by Kim Wilkins
Bluebell closed the inn door behind her and headed down the shady path towards the stream they had crossed yesterday. Ash had been secretive and strange since she’d met Unweder, and Bluebell didn’t much care for it. She demanded nothing more of Ash than her loyalty and honesty, and now she doubted she had either. Somehow, half the story was missing.
Across the stream, in the tangled shadow of a willow tree, Ash stood very still. A finger of yellow light broke over the horizon and caught the corner of Bluebell’s eye. She shielded her gaze and watched Ash a moment, then approached.
Ash, sensing her, snapped into awareness and opened her eyes.
The ground shook under Bluebell’s feet, dislodging a small rock that tumbled into the water. Bluebell faced her sister across the stream. Beloved Ash, somehow a stranger.
‘What are you doing?’ Bluebell called.
Ash shrugged helplessly. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Come over this side,’ Bluebell said, gesturing with her hands. ‘Talk to me.’
Ash picked her way over the stepping stones and came to Bluebell’s side.
‘Why are you sorry?’ Bluebell asked. ‘What are you doing out here?’
Ash sighed, and sank down to sit on the soft undergrowth at the edge of the stream. The sun over the horizon flushed the treetops yellow bright. ‘Can you see them, Bluebell?’
Bluebell cast her eyes around, alert. ‘See who?’
‘Of course you can’t see them. Only I can. The unseen world, teeming with elementals. I can see them all. I only have to focus a little ...’ She held her thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart. And there they are.’
Bluebell crouched next to her. A bold blackbird fluttered down low to look at them. ‘Are these the elementals you called to help me at Sceotley?’
‘Yes.’
‘But they helped. So they are good?’
‘They are neither good nor bad. They don’t like me, but for some reason they have to do what I ask. When I can make the magic work.’
‘So this is magic?’
‘Undermagic. Of course. It must be. Unweder is right. I should never have gone to Thriddastowe. I am an undermagician, by birth. As you are a warrior. There is nothing else for me.’
Bluebell considered this carefully. She knew what it was to be born for something. ‘But you once told me it affected you, made you sick.’
‘It does, though not so much physically any more. But I can feel a little black spot on my soul. Like a flower of mould on bread.’
‘Then perhaps it’s not right. Perhaps you shouldn’t do it.’
Ash’s gaze was far away. ‘I don’t know if I can stop.’
‘Then try to stop.’
Ash focussed, turned to smile at Bluebell. ‘Perhaps you are right, sister. But there’s something more I have to tell you and I promise you that you won’t like it.’
Bluebell sat back, crossing her legs in front of her. She was suddenly desperate to piss, but didn’t want to interrupt Ash now she had decided to talk. ‘Go on.’
‘The dream.’
‘This is the business Unweder spoke about?’
‘Yes.’
‘So there is something you haven’t told me?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. But I’ve seen my Becoming in a dream. And it is blighted.’
‘Blighted?’ Bluebell repeated, an ancient dread shuddering in her belly. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I have always known it in some ways. Perhaps you have always known it of me too.’
Bluebell thought of the intense protective instinct she had always had towards Ash. Was it just sisterly love or was there a creeping shadow of fear that somehow she was marked?
‘I am destined to take thousands with me, unless I slip into exile,’ Ash said. ‘Yldra knew. She sensed it when I travelled to her in my mind. She told me not to come near her.’
‘But ...’
‘That’s right. I’ll have to leave you to meet her alone.’
Bluebell was torn between different emotions. She had already lost Rose to some nonsense, and now she was to lose Ash. She wondered how much Unweder’s influence was pressing on Ash’s mind. But more than anything, she felt a deep pity for her sister, who was so young and so fragile, and yet somehow had to endure such a heavy load. Her heart squeezed. ‘Are you sure?’ she said again.
‘I am sure,’ Ash answered, her voice catching on a sob. ‘The only way I can be certain this horrible event won’t happen, is if I take myself out of the world. If I am alone, then I cannot hurt anyone.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Go home to Ælmesse,’ Bluebell said. ‘We have land to the north-west, hunting land. Whatever you need: gold to pay someone to build you a house, a servant, anything. You are a king’s daughter. If this is truly meant to be your fate, then at least suffer no hardship. Return to Blicstowe and tell Dunstan. He will organise it all for you.’
Ash palmed tears off her face. ‘Thank you, Bluebell. But all the riches in the world cannot buy me happiness, if I must be away forever from those I love.’
‘Forever?’
‘How else can I be certain?’
‘I don’t know about forever,’ Bluebell said. ‘Maybe the path that takes you on this Becoming may one day be behind you. I will never stop hoping for your return.’
Ash smiled weakly. ‘I hope you are right, sister.’ She patted Bluebell’s thigh. ‘You must let me find my own way. I will not return to Blicstowe. I can no longer risk being in places where there are many people. As soon as I have led you as far as I can, I will find a place near a small village, perhaps by the sea.’
‘In Ælmesse? Under your father’s rule?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
Bluebell bit her tongue. ‘How far can you lead me?’
‘I’ll feel the limit. Yldra will start to resist me. I’ve sensed every undermagician, in every hut and hole since we crossed the border into Bradsey, prickling under my skin, pushing me away.’
Bluebell gazed at her sister’s face: her fine skin and liquid eyes. She struggled to understand. Her world was plainer than Ash’s, painted in broader brushstrokes. But she would let Ash go for now, and later, when Father was well again, she would find her.
As the day grew warmer and brighter, the pressure grew stronger and harder in Ash’s mind and heart. The time was drawing close: time to leave Bluebell, time to take up her exile. This moment had been coming since she first understood the dream, but that made it no easier to accept. But despite the guilt at leaving Bluebell alone, despite the despair at separating from her family, there remained a small tingle of excitement.
The further north they went, the more elementals came out to see her pass by. It became easier for her to communicate with them in her mind, and she didn’t feel so sick afterwards. Clearly, this was her skill. This was a power the Great Mother had given her. All she needed to figure out was the reason for her power, and how to use it best. She wouldn’t get those answers from Bluebell.
But she knew where she might get them.
The pressure didn’t come solely from within, though. Slowly, as they made their way up the road, she felt Yldra’s resistance to her. As Unweder had said, Yldra had protected the way to her house fiercely. Along the way were charmed stones, woven mats buried under a thin layer of dirt, cotton ribbons tied in trees. Bluebell didn’t notice these things, but Ash certainly did. A fine web of Yldra’s magic, stretching out thirty or forty miles from her house. Ash was certain her presence was felt along those silken threads and that Yldra knew she was coming.
It wasn’t until the crossroads Unweder had spoken of that Ash simply couldn’t go any further. As she tried to turn her horse to the west, her ears started to ring loudly.
‘What is it?’ Bluebell asked, when Ash pulled up.
‘I ...’ The pain in her head was sudden, intense, and she gasped.
‘Ash?’
Ash dismounted and ran back to the road. Her
stomach heaved and she bent over to throw up. When she looked up, Bluebell was behind her, holding Ash’s horse by the reins. ‘I take it this is as far as you can go?’
‘It is.’ Her heart twinged.
Bluebell nodded. ‘Be safe, sister.’
Ash took the horse’s reins. Bluebell put her arms around Ash’s middle and squeezed her tightly, then let her go and took a step back. ‘Send news if you can.’
‘Bluebell, I ... I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if I should contact you. I don’t ...’
‘You are my sister. You won’t ever fall out of my life completely. I have faith we will see each other again. In happier times.’ Bluebell glanced off to the road that headed west. ‘I will travel better alone.’
Yes, without Rose and me to slow you down. But do be careful.’
‘I’ll be with Yldra by noon tomorrow.’
‘Be careful with Yldra.’
‘She’s my father’s sister.’
‘She’s an undermagician.’
Bluebell fixed her in her gaze. ‘As are you. Apparently.’ She grew suddenly intense, hunching up like a great spider preparing to attack. ‘Ash, now your power is growing, can you tell me if Father will recover?’
Ash pinched her brain for the answer, but it slipped away. ‘I’m sorry, Bluebell. I don’t know. I hope so. But I’m not so good at seeing the future.’ She was good at commanding the elements. She said it again in her mind. I command the elements. A cool shudder of pride.
‘I hope Yldra can help,’ Bluebell said, sounding uncharacteristically unsure.
‘I believe she can,’ Ash said, squeezing her sister’s hand. ‘Take care.’
Bluebell squeezed her hand in return, hard enough to bend the bones. ‘You also,’ she said. Then she was pulling away, returning to her waiting dogs, to Isern, to her future as king of Ælmesse.
Ash felt she was choking on the emptiness as she watched Bluebell move off to the west. Then she wiped away her tears and looked back towards the south. It was time to return to Unweder.
Bluebell found it easier to travel without her sisters. She only had herself and her animals to account for, so she could push herself to go a little further, a little faster. Still, she had to find a place to stop for the night. She was in the wilds of Bradsey now, a chaotic landscape of rocky heath punctuated by ancient gnarled groves strangled by vines and thick with moss. No inns for miles. She didn’t want to sleep in the open, so when night fell she took herself into one of the groves and found a small clear area, where it looked as though lightning had struck a tree and burned down all the saplings. It smelled of old ash and dirt. She sent Thrymm and Thræc to bring her a rabbit and started a fire. She gutted the rabbit with her knife, fed the innards to the happy dogs, and spitted the rest on a spear to roast. As she sat with her back against the struck tree, listening to the sounds of night and the cracking of the fire, she realised her body was aching. No, her ribs. Her ribs were aching. She couldn’t remember how she’d hurt her ribs.
Then she understood. She hadn’t suffered any physical injury. Her ribs were hurting because she was unhappy. Today, she had lost her favourite sister. Hundreds of miles away, her father lay under an enchantment. And her body was aching from the weary pressure of these sodden clouds.
Thrymm sat up, ears pricked. Bluebell was instantly on alert. ‘What is it, girl?’
Then she heard it: a crack in the undergrowth, between the trees. Somebody was approaching.
More than one somebody. The dogs ran to her side as she stood, watching as four men emerged — from different directions — and formed a loose semicircle around her. Behind her was the mound of deadfall. There was nowhere to run.
She dropped the rabbit in the fire and leapt to her feet, the Widowsmith in her hand. She whistled the dogs forwards and ran at one of the men. The dogs took one down, barking and snarling furiously. But the other three raiders flanked her immediately. She slipped between them, trying to make them approach her front on so she could protect her back and sides. Cold steel flashed and she felt searing blood pouring from her ribs. Her heart thundered behind her eyes. Why hadn’t she put her mail on? Where was her helm? The first raider dropped his arm a little too low and Bluebell judged her timing perfectly, slicing vertically into his head. The blade became momentarily embedded in his skull, losing her a fraction of time. She warded off another blow, but it glanced off her arm. More blood. The wound in her side pulsed hotly.
She swung, precision and speed. Right across a raider’s knees. He fell forwards, nearly tripping his friend. Thrymm was on him a moment later, tearing out his throat. Only one left. Bluebell pulled all her strength towards her, crippled his sword arm. He dropped the blade with a clang. Bluebell lifted her sword to bring it down on his head. A moment later, he had a knife in his hand and he plunged it into the soft flesh between her shoulder and collarbone, then withdrew it with a satisfied grunt.
The force and speed were still in her arms as she split his skull in two. Then she dropped her shield and sheathed her sword, dismayed by the amount of blood she was losing. It covered her hands. She looked around. Across a raider’s body, about ten feet away, lay Thræc.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, hurrying over. She placed her hand over the dog’s ribs. No movement, no breath. ‘No,’ she said again, and tears squeezed from her eyes. ‘Come on, girl, breathe.’ She couldn’t distinguish the dog’s blood from the raider’s. Thrymm was there now, whining softly. Bluebell touched the dog’s head with her bloody fingers. ‘I’m sorry, girl. She’s gone. She’s gone.’ Bluebell coughed out a sob. Thræc had been with her for eight years. ‘She’s gone,’ she said again, sitting back on her haunches and letting herself cry. The wound in her shoulder had stopped bleeding on its own, but the one in her side was leaking blood alarmingly. What was she supposed to do? There was no help anywhere nearby. If she could get Isern to take her to Yldra tonight ... She didn’t much like the idea of travelling in this much pain, but feared that to spend the night here without help could mean she didn’t wake up in the morning.
She looked down at Thræc’s body again. Reached bloody fingers to touch the back of the dog’s neck. Thræc had loved being scratched right there. Bluebell sniffed back tears and snot, and stood. ‘We’re going to give her a hero’s send off, Thrymm,’ she said, glancing around for fallen sticks. She had to move a little way into the grove, breaking off twigs and small branches, then bringing them to the centre of the clearing. Then using her axe to chop larger branches. She took each raider’s sword to form a rectangle, then between the blades she began to build a funeral pyre, one layer at a time, small enough for the body of her beloved dog. All the while, she ignored the wound in her side, fearing to see how much blood she was losing. She was too far from help and she knew it. She wouldn’t make it to Yldra’s and she had no idea which direction the nearest village was in. They had left the last of civilisation behind that morning. So, out here in the wilds with her dogs and horse, she would probably die alone. To distract herself, she kept building the pyre, until it was as high as her hip. Thræc lay very still on top of the raider’s body. Bluebell bent to scoop her up and laid her gently on top of the pyre. Then she soaked the pyre with Ash’s fire oil, lit it, and stood back. Her knees were weak, so she sat. A slow ache pulsed in her side, a growing darkness moving up her chest, rib by rib. Cold shuddered inside her, very low, between her navel and her spine, making her legs shake. She pulled her knees close and leaned back on a tree trunk. Thrymm sat next to her, leaning her warm body against her. Bluebell put her hand on Thrymm’s head, felt the smallness and lightness of the dog’s skull, and thought about her own smallness and lightness, her own impossible ephemerality. The fire bloomed, pressing its pattern of light against her eyes. Then her eyes were closing, the coldness growing. The thought glimmered on the edge of her mind: perhaps it was a mistake to come here. Perhaps she should have let her father die and taken up her place as Ælmesse’s leader. Now there would be nobody left to r
ule. Only Ash knew of her plans for Rowan and Ash had taken herself into exile.
An immense sadness gripped her. Not despair. Just sadness that the dark was coming before she was ready for it. She would have moaned, but there was no breath left in her lungs.
Amber light fluttered. A sound — a soft sucking wind — passed her ears. She wasn’t dead. Firelight flashed and faded as she struggled to open her eyes. Hoofbeats approaching. More raiders, perhaps. They would finish her quickly. Still her fingers stretched out sightlessly for her sword. She tilted her head back and opened her eyes. The moon was just on the other side of full, silvery-blue. A strong wind drove streaky clouds across it. The moonlight moved, the firelight moved, her vision wavered. The whole world appeared to be shaking to pieces, and the hoofbeats and barking grew closer. She thought of Sighere: had he gathered her retainers and come to look for her? What use was their help now? She was mortally wounded.
Next to her Thrymm started to whine. She tucked her tail between her legs and trembled against Bluebell’s side. Bluebell tried to focus. The sound was coming from every direction at once, like an army approaching but at high speed.
A flash of grey-white between the trees. Then on the other side. Bluebell blinked hard, trying to clear her vision. A horn sounded in the dark, a great echoing war horn. It thrilled her to her core, sending warmth pulsing through the cold dark inside her. She forced her eyes open. The world swung into sharp focus.
From the trees, a ghostly rider burst into the clearing. Behind him, a retinue of riders and dogs made of gossamer and shadows. The head rider galloped towards her, pulling up suddenly. His horse reared up on its hind legs and whinnied loudly. Bluebell sat, unable to move, staring up at him. He dismounted with a thud, as though he were flesh and blood. Bluebell was at eye level with his thigh. She saw every detail of his clothing — the stitched shoes, the leather straps around his gaiters, the hem of his cloak. But all of it was pale and silver-grey, there but not quite there. He crouched in front of her. Her heart hammered, making the blood pump quicker from the wound at her side.