* * *

Yseult:

The fog stood thick over the moor, heavy as an omnipresent hand pressing down, sucking the air from our lungs. Crows cawed in the skeletons of trees as I passed. The dead grass and disfigured trees were only more proof that the land withered and died under Corpse King’s power.

The wind picked up, but I didn’t shiver, even though I was cold. Magic hummed through me, warming me even as goosebumps rose on my flesh.

“Every day he grows stronger,” one of my younger sisters raised her head. “Even the weather heeds him.”

“Shhh,” another hushed her, holding a sachet of herbs to her own face. Posies were no use. The stench of the Corpse King penetrated our very bones.

I left them and headed to the women bent around a fire. My older witch sisters stood in a tight circle, chanting as one. The neophytes hung back, allowing the ancient ones to combine power to work the spell.

I remained outside the circle. Silent, though my own lips moved with the chant.

My brow creased under the weight of the magic. I labored to breath as the spell took hold, twining around my body like a vine. I swayed a little before I caught the gaze of one of my older sisters.

“Here,” the witch beckoned to me. Her body was draped in what once was a purple robe, now rags. She looked like a wasted crone, but when I took her hand, power tingled in my arm. “Are you ready?”

Nodding, I stepped into the circle of witches. Despite the sickly chill, I wore only a thin white shift, with my hair unbound down my back. My arms and feet were bare.

“Child, have you cleansed yourself?” The witch speaking was the oldest of us. I was no girl, but to her, I’d always be a child.

“I have,” I answered clearly. “Cleansed with water and hyssop.”

“Drank only mead, ate only honey?”

I nodded.

“You’re ready, then. You’ll walk through fire.”

I swallowed and stepped forward. She kept her hand in mine, guiding me firmly the last few inches before the coals. The fire would cleanse me. Burn away whatever the spell could touch. It was necessary.

It can’t hurt me. I reminded myself again as the heat hit my skin. The crone’s hand both helped and guided me, but if I bolted, she would hold me fast.

Purifying smoke shot up on either side of me, the heat blasting my face. Tingles spread over me again, as I burned without burning, the spell fire licking but not touching my skin.

Once I made it through, I took a deep breath of cool air. I felt lighter, empty. A vessel for the spell, the great power my sisters and I would call into my being.

“The cleansing is finished. Let the spell begin.”

I took my place on the cold rock as my sisters gathered around me. Ancient hands raised, the younger neophytes huddled behind, heads bowed, arms linked for protection.

I steadied my breathing and looked within.

I could do this.

Of all my witch sisters, I was the best choice, blessed with both power and youth. I must succeed. This spell was our last hope.

I don’t know how long I stood waiting for the magic to come. A minute, an hour, a day and night?

When it came it was as if it had always been.

The power rose around me, swirling my garments, spreading thickly over my skin like water, burning like fire. If there was any uncleanliness left, the spell would destroy it, and me with it. I opened my eyes and met the crone’s gimlet gaze.

I could do this.

The wind picked up, a great howling as the corpse king battered our defenses. The outer circle of neophytes staggered and steadied. The crones all lowered their arms. The sky above them cleared, the sinister fog gone. The night sky rolled out in front of me like a black carpet studded with bright jewels, hazy around the edges with the gathering dawn. The stars winked and whirled in ageless dance. Hurry, they beckoned. Journey with us, before the dawn.

I breathed deep, and accepted the power, and rose among the stars.

* * *

Tristan:

I rose, sword in hand, swiping it overhead to drive off the cawing ravens. An endless battlefield stretched from where I stood, stinking of death and blood. My warrior brothers lay around me, faces dirty, armor smeared red, weapons clasped in still hands. I walked through the field of the fallen, pausing when a desperate gasping rose from one at my feet. A warrior lay in the mud, his guts spilling from the gaping wound in his stomach. He was dying, choking on his own blood. Wide, pain-filled eyes pleaded with me. My lips moving in a forgotten prayer, I thrust my sword downward and ended his struggle. I stood there for a moment, keeping the crows off him. His face, young and bloodied and framed with light blond hair, was familiar, but try as I might, I could not remember his name.

In my dreams, I marched on, until I could bear the sight of the dead no more. I ran, seeking the dark forest on the edge of the field. I entered a thicket, hacking with my sword as briars tore at my face. When I broke from the bracken, a silvery light beckoned me through the trees. A woman’s voice was calling my name.

Tristan, Tristan. The high, sweet tone was so familiar.

The shadows parted, moonlight glimmering off a woodland pool. A woman turned, white gold hair crackling around her face, and I had an answer to my prayers.

I woke hard, the woman’s voice echoing in my head. I kept my eyes closed, trying to conjure her face, but, like the dream, the scene with the woodland pool and still, silvery moonlight, she had slipped away.

Men’s voices murmured in the barracks. Someone was telling a story. Lars probably. He finished, and the others laughed.

I sat up, reaching for my weapon and my helm, feeling relief. I was alive, along with many of my warrior brothers. But as I moved from my bunk to join them in breaking our fast, I still smelled the sick scent from my dreams and heard the buzz of flies, feasting on the dead.

* * *

Yseult:

The spell ripped and wrenched me. I cried out as it prised me apart. Vision swirled away, the stars dying, my ears filled with the roaring of time, the oncoming dawn.

The blast drove me into blackness.

I woke with sunlight soft on my face. I’d fallen on my back and my body ached. When I turned my head, flowers tickled my cheek. A blue sky overhead, a field full of wildflowers all around. No fog or cursed stench. My witch sisters were gone, along with the fire and barren trees.

The spell had done its work. It had sent me… somewhere. Could this be the place the ancient ones meant to send me?

As I lay, ears straining, I had the feeling I was missing something. As I watched the wind rustle the new growth on the trees, I realized what was wrong. A day like this should be filled with song, but there was only silence. Where were the birds?

Voices murmured nearby. Male voices. Slowly, I sat up.

A castle stood at the far end of the field, its great walls dwarfing the trees. A few figures moved in the shadows, but they were far enough away to be no threat to me.

My more immediate concern were the two warriors winding their way through the thick grasses. Their weapons clinked as they came closer. A few steps and they would easily see me.

I reached for the raven’s form, waiting for the familiar rustle of feathers to prove I’d transformed. I could easily take flight and be out of reach, winging my way to a perch where I could spy on this unfamiliar land. Once I got my bearings, I could see about my mission.

The warrior’s murmurs grew clearer, their chain mail rattling a warning.

Come, I reached for my power, whispering the spell.

Nothing.

My fingers groped the ground, clutching frantically as if the earth could rise up and hide me. Still the raven form didn’t come. I felt tired, a little dazed, but not so much that I could not work my magic. But when I went within to draw on my magic, I felt nothing.

Numb, heart beating faster, I sat frozen as the warriors came closer.

* * *

Ivar:

I caught the scent as soon as I stepped out from under the shadow of the king’s stronghold. Sweet as a flower, but foreign. My feet started towards it almost immediately, and though I didn’t mention why I wanted to cross the field in front of the castle, Lars was in a good mood and it was easy to convince him to fall into step with me.

“Fine day,” Lars remarked, using his sword to hack off a few daisy heads. I grunted my agreement, keeping our path in line with the scent while pretending I had no aim.

“You’re quiet,” my fair headed brother elbowed me.

“I dreamt again last night.”

“You’re always dreaming.”

“This was different,” I murmured. The closer we got to the grassy dip before the trees, the stronger it was, and the more my head cleared.

“The woman? You must go down to the village and find a woman.”

“I want no woman.”

Lars scoffed. “No, just a phantom creature. A fantasy of lonely nights. A good lay will exorcise this foolishness.” He glanced at me when I said nothing to defend myself, looking a little guilty. “How many times have you dreamed of her?”

“It is more than a dream.”

Lars snorted again and turned to tease me, but stilled, his mouth falling open. He’d caught the same scent.

“Do you—”

“Come,” I said, hastening my steps, now that I knew I was not imagining it.

And I saw her. A bare-armed maid. Pale, with white gold hair crackling about her face. She sat haloed by flattened field grass, stared up at me with wide eyes.

“What is here?” Lars strode forward, holding his weapon. I caught his arm before he could attack. The woman didn’t even glance at him. She was too busy staring at me.

I felt as if I opened my mouth, her name would appear on my lips. For we had never met, but I’d seen her a thousand times. The maid in the grass was the lady from my dreams.

* * *

Yseult:

“What is here?” the warrior barked. It took me a moment to decipher the words. The language cadence was unfamiliar, the words coarse and guttural. Before I could up and flee, a boot pinned my hip.

I tried to roll, and the warrior’s growl reverberated through me. I went still as a bird cowering in the grass before a predator.

“Who trespasses?” The fair one bent over me. His rough hands seized my arm, set me on my feet. I called my magic to me, grasping frantically. But where my power once resided, there was emptiness.

“A woman.” The bearded warrior’s dark eyes pierced through me. I shuddered as if stabbed.

Closing my eyes, I called again for my power and felt... nothing.

“No more than a maid,” blunt fingers pushed back my hair. I flinched from them. Goddess help me.

Then I felt it. Pulsing, pushing against me, a familiar stench. It was faint, but it came from the fortress. I’d recognize it anywhere. The Corpse King made his home here.

The fair-haired warrior hauled me close, and I bowed my head, letting my hair hang over my face again, hiding from the dark one’s gaze. “Come, little captive. The commander will want to question you.”

He pulled me forward, and before I stumbled, his companion caught my arm. Together they dragged me towards the great wall and the pulsing evil within. The closer we got, the more my head throbbed.

Goddess help me, I prayed again, and hung my head in the silence.

The spell had worked in its own, awful way. It had delivered me to the Corpse King. I’d woken at the foot of his fortress. His warriors had me in their possession.

But, whether by the spell or the mage’s defenses, I’d been stripped of my abilities. I was powerless.

Whatever the next day and night brought, I would face it without my magic.

* * *