When Hunger regained his senses, he found himself still under the water, lying on a stretch of river stones. This was a different part of the river. It took all his might, but he pushed himself up.

Hu, he said. Do you see? I can withstand your pain. Perhaps you will always beat me, but it will cost your attention and time. I will take that from you. I will force you to always think of me so you can think of nothing else.

There was a pause.

He felt her push.

He took a step, and then another. He tried to fight her.

But she flooded him with ease. He could trust her. She was good. And if he asked very carefully, with much obedience, she would release those he had so horribly imprisoned.

Hunger turned and climbed up the steep, slippery rocks of the bank of the riverbed, up out of the water and into the sunshine. When his strength returned, he began to run along the banks, leaping between massive boulders, back toward the Mother and her caves.

Hunger could smell the Mother here in the darkness. The warrens were full of her. She smelled of rock and sweet, clean magic.

She was smaller than he was, but quick and strong. He’d felt her sharp teeth and powerful hands. He’d seen her. She rarely left the caves, but she’d ventured forth with him a time or two, walking abroad in the night. He’d also seen her in the smallest of light that found its way into the depths from the mouth of the cave. She was pale. Pale as a mushroom. Pale as the moon.

He didn’t know what she was. She had two arms, two legs. A head. She had a muzzle, which the villagers did not. Her skin was covered with a fur. Smooth and soft as the small things he had eaten: the mice and squirrels, the rat.

His ease grew the deeper he went in the inky tunnels. Her powers were always stronger when he was close.

He felt along the walls as he walked, smelled the scent of rock and water, of the sulfur springs, and of the strange beasts that lived in the bowels of this mountain. When he came to the carving that marked the hole leading to the lower chambers, he climbed down. Then it was up a small slope, over the bridge that spanned the cold waters of the underground river.

He found her in the warm room, surrounded by her light. But now he considered that light as if for the first time. It wasn’t just light. It was-the word was “ribbons”-it was ribbons of light, ribbons flowing around her, circling her limbs. Living ribbons of light wriggling like the snake he’d eaten. And then he saw that her appearance was changed.

She no longer had a muzzle. Nor was she covered in soft fur.

The Mother was human. And beautiful. So stunning it took his breath away.

He wondered and marveled at the change. He looked closer at her. She looked like…

She looked like his wife. He was confused. “Lovely?” he asked.

“Come here,” she said.

The ribbons of light reached out to him and circled his arm, caressed his neck, wreathed his head. A continual shimmer.

“What do you want?” she asked.

He only wanted to be here with her. But no, that wasn’t right. Deep in his mind he knew there was something else. And then the nightmare of his family struggled past the feel of her beauty and stared him in the face.

He was going to tell her to free the souls inside, but he knew she must not know they meant anything to him.

“Freedom,” he said.

She laughed.

“You need a servant,” he said. “But you don’t need me. I will find you another, and you will give me this boon: you will dissolve this body and let me go.”

“And the souls inside you?” she asked.

Her face flickered like smoke. Alarm shot through him. He took a step back, but she grabbed him by the arm, and such was the power of her ease that his panic lost its grip. He knew he should run, but could not.

She thrust her other hand into his sodden chest. She reached deep into him with that powerful hand and grasped the part of him that held his family.

He wanted to struggle, but could not.

With a yank she broke them free-his bright daughter, his handsome sons, his admirable wife-and withdrew his monster’s heart.

Hunger fought her ease with all his might and managed to grasp her hand. He felt what she held. It was then he realized she hadn’t grasped his heart, if he even had one.

No, what she’d taken from his chest was a stomach.

It was a weave of willows. He’d been there when she’d made them; he himself had fetched the thin flexible willow branches she used for such weaving. They smelled of her magic. His body was packed with stomachs. Empty stomachs waiting to be filled. But this one was not empty. In this one Hunger could feel the souls of his family caught like moths in a wicker web.

The Mother pushed at him and yanked her hand away. “You stupid thing,” she said. “I will devour them.”

“No,” he begged. “Please.”

“Then help me prepare for the harvest. Bring me the ones that stink, all those that could fight against me. Bring me the young male that would be their leader. This is your duty. And when you have fulfilled that duty you will receive the boon you seek.”

The pull of her dazzling beauty and the desires for his family tugged against each other. He wanted to obey her. But he also knew she was lying. She would not keep her promise to free his loved ones.

Then something she’d just said sparked an idea in his mind. She had spoken of a harvest before, but he had not known then what the word meant. “What do you want to harvest? I am strong. I can serve you as the harvest master and you can let these go.”

Her anger seemed to flow away at this offer and her countenance smiled upon him. “It has been too long since any in my family have handled humans. So facile.”

This made no sense to Hunger and he could not tell if she had been talking to him or herself.

“You do not understand,” she said. “This herd of humans is mine. Mine by right. It was my mother’s mother’s before me and will produce for my daughters. But humans rebel against the natural order of things. It has ever been so. And if they would rebel against me, then think what they’d do if one such as yourself was set to watch over and harvest them. No, humans do best when one of their own sits at their head. Your part is to cull the herd. Nothing more.”

A part of Hunger recoiled at this information. Harvesting humans? Then he thought of how she taught him to unravel things, and he knew what she wanted to harvest.

A wave of her ease washed over him. What did it matter what she wanted. Or if she lied. She was so beautiful. So kind.

His alarm faded away.

“They are hidden, the ones that stink. Hidden so even the Mother who stole this herd from my ancestors could not find them. But you have been created to root them out.”

Hunger thought. A word came to him for the ones that stink-Sleth. That was their name. And he immediately knew where the men had taken one of them. He’d learned this not from following any scent trail, for the scent had ended in the fires. No, that knowledge had been one of the first things that had tumbled into him from Barg. Purity the Sleth was going to be held in a stone cage in Whitecliff. He could take her. Sleth would do anything to keep their secrets. They would go so far as to hunt and kill captured members of their nests, which meant if he did take her, he could then use her as bait to find the others.

“You will spare these?” he asked.

“Your kind is so weak. How you ever overpowered the Mothers I will never know.”

“Will you spare them?”

“You have two nights,” she said. She held up the stomach that contained his family. “If you fail, know that I and my daughters are hungry, and these firstlings will be prepared for our feast.”