“They tried to kill you?” Cerys murmured. She struggled to focus her thoughts. The effort needed to concentrate was painful, draining. But if the Anain had risen against this man it confirmed many of her worst fears. That they should have done so and failed in their intent

… terrified her. For a single na’kyrim to have such innate, raw strength in the Shared that he could withstand the Anain was, to the best of her knowledge, unprecedented. And if the contest of wills between two such immense forces continued, any and all caught between them or around them faced ruin. Disaster.

Aeglyss laughed again. All his sorrow and fear and regret were snuffed out, like a covered candle flame.

“Now you see a little of what I am. What I am capable of. Don’t you, Elect? You glimpse the faintest outline of what I am becoming. What I have been made. And now you’re afraid of me.”

“What… what happened? Something happened to you, some change was worked upon you.”

His face – Tyn’s face – stilled. He stared at her, and looked in that moment empty of any life or thought or feeling.

“I was beaten, and broken, and left on a stone to die. By my own people. Betrayed. It will not happen again. I shall put my will upon them, upon all of them. I am beset by enemies, Elect. Always. Always. Therefore, I must gather true friends about me, and I will make them fear me and love me and there will be nowhere that closes its doors against me. The world has ever been a cold and heartless place. I will teach it to be more forgiving.”

“You must release Tyn,” Cerys said faintly. She had never felt such despair, and that feeling was, she was certain, entirely her own.

“I will. When you have shown me your libraries, when you have told me all you know of the Anain, and armed me against them. When you have helped me control the fires that burn in me, or convinced me that there is no one here capable of helping me in that. I will release him, and leave this place, when you have proved yourselves my friends, Elect. Only then.”

VI

“If we do not feed her she will die,” Cynyn observed.

The three Heron Kyrinin were crouched atop a steep earth bank, staring down at the na’kyrim who lay on the path below. K’rina was awake, but her eyes had lost their focus and her breathing was shallow, flighty. She lay on her back, her arms spread out. She had not moved, other than to make one failed attempt to rise, since before midday; evening was close now.

“It cannot be just hunger,” said Mar’athoin, not bothering to conceal his puzzlement. “It has only been three days since she ate. Long for a Huanin, perhaps, but one of the na’kyrim should not succumb so quickly.” He glanced at Sithvyr in search of confirmation.

She looked away. She had lost interest in this adventure, and took every opportunity to make clear her desire to turn for home. They had been gone from the secure, familiar marshes of the Heron homelands for fifteen days now, had passed even beyond the borders of Snake lands: enough to fatten their reputation amongst the clan’s warriors a little. Enough, Mar’athoin hoped, to show Sithvyr that he might be worthy of her affections.

“No,” he mused. “Not just hunger. It is her mind, her spirit, that is coming loose.”

The na’kyrim gave out a faint groan. She rattled out a few words in the Heron tongue: “My boy. Beloved boy.” Then more – incomprehensible to Mar’athoin and the others – in the Huanin language that some in Dyrkyrnon spoke.

“She is done,” Sithvyr said.

“No,” said Cynyn in surprise. “See, she rises.”

And rise K’rina did, coming feebly to her feet and staggering onwards.

“I say she is done,” Sithvyr insisted.

Mar’athoin watched as the na’kyrim stumbled off down the path, remorselessly following whatever mad call drew her. There must be a terrible need in her, he thought, to drive her weakened frame on thus.

“She must fail soon,” he said. “It would be fitting that we bear witness to it if she does. Then we can carry word back to Lacklaugh and he will know we did not turn aside at the end. He ran well with my father when they were young. They shed blood together. Let us see in the morning.”

The na’kyrim did not falter all through the night. Against all sense, she struggled on through the darkness. She strayed from the trail she had been following, though it was impossible to say if the straying was by choice or by blindness. She led them across high ground of rough grass and rushes, scattered trees twisted and stunted by the wind. They followed in silence.

And dawn showed them a thing none had ever thought to see in their lifetimes. Spread out below them was a vast bowl of land, two days wide: a sprawling forest cupped in a gigantic hill-circled hollow. Over and amongst its serried ranks of trees hung a tattered shroud of fog. Like clouds strewn over an inverted sky, strands of obscuring mist stretched far and wide across the hidden wilderness.

The three Kyrinin stood atop a crest of high ground, gazing at the immense landscape. Below them, K’rina was toiling down the rough slope, drawing ever nearer to the wisp-thin borders of the mist sea.

“Have we come so far?” Cynyn murmured.

“It seems so,” said Mar’athoin. “I did not know this was where her course would bring us.”

“She means to enter,” Sithvyr observed, staring at the fading back of the na’kyrim. “There is a decision we must make.”

Mar’athoin nodded. “I did not know…” he murmured.

“But we cannot turn away now,” said Cynyn. His excitement was close to the surface. “No matter what becomes of the madwoman, she has brought us to a place of wonders. We must walk a little way at least beneath the mists. We must.”

“It is not only wonders that the tales of this place recount,” Sithvyr said.

“I know, I know. But to say we have breathed those airs… who else of our clan could claim that?” The youngest of them was smiling as he let his gaze roam across the half-obscured forest.

“I think Emmyr came here once,” Mar’athoin said. “He does not speak of what he saw.”

“And we need not. But I do not wish to say that I stood upon its very threshold and turned aside,” Cynyn insisted.

Mar’athoin glanced at Sithvyr. She answered his questioning look with a tiny shrug.

“I am curious,” she conceded.

“Very well,” said Mar’athoin. “We follow. But only a short distance. I will not let this woman draw us deep. Our promise to Lacklaugh is fulfilled; he could ask no more of us than this.”

They entered the Hymyr Ot’tryn. The mists that dwelled there, the lingering exhalation of The Goddess, closed about them. This had been her land since the beginning of the world. The Wildling never hunted here, the Walking God never trod its paths; but The Goddess had come here often and, though she was gone with all the others, her breath remained on the still air.

The three Kyrinin went with light feet and heavy hearts. Every mist-muffled sound gave them pause, every flitting shadow drew their eye. They did not speak, but flashed curt messages to one another with the hunting language of fingers. This was a place thick with otherness, wrapped not only in fogs but in ancient tales. It was known that in the Hymyr Ot’tryn the forest slept lightly. The smallest disturbance might rouse it.

They passed in and out of bands of mist, feeling its damp fingertips on their faces. Nothing was dry here. The ancient, wrinkled trees were dark with dew, the ground fat with moss and mud and grassy hummocks. Streams ran between weed-clothed boulders. Little ponds and marshes would appear out of the vapours and then disappear once more as they skirted round them. Autumn lingered here, long after the new winter had banished it elsewhere. The grass was still bright, the willows and alders and ash trees still held many leaves that were only now browning and curling. The soil was soft. The na’kyrim left a clumsy trail of deep footprints sunk down into the yielding ground.