Join me in night painted with crimson and black.

His limbs took the color of a coal, the flames sinking deep through every pore, to reside in his flesh, sipping blood and replacing it with pain.

Only pain. Cruel, beautiful, ugly and glorious pain.

Burning in his mind and in his tendons. Unquenched fire, which was eating him alive, making him scream in his mind, unable to open a molten mouth, trapped in the prison of his own body.

His black eyes becoming ink, boiling in his skull, seeing things only gods could withstand and not become mad.

It drilled with suffering into his spine, to drink from it and pull every string of his on a hot spool.

This was the price.

A price he agreed to pay.

When he woke up, sweat on his neck and chest, it still lingered in him, promising another day of liquid death. Another day of pain changed into something beautiful… something to yearn for…

Nymre slept next to him, her white, slightly lilac hair scattered on the pillow, her naked limbs splayed  in a pose of complete trust. He could see her breasts, heaving in the darkness, beautiful and always tempting. Her body, youthful and perfect, couldn’t soothe the whirlwind that captured his thoughts and crashed them over hard rocks.

If she knew.

She would want to help. She would want to offer him relief, which he could never receive.

He would start to loathe her and her pity. Her knowledge of his weakness.

They were together for three hundreds of years. Long time. Very long  He was aware how she sees him, sometimes – a lord ruling over her life, sometimes – her property, her eternal lover. Mixed in one, until nothing looked at it seemed. She thought she was his only woman, for all this time. For three hundreds of years. But no, his desires were going further, hungry as famished wolf. When his world was filled with burning suffering, which was making his life a living nightmare, he needed… even more.

She would never understand.

And he would never want to harm her.

Not her. Not after so many years.

Leira.

Curse it. He felt it, this want, this dull roar of desire. He wanted her body, pressed tightly to his, hear her soft voice urging him to take her.

He needed her strength and stuborness, he needed her inner power. Her will to survive and her fire. The thoughts of her were rubbing his constant hunger.

He wanted to fill her with dark. Offer her the night, in which she could bloom for him.

His hands still trembled from the intensity of the pain that engulfed him in his sleep. He could stop that. He could stop bathing in god’s blood. Stop sipping power, stop it all. But he knew that now, at this point… he couldn’t. It was a trap that was closing more and more over him. He needed their delicious, hot blood, their flesh and soul, to continue living. And the gods, even in their sleep, knew that.

And if he stopped… they would awake. Taking magic from all the fae. Making them die a painful death, separated from their spells, from their life force. From their essence.

Making him die. And he wanted to live.

He didn’t plan to die. And he didn’t plan to allow anyone to kill Nymre. He didn’t plan to sentence her to death. Even if it all, their life filled with bigger and smaller lies was not perfect, he adored this life and needed it. Absolutely. The life, the world, it all belonged to him.

And he was hungry for power and desire running through his veins. He loved it, that when he was passing them, they felt fear and awe. His glamour and enchantment were stronger and stronger, as the god’s strength was filling him, every second and every hour.

But the pain was stronger too. With each bath, with each sip, he was suffering more.

This feeling had its price. And he wanted it, even if doubts were sinking deep, when the strongest tides of anguish were coming, taking his will and changing him into…

… what?

He never was afraid, in his whole long life. He didn’t plan now too.

If that young and naive human will continue to prolong it, he will remind him what awaits him and what awaits his sister. His sweet little sister, even more naive, even more capable of louds screams.

He needed him here. His patience was limited. Each day reminded him what choice he made and what he still had to do.

A sigh from his side broke his trail of thoughts.

Nymre looked at him, her big, beautiful blue eyes gazing into his face. Her raven mask was present even when she rested. Her hand reached to him and landed on his chest, with a lazy gesture.

“You are all in sweat” she murmured, half asleep, half awake.

He caught her hand, far from his skin. Her touch somehow awoken something that resided even deeper in him. Craving mixed with hate. For all what he became. For all what he will still need to become.

For all he could become, if he chose different paths.

He loved the power though, and loved the bloody strings connected with it. He wanted to hang the world on the blood-soaked ropes and order it to dance to the drums of his enchantment. To the hearts beating at unison, deep sound of fear – fear he would instill in their minds and souls. That, was the most delightful rapture. That was the most delicious treat.

“Sleep” his tone was harsher than he planned. She was too dazed to catch this change, though. Her hand wriggled from his grasp, fell over his abdomen and landed lower, unconsciously, just where he was always liking most. Where he was always even too hungry. Addicted to touch and pressure.

And… he loved it.

He closed his eyes, the pain still circling in his body, when Nymre moved closer. Very close. All he felt merged in him into beautiful and dangerous river of raw sensations.

He slowly took her hand and moved it, elsewhere. He didn’t need it now. No. He did need it, but his mind didn’t. Not where his flesh still pulsed with pain.

If he had choice…

… but his choices were scarce.

And the light could come much sooner, burning his eyes out, replacing the Shadow with the brightness of the sun.

Taking away winter, tearing it from his grasp, and pushing spring into his gaping throat.

The sun was going to set completely in the next half an hour.

Tiyan could feel almost touchable tension in Ona. She strode with wide steps, which he would have hard to keep up to, if not his longer legs. At the same time, she was silent, even more than before. Tiyan could easily see that she got lost completely in whatever her thoughts were circling around. She didn’t even graced him with one look, but her gaze was washing over each larger bough, each steep slope that could hide… something.

Tiyan observed that Ona, when anxious, loses every will to talk, she just concentrates on the path, possibly mulling over what she could do differently – or, what may await them. She was similar to him in that. He preferred to not talk about what torments him. To hide his worry, so others didn’t see it. He very often felt helpless, but he liked to deal with it at own pace. Yet, somehow, Ona’s silence was unnerving him. She was almost always more talkative. Last days proved that she can be quiet like stone.

The burned forest gave way to open space. Before, it probably was a meadow, now the ground was covered with thick snow, which will probably catch their feet and slow them down. Thinking about the beast they left behind, being so easily visible from afar, with snow everywhere, which could turn their possible escape into a broken mess, Tiyan felt as if something grew in him. A tree of doubt, a root of fear.

“I feel like we took the worst possible path” he rose a brow, his tone not even inquisitive. It had the strength of all his frustration that piled up since they saw the circle made of animal bodies. It boiled in him, this undone, which he would even prefer to take on his chest. He almost felt the eyes on an unknown creature on his back. And judging from tense expression of Ona, she did too.

She looked at him, first time in a long. Her skin was this time paler under the paint. Suddenly Tiyan was attacked by an odd thought – if she paints it all over again while he sleeps. It never was coming off. Like plastered to her face.

“I was sure we did well” she replied, her eyes narrowed, wind tossing snow at her, which looked like freckles on her black make-up. “But this open meadow doesn’t look good.”

“Honestly? It looks like a plate.”

Ona nodded. Serious nod. With a stern face, which in incoming darkness looked even more ominous.

“We could come back. But I sense it would be even more stupid. We need to leave this meadow and dive into the woods, there” she pointed at the mass of the trees that silhouetted in the faint light. “We need to rest… and I need to set up few traps.”

Traps. Of course. She indeed felt the invisible eyes on them. When you hunt long enough, you start learning it, like sixth sense.

“We will become hunters instead of the prey” he muttered to himself, but Ona looked like she heard it – she nodded almost invisibly.

They left the forest of burnt-out trunks and started to wade through the snow. It was ridiculous but completely predictable, that in open space snow will be more prominent. That understanding didn’t ease Tiyan’s muscles and heart, though.

They didn’t even pass the fourth part of the way, when a howl pierced the air.

Ona stood like petrified. Tiyan stopped in a midstep.

The howl was not pained, like rotten wolf’s one. It was filled with morbid joy – whatever made this sound, it did it for purpose, to let its prey know its there. To make them fear. It faded quickly, to sound again,  this time longer, finished with an amused, cruel cackle.

Ona looked at Tiyan. He gazed at her and he knew, just knew his face is even paler than hers.

Now, Tiyan would prefer it to be Fae. Because with them he could bargain, supporting himself on the fact that he is awaited in Ain’asel. He could tell them that the Shadow won’t like it if they killed him, or took any body part from him – which could be after all very vital to Shadow’s needs. Of course he knew nothing of his purpose. But there was still hope, if they met them. Even for Ona, is he persuaded them, that he needs her to survive on the road.

This… this was like a bad dream. Caught on an open meadow in a falling darkness, only two people, with a wild beast lurking not far from them. He thought if Ona often was in such a situation, and something told him that yes. And that… she never got used to it.

They resumed walking silently, now Tiyan keeping up to her much better. The darkness crept slowly over them, changing distant trees into massive bodies only awaiting their misstep. The stars, well-known constellations, spread over dark sky and soon, the moon and them, were an only light that shone over their snowy path.

As the time passed and the tree group wasn’t closer, they stopped looking at each other again, their steps turning faster and faster, until they started to almost run, feeling the eyes of the night on their backs. Faster. As much as snow allowed. As much as cold around them allowed to their lungs. Tiyan felt as the chill creeps into him and freezes inside, like  pools filled with wintery water. His lungs soon started to hurt.

He also felt as his heart beat even quicker than his steps, and the sweat under his cap and pounding panic in his whole body. If Ona was running, they had to be in deadly danger; he allowed her to lead and choose the best path. Clearest and shortest.

They passed half the way. And then Ona turned to him and the sound reached him, like cracking ice, and snow, and heavy thumps, like a sharp yoik. Something landed near them, and Ona tossed him on the side, like he was not a grown up man but a rag doll.

“Fuck” he groaned, when he fell on his knees and buried with his hands in the freezing snow, additionally peeling skin on both of them.

When he turned to Ona, though, he quickly forgot about his hands.

Between them, a large beast rose, larger than them both. Silent like a cloud promising rain and lightning. Its black skin was glistening in the night light, large part of it covered with sicklish rot, moss growing on its stomach and legs. It smelled, awfully, like decomposing corpses. And stood on two legs, while it walked slowly to Ona.

The huntress didn’t attack first, watching its moves, like she calculated where to go through its defence of long sharp talons and deadly teeth. But even she didn’t expect what happened. The beast fixed its maw in something that just had to be a smile and tossed something under Ona’s feet.

Tiyan had sharp eyes so he immediately recognized it.

Small, maimed body of a squirrel, half flayed with a precise talon.

Tiyan felt as his limbs became weaker. That was the fey beast.

And they probably had no chance against it.

He pulled the knife, hoping his experience in hunting will be enough to fend himself. And the creature slowly, very slowly, turned to him. Its maw still grinning viciously, when it put one talon into its mouth and licked it from squirrel blood.

Damn. That was sick, Tiyan thought. His gaze met the dark eyes of the beast, and he saw in them twisted hunger and something more, something darker… the pain mixed with strange enjoyment. A mad eyes of something lost.

Ona attacked from behind, while the creature looked distracted, her fingers catching in the thick fur, sliding a bit over rotting skin. Her right hand piercing the back of the beast with a long knife. It buried with a loud smack into fungi infested flesh. Tearing sound added to it, when the back splintered, to show the open bones. Ona pushed deeper, slicing further.

Oh goddess. The rot was reaching deep.

Maybe they have a chance.

The beast turned back and almost casually grabbed her by her neck, raising her up, effortessly. It tossed her on the side, with a wide grin, like the wound she made was only a slight laceration. Like keeping her for later. Ona groaned lowly when she met the ground – snow allowing her to not break anything. She rolled over  as soon as she met the earth, to amortize the fall, and dragged up, to reach for the bow, fast, fast movement. She was in a good distance to shoot, her eyes fixed on the beast, gleaming with unnatural glint in the moonlit darkness. She swallowed, hard. Her neck stained with blood in place where talons scratched, like prolongation of her face paint.

The animal howled, deafingly, in pure rage and completely forgetting Ona, it threw itself onTiyan, choosing him over her in time of one breath. It reached him in even less, fast, faster than its state should’ve allowed.

Ona saw her chance. She pulled her arrow with deadly efficiency, not wondering why the beast just left her aside, and taking the bow, she drew the arrow on a string. Aimed, all in a few seconds too.

For him though, all felt like in slow motion. The fey beast jumped on Tiyan, so slowly, like it was falling on him for hours. Tiyan lost balance, his knife fell off his hand. His breath choked him, when the beast started to dig into his clothes. Tiyan wanted to pull the dagger, but the creature pinned the hand that held it to the ground.

Ona fired for the first time. Her hands sure, not shaking.

The beast seemed to only barely acknowledge the arrow which stung in its arm, trying to tear Tiyan’s clothes. Was was that, a frantic thought passed his mind. What it is even doing. He tried to push the large head which dripped with saliva, but it grabbed his other hand too, and pinned them both behind his head with one paw, in a parody of a lover’s hold. Tiyan wanted to scream, do something, toss or try to free his hands, but he found himself almost enchanted by the fire in the beast’s eyes, and its work over his clothes. It felt like it wants to dig its way to his flesh, but also odd, strange, almost personal. A cry of protest caught in his throat.

At las it found what it was looking for. Tiyan realized that the beast looked straight at his mark, which was so similar to the pendant he got from Mina, a burnt-out scar. It looked at it, with odd intelligence in his eyes and growled; a dangerous, repressed, low sound. Its eyes alight, with hating flame. Like it hated the mark more than it hated him, or humans. Or anything.

It seemed like it had to look at it, tempted by it, almost allured, lighting it own hatred, before it shreds him to pieces.

It reached his chest, just when the scar was.

It was about to bury its claws into it, also, like in slow motion.

And then, Ona’s arrow pierced its heart from behind, just through the bones, in a place where her knife wounded it before. 

The beast screamed. It was pure scream, human one, pained, disappointed. Hurt. Tiyan, freeing his hands from the almost intimate grasp, crawled back, in shock. He looked at his chest, almost sure he’ll find an open wound, but nothing indicated the beast managed to harm him.

Ona was slowly approaching, like she knew that the creature can’t harm anyone. Not now. She reached the fey beast which was now shaking in death throes, like a puppet on a string, and grabbing it by the fur in its neck, she slit its throat, deep, scraping againts the spine. She needed few cuts to get through thick skin, which on its neck wasn’t that devoured by fungi, but when the knife scratched on bone, Ona growled in relief, her voice so similar to the animal’s one. Blood gushed, thick and dark – looking black in the dark.

The sound the beast made, Tiyan would remember for long years to come – not exactly pained. rather disappointed, that it didn’t manage to kill him. A funeral dirge for itself, filled with longing.

And it thumped on the ground, its head completely sinking in the snow.

Ona looked at Tiyan with a specific, undeciphered expression, in the darkness she looked for a moment unnatural, wild and haunted.

“It wanted you. Deeply” she uttered, now allowing tension to creep into her voice, making her lose the dark aura. “And we are alive thanks to that.”

Tiyan didn’t know if he was happy about it.

But he definitely was happy to not be dead.

They threaded the now completely barren forest. It looked like it was burned long ago – Ona became even more silent, cutting through the snow banks with mute obstinacy. Tiyan followed her like a ghost – two small human shapes among curled trees, standing in the frozen ground like sore thumbs.

All the time, Tiyan wondered when the Will-o’-the-Wisps would appear. They were going in more or less south, Ona was certain, but Tiyan felt more and more that he does something wrong.  His inner compass was telling him they do, something whispered to him, that he should start searching elsewhere. That soon he will have to make up his mind… if wandering fires won’t appear. Mina circled in his mind almost all the time, his guts squeezed with worry. It was the sixth day and the landscape looked almost the same – aside of the road, which was showing beautifully damaged remains in form of signposts loosely hanging on nails and foundations of once cozy inns. But who knows how to find an entrance to the enchanted land? It could be hidden so well, he will never be able to find it.

He heard of humans who wandered close to Ain’asel. They never saw the path, or signs – they were just finding themselves under a completely different sky. No stars known to travelers, unknown constellations and even snow gleamed with different light. Few of them returned. They were sure it was a curse, being again in the reality of the humans. They were going mad in the end, but all confesed before that, that the sky… it was not a human sky, too close to the land, like it was about to press them against the earth. Something to ponder about, Tiyan thought bitterly.

Ona was silent, silent like a stone, but he was aware that she was not angry. Her own demons pulled her strings, and he respected that. When he was starting to talk, Ona of course talked back.  But there was something in her, some worry and hurry. Tiyan was thinking about the favor she would one day ask for.

With wind in the face – strong and not stopped by the thicker trees, they had snow under caps and wraps, which bit them just in the skin, melting under their jackets. The weather was even more working up on Ona, who looked like she was about to bite through the path, with teeth in the trees and arms squeezing life from the wind.

He couldn’t not admire her. She reminded him of hunters from his childhood, the ones who he looked up for. Nayarala… Seph, Kofen. They were village legends. He was sure they were widely known, but when he grew up, he understood, the hunters, just like other people, were silent and unknown heroes of everyday life. They weren’t killing dragons, or saving women from the castles guarded by evil spirits. They were mothers, fathers, daughters and sons. But they were taking life as it was, trying to beat it in its own game.

Ona was like that too.

When he was going to sleep, he was thinking about Noyd. A lot. What she would say seeing him in the company of Ona. If she would like her, or she would consider him reckless trusting his life so much to an unknown traveler. Afterall, he was sleeping tightly as she guarded him. She could pierce him with her knife so easily. She could choke him to death. But he felt that he could trust her. She was not a changeling in disguise, she was not a deadling or maddened faeborn. She was… Ona.

He felt safe near her.

And knew that Noyd wouldn’t like it. Even if nothing really was happening. Noyd was never jealous, but still, Tiyan left her, joining another. Sleeping with her between same walls. Actually liking her.

She was sad, when he decided to not spoil their friendship with romance. But when he said goodbye to Noyd, he knew, after their first despearate lovemaking, nothing will be ever the same. Something changed between them, irrevocably. And he knew that for the better.

But he has always feared. He feared that he may lose her.

Stupid, you are stupid. Now, you can never see her again. Now, you can die under unknown stars, pressed to the ground by crepuscular darkness. And you’ll never tell her… that you are not just her friend. That you feel more… much more.

Ona didn’t know about Noyd, but he was sure she would just shrug. Ona was not endangering Noyd in any way and they both knew that.

But that wasn’t making feel better. For leaving her. For being a fool. For pretending they can be only friends, while his heart already spoke. In dark times, at least this should be easier.

He stumbled just on standing Ona, almost falling in the snow.

“What’s going on?” he said almost bluntly, trying for his voice to be louder than the wind.

Ona showed him.

There was blood on the snow. A lot of blood.

And small body parts.

Maybe belonging to squirrels or other small animals, a lot of them. Torn from the bodies with vicious precision, half-maimed; visible bones; wounds done purposefully and with cruel aim, corpses laying on blood-stained ground, making a perfect circle.

Tiyan did not have the healthiest expression, because Ona had to add.

“Do not puke. That would be unwise.”

Tiyan almost asked why, but of course. Whoever or whatever came through here, and left this carcass, surely could still be very close. Throwing up would leave traces, intense scent. Besides… she underestimated him, he was definitely not going to throw up.

He huffed, warm air leaving his nostrils and dissipating with a cloud in the air.

“Do you think… we should take a different path…?”

“Yes, ” Ona agreed. “You know that this—” she showed the squirrels or whatever it was. “— was specially put that way?”

Tiyan nodded. Of course. This was more than obvious.

“I may be guessing what it is. And for us, it would be better to not attract it.”

“How do you know?” Tiyan decided to be more inquisitive.

“It may be faeries… or that. Both options are bad. But I truly doubt the fey did that. They usually prefer humans over small creatures.”

She kneeled near the laying bodies, her finger slid through the bloody mess. She showed him the index – it was tinted with whitish substance, with slightly green shade. Tiyan quickly thought that it looks like saliva.

“I am sure we can try to avoid both” she stated. “If it’s fey, we have less chances, But if it’s what I think, it doesn’t look good too.”

Not saying anything more, she cleaned the fingers in the snow and standing up, she looked with a piercing gaze into the trees shapes in the distance, a seemingly burned trunks. The light circling her sithouette with a bright outline. She looked like embraced by halo for a moment.

“The sun is still high. We should go around the road” her voice muffled by scarves… or worry.

She seemed so collected, almost cold but Tiyan felt it’s a pose. And it were not her words that worried him more, but expresssion, subtle body talk. It was first time he saw her that alert. Frightened. But concealing it deeply to not show anything. But he was – suprisingly – a good observer. Her eyes were drifting around in visible anxiety, and she twice rubbed her forehead, something which was typical for his father too, when he was worried.

“You surely know what you are doing” Tiyan really thought so. But each longer path meant lost time. He didn’t know if to hate the one who killed those squirrels… or Ona for being reasonable.

Mina. He should go faster.

A crooked grin from Ona indicated that she finds him even greener than before.

“So, maybe tell me from what do we run? Because we certainly run.”

“Have you heard about the fey beasts?”

Tiyan didn’t. It slightly angered him, that he never cared to learn more. He would be able to carry himself in the wilderness much better.

“Magic. It’s all magic, vile and uncontrolled. It can change animals into rotting balls of pain… but sometimes, it works on their minds too. It can madden them…or give them both madness and almost human intelligence. Then they are furious, and calculating, wanting to take revenge on the world. They are so dangerous that we call them fey beasts. They can plan and think.”

Tiyan imagined an beast, angry, vengeance-driven… a perfect killer who likes to cause pain and knows how to do it. Intelligent. Puruser with skills. And… slightly mad. It was actually a nightmare, so Tiyan decided that indeed, it would be better to not enter its territory.

Additionally, it hit him how much Ona knows. Like she met one of them in the past… and took her time to understand it.

“But why it…” he waved at the remains, trying to just forget how maimed they were. “Why all of this? I don’t see sense, aside of marking its territory.”

A cursed suspicion wormed its way to his brain. Painful in its simplicity.

“Perhaps. Or its some kind of rite. Understandable only for them.”

Say it. You don’t need to protect me. I am not a child.

“It’s not the first time, yes? You didn’t only hear about them” more a statement than a question.

“I met one… once. And back then.. one of them did… similar thing. Not the same… similar. That’s why I doubt it’s lesser folk. But since then… a lot changed” Ona fixed her scarves, her eyes drifting worryingly in the sun’s direction, lingering for a bit on the brightness.

“You’ll lose your eyes,” fired Tiyan.

“So they say,” smiled darkly Ona. “We may hurry. These remains are very fresh. I don’t want to still be around when the night falls.”

Better hurry indeed. Mina can scream. She might be in pain.

The two bundled shapes changed direction, aiming just into the seemingly burned forest on the other side of the road, hoping that if they circle the territory slightly, they might not meet the death.

What is we attracted this beast long ago? What is it killed these animals to show us it knows?

And he felt, no, he knew, that Ona is aware of that too. Maybe has a plan, maybe not.

But hopes it’ not true.

The grove was as silent, lulled to sleep by lack of any sound. A hushed cocoon of stillness enveloped it like a thick cloth. White and pale, an autumn gossamer, but cold and frozen in time. The trees reached up to the sky like black towers, high and thick. But they were not barren. Not devoid of colors. They were blooming with leaves, in the heart of harsh winter. Emerald and thriving, but silent like this whole place.

Perhaps this grove was both alive and dead, just like the village.

Each of the trees grew out of a puddle of dirt and mud. Like plants on a windowsill, Alina was growing before winter came. She tended to them daily, adding water. These trees looked as if they were growing in a nurturing pot.

Do not come closer.

You know it’s magic.

And magic won’t make you any different from any other human, it will just swallow you up, as it always does.

The air here was thick and heavy, like molten silver. Leaves and small, blood-red flowers growing from the branches appeared to be laughing at winter, defying it with colour and life. It would be a hopeful sight if he didn’t know that spring and summer had no place in Avras. If the green was here, it was not a good sign. It was a promise of danger, or at least a trick.

The scent was peculiar too… like old foliage left to decompose, far from sun and light. Wet, somehow sticking to the skin. Like remains of something that drowned in ocean and drifted on the bank, to rot there.

He walked slowly past the trees. Something drew him in, like an inappropriate feeling of safety and peace that he tried to ignore, but… it was still there, whispering to his ear.

The scent of decay became stronger as he entered deeper between the trees. Tiyan couldn’t tell what exuded it, as the place was beaming with sunlit beauty.

At that point, he could swear he saw movement, close to the trunk of the nearest tree. But when he turned, no one was there. The trees stood in hush, no wind in the branches, not even a murmur of the leaves.

No one and nothing… until he looked closer. Until he deciphered the shapes. Until he saw the reason of the wet scent.

Tiyan felt his heart sink. He felt a sudden rush of blood to his face.

In the tree…

… It was the heart, dark crimson, almost black. Almost invisible between the bark… but still beating, still alive. Ona caught up with him, but Tiyan, driven by a morbid curiosity, drew closer, as if pulled by a string.

The heart was melted into the tree, connected to it by veins that still seemed to pump blood. Tiyan’s gaze began to take in the whole scene, with a terrifying clarity.

The veins led to the body. Scattered under the bark, hands not connected to the torso, but held together by lonely tendons, pulled hard between the wood, stretched so tightly, that the bark was biting deep into them; but not breaking.

And there, above… a face.  Only eyes and mouth were visible, but it was a human face. They looked just at him, their lips moving. And they let out a powerless sigh.

Tiyan bumped into Ona and backed away, his face pale. Ona followed his gaze and made a low, choked sound.

And it dawned on them as they embraced the entire grove that every tree held a human captive, every tree fed on them.
The puddle under the trunks was not just mud.

It was old blood.

“Damn it!” Tiyan propped himself on his knees and tried to compose himself. Ona’s hand drifted to the melted bark, but didn’t touch it. The whole grove laughed grotesquely at life. Taking and pumping it into its own system.

She took a breath… and exhaled. And once again. And again.

“The whole… village must be here,” she said in a dull voice.

Tiyan’s eyes seemed slightly unfocused as she looked at his face.

“We should leave as soon as possible,” she continued. The silence of this place was deafening.

“Not even to help them? They suffer, for goddess’ sake!” Tiyan sounded more aggressive. Ona though it must be the shock.

“How?” there was an irony in her own voice that she hadn’t intended. “You want to rip them off and put them back together again?”

Tiyan knew it would be futile. Only magic kept them alive, for whatever sick reason the Fae kept them here. Probably for fun. They always do it for fun. The humans were too deeply fused, and they had no suitable weapon or tool to rip the trees in half – even if it did offer the captives the relief of death.

“I hate this.”

“I know. I do too.”

“Ona…”

“I know.”

“Do you think they are still here?”

“The Fae? Perhaps. I don’t plan to be here long enough to check. Or we want to join these people.”

These humans were lost and Tiyan had a purpose, not to let them do this to Mina. To get her out of those cruel claws. She was the most important thing now, she was the reason he didn’t give up and drown in grief.

And the villagers… are already dead. Even if they felt life in every fibre of their being.

They left silently, their souls as heavy as their steps. Their feet buried in the snow, in places where the cursed trees hadn’t sent their roots. Tiyan could swear he could still hear the moans of the humans trapped within the bark… but their lips were still. Like a macabre still life painted by a twisted artist.

They were both almost certain that the Fae had already left this village. They didn’t even seem to stay to feed their eyes with suffering. Who knew how long these people had been exposed to it. Perhaps days… or years. Tiyan couldn’t imagine the latter.

The houses in the city looked even more empty, even more abandoned now. A silent altar to the life that had once been here, even if it had been hard and dangerous, still a life. No imitation of it.

Ona watched Tiyan all the way down the steep slope. He was holding up well, but she could see the pain on his face. He had lost his family too, not long ago. She didn’t know how they were killed or how he found them. But the scene in the grove had to remind him of them. The wound was too fresh, too wide open.

Maybe she hadn’t known him long, but he had lost his sister. And Ona could relate to that.

Being pushed and forced to act, not even being able to experience grief, might have seemed better for a short time. But later it came like an avalanche, leaving even more shattered feelings, crashing against the soul with delayed pain.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t feel the need to. Tiyan was hit by loss, maybe not with full force… but hard enough to feel it.

The village was soon left behind, with all its magic, all its suffering, all its memories. And they had to move on. Both from here and with their own losses. Ona just hoped they wouldn’t be too late, as they were too late for these people.

The wind began to blow again, as if the enchanted bubble had released it from its influence. The biting cold now stung like a famished predator. But it was better.

Better than silence.

Tiyan’s cheeks immediately reddened. But she knew that he was pale inside, at least until he had finished fighting his own demons.

And that… would take time.

With silent intensity, the snow began to fall. Ona buried the signs of the fire and together they turned the snow house into an unrecognisable drift. Tiyan slept poorly, plagued by elusive nightmares, but he was aware that Ona didn’t sleep at all. She was like a magical being – as offensive as that sounded to her. Tiyan wondered under what circumstances she had learned to survive so well, and what tragedies had made her so implacable. He couldn’t tell her age, the marks on her face added years, but he guessed she was much younger than he was. But the spark in her eyes was fierce and she was far from giving up.

They were both tormented by memories, Tiyan could tell. But Ona dealt with them with stubborn resistance, while he… just let them gnaw at his nerves.

Perhaps it was just a mask.

Maybe she was dying every day – just like him.

The truth was that just knowing he was not alone in his pain was enough to keep him going. As selfish as it sounded, Tiyan was happy not to be alone.

“What’s her name?”

A sudden question broke his train of thought and Tiyan brushed the snow from his face. The snowfall was so thick that nothing would be able to track them from where they had rested during the night. Their footprints disappeared behind them as if touched by… magic.

“Name?”

“Your sister.”

Tiyan sighed. Ona was only curious, but even telling Mina’s name in this lonely wilderness, far from home and exposed to the cruel winds, was hard for him. As he had told it to himself so many times, he didn’t have the strength to do it again.

“Mina.”

It came with the air from his lungs and left him empty. A name that hung on his heart like a feather, but made of steel. He didn’t know if she was still alive and if so, how much she was suffering. Saying it out loud made the truth harder and… real.

“I have a sister too.”

The first time Ona had said anything about her past… apart from chocolate. Tiyan didn’t want to push, but he sensed that Ona wanted to talk. He knew about that great fire in the chest that threatens to burn you to the inside if you don’t let it out. A fire of guilt and pain, of the past, so real you could bite through it and make it bleed – with thick, crimson blood.

Ona’s face was as blank as the face of a winter morning as she let it out.

“I grew up in a village where the people were too aware of the danger the Fae brought. And learned to respond to their magic with iron and blue blood. My sister… She was a warrior. But she…”

She looked as if the word wouldn’t leave her mouth, thorny and sharp.

“Have you heard of the Praetor?”

Tiyan nodded. The Holy Praetor of Arelt. Arelt was a large city in the north, ruled by the Trading Company in the days before the war. Now it fell into the hands of the person who claimed to know how to stop the magic, how to stop the hunger, the pain and the cruel violence inflicted on Avras. Tiyan didn’t know him, but he knew one thing – the hunger, the pain, the torment of the land would continue. This man was either delusional… or mad. Or he was just another opportunist, feeding on the hopes of the people and taking their prayers as if they belonged to him…

“My sister…” Tiyan looked at her, suddenly feeling the change in her. He had always been able to sense such things, observant and attentive to body language. Now Ona looked different. As if the weight of the words hit her, as if she realised that she was telling this to a practically unknown person. There was a line on her forehead, and Tiyan could swear she saw a tear in her eye through the wind and snow.

Perhaps it was the wind and the snow.

Or maybe Ona’s pain was greater than he had expected.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he finally said. “If it’s too much.”

Ona looked at him, the tear already gone. Her eyes changed colour from deep blue to mossy green.

As if touched by magic.

But Tiyan saw a spark of gratitude in her eyes. She wanted to tell him, she wanted to throw the burden from her heart… but it seemed to be too heavy, still.

The landscape began to change. The snowfall eased, giving them a clearer view, and Tiyan could finally take in the surroundings.

The trees bent under the snow, lulled to sleep by its weight. The road widened and in the distance… At first, Tiyan couldn’t believe his eyes. But yes, the familiar shapes were real.

A small village spread out before them. He couldn’t tell if it was still inhabited, but even empty buildings could give them a moderately safe shelter, at least from cold and snow. He didn’t see any movement, but the villagers could be inside.

All of them.

Not so strange in the times that came and ravaged the land, intensely and painfully.

He saw that Ona also saw the village and tensed. He knew why. The people didn’t like visitors, not now, when any stranger could be enchanted and used by the fey to do harm. In Inamora, they chased them away, did not allow them to enter. His father had always been against it, his heart was in the right place – the same heart that didn’t approve of telling the other villagers about his encounter with the small folk. The same heart… that burst in his chest under the haunting and beautiful song of the Bean Sidhe.

“We can at least try,” Tiyan said, shifting the scarves to better protect him from the wind.

“I would pray so it would be abandoned,” Ona said, a new kind of stubbornness on her face, along the charcoal lines and white pigment.

Tiyan couldn’t help but agree.

Better to find a warm and hidden place to sleep for the night than to be attacked by suspicious villagers.

They trudged through the snow. The silence that surrounded this place indicated that the settlement was indeed uninhabited. But that didn’t mean that magical beings couldn’t take possession of it. Tiyan’s muscles were hard as stone, and a sudden warmth travelled to his throat. How low the humans had fallen to be frightened by the sight of a lonely village in the forest.

The cluster of houses was closer now, and Tiyan could see that they weren’t in bad shape. Some even had freshly painted shingles, with white and brown paint. One or two roofs looked as if they had been repaired recently. Ona must have noticed this too, for she began to look around cautiously, but without fear. Ona was focused, but she wasn’t afraid.

Tiyan realized that he was not. Concern, strong, but not fear. Fear, which had been his daily companion, his friend and his enemy, suddenly left him, leaving an empty void.

Human danger was nothing compared to what really awaited him. And small folk would not kill him – he was protected by the Shadow, as naive as it sounded.

When they reached the village and ducked between the houses, the silence became almost deafening. As if even the small animals had decided to leave this place, as if it had become a black hole, sucking in all sound and life.

“I don’t like it,” Ona looked at the freshly repaired roof of the nearby house. “There seems to be no one here… but…”

“Someone was here not long ago,” Tiyan agreed.

“I don’t know if the warmth of the stables is worth the danger. Who knows what drove those people away. And if it’s still here.”

Tiyan couldn’t shake the feeling that they shouldn’t have even approached the village. But what was done was done. And if they wanted to leave now, this was their last call.

In dead silence they approached the first house. It was covered in snow… and rowan. The iron horseshoe hung from the door, draped in old hay and dry grass. In the windows – wooden faces representing aspects of the goddess – life, death and rebirth. Death’s empty eyes seemed to look into them, Life dressed in old linen, Rebirth with flames painted on her wooden torso. The door was closed, the wind swirled in the chimney.

Something bad hung over it, as if something had died here, releasing spores.

“I think…”

“We should go.”

In the distance, a rattling sound was heard, as if someone was picking the branches or tossing them into a fireplace.

The heavy air enveloped them like a cocoon as they took one last look at the house and quickly left, heading down the slope. Their boots left footprints they would rather not have, but the snow began to fall again, small ethereal flakes staining their faces and slowly making the path they had come on invisible.

But as soon as they moved, Tiyan heard a voice.

A quiet, aching, pleading voice, begging him, urging him. The whisper of a dying soul.

He stopped halfway.

It could be anything, from a luring danger to a wounded person in need of help. The world was no longer safe for kind hearts.

But if he could help anyone, anyone who was still here and needed saving… he couldn’t help his parents. He’d feel terrible if he left without even checking whose voice it was.

“Do you hear it?” he pulled Ona by the sleeve of her jacket.

“Yes,” was a muffled reply.

“Do you think… it’s a human…?”

“I don’t care. This place is cursed. The longer we stay here, the more danger we expose ourselves to.”

Tiyan knew it was true. He won’t be able to save Mina if he lets himself die here, probably saving a lost cause.

Please… it eats me… so deep… deep…. d e e p…

It could be a Fae… tempting his guilt, pulling all the right strings.

But the Fae already knew he was untouchable.

And Ona was with him, saving his ass so he could reach the faerie realm. No one would dare harm him or her. He was needed. And without Ona, he wouldn’t get one step closer to his goal.

But there was more. His body reacted to that voice like pulled by a rope. Somehow, he knew that his footsteps would lead him in, willingly or not.

He looked apologetically at his companion and began to walk through the snow in the direction from which he had heard the voice. Ona seemed to hesitate, her lips forming a thin line, but in the end she couldn’t leave him alone. She didn’t say a word, but he knew she thought he was a fool.

They walked through the ghastly village like ghosts themselves. Tiyan – determined, scared to the bone. And Ona, strangely calm. Observant. Open to any danger that might come their way.

They passed the lonely rows of houses. They still felt the lingering memory of warm fire and human presence. Of… the familiar coziness that could still be created by loving hearts that wouldn’t let the dark times extinguish their flame.

Until they reached the grove.