Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 55 of 66

The crawler took the refugees down the pass at first light. Rebecka watched it go from the ridge, three bound prisoners chained inside a rear compartment, Katia at the front with the healer kitten in her lap. Marcus stood beside her on the stone. The homestead waited at the end of the road, and only three of its eight wards still held. She could not put twenty-two people back inside a house that would not keep them. "Five wards down," Marcus said. "We can rebuild two by nightfall if we ride now. Not the other three. Not in a day." "Then we don't rebuild them," Rebecka said. "We replace them." She uncorked a small vial from her coat and poured the contents onto the flat stone. The liquid pulled itself upward and opened into a floating eye, blue at the center, gold threads shivering around the rim. Oculus Omnivident turned once and settled at her shoulder. "The homestead," Rebecka said. "Show me what's left." "Three wards hold. The north fence line is open. The kitchen wall is open. The root cellar is open. No riders within a day." "Anyone watching the gaps?" "No." "The fae. Are they still in the hollow?" "Yes. Lark's people. Two hours by the between-road." Marcus looked at her. "You want fae wards on our walls." "I want the hollow itself," Rebecka said. "Their sigil-weavers can lay a living dome over the house. Mushroom light. Flower thread. It holds as long as the growth holds. Lark said so once." "They'll ask a price." "They always do." She sent Lark ahead through the between-road with her crow and a folded promise. He came back before the sun cleared the ridge. Behind him walked four of the fae, wings folded tight, arms full of what looked like woven roots and glass. One carried a small carved chest strapped across her chest. She set it down on the stone and opened it. Inside, twelve potions stood in rune-marked slots, breath curling from two of the corks. "Veilkeepers," Lark said. "One for each waking mind in your house. Drink at dusk. The sigils won't take unless the drinkers are hidden from scriers." "Price?" Rebecka asked. The fae with the chest looked up. "Ninka comes to the hollow one day each spring. She learns from us. That is the price." Rebecka's jaw tightened. She thought of the burned braid, the cave, six days without sun. One day a year in a village of glowing mushrooms was not a wound. "Done," she said. Oculus drifted closer. "The kitchen wall took root already. The dome is forming. Your home is holding." Rebecka let out a breath she had carried since the ridge. The homestead had walls again. But her daughter now had a debt in the fae hollow, and Rebecka did not yet know what a year of fae lessons would teach a ten-year-old who could already move minds across a mountain.