Taru woke before dawn. She’d had little sleep. Instead, she had moved back and forth like a robin on a riverbank between whether she should go home or to the elders from early evening until a little before midnight, when she told Lady Hennessy her decision and the lady went off to make arrangements. She groggily dressed herself in Lady Hennessy’s old riding trousers and a loose undershirt and then, feeling under-dressed for the journey she had chosen, threw a long hooded waistcoat over it all. 

She was stopped at the front door by a bulging rucksack topped with a neatly tied bedroll.

“There you are,” Lady Hennessy said, her semi-permanent teacup and saucer in hand. “I took the liberty of having some things packed for your journey.”

Taru stared at her. Then, overcome by a hot nose and a sudden surge of feeling in her chest, she threw her arms about the lady’s middle. Lady Hennessy gently patted her shoulder and Taru didn’t ask if she’d slept. She’d heard her moving in various rooms all through the night, having some things packed.

So, when Taru pulled back, she said, “Thank you,” and, “sorry.”

Lady Hennessy smiled warmly at her, eyes glinting, then spun away and glided towards the morning room. “Go now, before the sun rises. I’ll miss the dawn chorus if you keep me a moment longer.”

Taru watched her disappear behind the door, then grabbed the rucksack. A knee-high boot flopped over into its absence. Setting the pair of boots next to her feet, she found them well-sized and didn’t hesitate a moment before pulling them on over her trousers and lacing them tight. Swinging the rucksack over her shoulders, she took one last look around the marble-esque entrance hall before leaving.

The morning was cool, damp, and quiet, as if still sleeping in preparation for the day.

She strolled along the garden path, feeling the new boots around her feet—they were snug and strange but not unpleasant. 

The gate creaked open before she reached it.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Taru’s head whipped up so quickly she stumbled back.

Dragonstone red eyes narrowed with amusement. Truce.

“H-hello,” Taru replied.

“And where are you off to with all that baggage?”

Taru shuffled back and forth, feeling somewhat stupid under the scrutiny of those narrowing eyes.

“Somewhere more familiar, I hope?”

Taru glanced away and slowly shook her head.

“What do you mean, no?” Truce cooed, and Taru pursed her lips before muttering,

“I mean no.”

“Do you mean to tell me—” Truce floated closer “—that I was called here urgently by Lady Ethel Hennessy to untether you so that you can go home, but now you’re not actually going to go home?”

Taru felt the warm hug of her new boots and rooted her feet firmly in the ground, straightening to her full height and meeting Truce eye-to-eye. “Yes,” she said. Then, she strode past them and towards the tree bridge.

“What do you mean, yes?”

“Yes and no are very simple words for you to be finding difficult,” Taru pointed out as she stepped onto the bridge.

“Forgive me,” Truce drawled, now waiting for her at the far end, arms crossed loosely, “commonton is not my mother tongue. Neither is indecision.”

“Look,” Taru said, pausing before them, “I’m sorry if you flew all the way, but this isn’t indecision. I’m still going home, just not yet.”

Truce’s narrow eyes darted about her face searching for something they seemed to find in her eyes. “You know it’s dangerous?” they said quietly.

Taru nodded. “I do.” Truthfully, it terrified her. 

“Well, is this really your problem to fix?”

“Probably not,” Taru said, shuffling past Truce and onto the path, “but it is a problem, and it’s a problem I can try to help with, so I’m going to.”

“But shouldn’t someone else do that? Someone more… involved?”

Taru glanced aside to watch Truce float backwards alongside her. It was unsettling. “No,” she said, looking away as Truce frowned.

“No?”

“No,” she repeated, stronger. “The people here are being pressed from both sides. They’re tired. If none of them’ve done it by now, then I’m not gonna sit back, watch them keep struggling, and say ‘not my problem’ just to ease my conscience. I’m here, I’m capable, I’m willing, and I’ve been asked. That’s all there is to it.”

For a moment, Truce’s expression was wide with amazement. That quickly disappeared as they tutted and rolled their eyes. “You won’t have to watch them do anything if you’re not here.”

“Maybe not, but it’d play on my mind so I’d rather leave them better off.”

“How noble!” they teased. “Well, what about Enna?”

“He—” Taru faltered. She saw him stood outside the orphanage, looking at his pocket watch. Had he been back everyday? Had he been looking for her? She bit her top lip and slowed down as Truce continued,

“He must be worried sick about his little girl. He’s heard about the lynching, certainly. It was the talk of engine one for days afterwards! What must he think?”

Taru stared at the point where the path she followed met another. There, the distant shape of Coraidh and his rucksack was straight and dark against fluttering green leaves.

“He must be so lonely,” Truce said. “I can take you back to him right now. You could be having hot toast and butter together and telling him all about this strange place you visited.”

Taru turned to Truce, her lips parting in doubt. However, as she laid eyes on that twisting smirk she felt her features warp with irritation. “You’re wretched!” she spat. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I’ll go back home after I’ve seen the elders, whether you untether me or not. I’ll find a way.”

Truce scoffed; chuckled, “Suit yourself!” and disappeared.

Taru paused. Glancing around herself warily, she tightened the straps of her rucksack. 

“I know he’s lonely,” she muttered as the gentle comfort of a cool breeze drifted by, “and I can’t pretend that doesn’t upset me. But him being sad isn’t more important than this whole forest surviving, no matter how much I care about him. Besides—” anger heated her cheeks “—you don’t really care about him, anyway. You only brought him up so I’d leave.” And why?

As the breeze died down, Taru could’ve sworn she heard it laughing.

-~*~-

Coraidh and Taru walked the Dubh in silence, having said nothing but a quiet greeting since they met at the junction. Taru didn’t mind: she enjoyed the joyful chorus of birds waking; the same joyful chorus she’d heard on her first day here and every day since. All she had ever heard in Shude were pigeons cooing on the eaves.

When the pair reached the slope, Coraidh went straight to the tree with the coiled rope.

“Lady Ethel’s note said to make sure you didn’t come back as bruised as last time,” he said as he tossed a large cotton pouch back to her, “so I brought some clips and a harness for you.”

Taru caught it and pulled the string open. From inside, she pulled a length of knotted rope that made a complete circle with half-circles tied in. She held it up to get a better look, but it remained nonsensical; she told Coraidh, and he came to help her into it, one foot at a time.

“Nice boots,” he said strangely, like there was more to it.

“Thanks?”

Perhaps to ease the awkwardness of 2 relative strangers being suddenly so close, Coraidh continued, “She also wrote that you’re concerned about what to say to the elders so I figured I’d do the talking. Got a speech writ out.” He chuckled, “Stayed up half the night scrivening!” Standing back to check his work, he gave it a few sharp tugs that left no room for Taru’s stability. He nodded and returned to the now-uncoiled rope on the tree, taking her pouch with him. “Come here. I’ve gottae go down first to ward off the eldest with these lamps, but I’ll show you how to clip on and off the rope by yourself, and how to descend with it, quick-like.”

Taru paid careful attention to his instruction and repeated it well, at which he was impressed, before he rappelled down the same painful way they had the other day. “All clear!” he called up once he was at the bottom.

Taru positioned herself at the top. She carefully slid her foot back. The edge was much easier to feel through her new boots, so she stopped in good time, her hands on the rope and clip. Then, she gently lowered herself. The first hop was tentative. The second was a little braver. The third was unsteady. The fourth was steadier. The fifth, sixth, and seventh were calmer, gathering pace each time. By the twelfth it felt natural. She’d lost count when she reached the ground, unclipping herself under Coraidh’s watchful eye. 

Once untethered, she rid herself of the harness, holding it out to him. He held the pouch out to her.

“Keep it, it’s yours now. There’s a few bits and bobs in there you might need. It’s better you having this rather than keep mithering me, aye?”

Taru stuffed it into her rucksack, then looked towards the giant trees. Any pride she’d felt from the nearly flawless descent and receiving her gift dissipated into the writhing mass of shadowy figures.

“Has something happened?” she asked quietly.

“Whit ye mean?” Coraidh asked, then turned. She could tell by the way he breathed, “Gods,” that she was not imagining things: the eldest were more active. It was as she realised the ambient noise underscoring the rushing waterfall was sesers hissing and snarling, that she also realised the birdsong had stopped.

“Is it getting darker?” she asked as she heard Coraidh step up beside her.

He took the lead, green-lit lantern high overhead. “Come on,” he said instead of answering, and moved towards the slurring shadows. Taru stayed close, unwilling to fall outside their green arena of safety. It was hexagonal this time, due to the shape of the glass lantern swinging from its ornate hook. Neither spoke on the approach. Coraidh’s movements, however, were increasingly jerky until, with a huff of frustration, he whipped round to Taru and said, “Hold the light. A dinnae feel right without my bow to hand.”

Taru took the lantern. “Are you really gonna shoot them?” she asked.

Coraidh shook his head. His nervous glance back to the approaching shadows, however, said this was more of an ‘I don’t know,’ than a ‘No.’ He notched an arrow and aimed the tip at the floor. 

Now, Taru took the lead. From what she could remember, the path was straight until a big tree interrupted the path, then they took the right-hand fork until the bridge. For now, though, they had to pass the first tree. 

Pitch hands clawed one another in the light, grasping towards it, as if that was what they wanted. Taru flinched back each time, bumping into Coraidh.

“Stay true,” he whispered. “Trust the light.”

Taru chewed her bottom lip. She tried not to flinch, but the gnarled hands were coming in faster and further, some up to the elbow before they began smoking and darted back into the darkness accompanied by yelps and snarls of pain. The light began to flicker. “Coming closer,” she hissed. “Light’s going out.”

“Aye, they’re coming in further but they’re still not reaching us. Trust the light, Aether. It won’t go out if you trust it.”

Taru looked up at the green flame. She tried to trust it, remembering how it had protected them. The light steadied. The hands retreated. 

Black nails came for her, its owner snarling beyond the dome, eyes flashing like fire. Though the clawing fingers left just as quick as they’d come, Taru’s faith faltered. 

The light went out.

The Dubh rushed through the silence.

Suddenly, the eldest howled in victory. Tumbling over one another, hand over foot, sesi scrambled closer.

The lantern yanked aside.

Taru held tight, going stubbornly with it even as she squeezed her eyes shut, praying to the Shudean god of protection, Apscondo, that they could hear her—but of course they couldn’t. She wished for Dragon, then. For Truce. For anyone powerful enough to protect her. The space to the right of her heart pulsed violently. A feeling like fear and hope rushed out from it, flooding to her tingling fingertips.

Sensing a change outside, too, she opened her eyes, immediately wincing against daylight. Gradually, she made out Coraidh’s usually dark eyes glinting gold in the lowering red glow. He looked at her as if she were something incredible. One of his hands gripped the lantern handle. The other was invisible beyond the suddenly close boundary of the light’s protection.

“Coraidh!” she gasped.

A gnarled hand, darker than night, grabbed his wrist, nails sinking into his flesh. 

“Alight!” Coraidh cried, then wrenched his hand away into the shadows. The light pulsed green; the hexagonal dome rushed outwards, but instead of bringing him in and under its protection, it pushed him away. He struggled to push past the boundary. When he did, Taru saw why.

Coraidh looked down at his blistering, smoking skin. He swallowed and nodded. Then, he said, “Go.”

“But—!”

“Whatever happens to me here doesn’t matter as long as you get to the elders,” he insisted. Then, meeting her eye one last time, he whispered, “Run, Aether.”

-

  ~

     *