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Despite herself, she looked back after five paces. Aela remained steadfast, gaze sharply focused on Elarian.
Another five steps.
Elarian indulged herself with one final glance, mouthing “wait for me” as she turned away.
It was only after the wolf who had led her through the eternal mists disappeared behind a hill that Elarian allowed herself to shed a tear. Then, she buried her childish hopes and turned her sights to the black shadow in the west.
Reshva’s map proved to be surprisingly useful. Inked in careful black lines, one route had been marked more heavily than others.
“There is an old drainage tunnel the humans built, now long forgotten by the prince and his lackeys,” Reshva had said when handing her the map. “It is long and unforgiving, drenched in blood and rot. But it will lead you directly into the castle.”
At the time, Elarian had been too full of bloodlust to question how he knew such details. Now, she wondered if he had a spy on the inside—and if so, why couldn’t they just smuggle her in through a side door?
“Godsdamn you, Reshva,” Elarian muttered as she folded the map and carefully returned it to her breast pocket. She adjusted the straps of her backpack and started downhill toward the copse of oak trees marking the start of her path.
By the time the Blooded Court swallowed the western horizon, the wolf-girl had become the Ashen Blade once more.
seven
Death Risen
The Mourner
For so long, she had only wished to lie down with the new moon and never rise again. She dreamt of her heart eternally at rest, bones decaying to dust until Estarin’s Lover carried her back to the heavens. Gray colored her world, eyes dim to the beauty she once beheld as a young, starry-eyed woman in love.
Before she left a piece of her heart in another, then killed it with her greed.
Drifting between moonlit ruins, she only wished to say I love you one last time.
But now…
A trick, she resolutely told herself as she collapsed on a broken chair covered in yellow mildew. Her fingers picked at a knot in her long hair, its once-vibrant purples now faded to match her moon-pale skin.
When that elf, that…that girl…gods, when she saw her! Even Melistra knew. When the girl laid eyes upon the old woman’s frail form, back hunched over a splintered walking stick, she suddenly felt a pang—a reminder of life she had all but forgotten. Through the haze, instinct told her to stand, to remember the stars instead of the dead.
Dangerous feelings. Delusional feelings.
Her daughter died long ago.
When she first beheld those eyes, pale reflections of her father’s bloody gaze, she knew: her daughter was forsaken. When the babe lived to a year, she let herself breathe. Then another year, and another. Six years stolen from She Who Is Death. She let herself dream of their life, just the three of them—proof that life could exist without grief.
The echoing howls of the fey wolves still chased her every Snow Moon.
“You took her,” she whispered to the swirling mists descending from the Lonesome Mount.
She reached to her neck, fingers resting over two small, perfect circular scars. Wincing, she spoke again, voice heavy with sorrow.
“You took him.”
The old woman closed her eyes, fighting to recall the curve of her lover’s crooked smile, the lightness in his loving gaze, and the glint of moonlight against his fair hair. Fewer and fewer details came to her now.
“But you will not take me.”
Her voice faded, throat raw with the effort of speaking. She did it so little now, she half-expected the sound to fail entirely one day. Another part of her decaying but not decayed. Dying but not dead.
“Why torment me with her ghost? Please, have I not even reclaimed but a whisper of your Grace?” She hung her head and wept, tears falling on her hands resting atop her thighs.
Gods were cruel, distant beings, but never so cruel as this.
