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In the following days, Val helped Ivan recover. Between having fallen ill and the wound on his arm, he was not in the best shape. He was hesitant to let her fuss, but the fever still returned and rendered him weak and delirious when it did.
She warned him not to go outside at night as the Hag had once warned her. Although the chorts stayed beyond the boundary in the woods, she had discovered plenty of other Nothing-touched that did not care about the threshold.
When she showed him the Cloth of Plenty, she had not warned him what it could do. His eyes widened, and he recoiled at first, but his hunger had won out. Even cautious as he was, he still ate the food.
The more things he tasted, the more he seemed accepting of the gift. No matter how many times Val had set the tablecloth out anew, the bread had been freshly baked, and the butter soft and fluffy, melting in their mouths. The jams were sweet and honey fragrant with notes of flowers from which the bees had collected the nectar - bees that no one would ever see.
However, he did not go outside to step on what he called the ‘desecrated grounds.’ Not until the blood was cleared from the dirt and fence posts around it. Thankfully, this did not take long, and a storm came, washing the blood away from the steps and porch and leaving a grassy, earthy smell that was in all ways divine in its natural fragrance.
Ivan was still weary of Val and preferred not to stand close. But he did not argue when she asked him to do something. And he had been a large man, able to do tasks around the Glade that were too back-breaking for Val. He never questioned her on this, in fact, he never questioned her at all.
Sirin had not returned, still. And Val began to get a terrible feeling in her gut about what that could mean.
They both slept in the hut on their respective cots. She had given him the one that the Hag used to sleep on. Sometimes in the night, she would wake and find he too, was awake, silently looking in her direction.
Meanwhile, in her dreams, she continued speaking to the Hag. They were brief interactions, mostly consisting of the old creature’s threats and malicious rhymes.
But Val was no longer afraid. It had been years, and she could not find what she needed in the Glade. Now, her only hope was the Hag. She had not told her captors of Val’s whereabouts for one reason or another. Perhaps she had been protecting the Glade, but even when Val dreamt of cruelties done to the Hag by the Northern King and his men, the Hag did not speak.
But, there was a downside to having Ivan there for Val. One that had made her want to dismiss him back into the woods and tell him to return wherever it was he came from. She could not do that; he would perish without a guide. But, nevertheless, it pained her to see him.
Because Ivan reminded her of him.
They had not looked alike at all. Ivan’s skin was light. His hair, too, was the color of sand where his had been dark as tar. Ivan was taller, and his build was slightly larger. But the mere presence of a man had speared her heart with ice.
Sometimes, she would lie awake, and in the darkness, his heavy sleeping breath could have been his. And these times, she would turn to face the unseen man and allow herself to imagine that she was in a tent or barn, and the shape of him had been… his. She could not do this for long, lest her broken heart would perish altogether. It was only a specter in the dark.
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The Witch had been very cold. She demanded things of him, and he complied.
There had been many stories of the tasks that the Maiden of the Woods would ask of you. Sometimes, these stories would lead to her letting a man go in the end, but this was not often the case.
She had told him that her name was Val, which was a strange name for someone so minacious. He had expected it to be something like Hecate, Morana, or Krovina. That seemed like a far more proper name for the Daughter of the Nothing. But then again, compared to other Nothing-touched he had encountered in his life, she had seemed by far the most tame and civilized. Plus, now that she had brushed her hair and picked the various twigs, plants, and bugs out of it she looked almost normal.
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Almost.
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“Where are you from?” She asked one day over a meal. They’d both avoided questions of a personal nature up to this point, and it took him by surprise.
“Do you know of the South?” He asked, not wanting to make her feel uneducated with the names of cities and towns so far away.
“A bit.” She said.
“Do you know of Ai-Jabranh?”
“No.” Head shake.
“I am from there.” He stuffed an apple dumpling in his mouth, not fully swallowing it before he spoke. “It is the breadbasket of Sudraj, near the sea.”
Val sat, thoughtfully chewing a piece of smoked fish.
“You are a soldier?” She asked carefully, as he had not been open to speaking and too much could overwhelm him.
“Ehh…” He made a noise that was very hesitant in correcting her. “As of late, yes.”
She gave Ivan a questioning look, beckoning him to go on. This seemed to reassure him.
“The war had left the South with very little choice. When the conscriptions started a few years ago, I left the orchards for the front, even though I had already served my time.” He said, a hint of sadness in his voice. “The first of the White Cities fell, and we had no say. I had to return to the King’s service.”
This was the first time Val had heard of the war since she left her home. It chilled her to be reminded of what was happening beyond the wood.
“Then… Korschey is winning?” She asked. But he shook his head.
“Winning, but not won. You know of the war? And Korschey?”
“I do.” She said, and thought of how much information she should divulge. She had been there when the King of the East was crucified on the cathedral towers in the Midtrade City, starting the war. She’d been there when the River Cities were burned, breaking treaties with the West. The war seemed to have followed her across the lands but could not follow her here.
“What of the West?” She asked, the thoughts of Typhonos and Elena on her mind—the thoughts of Dimos, the single living god-child, and what that meant.
“The Iron Gate remains closed. Ships come by sea; they bring men and supplies. The men take southern colors and ride out north. The Northern King’s lands are surrounded only by a frozen sea, and he cannot reach there.” Ivan explained. “We hold them off, but to hope and push them back to the North is not reasonable. The Deep Wood surrounds the borders and leaves little room to ride past. And, men do not survive the Deep Wood.”
He paused, looking around as if only then aware that he was at the heart of it.
“So, how did you end up here?” She asked, done eating and now only looking at him.
“I rode with scouts. That is what I am, a pathfinder. There weren’t many of us, and now, I suspect to be the only one remaining.”
She nodded for the lack of words. They sat silently for a minute before he picked up his empty plate to take it to the basin.
“Leave it.” She stopped him.
“I do not mind - let me take yours as well.” He offered, but she shook her head.
“It is…” She looked down at the cloth, trying to find the words to explain that all she had to do was fold it with all the plates and remaining food. “...self-cleaning.”
He stared; something in his eyes made her think that he was distancing himself again despite the easy conversation. He looked uncomfortable anytime something out of the ordinary had been used or done by Val. After so long, she did not even notice.
Every single meal prior to that, Val would shoo him away with a different task, this was the first that he insisted on cleaning the dishes, but Ivan just nodded and set his plate back down. Val stood, and, plates crashing into each other and jams spilling together with jellied fish, she gathered it in a lump of wet soggy cloth. Without anything obvious happening, it was suddenly neatly folded and clean as if brand new.
Weeks passed. The only reason Val had known that was the notches. Ivan had begun feeling like a permanent fixture in the Glade, although still acting fairly awkward. They stayed away from each other most of the time, doing one thing or another. Both seemed to silently calculate how Ivan could possibly leave without losing his life in the woods. Neither spoke of this, as there had not been an obvious or even a half-viable answer.
Sirin appeared sitting on the taller branches of trees outside the clearing. She never approached, but Val would see her blue and red shape sitting in the greenery. Her presence had made it clear that she awaited the moment Ivan would leave, but she never sang. As a result, Val had to warn him that even in the day, he could not cross the boundaries of the Glade. She had not explained why, and he took it as her establishing his limits as his captor.
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