    ¡°It¡¯s mostly the moonlighters, not regular folk.¡± He looked me up and down again, taking in my fine cloak again. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, the mayor keeps them wrapped up for Lakeday.¡± His mouth soured. ¡°Though his grip¡¯s not as tight as he thinks it is.¡±

    We both hunched as a gust of frigid wind blasted over the lake. I don¡¯t know how Callum walked so easily; I was slipping even with the special spikes on my shoes.

    ¡°Moonlighters?¡± I called over the wind. A cold fleck of snow broke against my eye. ¡°What have they got to do with anything?¡±

    Callum let out a disbelieving chuckle. ¡°You came all the way here to see the spirits clash and you don¡¯t even know about moonlighters?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯ve heard of them,¡± I hurried to correct him. ¡°But I don¡¯t see what they have to do with the lights over Badgerpool.¡±

    Callum¡¯s jaw moved as though he were chewing something. ¡°You don¡¯t know; if you¡¯d seed them in action, you¡¯d know there¡¯s nothing for it but dark magic. The aurora? They¡¯re spirits that died in the last War, still fighting and lighting fires. At least that¡¯s what they say up north.¡± He turned to me and smiled darkly, his cut tooth a dark hole in his grin. ¡°Witches, dragons, all sorts of evil things that draw their power from the Sledge, they go there too, where they¡¯re imprisoned. They¡¯re barred from rest in Calma but unable to taste life. And moonlighters¡ªthey aren¡¯t like other Talented. You must have at least seen that. There are four fingers of human magic.¡± He counted off on his fingers. ¡°One to heal, one for strength, one for the elements¡­ and one that tempts your greed? Even you must admit that one¡¯s the thumb.¡±

    ¡°Moonlighters sense things of value.¡±

    Callum stopped and swung to me. He pointed a finger into his palm. ¡°And it makes them hungry for things they can¡¯t have. They can¡¯t help themselves. When more than one person wants something, a moonlighter will want it the most. They¡¯re born with a hole in their soul, and it¡¯s just large enough for some of that old evil magic to slip inside.¡±

    In my head, I saw a pool of wine spreading out from underneath your father¡¯s door. Not wine though, too thick. ¡°You¡¯re saying they¡¯re possessed?¡±

    At that moment, the light of two new torches appeared coming down the main road towards the lake. Brawin¡¯s bulky lumber and Cerla¡¯s elbow jutting at an angle from where he kept one hand clutched on the hilt of his sword were impossible to mistake. Their heads swiveled as they peeked between alleys along the lake¡¯s perimeter. Without a torch ourselves, we must have been invisible.

    Without thinking too much about it, I pushed Callum back in the direction of the stone pillar. He leaned away and slipped from my reach at the last second. He pulled his fists from his pockets and glared at me as though ready to fight.

    ¡°Lady Mercurial!¡± Brawin¡¯s voice boomed unabashedly from the shoreline. Cerla, bless him, waved at him to lower his voice.

    A hand twisted in the shoulder of my cloak and pulled. I nearly slipped as Callum dragged me back to the stone pillar and out of sight behind it. The rock was rounded and no warmer than the ice beneath our feet where we leaned against it, but we were well hidden. Another shout of my name came from shore.

    ¡°He¡¯s going to wake half the town,¡± Callum hissed, sounding more worried than angry. ¡°Calma, you didn¡¯t tell me you were missing. If they find me out here alone with you¡­¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t hurt you,¡± I tried to assure him. ¡°And I¡¯m not missing.¡±

    He looked at me skeptically through the icy strands of his hair. ¡°Not them, maybe. But if he keeps yowling like that, Bruna will hear.¡± He slid down to sit on his butt and punched his fists into a crease of snow that had collected against the pillar.

    Sighing, I lowered myself again to the ground next to him. My thighs were starting to burn from the work. ¡°I would explain to her that you¡¯ve done me no harm.¡±

    But Callum paled and grabbed again onto my cloak as though he thought I might hurl myself from my hiding place and run into the arms of my guards at any moment. ¡°No! Just, stay here until they¡¯re gone.¡±

    I had no intention of going anywhere and I wrapped my arms around my knees to emphasize that, and to preserve what body heat I still had. Callum let go of my cloak but kept watch on me from the corner of his eye.

    ¡°Did Bruna mean what she said? Would she really let you die for¡­¡± I trailed off. What had she said? For not keeping his thoughts to himself?

    ¡°Bruna always means what she says.¡±

    ¡°And that¡¯s why the mayor listens to her?¡±

    Callum scoffed and curled his fingers tightly over a palmful of snow. ¡°More because she¡¯s the only one who can catch the silverdon. We¡¯d lose half out visitors come Lakeday without their scales to sell. Last time the mayor went against her, she started putting things in boxes and missing mornings on the lake. People started saying she was getting ready to move back to her birthplace¡ªsome little fishing hole north of here where she¡¯s an heiress, or a chief, or something. That had the mayor bending her way and backwards quickly enough. Even looked the other way when she let a moonlighter have his pick of the catch.¡± He uncurled his fingers from the packed ball of snow and chucked it at the ground between his feet where it burst apart.

    The shouting from the lakeshore had stopped, either because Brawin had listened to Cerla, or more likely, they¡¯d moved further into town. Callum seemed not to have noticed and was poking a drawing into the snow with a frown on his face.

    ¡°And he¡¯s from up the mountain!¡± The words must have been building in Callum for a while. ¡°If it were any other family, they wouldn¡¯t have been let back over the snow pit.¡± He thunked his head against the stone behind him. ¡°Everyone loses their minds on Lakeday.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re talking about this moonlighter?¡± I asked.

    Callum froze, but if he wanted to keep secrets, he should have stopped talking a long time ago.

    ¡°Bruna protects him,¡± I said when Callum gave me nothing more. ¡°My brother and I, we aren¡¯t related. His father took me in when I was very small. I think he came to love me as he would a daughter, but anytime my brother got something I didn¡¯t, I worried about what it meant.¡±

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t fair,¡± Callum whispered.

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t.¡± I did not risk tipping the common ground I¡¯d built by mentioning how the care you showed me was a balm to these thoughts. It was clear Callum did not feel the same for Bruna¡¯s moonlighter.

    ¡°I was just doing what I was supposed to do, for once.¡± Callum crossed his arms over his heart and looked away over the lake and the sheet of snow building on top of it. ¡°Since when does the mayor care if I¡¯ve seen a moonlighter stealing? It should have been enough to point out the way he¡¯s been eyeing the jewels on the lordling¡¯s dresses. I¡¯m not the only one who can recognize the longing sickness, I¡¯m just the only one brave enough to say something.¡± He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and seemed to relax a little when he saw I was still listening. ¡°All it took was Bruna¡¯s word against mine to get me out on the ice. She¡¯s lucky she¡¯s got the mayor¡¯s ear. If she didn¡¯t, and I told the town half the things I¡¯d seen her let the kid get away with, she¡¯d be the one freezing her nuts off.¡±

    Teacher always said a smart Listener tells her stories with intention. I saw in Callum someone who had never received much sympathy, and might be craving it, even if he didn¡¯t know he wanted it. ¡°My friend¡¯s father; I was the one who found him after he died. He was in a locked room with a knife in his hand. But he wouldn¡¯t have hurt himself.¡± Callum flinched away and I realized I¡¯d snapped the last part. I¡¯ve grown defensive of the subject. ¡°Someone killed him, I know it,¡± I said more quietly. ¡°But no one believed me either.¡±

    Callum rubbed the sleeve of his coat under his nose and leaned a little further against the stone, apparently ignorant of the frost that was making my entire behind numb. ¡°Not even that brother of yours, huh?¡± He shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s what they do; they give you just enough to make you think you¡¯re one of them, but do something they don¡¯t like, and you¡¯re out on your ass in the snow.¡± He flicked the scattering of snow between us for emphasis.

    ¡°This boy that Bruna took in,¡± I started carefully. ¡°Why is it different for him? If he is a moonlighter, and you said he came from up the mountain¡±¡ªthe thought seemed impossible looking up the white wall of cliffs looming over Badgerpool¡ª¡°what reason could she have to protect him?¡±

    Callum frowned. ¡°Who knows why the old bear does anything? It¡¯s not like she got along with his parents before they died, but he comes wandering down the mountain in the off-season soaked in a little blood, and you¡¯d think he was her grandson.¡±

    ¡°Covered in blood?¡±

    Callum sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, like he¡¯d told this story a dozen times already. ¡°The family went up the mountains before I was around. After that, they only came down on Lakedays. Spots on the lake are reserved for Badgerpool, our people, but each winter, they¡¯d show up with bushels full of clipse wool. That had even the old mayor drooling, and she believed in keeping outsiders where they belonged.

    ¡°Last season, there was a clap of thunder from up near the pass and we got a snowslide that half-filled the pit. Later that night, Tora¡¯s dogs woke the town barking and Bruna came to have a look. She found the kid squatting outside the kennel, covered head to toe in blood and trying to pet Tora¡¯s mean old hound though the slats.¡± Callum paused and swiped his hand through the prints he¡¯d been making in the snow. ¡°Don¡¯t know how he made it down. The mountains are near impossible to climb with a full party and picks, even when the snow is solid. Far as I know, he still hasn¡¯t said peep to anyone¡ªnot about how he made it down or what happened to his folks. But anyone with a pulse can figure out it wasn¡¯t anything good. Bruna says they got caught in the snow slide.¡± His mouth twisted and he spit to the side. ¡°She¡¯s being thin¡ªsnow kills clean, and the kid was anything but.¡±

    ¡°How old was he?¡±

    ¡°Seven. But age has nothing to do with anything in Badgerpool. Least it never has before.¡± Callum flexed his hands and wiggled his feet, at last growing restless after sitting still for so long in the cold. ¡°The kid¡¯s been hanging around Lakeday snatching things when his folks weren¡¯t looking before he could talk. Like I said, it¡¯s not fair¡ªif it¡¯d been anyone else, the whole family would have been tossed out years past. You think a moonlighter born in Badgerpool is bad enough? Try one born on front step of spirit world.¡± He nodded up the mountain.

    ¡°What¡¯s this boy¡¯s name?¡± I wasn¡¯t looking forward to finding a way around Bruna to get to the boy, but a seven-year-old surviving the trip down the Skyclipe Mountains alone? Maybe the north is onto something about possession. Murk Lake spoke more than once in his letters about the lights getting inside dreams, and later people doing things that were otherwise unthinkable.

    Callum stiffened and I noticed why a moment later when I heard footsteps crunching in the snow. Callum sprung to his feet, but it was too late. Before he could round the corner of the stone, an arm reached out and grabbed him by the hood. He spun with breathtaking speed and raised his hand like he planned to stab it into the arm holding him but stopped at the last second and stared at his fist sourly as though only then realizing it was empty.

    Brawin emerged the rest of the way from behind the stone, a flickering torch held high in one hand, the other still holding onto Callum¡¯s hood. ¡°There¡¯s no need for that. Tell me, have you seen¡ª¡± He cut off when he spotted me sitting in the snow, too stiff with cold and surprise to have moved.

    Callum pulled back at the same moment Brawin let him go, and he ended up falling back on his butt. Brawin ignored Callum¡¯s ¡°hey!¡± and rushed toward me. He dropped the torch to the ground so he could raise both hands to my face. I managed to dodge him just in time and pull myself to my feet. It was a little unsteady; I could barely feel my appendages for the cold and my teeth had begun to chatter.

    ¡°Callum.¡± Bruna emerged from where Brawin had come, her hands empty of firelight, the shadows from Brawin¡¯s dropped torch casting her blank face in dark shadows as she took in the scene before her. Callum swallowed and did not move from where he was.

    ¡°Did you all not hear me asking you to slow down?¡± Cerla rounded the opposite side of the pillar behind me and leaned against it panting, not seeming to notice the tension hanging over the four of us. He was still looking green and his arm holding the torch drooped under its weight..

    ¡°Cerla! Watch what you¡¯re doing,¡± Brawin sighed when the torch came dangerously close to catching on Cerla¡¯s pantleg.

    ¡°Right,¡± Cerla said and stood up straighter, taking in the scene with bloodshot eyes. ¡°Oh! Lady Mercurial. Are you alright?¡± He looked where Bruna and Callum were still glaring at each other. ¡°We¡¯ve been calling for you.¡±

    ¡°Apologies Cerla. Brawin,¡± I said and adjusted my cloak on my shoulders as I might when standing up after tea¡ªit was considerably more difficult for the snow that had begun melting through the fabric, but I clenched my jaw to hide the shiver. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to wake you.¡±

    ¡°My Lady, you should have woken us. You must not wander off on your own.¡± The look Brawin threw at Callum implied it was especially true in present company.

    ¡°Strange,¡± Bruna said, her voice even as ice over still water. ¡°He was shouting loud enough for me to hear by the snowpit.¡± Her eyes flicked oddly up the side of the stone pillar. ¡°Was something occupying you?¡±

    ¡°Occupying?¡± Brawin repeated before turning to me, looking a cross between terrified and exhausted. ¡°Were you being occupied, my lady?¡±

    I rolled me eyes, which was about all the movement I could manage at that point without folding over myself for warmth. Standing, the air seemed that much colder. ¡°I was out for a walk and I ran into Callum. We were just talking¡± I said firmly when Brawin looked disbelieving. ¡°Miser was with me but left off quick enough.¡±

    Cerla¡¯s shoulders slumped. ¡°You mean to say Miser knew where you were this whole time?¡±

    Brawin broad face reddened with anger. ¡°He let you come out here alone?¡±

    I patted the stone pillar. ¡°He wasn¡¯t as interested in seeing this close up as I was.¡±

    ¡°''Talking'',¡± Bruna said slowly, and I wished I could take the word back at Callum¡¯s wince. ¡°And did you have a good chat? Did you get a close enough look?¡±

    Something about the way she asked the question had my mouth going dry. I swallowed, and it felt like the silence stretched longer than it should have. ¡°It was fine enough.¡±

    Bruna raised an eyebrow. ¡°I heard it was Lakeday you were interested in, not stones and mirrors.¡±

    My heart about stopped in my chest. ¡°Stones and mirrors?¡± I asked and could not help but glance at Callum, though the words seemed to have passed over him unnoticed. ¡°What do you know of stones and mirrors?¡±

    Bruna¡¯s brow dropped and she bent to take up the torch Brawin had dropped. Brawin moved like he might stop her, but her glacial look had him freezing. She raised the torch high and pointed it to a spot on the stone pillar high above our heads. In the shadows cast by the fire, an etching stood starkly against the smooth face of stone; a tall, narrow arch over a four-pointed star.

    ¡°Must not have gotten as fine a look as you thought,¡± Bruna mused when she saw my expression.

    I traced the lines of the carving. A long time ago, Songsparrow had written to your father about an archway, and something bright shining through, in a cave beneath the Partways Plain. ¡°What does it mean?¡± I heard myself say, my voice shaking.

    ¡°Callum must not have been in a very talkative mood if he didn¡¯t tell you. Unless you were out here talking about something else.¡± Bruna looked at Callum.

    ¡°She wanted to know about the spirits,¡± Callum said, not meeting her eye. ¡°That¡¯s all we talked about. Not how they get here.¡±

    ¡°How do they get here?¡± I wanted to know the answer to the question, but I also wanted to move the conversation away from Callum. I didn¡¯t like the way Bruna was frowning at him.

    Bruna studied me up and down. ¡°Spirits are a reflection of the living, and it¡¯s through mirrors that they get from the afterworld to ours. Every now and then, you¡¯ll hear stories of someone spotting one popping up in the distance or crawling from under some rock.¡± She sounded disdainful.

    ¡°But not you?¡±

    ¡°Snow plays tricks on the eyes¡ªyou go looking for something in a storm, you¡¯re bound to see it, especially on nights with the aurora.¡±

    ¡°What about the stone?¡± I studied the star on the carving. Murk Lake had mentioned a stone. Or whatever he¡¯d been talking to had, before he died.

    ¡°Doors need keys,¡± Bruna said simply. She flicked her torch at where Callum sat. ¡°You, get back to town.¡±

    Callum didn¡¯t need to be told twice. He leapt to his feet and strode away with one last curious look at me. I did not see him again. I can only hope Bruna didn¡¯t later hunt him down to fulfill the threat she¡¯d made.

    ¡°Do people see the stone too?¡±

    Bruna was watching after Cullum, but she stopped at my question. She still had the torch over her head and it darkened the pits of her skull. I reminded myself that Brawin and Cerla were standing by my side.

    ¡°People look for it. Some think they find it. If they¡¯re smart, though, they leave it alone. It¡¯s just a legend.¡±

    ¡°Which people?¡± I knew I¡¯d struck something when Bruna¡¯s face smoothed to blank. ¡°Moonlighters?¡±

    She didn''t answer my question and instead pointed behind me. ¡°Legend is, the Stone will unlock the door to the afterworld come Calma, and those lights you see will come to ground and swallow the Sledge.¡±

    I turned to look. A green glow was visible above the crevasse between two mountain peaks. When a ripple ran through it, looking like an eel sliding beneath the surface of a tidepool, I recognized them for what they were. Beside me, I heard Brawin curse.

    ¡°I thought the lights didn¡¯t come out during Lakeday,¡± I whispered.

    ¡°They usually don¡¯t,¡± Bruna said and frowned at them. ¡°All the more reason not to go looking for trouble with rumored treasures. Better to take what¡¯s in front of you and make do with it.¡±

    I got the sense from the flat way she spoke, that she was not talking about me.

    ¡°Miss Bruna,¡± I started, already knowing I¡¯d gotten off to a bad foot when her mouth twitched on the word ¡°miss¡±. ¡°I heard a story today from one of the shopkeeps in town¡ªI can¡¯t remember her name¡ªbut the story was about a boy who appeared down from the mountains, nearly a year ago.¡± Bruna¡¯s face was solid enough to crack stone, and I got no trace of what she might be thinking. ¡°I heard he has a Talent for valuable things. He wouldn¡¯t happen to know more about the Stone¡­ a treasure, even if it does what they say it does?¡±

    Bruna was quiet for a long time and I became very aware of the pick she still had hanging from her belt. Her fingers wrapped around the handle of the torch as though trying to squeeze the life from it.

    ¡°Do you know where I could find this boy? I¡¯d appreciate speaking with him.¡±

    ¡°My lady¡­¡± Brawin warned.

    ¡°He might have known more, aye.¡± Bruna said at last and Brawin froze to watch her as I did. Cerla was being unusually quiet. ¡°But he died. I¡¯m sure whoever this shopkeeper was, she told you about the state we found him in; bloody after having been caught with his family in a snowslide. He was able to crawl into town, but he didn¡¯t make it through to morning.¡±

    She was lying to me. Callum would not have been so bitter over a dead boy. But at that moment, Bruna gripped the head of her axe and narrowed her eyes dangerously. ¡°I¡¯ll not have strangers bothering that which has already been laid to rest, Lakeday or no.¡±

    ¡°Of course not,¡± Brawin said quickly. ¡°Lady Mercurial is naturally curious, she is destined for a seat in the Dive, after all.¡± The underlying threat of his words went unsaid. Harming a Listener would not be tolerated, even in a place so remote as Badgerpool. Bruna must have known this for she dropped her hand from her axe and walked away into the snow.

    ¡°Then you had best be getting her there. Badgerpool¡¯s not such a good place for curiosity.¡± Her voice came to us ever more faintly as she left us.

    ¡°Never a truer thing said,¡± Cerla muttered once Bruna was out of ear shot.

    ¡°What were you doing out here on your own?¡± Brawin demanded of me while I stood trying to make out the carving on the pillar once more, though it was too dark now that Bruna had taken the second torch away. ¡°You¡¯re looking for answers,¡± he said, gentler this time. ¡°But you cannot put superstitions before your own safety. I must insist that we leave for the Dive tomorrow morning. You¡¯re already late in getting to your post. The King will being to wonder what¡¯s happened to you.¡±

    If anything, his gentle prodding rankled me more than if he¡¯d tried bullying me back to our rooms with a sword and dagger. ¡°You are not here to give me orders, sir.¡±

    Brawin nodded. ¡°You¡¯re right my lady. We¡¯re here to protect you. Which we cannot do if you insist on dodging us.¡±

    ¡°No one will talk to me with you two lurking in the background,¡± I told him, trying to sound reasonable, but it came out as more of a whine.

    ¡°Were you able to learn anything from the thief?¡± Cerla asked, oblivious to the sharp look Brawin shot him.

    A good question, and I thought it over walking in line between Brawin and Cerla all the way back to shore. Callum had said moonlighters are possessed by the same rippling lights that were slowly spreading in the sky above us. And I suspect this stone is a treasure coveted by moonlighters. I¡¯m beginning to suspect they are not the only ones¡ªwhether it be a key to unlocking the afterworld which will bring about Calma, or something else entirely, your father was following a legend with stones and mirrors. Maybe something possessed him too.

    Brother, this may not be enough to convince you, and I know it is not much, but it is enough for me¡ªyour father was killed, either by someone hunting for the same thing he was or by something less real that got inside him nonetheless.

    The lights were still on in the mayor¡¯s house when we got back to shore. A man all in black was on the porch leaning against the railing. I pulled the three of us to a stop and stared at Miser.

    ¡°Have a refreshing walk, Miss Mercy? I see you found someone to take your arm after all.¡±

    ¡°You could have saved us all some time finding her,¡± Brawin growled at him. ¡°That boy could have been dangerous.¡±

    ¡°Oh, a boy? I must not have seen him. It can be hard, wearing these things,¡± Miser said and waved a hand in front of the glassy eyes of his mask before resting his chin on his palm.

    The door to the mayor¡¯s house opened and a beam of yellow lamplight spilled over the porch and down onto us beyond. A woman¡¯s figure emerged, dressed in the dark clothes of the Select and wearing a long coat down to her ankles. The only thing to distinguish her from Miser was her mask; it only covered the top half of her face down to the bridge of her nose. If I remember my lessons, this means she¡¯s above Miser in whatever hierarchy the Select hold. Behind her, a woman with short hair shuffled dejectedly onto the porch, her head down and neck retreated into the pile of wolfskins around her shoulders.

    ¡°If you insist on going now, don¡¯t just stand there. Hurry on.¡± From behind the woman, the mayor squeezed out through the doorway wearing a look of annoyance. His eyes widened though when he spotted us at the bottom of the steps.

    ¡°Oh, my lady.¡± His voice was tight, and his eyes locked onto the crystal ring on my finger. ¡°An awfully cold night to be out, don¡¯t you think? If you¡¯re here for introductions, I apologize for my rudeness. During less busy seasons, I¡¯d have come round to welcome you for Lakeday, but, well, it¡¯s just you¡¯ve come at an awkward time.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re going.¡± The woman with the half mask spoke her words with a snarl, and her canines flashed; they were pointed and golden like fangs.

    I had seen that somewhere before.

    ¡°An excellent idea, Lady Mantis.¡± Then the mayor said to me: ¡°I apologize for the rudeness of my guests my lady, they¡¯ll be gone soon if you¡¯d like to come in for some tea, they¡¯re just here to¡­uh.¡±

    Mantis took a grip on the shoulder of the woman with the spiked hair, who looked to be trying very hard not to flinch. Mantis dragged her down the porch steps. ¡°Miser, keep up.¡±

    ¡°Ma¡¯am, yes ma¡¯am,¡± Miser said, but did not yet move from where he leaned against the railing.

    Mantis twitched her head back at him as though a wasp had buzzed past her ear. She did not stop as she brushed past us, and the woman she pushed forward kept her eyes on the ground.

    The mayor brushed his hands together as though clearing them of dirt. ¡°Now that unpleasantness is taken care of, would you care for a sip of something hot?¡± It was clear he hoped I¡¯d go on my without another word.

    ¡°Who was that?¡± I asked, watching the two move down the street. Mantis¡¯ long coat caught a bluster of wind and snapped audibly.

    ¡°Do you mean the prisoner, my lady? Or the, uh,¡± the mayor ran out of words, his small dark eyes watched Miser nervously as the younger Select descended from the porch with a bounce in his step.

    ¡°That¡¯s not really your business, Miss Mercy,¡± Miser said, and leapt down the last two porch steps to stand in front of me.

    ¡°I disagree,¡± I pressed, entirely too tired and cold to put up with any more of Miser¡¯s antics, Select or no. ¡°You came here as a member of my party. You will tell me what you¡¯re doing.¡±

    Miser cocked his head from one side to the other as though thinking. ¡°No¡­ I came here for the King¡¯s orders. These two shields are the ones here for you.¡± He stepped back from me and pretended to tip an imaginary hat. ¡°Enjoy your vacation, Mercy. My companion and I will be taking our leave now.¡±

    He strode past us, waving sweetly in the face of the glare Brawin sent after him.

    ¡°What are you going to do with that woman?¡± I tried again, but it was too late. The snow was coming down in wet clumps and catching on the fringe of my hood and eyelashes. Miser slipped into the shadows between the falling flakes and disappeared after the woman with the gold teeth. Mantis.

    ¡°My lady, please, it¡¯s not something you¡¯d like to hear.¡± The mayor tucked his hands into the sleeves of his black robe.

    ¡°It is my mission to listen, my lord.¡± The mayor set his shoulders back a little at the honorific. I can¡¯t imagine too many in Badgerpool refer to the man as a lord. ¡°And Miser is not the only one here in service of the Samwhin throne.¡±

    The mayor licked his lips. ¡°Well, I suppose,¡± he said thoughtfully. ¡°You may already know, but the Select were here to collect a prisoner for the King.¡±

    That much was obvious, but I remained patient. ¡°What was her crime?¡±

    ¡°Moonlighters are rampant in the north,¡± the mayor said somberly. ¡°The King has been known to take a few off our hands from time to time.¡±

    I nodded, but this made no sense. I know as you do from the letters sent to your father that the Select have acted as wardens before. But that is not usually their duty, and the Old King died three weeks ago. ¡°And where are they taking her?¡±

    The mayor looked at me confused. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know my lady. Only that the King believes in keeping them somewhere they can do no harm. We believe the same here, mind you, but Badgerpool won¡¯t store someone who can¡¯t work.¡±

    What he wasn¡¯t saying was that Badgerpool did not have the recourses, or the inclination to feed and house someone in a jail cell.

    ¡°Of course,¡± I made myself smile at him. ¡°Goodnight, sir.¡±

    He looked relieved. ¡°Are you certain you don¡¯t want to¡­¡± he flapped his hand at the doorway behind him.

    ¡°No, thank you, I am very tired.¡±

    I started walking away so Brawin and Cerla had no choice but to follow or risk me going ¡°missing¡± again. I walked quickly, but they did not complain. They thought I was going back to the inn. The stretch was good for me knee, even though it was aching badly.

    The tracks were filling with snow when we got to the turn for the inn and I quickened my pace after them.

    Cerla¡¯s footsteps faltered behind me. ¡°Actually, my lady, it¡¯s this way.¡±

    ¡°Lady Mercurial!¡±

    I broke into a run and I heard Brawin curse, but did not look back to see if they were chasing me. I cannot run very fast anymore, but with the snow coming down in sheets, I did not need to be fast.

    I turned a corner, and circled back around to the footprints on the main street. Brawin and Cerla could have run off in the other direction or been ten paces behind me and we would not have seen each other through the storm rolling in. My hood blew from my head and instantly began filling with falling snow, melting against my skin and trickling down my back. I kept my eyes on the outlines of the three sets of footprints, squinting when they became faint.

    I looked up when I was at the edge of town, and the end of Badgerpool¡¯s torchlight. Beyond was only swirling snow and a low, groaning wind. The footprints did not stop, so I hiked my dress and cloak high around my knees and leapt into the uncleared snowbank. The boots and thick pants I had on underneath offered some protection, but water quickly made its way down to my toes and I was wheezing for breath before I¡¯d waded ten paces. Even when the joint of my knee felt like it might be freezing around a shard of ice, I kept moving.

    ¡°Miser! Mantis!¡± I called. But that wasn¡¯t her name, was it? ¡°Fly!¡± Still, there was no answer.

    Some ambient light, either from the town or the moon, allowed me to see the snow falling at the end of my arm, but the rest was a mesmerizing swirl of grey spots. I was lucky I could tell up from down. I looked back over my shoulder to see if Brawin and Cerla had caught up to me.

    I could not see Badgerpool. I breathed, I must have gotten turned around, but as I slowly turned, there was no light anywhere.

    A sudden wind ripped at my cloak and I pulled it tightly around me. I could not feel my feet. ¡°Brawin!¡± I called now. ¡°Cerla?¡± Through my chattering teeth, it sounded like I was pleading.

    How silly would it be, for me to die only a few feet away from safety all because of a blasted storm?

    In my moment of confusion, the tracks I¡¯d been following had been completely covered over, but mine were still imprinted behind me. I could follow them back the way I had come.

    ¡°Hello?¡± I called one last time, staring searchingly into the abyss of night between myself and Skyclipse.

    The cold was becoming too much to bear, and I was about to turn back while I still could when something moved to my side.

    I squinted, not certain my eyes weren¡¯t playing tricks on me. But it was there, again, someone all in black shifting back and forth on their feet. It was Miser, slim and shorter than I was, moving in that restless way of his.

    Walking was like lifting two anvils by my knees, but I dragged myself after him. He stayed in place and I kept quiet, worried he would try to dodge me again if he knew I was coming.

    As I got closer through, the figure seemed to get smaller, not larger. Maybe he had heard me after all and was moving away, stringing me along little by little, trying to draw me further away from town.

    It was this thought that had me stopping in my tracks, but I had already gotten close enough to see that what I had been chasing was not Miser.

    The person was nothing more than a shadow from where I stood, small and crouched in the snow, sitting with their arms crossed over their knees like a child. They were angled just enough for me to make out the spinal knobs running down their back as they rocked on the balls of their feet. That shouldn¡¯t have been possible. Even the lightest child would be sunken to the calf in this snow.

    The figure stopped rocking, and the world hushed. The wind guttering in my ears, my wheezing breath, the sound of my own heartbeat, it all disappeared.

    The figure began moving again with incredible slowness, turning to look at me.  I saw the thin shell of an ear, the rounded curve of a cheekbone¡­

    Standing, frozen and quaking in the snow staring at the curled shadow in front of me, I remembered the dream your father had told me about. I wondered if I was dreaming. I blinked, but it was still there. It had stopped just short of facing me, but I could tell from the tilt of its head, it was listening.

    ¡°H-hello.¡± My voice cracked, barely a whisper, but loud in my ears. I tried again. ¡°Hello.¡±

    The thing did not move, so I had to. I pulled my leg from the snow, my thigh shaking and muscles burning with cold.

    Something caught in my hood and yanked. I fell back with a strangled yelp, hands flying to my throat. I fell onto my back in the snow, and whatever had choked me let me go. I stared blinking up into the sky. Through the haze of snowfall, a ripple of blue and green light bled through the clouds like soaked cotton. A masked face with bulging glass eyes leaned over me.

    Mantis folded herself into a crouch with her elbows resting on her knees. With her face inches from mine, I could not look away when she swiped her tongue over pale, cracked lips. She looked from me to where I had seen the creature. I followed her gaze and stopped breathing.

    Just beyond my toes, the hard white line of snow cut to yawning black. I could not see the other side of the snowpit, but I followed its line to either side of me, where it stretched in a long even line. The pit is nearly a mile deep, and I¡¯d been about to step off its edge. I looked around, but the creature I had seen was gone.

    ¡°You called for me.¡±

    I jumped, nearly having forgotten that Mantis was there.

    ¡°W-what are you doing here?¡± The shivers had gotten to me, and my voice no longer commanded any authority..

    Mantis unfolded and leaned back on her heels, looking down on me like she was considering a cockroach trapped in the bath. ¡°The mayor already told you,¡± she said simply, sounding a little annoyed. She moved like she was about to walk away.

    ¡°Wait!¡± I scrabbled to get to my feet, but my limbs were so numb I fell once and had to right myself before finally standing. Mantis had stopped a few steps away and turned slightly to watch me. ¡°You¡¯re looking for something, aren¡¯t you?¡± Manti¡¯s face¡ªthe part of it I could see¡ªshowed nothing. ¡°You¡¯re¡­digging for something. A stone, or a mirror?¡±

    Mantis scoffed, the dry lines of her lips stretching flat in a scowl. She began walking away again.

    ¡°Fly!¡± I shouted. That stopped her. ¡°The Old King, did he tell you to look for¡­ a component?¡±

    Fly looked me up and down again and her frown deepened when she seemed to come up with only the same things she¡¯d seen in the first place.

    I pressed what little luck I had. ¡°Are you still looking for it?¡± I swallowed. ¡°For my brother?¡±

    Mantis closed the distance between us and my instincts rang at me to get away. I would have, but then I remembered the chasm still hanging behind my heals. I stood on its edge with my back straight and gripped my cane.

    When Mantis stopped, I could feel her breath hot across my nose. My reflection stared back at me, twisted and small in her glass eyes and her mouth twitched into a mean smirk, one of her golden fangs peeking out and scraping along her lower lip. I watched it, expecting a bead of blood to well up from the chapped skin.

    ¡°You,¡± she said, her voice like two pieces of flint striking. ¡°Are no blood of the throne.¡±

    She pulled away and I swayed forward from the edge. She left me standing there gaping after her. A moment later and she was gone, swallowed once more by the dark and snow.

    ¡°Mercurial! Mercurial Lascar!¡±

    A sob broke from me at the sound of Brawin¡¯s voice carrying on the wind. By the time he and Cerla found me¡ªaccompanied once more by Bruna, who was somehow able to navigate us back to the edge of town, though her exhaustion was beginning to show through even her stony expression¡ªmy tears had frozen in place.

    I leave for the Dive tomorrow. It is now close to morning, and I¡¯ve been soaking my feet in a bath of lukewarm water since midnight. Brawin has alternated between giving me lectures on the dangers of running into snowstorms (not something I need reminding of, but I see where he¡¯s coming from) and asking unendingly if I¡¯m warm enough (the answer it always yes; I swear, he¡¯d be turning me over a spit if I let him).

    Cerla is awake and pacing in the hall, either not sure what to do with Brawin distracted, or worried I¡¯ll escape again.

    Miser has not returned. Neither has Mantis, or Fly, or whatever her name is, or the prisoner they led away.

    I¡¯ve told no one about what I saw last night. Not even Bruna, who looked at me like she was waiting for me to break some terrible news to her the whole trek back to town.

    The truth is you are the only one I plan on telling any of this.

    I debated a long time on whether I should share these letters with you. You remind me too much of him sometimes, in just the way that makes me start to worry you may have his same illness of obsession. These things I have seen since leaving home do not put me in good faith.

    This hunt of your father¡¯s¡­ It¡¯s no coincidence that he and I have both seen this creature now. Whatever it is, it killed him. I know it in my soul, Raigan.

    Murk Lake saw something too, right before he died.

    Maybe now you¡¯re having dreams. About a creature asking you to find something.

    Raigan, you are my brother in every way but blood, which means you must have adored me even more to put up with me. Trust me now because it must be the first time of many. Let me do what I am supposed to; be the heart which learns the world, and acts as your conscience in times of need.

    I will listen, I will learn, and I will guide you where the Sledge requires you, which is away from whatever nightmare may be eyeing your heart.

    Listen to what I¡¯m saying: he didn¡¯t leave us, Rai, he loved us. This creature from the Grove sent him after something and it got him killed.

    And if it wants you too, I¡¯m going to figure out a way to stop it. A way to kill it, if that¡¯s what it takes. Or I¡¯ll find someone who can; there¡¯s no way that boy from the mountains is dead.

    With all the love I have left,

    Mercurial Lascar, Ward of the Old King, Inaugural Listener to Skyclipse Dive

    Age 1.5 Until Calamity