Chapter 3

I’ve always wanted to travel. Being stuck in a wheelchair or a hospital bed, however, was quite the deterrent to that idea. While I had Mr Merritt, a man who once visited an orphanage and told stories of his vacations to children, it was hardly a valid replacement for actually seeing places.

I wanted to visit New York, see the Eiffel Tower in Paris, see the Great Wall of China, but of course, it was nothing more than a pipe dream. It could never possibly have been and I knew it well, so I gave up on that idea when I was twelve.

Now that I became me, travelling took on an entirely different meaning.

The isles of Bvurdrjord had two prominent land masses as well as a scattering of smaller isles, curving in the rough shape of a C towards the continental mainland. If I were to compare it to Earth, it would probably occupy the niche of the United Kingdoms, having miserable weather all year round. It was beautiful though, in the same way that the Scottish highlands, windswept slopes and mountains are. The snow covering didn’t diminish it in any way and radiates a quiet light of deviance, of perseverance.

One of these smaller isles was Falroog, an odd piece of frozen rock just close enough to be claimed but far enough offshore that its use as a trading spot was next to none. It was the isle which Ansvil was on and well isolated from the matters of the mainland — unless one actively search for it. The word “Falroog” could be translated as “Fallen Sea,” or in some sense, the Sea of the Lost.

I thought it was somewhat interesting since the entire region seemed to be shaped after the activities of the Iasgairean before my time — and perhaps even before then. Legends described how the sea god Guviar, which was pronounced Guv-yarr by the way, had control over the scourge of the seas and that the only way to appease him was to sail it in his name and glory.

You really need to roll the tongue to get the word sound right.

The Sgnirmah had some idea of that being the case. She could dimly remember that in the earliest days this colony was founded, she was somehow obligated to raid the ships that crossed her territory. It wasn’t that she had any issues with that, however, especially since she would have done so without prompting. The needs of her children required the materials provided by humans, like humans raising sheep for their wool and meat.

A century ago, however, when the Zweits first came knocking in a full-force invasion, the connection between her and Guviar was abruptly cut off and she had been doing her own thing ever since. Which in all honesty, was to say nothing really changed. Raids were had, humans were eaten, typical.

Other than that, her memory and recollection of her role in the greater order of things were confusing and unreliable.

It was honestly rather concerning. I had originally been fearing how the local “spirits'' or whatnot could discover me and fight me off in the absurd fantasmal, only for me to arrive and found out the event took place nearly a century ago. Some event caused by the Zweits had utterly decimated the religion and faith of Bvurdrjord, rendering their gods silent and Spirits fading away.

I wouldn’t say I was afraid but rather I was concerned about how my strength fared in relativity. I had no clue as to what gods were capable of and the extent of my own power, and if whatever dealt with the local gods decided to come after me as well, I had truly had little idea of what to do.

Therefore, I would still advocate for a quiet and somewhat subtle method of discovery. That was even more important as the first of my [Proxies] finally arrived in Aerund, the mainland of Bvurdjord isles.

The word, “Aerund” means ancestral land. It was a simple enough concept to understand and I expected to find much here.

It was not as snowy on this landmass, the seasonal winter winds carrying snowstorms over to Falroog instead. However, even as the [Proxy] surfaced from the water, there was still a fair amount of white covering everything. The ports had yet to completely freeze over, chunks of ice floating in the docks, the ships having been hauled to land to prevent damages.

This city was called Skavorskur, or in the common tongue introduced by the Zweits, the Spire Coast. It wasn’t particularly creative or accurate, seeing that there weren’t any spires to be seen other than the few darkened lighthouses standing on solitary rocks far from shore. Finny said that once upon a time, great temples would stretch up to the sky, offerings raised and burnt to reach the heavens. They were also once called the Towers of Stars, and the ones that climb them would be ones that “touch the heavens”, honoured as saints and favoured by the gods.

It used to be an important yearly custom, apparently.

It wasn’t a wonder that most of them were gone now after the occupation of the Zwiets, they weren’t too keen or interested in preserving history, it seemed. Now, broken piles of rubbles still remained where they once stood, no one bothering or wanting to clear them off the streets.

Perhaps, they felt like if they got rid of them, it would mean they finally gave up and turned their back on their gods.

Either way, Skavorskur was far from the busiest city in Bvurdrjord but it was still leagues ahead of Ansvil, which was a village that could generously be called a town. Even at night, the Wall of Man burned sky-high, an indomitable wall that would keep most, if not all, middling Spirits out. For certain, I could make an educated guess that the [Deers] from the forest would not be able to step through without getting evaporated.

My [Proxies], however, were made of flesh. Their light-sensitive eyes could clearly see in the darkness, deftly avoiding wandering patrols as they emerged from the waters. One by one, they trailed onto the shore, dripping seawater from their spindly pale forms, elongated arms crawling up the stonework.

They sniffed the air, gills closing up in exchange for exposed nostrils. The scent of people — sweat, discarded skin, faeces, present in clear trails across the docks. Quietly, they slunk into alleyways, clambering onto roofs in the dark to avoid detection.

Most importantly, however, was that there are other magic users in the city. Traces of blue hazes could be seen drifting through the night sky, owls with glowing eyes sitting here and there. Their scents were unfamiliar, exotic, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on them.

I knew the Creighton family — the Ansvil Weavers couldn’t be the only magic users. While they lived in seclusion, from Vargulf’s memories I could also see that the old priests and priestess of Bvurdrjord had their own fair share of the arcane. Whether these indications of magic used came from some remnant or other magic users, it certainly made me excited.

However, before any of that, I had to take precautions.

Soon, my [Proxies] found an empty building by the sea, derelict. It used to be some sort of warehouse, holding small boats but now it laid barren, hooks and chains dangling from the ceiling while planks slowly rotted away. There were people loitering inside, a place to spend a night in winter. No one official had bothered to visit in a while and the place had been forgotten by much of the city. Now, only the truly destitute would resort to such a locale to call 'home'.

On the inside, slumbering around a small, smouldering fire were two figures, both men, one older than the other. There was a small stack of assorted sticks and ripped up planks on the side, serving as firewood for the camp. Huddling in cloaks made of burlap — or something like that, these persons slept through the night, none the wiser.

I had better use for the building than they did, however. Simple prods to the back of their skulls allowed me to peer into their pasts, to sample their history, so to speak.

Like pouring an octopus in a mould, my [Proxies] slipped themselves into the bodies. After all, their vacancy meant no one’s left to complain. With some creative stretching and popping sounds, the husks were filled from the mouth despite the impossibility of the act, temporarily given the ability to call on the experiences of the previous tenant.

It was a recently developed skill, {Hijack}, bearing result from one of my earlier experiments when I harvested my first few Iasgaireans. I had been testing the logistics of forcing two different [Forms] to exist in the same space and the results, as I had remembered, were rather explosive. Turned out, [Form] was surprisingly malleable if one override it with a temporary definition via [Spirit], allowing me to squeeze it into a space that it shouldn’t fit.

Or in other terms, I used magic to give the [Proxies] temporary intangibility, becoming more of an idea than a physical object.

Regardless, It was still a graphic procedure with some slurping sounds and blood. Seeing something the size of a horse seep into pores and orifices was disturbing to witness even by my standards.

It took [Proxies] a couple of tries to get back on two feet after the fact, stumbling here and there but the passengers were truly in control.

I was reasonably proud of my [Proxies]’s achievements. The Iasgairean’s application of merging several beings together had given these experiments [Forms] much greater than what I could do alone.

Not that I couldn’t, but I just didn’t have the time to put in so much effort myself. Even now, I had so much more material to play with and to improve on. Souls, attachments, simple objects such as combs and dolls… They each carried certain connotations I could seriously mess with.

Of course, it was unfortunate most of their owners were already dead, but I would have to make do.

Focusing back on the two, I swiftly used my [Proxies] to hijack their bodily functions, suppressing their active minds beneath my own.

But there are three bedrolls.

In the back, a door creaked open and an individual stumbled in, pants still in disarray. It was a young man, eyes barely open, each step heavy in his clothing of roughspun cloth and skins. He had gotten up for a midnight piss and had just gotten back.

We stayed silent as we watched him hobble back to his sleeping roll, empty by the fire. He frowned, now suddenly realizing that the other two were similarly empty.

Confused, he looked around and called out, “Pa? Ludyl?”

There was no answer.

Suddenly, the fire dancing away in the pit seemed all the more minions, the shadows leering as they flickered. The three had been spending their winters in similar places and wherever work took them, and abandoned buildings were usually a welcoming sight.

Now, he felt a chill worming its way up his spine. He looked away into the dark, squinting, hoping to catch even a hint as to where his family went.

Then, Ludyl and his father, Kolt, were both exactly where they were, facing away from the fire.

The young man was dumbfounded, rubbing his eyes to ascertain that he hadn’t been seeing a trick of the light, or that the cold air outside had gotten to him somehow. However, it was irrefutable that in the place that nothing once occupied, was his family’s bodies in their bedrolls.

“Go back to sleep,” said the voice of his father, still facing away. I hadn’t fully acclimated to his motor control yet, especially through an intermediary such as a [Proxy]. Even now, their faces and fingers twitched on their own, voices coming up in a slightly garbled way.

The young man stood there, uncertain, a primal part of his mind screaming out that something was unnatural, that he mustn’t accept what he just saw as the truth.

The bodies of his father and sibling laid unmoving, waiting.

Then, a few minutes later, he slipped back into his own bedroll, unmoving.

People were all too willing to rationalize the unnatural with their own reason. Superstition, religion and intuition had their own places, and in this instance, his justification of what he had seen won over his faith in his own senses.

I waited for a few more minutes and uncoiled my remaining [Proxies] from the hooks dangling above, each tensing their bone-white limbs to look like forgotten carcasses of whales long ago.

And it wasn’t long before I took over the young man as well.

I hadn’t actually targeted humans before, and this occasion marked the time where I tried my hand at it. These weren’t good people and I attempted to justify myself by thinking that because of their past actions, I could make better use of them.

The old man Kolt was a soldier — or at least he considered himself to be one. He had lost the use of his left arm after an infected cut took his tendons when he picked a fight with a guard and ended up getting pummeled to the ground for his efforts. The people he had fought for watched on impassively as he was beaten down and he had turned his back on them ever since. He then spent the remainder of his years being a general nuisance on the sides of streets, wandering and plying whatever trade he could convince customers to believe with his one good arm.

He didn’t change until he was old and his beard began turning grey. He didn't change until he found a pair of pitiable farm boys on the road, their homes ransacked by harsh winter months and other starving mouths. Only then did he realize he had spent his entire life having done nothing worth noting, and that perhaps for once in his life, he could make something better for himself. Kolt knew he wasn’t a paragon of virtue, that a man such as himself shouldn’t be allowed within five feet of an impressionable child but he couldn’t help but to think, if I were to change, what better time than now?

He wasn’t the best father, but he did his best and that gave him some peace in his heart.

Ludyl and Jawn, the two stragglers, were tinged in fascinating shades of guilt. Jawn, the older one, felt he had failed his sibling, that he wasn’t dependable enough. While he respected Kolt for what he had done for them, he never quite formed the bond that Ludyl did. Unlike his sibling, he was old enough to remember how his mother was slaughtered on the table by men driven insane, be it by hunger or by the cold.

Or perhaps it was something else and he had remembered it wrong, and he had doubted himself constantly. Regardless, he felt that if he were to let go of that memory, that nebulous bond he had with his old family, he would lose them forever, that they were finally dead. He was afraid that if he were to finally open his heart to Kolt, he would be betraying his real father and mother.

The ghosts of his past hung onto him and it wasn’t simply a metaphor. Through his beliefs, he truly was cursed with the tainted memories of his family, tangible as anything else.

Most of all, however, was that he feared one winter, they would be pushed too far by the cold and lapse into the frenzy he hazily remembered, into monsters that he was still terrified of. He wasn’t a kind person and he knew that the world he lived in wasn’t one lenient enough to allow him that one mercy. But, how would he know that he hadn’t already turned into someone that wouldn’t hesitate to kill and eat someone’s else flesh if he was desperate enough?

Ludyl, however, had an entirely different issue. He wasn’t uncouth or selfish, nor was he unpleasant. The memories of his blood father and mother had long since faded from his mind, having accepted the fact that those days were gone by and they would neer return. The only sin that he could possibly be attributed with was his love for alcohol and that one single mistake he hadn’t told anyone.

Not to his father, not even to his brother, and he had buried it so deep within his heart he could hardly remember. Even so sometimes alone at night he would wake up, staring at whatever ceiling that might be over, wondering if he really had done it, wondering if he should speak.

He couldn’t even remember her name.

After all, because, no matter how I phrased it, he was a rapist.

There was no one he could turn to, so he took refuge in alcohol and easy smiles. It was easy to pretend that nothing was wrong when you couldn’t stand to even imagine the disappointment on your family’s faces. So, he let it festered and rot, no matter the guilt.

These were people's problems and I had to remind myself that I was not beholden to them, that I wasn’t them. No matter how vivid they might be, they were simply another Iasgairean or human, not a single one more special than any other. The Iasgaireans, like Vrraet or Elst, would have no qualms with killing humans, and people like these three would have no issue with doing vice versa.

Ludyl, Jawn and Kolt, were three more names to the many that I now own. So, I thought to myself, what should I do with these people? Their [Essence] teemed with valuable [links] that I could make use of, ones that could be put into much better use than they could. I only needed to look for them, disassemble them and it could all be mine.

I held myself back, however. Their intact expertise would be much more useful than taking them apart.

It's like a lego set. Missing a piece here and there wouldn’t change much, but once you attempt to fit the finished building to another set, the holes and gaps become so much more jarring.

Afterwards, it was a simple matter for the [Proxies] to set up a field inside the building, to concoct a ‘ritual’ that allowed me to lay claim to this small patch of land. Overnight, they laid down their lifeblood in order to power the circle and when morning came, there was no warehouse at all. It had simply, somehow, slipped out of the mind of everyone that laid eyes on it, and no matter how they sensed it, the connection to their [Spirit] was simply cut, removed.

It became mine.

In the very centre of the building was a circle, much like that of which the Iasgairean carved for my arrival. It was a summoning circle that served as a gateway between here and there, setting up as a base of operations. With it, my reach extended into the heart of Bvurdrjord.

I wouldn’t openly reveal myself, of course.

The memories of the drifters served to guide me. In one moment, I learnt of where the best begging spots were, the local pubs and alleyways. I learnt of their opinions on the local situation — which was better than that in Ansvil. The local “Reeve,” or in proper Zweitsian terms, the Land Baron, was some poor schmuck sent from overseas much like the one in Ansvil. No one expected much from the man and reality matched that. Endless placation after the war was over without any result to show for.

There weren't any political reforms beyond the original shift in power, either. After the old society broke down, the occupation just kept going on with no end in sight.

It was as if the Zweitsian Empire was content to fight over the territory, ruin its culture and just sit atop whatever that was left. They weren’t even interested in exploiting the people, not that there were much to begin with, which was greatly confusing.

All that’s left was a gathering of stressed-out Bvurdrjordians waiting for the other shoe to drop. Eventually, the people got used to it and picked up their lives again, but a “mere century” couldn’t quite take the fear away.

Or fix the economy either, thought the drifters.

Eventually, the sunlight came pouring in through the cracks of the wooden boards soon enough, signalling the arrival of dawn. I yawned through a mouth that wasn’t mine and decided on what to do for the day.

Well, it's not time to stop yet, I reasoned as I stared at the sunrise, so I had the [Proxies] resume their activities in their new meat-bag guises.

The snow crunched under her boots as they marched through the forest, a puff of mist emerging from every breath in the cold air. They had left the walls of Ansvil in the early hours of the day, heading deep into towering trees, seeking answers. Strings of blue threads and bells jingled on the gateway as they passed through, the many spells and enchantments woven over Ansvil now entirely visible to Sophia.

She hadn’t expected to be brought along on their journey, but there she was, trailing behind Finny, Tjorvi and Katla as the group travelled. The pale sunlight shone through the barren branches from above, offering whatever protection it could from the wandering Sufferings.

“We must spend precious daylight while it still offers its protection,” Finny had said. Sufferings, as Sophia had learned, were less active during the day’s cleansing rays, being less capable of holding its shape as the sun enforces truth upon the world.

As I understood it, the sun has a way to weaken evil [Spirits] and allow [Form] to maintain its integrity. It was a complicated blend of primal beliefs and culture that gave sunlight such a property, ranging from the idea that evil hides in the night as well as the sun being the life-giver.

It didn’t really apply to me, of course, but in hindsight, it really should have been apparent.

The news that the group would be investigating the origins of Vargulf came somewhat as a surprise, especially in these dangerous times. Finny — no, perhaps it would be better to refer to her as Evelyn — decided that they must ascertain the threat of the Spirit and that they must seek out the ancestral home of her family.

Sophia hadn’t really heard much of their history. Evelyn had been rather tight-lipped about their past, especially before the Zweits came along. As elevated as ‘magic’ may have led her to feel, it was jarring to remember they were still beholden to the whims of mankind. As they walked along the unbeaten path, her eyes flickered to the trees around her, {Seeing} as taught to her by Evelyn.

Practice is the key.

There was history in these woods. Entrenched into every trunk of every tree, buried in every inch of dirt and every flake of snow, glimmers of the truth shone through. There, on a tree, she could see where decades ago a couple had carved their names and vows, the mark persisting even after their death. There, in the ground, a skeleton of a child laid under layers of soil, an arrowhead sitting in its skull as a reminder of bloodshed a century ago. In the sky, each snowflake contained in them a fragment of a story, having been brought over from rivers in the Bvurdrjord mainland, telling of their miraculous journey from afar.

Life and death were everywhere, Sophia reminded herself, and she must see the world with more than just her eyes.

Small, nameless Spirits drift through the air, whispering of the dreams and thoughts of the forest in agitation. There was danger within, Sophia understood, steeling her nerves against such a premonition. In the shadows of each tree, she could see pale, white eyes, looking back, shying away, always just out of reach.

She forced herself to focus back on walking and to not trip and fall while she was distracted.

The hunters, Katla and Tjorvi, marched on grimly, a solemn silence that spoke of their wariness. Evelyn herself stalked at the head of the group, resolute and wound tight. Sophia could imagine the weight that must sit on her back, to have the strength to appear so dauntless even as the danger loomed and found it incomprehensible.

Their hike didn’t take too long before they found signs of what they were looking for. Hanging from the branches, spiderweb-thin threads were strung across the trees, bells softly chiming at their approach. These were old, Sophia could tell, and familiar to the magics that Evelyn could do.

However, their magic had long since faded away, laying unattended like cobwebs in the attic. All that’s left was the softest reminder of the hands that once weaved them, memories of a mother’s warmth that was no longer present.

Then, surreptitiously, they emerged from the forest and into a clearing.

A blanket of white stretched out across the soil, covering whatever that laid underneath like the pall over a coffin. Sophia could smell the scent of bygone flowers, the cloying heat of fire, so strongly was it that for a second she could imagine raging flames towering into the sky. Then, the vision faded as quickly as it came and she remembered that it all laid in the past.

Whatever happened here happened a long time ago but the persistent stench of iron still remained.

At the back of the clearing laid a pile of shattered timbers, all that remained of a hut that once stood there. In the centre, two slabs of grey instead occupied the space where the living lived.

Sophia watched as Evelyn walked, hands extended at her side to touch flowers that weren’t there. A moment later, the older girl stopped, fingers clenched and relaxed, before continuing.

“So this is the place?” Katla asked, looking around. Her tone was flippant but her eyes were sharp, hands tense around her spear, “Looks… old.”

“It hadn’t been visited in a while, yes,” said Evelyn, “Not since mother left, anyway. Please, this way, it is not wise to linger past the sun’s highest point.”

“Mhm,” Katla mumbled, “I heard that this is where the Zweits stopped by the Weavers after old Ansvil was burned. The smell of blood certainly matches.”

“Was the history of my family really that well known?”

“Her grandfather was from Ansvil, years back,” Tjorvi explained, “The old man never stopped talking about it and even after he passed on, the stories stuck around. Most folks don’t believe it as much but as Hunters, we knew better than to dismiss it outright.”

Evelyn made a grimacing noise, eyes narrowing as they neared the hut. Now that they were closer, Sophia could see the stains that still stuck to the wooden planks like oil, stubbornly refusing to leave despite the midday sun. She could imagine the smoke that would once rise from the stone chimney, the laughter of children in the spring. She could almost see the wooden frame and door, the paths that the old Weaver would return home to.

But that was in the past, all buried under a smog of dark emotions that seemed to billow like smoke from the front entrance. It was a complicated blend of feelings — hatred, guilt, obsession, and a twisted form of love that sent shivers up her spine. Sophia tried so very hard to imagine this place as a home, but the multitude of pale eyes peering out from underneath the floorboards threw that sentiment in the fire.

Sophia focused herself, pulling herself taut. The first lesson of delving into the world of magic was to close off your heart, to watch from after, to tell the difference between the present and the past. It's easy to get lost in the could-haves and have-hads, such that one forgot that they no longer held any power over the future. So, the lesson was:

I didn’t live here, and the regrets of the past are not mine to bear.

It felt absurd, but it was important. When what one felt at the moment could be changed the next second, being aware of these fluxes in your heart was crucial to a long life as a practitioner

The second lesson, contradictory, was to have an active imagination. By letting your mind wander, you could grasp onto the fluttering strings left floating in the world, to see beyond what is by unravelling your mind like a net. Things beyond what one accepts as reality could happen, and accepting that it could happen would allow it to happen. At the same time, one must also reaffirm reality to be what it is, so that others couldn’t feed off your delusions and trick you.

It was a delicate balance — and a hairbreadth away from narcissism. Too little and you would stunt your capacity to believe, and too much, you would leave yourself open to fantasies, allowing the Spirits to have control over you.

It was contradictory, and the human mind wasn't meant to experience the world through such a lens. That’s why Evelyn taught her to use imageries, to help control this expanded reality, like unravelling and pulling ropes in her mind.

“Take care where you tread,” Evelyn said, “The ground had been upheaved.”

There were several meanings to that, and the Hunters nodded in agreement. Upheaved, the foundations broken, unstable. Dangers beyond the naked eyes lurked here, and it would be wise to not trust what appeared to be safe.

Two gravestones were erected where the hut was, simple slabs of rock that had names carved on them. The dirt in front had been dug up, leaving two ditches in the ground that looked as if it had been emptied only yesterday. For a few moments, Sophia could imagine familiar eyes looking back from within, frostbitten, before she abandoned the thought.

No, the grave was vacated as Sophia could see, it was simply that this moment had been frozen in time, unable to be let go of. She walked closer to where Evelyn stood, peering closely at the words carved on the stone.

Anskein, the loving father.

Thomen, the child of Anskein.

Sophia had never heard of these persons before, but her heart felt leaden as she gazed upon the graves.

There was a strange expression on Evelyn’s face as she regarded the empty graves, the lines of her cheekbones taut and unmoving, resolved but weren't exactly surprised either. Her fingers clenched once, twice, and she forcefully moved away with a snap.

“The hut once stood here,” she stated the words.

“And who were they?” Sophia asked.

“Family,” the girl answered.

“... Why were they dug up?”

“So they could be closer to their family.”

Sophia digested the words in silence, staring at the engravings. Evelyn knew more, definitely, but she didn’t press more on that matter.

“The wolf was here,” Katla muttered as she strode in, sniffing in the air, “Even after so many years, it still considered this place to be its home it seems. The scent is bound to the very rocks.”

“All the more reason to be wary then,” said the other Hunter, “You’ve found what you seek, Ansvil Weaver?”

“Yes, there,” Evelyn was looking away, a finger pointing at a pile off in the distance.

Sophia traced the fingers and the string of intent leading from it, eyes resting at a spot beneath a tree. Tjorvi took a shovel to the dirt, the rhythmic whack whack unearthing a pile of bones, inhuman, buried under frozen soil and snow.

Upon closer inspection, it was the femur of an elk, the flesh butchered by knives as shown by the nick marks, but slain by something else from the way the neck was twisted. It was large in life, but now the bones could fit into a hole that, Sophia just knew, would fit her. Gently, the remains were brought out from underground, from the grasp of forgotten history and resurfacing.

How did Evelyn know the bones were there? Were they always there, or had she brought them into existence by pulling hard enough?

“Bones?” Katla voiced the question.

“An offering,” Evelyn said, taking care to not utter the name beyond the boundaries of her wards, “A gift that the wolf had left to the Ansvil Weavers before it went rogue.”

Sophia once again was reminded that Vargulf was a being bound to the Weavers in some way. Given a name, given a purpose, it was very much kin to the blood that ran in Evelyn’s veins.

Evelyn said, “The threads that bound its identity to my family still hold strong — and I can track it with these bones in a ritual.”

“And it would tell us where it may be in two days, yes?” Tjorvi stated questioningly, dusting his hands off.

“Yes, as well as a way to tie your blade to its legend,” Evelyn continued, “With this, I could declare our actions to be part of the ongoing legend of the Weavers. Should give us some leverage over it.”

Tjorvi nodded, even though the Hunters didn’t quite understand what that entailed. Neither did Sophia, not truly, anyway, but she could gather that there must be a way to elevate their mundane weapons to be capable of interacting — countering the amassed fear or to say, [Spirit: Presence] of the wolf.

“This place…” he said, “Would make a disadvantageous battleground. The history of bloodshed here would only serve to empower it.”

And the sin of kin-slaying would not be forgiven, that much went unsaid, especially if it were to be done over the ancestral home and graves of the family.

The rest of the day went by quickly as the group made their way back to Ansvil. For a moment, it seemed like Evelyn wanted to say a few more words to Sophia but nothing came of it in the end. With lips clamped shut, they returned before the sun began its journey behind the lands again.

There were only two days left before the full moon descended, and then I would have to put on a play. Evelyn and Sophia prepared for the event in their own ways, boiling mixtures that smelt of ashes and sulfur.

Sophia retired to bed early that night but not before visiting Uther. The healer had come by during the day to take care of him, changing the bandages and reapplying salves. It will be some while before Evelyn could afford to expend power to restore his limbs, of which certainly wouldn’t be possible while Vargulf still roamed.

So, she waited, eyes burning a hole in the ceiling again, too anxious to sleep.

Then, just a few hours before midnight, the bell at the dock was rung, accompanied by an unearthly cracking sound as a certain metal-clad ship crushed through a thin sheet of ice on its way into port.