Colin woke with a start, eyes flaring wide, a moan escaping his lips, the sound torn with grief. He choked it off, coughed into the darkness of his room, then raised an aged hand to rub at his face. He wiped away the tears that wet his skin and sighed-a tired sigh, a weary sigh-and his hand closed over the crescent-shaped pendant on his chest.
He’d been dreaming again. The same dream he’d had these last long years, since he’d drunk from the Well, since he’d choked down the cold, sweet waters of the Lifeblood.
How many years now? He couldn’t remember. Too many. And yet apparently not enough. Not if he could still wake with the feel of tears drying on his skin. Although he knew why the dreams had returned recently, knew why they seemed so fresh.
He grimaced and sat up on his cot, moving slowly, letting the pendant go. His feet touched the cool white marble of the floor, and he shivered, the sensation running down into his arms, tingling in his fingers. He shrugged, stretched the muscles in his back, wriggled his toes, and then stood, leaning on the cot for support as he yawned and reached for the robe tossed on the chair beside the bed.
He stilled when he saw the black mark on his arm, felt the familiar frisson of fear, followed immediately by anger. He pulled his arm back and covered the mark with one hand, rubbing the skin over his wrist, as if he could massage the mark away. But when he withdrew his hand, it remained. Like a bruise, but deeper, darker. The discoloration was beneath his skin, not on the surface, and it swirled like oil, as if black blood had pooled there, pulsing with his heartbeat.
And it had grown, was now nearly the size of his thumb. Seven years ago it had only been the size of a grain of sand. He’d almost dismissed it as a mole or freckle, but when he showed it to Osserin and the rest of the Faelehgre…
He grunted, reached again for the robe, the motion laced with anger. He pulled the robe up over his head, settled the folds with a disgruntled jerk And his stomach clenched with pain.
He paused, closed his eyes, and pressed one hand against his side as the pain intensified. Through the cloth of his robe, he could feel his aged skin grow hot, as if with a fever. But then the pain peaked and faded.
He let his held breath out in a sigh and straightened, massaging his side as the heat in his skin dissipated. The pain hadn’t been this bad since those first few years in the forest, when he’d begun experimenting with the water and its effects, with its powers. He’d gone almost a year without going to the Well then, to see how long he could last without drinking it, how long he could suffer through the pain. A year.
He’d have to go much longer than that this time.
He frowned at the thought. How long had it been since he’d been to the Well? Two months? Three? More?
He didn’t know. The days blurred into one another in the forest, weeks and months passing without notice. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore, not now that the black mark had made its appearance. The Faelehgre had warned him that this would happen, that eventually the Well would claim him. He hadn’t believed them, even when the first pains had begun. He’d ignored them, ignored all of their warnings. He’d stayed, certain that they were wrong, that he’d be able to resist, that he could remain here, within the forest, near the Well, unchanged. Or if not unchanged, at least human.
Then the black mark had appeared.
He had to leave. Now. But leaving was proving to be difficult. He didn’t want to go.
And the Well was more powerful than he’d thought.
Troubled, he reached for the cedar staff that leaned against the end of the bed. His fingers closed about the worn wood near the grip, and he unconsciously reached out and touched the remnant life-force that imbued the staff, felt it twine around his own. The scent of cedar overwhelmed him, and he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, drew the scent into his lungs. For a moment, he literally felt the tree that had sacrificed part of itself to form the staff, felt the wind brushing through its needles, the roughness of its bark, the musky earth that fed its tangle of roots…
Then the sensation faded.
He exhaled with a huff, scanned the confines of the room he had claimed for his own decades ago here among the Faelehgre ruins, running through what he’d need to bring with him. He moved to the corner and dug through layers of discarded clothing; he tossed most of it aside but chose a few pieces to take with him. He’d wear the robes if he could, but he packed a shirt and breeches, sandals, boots, stowing it all in a satchel he could sling across his back; he’d need them once he reached the Escarpment and the edge of human lands. He’d take the staff, of course, and his sling, but what else?
Standing, he surveyed the room, spotted the bowl he used to hold tinder, the flint beside it. A lantern he’d salvaged from the wagons after the Shadows attacked so long ago sat next to them. He shoved the bowl and flint into the pack, then began sorting through the rest of his supplies. Most of it he’d had no use for in the forest, although he hadn’t known it at the time. But some of it could be used for trade-pots and pans, brooches and other jewelry. He’d need some coin once he passed beyond the plains and dwarren lands. Everything had come from the chests and crates stacked in the wagons. He’d taken nothing from the bodies of those the Shadows had killed except the vial of pink-tinged water he’d found in his father’s pocket. He wrapped this in cloth and stowed it away.
Then he ran across the knife.
He paused, setting the bolt of cloth that had covered the blade aside distractedly. He reached for the knife, hesitated a moment, then picked it up. It was meant for eating, its blade no longer than his fingers, although the edge was sharp and would cut flesh easily. He knew. After he’d awakened in the forest, near the Well-after he came to realize that he’d been saved but that everyone else had perished-he hadn’t wanted to live. So he’d slid the knife into his heart, had felt the warmth of his heart’s blood spill over his hands when he pulled it free with a shuddering gasp and then collapsed. He’d heard Osserin cry out in shock, had smiled as the Faelehgre’s light hovered over him, the Faelehgre yelling, You fool! You utter fool! He’d gathered the encroaching darkness to him willingly, succumbing to it with a grateful sigh.
And then he’d woken up, leaves blowing into his face, the bloody knife half fallen out of his grasp. The ground around him had been saturated with his blood. His shirt had been matted to his body, a rent in the fabric above his heart where he’d shoved the knife through it. Blood had coated the inside of his mouth and he’d rolled to spit it out To discover that his chest hurt. A pain so deep he’d gagged, then curled up into a fetal position and shuddered with its intensity. There wasn’t a mark on his skin, but he could feel the wound deep inside, a wound that hadn’t completely healed yet, a wound that should have been fatal.
It’s the Lifeblood, Osserin had explained as he healed. When you drank from the Well, the Lifeblood saved you from the Shadow’s touch and in the process it… changed you.
Colin turned the blade over in his hands in his room, then slid it into his pack as well. He hadn’t tried to kill himself since that day, didn’t intend to try again. That had been a dark moment, not even two weeks after he’d drunk from the Well. A moment of utter despair.
And it had been the first sign that the Lifeblood hadn’t simply saved him from the Shadows. It had altered him in some fundamental way.
He thought of the black mark on his wrist and grimaced. “And it’s changing me still.”
Slinging the pack over his shoulder, he scanned the room, but he saw nothing else he needed, nothing he wanted. Grabbing an empty flask and the lantern, he turned and left without looking back.
There was still one more item left to collect.
He passed through the darkness of a few other interior rooms before stepping into the dawn. The air was crisp, sharp with autumn, the pervasive smell of pine and cedar underneath. Mist hung between the trees and what remained of the rounded grayish-white buildings that had once formed Terra’nor, the central city of the Faelehgre when they had ruled the forest depths, when they had been flesh and blood beings. The ruins were surprisingly intact-a consequence of the proximity of the Well-but there were signs that the abandoned buildings were crumbling here and there. Colin could see where a pedestal that had once supported a statue was now half subsumed by the earth. Drifts of leaves and pine needles had mostly covered the paved white roadways between the buildings, and here and there one of the balustrades of a balcony in one of the myriad towers had shattered. Few of the glass windows or doorways remained intact, although in his explorations over the years he had found one or two, the glass itself nearly flawless, without the typical bubbles and imperfections he’d seen in Portstown and Trent Colin stilled, his earlier troubled frown returning. He hadn’t thought about Portstown, let alone Trent, in ages. He’d tried hard to forget Portstown-Sartori and Walter and all the rest-had succeeded for years on end. Yet now he woke from an age- old dream, one he hadn’t had in a long time, one that he wished he could forget. And he saw Portstown in the ruins he’d called home for decades.
Uneasiness crawled across his skin, and the muscles in his shoulders tightened. He drew the staff closer, his eyes darting around the sunken plaza before him, searching the mist tinged with the first signs of sunlight, the shadows of the open doorways and windows of the buildings.
Trees rustled in the breeze, and the mist began to lift.
His uneasiness grew. He suddenly wanted to talk to one of the Faelehgre-Osserin or Tessera. Now.
As if he’d reached out and called to him, Osserin’s voice exploded in his mind.
Colin! The sukrael! They’re at the Well!
Colin was moving before Osserin had finished, uneasiness transformed into motion. The mask of age-a physical affectation-sloughed away. Wrinkled skin tightened, slack muscles firmed. A slight limp in his right leg straightened, and the tweaks and twinges of old muscles dissipated. The weariness brought on by the weight of years was shrugged aside, shed like bothersome clothing. In the space of a heartbeat, he grew young, at least twenty years younger, if not more, a nearly unconscious transformation. A reflex.
Where are they coming from? And where are the rest of the Faelehgre? He couldn’t stop the anger from entering his voice, the acidic bite that always appeared when he thought of the Shadows.
The south. We went to investigate a disturbance at the edge of the forest.
And you left the Well unguarded?
Colin felt Osserin’s annoyance. We can’t guard the Well at all times. There aren’t enough of us. You know this. We’ve had this argument before.
Colin snorted. So there’s no one at the Well right now? No one at all?
It’s unprotected.
Colin growled and picked up his pace.
His room wasn’t far from the Well, but far enough. He sprinted down pathways lined with dirt and needles, past standing stone columns, past a wide-based, cracked fountain in the center of an oval plaza. He dodged through the rounded door of a low building, through its empty inner rooms and out the far side, satchel jouncing against his back, then raced down gentle steps to what had once been a marketplace. Sunlight burst through the layer of fog and lit the main roadway through the city a gleaming, vibrant white as he sped down its length, the buildings on either side growing taller, the spires more intricate and magnificent. Then the buildings fell away, abruptly, the roadway opening out into an oval amphitheater, gentle white steps sloping downward toward the rough stone edges of the Well itself.
He sucked in a sharp breath and drew up short at the edge of the highest step, using his staff to steady himself. He could sense the Well now, a physical force pressing against every layer of his skin, tingling there. It pulsed in his blood, shivered through his gut, tickled his lungs with every breath he took. A cool sensation, smooth and fluid, smelling of dried leaves and dark earth.
His stomach cramped in reaction, in anticipation. The breath he’d drawn hissed out at the pain, but he shoved the ache aside while repressing an ecstatic shudder, surveyed the theater, the trees to either side, the boundaries of the Well beneath. The wide stone steps-ones he’d barely seen so many years before when the Faelehgre had led him here, ones he’d stumbled down, at the edge of asphyxiation-descended gradually, narrowing until they reached the lip of the Well and terminated. There, the waters of the Well stretched outward in a wide, placid circle, the surface perfectly smooth and untroubled, the depths clear. Over a hundred hands across, the Well seized Colin’s attention, and he involuntarily took a step down. The hand holding the lantern spasmed and lifted, reached toward the water, and for a moment he literally felt the grit of the ancient stone that held its waters on his fingers.
But he caught himself, his outstretched hand tightening into a white-knuckled fist. He forced it back to his side. He wasn’t here to drink. He never intended to drink from the Well again. He was here to protect.
He tore his gaze away from the water. To either side of the white steps, where the city ended, the forest took over, encircling the Well with a thick border of tall, ancient trees. The largest trees he’d ever seen before entering the forest, their boles nearly forty hands around at the base, their tops towering over even the highest of the Faelehgre’s spires. The heart of the forest.
And that heart was rustling now, agitated. Colin could feel its anger.
He shifted down the steps, moving slowly, eyes darting back and forth, watching for movements beneath the trees, searching for the Shadows. They’d attack from the forest. They couldn’t move over the white stone of the city, couldn’t move over water, but the stone steps of the theater ended at the Well. There wasn’t even a lip of the white stone around the Well itself. Not even the Faelehgre, at the height of their power, when Terra’nor had been a vibrant, flourishing city and one of the trade hubs of the plains, had been that possessive of the Lifeblood.
When he reached the Well, he set his satchel, the flask, and the lantern aside, then dropped a hand to the stone that contained it and caressed it without thought, his eyes on the forest. With a frisson of shock he remembered crashing into this stone-rough, unworked, and dense. He felt it scraping against his skin through his clothing as he crawled over it, his vision fading, his chest numbed with the Shadow’s touch. Then he’d drunk the water, felt the stone’s coldness against his skin as he collapsed onto his back, as he stared up into the sky and let the darkness take him…
Something in the forest moved, and he jerked his hand from the stone and settled it onto the staff.
The trees shuddered.
On the opposite side of the Well, a figure emerged from the forest. The same height as Colin, it stepped from the trees and halted, sheathed in the glistening black of the Shadows, as if clothed in them. They writhed over the figure from head to toe, an occasional section of blackness flaring away from the form, as if the Shadows themselves were flapping in a nonexistent wind.
Colin’s stance altered. His eyes narrowed; his muscles hardened. He took the staff into both hands and balanced it defensively before him without thought.
Osserin, he sent, it’s one of the Wraiths.
He felt the Faelehgre pause. Then, with renewed urgency: We’re coming.
Colin regarded the Wraith across the smooth surface of the Well in silence. He could feel the figure’s presence, could taste the Shadows that cloaked it. A sour taste, tainting the air with a visceral enmity, with a hatred that made Colin’s nostrils flare.
He’d been battling the Wraiths since he first arrived; he knew there were at least six of them. The Faelehgre said the first one had appeared nearly twenty years before the wagons carrying Colin and the others had arrived on the outskirts of the forest. They didn’t know what they were, but they knew that they’d been created somehow by the Shadows. They carried the sukrael’s taint.
The Wraith reached forward and dipped a hand into the Well, ripples spreading outward as it disturbed the surface and drew the water toward its mouth to drink.
Colin barked out a wordless denial, a sound of pure rage, and leaped off the lip of the Well to the ground and into the edge of the forest. Weaving around the tangled roots of the huge trees, he sped along the curve of the Well, the rage inside growing into a growl. An old rage. Not directed at the sacrilege of the Shadows touching the water, of their taint on the Lifeblood, or their creation of the Wraiths, but at what they had done so many years before to the wagon train, at the death and destruction they had wrought. He could hear the men and women and children of the wagon train screaming in the depths of his growl, could hear their cries of pain and outrage.
The Wraith didn’t react, reaching again toward the water with both hands, liquid spilling from its arm in rivulets as it cupped it to its face, the Shadows around it writhing in a frenzy, as if the wind they felt had increased to a gale. It reached a third time to the water as Colin raced around the last leg, and then it turned, the motion slow and measured, unconcerned It was the only warning Colin got.
Its total disregard for his approach registered a moment before the Shadows that had been lying in wait struck.
Colin’s roar of outrage broke off with a shocked gasp as he brought up the forest staff a moment before the Shadow’s tendril would have passed through his neck. The tendril struck the wood, struck the essence it had been imbued with, and drove Colin off his feet and into the edge of the Well. Stone bit into his side, and a frigid numbness passed down through his arm, tingling with fear and the Shadow’s power. But the Shadow hadn’t touched him, its blow deflected by the staff, a gift of the forest, and there was no time to collect himself. He rolled away from the stone wall, out of the Shadow’s path as it came after him, and he brought his staff up hard into the Shadow’s middle. The staff snagged in the seething blackness, and with a quick motion Colin flicked it up and back, flinging the Shadow out over the water of the Well. It shrieked as Colin spun. He didn’t need to see the Shadow trying to coalesce over the water, didn’t need to see its struggle as it tried to hold its form and failed, sinking into the surface. He’d seen it all before, and not just over the water of the Well. Any water with some depth to it would work. He’d discovered that during the years he’d spent actively searching out and killing as many of the Shadows as he could.
Which is how he knew that there were at least two more of them behind him. They hissed as their counterpart’s grating shriek died and drew up short when Colin brandished the staff.
“Ha!” he barked, his gaze flicking over the two no more than three paces away, just out of reach, then toward the three others he could see back in the depths of the forest. The feral grin that had started forming on his lips, died.
Two he could handle easily, three with some effort. But five…
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The Wraith had shifted. Finished at the Well, it regarded Colin, silent as a statue, only the Shadows that cloaked it moving in the warmth of the sunlight.
Colin jerked his attention back toward the forest as two of the three moved forward to join the two closest to him. He swore, hands gripping the staff tighter as the fifth shifted forward as well, his gaze flicking back and forth between the Wraith and the Shadows.
And realization struck.
An ambush. The Wraith had been the lure.
This was why he’d ceased hunting the Shadows before, why he’d finally allowed the Faelehgre to convince him to set the rage that drove him all of those years aside. Because they were intelligent. They learned from their mistakes, had gotten smarter, harder to find, harder to catch.
Now they’d changed tactics as well. They were actively hunting him in return. But why now? He’d stopped stalking them at least twenty years ago.
The uneasiness he’d felt when he had woken that morning returned. Something had changed. Something significant.
Before he could ponder it further, the Wraith turned away and within three steps vanished into the darkness beneath the forest.
As if it were a signal, the five Shadows sprang forward.
Colin caught the first two Shadows in a sweep and flung them aside, pivoting on one foot as the other three closed in. He blocked out their shrieks, tried to block out the memories of the wagon train under attack, then darted away from them. He had no chance of holding them off with the staff alone, not all five of them. His only chance was to reach the white stone of the city, where they couldn’t travel.
Breath already burning in his lungs from the sprint to reach the Wraith, he jumped over a tangle of roots, skidded on the soft soil on the far side, and swore as he caught his balance. He felt his body shift into a younger form, one more suited to an all-out sprint, and he adjusted his grip on the staff as it grew longer and more unwieldy in comparison. He vaulted over a fallen trunk covered in moss, risked a glance behind, and felt fear grip his heart. Three were behind him, closing fast. The two others He cried out as one of them appeared ahead, waiting. He caught a flicker of black motion to his left, the direction they expected him to dodge, but instead he used the staff to vault onto the lip of the Well to the right. He swung the staff hard into the one lying in wait, felt its dark folds get caught, felt its weight as he grunted and dragged it in a wide arc behind him, hoping to toss it into the Well; but the end of the staff struck the bole of a tree, the force of the blow shuddering up the length of wood into Colin’s arms. He bit off another curse and sprinted down the arc of the Well, not pausing to shake the Shadow free. The staff jerked as he ran, the Shadow fighting to disentangle itself, and then suddenly it tore free. Colin let loose a bark of laughter as the white stone of the amphitheater appeared ahead.
Something bitterly cold swept through his leg, numbing it instantly.
He cried out, stumbled. For a terrifying moment, he thought he’d tip into the water of the Well. He didn’t know what would happen if he fell in-whether it would behave like normal water or if he’d simply sink into its bottomless depths-but he didn’t want to find out. Twisting as he fell, he threw his weight to the right.
His shoulder slammed into the stone, and his other arm flailed, catching at the surface of the Well, the splash soaking into his robes. Then he tucked and rolled off the edge, landing hard in the pine-scented dirt. His legs tangled in the staff, but he held on tight, back slamming to a stop in the dirt, his head rebounding off an exposed root. His teeth bit down hard on his tongue, and he tasted blood.
Dazed, he stared up into the too bright sunlight overhead, up through the branches of the huge conifers of the forest. The numbness in his leg became a fiery tingle, as if the blood were returning to it, slowly, only a thousand times worse. A throbbing ache awoke in his bruised shoulder.
And then a Shadow loomed up over him, blocking out the sunlight.
He reacted without thought, shoving the end of his staff upward in a warding motion. Not a sweep, not a move at all, just an attempt to thrust the Shadow away. He felt the Shadow’s frigid presence mere inches from his fingers, the chill he’d felt years before at the wagons biting deep into his hands And Osserin blazed into sight, his white light flaring as bright as Colin had ever seen it. The Shadow hissed and flickered away, Osserin charging after, the Faelehgre’s rage palpable, throbbing in the air. More of the Faelehgre appeared, and with their fiery light they drove the Shadows away.
Colin rested his head against the root and listened to the Shadows shriek as they retreated. The burning tingle in his leg increased, and he grimaced as he tried to move it. When it became unbearable, he halted and stared up into the sunlight. He knew the tingling would fade and his leg would return to normal, but it would take days.
He didn’t have days. If he didn’t leave today, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to leave at all. Ever.
Osserin returned, drifting to a halt above Colin, his light still pulsing with anger, though none of it touched his voice.
The Shadows touched you?
“I’ll be fine.” He sighed and lifted himself up into a seated position, his head spinning. After feeling the lump and trace of blood where he’d hit his head, he began massaging his bruised shoulder. “It was a trap. They used the Wraith to lure me off the white stone of the city into the woods, where the Shadows were waiting for me.”
Osserin had stilled. A trap? Are you certain?
Colin shot the Faelehgre a glare. “Yes. I’m certain.”
Osserin pulsed, the flashes erratic. They’ve never been so… direct before.
“No, they haven’t. I’ve been attacked before, by the Wraiths and the Shadows, but it was always while I was traveling in the forest or when I was hunting them years ago. But typically they were attacks made by one of the Wraiths or a few Shadows. None of those attacks were this coordinated, felt this planned.” Colin began climbing to his feet, using the staff for support, hissing whenever his Shadow-touched leg moved. He tried to keep his weight off it, but he found it nearly impossible, even with the staff. “Something’s changed,” he managed through shortened breaths. “Something’s given them a direction, a purpose. And something is driving them.”
What?
“I don’t know.” He began making his way back to the white stone of the amphitheater, automatically moving closer to the Well as he did so.
They’ve grown restless. Restless with hunger, with their confinement here in the forest, here around Terra’nor. They’re tired of foraging off the life-force here within the forest, within the range of the Well. They crave more.
“When did they start becoming restless?”
After the dwarren arrived and intruded into the Well’s influence. They feasted then, as they had not done for centuries. But the dwarren grew wary and eventually learned the edges of the Shadows’ reach. Yet the Shadows can see them on the plains. They want to feast again.
“But you told me that the dwarren have been here for hundreds of years.”
And the sukrael have been searching for a way to break the Well’s hold on them for those hundred years. But they will fail. The Well’s hold cannot be broken.
Colin climbed up onto the lowest steps of white stone and moved to where his satchel lay with the lantern and flask. He sank down onto the stone wall of the Well. “What if that’s what has changed? What if they’ve found a way?”
Osserin stilled in contemplation. What binds the Shadows here binds the Faelehgre as well. If they had found a way to break its hold, we would know. And they would not still be here, near Terra’nor. They would have already set themselves upon the world.
Colin shuddered at the timbre of Osserin’s voice, at the sorrow and horror it held, but he said nothing.
Osserin moved to hover over the lantern. Colin saw him still. You’re leaving.
“I have to.” Colin jerked the sleeve of his robe back, exposed the black mark on his skin, presented it to Osserin. “Unless you think I should stay,” he said bitterly. “Perhaps I should. To help you with the Shadows, with the Wraiths.”
The Faelehgre edged forward, then glided back.
It’s grown.
“Yes.”
Then you can’t stay, even to help with the Shadows and Wraiths. We can handle them.
Colin pulled his sleeve back down. “Then I’m leaving. Today.” He reached down and picked up the flask, twisted the top free. He returned to the water’s edge, almost reached down and drew a handful of it out of habit so he could drink, but he halted mid-motion. Shaking his head, he dipped the flask into the water.
The Lifeblood tingled against his skin, and he shuddered, felt the pain in his gut, a pain he knew he could slake, but he focused on the flask. Bubbles rose to the surface of the Well as the last of the air escaped, then he withdrew it and held it up to the light.
Clear, like water. No hint that it was anything else.
Unless you’d already drunk some of it.
His nostrils flared. He could smell it: fresh loam, dried leaves, snow.
When he turned, he felt Osserin watching him, and he bristled. “I don’t intend to use it,” he said. “It’s… a precaution.”
A precaution.
“Yes.” Colin shoved the flask inside his satchel, making certain it was protected by layers of cloth so that it wouldn’t break. “In case the pain becomes too great.”
With the Lifeblood present, the pain will always be too great.
Colin sent the Faelehgre an annoyed glare, adjusting the pack on his shoulder. “Perhaps.” Taking up his staff, he paused.
Now that he was prepared to leave, he found his anger fading. He stared out over the ruins of the city, over the white towers, the amphitheater, the road and buildings. He could imagine what the city had looked like before the Well destroyed the Faelehgre as a people. Osserin had told him enough stories over the years. The white stone had glowed in the moonlight, the streets filled with music, with life. The dark-skinned Faelehgre had danced along those streets in clothes of every hue, had serenaded each other beneath the balustrades and beside the pools and fountains, moon-flowers tucked in their hair.
The ancient trees stirred, the wind sighing in their branches, and Colin drew in a deep breath. He could smell the acrid scent of their needles, the coolness of the Lifeblood, the bitterness of bark and leaves and the vividness of the ferns and other undergrowth. But the music he could almost hear from the past faded.
“I’ve been here so long, I can’t imagine leaving,” he finally said. His voice sounded small, vulnerable, as if he were twelve again.
Osserin drifted closer. But you must, or the Well will claim you. As it claimed us.
Colin hefted the pack into a more comfortable position, then gathered up his staff before looking directly at the Faelehgre’s light.
“Let’s go.”
They emerged from the edge of the forest into late afternoon sunlight, and Colin paused and raised a hand to shade his eyes, blinking at the brightness. He’d shifted back to his aged form again, shedding the youthfulness he’d assumed to escape the Shadows. The plains spread out before him, wide and open, and he felt himself cringe back from them, from the vast emptiness of the sky.
“I’ve been inside the forest too long,” he murmured.
Osserin didn’t respond. He seemed to be waiting, expectant.
Colin scanned the horizon, breathing in the scent of late autumn grass and heat. And something else. A taint on the breeze, of smoke and He turned and caught sight of a black cloud of carrion birds wheeling in the distance between columns of thinning smoke. Thousands of them, rising and settling with sickening grace.
He frowned. “What happened?”
Osserin shifted forward, out over the grasses in the direction of the smoke. A battle. A large one. It’s the disturbance we abandoned the Well to investigate this morning.
“A battle between whom?”
It took place outside the Well’s influence. We couldn’t get close enough to see.
Colin grunted. “I’ll check it out. After.” He watched the flock of carrion birds a moment more, then turned away, searching the nearer grasses for the shepherd’s hook.
He spotted it almost instantly, and his breath caught, his throat tightening. As it did every time he came here, every time he traveled through the forest to this place, to where the hopes and dreams of all of those who were part of the wagon train out of Lean-to and Portstown ended. The wagons had vanished long ago. He’d scavenged as much as he could of the supplies that first year, taking whatever he thought he’d need to survive in the forest, before he knew how much the Lifeblood had changed him. The rest had been looted by the dwarren or had simply rotted and decayed and been claimed by the grass.
But not all. He’d used some of the metal from the wheels and the wagons’ hitches to fashion a shepherd’s hook, and he’d planted it where the wagons used to be, had sunk it deep into the earth to mark the location, years after most traces of what had happened there had vanished, after he realized that if he didn’t do something, all traces would be lost completely.
Initially, he’d come to this place every year with a lantern taken from the wagons, lit it, and placed it on the shepherd’s hook. To remember. But after ten years he’d turned his grief outward, turned his rage onto the Shadows. By then he’d learned enough of how the Well had changed him that he could hunt them, learned enough from the Faelehgre and the forest to kill them. That pursuit had consumed him for nearly twenty years. He’d forgotten about the lantern, the shepherd’s hook. He’d forgotten himself. When the Faelehgre finally convinced him that his hunting was merely making the Shadows stronger, more dangerous, he’d sunk into listlessness, wandering the forest, the ruins of Terra’nor, letting its cool depths enfold him. Only when Osserin began following him, began relating the history of the Faelehgre-how they’d built Terra’nor near the Well, how they’d built their entire culture around its power, worshiping it, reveling in it, using it-did he reawaken.
He began to learn then. Of Terra’nor and its fall, how the power of the Well had slowly begun to corrupt the Faelehgre, how it began to distort their bodies, changing them. Of how the Faelehgre had refused to leave until it was too late, until the Well had changed them enough that they could no longer leave. And of how it had continued to change them, the corporeal bodies of the Faelehgre finally fading and splitting into the Shadows and the Lights.
And once he’d learned of the Faelehgre and the Shadows, he turned to the plains, exploring their reaches, although never moving too far from the forest. He’d watched the dwarren and their tribal wars from afar, watched the humans continue to attempt to settle on dwarren lands, watched the Alvritshai attempt to as well. The plains had become a battlefield, blood spilled across its length. He’d watched it all.
Until seven years ago, when he’d finally noticed that the black spot on his arm-a mere sliver of darkness then-wasn’t a freckle.
Suddenly, he knew his time in the forest was running out. Unless he wanted to become like the Faelehgre and the Shadows: trapped.
It was then that he’d recalled the shepherd’s hook, had begun returning every year with the lantern.
“How long have I been here, Osserin?” he rasped. He felt tears burning at the edges of his eyes already, heard them in his voice, but he choked them back. “How long since I drank from the Well?”
Sixty-seven years.
Colin’s breath stopped, his eyes widening. The tears that had threatened dried up. “Sixty-se-” he began, but the word caught in his throat.
He swallowed. “How is that possible?” he breathed.
Because you willed it, Osserin said, and Colin heard the edge in his voice. Because the Lifeblood made it possible.
Before Colin could respond, the Faelehgre moved toward the hook, hovering close to the ground at first, as if looking for traces of the wagons, of the bodies, of the deaths. When he neared the hook, he spun around it, halting near the top.
Colin struggled a moment longer, then exhaled heavily. Staff in hand, the lantern banging against it as he moved, he trudged forward, the weight of the years he hadn’t realized had passed-not consciously-making the trek more difficult. His leg screamed in tingling agony, but he ignored it, pulling up beneath the S-shaped curve of the hook. Setting the lantern on the ground, he pulled the hollow bowl, tinder, and flint from the pockets of his robe, and using some of the surrounding dried grass, he got a flame started in the bowl. Blowing on it to keep it lit, he opened the glass door of the lantern and set the small bowl inside. It wouldn’t burn long, but he’d run out of oil from the wagons ages ago.
Then he closed the lantern and hobbled backward, pocketing the flint. He stared at the flames until he was satisfied they would continue to burn, then looked around at the surrounding grass.
You don’t need to relive “I need to remember,” he said, cutting Osserin off, angry. Then, in a softer voice: “I want to remember. I don’t want to forget her.”
Osserin flickered, troubled, but said nothing.
Colin bowed his head, took a few deep, steadying breaths, eyes closed, trying to relax himself.
Then he opened his eyes… and sank.
Around him, the world stilled, the grasses stirred by the breeze halting in mid- motion. Sound died, the quiet so profound that Colin shifted uncomfortably. He felt the stillness-the utter absence of motion-pressing against his skin, felt it resisting him, trying to shove him forward, back into his proper place, the sensation prickling, the hairs on the back of his neck stirring. He had never liked this initial quiet, this absence of life in the world around him-knew that if he remained in this limbo too long he wouldn’t be able to breathe-and so he shoved against the pressure, thrust himself backward through its resistance.
And crossed a barrier, thrust himself through it… pushed himself beyond.
The sun dipped down toward the horizon as if it were setting… but to the east. He slogged backward without moving, the effort like trying to walk on sand. Night fell, but in reverse, as midmorning pressed into dawn, and still he shoved, pushed farther backward, moving faster and faster, the amount of effort required increasing. The sun rose in the west, set in the east, rose and set, again and again, picking up speed until it was only a flicker, a blink between light and dark, light and dark, and still he forged backward.
On the plains before him, in the stuttering blinks of light, the grasses turned from dried dead stalks to lush greens with heavy heads of grain, then shrank into slender sprouts before vanishing, replaced by brief fields of snow-a rare occurrence this far south of the mountains-and then back to a swath of dried yellow. Colin watched the seasons pass again and again, in reverse, then frowned and shoved harder, speeding up the process until there was no distinction between light and dark, only sunlight. Birds appeared, a flicker, nothing more, soaring in the sky. A fox, a grouse, passing by the shepherd’s hook, their appearance so brief Colin didn’t have time to gasp. Farther out, he caught a stutter of wagons, the passing of an army of men, a shadow of darkness as a herd of gaezels spun by.
He pushed harder, sank himself into the past, forced himself down roads already traveled, and the farther he went, the greater the pressure against his skin, the greater the resistance. The prickling became an itch, the hairs on his arms shivering, stirring, vibrating. A sound arose, deep and throaty, resonating in his chest, as if the world were moaning, but he forged back farther, shoved harder, grunted with the effort it took, and the moaning increased.
Then, on the ground before him, within the space between heartbeats, the remnants of decayed wagons appeared.
His heart lurched and he gasped, the press into the past slowing, losing momentum. He staggered under its weight, fell to his hands and his good knee, his Shadow-touched leg stretched awkwardly behind him, the staff pressed into the grass and earth beneath his hand. His satchel slipped from his back and hung beneath him. But he was too close to let the pressure thrust him back to the present. He remained where he was and shoved harder, a cry escaping him as the decayed wagons rose from the concealing grasses, as the bodies rose with them, as if being pushed upward out of the earth, as if it were rejecting them, denying them And suddenly the wagons were whole, the bodies complete. White lights flared from the forest and then vanished, and with another gasp Colin stopped shoving against the tides of time, letting his head drop.
The world settled, shuddering as it did so. The moaning halted, and normal sounds returned, normal textures and scents. Pine, trampled grass, upturned earth. Horse musk and the stench of fear. The sun beat down on his back, warming his skin from the chill of the passage, and wind tugged at his robes, drying his sweat. Far off, the sounds of a battle raged on the plains, a battle they’d attempted to flee.
Colin closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, steadied himself.. .
And looked up.
Karen’s father lay where he’d fallen, where the Shadows had taken him, the sword he’d tried to use lying useless in the grass beside him. Other bodies lay scattered around the wagon where he and Karen had stood last, and Colin knew there were more behind him. Many more, including his mother and father, both of them on the far side of the wagons, as if they’d been caught trying to flee to the plains. He’d come here, like this, many times, had searched out everyone. Not all of those who had made it this far from Portstown had died here. Some had managed to run outside the Shadow’s reach; some, like Walter, had been chased into the forest; some he’d never been able to find. But everyone of significance was here. His family, his friends.
His chosen.
He pulled himself up, dragged himself upright with the staff, adjusting the satchel, and moved to the edge of the wagon, so that he stood over his own crumpled form. He watched as his younger self stared out over the plains, face smeared with tears and dirt and snot, eyes vacant. Empty of everything, body and soul. Karen lay slack in his arms, her dead body across his chest, her head rolled back, throat exposed. Her skin glowed a pale white in the sunlight, the freckles across her nose dark in contrast, her mouth slightly open, her green eyes eerily vivid.
Colin knelt down beside himself, the position awkward with his deadened leg. He reached out a hand, wanting to touch her, to close her eyes, her mouth, to trace the line of her jaw and brush the wild brown hair from her brow one more time. And he could touch her, could press his hands against her flesh. He was present-it wasn’t simply a dream; Osserin had assured him of that-but it wasn’t the same. It was a strange half-presence. He wasn’t really there, no matter how much he felt the wind gust against his face, or how visceral the scent of grass or the sounds of the far-off battle. He could feel everything, could sense it, but he couldn’t change any of it. As soon as he thrust himself past that barrier to come here, nothing could be changed.
And yet every time he came, he tried. Partly because Osserin had said that there were some who could touch the past, could manipulate it. But mostly because he couldn’t help himself.
His past self ’s chest hitched, his gaze drifting from the plains upward to the sky, and he withdrew his hand where it hovered over Karen’s face. He watched himself. But unlike all the times before this, the ache in his chest-beneath where the pendant burned against his skin beneath his robes, the blood vow still empty, never claimed-that ache didn’t crush him. It didn’t rise into his throat and cut off his breath, didn’t fill his chest and suffocate him. He felt it, a fist of pain, hard and unforgiving, but it remained contained.
He stood and stepped back from himself, from Karen, a moment before the Faelehgre sped from the forest and began their first frenzied searching of the bodies around the wagons. They flitted from one lifeless figure to the next, their agitation growing. He could hear them clearly now, unlike the echoing half-voices he’d heard back then-another consequence of drinking the Lifeblood according to Osserin. They hovered over Lyda’s body, over the womb that would never bear a child, and Colin swallowed back the same sick nausea he’d felt back then over the Shadow’s gluttonous feeding. They slipped inside the backs of the wagons, where Colin knew they’d find Tobin’s body. He’d never had a chance to escape with his broken legs. They hovered longest over the children-Lissa and her brother, Ron, all the rest-their despair palpable.
And then they discovered that he was still alive.
As the argument over whether or not to save him erupted, Colin wandered away from himself, from Karen, and knelt beside Sam’s body. The mason had died attempting to protect a group of women, had fallen facedown into the grass, his sword beneath him. He desperately wanted to turn Sam’s body over so that he could see the sun, look at the sky, but he couldn’t.
Instead, he stood and wandered among the rest of the fallen: Miriam, the burns from when the dwarren fired the wagons still etched on her skin; Brant, his shoulder bound from where the dwarren arrow had been removed; Barte, the wagon driver; Domonic; and Jackson, the West Wind Trading Company’s representative. Walter had escaped the wagons, but the sukrael had caught him in the forest. Colin had gone back once and watched as they fell on Walter, as they smothered him. They’d been sated by then, had tortured Walter as they’d started torturing Colin, but the Faelehgre had not arrived to save him as they had Colin.
Last, he found his parents. Arten, the Armory guardsman, lay a short distance away. Arten had tried to hold the Shadows off as Colin’s parents and a few others fled, but the gesture had been useless. The sukrael had cut him down and sped onward without pausing.
His father lay on his side. He’d stumbled when the sukrael took out his leg, had reached for Colin’s mother as they fell on him. His arm was still outstretched. Colin’s mother had made it another few steps, had crumpled to the ground, half curled, her own arm reaching back, her other hand clutching at Diermani’s tilted cross and the vow beneath her shirt.
Crouching down, Colin laid his hand on his mother’s shoulder. The hard fist of pressure in his chest throbbed once, twice, then stilled.
Closing his eyes, Colin crossed himself-head, chest, shoulder, side-and murmured a half- remembered prayer to Holy Diermani, then kissed the back of her hand.
You’ve never done that before.
Colin hadn’t felt Osserin join him in the past, but he didn’t start in surprise. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he twisted where he crouched and repeated the gesture and prayer for his father, even though his father hadn’t believed in Diermani as devoutly as his mother had. Then he stood.
Why now? Osserin asked.
“Because…” he began. Fumbling, he said, “Because it felt right. My mother deserved it. My father… because of her. And because I’m leaving.”
You’ve never been particularly religious.
Colin smiled, his expression wry. “I wasn’t back then either, to my mother’s dismay.” The smile faded. “But it had its place. It still has its place.”
Osserin said nothing, and after a moment, both of them turned to where the dwarren still fought on the plains before the wagons. The battle had shifted, ranging farther to the south and east, leaving only dead and wounded behind. Carrion birds were already gathering.
The birds reminded Colin of the battle he had yet to investigate in the present.
Always, there are battles on these plains. Always, there is blood.
Colin watched the battle that had trapped the wagon train play out before him. “Why?”
Osserin stirred, shifted forward as if to get a closer look. We don’t know. It’s been this way for hundreds of years, since the dwarren came. And now, with the introduction of the Alvritshai and of man, it’s become worse. Much worse. You’ve seen them. Alvritshai fighting dwarren. Dwarren fighting men. Men fighting Alvritshai. Even dwarren against dwarren, men against men.
On the plains, the dwarren battle shifted, edging farther from the forest, from the wagons and the Faelehgre.
“It’s senseless. Useless.”
It’s the way of man. And dwarren and, to a lesser extent, Alvritshai. It was the way of the Faelehgre once. It still is.
As Colin turned away, troubled, he caught sight of the swirling black spot on his forearm and shuddered.
Are you finished here? Osserin asked.
Colin considered, then nodded. “Yes. I’m done.”
And with that, he let the pressure of time still pushing against him carry him forward, felt Osserin traveling with him. The plain blurred, time slipping away so fast he couldn’t distinguish anything in its passage, and then it slowed, settling him back into the present. The wagons had vanished, long gone, the bodies with them, including the bodies of the dwarren and their gaezels. They were replaced with the columns of smoke he’d seen when he first emerged from the forest and the clouds of birds rising and settling like a black fog. The battle itself had played out beyond the nearest ridgeline.
Colin watched the smoke a long moment, frowning, thinking of the dwarren battle in the past, of what Osserin had said.
Always, there is battle on these plains. Always, there is blood.
“I’ll be back shortly,” he said. Without waiting for a response, he trudged forward, through wet grass, the stalks brushing past his knees. By the time he’d reached the top of the hill, his robes were soaked and cumbersome, tangling with his legs.
But the battlefield beyond pushed all of those petty concerns aside.
“Holy Diermani, save us all,” he whispered, and unconsciously crossed himself again.
The field of dead encompassed the breadth of the plains in sight, bodies fallen near and far, horses and gaezels, men and dwarren. Hundreds of them, thousands, impaled on pikes, pierced by spears, riddled with arrows. Armor glinted in the sunlight, much more extensive armor than he remembered any of the Armory guardsmen using in Portstown, heavier, and more protective. The columns of smoke rose from burning supply wagons. Everywhere he looked the carrion birds flocked, their black feathers glistening in the sunlight, their harsh cries echoing across the distance. They hovered close, dozens trying to settle, disturbing those already gorging themselves, others rising as they were shoved out of the way.
And then the wind shifted, blew toward Colin, and the stench of death-of blood and smoke and scorched earth-doubled him over. He gagged, fell to his knees, and retched into the grass, heaving even when there was nothing left to purge.
When it ended, he rose slowly, wiped his mouth as clean as possible with his sleeve and spat to one side. His stomach continued to roil as he climbed back to his feet. Leaning heavily on his staff, he pushed forward, down the edge of the hill. Carrion crows took reluctant flight as he approached, their protests raucous, only to settle back again as he passed, watching him warily. He ignored them all, focused on the bodies, on the death.
He saw men and dwarren both, covered in blood, the earth soaked in it, churned to mud by the passage of the horses and the army. A man with blond hair-his eyes wide and empty, staring up at the sun-lay alone, his chest gaping where a spear had punched into his heart. A few paces beyond, bodies were stacked one on top of the other, thrown there haphazardly, arms and legs askew. An arrow had taken an older man in the throat, one hand still clutching the shaft loosely; another had been slashed as if with a dagger. A few had been trampled into the earth, their faces squashed into the mud, already half buried. Row after row, body after body, arms severed, legs crushed, heads caved in on one side.
And scattered among the men were the bodies of the dwarren. Like the dwarren Colin remembered, they wore long tangled beards, braided with beads in complex patterns. Most had pierced noses and ears with fine chains running from nostril to lobe, a sign of their status in the tribe and their standing in the army. They wore armor, heavier than Colin remembered, like the men, but some of them carried swords and axes; they’d used only spears and arrows when they’d attacked the wagons. He recognized a few of the tribes by the bands of iron around their wrists or farther up on their forearms: Thousand Springs Clan. .. and Silver Grass.
Colin continued deeper into the field, trying to breathe through his mouth, the stench increasing, the bodies growing denser. Horses and gaezels, men and dwarren. They grew thicker, until he was forced to halt because moving forward meant he’d have to step on the dead.
He scanned the near distance, the carrion crows still flocking, their shadow passing over him now, blotting out the sun. “Bold bastards,” he murmured to himself.
Not ten paces away, one dropped from the sky next to another. The one already on the ground flapped its wings and gave a harsh cry of protest, but the other advanced, hopping over the bodies. With a last squawk, the first retreated, taking sudden wing, and the victor settled in to feast. It turned its black gaze on Colin a moment. Then its head darted downward, and after two quick stabs of its beak, it rose, something clutched in its mouth.
An eye.
Colin cried out in outrage, stumbled forward, slipped on the dead and fell as the crow lurched into the sky, wings flapping, its prize held tight. Struggling where he’d fallen, Colin spat a useless curse, his stomach churning again, the taste of vomit still fresh.
And then he looked down.
He’d landed on the bodies of men, their clothes still damp with blood, their flesh soft beneath his hands, the armor chill. But the man he’d fallen on wasn’t really a man. He was just a boy, twelve, with dark hair, a few lighter strands catching the occasional sunlight. His mouth was set in a determined look, gone slack with death, his eyes empty, face rounded. His nose had been broken sometime in the past, but other than that…
Other than that, it could have been Colin himself. The Colin he had just seen clutching Karen’s body to his chest.
A shudder passed through Colin’s body, and something gripped his throat. He didn’t lurch upward, didn’t scramble back. The boy’s face, so like his own, held him transfixed, breath caught.
And in that still moment, he realized he’d been asleep, that he’d forced himself into an unnatural slumber in the forest. He’d hidden there from the world, from his parents’ deaths, from Karen’s. He’d willed himself into nonexistence, living off the Well, off the Lifeblood, smothering himself in his grief, just as Osserin and the other Faelehgre had said.
He needed to wake up. If he didn’t, the Lifeblood would claim him. The spot on his wrist would only be the beginning. He’d die, as surely as this boy had died here on the battlefield, a sword lodged in his side. And he realized he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to sleep anymore.
He turned at the sound of a banner flapping in the breeze, the motion startling him out of his paralysis. He glanced once more at the boy’s face, reached to close his eyes and murmur a prayer over him, then climbed carefully to his feet, making certain to place the end of his staff on ground and not flesh. The banner flapped again, a stylized shield on a background divided in half diagonally, one side red, the other yellow, a banner he didn’t recognize. He hadn’t traveled outside dwarren territory on his excursions, had only made it to the Escarpment-what they had once called the Bluff-and the edge of human lands. Frowning, he searched for more banners, looking for the colors on the overshirts and surplices, the sigils stitched into shirts or etched into shields. He found numerous tilted crosses and references to Diermani-clasped hands, fire, white candles-but he didn’t recognize anything else. No Family crests, no stylized symbols from the Court.
When the stench became too great, the feeding of the crows too much, he retreated back to the hill, passing back out through the ranks of dead. He paused, scanned the scope of the death, then returned to where Osserin waited at the edge of the forest, the lantern he’d lit in memory of Karen, his parents, and all the rest still burning in the shepherd’s hook. Dusk had fallen, the few clouds in the sky orange and gold over the sighing of the trees.
What did you find? Osserin asked.
“A battlefield,” Colin reported, his voice muted. “Hundreds of dead. Thousands. I didn’t recognize any of the humans’ banners except those of the church.”
It has been over sixty years. The world changes.
Colin grunted.
Who fought in the battle?
Colin shrugged, troubled. “Men and dwarren. I didn’t see any of the Alvritshai.”
The Alvritshai are less willing to fight. They live longer, and they do not like to risk their children’s lives. They respect life more because it is so difficult for them to bear children. That is why they halted their expansion southward from their northern mountain reaches and the foothills and forests beneath. The dwarren made the expansion onto the plains too costly for them. But the Alvritshai have fought here before. And they will again.
Colin thought about what he’d just seen, all the faces, all the blood, particularly the face of the boy, and grimaced, sick to his stomach. He could still taste the vomit in his mouth.
He glanced back toward the plains, to where the smoke had thinned to wisps and the black cloud of birds had increased.
After a long moment, Osserin asked, What will you do? Where will you go?
“I don’t know. Portstown, I guess.”
Then safe travels.
And Osserin began drifting away.
Colin watched the Faelehgre’s retreating light with mild shock. “Farewell to you too,” he murmured.
You’ll return, Osserin said before passing out of sight beneath the trees.
Colin snorted, then shifted uncomfortably. He almost glanced down at the black mark on his arm, then realized he didn’t need to. He could feel it, a shadow beneath his skin, a taint.
Then he adjusted the satchel and headed away from the forest.
Toward the plains. Toward the Escarpment and the human lands beyond.