Chapter One
The black lining of Rowan’s crimson cloak shrouded her face in shadow against the bright afternoon sun.
Crimson. The color of her choosing, though brown or green would have been more practical. The Watcher of Elderglen and Guardian of Rhiann stood out among leaves and trees as she protected Rhiann’s woods.
Guardian. One of Rhiann’s chosen. Only Rhiann hadn’t chosen her. Rowan had collapsed to her knees, begging for the goddess’s favor. In the wake of loss and grief, Rhiann had agreed, but Rowan often wondered if the goddess ever regretted her choice.
Rowan adjusted the hood, listening as two ravens chattered beside her. “You would like the forest back home,” she whispered. “Dense trees, wolves to befriend.”
Ravens found her no matter where she traveled, sensing the wolf dormant beneath her skin. Even in the back of the wagon, traveling home to southern Thurin, two ravens perched on the side, their glassy eyes fixed on her as they chattered and cawed.
The day passed quietly, her driver careful steering of the wagon as Rowan rested among his crates and barrels. Her feet dangled off the edge as the scenery passed in reverse, the world leaving as the cart wobbled down the uneven road.
A raven tapped its beak against the wagon, eyeing her.
“You hungry?” She couldn’t understand them without shifting, her human ears unattuned to the language of wild things, but their behavior was obvious enough.
She fed them what remained of her rations, opting for the wildberries instead of jerky, and whispered what the deathseer had said.
A fortnight is generous.
If it hadn’t been for the need of coin and medicine, she’d never have left. But none of that mattered if the deathseer was right. She’d held Rowan’s cloak with respect and reverence, her white-blonde curls a stark compliment to the vibrant red, like snow among winter berries. And her voice had been soft when she unveiled the bitter truth.
A raven tapped its beak against the wagon again, sensing her thoughts and wishing to set her free. Or to receive more food.
“Thank you,” she said, offering more berries. “We humans have a bad habit of building our own cages.”
“Nearly there.” Peeking over his shoulder, the lighter of his mismatched eyes regarded her and the ravens. “You’re one of them elves from Alvar?”
“Thurin,” she said, not bothering to correct him on being elven or how elves were actually earthborn. Wolfkind was enough. “Long may the wolves run free.”
“Aye.” Approval added a musical quality to his words. “Long may the wolves run free.”
The ravens cawed before flying off, disappearing among the clouds and trees.
“The chosen of Rhiann can speak to ravens,” Gran had said. “She blesses her guardians with the language of the earth, and ravens are close friends to wolves.”
And the language of the earth had been an unexpected boon upon her blessing from the goddess of earth.
Thank you, she prayed, eyes taking in Rhiann’s surrounding beauty. Every blooming flower, every towering tree. Thank you for trusting me.
Despite her desperation in grief. Despite her fear and her boiling anger. If her parents had had magic or Rhiann’s blessing, would they have survived? Or had their deaths been a part of a design Rowan couldn’t see?
Designed by fate or the product of chance, her parents were still dead, and Rowan’s blood simmered at the injustice that followed. No trace or trail of who did it. No proof that they’d somehow paid for what they’d done. Rowan tried to console herself that they could have met their comeuppance in someone stronger and fiercer and angrier, but it didn’t help. That someone hadn’t been her.
A fortnight is generous.
Familiarity with loss didn’t soften its blow. Loved ones left, whether through death or circumstance, while Rowan remained as though locked in place. Static. A still, quiet lake, while everyone else was a flowing river.
Every storm would pass, but the rain never failed to soak through Rowan’s skin, chilling her to the bone.
Her eyes misted with eagerness to return home, to share in Gran’s remaining days. To hold Gran’s hand. To kiss Winter’s crown. To run free with the wolves among the trees.
The coming days would be difficult, and Rowan could do nothing to change it.
“Speaking of Alvar, though,” the driver said. “Heard there was a shipwreck west of there. The Sea Phantom.”
“What caused it? A storm?”
“No one seems to know,” he said. “But rumors say the crew marooned their captain on the coast before taking the ship. Word is the captain was devout to Shanna, and the goddess had her revenge on his behalf.”
Rowan gave little to rumor and superstition. The goddesses didn’t play revenge games among mortal grievances. The effort would outweigh the outcome.
“Captain of the Phantom was said to be ruthless,” the driver went on. “Who knows if the crew did the right thing, only to suffer a worse fate.”
“Devout to Shanna or Aishlin?” Rowan asked, amused. “If he was ruthless, perhaps he honored chaos more than the sea.”
The driver chuckled. “Aye. Maybe.” He paused before changing the subject. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful day this time of year. Autumn in Thurin is too much of a tease of winter, even this far south.”
Perhaps he isn’t used to silence. Rowan wasn’t much for long conversations, especially with strangers. The quiet was a far more soothing companion.
“Rhiann is good to us,” she said.
“Aye.” She could hear his smile. “Long may the wolves run free.”
She chewed slowly on what remained of her jerky as the sea of her thoughts grew deeper.
“Stopping here,” the driver said, stopping at a crossroads several miles outside of Elderglen. “I’m taking the left.”
Rowan hopped out, pulling the strap of her pack over her shoulder. “Thanks again.”
He clicked his tongue, leading the horses left as Rowan took the path right.
A fortnight is generous.
Rowan uselessly smoothed the wisps of wild strands that had escaped her braid before adjusting her belt and walking faster, glad to have her body doing something other than sitting. Her two hatchets hung heavily at her sides, their weight familiar and reassuring while simultaneously burdensome.
The voice in her head repeated the words, an echoing cycle of anticipation, but her footsteps met the worn dirt path with rhythm, her blood flowing faster, her heart beating harder.
She shouldn’t have left. Four days away from Gran when anything could have happened. What if Rowan came home to an empty house? What if Gran–
“No, my love,” Gran had told her years ago, after her parents died. “The what ifs will kill you.”
Rowan silently recited the words to herself every time the darkness whispered their what ifs, Gran’s voice comforting even in memory.
“Don’t go down that road,” she said aloud to herself, the sound of her own voice helping to break the deluge in her head. In the distance, a raven called. “Keep your eyes ahead.”
There wasn’t space for the emotions that threatened to compromise her rational mind. Rowan knew grief already. She didn’t welcome its imminent return.
So she walked with more determined steps, eager to return home.
Chapter Two
Rowan crossed through the wooden arch at the gate of Elderglen.
Villagers moved through the heart of town, bartering and selling, some going to or coming from the tavern. In the distance, Rowan spotted Mayor Frederick and his wife, Suna, patronizing a vendor with fresh, stunning flowers. Rowan could smell them even as she turned down the path toward Sentinel Hill, their perfume the last lingering scent of summer.
Her home was a brick beacon on the hilltop, each red piece laid by her grandparents’ hands, each wooden post of their fence cut and mounted, each garden plot tilled and nurtured. Rowan’s life was in the walls and the earth, her eyes the windows, her breath the smoke from the burning heart of the fireplace. What her grandparents built, Rowan sustained with her life’s blood.
Sentinel Hill. The Watchers of Elderglen. And she, Guardian of the Wood. Rhiann’s chosen.
When Rowan was a girl, the forest edge was so far that she had to run at top speed, wind burning in her lungs, to feel the shadow cover of the trees and smell the damp, rich earth. But now, age had shortened the distance, and her grown legs quickly carried her to the thriving haven Rhiann had created.
In recent weeks, word spread grew of something monstrous lurking in the woods. Victims found bloodless, eyes wide as though they’d died from fear. Rumors in Elderglen spoke of a bloodborn threatening to devour every last one of them. But who stalks the woods to devour prey and leaves the animals unbothered? The only victims had been humans, left hollow in the unforgiving night. A dark appetite, indeed.
She pushed herself uphill, through the squeaky gate, and onto the even land of her farm. Chickens clucked from their coop, goats bleated from the grass, and a bark preceded the scratch inside the front door. Rowan smiled, relief easing the tension in her chest at the promise of Winter’s joy on her return. If Winter rested on Gran’s bed, situated between the front door and the hearth, would she leap into Rowan’s arms? Or would she move to the floor first?
The bed was an antique and the only possession of value they owned, even though the value was entirely sentimental—handmade by her grandfather, as was most of the furniture in the house. The bed was a heavy ordeal to move, but the warmth of the hearth reached Gran better, especially with Thurin’s winter already teased in the north.
Even after bracing herself, Rowan opened the door and nearly fell back from the pounce of her gray-white companion. Winter had been the runt of her litter, her mother worried over the pup’s survival. The life of a wolf already bore difficulty, so when Rowan offered her home, Winter’s mother was relieved. The natural world would not be a threat to her daughter with the Guardian caring for her. And in return, Rowan gained a friend whose love filled her.
“Oh, thank the gods.” Gran smiled. “I was beginning to think you’d fallen for the Plains and deserted the village completely.”
Rowan stood, brushing off her clothes as her eyes trained on the woman standing at Gran’s bedside. Her hair was long, the shine from the sunlight glistening off the inky black strands that complimented her warm-hued tawny skin. And her eyes, as rich as wine, found Rowan’s with a smile. She was tall, her slender body masking a lithe strength discernible in the way she carried herself. She was no stranger to a fight, and her grace could prove deadly.
“This is Mirelyn,” Gran introduced. “She’s one of the guild, just arrived from Alvar.”
Patchouli, lavender, and citrus. Rowan took a deep breath, the fragrance like Mirelyn’s fingerprint. She was lovely, with experience in her stature and gaze the only indication of age. “It’s nice to meet you.”
They shook hands, Mirelyn briefly glimpsing Rowan’s scar. The soft pink line bore a significant contrast to Rowan’s medium sienna skin, reaching from the inner corner of her left eyebrow, down the bridge of her nose, to her right cheek. Everyone looked at it, and Rowan was used to the normal path their eyes traveled when seeing. But Mirelyn’s eyes didn’t linger, her smile maintaining its warmth as they shook hands.
“Your grandmother was just telling me about your trip to Shaylon Plains,” Mirelyn said, her voice soothing and maternal. “I haven’t been that far south in a very long time.”
“It was beautiful,” Rowan said, removing her belt and setting it with the hatchets on the dining table. The absence of their weight was freeing. “I didn’t venture far past the border, though.”
Rowan didn’t know what to expect from the conversation, her reserve of small talk nearly spent. She removed her cloak and hung it by the door, the red fabric complimenting the natural wood walls.
“I will leave you both to your reunion.” Mirelyn squeezed Gran’s hand, the pair sharing a look before their guest departed.
At Mirelyn’s exit, Winter jumped onto the bed and settled by Gran’s legs.
“I’d never abandon you for somewhere else, Gran.” Rowan hugged her carefully, grateful for the strength in the arms that held her. “I’d happily desert Elderglen, but never you.”
“All was quiet and well, my love,” Gran said. “Winter missed you terribly.”
“There’s my girl.” Rowan rubbed Winter’s cheeks below her ears. “You’ve done well in your watch.”
“Watch!” Gran snorted a laugh, her brown eyes gleaming as she smiled. “She slept more than I did, I’ll have you know.”
“Everything sold well,” Rowan said, setting her pack on the bed by Gran’s feet and rummaging through clothes and bundles of food. She found the sachets of medicinal herbs and showed them. “These should help you feel better.”
“You are good to me, but what of yourself?” Gran regarded her knowingly. “You deserve care too, my love.”
“I receive care.” Though she focused her priorities outside of herself, for better or worse. “And I buy medicine for my favorite grandmother.”
Gran touched each sachet, stopping at one. “What’s this?” She brought the linen pouch to her nose, breathing in deeply. “Berries and rose?” She sniffed again. “Skydrop?”
The blend from the deathseer. A token of her condolence. “A gift from a friend.”
Gram raised a thin eyebrow, nearly invisible but for the familiar pull of skin and muscle to prove it was still there.
Rowan opened a cloth bundle of fresh wildberries and laid and held them out, careful not to get the juice-stained fabric on the bed. “To hold you until supper. I’ll fetch a bowl.”
“Peter has seen to my appetite,” Gran said. “Wil has seen to that damned fence, and Jean’s seen to my company. All are following your instructions to the letter.”
“They offered because they love you, and I happily accepted.”
“Bah. You instructed, and they consented.”
Rowan poured the berries into a bowl for Gran and prepared food for Winter, using her half-eaten oat bread from her travels with bits of carrot and peas. “Which tea would you like first?”
Gran chose the berry blend. Rowan set the water on the fire and inspected their food stores for supper. “I’ll be at Wil and Jean’s in a bit. Do you want anything?”
“Cinnamon whiskey.”
Rowan burst out laughing. Winter wagged her tail. “Gran.”
“You asked, and that’s my answer. Peter and I share a common palette for well-made liquor.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Rowan unpacked other supplies—leftover rations and medicines—and pulled her clothes from her pack for washing.
“Rowan.” Gran’s serious tone made Rowan pause, turning from her open pack. “There’s something with the guild that we need to discuss.”
The guild. Feather and Claw. Gran’s network of allies gathering information to protect magic folk from the Wandering Order. Missions filled with danger and stealth, protecting potential victims and rescuing all they could from those filled with hate.
Missions like the one that led Rowan’s parents to their deaths.
Rowan worked to mask her loathing, her disgust for anything related to Feather and Claw. Her grandmother, as the Cornerstone, led the guild. And Rowan was a part of it by inheritance. A burden she didn’t ask for.
“Have you heard of the cult experimenting on those with magic?” Gran asked. “With mist arcana?”
She bore no sympathy for those partial to the drug and the effects it gave. Those with magic experienced an incredible increase in magical power and output, and those without magic rode euphoria and wielded limited arcane ability. But the decline was steep, its cost great, its addiction heavy. Rowan’s sense of disgust deepened.
“What about it?” Rowan asked, though she didn’t want to know. Both Moonblade and the Wandering Order were up in arms over arcana crystal mines and the effects of mist arcana. And Feather and Claw tracked each one, marking them on maps to track and avoid Wandering Order activity as much as possible. But Rowan would rather watch every last crystal burn away to nothing.
Gran hesitated, the lines between her brows deep.
“This is serious.” Rowan turned from her work to give Gran her full attention.
A knock came to the door. Three timid taps. If it was someone more familiar, their knock would be louder and faster. Rowan shared a look with Gran before answering. Suna, the mayor’s wife, stood with pink and red peonies in her hands. Pale and thin, Suna appeared more frail than Rowan had ever seen her.
“Welcome back, Guardian,” Suna said with a soft smile. She held up the peonies. “I brought these for your home. All was quiet in your absence.”
“Thank you.” Rowan accepted her gift. “Please, come in.”
Their home was modest and cluttered, with Rowan blind to the mess until a guest arrived. There, with Suna in their home, Rowan noticed every piece out of place. Dishes, some clean, on the dining table and on the cabinet shelf. Clothes in from the line before Rowan left, still hanging on the backs of chairs. But Suna beamed at Gran as she crossed the threshold.
“She’s returned home safe and sound,” Suna said. “You look well, Cynthia.”
“Well as can be expected.” Gran eyed the flowers. “They are lovely, Suna. Thank you.”
“I thought so, too. I like peonies best, I think.”
Listening to them, Rowan set the flowers on the dining table, their vibrant reds and pinks brightening the room.
Peonies. An interesting name for a flower. Such delicate things in Rowan’s strong hands.
The names of things were important, though wild things deserved to thrive. Names could be binding, limiting them to an identity that they may not care for.
Rowan. A tree, tall and impressive. She liked her name and all it represented. Protective, strong, unyielding.
Rowan.
Watcher.
Guardian.
She prayed she was enough.
“How is your son?” Gran asked, eyes focused on Suna.
The mayor’s wife smiled with her lips pressed together, the expression full of strain. She was maintaining a facade Rowan saw through, though she understood why Suna tried. Emotions were cracks that allowed things in, when the body had to be impenetrable.
“We ask the goddesses for every mercy,” Suna said, her voice wavering. “Derin is holding on, and we are grateful.”
“Have the doctors learned anything more?” Rowan asked. The day he collapsed brought Elderglen to a standstill. Since then, he awoke only twice more before resigning to sleep. The outlook was grim, the clock ticking on as Derin’s parents awaited the inevitable.
When Suna shook her head, Rowan’s heart sank.
“There are no marks, no signs of illness. There are times when he is weak and trembling and others when he is in a deep sleep.”
“Has the mayor sent for a healer?” Rowan asked. Mirelyn coming from Alvar, perhaps—
“He hasn’t mentioned it to me, if he has,” Suna said, “though I fear it may be too late for their aid.”
“Rhiann and Anya are always listening,” Gran said. “It’s never too late.”
The slight twitch of Suna’s mouth was barely perceptible. Had Rowan’s eyes not been trained on her, reading the anguish she was trying to hide, she would have missed bitterness, her well-contained rage. Two things Rowan understood.
Rowan bore the distinct impression that Suna wished to speak with Gran privately, though she was far too polite to say anything. The burden Suna carried was significant.
“I’m going to see Wil and the others before patrolling the forest,” Rowan said.
“The woods missed you,” Suna said with a kind smile, using the change in subject to her advantage. The weight around her eyes and mouth lightened, her practiced composure returning. “We could hear the cries of the wolves and ravens.”
“Their Guardian has returned.” Pride glimmered in Gran’s eyes. “Go run, my love. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Rowan gathered her hatchets and clicked her tongue against her teeth, and Winter joined her, leaping from the bed to the front door threshold without issue. Suna cried out with a laugh, and Rowan offered a quick smile over her shoulder before taking her cloak and closing the door behind her.
“Leaving Gran feels wrong,” she whispered to Winter, clasping her cloak around her shoulders. “But so does staying.”
Winter answered by rubbing her cheek against Rowan’s leg before trotting ahead.
“Dad!” A woman, her toddler clinging to her leg, walked the main thoroughfare that bisected the village. “Where are you? Dad!”
“Where has he gone this time?” someone asked, looking toward the field, squinting beneath the sunlight.
Rowan veered from the path toward Jean’s home, heading toward them. At the sight of her, the woman looked relieved and hurried, picking up her child to walk faster.
“Watcher, please.” She shook her head, on the verge of tears. “My father, he’s gone missing. I haven’t seen him since dawn.”
“Missing?” Rowan looked from the woman to the field behind them. The expanse of tall grass led to the forest Rowan patrolled, keeping Elderglen safe from raiders and thieves. “What’s happened?”
“He’s loose in the head,” the other villager said, their tone unkind. “Wanders off.”
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll make your head loose.” The woman’s daughter pouted at the sharpness of her tone.
A senile villager missing, and the wild wood was before them. Rowan’s stomach tightened, her duty before her. “We’ll look for him.”
The woman choked a sob as she reached into the pocket of her skirt, revealing a sock. “You were my next stop, Watcher. Thank you.”
Rowan hid her grimace, nodding. “I make no promise, but we will look.” She took the garment and touched Winter’s crown. “We’ll return soon.”
Both hurried for the trees, Rowan ignoring the sinking feeling in her core.
MORGAN REILLY 