“Lady Mage.” Sou Yuet bowed politely. “May I ask what this is about?”

“Yer role is over, Monk Yuan. The criminal was not to return to Iriu.”

“I never heard about this.” Sou Yuet smiled pleasantly. “Since I'm here supervising, surely there is no problem.”

The mage's eyes involuntarily glanced back towards where Spideog was hiding. “We have... been informed that yer relationship with the criminal might be concerningly close.”

“How so?” Sou Yuet asked innocently. They could feel the necromancer behind them straining not to laugh.

“Come now,” Spideog piped up wheedlingly from his hiding spot, “Disciple Yuan, ye're a reasonable ma- uh... la... person. Let's not make this more difficult.”

“Who's the one making this difficult?” the necromancer growled. Everyone flinched and instantly raised their staves even higher, as if the witch had chanted an evil spell. Spideog ducked out of sight.

“Wouldn't it be better for me to take her back to Yuan Wei with me, since she is not supposed to be here?” Sou Yuet suggested.

“It's too late, Monk Yuan.” The mage began to cautiously step forwards. “The terms have been broken. We can no longer trust you, and the criminal must be imprisoned.”

Sou Yuet glanced at the staves the mages carried. Wood. All wood. A pale green light flickered in their eyes. Sunny growled.

“I'll go with them,” the necromancer sighed, rubbing her neck. Everyone, Sou Yuet and Sunny included, stared at her in surprise. “If I don't, they'll just keep sniffing after me. It's a pain in the arse, ye pack of dogs.”

“Is that so?” Sou Yuet said mildly, placing a calming hand on Sunny's back. “Well, I suppose...”

The necromancer brushed past the monk without another look. She sneered at the mages. “Well, ye gonna just stand there?”

“Bind it,” the head mage said curtly. With shaking hands, two mages rushed forwards with heavy rings of iron. They bound the necromancer's hands and neck. She hissed through her teeth at the touch of the cold metal.

“What's this?” Sou Yuet asked with innocent curiosity. Their knuckles had turned white as they gripped their hands together behind their back.

“Pure ancient iron,” the mage leader said with a cold smile. “Their kind don't like the feel of it.”

Judging by the way the necromancer was breathing and scowling, she seemed to be telling the truth.

“Is it really necessary?”

“And how else would we be keeping it in check?”

“I never had to bind her,” Sou Yuet said simply.

The mage turned abruptly. “Let's go.”

Spideog, made brave by the necromancer's capture, finally emerged from his hiding spot and tapped the witch on her forehead. “Ha, ye looked down on me this whole time, but who's laughing now, ye-”

The necromancer kicked his shin.

Despite not struggling, she was forcefully tugged away from the yelping bhard as he rolled on the ground. Spideog was helped to his feet, and the group moved away without a single look back. A tiny, fresh leaf slipped from the branches of an oak tree above them. It was far too new and young to be dropped by the tree, but no one seemed to notice as it fell, brushing gently across the necromancer's cheek as it did so.

Sou Yuet turned and raced back the way they had come.

Rigani was standing under an apple tree by the house, munching fruit with a vacant look in her eyes, as Sou Yuet and Sunny rushed up.

“Child?”

“M- Mother. How does the legal system in Iriu work?”

----------------------------------------

This was a dumb idea, the necromancer thought, barely five minutes after she had parted ways with Sou Yuet.

Spideog continued to harass her for a safer distance, still limping a little. The pace was also either too fast or too slow, so the necromancer's legs were already starting to hurt. They tried to block everything out by thinking of something else... Someone else...

“What're ye thinking about, ye pervert?” Spideog demanded. “Are ye blushing?”

“Wouldn't ye like to know,” the necromancer muttered under her breath.

“What'd ye say?”

“Bhard Spideog!” the mage leader barked. “Enough!”

The bhard retreated, grumbling.

They all walked in silence for a few more minutes before another group of mages appeared ahead. The necromancer recognised the gloomy looking mage with the antler-staff.

“Ye found it.” The mage approached the necromancer uncomfortably close and stared flatly into the witch's eyes. The necromancer pursed her lips and blew air into the mage's face, making him recoil.

“Yes, Great Mage Spindle. Will ye be joining us in returning to the Court?”

“Where are the monk and the dog?” Spindle asked, ignoring her question and looking around.

“We left them two magh-spaces back,” the other mage answered, her eyes narrowing. “Great Mage Spindle...”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I was just curious. Who wouldn't want to see a monk who can fly on a leaf and a large dog that looks like a lion?” Spindle smiled, showing narrow teeth and all of his gums. “Let's be going.”

The Aiteann Court was a collection of tall standing stones on a hill overlooking the village of Aiteann. The spiny gorse bushes, the aiteann, that gave the place its name, was strewn throughout the hills and had been shaped protectively around the village and the Court.

The necromancer had never actually been to Aiteann before. She had been caught by mages in iron chains in the far north of Iriu where she had gone alone into the mountains and the snow.

What had she been looking for out there? She couldn't even remember any more. It didn't matter.

Once this was all over, she go back to Sou Yuet and Sunny, and they would all go home.

She glanced at the mages, and at the shackles on her wrists. She could break these, kill all the mages and -

Was that the kind of person she wanted to be?

She breathed deeply and glanced down at the village as they trekked up the hill leading to the Court. The area looked oddly familiar, somehow. But she had been to so many places, seen so many hills, so many standing stones, that they all blurred into one now.

On this cloudy day, the village was quiet. The few people who were about watched the procession of people up to the Court in silence. As they neared the top, more and more people emerged from huts. They were too far away for the necromancer to see their expressions.

The escorting mages pushed and pulled her roughly up the hill to the Aiteann Court. Within the circle of standing stones, several people were already waiting, and Great Mage Spindle joined them.

There were nine of them in total, all clad in long white robes that brushed the sparse new grass growing between the stones. Each had a brightly-coloured cord that belted their robes shut. Some wore garlands of evergreen leaves or thorns.

A mage tried to shove the necromancer into a kneeling position before these people, to no avail. The necromancer smirked. “Ye might want to try lifting a few more rocks before ye do that.”

One of the white-robe people, an old woman with a weary expression and a staff so long that she used it as a walking stick, tapped on a rock. “Death-speaker.”

“What now?” the necromancer growled.

“You should not have come here,” the old woman said, leaning on her staff.

The necromancer laughed. “D'ye think I chose to come here all on me lonesome? I was dragged-”

“Take it to the cave,” the mage Spindle interrupted. “We'll hold the trial in a week.”

“We agreed it would be two days, Mage Spindle,” the old woman retorted. A few of the other white-robed people cast frowns in Spindle's direction, but the remainder maintained their expressions, as if they had been expecting this.

“There is still one last very important piece of evidence to gather, Elder Hawthorn.” Spindle's expression was morose, but there was a hint of glee in his voice. “How can we get justice if we hurry like a cait sidhe with its tail afire?”

“Ye never said nothing about rare important evidence afore, Spindle,” interjected one of the other white-robed people who had frowned at him. She was a pretty young girl with ash brown hair garlanded with hazelnuts, but had a harsh voice. “What are ye up to?”

“Smile, Coll.”

The girl Coll raised her wooden staff almost immediately, but Elder Hawthorn stepped before her. “Elder!”

“Put down yer staves. She's a child.”

The other mages had also raised their staves, and they were all pulsing with a faint light. Coll had obviously not noticed their aggression; she stepped back, a look of fear and anger on her face.

“Well then, now that we're agreed,” Spindle said, “take the criminal to the cave.”

The necromancer's brain had been racing since the first mention of a cave. She was dragged, stumbling, past the Court and over the other side of the hill.

In the dell below the hill was the remains of a village. It had been burnt, and crushed, and buried in the dead leaves of more than a score of autumns. Only one building, a small hut separate from the rest, on the edge of the forest, remained intact.

And then she remembered.

A village.

A single hut on the outskirts.

A cave in the hills.

No. No no no...

The mages had to lift her with levitation spells to carry her the remainder of the way to the cave. She couldn't move, couldn't speak.

She was a tiny child again, bound to the stone.

Her tattoos seethed.

Voices whispered.

Welcome back.

*

“I don't rightly know,” Rigani said, munching. “Never paid much attention to human affairs like those. Did my child go with them, then?”

“She did.”

“Foolish. Just go live in the Other Places, humans can't bother ye there.” Rigani shook her head. “There's someone as might know. I'll take ye there.”

“Mother, would you like to ride Sunny? She's fast.”

Rigani blinked patiently. “So am I.”

And she was. The three of them raced from the hut, heading south. If anything, Sunny, with her huge bulk, was slower than the other two.

“Poor thing, she's built for standing guard in one spot, rather than running all over the place like this.” Sou Yuet slowed a little. “When this is all over, you can rest for days at the entrance to Yuen Mei, okay?”

“We're almost there,” Rigani said, still charging ahead. “Ye can rest in a moment, little puppy.”

The sunlight seemed to be brighter here, as they ran across a grassy meadow dotted with nodding wildflowers. They crested a hill, and for a moment, Sou Yuet was blinded by the sunlight...

“Mam Rigani?”

A tall young man stood amongst the flowers, a ball in his hand and a parti-coloured dog capering at his feet, eager for the ball to be thrown. He launched it, and the dog sailed away, followed by Sunny, who couldn't help herself in spite of her tiredness.

The young man turned back to them, his curly golden hair glowing like a crown. Greeting Rigani first, he looked down at Sou Yuet with a smile. “Who is this little friend?”

“'tis me child's lover,” Rigani said bluntly. Sou Yuet didn't know what to do with their expression.

“Oh, well pleasure to meet ye.” The young man tapped his right hand to his heart and bowed. “Ye can call me Macnia. Is there something I can be helping ye with?”

“The human criminal laws of Iriu, do you know them?”

“Are ye in trouble with the human law then?” the young man asked. His dog had returned with the ball, so he tossed it again, his long arms effortlessly sending it out of the sight. The dog raced off once more, the panting Sunny in tow.

“It's not me.”

“It's me child,” Rigani sighed, sitting down comfortably amongst the grass. She plucked a blade and nibbled it.

“Why won't- Why won't they just come and live in the Other Places?” Macnia said. He and Rigani sighed simultaneously and shook their heads.

“I... would much prefer it if they came back with me, to my home in the mortal realm,” Sou Yuet said in a small voice.

Macnia's expression brightened instantly. “Well then, that's grand! Tell me, what's trouble has that kid gotten into?”

“It's that village, Mac,” Rigani said, her usually placid expression exceedingly dark. “The families of the humans from that place, they're out for revenge.”

“Hm... The Codes say that a life must be paid for. If ye take someone's life, then ye must pay the family in gold,” Macnia said. “If ye can't pay the gold, yer family must pay it. If none can pay, then yer life is forfeit.” He ran a hand through his curly locks. “Begging yer pardon, Mam Rigani, but yer child's already mostly one of the dead already, no?”

“That's truth.”

“So there shouldn't be a need for worrying.”

“And yet, I'm uneasy,” Sou Yuet said. “The Aiteann Court strike me as very determined. M- Mother?”

Rigani's expression was distorted. Her neck thrust out, teeth bared, she snarled, “Aiteann? Aiteann?”

“Yes, they-”

“Have they not done enough?” Without waiting for any kind of response, she turned and rushed away east. Sou Yuet bowed hastily to Macnia. “Thank you for your help!”

“Go on, little friend,” the young man replied. “We'll meet again.”

Sou Yuet ran.