Matriarch Zara, of the Solitude Grove, was productive during the first weeks after Urk’s departure. She met the numerous townsfolk with a smile on her face, though often forced. They were kindly, curious and on the brink of delving too deep with her, but it was manageable. It was refreshing to meet with the less fearful sort, clearly the Guardians had picked the perfect place.

All of it became hard work of course, but it ensured her mind would be focused on anything other than Urk. Yet, idle hands brought pain, and pain reminded her of the goblin, and the last thing she needed was to be with her thoughts. Her dreams haunted her enough, if her waking existence poked her heart as well, she didn’t think she could take it.

There were a few repeat visitors who asked after Urk. Zara could only manage a flimsy excuse, the same one every time, they were away. Soon they learned not to ask at all, for her face soured and their fear grew.

Work soon became impossible on her own. Keeping up with the needs of the people and maintaining the barn, animal pen, and garden. First the large beasts fell to a strange sickness that she hadn’t the time to investigate. Then the pen broke and her garden was ravaged by rest. Their deaths ranged from bloody and messy, to explosive. The few townsfolk who continued to make the journey to her cottage, despite the slow deterioration, were finally put off.

Failure upon failure, her need to stay busy twisted so swiftly into neglect, she shut down entirely. Debilitated by the return of Urk, their departing words worsened tenfold.

The stink of death and decay never left her, from the dead livestock she abandoned, to the rotting wood and soiled plants of her garden. There was something more, something else that overpowered them all that she couldn’t place, not that Zara cared to, for now she resigned herself to her fate of laying in her now soiled bed.

Occasionally the unseen barrier of the grove rippled, repelling curious critters from entering, let alone strangers. It stirred her at times, but her heart refused to pump anything but blood and pain. Aching worse than her joints after a hard day’s work, not that her body suffered such in recent weeks. She wallowed in her own stink, and the stench that refused to leave her, even in her dreams.

The foundation of her cottage rumbled too, as if the Guardians themselves attempted to rouse her. Her eyes opened and closed, but she didn’t awaken. Time flew by, day and night blended in her mind, and finally she was forced out of bed. As emaciated as her landing here, and soiled by her own body as well.

Zara dragged her feet along the rotten wooden floor, grinding dust and stale rushes beneath her dry soles. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the cottage, it was neither dark nor bright. The world swirled the longer she stood. She snatched at whatever furniture remained to support herself, barely grimacing at the splinters finding a new home in her cracked palms.

Her stomach grumbled and snatched at the first thing her fingers wrapped around on the table. The tainted stench worsened as she gagged after bitter and sour juices stung her shredded lips. Whatever it was churned her stomach, but despite the rot, she felt herself awaken further. Zara didn’t reach again, for she still gagged, but the darkness of night became familiar to her. It was cool, with a breeze that made the stink relentless.

“Finally.”

A voice spoke, as if whispering into her ear from behind. Zara spun around to no one, nothing but night’s darkness and the open front door of her cottage. She felt a presence, however, malignant and powerful. There was a silhouette growing, approaching at a snail’s pace towards the cottage.

Zara delved into the Unseen for her wand, which drew haunting chuckles from the stranger. Her hand passed through nothing, clutching nothing. She cursed, feeling nothing, not even the barrier of the Grove, not the Guardians beneath her feet.

The stink deepened, the silhouette was the source, she was sure of it, yet she was frozen in place. By fear, or its power, she couldn’t tell. She hadn’t been aware like this in an age, and she didn’t appreciate it.

“Oh, to see justice first hand,” the stranger laughed, unnatural and hollow, joyful death rattle. “To see you laid low like this, beyond my wildest dream.”

She recognised the voice, which continued to be whispered into her ears despite the silhouette’s distance. It iced her to her core.

“Bellona,” Zara managed at a whisper.

The silhouette became a half rotten corpse at her open doorway. She was more soil and sickly grey flesh, riddled with scars than what was once fair skin.

Her laughter sank her stomach again, while Zara studied the proof of the torture her body suffered. Sparkling diamonds filled many of the gaps, like sinew, even pockets of missing flesh were replaced by it. Bellona was clearly reanimated in some form, but nothing she had ever seen before. Half dead, doubly menacing, especially with her silver sparkling eyes, riddled with blood and rot.

“I must admit, watching you deteriorate stilled my hand. I almost turned away as you stewed in your own filth,” her voice both filled her mind and crept out of her ruined throat, guttural and harsh, sounding like the blades used to torture her.

“But no, I needed my revenge. My own hands would rend and tear your flesh, and I would savour your screams. A shame I couldn’t break your brat in front of you, regardless, that thing will find you ruined, I’m sure of it.”

Zara reached for the Unseen a few times to no avail, fighting back tears as she remained frozen before her former sister.

“The Guardians know of your treachery, you betrayed your sisters, the powers of the Grove are lost to you,” Bellona hacked and snorted, then something black oozed from her open throat. “My suspicion of you never went away, it deepened when you were chosen for Matriarch over me, and you spawned those little beasts. Once more, I was right.”

“Jealousy, that’s the reason for all of this?” Zara managed a smirk, despite her knees trembling.

“Don’t!” Bellona roared, cracking the foundations of her cottage with her rage. “Don’t play high and mighty with me. We were nothing more than a means to an end for you, and you still failed. Those young whores confirmed your betrayal, and now I’m here for judgement!”

Bellona flicked her wrist and her gnarled right hand clutched a stygian dragon bone stuff. Zara instinctually reached for her wand again in the Unseen, but held nothing.

“Don’t bother,” Bellona glowed with a diamond aura, though she oozed more blackness from her rancid and ruined flesh. “You will suffer the judgement of all the sisters you betrayed.”

Zara braced when Bellona raised her rotten hand towards her, but there was no resisting the gasp that escaped her lips when the pain struck her. Thankfully, she wasn’t awake for much of it.

*

It was a sunny afternoon, with barely any mud squelching beneath her determined boots. A rarity in these parts, Linken was always a gloomy sight all year round. Funny, when her mind filled with darkness and saw only gloom, the sun arrived. Everything was working against her, even the weather, but this heartsbane root was the final ingredient. Everyone would pay.

Zara kept her head down and hood up as she strangled the wrapped root in her arms, stomping passed any and all who dared to bar her way. Their complaints faded fast when she barged into shoulders. She planned worse for the whole lot of Linken; their mockery would be at an end.

They sent her gifts at first, a few of them, even Lisbet had the decency to show her face a few times. Zara didn’t tell anyone about Uren’s departure, but apparently everyone could tell, despite her attempts to appear normal. Their true nature came through eventually, it was all for gossip. Bastards the lot of them, it wasn’t long until she heard their judgements in the street.

After all she had done for these ungrateful wretches, they laughed about her troubles, spoke about her being alone. They laughed about her deteriorating appearance, mocked about the stench from her home. What did they know other than adding to her pain?

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Worse, she suffered strange whispers during her return journey. They called her grandmother, constant and never-ending, like a breeze that refused to cease nipping at her ears. No amount of shaking her head made them stop. Each mention felt like a knife to her back, reminding her of the grandchild she would be denied.

Grandmother, grandmother, grandmother, it echoed with her boots, growing louder even as the bustling market of Linken faded behind her. She kept her head down and hood up despite that, even as her surroundings became more serene. The roads were cobbled and decorated with fallen petals that were already brown where she walked.

Zara’s hands were dented by the roots by the time she arrived at her home. She kicked aside the few packages and mocking plants littering the steps before her gate, which screeched awfully when she opened and closed it behind her. Death swarmed her garden, and weeds took root with glee, but her eyes were fixed on her doors.

There was an ever present, fetid stink following her the entire day. Initially, she assumed it was the stink of the town, and the marketplace, but even here in her dusty home it worsened. The whispers of ‘grandmother’ echoed against the walls while she left a trail on her dusty floor towards the room where the ritual awaited.

Hoof of a goat, tail of a sheep, a tuft of hair by the supplicant, all in a silver bowl of bubbling oil over an open fire. She recited the steps even as she knelt before the bowl, which only held the cold oil. The Last Sacrament was known to her, ever since she was found, bleeding and on the brink of death. Then Uren came along and all she felt was love, forgetting the vengeance in her heart. Now she was alone again, with the pain that reminded her of that abuse.

Zara grimaced at the ever-present rotting stink and sparked the fire again. She placed the silver bowl on the stand above it and waited for the oil to bubble. Whispers of ‘grandmother’ continued, but she was too focused to care.

The bowl spat after some time and she knelt before it, pulling out a knife from her side. The goat’s hoof went in first, then the sheep’s tail. She tied off her knotted curls and sliced with her knife, before tossing it in as well. Next came the heartsbane root, and the bowl sizzled. Her hand trembled afterwards, for the incantation was next, then the final payment.

“Grandmother!”

Zara shut her teary eyes and hovered her wrist and knife over the bowl, fighting for courage.

“Oh Ol’Mother, hear my pleas, take heed of my sacrifice and grant me the power I desire.”

Zara cut deep, stifling her scream, and let her blood flow into the bowl.

“Hear me Ol’Mother, accept my sacrifice and fill me with your power. End my grief, end my suffering, grant me power. I am yours.”

The bowl burst with fire of many colours, from red, to orange, to pink then blue and green. It calmed with yellow, and when they licked the wound she made, her skin closed and healed as if she never harmed herself.

Relief filled her, then the fetid stink overpowered her.

“So that was how you did it?” A bodiless voice laughed, joyous and unnatural, worsening the stench. “Pathetic.”

Zara made to speak, but another presence beckoned her, and she felt the stink waver.

“Grandmother, I’m coming!”

*

Zara awoke to excruciating pain, bound and gagged in the shape of an X. Her screams were muffled by a soiled gag splitting her ruined lips. She stank, amongst the fetid reeking scent that Bellona left behind. Once the pain of her raw wrists and ankles, and all of her plucked nails faded slightly, her eyes cleared after many blinks to reveal a dank dungeon. One she didn’t recognise.

Rock and rough stone, amongst plenty of soil. Her neck ached when she turned to the heart of the Grove on her left. A simple stone stand, but she didn’t see any bones in the darkness.

“Come out!” Bellona’s undead voice boomed. “I feel your monstrous presence.”

Zara moaned when she jumped, spiking her pain and bringing out fresh tears to sting her lips.

There was a loud boom above, and crumbling stone and wood followed.

“Enough games, rat!”

Zara’s head throbbed as even the dungeon rumbled after more booms and cracks sounded above. There was nothing to do but wait. Her pain was constant and debilitating, even attempting to focus on the disruptions above threatened to worsen it.

“Grandmother,” she almost wept when the voice came to her. Her heart almost gave out when the speaker emerged from the Unseen. “I said I would come.”

Urk shaved their head, and their jaw was darkened by an organised beard. There was a hardness on them, their bulbous yellow eyes seemed smaller, weary. Their armour was near pristine, glimmering silver to her eyes, but she noticed the tusk necklace around their neck still.

They drew a knife and cut her free from her bonds, but when her hands and knees met the ground she yelped and rolled on her side, throbbing and aching. Her legs refused to work, but thankfully Bellona’s sudden arrival distracted her from her pain.

“Begone rat!”

An enormous orb of diamonds burst from the stygian dragon bone staff in her hand towards Urk, but in a blink they were gone and reappeared behind her. Zara noticed their permanent grimace; the stench was truly awful from Bellona. Her knees almost buckled when Urk sliced with a knife. She sizzled and roared with unholy rage, but was too slow to retaliate.

This time Urk dropped her to her knees and stood over her.

“This Grove rejects you, unholy spawn,” Urk grumbled. “The Guardians abandon you for your treachery.”

“Treachery? There is the treacherous one!” Bellona screeched like a banshee, pointing at Zara. “Do you know what she did to you, how she created you?”

“And she has suffered for it, but you have cheated death and broken all laws. I am judgement for the Grove, and speak with the Guardian’s voice. You have profaned the gifts granted, and now the toll must be paid. In the name of Ol’Mother, you are returned to her embrace!”

Bellona scrambled, speaking anything and everything, for the first time sounding fully alive. Urk snatched the dragon bone staff with a flick of their wrist and directed their own orb of diamond brilliance at her. It sizzled and burned her, making a fire of silver and diamonds. She screamed as she burned, until charred bones and ash remained.

Zara wept, relief, joy, it was all the same, even as Urk stood over her still clutching the staff while she grovelled on the ground. She didn’t care that there was little in their eyes but pity, nor did she care about their silence. It was over.

“I take it you understand you have been punished as well?” Urk asked.

“You came back,” she managed between sobs.

“I was right to say you didn’t understand what you did when you created me. The Grove stripped you of your power, and gave it all to me. I am the Grove, and the Guardians are no more.”

Beyond my wildest dreams, you deserved so much more, Zara wept to herself while Urk spoke. She wasn’t sure if it was for Uren or Urk.

“Perhaps it was love that pulled me back, or something else, but I will say this, I did not want to be like you.”

Urk knelt down before her, placing the staff down. There were aged scars on Urk, handsome, pale marks, but menacing.

“I have the power to restore you, I believe, but you will atone. Not for the Grove, but for me, consider it an apology. I know my siblings live, wherever they are, you will help me. Unfortunately, what I’ve seen of the world has not taken kindly to me, you will aid in softening such attitudes.”

“Anything, everything you need, I will do it, my love,” Zara sniffed. Urk flinched, but didn’t recoil.

“It is a tall order, and by the end I might be in your debt. Perhaps I might help you as well, seeing this Uren has interested me for some time,” Urk offered a hand with a small smile, baring a fang.

Zara took it, trembling, lips quivering, heart in her throat.

“You are enough for me.”

There was a flicker of something in Urk’s eye, and the smile remained.

“I forgive you, Grandmother.”