“I–I know, and I’m grateful for everything,” Wren said. “But I shouldn’t be here, or you shouldn’t. This is wrong.”
“Wrong?” Yet another woman came forward, one looking a bit younger and stronger than the others.
Kara! Nine hells…
The most ancient vala of Denveller took Wren’s hands and peered into her eyes. “Little Wren. Oh, little Wren. It might be a little early, yes, but there’s nothing wrong about being here. This is where you’re going, little Wren, this is home, this is where the long road will bring you in the end.”
Wren glanced around at the endless darkness, the starless sky, the black void of a world resting on a tiny patch of dead grass and dry earth where eight dead women huddled together in the endless night, wheezing and shaking and spitting on each other.
Wren looked back at Kara, a woman who died of old age at forty-two winters with a dozen gray claws in her raven hair, and then she looked down at their hands still clasped together. Kara’s hands were thin and wrinkled around the knuckles, and Wren’s…
She blinked and shook her head.
My hands!
Wren’s hands were as thin as chicken feet, like brittle twigs shaking in the wind. She could barely bend her fingers, barely lift her arms, they were so stiff and sore. Suddenly she was gasping for breath, wheezing through tiny wet lungs with a huge weight crushing her chest. Wren fell to her knees, her mouth hanging open as she struggled to breathe, and her hair fell forward around her face, thin strings of gray and white. Wren tried to raise her head, but her back was aching and her vision blurred.
“Help me,” she wheezed. “Someone, help me…”
She blinked.
The shadow world of the Denveller ring was gone. The ghosts of the crones were gone. Now the world was blinding white and freezing cold, and she could breathe again. Wren stood up, squinting at the bright snowy hills and the distant snowy mountains. The pain in her back was gone, and her hands were her own again, and her hair was dark red again. She shivered as the wind blasted over the hill, pelting her with ice.
“Hello?”
She took a few more uncertain steps and heard the snow crunching underfoot. Huge white clouds sailed across the face of the sun in a pale blue sky.
“Hello? Kara? Anyone?”
The snow crunched behind her. Wren turned around and felt her bowels turn to frozen slush.
A dark titan loomed over her, a giant covered in red fur and obsidian claws, with eyes that burned like molten gold, and in its maw stood a forest of white fangs dripping with venom. The beast roared.
Wren stumbled back, her shaking hands reaching for her sling, but it was gone, reaching for her knife, but it was gone, summoning up the aether, but it wouldn’t answer.
“No, no, stay back, stay away!” She turned to run and the giant fox demon roared again. Wren fell to her hands and knees in the freezing snow as a sharp cracking pain raced down her spine and erupted from her back. She twisted around and saw the dark red fur of her own tail writhing and flicking around her thighs.
“No!”
She lurched up to her feet and saw the fur on her hands, the black points of her nails as they sharpened into claws, and the dark tip of her nose as her face stretched forward into a canine muzzle.
Not this, please, Woden, no, not this, it can’t be this, I’m not an animal, I’m human, damn it, I’m human!
She could feel the points of her fangs slipping out over her lips, and she could feel the fur growing all over her body, scratching and rustling inside her clothes.
Another sharp crack of pain raced down her spine and she leaned back, her arms outstretched and head tilted back to howl at the bright winter sky.
But when she flopped forward again, exhausted and sweating, her arms remained suspended at her sides. She pulled at them, but they were bound tightly at the wrists. Wren looked and saw first her pale pink hand and then the rough ropes tied around her arms, lashing her to a wooden beam. She tried to pull free again, but she was tied at the ankles and waist and neck as well.
I’m not an animal. I’m myself again. What the hell is happening?
The pale winter sky was swallowed by raging thunderheads flashing with lightning. As the shadows rolled across the white landscape, Wren saw figures moving out of the corners of her eyes. People were trudging through the slush from behind her, circling her, gathering before her. They were strangers, all of them, dressed in rags and smeared with mud and soot. Men and women, and children too. They formed a filthy, silent congregation in front of her, and stared.
“Untie me, please. Someone, please let me go. What’s happening? What are you all looking at? Who are you? Please, someone untie me.”
Wren struggled against the ropes, yanking at her hands and wrenching her legs back and forth, but the ropes held firm.
The crowd parted and an old man stepped forward. A black cloak hid his body and clothes, and a slouching hood covered his head. A knotted and braided gray beard fell across his chest, and from within the folds of his hood, the man peered out at her with a single gray eye.
“Who…?” Wren’s voice faltered and she slumped against the ropes. “Lord Woden?”
“Ah, my poor sweet little Wren,” the man whispered. “Look at you now, with your little wings clipped and nowhere left to run. These are holy people, Wren, people of faith. And they will not suffer a witch to live.”
The man took up a stick from the ground and scraped his fingers over the end of it, and where he stripped away the dead bark the wood sparked and burst into flame. Wren looked down at her feet and saw the pile of kindling stacked up as high as her knees. The one-eyed man thrust his burning brand into the dark thicket on the ground, and instantly every stick and twig was dancing with yellow flames.
A tremendous wave of heat rolled up Wren’s body and a filthy column of black smoke raced up into her nose and mouth. Wren choked and shook, pulling and twisting against the ropes, and all she wanted to do was beg the silent people to help her, to cut her free, to put out the fire, but she couldn’t scream. She couldn’t even whisper. The smoke had reached deep into her chest and was crushing her lungs, and her heart was screaming as her eyes went dim.
No… Why would they do this? I never hurt them… them… wait… Who are they?
She tried to open her eyes and saw the blurry faces of the grim people around her beyond the flames.
They have no faces… They’re not real… This isn’t real!
The flames vanished, the people vanished, and the entire dark hilltop vanished. Wren crumpled to the ground, coughing and shuddering, feeling the cold smooth floor beneath her.
I’m alive. I can see.
Wren sat up, one hand pressed to her throbbing head. She squinted around at the balcony at the top of the Tower of Justice, at the view beyond the railing of the Palace of Constantine and the distant waters of the Bosporus. And standing at the railing was the witch, Baba Yaga.
A torrent of white aether blasted around and around outside of the tower, flowing past the balcony in icy waves of vapor and mist. But despite this maelstrom, the air inside the tower was perfectly still.
Aether can’t even stir the empty air. The only thing it can touch is a soul.
Wren coughed and saw the aether spilling out of her mouth. She pounded her chest as she got back up to her feet, and the world gradually felt more solid and heavy around her as the last fading claws of the nightmare slipped away, leaving her clear-minded but exhausted.
“Yaga!”
The old witch turned, her long white hair clattering quietly with the tiny bones in her braids. “You woke up? Good for you, little one. I’m impressed. A little.”