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Chapter 24: The darkest night
On the seventh evening, the red star rose before the sun had finished setting, and nobody in Dawnhollow bothered to pretend that they did not see it. It hung above the northern hills like a swollen coal, so bright that it threw faint crimson shadows across the rooftops. The refugees in the square stopped speaking. The hounds under the council table lifted their heads and whined. And in the healers' room of the Hall of Rank, Kaelen stood at the window with his hand pressed flat against the glass, feeling the cold in his arms climb past his shoulders and settle, like a patient guest, against the base of his throat. "It is nearly done," he said quietly. "The seven days." "Tomorrow at dawn," said Isaura Venn, from the doorway. "Tomorrow at dawn." He did not turn. "I should like to sleep for an hour, I think. Before the others begin to plan." "Of course." She watched him a moment longer, and then went out, and drew the door closed behind her. She did not go far. She sat down on
Chapter 23: hunting for clones
Isaura Venn spread the great map of the northern reaches across the council table at dawn and weighted its corners with four stones, a candlestick, and a loaf of bread. It was Dorran's grandfather's map, the same one that had lain unrolled in the council chamber on the morning of the iron mist. The ink had browned with age, and the coastlines were drawn in the cautious, wobbling hand of a man who had never seen them from above. But it was the best they had. Around it, in the grey light of the Hall of Rank, sat the strangest council that Dawnhollow had ever held. Brannoch the Deepwarden filled one whole end of the room. He had been persuaded, with some difficulty and a good deal of patience, to fold himself through the double doors, and he now sat on the flagstones like a hill that had wandered in out of the rain, his lichened shoulders brushing the rafters. Ashkar perched on the window ledge with her torn wing tucked close. The three grey hounds lay in a row beneath the table, thei
Chapter 22: Allies Among the Abyss Creatures
The boy's name was Tam, and he was nine years old, and he had been bitten two hours before sunset. Kaelen carried him into the Hall of Rank in his arms, with his sister's note still crumpled in his fist and the girl, whose name was Orla, stumbling at his heels. He laid the child on the long table in the healers' room. Isaura Venn was already at his shoulder, weaving a pale ward across the boy's chest. Ysolde Marne arrived a moment later, still pinning up her hair, and took one look at the black threads creeping up the small arm and said nothing at all. "I can do this," said Kaelen. "You have done two today," said Ysolde. "I have done none today. I have been sitting at a gate." He peeled off his gloves. "The bargain was two. This is the first." She did not argue. She stepped back, and Isaura braced her ward, and Kaelen laid both hands on the boy's ribs and called the light. It came slowly. It had been coming slowly for days, thin and golden and reluctant, like water drawn fr
Chapter 21: The corruption deepens
The first day was the easiest, and Kaelen hated himself for how little he felt it. The peace that Lyra had bought lay across Dawnhollow like a held breath. No howling came from the pasture. No shapes moved in the mist. The town woke to a silence so complete that people stood in their doorways at dawn, blinking, as though they had forgotten what a quiet morning sounded like. Children were let out to play for the first time in three weeks. A baker lit his oven. Somewhere a woman laughed, and then stopped, ashamed, and then laughed again. Kaelen stood at the northern gate and felt none of it. He kept the bargain, because he had given his word. He ate what Ysolde Marne set before him, though it tasted of ash. He lay on his cot at night with the silver clasp pressed into his palm and stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned. He healed two people each morning, no more, and sat for an hour afterwards with Isaura Venn while she wove a thin ward around his chest and tested the darkness
Chapter 20: Lyra is captured!
The request was simple, and it was the cruellest thing she had ever asked of him. They sat on the Hall's back stairs in the last of the daylight, with the red star climbing in the narrow window above them, and Lyra said it plainly, in the voice she used when she had already made up her mind and wished only to be understood. "I am going to go to him." Kaelen did not move. His hand was still in hers, black to the wrist and cold as river stone. "You promised not to argue," she said. "I have not said a word." "You are about to." He closed his mouth. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Listen," said Lyra. "He wants you. Not Dawnhollow, not the settlements, not even the world, not yet. You are the only thing he has met that his curse cannot swallow, and he is frightened of you, whatever he pretends. A frightened man will pay a great deal to be rid of his fear. So I shall give him something to hold in your place." "A hostage." "A bargain." Her fingers tightened. "Corwin is right
Chapter 19: The people loose hope
News travels slowly in a world without roads, and it travelled slowest of all in those days, because so few of the messengers lived to arrive. But by the end of the third week, nobody in the land needed to be told what had happened. They could see it in the sky. The red star in the north had grown. Each night it rose a little higher and burned a little brighter, until it hung above the horizon like a single open wound, and the people who looked up at it from their barred doors and shuttered windows found that they could not look for long. Children cried without knowing why. Dogs lay down in the road and would not rise. And in every settlement that still stood, the same quiet thing began to happen, in kitchens and chapels and market squares, wherever frightened people gathered to count what they had left. They began to stop. In Highmoor, a farming town of six hundred souls in the eastern plains, the elders met on the fourth night and voted to open the gates. They did not do it out
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