spots and showing pink wood beneath, like an open wound.
“It does, indeed, look blighted.” My skin prickled, and I ran my palms down my arms.
“By the gods, it gives me an eerie feeling.” Madoc put his hand to his dagger. “It looks like a hunched demon, leering over its shoulder.”
The tree did appear to smirk, with a crescent pink wound forming an evil smile midway up the trunk.
My contented mood began to fade, replaced with raw, bleak dread.
We walked toward the blighted tree, slowly, warily. The oak’s limbs looked taut, stretched, each pulled in the same eastward direction, almost as if against the tree’s will.
“I’ll climb.” I grabbed the lowest branch, cringing as the bark crumbled beneath my palms like ash. I hoisted myself up, careful of the oozing pink wounds. I shuddered as my sleeve pressed into a line of sticky sap. I would need a bath after this.
The candle oaks were much shorter than their giant blood tree neighbors, but the blighted tree was still about a hundred yards tall. When I cleared the top several moments later, my muscles were shaking and my cloak and tunic were covered in blue blight dust.
I braced my legs against a branch and scanned the view.
There. The next blighted tree stood about a half mile ahead in the forest gloom, dead east. We were on the Fisher Ives path.
* * *
We followed the blighted candle oaks for five days, the landscape an unending stretch of moss, trees, and dreary shadows. We saw no homes, and the only people who crossed our paths in all that time were four young Mushroom Hunters, brothers by the look of them.
The Mushroom Hunters were forest roamers like the Quicks, though they hunted rare mushrooms instead of game. They carried their finds, both poisonous and edible, in finely woven linen sacks. Their mushrooms would be sold at Night Wilds across Vorseland, to mystics for potions and to the wealthy as a welcome addition to stews.
The journey passed slowly. The farther we traveled from Tintagle, the quieter we became. The Elsbeths were on everyone’s minds. Madoc rarely spoke, his gaze always on the shadows.
“Who are the Salvation monks?” I asked after we’d all eaten a silent supper of Elsh stew—mead, wild greens, dried lamb sausage. “Sunset warned us about them before we left the Wayward Sisters Tavern.”
Ink crossed her long legs and leaned back against the trunk of a young blood tree, pipe in hand. “Do you really want to know, Torvi?”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
Madoc moved to sit next to me and handed me the jug of moongold cider. “They are hermits who hunt down travelers in the Endless Forests. They wear yellow cloaks and have tonsured scalps, like Elshland monks.”
I settled closer to the Bard, until my hip touched his. “And what do they do to these travelers when they find them?”
“Slit their throats and then grind their bones into powder, which they use to make a delicate ceramic called boneware.”
Gyda let out a puff of smoke and frowned. “Yes. I’ve heard of this. Human bones create a stunning white porcelain, unlike the bones of animals.”
Ink nodded. “You will find boneware on jarls’ tables throughout Vorseland. They know its origins but ask no questions when the hermits come selling their cups and plates in winter.”
I dreamed of young men that night, yellow-cloaked and glistening with sweat as they hacked limbs from bodies and ground bones into a milky-white flour. I did not sleep well.
* * *
On the third day we veered near a main forest road and stumbled upon the home of an herb witch. It was built into the hollow trunk of an ancient blood tree, complete with two windows and a small wooden door, smoke rising out of an Elsh-style chimney. Ink, who had the best eyesight, spotted the small sign advertising POTIONS AND SALVES.
The witch answered promptly when we knocked. She was young, with straight red hair that reached her waist, and had a kind, heart-shaped face.
Madoc bought four mugs of bee tonic, and we drank them standing by the witch’s front door. The tonic tasted of honey and vinegar and revived my spirits, which had been dampened by the forest’s endless gloom and ceaseless thoughts of tonsured, knife-wielding monks.
The young witch watched Madoc as he sipped his drink, her eyes resting on the soft-looking skin at the top of his tunic. There was longing in her gaze.
I wondered how she had ended up in the middle of these woods. Had she been forced