She hasn’t held the mantle of that role for long, hours at most, and she’s so young. Even with the timelessness of fae folk, it’s easy enough to see in the softness of her cheeks, a layer of childhood coddling that hasn’t been whittled away by womanhood yet. She’s terrified and, from the hesitance in her eyes as she looks around at her coven, she’s struggling to accept her new role. The mantle was passed down by the death of someone within her bloodline, likely her own mother, and the urgency building around her is irreverent to her grief.
Whatever the coven’s thoughts of her, she tries to reason with them even as she glances over her shoulder and speaks with a quaking voice. “Whatever our choice, if we don't leave now, it’ll be too late.”
It already is.
A whistling sound pierces the air, the only warning before one of the women cries out, an arrow tipped with ravens' feathers protruding from her chest. She stumbles, her hand clutching at her wound and smearing the black oil of poison over her skin as the crowd lurches away from her in horror. With a final gasp, she drops to the ground, and the gurgling sound of her drowning in her own blood-filled lungs peters out, the poison killing her in seconds.
The clearing descends into chaos, screams of terror broken only by commands roared by the few who keep their wits about them. The air electrifies with magic, and the taste of it, of real power, is like the sweetest goblin wine, melting on my tongue as my blood craves more. The hunger within me becomes deranged, twisted in its ravenous needs, and it’s only the urgent demands of the forest that keep my attention on the bloodshed before me.
The witches scramble to defend their coven, but arrows fly irreverently, poison spattering the ground. When the first of Kharl’s ground soldiers arrive, black spittle running from their mouths and the marks on their face glowing black, the Brindlewyrd witches reel in horror at the sight of them. The same disgust ripples through me; how I ever thought witches were all the same is beyond me. Kharl’s soldiers don’t even look fae anymore, or even wraith-like, in their twisted decline. Madness shines bright in their eyes, the silver dulled and muddy, and their movements are animalistic as they charge into the clearing.
The magic of the coven bursts around us, but there are too many raving soldiers, the same problem the high fae have faced a thousand times, and hundreds swarm them like a plague. With the defending witches having nothing but sharpened blades in their hands, the attack quickly becomes a massacre, and I’m forced to watch the coven fall. My gut clenches at the violence, a whisper in my mind reminding me that the Ravenswyrd coven suffered the fate.
My vision shifts.
The realization that I’m seeing through the memory of a fae and not only the forest hits me with the force of a battering ram as the fae stumbles away from the clearing, the shock of the attack wearing off and survival instincts kicking in. They glance down to regain their footing, and I see feet far smaller than my own—a child.
Achildwatching as the coven is slaughtered. My gut clenches, somewhere, somehow, and the unspent rage of the forest trembles within me. The forest isn’t just mourning the Favored Children as the Ravenswyrd does, it mourns the future stolen from it.
Hands suddenly grip their shoulders and wrench the child around, a gasp of terror torn from their chest, but the childrecognizes the male. An uncle, kin, someone he looks up to and wishes to be like someday. A father figure after his own was lost in the early days of the Betrayer’s arrival.
The male’s voice is desperate, a command and a plea at once. “Take Hanede and run.Run.”
The child shakes his head, letting out a whimper barely audible over the screams of his coven being slaughtered, and the male’s fingers dig into his shoulders as he shakes him.
“You must take him, Moyr. If you don’t, the relic is lost and our coven with it, our promise to protect the forest broken. Go west until the tree line ends, and then north until you hit the Lore River. The Ravenswyrd lies beyond and the Favored Children will take you in—their magic and creed will see you safe. Go now, Moyr, run!”
He shoves Moyr away, his silver eyes glowing as the air snaps with magic, and he throws himself at the closest raving witch with a roar.
Moyr’s feet slip on the moss underfoot, a gasp ripping out of his lungs once more as he stumbles, and when he turns back, he finds his uncle has drawn a blade and fights against a group now, black blood coating his arms and ground around them churned up from the melee. He’s stronger, faster, and better with the blade than they are, four of them dying at his hand without much strife, but then more arrive.
Watching on in horror, Moyr’s legs turn liquid underneath himself as their numbers grow. Six, seven, a dozen of them, more and more, they pile onto his uncle, and finally he falls, screams of manic victory arcing through the air and drowning out the sounds of the assault. His uncle lets out one last cry of anguish, then a gurgle as he chokes on his own blood in his final moments.
Moyr runs.
He runs with ice in his veins at his uncle’s death, with his heart pounding in his chest so hard he thinks it might explode, he runs until his feet turn numb and he’s certain he’s somehow taken flight. He runs until he thinks he might vomit from the efforts.
When he reaches the small marshlands, the freshly melted snow and ice there giving life to the stink of decaying underbrush, his feet slip again on the mud, and the terror flooding him renders his limbs clumsy as he falls into the thick mess, his body landing with such force the air is knocked from his lungs. It does something to his mind, jars it into functioning again, and he looks around the forest with clearer eyes the moment he’s able to draw breath.
Footprints all around him, small ones, dozens of them.
Children.
The children of the coven have run this way, all who could get out, all who had parents to send them away while they held off the raving witches for as long as they could. The coven sent their most beloved deep into the trees for protection while they stood steadfast in the face own demise, never faltering as they bought the children precious seconds to flee. Even as I think this, the solemn song of the forest fills my mind, proof there’s no salvation here.
This forest isn’t as strong as Elms Walk, nor as violent as the Blood Valley, and none are as powerful as the Ravenwyrd. The Brindlewyrd is tired, utterly depleted where it’s given everything to the witches here to keep them fed and well despite the waning rites.
It can’t defend them anymore.
Looking around desperately as he searches for more signs of the children or any others who may follow him, Moyr finds his feet again, and relief floods him when his legs hold steady as he pushes on. He knows he must run fast, but he needs to be quiet,small, to blend into the scenery so that the raving witches are unable to see him. He needs to be enveloped by the forest in the way that only a witch born here can be.
Screams of his dying coven follow him, a woman yelling curses with every ounce of power she holds, until the sound cuts short. The sound of Moyr’s panting is loud but not enough to drown out the sounds of the attack. More gurgling, the whistle of arrows through the air, wood splintering as magic hits the trees and blows them apart, the forest howling in agony as its coven fights back with every inch of strength they have and yet still not enough to save them.
The boy's feet slip again, and he turns his body in an attempt to catch himself. Instead he collides into another body, one cloaked by magic to be invisible, and he lands on the dampened forest floor. A whimper trembles out of his throat, sure he’s been found, only for a whisper to stop his panic in its tracks.
“It's me, Moyr! It’s Hanede! Be silent or they’ll find us.”
Fates merciful weaving, the first sign of light within the darkest day of their coven, he’s found the Loche boy. Scrambling to his feet once more, ignoring the mud now covering him, he looks the boy over for injuries only to be struck by how small he is, how young, and yet Hanede is as calm as the Brindlewyrd Mother was. He took after her far more than his sister, the trembling girl still wearing her Maiden robes as the raving soldiers tore her apart.
