The sun was setting when they reached Seaview, built on a cliff overlooking the sea. The rest of the way to Pineseed would be downhill from there. Gareth and Thea went straight to the inn. Gareth barely ate, once again hungry, but not for the stew. He didn’t want to know what it was he was actually hungry for. He barely slept, and so did Thea. She had insisted on getting only one room and spent most of the night in a chair by the window. He felt her watching him. Some of the bristly black hair was back in the morning, on his right arm and his left hand this time.

The two of them walked faster than usual across the rocky plains. Gareth wanted nothing more than to sleep, and Thea probably felt the same after being awake most of the night, but they were running out of time. Gareth checked the map in the journal a few times. If they got lost, he would have even less time to find his grandmother before the curse overtook him again. Soon he could see something in the distance on the plains. Was that the village? The sun had just begun to set when they reached Pineseed, out in the middle of the plains.

A wind had picked up, but it was warm. Gareth didn’t miss the perpetual cold of Acantha. He and Thea went straight to the village hall, where the Elder Three would be. His grandmother had said it was at the center of the village, and it was the biggest building, the easiest to find. There were a lot of people out. Gareth had to stay close to Thea, so he wouldn’t lose her in the crowd. When the two stopped outside the long building that was the village hall, Gareth glanced back at the crowd. He thought he saw a dark blue cloak, but it was gone too quickly to be sure. Was it Lencius? Maybe he hadn’t been going back to Acantha, just following from a distance.

A man and a woman stood on either side of the village hall doors. Both wore a cuirass and had a sheathed sword at their belts. They moved to block the doors when Gareth and Thea approached.

“We’re here to speak to Una of the Elder Three,” Thea said.

“What business do you have with her?” the woman asked.

“She’s my grandmother,” Gareth said.

The woman frowned at him before whispering to the man for a moment. “He does look how she described him, but…” She kept glancing at the bristly hair on Gareth’s arms and hands, frowning only more.

The man nodded. “I will escort you in,” he said to Gareth and Thea.

The village hall was one long room, lined with windows to let in plenty of light. The Elder Three sat in intricately carved wooden chairs at the center of the room, on a round rug of dark blues and greens. The rug matched the cushions in the chairs. A fire crackled in the large hearth at the far end of the room, keeping the hall warm. The three were talking as Thea and Gareth approached, but they stopped when they saw the two of them and the guard.

The guard bowed low. “They said they are here to speak with Una. One claims to be her grandson.”

Una stood from her chair. She looked just the same as Gareth remembered, even though that had been at least four years ago. She would be in her late fifties now. Her long, graying light brown hair was tied in a braid. Her warm smile reached her dark brown eyes. “Gareth.” She hugged him tightly, then took a step back and looked at his arms and hands, her expression darkening. “There is much we need to discuss.” Her smile had vanished entirely. She looked at the other two women in the chairs and they nodded.

Una led Gareth and Thea back out of the village hall and to the inn, where she got them a room. There were two beds and a table by the window, but the table had only two chairs. Thea sat on one of the beds, while Gareth and his grandmother sat at the table.

“Tell me what’s happened,” Una said.

Gareth and Thea told her about the fragment of Nightstone, the journal, and Lencius. When Gareth showed her the journal and the fragment, her frown only deepened, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Lencius said the fragment may have set off the curse,” Thea said. “Maybe it protected Gareth from the fragment.”

“Some protection…” Una muttered. “There are old records here in Lachra about a creature, a silent monster in the forest, unheard until it’s too late. It’s a badly kept secret that my family is cursed. The monster is called the Herine.”

Gareth hesitated. “Then I’m turning into a monster?”

Una nodded. “I don’t know how the curse came about, but my grandmother called on the Ethaeus family of Consilium to put a stop to the curse. They could only suppress it with their strange power, with those runes they use. It was never clear who in the family the curse would choose, but there was only ever one Herine at a time.”

“What is it?” Gareth asked, his heart beating fast. “What does it look like?”

Una hesitated.

“Maybe it would be better not to know,” Thea said. “We’ll go to the Ethaeus. Maybe they can help you.”

“I still want to know,” Gareth said. To him, not knowing what he was becoming was worse, even if there might be a way to prevent it.

Una stared at the table for a long moment. She still didn’t look up when she spoke. “I read a description in Lachra’s records. ‘The Herine is a creature with long, spindly limbs, short bristly black hair, and a terrible grin with sharp teeth. The creature appears gaunt, almost emaciated, but it is strong.’” She closed her eyes. “It has a long, dark tongue, which it often uses to strangle its victims. It then devours its victims, whether it be animal or person.”

Gareth shuddered, looking away from his grandmother. He only look up when he felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

Una was staring at him, a deep sadness in her eyes. “Go to the Ethaeus in Consilium. Perhaps they can help you.” She let go, glancing at the journal, at the fragment. “They are also the most likely, other than a god, to be able to destroy that stone. Clearly your father failed to carry out whatever Lencius had planned. I don’t doubt Lencius had to do with making sure the journal and the fragment found their way to you and your mother.” She shook her head. “I don’t know more about Obsertus, but you must not take the fragment to the fallen city. If that is what Lencius wants, then you must not do it.”

“We’ll take it to Consilium,” Gareth said, but could he make it that much further before the curse would overtake him again?

“I’ll go with you,” Thea said.

“The Ethaeus despise the gods,” Una said. “They would despise you.”

Thea had told Una the truth about who and what she was.

“Even so, I’m going with him,” Thea said. “I’m not leaving him to deal with this alone. I’ll keep my appearance hidden.”

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Una smiled briefly. “Very well, but I insist you stay at the inn at least for the night. It is already dark out.”

Thea nodded. “And if the Ethaeus can’t destroy the fragment, we’ll take it to Varus.”

“Were Varus closer, I would suggest taking it straight to him,” Una said. “But with how far the curse has already gone, you won’t make it to Hari.”

Gareth looked away again.

“I will keep an eye on you tonight,” Una said, “so that the both of you can sleep safely.”

They thanked her, then the three of them ate downstairs together. Gareth barely ate, and he slept even less than the night before. In the morning, Una had breakfast with them downstairs.

“Varus spoke to me last night,” Thea said.

“He can do that?” Gareth asked.

Thea nodded. “He can speak to me in dreams. I think it’s something any god can do if someone has made the Oath.” She had said Knights of Corruption hadn’t made the Oath, so maybe they were connected to Varus another way. “He will meet us in Pax, the City of Hope, in case the Ethaeus can’t destroy the fragment. He’s already on his way there and will get there fast since he won’t need rest.”

“It’s true the gods don’t sleep?” Una asked.

“They can,” Thea said, “but they don’t have to.”

Una stood. They had just finished eating. “The two of you should get going.” She saw them off at the edge of the village.

Gareth and Thea set off across the rocky plains. On the way out of the village, Gareth had been certain he’d seen a dark blue cloak in the morning crowd, but he didn’t see Lencius now that they were on the plains.

“Lencius was in Pineseed,” Thea said.

“He might try to stop the Ethaeus from destroying the fragment,” Gareth said. “But he will want us to seek out to the Ethaeus to suppress my curse.” So that the fragment could take him over how it had his father. He held back a growl, a sudden desire to attack Thea.

“Where did your father go after Pineseed?” Thea asked.

Gareth thought about the journal, focusing on what he’d read, but he couldn’t look at Thea right then. “He went to the country of Morus. He passed through Sculpin to the large village of Anaxyrus in the forest, where he had another revelation he didn’t write down.”

Thea was quiet for a moment. “Maybe Lencius spoke to him those times he had a revelation, or maybe something in that dream spoke to him.”

“Maybe the thing I felt watching me in the dream told him things,” Gareth said, finding that idea even more frightening than Lencius. “After that, he passed through Rosethorn, the main village in Consilium. He went to Skyleaf, then to Obsertus. His last entry was just before he entered the fallen city.”

“Something must have happened there,” Thea said.

Gareth nodded. “I want to know what happened to him, but not enough to risk meeting the same fate, or risk doing exactly what Lencius wants.” A sigh escaped him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have left Arium, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to see the world, or travel with you.” The last slipped out before he could think about stopping it.

Thea looked away quickly. “Is that so?” He thought he heard a smile in her voice and wished even more that he could see her face.

Dark clouds moved in overhead, but Gareth didn’t smell rain, and no rain fell. The clouds cleared away before the sun set. The two of them stopped on the plains for the night. Gareth lay in the grass, staring at the night sky. He closed his eyes, not liking how much the night sky reminded him of that dream, of the fragment of Nightstone.

“You should at least drink some water,” Thea said.

Gareth said up with a sigh, holding back a growl again. He drank water from his flask, but only a little before it was all he could do not to spit it back out.

“What is Arium like?” Thea asked.

Gareth thought about this, managing another drink of water while he did. “There’s a lot of people there. Travelers. People who got lost in the forest of Hari. There’s something about the city that leads lost people to it, something about the power of Adytis, the God of Sanctuary.”

Thea nodded. “I’ve heard his knights lead people back home after they end up in Arium.”

“I think the knights do that more than anything else,” Gareth said with a laugh. “That forest is easy to get lost in. Maybe the Oath, the connection to Adytis, allows the knights not to get lost themselves.”

“Varus told me that’s how it works,” Thea said.

Gareth’s thoughts slipped toward the hunger again, so he quickly thought of another question. “Does Varus talk to you often? Isn’t it frightening talking to a god?”

“It was at first,” Thea said, “but I have nothing to fear from him.”

The two talked about their home cities further. Talking about such normal things, and thinking about familiar places, made it easier for Gareth to stay himself. He and Thea talked through the next day as well, while they crossed the plains. Even with their conversation, it was harder to stay himself that day, and even harder when night came.

“Maybe you should go back to Pineseed,” Gareth said.

Thea shook her head.

“You can’t sleep as long as I’m here,” Gareth said. If she stopped talking to him for too long, he started to lose himself. If she went to sleep, would he attack her?

“I’m staying with you,” Thea said. “If I leave, would you make it to Rosethorn?”

He knew he wouldn’t, but he didn’t want to risk hurting her.

“I’ll be fine,” Thea said. “We’ll be in Rosethorn tomorrow. We should already be on the plains of Consilium by now.”

Gareth stared at the grass, focusing on how the ground felt beneath his hands, but that made it harder not to see the dark bristly hair all up and down his arms. It was all over his hands. He didn’t want to know where else it was.

“Where will you go when this is over?” Thea asked.

“I haven’t thought about it,” Gareth said, but he did now. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to go back to Arium. All I know is that I want to go back to Hari. And I don’t want to go back to Acantha. It’s too cold there.”

Thea laughed. “I don’t want to go back to Acantha either.”

“Will you return to Ravita?” Gareth asked.

Thea nodded. “Ravita is home.”

Gareth didn’t have a home anymore, but maybe he could find somewhere that could become home. He focused on that thought. That and talking to Thea got him through the night, but the next day was only harder, the curse threatening to wash him away entirely. The sun was setting when he saw a village up ahead on the plains. Was that Rosethorn? It was so far…

“Gareth?” Thea looked back at him.

He had stopped walking.

“We’re almost there,” Thea said. “Just a little further.”

Gareth growled. She said something else, but he couldn’t hear the words anymore. All he saw was his prey. He ran at her and she grabbed him by the shoulders. She was much stronger than he’d expected, stronger than a human. She shouted a word that part of him thought might be his name, but it no longer mattered. There was only the hunger. An older woman and a younger man were running toward them from the direction of the village. More prey.

“Use the rune I taught you!” the woman shouted.

The man took a step closer and Gareth snarled, but couldn’t get free of Thea’s grip on his shoulders. He saw a flash of green light with an odd, curving shape, then everything went black.