and more like dried blood applied with a fingertip. She shook her head and looked away, not yet ready to read the words. Though she believed with every fiber that the message was there, that the medium truly was blood, confronting the possible source of that blood was a concept that set her hands to trembling and her blue-green eyes to boiling.
With a half-lidded gaze of dread, she looked up and read what had been written.
The Song calls us
The Choir bring? us
The Lady dreams us
And her blood feeds us Bile rose in her throat at the last line, and she pulled away, still staring at the letters unmistakably written by Tessaeril’s hand. The crickets had stopped their chirping outside, and the message grew darker, more distinct and wet, until a few letters began to drip down the wall.. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her head swam as the floor pooled with red. The letters were lost in a stream of wet crimson, and in their place a crude note was left, barely more than a smear across the old wood. HELP ME
She recoiled from the wall, her movement slow, as if the air had grown thick and viscous. A sound like a hundred large wings beating in unison buzzed around her. Dark shapes fluttered by the window at speed, shadowy forms swarming through a night sky and flashing with white light as she pushed herself to the bed. She attempted to stand, but the wood frame crumbled in her grasp.
A dry whimper, hollow and echoing, came to her quietly from the southwest corner. She fumbled at her belt, unable to draw her sword or look away from the flickering shadows between the windows. There, just at the edge of the candlelight, a small nude figure sat huddled and shivering. Her pale blue skin trembled with a sheen of sweat; eyes as blue-black as the deepest ocean stared at Ghaelya from beneath long tresses of wet green hair; and gracefully pointed ears emerged from between the vinelike strands.
Deep blue lips, puckered and split at their edges, parted, loosing whispers of song, like steel scraping on steel beneath ocean waves. Small bumps formed along the strange girl’s skin, rising and turning a deep red before bursting open into fleshy blooms. The song exploded into a screeching chorus, and Ghaelya tore her eyes away and jumped to her feet, suddenly free of the thick pall that had held her down. She ran from the room.
Nimbly leaping down the stairs, she drew her sword and rushed into the common room to find it empty. Uthalion was nowhere to be found. The door at the top of the stairs she’d rushed down creaked open, and slow footsteps pressed noisily upon the old steps. Ghaelya ran outside, searching — for Vaasurri or Brindani, but she found herself quite alone and surrounded by buzzing shadows and discordant, singing voices. Raising her sword, she turned to the figure now in the common room and charged back inside.
She yelled a challenge, but coughed as her voice failed her. Lowering her blade in the darkness of the hallway, she stepped closer to the curiously familiar silhouette. Tentatively she raised her hand, placing her fingertips against the cold surface of a mirror. The screeching song and the buzzing of wings faded away as she stepped back in disbelief, dizzy as her mind struggled to comprehend. She stumbled over a loose board and tripped, falling backward and feeling the boards break beneath her weight.
In a long impossible pit of shadow, a well of blackness that caressed her skin like warm velvet, a sudden calm filled her, and she saw the dream for what it was.
She woke up.
Opening her eyes, she found herself still stretched out on the bedroom floor, her hands laced behind her head. Her fingertips were still cool from touching the mirror as she sat up, gripped her sword, and rolled to her feet only to find the strange girl in the corner gone.
There was no blood on the wall or the floor, and not even a ghost of the candle’s smoke gave evidence as to-whether it had ever been there. On the verge of a sigh of relief, she caught the trailing edge of a haunting howl echoing from the north.
“The Choir,” she whispered breathlessly. “They’re coming!”
Pushing weeds and bits of abandoned junk aside, Brindani crawled through a labyrinth of refuse into the shadows of the windmill. Spiders skittered out of his way to escape, abandoning unfinished meals in the webs pulled apart by the half-elf. Sitting in the dark, he breathed easier, leaning back against the stone as the rafters above creaked and groaned in the breeze. He sat and listened, studying the dark to assure himself of being alone before setting his pack on the ground and working at the tight knots that held it shut. His nimble fingers worked the knots faster and faster, paranoid and worried that his brief sanctuary would be ruined at any moment.
Slipping his hand into the leather satchel, he could already feel old names and places trying to slip back to the forefront of his thoughts, each accompanied by a fresh stab of pain in his abdomen. He’d been warned about the pain, had seen the bodies, doubled over and burned at pauper’s funerals; but he’d never heeded the advice, just as he’d never found a seller that had turned down hard coin in favor of any moral responsibility. There would be no one to see him to a proper grave, and no one who would care when he was goneno one he would likely recognize by that time anyway. The silkroot would see to that, would take it all away in time.
He grew frantic, throwing things from the old pack in his search for the soft bundle he kept at the bottom. He whispered a stream of profanity so coarse he could almost feel the gentler portion of his elf blood cringe. He turned the pack on its end, spilling its contents into the dirt, and dug through pouches of dried food, loops of thin rope, tindertwigs, and empty, thick-glassed bottles. Finding nothing, he swore louder and lifted a bottle to hurl in anger, but the sound of a heavier creaking from above stopped him.
He peered through the dust and webs, squinting to see between roping vines of ivy and weeds. Frozen in place, his heart pounded as he searched for movement and pulled close a long silver dagger that had fallen beside his leg. A low shape darted through the murky shadows, sending a shower of dust falling from the rafters. Sudden pain tore through Brindani’s stomach, and he leaned forward in agony, struggling to keep his neck at an upward angle. Tears sprang from his eyes at the effort, and the blurry shadows shifted again, growing closer. As the pain subsided, he brushed the wetness from his eyes, raising his head enough to see the gleam of an ebony gaze watching him from above.
Gods no, he thought, the dark was not deep enough.
“How are you feeling?” Vaasurri asked, crouching predator-like upon a low rafter. “Is there much pain? I imagine so, and more to come, surely…”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Brindani stammered, averting his eyes from the black stare and trying to appear casual as he gathered his belongings, stuffing them back into his satchel.
A soft bundle thumped into the dirt near his feet, the scent of it unmistakable. It caused his mouth to water, though his lips had never felt drier. He didn’t want to look at it, he didn’t have to; but he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t hold back the needy fixed stare that the pain in his gut and the ghostly voices from his memory demanded. He faced the silkroot, no longer alone, and saw it for all that it was: guilt, shame, secret, and addiction wrapped up neatly in a small leather knot.
“I smelled it just last night,” Vaasurri said, prowling down a thick support beam. His long black hair did not obscure the menacing gleam of his pitch-dark eyes. “You must have nearly used it all by the time Uthalion found you in the Spur, else I would have detected it earlier. But your pack has the odor of silkrootfaint, but it’s there.”
“What do you know about it?” Brindani growled angrily through his pain.
“Some,” Vaasurri replied “Speeds reflexes and induces a temporary sense of euphoria, it’s also known as Knight’s Veil, Styxroot, Velvet, and most commonly Widow-Pin… A name I’m sure you are quite familiar with, correct?”
“None of your business,” Brindani answered defensively, though a fresh wave of needlelike pains flowed through his abdomen. “I can manage just fine, no one needs to”
“Oh, I am afraid it is my business,” Vaasurri said ominously, the glossy blade of his curved bone-sword coming into view. “You see, out on the Akana the silkroot is also known as Wolfbloom. The stems mark any passing creature with a scent that can be tracked for miles.”
“What are you saying?” Brindani asked as his hand’ closed over the soft bundle lovingly, easily resisting, the almost non-existent urge to crush the small lumps within and hurl them into the dark.
“I’m saying”the killoren crept closer”that you have betrayed us all.”
“Wh-what?” Brindani stammered again, clutching the silkroot to his chest. The scent alone eased his mind and teased the agony in his stomach. “N-no, I haven’t”
He stopped short, his breath quickening as the sound of eerie howls joined the whistling wind through the
