Torbjaer Mtns, just southwest of the ravine entrance to Rog Hodun
54th-55th Day of Winter, Year 217
Astarael
What’s left of their party makes camp in a shallow cave, some distance southwest from the ravine that served as their access to Rog Hodun. Despite her own exhaustion, Astarael can tell all of her companions need rest far more than she does, so she takes the first watch of the evening while they sleep.
She keeps a keen eye on their surroundings, stoking the small fire from time to time, but her thoughts are far away. She imagines plucky Samsel, now alone in the darkness of the ruined underground city. She hopes the halfling will be successful at finding Harvey and the surviving Digsmen. Astarael feels a pang of guilt, knowing that she can no longer keep her word to return and help, but it’s like Samsel said when they parted ways, “We have to look out for our own.” And now, a different guilt sets in.
Sav. Talith. Danica. Paloma. What has happened to them? Will we ever be able to rescue them?
She had hated herself, in the moment that Ethan left her, standing alone on the crest of the hill. It took all of her willpower not to go with him. Astarael truly hopes he’s as sneaky as he claims to be. There’s likely to be a camp of Swans somewhere in the area. But he was right. If she’s learned anything, it’s that they are stronger together. She couldn’t take on a dozen soldiers alone. They need to gather more intelligence, to make a plan to extract their friends. She can only hope that the caravan won’t gather more soldiers along the way. It’s a possibility, with such a valuable cargo.
We will need to travel fast and light if we hope to ever catch up.
After she and Sav had gotten to know each other, Astarael had made a vow to herself to protect Sav from the Inquisition at all costs. And now that she’s gone, presumably taken captive by the Swans, Astarael feels like a failure. Samsel’s plight had distracted her from where she should have been—by her friend’s side. She hears the words, whispered to her on the wind…
Weak. Afraid. Pathetic. Your fault — it’s your fault.
Astarael fights to blink back tears. And there is Talith too. She had wasted so much time, unable to tell him how she felt.
No. I won’t be weak. I’ll stop at nothing to get them back. NOTHING.
It finally reaches the point in the night to switch shifts, so Astarael wakes Lumotu, and settles in to get some rest herself.
Astarael finds herself sitting upon a rocky beach, the waves just reaching the tips of her boots. She looks across the water, and sees some familiar docks and piers lining the far edge of the large cove. Her eyes trace up the path, cut into the cliffside, that leads up to her childhood home of Maiden’s Drink. The small village is perched on the top of the tall peninsula, a lighthouse at the end, to warn the trading ships of the dangerous rocks and waters offshore.
She looks back down and to her right, and smiles at Talith, who is sitting next to her. He smiles back, and they share a brief kiss. She breaks away and reaches to take his hand, but as she does so, the world around her suddenly shifts and changes.
No longer a beautiful sunset, it’s now night, and the water has rapidly begun to rise around her. She stands up in a panic, Talith nowhere in sight. She’s now knee deep in the cold sea, and the coastline has changed as well—a different shore, unfamiliar.
Astarael searches in vain for Talith, but he’s gone. The water is at her waist now. Suddenly, two pairs of hands rise from the depths. Not those of the living, but the bloated and pale arms of the drowned, dressed in the tattered remains of fine gowns. Their delicate fingers show surprising strength as they grab her. Her footing is lost. They are pulling her down.
She tries to gasp for a breath, but feels as though something is squeezing her throat now as well, the briny water filling her open mouth. As she is submerged into the now deep abyss, she tilts her head up, and gets one last glimpse of the sky—and sees two strange glowing discs, floating in the dark above.
Astarael wakes up with a start, and finds it’s the brink of dawn. Her heart is racing, any ability to resume sleep now gone. She quietly gets up and heads over to stoke the fire, silently greeting Lumotu, still on watch. She knows there will be a tough day ahead, and so she begins to make breakfast for her companions.
Vanja
Vanja wakes to the smell of food and the muffled sound of changing watch. It’s barely light, and for a moment, she lays still. Flat on her back on the uneven stone of the cave floor. She closes her eyes against the light filtering into the cave mouth, reflecting off the snow, and feels for the talisman tucked into her shirt, beneath layers of fur and wool. She closes it in her hand, and traces the runes with her thumb.
Please, she prays, Let it not have happened. Let it have been a dream.
Vanja had always thought the River flowed in one direction, but that hadn’t proven true. Not always. Barely twenty days ago, Vanja had somehow traveled into the past—into a dream that Bax had already dreamt. That he’d dreamt of himself as a boy, before he had ever left his home. And before that, the River had impossibly known her own thoughts, and had swept the entire group away, back to where they had been, days before. By now, following the River had become something Vanja could even control, so long as she was going back. To some place she had already been. Moving to a past place.
If the River can flow back upon itself…or if I can fight this current, it needs to be now. Please. It needs to have been only a dream. A divination. A warning.
Next to her, Vanja can hear Bax’s breathing. Steady and untroubled and wholly unlike Bax.
Vanja can feel hot, angry tears forming, and she dashes them away with her forearm as she sits up. Her sleeve is stained dark. Eyeblack. Left over from the day before and now smeared across her face. Vanja rolls her sleeve up, hoping to reveal a clean cuff, but the inside is blackened, too. Charcoal. Where she’d drawn a sleep thorn down her arm the night before. Desperate for a dreamless sleep.
That had worked at least. As much as she prayed for it to be untrue, Vanja hadn’t dreamed at all.
Vanja climbs to her feet, now, and walks to the mouth of the shallow cave, where Astarael is sitting. Tending a cookpot over the campfire. Vanja takes a seat opposite, and scoops a handful of snow from the ground. As it melts, she presses the snow into her sleeve, scrubbing at the stain.
Astarael
Most of their supplies and gear had been kept back at the camp, but Astarael always traveled with her cooking tools, and a small bowl and spoon. She scoops some of the hot porridge into it now, and offers it to Vanja, and speaks in a quiet voice, so she won’t wake the others yet.
“Here. I had my portion already. We don’t have much in the way of supplies, so best enjoy this while we can. We can hunt and forage as we go. Hopefully there will be plenty to find as we go south.”
Astarael takes a closer look at Vanja now, as she extends the bowl. She had a distant, lost look on her face. Not like the usual chipper Vanja. Astarael couldn’t blame her. The day before was one of the worst in her own life—including the time she spent imprisoned in Galoring.
She had been too far away, and hadn’t been able to see much of what happened, but it seemed Roux took the brunt of the damage from the frost dragon they fought. And even though he has that magic through his constellation to bring himself back to life, it seems he endured too much, and did in fact die, once the dragon’s life ended. Astarael felt that familiar guilt again. She had been repeatedly pursued and restrained by two jellies, who interrupted her plan to distract the dragon. Maybe if she had ignored them more, or had been faster, she could have done more and stopped Roux from dying. Then Vanja wouldn’t have had to do that spell, and Bax never would have traded his own mind in exchange for his friend’s life returned.
She sighs, and shakes herself out of the thought. Vanja has taken the bowl from her hands. Poor Vanja. She had taken this the hardest. Vanja’s so close with Bax, and it was her own spell that did this. Astarael sits down next to Vanja.
“You know it’s not your fault, right? About Bax? It was his choice. None of us could have known there would be such a price to pay. But he’s right. We’re clever, and we are gifted with magic. We’ll find a way to get his memories back.”
Vanja
Vanja takes the bowl of porridge and nods her thanks. She shifts in her seat, though, as Astarael comes closer. Leaning away. Putting space between herself and Astarael.
“Of course it’s my fault,” Vanja says. Her voice is low. Flat. “I should have been able to heal Roux.” She shakes her head, “It’s always worked, before. Every other time we fought together. Even when that scorpion nearly sliced him in half. He’s done that before—channeled the Fox. Kept fighting. And I could still heal him.”
Vanja sets the bowl down on the ground beside her, the porridge untouched. “I don’t understand why it didn’t work.”
She pauses, pulling at her sleeve again. The wet cloth already freezing to her skin. “Even when he died I still thought…” She lets out a breath of air. A short, irritated sound. “I thought it would work. Bringing him back. I’m so much stronger, here. In Jorung. Under the River. I thought…”
“And…” Vanja stops, her voice catching.
“I should have stopped him. Bax. Should have tackled him back into that fucking boat.
“Or her.” Vanja spits the word. “That woman on the other side, hiding in her hood. Who is she to decide who stays on that side of the River? If it’s about keeping balance to those scales, well, I’ve kept so many people from crossing to her side, I should have challenged it! What’s a fair trade? She wants life? That’s what riverlight is! I can pull life from the River itself!”
Vanja is on her feet, now, voice rising steadily, “I should have knocked that beckoning hand away and punched her in the fucking face. I should have FOUGHT for him!
“I didn’t fight for Bax! I didn’t fight! I—”
Vanja tries to take a breath. Shallow. Her lungs refusing to accept it. She takes another. Sucking in air like a person drowning, the next breath never enough.
Vanja doubles over, hands on her knees, hyperventilating.
Astarael
The look on Astarael’s face grows more concerned, as Vanja’s voice continues to rise. Astarael’s anger is increasing as well, and though Vanja seems oblivious to it, before long, the wind is blowing fiercely in Vanja’s direction. Astarael can hear the whispered voices again, speaking to her through it:
This foolish girl will get you all captured or killed. Silence her now, before it’s too late. She’ll just continue to put you all in danger. One strike is all it will take, and this will be done with….
Astarael puts her face in her hands for a moment, and takes a deep breath. She stands up, and closes the distance between her and Vanja in a few quick steps. Her voice when she speaks is quiet and low, and conveys the seriousness of her words:
“You’ve made it quite clear that you’re unwilling to take any comfort from me, so take some advice instead. We’re all upset by what happened yesterday, Vanja, but nothing good will come of getting yourself worked up over it. And honestly, the sheer audacity you have to raise your voice, when you know damn well that we’re hiding from Swans who are in the area, and two of our friends are still sleeping—the very two you’re so concerned about. But please, continue to shout so that every soldier in the area can find and ambush us while we’re in camp.”
Astarael is fuming with anger. She takes another deep breath, and continues.
“Now, we’ve got a difficult task at hand—we need to move fast, but as carefully as we can, in order to catch up to the wagons who we presume are carting our captured friends south. I know you’ve got family up here near Northgate, but there’s a chance that this task will take us far south. I’m unsure we will be returning to Northgate at all. So, the time has come for you to decide—are you coming with us? I honestly have half a mind to send you on your way. Your recklessness, and unwillingness to take the threat of the Swans and Inquisition seriously will jeopardize us all. But you’re also a good fighter, no one can heal like you can, and frankly, we all need you. You’ve done a good job looking after Bax so far, and I think it would be most helpful if you can continue to do so. He needs you Vanja. And maybe you too, Lumotu. Teach him how to survive in this world. Teach him about who he is. Tell him the danger of the situation, and help him stay quiet if needed. You can’t undo the magic that has been done, so it’s the best thing you can do for him now.”
Without realizing she was doing it, Astarael had walked right up to Vanja, and had grabbed the front of the girl’s cloak, aggressively pulling her in close. She releases her now, and pushes her away with a bit of a shove.
“We have precious little food, so don’t let that go to waste.” She indicates the untouched bowl. “If you’re coming with us, pack up camp with haste. We need to leave this area very soon. I’m going to go patrol the area, I’ll be back soon to help pack up.”
Astarael turns her back to Vanja, before she can reply, and storms away from the cave entrance.
Vanja
Vanja steps back, buffeted by Astarael’s shove and by the sudden gusting wind. She plants her foot, though. Boot firm on the slick stone of the cave’s entrance, catching herself before stumbling.
As Astarael stalks off, Vanja closes her hand at her side. She can feel her fingernails pressing into her own palm and her system flooding with riverlight, spreading warmth out from her core. Green light spinning down her arms. Responding to Astarael’s words and to her own rising adrenaline.
Vanja throws off her cloak and furs—anything that would restrict her movement—and looks down at her bare fists. At the threads of riverlight weaving between her fingers. She might have missed her chance to fight the Hooded Woman, from beyond the River, but she can certainly hit Astarael. Heartless and condescending….a bloodied nose would knock her from her pedestal. Make her realize that whatever made her so cold and calculating didn’t make her stronger than the rest of them.
Vanja steps out from the cave and into the snow. The wind has died down and Astarael is nowhere in sight. Vanja narrows her eyes and lets loose a string of curses, releasing flashes of riverlight with every word. Her mother had taught her there was magic in words, that such was the power of the runes themselves, but now Vanja speaks the runewords carelessly, with bursts of frustration and anger and deep, venomous self-hate.
By the time she’s burned through the riverlight, packing the camp as she goes, Vanja has melted the greater part of the snow around the mouth of the cave. The only remnants are the windbreaks she built the evening before with Bax.
With the boy who used to be Bax.
Vanja’s stomach twists at the memory. She’d talked herself through it, then. Told herself it was no different than when she’d taught the same skills to Aric, after their father had died. She wouldn’t be able to teach Bax spearfighting—his own style was too unique, and self taught—but she could teach him to set a snare or shoot a bow. How to throw a punch. How to track game and treat his minor wounds with herbs and salves. She could retell him the stories he’d told her, about his father and his friends and their town that crossed the southern river. She had told herself that it was as if he’d had a skull crack. She’d seen people lose days of memory, and often it came back, when the body healed, and the swelling went down.
Now, though, in the light, it seems an impossible thing. She could teach him. She would. He was her responsibility, now. But he was missing so much. Not just a day or a grasp, but his whole life. He was completely blank.
Bax said it could be done, though. When we were on the other side of the River. He said there would be a way to bring him back, and it was a matter of finding it.
He’d wanted to go deeper into Jorung. To contact the tribes he had spent time with and recruit their help in the larger fight. To force the Isendel army out of Jorung, and liberate the Jorunguns forced into slavery in the mines. Astarael had been right that Vanja cared little about the greater political machinations of Isendel. But she cared about the smallfolk of Northgate. The Jorungun transplants and immigrants and those like her—Isendel-born but of the North—targeted and burned as witches for writing runes. For the traditions Vanja’s parents had taught her. For the blood of the North that flowed through her own veins. And if Bax believed those tribal leaders of Jorung might help this goal, then it was Vanja’s mission also.
There were deeper magics, here in Jorung, too. Beyond the increased strength of the River. Whatever forced Bax to transform into the Yeti hadn’t been rivermagic.
Other runemakers. Vanja thinks, Ones more powerful than me. Someone to teach me. To help me learn how to do these things on purpose. To dreamwalk again, and see if there’s anything left of who Bax was buried deeper in his own mind; or to cross the River again. Broker another deal with the Hooded Woman. The Lady-Beyond-the-River…
She’d stay with the group until they found the others, at least. But then the priority was Bax. To continue with his plans and to find some way to heal him. To return him to himself. And this means going further North.
Vanja bends down and retrieves the bowl of porridge from the ground, where it has sunk slightly into the newly-made mud. She looks at the bowl and her stomach churns again, sour with her own fearsickness. Absently, she stirs the contents of the bowl, tracing a series of runes into the porridge itself, before upending the whole thing back into the cookpot. Food was scarce, now, that much was true. It had never been easy to find game in these woods, and it would be harder now, with so few people, and with Bax having forgotten the skill. Better to save what little is left for the others.
The porridge pours out of the bowl and back into the cookpot with an unappetizing splat. Vanja shakes the bowl and more porridge slides from it. It had been a larger portion than she’d realized. Vanja tilts the bowl back up and examines it. Still not quite empty. She turns the bowl over again, scraping out the last of the porridge with the spoon, but there is still more. Vanja blinks and rights the bowl, somehow still full, keeping it in her hand. She steps away from the cookpot, but the pot itself is overflowing, now, porridge bubbling from it as if from a wellspring. In moments, the fire is smothered. A thick layer of porridge, spreading out and mixing with the mud and snowmelt beyond the edge of the firepit.
Vanja steps back before the porridge can wash over her boots, and laughs, startling herself with the sound.
Bax
The sounds of shouts and hushed frustrations stir him from his slumber initially. But it’s only after a sudden laughter echoes into the small cave that he sits himself up among his…friends? Is that who these people were?
Do friends sleep in caves? I should know this right? But why don’t I…? What does friends mean again?
Rubbing his eyes, he peers out towards the direction he had heard the sound of laughter come from. At the mouth of the cave is the red haired woman who had helped him before he slept. She had offered him comfort, though he didn’t understand why. He had only just met her.
What was her name again? She was kind, so it feels odd to forget…what did she say my name was? I think she told me…
A low pitched rumble interrupts his thinking, as he reaches down to grab at his core. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but almost naturally the boy knew he needed sustenance. And there was a smell just beyond the girl who laughed that he felt himself drawn to. Despite his hesitation at approaching the figure, whose name he’d forgotten, he walked on towards the mouth of the cave.
As he stepped out, the woman quickly whipped around, and offered a comforting smirk at the boy who’d forgotten his name. He could feel blood rushing to his face as he attempted to return the motion, unsure if he was making the same mouth movement. As he looked beyond her though, he saw what looked like a mess of beige that had flowed on to the ground from it’s container. His mouth began to water immediately and he turned back to the girl.
“Uh, is that yours? Could I have some of it?”
Vanja
Vanja smiles at Bax, and drops the bowl. She rushes forward,instinctively, to hug him - to throw her arms around him and knock him off balance, as she’s done a hundred times before. At the startled, wide eyes though, she stops short. It’s the first she’s seen of him in the daylight, and those eyes send a shock through Vanja’s core, as cold as dragon breath. Two brown eyes. Like the eyes of Bax-the-boy who she’d seen only ever once, in a dream.
Vanja’s smile falters, slightly, but she recovers. She wraps her arms around herself, instead, folding them over her chest, the hug abandoned.
She indicates the porridge mess with a nod of her head, “Sure,” she says, “Astarael made it, but I…” she laughs a little, prodding the edge of the puddle with her boot, “made more. Somehow.” She looks back up at Bax again, “New depths of the River, right?”
Vanja stops speaking, biting back her words. This Bax wouldn’t remember that conversation. He hadn’t remembered his own name.
“You told me that once, before,” she says, simply, instead.
Vanja can feel heat rising in her cheeks, and she looks away, letting her hair fall across her face, shielding her. She busies herself looking for the dropped bowl, and blinks once, hard. She’d done enough crying, the night earlier. It wasn’t helpful. Wasn’t blisterkere.
Bowl retrieved, Vanja scoops a hearty portion of the porridge from where the pot seems to be, where the food is still warm from the smothered cookfire. She holds out the bowl to Bax.
“Alright, Bax?” she asks. She smiles again, but it’s a weak, unsteady thing, “You remember how to eat, I hope?”
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