Liv couldn’t remember the last time she’d wished for a big, muscular man or two. She’d done her best to make peace with the idea that she’d never be over five feet tall, and nearly all the time her magic was more than enough to make up for her physical shortcomings.

Carrying a miner with a broken leg down the mountainside was not one of those times.

She’d considered simply making a chute of ice down to the camp, putting Warin on it, and pushing. It would have saved them all a good deal of time, sweat, and grief - but it also might have meant injuring his leg worse. A soldier of ice or two could have held him, but how much of her precious mana would that have used up? Would she have the concentration to deal with another centipede ambushing them, if she was animating two servants at once?

Try as she might, Liv just couldn’t think of a better solution than hoisting Warin between them, with Emma taking his left side and Liv taking the right. At least that position left her right hand free to keep her wand ready.

And every moment they wasted stumbling downslope was time that Matthew and Triss might have been wounded or killed, wherever they were deep beneath Bald Peak. Every step down was a step that would have to be repeated on the way back up, and Liv could hardly stand the frustration. If only Matthew had brought a couple of the guards up to the entrance to the main shaft, and left them there, she could have simply handed Warin off and let them deal with him. Of course, the price was that those men would have been exposed to more raw mana from the eruption, and would be more likely to develop mana sickness.

They’d finally come in sight of the camp, with its rough palisade and ditch, when Emma pointed out the bat.

“To your left,” the huntress said. “Doesn’t look like the eruption’s turned it into a monster yet.”

Liv looked up. The sun was making its journey down toward the horizon, but hadn’t begun painting the mountain sky yet. It was early for a bat to be out, wasn’t it? And all by itself. “If it comes close,” she decided, “I’ll shoot it down. If not, we won’t worry about it.”

Still, the bat circled above them: once, then twice. They were almost at the ward, but if Liv broke the circle of dust now, the men inside would have no protection should the bat prove to be a threat. Instead, she and Emma set Warin down carefully. Then, Emma put an arrow to her bowstring, and Liv raised her wand.

“Do you need us to shoot it down, m’lady?” Tobias called from within the encampment. Around him, half a dozen guards raised crossbows.

“Wait,” Liv said. There were no growths of mana-stone on the bat that she could see - no casque on its forehead. It circled once more, then fluttered down toward the ground, not between Liv and the palisade, but off to one side. When it was chest-height from the grass, the bat’s body seemed to glisten darkly for a moment, and then stretch and distort. Liv put her finger on the first button of her wand.

“It’s a monster,” Emma said, but Liv put a hand out and grasped her by the shoulder.

“Wait,” she said. “I want to see if...

The amorphous blood stretched, until it had distinct limbs and a trunk, then solidified. Wet viscera was replaced by skin, hunting leathers, and a mane of wild dark hair. There hadn’t been a purple streak, when last Liv had seen her at Castle Whitehill, but she recognized the woman who’d jumped out the window of the Room of Curiosities, all the same. Come to think of it, she’d had the purple in Liv’s vision.

“Wren,” Liv said.

“Wren Wind Dancer, of the Red Shield Tribe,” the woman said. “You’ve grown up, Liv. You are Liv, aren’t you? Not her daughter?”

“I am. And you haven’t aged a day.”

“A characteristic of the great bats,” Wren explained. “So long as we have enough blood to feed on, we remain young for a very, very long time.”

“Give the word, m’lady,” one of the knights shouted. “We’ve got enough bolts to make her look like a pincushion.”

Carefully, Liv stepped to the right, putting distance between herself and Emma, who still stood next to Warin. The miner, wisely, remained silent, simply gritting his teeth against the pain of his broken leg.

“I’m not here to fight you, Liv,” Wren said. “I pulled you out of the ice that day - do you remember?”

“I couldn’t very well forget,” Liv answered. “But the last time you were here, you were stealing an icon of Raktia. I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about her cult, then? And the day all those creatures of blood killed so many people? What’d you need it for, anyway?” She decided not to mention what she’d seen on the day her father had taken her to the shoals.

“I know a good deal,” Wren admitted. “And you may be the only person on this continent who might listen to me. I was making for Whitehill, to see if you still lived at the castle, when I caught sight of a white-haired girl coming down the mountain. I wasn’t certain it was you, at first.”

“It’s been a few years,” Liv said, considering her words. “Why are you here, then? Why seek me out?”

“Because I think I’ve done something horrible,” Wren said. “I didn’t want to admit it, for a long time, but - I can’t keep pretending. I need to tell someone, but who would listen to me?”

“Alright,” Liv said. “Here’s what I’d like you to do. Fly on down to Castle Whitehill, and tell Duchess Julianne I sent you. She’ll give you a place to stay until I return, and we can talk then.”

“Don’t you want to know why the rift is erupting early?” Wren asked. “It isn’t the only one. They’re going all across the north, in the lands of the Eld.”

Liv grimaced: that would explain what was delaying her father. “I do want to know,” she said. “But I don’t have time for this right now. I’ve got people still up in that mine, and they need help.”

“Is it Lord Matthew?” Piers called, from inside the palisade.

Wren’s eyes flicked up the mountain, then back down to Liv. “Fine. I’ll go in with you, then.”

Emma laughed. “You think we’d go in there with someone we don’t trust?”

“I know you shouldn’t be going in at all,” Wren said. “Look at your arms, girl. The veins are already turning.”

“She’s right, though,” Liv said. “I can’t trust you. I know who you’ve been with. I’ve seen it.”

“If you turn me away, I’ve got nowhere else to go,” Wren said. “What would it take? You want an oath?”

“No,” Liv said, after considering for a long moment. “If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust your oaths, either. Set your bow down on the ground, and your knives, as well. Emma’s going to collect them. Then we’re all going inside the camp, and your hands are going to be bound.”

“Done,” Wren said, pulling hunting knives from half a dozen sheaths secured to different parts of her body. She put them all in a pile, along with her quiver and bow, then took three steps back away from the weapons.

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“Emma,” Liv prodded.

The young woman dashed forward, gathered up the weapons, then backed away again. “I’m going to bring down the ward,” Liv said, and stepped over to the circle of dust that marked out her magic. She drew a line through it with the tip of her wand, breaking the spell. “Two of you men, come out and get Warin here,” she called. “Piers, Tobias, come tie her hands.”

There was a moment when Liv wondered whether anyone would actually follow her orders: they didn’t know that Julianne had named her an heir, after all. She was neither a knight, nor an experienced mage. But if there was to be a test of her tenuous authority, it seemed that it would not come quite yet.

She felt better once Mistress Trafford had taken both Warin and Emma off to her tent - to set the miner’s broken leg, on the one hand, and to deal with Emma’s symptoms of mana-sickness, on the other. Liv wished she’d already learned Aluth: with the word of the mages’ guild, she would have been able to drain mana from Emma, just as Master Grenfell had once done for her.

When Liv continued her conversation with Wren, the older woman was bound securely, weaponless, and surrounded by knights with their hands on their weapons. If the worst happened, at least Liv wouldn’t have to fight Wren alone.

“Alright,” she said. “You’ve got as long as it takes me to finish here to talk, and I’ll listen. Piers, get me the great mana-stone Master Grenfell sent along.” Tobias brought a folding camp stool, and Liv took the opportunity to get her weight off her feet.

“The short of it is that the eruptions aren’t natural,” Wren said. “They’re a distraction, while Raktia’s followers in the north are evacuated from Soltheris.”

“An Elden port on the east coast,” Sir Randel broke in. “Fifty or sixty miles from Al'Fenthia, perhaps.”

“It was burning, when I left,” Wren said.

“You were there,” Liv said. “For this evacuation.”

“Or was it an attack?” Randel asked.

“I’m sure the people who lived there saw it that way,” Wren said, her shoulders slumping as she looked down at the ground. “They said it was going to be a rescue, but a rescue shouldn’t leave the streets littered with bodies. So I left.”

“Just like that?” Liv asked. Piers lugged the great, rough mana-stone over to her and set it on the ground. The moment she placed her palms on it, Liv began pulling in stored mana, to refill what she’d spent in the mine.

“No,” Wren admitted. “It had been coming for a while. I’ll tell you everything later. But the important thing is - the goddess was supposed to help us. My people. We’re dying - never designed to last as long as we have, I think. Just to be soldiers for a long gone war. And she did help, a bit, but she’s also got us doing other things. I think she wants a war, and that’s not what I signed up for.”

The light from within the massive mana-stone dimmed, and Liv felt a sense of fullness that told her she had taken everything she could, for now. “You can take that back,” she told Piers.

“I’m going back up into the mine,” Liv said, “to find Matthew and Triss. Sir Randel, please keep Emma here. I don’t want her exposed to any more mana. Wren Wind Dancer, I’m not the one who can make a decision about you. That’s Duchess Julianne. You stole from the castle, and it sounds like you have more than that to answer for. We’ll take you back to Whitehill, and you’ll be given a chance to speak. What will happen after that, I can’t say.”

“You should take me with you,” Wren urged. “I can help you in the mine. Nothing can find its way in the dark like a bat. If you want to get these friends of yours out while they’re still alive, I can lead you to them.”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually considering this, m’lady,” Sir Anselm said. “You need men you can trust down there. Let me come with you.”

“And have you end up dying from mana-sickness?” Liv shot back. “No. I’ll go by myself.” There was a lot of grumbling from the guards that had gathered around: they clearly weren’t happy with the idea.

Sir Randel shifted. “Well, let’s think about this for a moment,” he said. “I’m the senior knight here, I think everyone will agree. With Lord Matthew missing, and his fiancee, I believe that leaves me in command of the expedition.”

“And can you cast a single spell, Sir Randel?” Liv asked him.

“No,” the knight admitted, shaking his head. “But my family’s blade was enchanted back in the days of Baron Henry’s grandfather. I’d wager it will do well enough.” He patted the hilt with his hand, and Liv could feel that she was losing control of the situation. They were all used to seeing her as a young girl, not a soldier or commander.

“Blood and shadows,” she cursed. “I’m the only member of the mages’ guild here, and it’s the guild’s duty to handle eruptions. Let me do my job.”

“No offense meant, but you’re an apprentice,” Sir Randel said. “You’ve no experience to speak of, my lady. Let us who do, take over.”

“Do you want a ward around this camp, or not?” Liv demanded, raising her wand. “Because so far as I know, I’m the only one left who can cast one. If you don’t like what I do, you can complain to Duchess Julianne later, but for now, you’re going to do what I say. Now, I’m going back up that mountain to find Matthew, while you all hold here and shoot anything that tries to pass you. Is that understood?”

“Yes, m’lady,” Piers and Tobias said immediately, and Liv was grateful for it.

“You’re coming with me,” Liv said, grabbing Wren by the ropes that bound her hands. “But I don’t trust you with weapons. Come on.”

“Let one of us come with you, at least,” Sir Randel protested, and made as if to follow Liv out of the camp. She pulled a pouch of mana-stone off her belt, and used it to repair the circle.

“Stay back,” Liv called to the knight as he approached. “If you don’t want to end up frozen solid.” She touched her wand to the circle, and repeated her incantation. The dust flared back to life, enclosing the camp, and everyone within it.

“Come on, then,” Liv said. She set off up the mountain, and Wren, her hands bound, followed.

☙

They made it back to the entrance with nothing more than a single, stone-encrusted doe running across their path. Liv killed it with a single shard of ice to the neck, launched by triggering the first spell in her wand, and was about to leave it there on the ground when Wren spoke up.

“Just a moment,” the woman said, and knelt down in the dirt next to the carcass. Liv watched as Wren leaned down to the neck, which was still spurting hot blood, and fastened her mouth about the wound to drink. When Wren stood up again, her mouth was wet and red. Liv turned and kept walking up the slope toward the main shaft of the mine.

“A lot of people would be sick if they watched me do that,” Wren said, trailing behind her.

“My father’s people drink seal blood,” Liv told her. “It isn’t so different. They use cups, however, instead of latching straight onto the wound.”

“I’d use it if I had one,” Wren told her.

“Do you drink from people, as well, or only animals?” Liv asked.

“I used to buy it from the butchers’ shop in Calder’s Landing,” Wren told her. “Never once drank from a person.”

“But your people did during the war,” Liv said. “That’s how the stories go, anyway. The Great Bats of Raktia, descending on the battlefield and drinking from the corpses. That’s why the trinity teaches us to burn our dead.” They’d come to the shaft, now, with its wooden beams framing the entrance for stability, and Liv ducked inside. The sun was nearly down, and the world dipped in twilight, but inside the mine the veins of mana-stone glowed as brightly as ever.

“That was before I was ever born,” Wren said. “They might have done.”

“You said you could find them,” Liv said, motioning down the shaft to the first chamber, where they'd been overwhelmed by an entire colony of mana-bats.

“Not on two legs,” Wren said. “But I have enough blood, now.” She shimmered in the darkness, her skin running red and wet, her clothing dissolving into blood. A moment later, a black bat flapped away from where the huntress had stood, and off into the darkness.

Liv looked down at the ropes which had once bound Wren. They lay in a heap on the floor of the cavern. It appeared that the huntress could have escaped any time she wished to. With a scowl, Liv took the left hand cut, down toward where they’d found Warin. By the time she reached the mine carts piled with chunks of silver and mana-stone, the small bat had returned.

Wren - it must have been her, for any other bat present during the eruption would have grown monstrous long since - found a perch on the ceiling and hung upside down, then flapped her wings to get Liv’s attention.

“I’m assuming that’s you,” Liv said, and the bat squeaked. “Have you found them?” The bat squeaked again. “Well, lead on then.”

The little bat let go of its perch, and led Liv deeper into the mines, down wet, dim corridors hewn out of the living rock of the mountain. Finally, they came to a place where the passage broke - perhaps from the eruption, or perhaps later, during an aftershock.

A wide crack had formed in the floor of the tunnel, leading down into the darkness, and the edges crumbled when Liv stepped close. “Here?” she asked the bat. “Did they fall down? How far is it?”

Wren flapped down into the abyss, and Liv heard her squeak from below. Then, the bat flapped back up out again, as if waiting for her.

Liv sighed. “Celet Aimac Belia o’Mae,” she said, extending her wand down into the darkness. A chute of ice formed, attached to the edge of the crevice, and then extending downward. Carefully, Liv sat down at the top of the chute, took firm hold of her wand, and pushed.

Picking up speed, she slid down into the abyss.