As the morning sun lifted, a fog rose with it, adding a misty blanket to the wool one surrounding Dnara. An ashbird sang from one of the dead trees, then took wing. As her eyelids grew heavy, she swore a shadow landed in the branches overhead, but sleep came in fast and left the shadow forgotten.
When Dnara awoke, the cloud covered sun had moved to the other side of the knoll. It would be setting soon, marking the equinox by lining up with the temple spire in Lee’s Mill. She tried to picture what it would look like, but she saw only fire and fallen stone, ghastly images haunting her from the night before. Her hand clenched the blanket and found it wet. The day’s thick ground fog had given way to a light mist, leaving everything damp. With great effort, she forced herself out of the warm blanket and sat up. The everbright lamp remained dark, and overhead an inky black shadow made a low muttering complaint.
“Shoo,” Jenny hissed at the large raven, while reaching up and giving a lower branch a hard shake. The raven complained with a louder caw but took wing, leaving the forest and the unwelcoming blackrope behind. “Damn ravens.”
“You don’t like them?” Dnara asked past a yawn.
Jenny turned, looking sheepish at her witnessed argument with a bird. “Oh, sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No. I can’t believe I slept the whole day. Perhaps Athan was right and I am a wolfchild.” Dnara searched the barren trees but found no sign of the forester’s return. “He’s not back yet?”
“Not yet,” Jenny said, pulling a wrapped package from Rupert’s saddlebag. “Should be soon, though. Here, eat something.”
“Thank you.” She accepted the wrapped rations of dried fish and a hard biscuit, only realizing how hungry she was after taking her first bite.
“You’re welcome. And no,” Jenny said, sitting back on her haunches and picking at a leafless twig. “I don’t much care for ravens. They keep them as pets and messengers at the Black Spire, where I was trained to use this... this gods’ forsaken magic.” A blue spark sizzled across her palm then dissipated as she closed her fist. Her steely gaze lifted to the empty tree branches. “Can still hear those ravens muttering in my sleep some nights, saying words meant to drive a person to madness.”
Dnara chewed a bite of fish in silence, trying to imagine what it was like to live in a mage tower like the Black Spire. Beothen’s sister lived in one at the Red Keep, and had all her life, like Dnara had lived within Keeper Ishkar’s tower. Beothen had also not seen his sister in decades, her life now belonging to the conclave. The Red Keep’s tower and its conclave of mages sounded like another prison, and the Black Spire sounded like a much more awful place. If that was the cost of having magic, Dnara would gladly give it back in return for freedom.
It sounded selfish, to give back a gift that seemed to drive out the blight, but Dnara had lived an entire life in the service of someone else’s wishes. Yes, she would give it back. She hadn’t asked for this...curse. Yes, that’s what it was, not a gift but a-
No, she rethought with focused effort, but the misgivings continued to swirl within her mind, making her dizzy and leading to ...madness.
A chill ran up Dnara’s spine and her hand lowered, setting the fish back down on the waxed paper wrapping. “The air is too still here,” she said, the hair raising on her scar-laced arms. She could feel no wind, but something else whispered to her from the darkness.
“You all right?” Jenny asked, standing up and approaching with a cautious gate. “You’ve got a strange look about you...”
Low, muttering shadows gathered. “I can hear them,” Dnara said, hands raising to cover her ears. “The ravens. I can hear them, and there is no wind here.”
Jenny unsheathed her short sword and stepped in a slow circle around the clearing, her eyes cast up to the trees and the shadows that clung there. “You’re right about the wind,” she said. “It don’t feel right.”
The sun anchored itself on the horizon, taking the remaining daylight with it. Behind them, the derelict watchtower loomed and a thick fog rolled along the ground. Rupert gave an uneasy neigh and tugged at his tree branch-secured reins as Jenny continued her survey of the shadows. A twig snapped, its echo skittering off the trunks. Jenny’s sword raised and she drew in closer to where Dnara sat motionless on the blanket.
Dnara’s heart thudded, its sound nearly drowning out the ravens. Dry leaves crackled under an unknown foot. Jenny cursed under her breath, knees bent and sword ready. Dnara clutched the blanket as the sunlight died, leaving a night sky empty of stars. As the blanket moved, so too did an object which landed against Dnara’s leg. She startled then reached for it, taking the everbright lamp in hand and whispering an unfamiliar but remembered word with a quivering voice.
“Lumna.”
The lamp ignited, bathing the clearing in a blinding white flash, as if a star had fallen from the black sky and landed within Dnara’s hands. Jenny and Dnara shielded their eyes, and from the tree line came a masculine curse. The lamp’s light slowly dimmed before settling on a softer hue more like the moon. The shadows retreated and the ravens went silent, and from the edge of the clearing came a voice that freed Dnara’s heart from its fear.
“Not the greeting I’d hoped for,” Athan said, blinking at the dimming lamplight and eyeing Jenny’s raised sword.
“Athan!” Dnara leapt to her feet and rushed to
