by Eden Reign
Eve had managed to get Nathaniel onto the bed by the time Bitter Root and Manda returned. The sheets all around him were soaked, and water poured from his mouth.
“Manda, out!” Eve pushed her back onto the front porch. “Bitter Root needs all her concentration, stay out from underfoot!”
Manda leaned against the door to hear the whispers beyond: “He is marked,” Eve said. “Here on his arm. A Drowning Mark. It’s only purpose … is to kill.”
“Made by watermage,” Bitter Root said. “But this no typical Drowning Mark. It … strange and changed. But how did Sea-Crosser watermage learn Nanu magemark secrets?”
Eve gasped and sobbed. “Oh, Merciful Rivers. This is my fault. My first husband, Daniel—I showed him how to cast a Drowning Mark. He threatened horrible acts—unbearable acts—if I did not.”
Bitter Root chanted guttural words in no language that Manda could understand. “It is no good,” the old woman’s rasping voice said eventually. “No good. The spell droplet lives in his flesh. The spell and his body are one. He has no magic, cannot break. The waters rise from the mark, filling his body and his lungs. Wandering Wood will wander no more.”
“No! No! Bitter Root, there must be something you can do! He can’t—not my Nathaniel! No!” Eve had wailed and screamed, but Bitter Root, in her stoic way, had left Manda’s mother to her tears, coming out to Manda on the porch.
Bitter Root shook her head and broke her stick-snare into many small pieces. Her hands were wet with the water that had killed Nathaniel. “No good, River Running, I cannot save your papa. His mark was a curse, Drowning Mark. It carries death with it, fast death only purpose. Your Papa is mundane, no magic, no way to fix. No cure for such a mark but the old ritual, which need made-unmade. Sorry, River Running. Your papa, he was good man.”
Manda blinked. Her mother’s journal had fallen into her lap. The memory of her father’s death had absorbed her so completely she hadn’t noticed she’d dropped the journal.
Eve had never spoken of Nathaniel’s death. The day after he’d been put in the ground in the way of the Nanukata tribe, she’d taken Manda and they’d fled, as terrified as hunted rabbits. The Nanu had never fully accepted them, and after Nathaniel’s death, the tribes were even more wary of them.
Eve and Manda had lived a peripatetic life, going from one mundane village to the next, never staying anywhere long, until Eve, a broken-down, exhausted version of herself, had met and married a mundane, Simon Dunne in Mount Clemency. “I’m sorry, Manda,” she’d whispered the morning after the wedding. “I know he isn’t a good man. I know it isn’t fair that we both must live in secret, hiding our magic from the world. But Simon protects us. He protects us with his name and his standing. And no one would ever think to look for us in a mundane lawyer’s household. Don’t you see? We can be safe here. Our safety is more important than our happiness.”
But Manda had never been safe with Simon Dunne, who’d beat her at the slightest offense and promised worse if she ever told her mother.
Eve had felt safe, though. Manda had never understood why until reading the journal: a more terrifying monster had been chasing her.
The date on the page the journal had fallen to was shortly before Manda’s father’s death.
Daniel is as dogged as a bloodhound on the scent, Eve had written. Nathaniel tells me I am seeing shadows and monsters where there are none, but he does not know Daniel as I do. He does not know that the scars on my body are the only gifts Daniel ever gave me, and I have not told him for fear of what he might do. Nathaniel is not the sort of man to let such injuries go unanswered, and I have never had the courage to tell him of my past lest he run off to Chalton in a rage to confront Daniel.
The next page was dated after Nathaniel’s death:
I can hardly write; I can hardly write. Nathaniel is dead, and how can I live without him? Only my Manda, my sweet, darling daughter, keeps me going, though we live on the run, hiding from Daniel and his all-seeing eyes. I don’t know how to go on. My heart is dust, ashes in my soul. I cannot live.
Manda dabbed again at her eyes, her throat thickening as her mother’s sorrow poured off the page.
It was as I feared. After Nathaniel demanded I put a name to the man who had abused me, and I, in my folly, gave it, he rode to Chalton to confront Daniel—though he told me it was to deliver a cord of wood. Nathaniel returned, barely alive and marked by a terrible curse, a magemark so evil and powerful even Bitter Root could do nothing for it. I know by the mark it was Daniel’s work. I know also that I am to blame for Daniel’s ability to cast such a mark. I should never have shared Nanu secrets with him. I fear this is only the beginning of the suffering my foolishness has caused.
In the margin, Eve had drawn a symbol, the word “Lake” washed over with a tumbling surge of watery lines, so the name was nearly illegible. Manda stared at it, her heart pausing in horror.
She had seen that same symbol before, on the body of her mother, the night she had found her in Simon Dunne’s back room, keeled over the sofa and surrounded by pooled water. Drowned.
Daniel Lake had marked her father Nathaniel with his signature—and he had done the same to his former wife when he had finally caught up with her.
Daniel Lake had murdered Manda’s mother and her father. He’d murdered them both, and marked them, brazenly, with his own arcane mark, utterly fearless of punishment, secure in his power and impunity. Possibly he’d even marked them with pride in his evil work. Manda had not recognized his obscure signature, not until now when she saw the same symbol in her mother’s journal.
Manda wanted to vomit. She stared at the wooden door opposite her, her thoughts at war, her palms sweating. She set the journal down and paced the cottage, but no amount of motion could quell the furious hatred that boiled in her heart. That slimy, evil man who’d stared at her chest and called her a trollop was a murderer twice over—or more. Daniel Lake. A monster dressed as man.
At last, she took a calming breath, sat back down. Her mother had run and run and run. She’d married a cruel man she did not love in the hopes that he could protect her, but it had not been enough. Daniel Lake had found her anyway, and silenced her with death.
Manda pushed aside the journal. She wanted to study it further, but the details would make her too angry tonight, so she lay down near Grey in an attempt to rest.
The following morning, after serving Grey a sad breakfast of lumpy grits and smoked ham, Manda planned to venture deeper into the Nanu Territory to see if she could find Bitter Root’s old abode at the Crossroads. Though the woman would have died years ago—she’d been ancient when Manda had known her—Manda wondered if a new medicine woman had taken her place, or if Bitter Root had left behind any information that might help Jackson with his magemark. Manda’s recollecting of her father’s death had ignited new questions. Bitter Root had known a great deal about magemarks. The four types of Nanu marks—Roving for fire, Binding for earth, Revealing for air, and Drowning for water—were all varieties of curse or weapon. Henry Coal and Daniel Lake had first learned of Nanu marking lore from Manda’s mother. Why had Eve handed such terrible power over to a man like Daniel Lake? And why had she married him? Manda sighed. She feared the journal would not be able to answer all her questions.
Manda saddled Beau and pulled Grey to sit in front of her, nudging the gelding with her heels as they rode the winding way through the woods, uphill toward the broad clearing where Bitter Root’s main cottage had stood at the Crossroads between the road from Sweetwater and the rutted track that led into protected Nanu Territory. Images from that horror-filled night when her father had died flooded her mind—the scent of the pines, the breeze in the boughs, her racing heartbeat.
“Where are we going, Manda?” Grey asked.
“To a place I used to visit when I was your age.”
The boy gazed into the trees. “It’s so wild here.” He shivered. “I feel the water more.” He pointed to his right. “That way.”
> Manda hugged him closer. “It is an untamed place. And yes, there’s a creek over there that tumbles down the hill and then runs through the village of Sweetwater.”
The pines thinned. The old paddock, its struts leaning precariously, surrounded the cottage beyond.
After hitching Beau to the fence, Manda took Grey’s hand, and they walked up the path to the house.
“You stay quiet, Grey,” Manda cautioned, thinking of how many times her mother must have felt this way, praying that her child would simply obey her and not do anything that would expose their magic to strangers. “A friend once lived here, but I don’t know who dwells here now.”
Grey nodded. “Maybe they have eggs. If they do, can we buy some, Manda? I’m tired of grits.”
Manda rapped on the door, holding her breath and offering up a silent prayer to the Good Waters. Let this be easy and helpful and harmless. Let the resident be a good medicine woman, someone who can help with Jackson’s mark and who won’t ask too many questions.
A tiny old woman as wrinkled as a dried apple opened the door. Her aged skin was walnut-stained, her white hair braided and pinned in a crown. She looked so ancient Manda couldn’t imagine how she’d made it to the door, but as the woman pulled the wood panel wide, Manda recognized her.
“Bitter Root!” Manda cried. “You’re alive!” She stifled the urge to catch the old woman up in an embrace. The Nanu would never approve of such demonstrative behavior.
The old woman peered at her through cloudy eyes. She sniffed the air several times and leaned in close. “River Running? Could be? Little River Running, back from long run away?”
“Yes! Yes!” Manda cried. “It’s Manda. River Running. Wandering Wood’s—Nathaniel Cutter’s daughter.”
Bitter Root studied her. “Long time, girl. No people here anymore. Tribes have all retreated back, back to the Lake since the war. Only Bitter Root now, growing old alone. Why you here? That your boy?”
“No—er—that is, this is Grey, my charge. I’m a governess—a—that’s a nursemaid, a caretaker.” Manda could tell the words meant little to the woman. She put Grey forward. “Bitter Root, this is Grey Tailor. Grey, this is my friend, Bitter Root, from long ago.”
Bitter Root gazed down at Grey and sniffed again. “Water-boy,” she said. “Unmade.”
Manda flinched. Unmade was how the Nanu called halfmages. She’d forgotten that Bitter Root had always known straight away a mage’s elemental affiliation and whether full or half. And she’d never had a care for keeping such matters secret, for to her, as with all Nanu, there was no shame in being an “unmade” halfmage.
The old woman grinned a gap-toothed smile and stepped back, gesturing them into her home. “Not to worry, River Running, I won’t tell. The unmade is good power. Like you. Come in, I give you food. This water-boy is hungry.”
She turned and moved into the house, rustling around in the dim room beyond for a moment. When she returned, she carried an earthenware plate, which she handed to Grey.
“I give you bean bread. And pumpkin seeds toasted with maple.” She winked at Grey. “Sweet for tooth.”
Once Grey was happily settled on a leather-and-wood stool with his snack, Bitter Root turned to Manda. “You come for reason. My trees say you come for knowledge.”
“Do you remember how my father died?” she asked hesitantly.
The old woman scowled. “He die from mark curse. Drowning Mark, very bad.” She shook her head sorrowfully and settled into a rocking chair beside Grey. “No way to cure it. Too strong, too fast, and your papa was mundane.”
“But there was a way to cure it, wasn’t there? I remember you said—the old ritual. What did you mean?”
The old woman set her chair rocking. She gestured at the ground, inviting Manda to sit. Manda did, as the Nanu did, with her legs straight out in front of her. Grey giggled at the odd posture.
“The old ritual,” Bitter Root said significantly. “Only way to remove mark-curse of Roving or Drowning when spell lives in flesh. Roving is firemark. Drowning is watermark, like what kill your papa.”
Jackson’s mark was a Roving one, cast by his firemage father. Manda shuddered as she recalled the way it had slithered, ungrippable, beneath her hands. “What is the ritual?” Manda asked, fear rising in her heart.
The old woman chuckled. “Smother, of course. How else one put out fire?” She reached for the crude, carved candelabra on the table beside her rocker and clapped her gnarled hand over one of the tallow candles. A stream of smoke rose from the wick when she withdrew her palm. “But special way.”
“A special way?” Manda asked. “How?”
Bitter Root smirked. “In old ritual, one mage must be made, the other, unmade. This why no good for your papa, he mundane, no magic. Made mage, fullmage, must break spell with Indigo Wells, unmade mage must cure the flesh. Two layers in mark—mind and flesh, made and unmade, you see?”
“I see.” The fullmage’s magic was of the mind, the halfmage’s of the body. A fullmage and a halfmage, together, had to address the two different layers of the mark to cure it. “So, you need one to be a fullmage, one to be a halfmage, made and unmade,” Manda clarified. “And do the elements matter? For a mark made by fire, a Roving Mark, specifically?”
“For Roving Mark, fullmage must be fire, halfmage, water. Opposites, see?”
Bitter Root frowned. “Ritual is dangerous. Fire weak to water, full weak to half. That is natural balance. But watermage can smother firemage, by accident. Then firemage die.”
“The watermage might accidentally kill the firemage during the ritual?” Manda whispered.
The old woman nodded. “But Roving Mark will kill, anyway. Roving Mark always kill eventually. But slow, not fast like Drowning Mark on your papa.”
Ice took hold of Manda’s heart. She hadn’t known the mark was killing Jackson. Tears slipped unheeded down her cheeks.
“But the—the ritual, it works? The watermage smothers the mark’s fire in the flesh? They must do this from the outside, and the fullmage must open the Wells and attack it from the mind layer?” Manda asked desperately.
“If right mages—one full firemage, one half watermage—and water not too powerful, it work like charm.” Bitter Root’s face crinkled into a smile. “No cry, River Running. It work, you see.” She reached for a basket near her feet and pulled out a stick-snare charm, its knotty sticks held together at impossible angles with reeds and twine. She handed the snare to Manda. “This, you use,” she said gravely. “You hold, in ritual. To snare water power, to trap it. It help you not be too powerful, not smother.”
Manda’s heart pounded. “Thank you,” she said tentatively. “How did you know—”
“You go now.” The old woman grew alert like a dog with its ears pricked. She swept out of the rocker and pulled Grey to his feet, spilling pumpkin seeds everywhere. “Go home now. Go home and hide.” She sniffed the air, turning this way and that. “Someone searching for you. Go home now.”
Manda gathered the woman’s gift against her body and fled back to Beau, hauling Grey along with her.
Despite Bitter Root’s warning, they made it back to the silent cottage without incident, and Manda began to wonder if the woman was touched in the head or suffering from dementia of old age. She had to be over a hundred years old.
By the time night fell and she tucked Grey into bed, Manda had begun to calm down. Even so, she could not rest. She’d put up her protections all around the house’s interior, just in case, as Bitter Root’s warning had left her ill at ease. Bitter Root’s other words had, too.
Was it true that the mark would kill Jackson if they could not heal it? Jackson specifically needed a watermage. A water halfmage.
A picture of Jackson as he’d kissed her goodbye crowded out Manda’s frantic thoughts. Heavy regret weighted her stomach. How she missed him. She covered her mouth with her hand, staring off into the dark night. He needed her. He needed her now, and yet they were apart.
; Beau whinnied loudly outside.
A stick snapped, followed by a whispered oath.
Manda froze, her gaze fastened on the closed door. Her heart tripping beneath her ribs, she slowly rose and walked to Grey’s side. The boy slept on. She placed a protective hand on his back. “Who’s there?” she called.
The horse whinnied again, and hooves pounded out a gallop, fading into the distance, as though Beau had fled.
Manda ran to the window, peering out through her clear water shield. Four forms materialized out of the darkness. The first one carried a torch, and the others lit more from his. They slammed the torches at the window, as though intending to strike her, but the burning sticks rebounded off her shield. Surprise twisted their faces.
Manda knew none of the men, but they wore expressions of savage glee as they left the first window and headed for the others—but they were also shielded.
“You’ll have to try harder than that, halfbreed nutskin,” one of the men shouted through the water protections. “We can’t come in, but we can smoke you out.” He flicked an ember spell at a pile of dead leaves near the porch before the door. The pile flared to life.
Manda slammed her hand down onto the floor of the hut. Water surged and boiled toward the crack beneath her shield on the door, extinguishing the man’s fire in a smoking, ashy mess. But it wasn’t enough. The others had retreated around the house, creating a fire wall all around the house.
Flames crackled as they licked the walls of the house. Manda’s water shields would keep her and Grey protected, but the entire house might burn around them, and she hated the vulnerable feeling of being surrounded—by fire and enemies.
She glanced back at Grey, determined to keep him asleep if she could, to shield him from the fear. She went to the window on the opposite Grey to check the attacker’s positions.