She glanced once more at the valley before turning toward the descent. “It’s strange,” she murmured. “The air feels heavier now. Like the mountain’s listening.”
“Then we tread lightly,” he said. “Didn’t the Warden say the wyrms like the sound of hooves, anyway?”
They descended in silence, following the thin track along the mountainside until the slope opened into a shallow basin. At its center ran a narrow stream, its surface frozen smooth, a black thread beneath the ice.
Lain slowed. Her ears twitched toward the faint hum below the surface – the pulse of the wyrm. For the first time since the morning, she could sense its voice faintly, an echo of the song she’d sung. It made her chest ache, half sorrow and half awe.
The day carried on, and finally they reached the trees once more, the snow patchy and pocked with melt. Wind skirled through the rocks, carrying the scent of pine resin and cold stone.
Mallow stopped near a cluster of stunted trees. “We’ll camp here,” he said. “It’s sheltered enough for a fire.”
Lain dropped her pack, flexing her shoulders. “I’ll find wood.”
He nodded, handing her a knife and its sheath from his belt for wood before beginning the work to dig out a circle for a fire.
She walked into the trees, moving easily over the frozen ground. The forest was sparse but familiar, a comfort after so much open snow. She gathered fallen limbs, snapping brittle branches down to size, stacking them under one arm. The smell of resin clung to her fingers, sharp and sweet.
As she bent to reach a half-buried branch, her ears caught voices beneath the wind.
She froze, listening.
Not far away.
Her heart quickened. She lifted her head, turning toward the sound.
Mallow’s voice was one of them.
The others were lower, rougher, words blurred by the trees, but she recognized the cadence of men accustomed to command.
Lain crouched, placing the wood silently on the earth before creeping closer, careful to keep her steps between gusts of wind. Through the thinning pines she caught the flicker of movement: figures in dark cloaks, the glint of steel.
And there, Mallow. Standing apart from them, shoulders tight, hand near his sword.
“...too long, Ren,” one of the strangers said.
The conversation carried, the tone sharp, familiar in a way that made her stomach drop.
She crouched behind a tree, breath shallow, and listened.
“You were supposed to reach us days ago,” the man continued.
“I had delays.” That was Mallow, calm but wary.
“Delays?” Another voice, rougher. “You mean the Kelthi.”
Lain’s pulse stilled.
“You don’t need to worry about her,” Mallow said.
“Oh, but we do. He’s been waiting for his prizes. You’ve collected both, haven’t you? You should have delivered by now. Instead we find you playing shepherd to the goat.”
The silence that followed was long enough that Lain felt it in her throat.
“Hand them over,” the man said.
“I’ll deliver them myself.”
A sharp breath. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I have no orders to pass my task along to you.”
The first man spoke again, softer now, dangerous. “You forget yourself, Ren. The bloodbind isn’t something you walk away from. He owns your name, your life. You swore it in blood.”
Lain’s stomach went cold.
“It’s a vow not even you can break.”
She heard the scrape of steel, a single clean sound that made the fur on her tail rise.
“You’ll regret this,” one of them hissed.
“I regret most things,” Mallow said. His voice had changed to a low certainty, stripped of hesitation. “What’s one more?”
She peered carefully around the tree to catch sight of three men and Mallow.
The men stepped back to form a crescent around him.
Lain’s heart slammed in her chest. Freeze.
The first man lunged. Mallow sidestepped, deflecting with a short twist of the wrist. The movement was efficient, no flourish – he’d been a soldier once, she realized, not just a sellsword. Their blades met again, and again, the rhythm of it steady.
The second came from behind. Mallow pivoted, slashing backward across the man’s thigh. Blood hit the snow like spilled ink. The wounded man went down with a shout, clutching his leg as the air filled with the sickly scent of iron. He writhed in the snow.
The first lunged again but Mallow’s momentum carried him around, his sword opening the first man’s gut in a pulse of red fire, the horrible wrongness of gore spilling from him before his knees hit the ground.
The third advanced, his voice carrying. He was younger than the others had been, fury written keen and hot on his brow. “You can’t run from him,” The young man said. He glanced at his fallen comrades, terrified, but then centered himself again. Mallow could have lunged then, but he didn’t. They circled. “He’ll find you. He always finds what’s his.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Jax,” Mallow said. “Put your sword down. Go home.”
“The Dagorlind took my home from me, and you well know it,” Jax hissed. “They took yours. They took everything from us.”
“Jax, please –”
But the young man lunged. Mallow barely avoided the first swing, ducking under the arc and driving his shoulder into the man’s ribs. The air left him in a grunt. He tossed his elbow and slammed into Mallow’s jaw. When Mallow stumbled back he swung his blade again. The second blow landed a glancing strike to Mallow’s arm, drawing blood. Mallow hissed and staggered away.
Lain’s breath caught in her throat. “Mallow –” she whispered, but the wind carried it off, and she wanted more than anything to leap forward with the blade, but the threatened animal within her said freeze, freeze, be still.
“Don’t make me kill you,” Jax said.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Mallow retorted.
Jax charged. Steel flashed, their swords locked crossguard to crossguard, so close she could see their breath mingling in the air. The other’s strength was greater; Mallow’s boot slid in the crusted snow, heel striking a buried root. For a moment it seemed he’d fall, but then he twisted, letting Jax’s momentum drag them both sideways.
They crashed to the ground, rolled, and came up together. Mallow’s blade caught the other’s mid-swing, turned, and in the same breath, drove upward beneath the man’s guard. The strike was clean, brutal, practiced.
The sound it made was small. Just a soft exhale as Jax’s knees buckled.
Jax fell to one side, blood smoking in the cold.
Mallow turned to the one still writhing in the snow, hands pressed tight over his bleeding thigh. He’d belted the wound, and was trying to elevate the leg, but the pain must be immense.
“Ren,” the man said, his voice a quaver, the air ripe with blood and fear and sweat.
“I’m sorry, Gregor,” Mallow said, with true remorse in his voice.
“Please. I must tell you –” Gregor gasped.
Mallow dropped to a knee and took Gregor’s hand. Gregor lifted his head to speak. Mallow bent down until Gregor’s mouth was at his ear. He whispered something Lain couldn’t make out. Mallow’s eyes widened.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“You’re certain?”
Gregor nodded. “I – I –” but he couldn’t speak.
Mallow examined his wound. “Artery. You’re bleeding out.”
Gregor moaned with pain. Mallow stood once more.
“I’ll make it quick, old friend.”
Mallow brought his sword down, severing Gregor’s neck.
The man kicked once, and was still.
Mallow staggered, breath ragged. He wiped his sword on Gregor’s cloak, sheathed it, then stood. His shoulders trembled once, then went still again.
Lain’s Tuning ached with the echo of his pain. She rose from her hiding place, hooves whispering against the frost. “Mallow.”
He turned sharply, sword half-drawn before he realized it was her. His eyes – too bright, too wild – met hers.
“You shouldn’t have seen that,” he said hoarsely.
She went to him, put her hand to his injured arm.
“Lain, no –”
She was already singing, the air echoing with the tune of healing. Her hand sizzled with warmth, binding his wound closed before he could protest again.
He flinched as the heat of her song faded, the skin closing clean over the cut. The blood on his sleeve had already dried to rust.
“Don’t do that,” he said.
“You were bleeding.”
“Let me bleed, then.” He turned from her, running a hand through his hair. His fingers came away streaked with blood. “You shouldn’t have heard that.”
“You shouldn’t be fighting men who call you Ren.”
He froze. The muscles in his shoulders went tight, as if the sound of the name itself struck him.
“Tell me who they were,” she said.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Mallow.”
“Don’t –” his voice broke. He turned, and the look on his face made her take a step back. Grief and fury knotted together behind his eyes. “Lain, we can’t do this. We can’t keep traveling together. I’m leaving, and you’re going back to Vaelun.”
The silence fell hard and fast between them.
Lain’s question came out soft, hardly a whisper. “What?”
He took a deep breath, his eyes skittering away from her to scan the horizon. “I said you should go back to Vaelun. They’ll keep you safe there.”
She balked. “What? No, I must return to Ivath. To save the Underserpent.”
“You have to give up on that. You have to let me go.”
“Why would I leave you?”
He drew in a long breath. “You don’t understand. These men came here for you. To collect you, and the Starbloom. If you follow me, they’ll find us both.”
“How could that be?”
He tore his sleeve up to reveal the mark on his wrist: the almond shaped eye, with a slitted pupil, its end dripping down in a single red drop. “I’m bloodbound. Veinwraught. It means I can’t hide. Not from him. And you –” He looked at her again, something breaking loose in his face. “You’ll only get killed.”
She couldn’t wrap her mind around what he was saying. None of this made sense to her. “Why are they after me?”
Mallow shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters!”
“All that matters is that if you stay with me, they’ll catch you.”
“Are they working for the Dagorlind?”
“No.”
“Then who are they? Why do they know I’m with you?”
His face hardened as the truth came forth. “I was meant to deliver you. You and that flower you carry in your pack. That was the job. The last one I ever took.”
The words struck like stones. “Deliver me to who?”
He didn’t answer. He looked down at Jax’s body instead, the blood spreading beneath the young man’s cheek. “To the man who’s been hunting your kind for years. Morgan Balthir.”
The name hung heavy between them.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lain said, grasping at anything that could shield her from this. “We met on the road. We met at random, at an inn –”
“Why do you think I was so far south?” he said. “I was going to Ivath. I was trying to capture a Glinnel, so I could take one north and get the starbloom for Morgan. It was only my dumb luck I ran into you.”
“Why?” Lain asked, barely a whisper. “Why are you doing this?”
“He promised me justice.”
Her breath caught. “Justice for what?”
“For her.” He looked up, his voice softening like a dagger. “For Mereth. The Kelthi girl I told you about. The one I loved.”
Lain’s stomach dropped. “You said you let her go.”
“I did. When you –” he stopped, swallowed, forced the words out like coughing up splinters. “When the Dagorlind sent an earthquake through the bay. Lethen Bay. Five years ago. They said it was divine judgement, that the Underserpent was cleansing the coast. Did you know you were cleansing the coast, Little Hooves?”
She flinched. “Mal –”
“You killed hundreds of us. Her family. My family. All the Kelthi who’d fled there. I was just coming back from patrol, one of my first. I came over the ridge when the whole earth began to shake. I saw the bay fall into the sea. I lost everyone in an instant. My mother, my father, my brother. Mereth, and both her parents. My entire village, swallowed.”
She stared at him, feeling suddenly as if she’d plunged through icy water. “I didn’t know –”
“Of course you didn’t,” he hissed. “You were still in your cloister, singing hymns for the god you want to free.”
Her throat closed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. If I’d known…”
He stared at her.
“Mal,” she pleaded. “You know I would’ve done something different.”
He looked at her then, really looked, as if he was seeing her for the first time and losing her all at once. “You’re Bellborn, Lain. A Glinnel. You’re the voice they used. The voice that kills.”
She flinched as if struck. “You think I wanted that? You think I wanted –”
“Don’t.” He stepped back. “Don’t make me believe you’re innocent. I can’t afford to. And you can’t go back there, now. The Dagorlind want you dead. Morgan’s men would have you killed, too. Morgan is going to Ivath, to bring down the Spire. What happens when they find you among them? The Bellborn that’s destroyed all the world around her?”
“Mal, please. You have to help me. We have to stop them.”
“Don’t you understand? If you go there, you’ll be a walking target. Morgan wishes to use you, to use the Underserpent as a weapon to destroy the Dagorlind. And the Dagorlind would have you killed on the spot.”
“We’ll make a plan,” Lain said. “There are hidden passages – secret ways to enter the Spire. If we go together –”
“I came here to kill your god, Lain. I want the Underserpent dead.”
She froze. “You don’t mean that.”
“I’ll kill them all. Your friends. Your Elder Tanel. I’ll kill them if it means the wyrm dies, too. I’ve killed my own friends for less.” He waved at the fallen me around him.
The silence that followed was brutal. The snow began to fall again, light, slow flakes that stuck in her hair and melted down her neck.
“You don’t mean that,” she said, her voice faint. “You can’t. I won’t hear it.”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the warmth that had once been there was gone.
“Then hear this,” he said, his voice like gravel. “I don’t love you.”
She stared at him. For a moment she didn’t even feel it, just heard the sound of it hanging in the air, cruel and cold as the wind. Then the meaning hit, and her heart stuttered.
Her tail lashed once, sharp and wounded. “You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” His face was unreadable now, mask settling back into place. “You were a job. I got soft. I won’t make that mistake again. Forget about Ivath. Go back to Vaelun. Go home.”
He started walking before she could answer, boots crushing the snow, shoulders set like a man who’d already chosen his road. The space between them lengthened with every step and the world narrowed to the rough scrape of his soles and the small, awful sound of her own breath.
“Mallow –” her voice came out raw. She sprang after him, hooves thudding in the drift. “Don’t go.”
He didn’t slow. He kept his back to her, every line of him closed off. “Lain,” he said without turning. “Don’t make this harder.”
She reached out, fingers brushing the tail of his mantle, the contact a prayer and a plea. He stopped then, a single, hard halt that sent a little silence ripping through the air.
“Stay,” she begged.
He looked at her, and in his eyes she read the tired map of a man who’d buried too many names. For a strange breath she thought he would come to her, that the tenderness that had helped them through all these days would override the ruin he carried. Then his mouth tightened.
“You shouldn’t have been born with that Tuning in the first place,” he said. His words were flat, final.
“What?” She stepped toward him. It couldn’t be true. She would know through her Tuning if he would touch her. She would be able to feel it. “Mal, please. I love you.”
His voice fell off, emotionless. “Terrible choice, really.”
“I don’t understand.” She reached for him again.
He raised a hand to ward her off. “Don’t touch me.”
But she couldn’t give him up. Not like this. She reached a final time.
He brushed her arm aside and struck her chest with an open palm.
It was a shove, not large – only enough to unbalance her – but it sent her stumbling back over the crust of snow. Her hooves skittered; for a second the world tipped, and she hit the ground.
She thought she felt an instant of regret through the Tuning; she thought he would take her hand, and help her up, and tell her he was sorry.
But his brow went dark.
“I said don’t touch me, slewfoot,” he spat, and the word fell between them like stone.
It was a harder hit than the shove. Slewfoot – slewfoot – an old, small cruelty, a name meant to strip her down to the thing others had always thought of her. To tell her she was just an animal.
The bond that had thrummed like a rope between their chests vibrated once and then slackened.
She felt it go: a cold, bright unwinding, deep in her ribs. The part of her that had known his breath inside her bones blinked and fell away. For a breathless moment she was both hollow and raw, a bell with its clapper gone.
He gasped at the loss of it, hand flying to his chest for one breath. But then he looked up, panting as he straightened.
“See?” he whispered, hoarsely. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
She mewled, almost spoke, but no words came. Freeze.
“You should leave this place,” he said. “There might be Bloodwyrms in this area.” He turned and walked on, the scrape of his boots a retreating drum.
Snow swallowed his figure, and by the time she got to her feet again he was a dark shape blurred at the edge of the pines.
He did not look back.
Lain slid to the snow, palms pressed into the cold. Tears blurred the white of it. Her bell – small and ridiculous against this vast landscape – hung heavy in her bandolier, its ceramic a dull echo of everything she’d just lost.
She called, once, giving the wind his name with a broken voice.
No answer came but the hollow whisper of the trees, and the valley seemed suddenly too large, too full of all the things the world could take.