Page 13 of The Blight of Hollowmire

“And anyway, Magnar was never as high-strung as the other war horses,” I say, leaning forward to stroke his glossy neck. “And we both tired of wading through blood and broken bodies. He’s as content with farm life as I am.”

“The situation in Valehar has escalated,” Arden says without any more preamble. Apparently, we’ve finished discussing my horse and the modest success of my farm. Clasping his gloved hands loosely behind his back, he paces around the barn in spiraling circles. “The curse has spread beyond the lower wards. The guard. The palace kitchens. The servants’ quarters and much, much further. Into the villages.”

The words settle like stones and I get the sense they are starting to form the foundation of something monumental. The famine isn’t news, nor is the curse we’ve suffered under. But to know now that there is truly no corner of Valehar untouched by it is staggering. My nightmares return to me in flashes—the inevitable morning I will wake up and discover that my fields, too, have succumbed. I could not last as a knight, and if I cannot last as a farmer…

“The food all looks like it ought. Jewel-like fruits and glistening vegetables pulled from soil that looks no different to yours. The consumption of it increases, yet nourishment does not. Children wake in the night crying from hunger that cannot be sated,” he continues, and his tone carries a controlled gravity. “Soldiers eat double rations and collapse before morning drills. Things are beginning to destabilize. Confidence is starting to erode.”

Confidence. Not faith or hope. Not the delicate threads of each person’s life weaving the very fabric of Valehar—no, of course not. Arden only sees the starvation curse as something that might reflect poorly upon his seized leadership.

“They come here,” I say quietly, suddenly feeling every ache in my ancient bones.

His gaze sharpens, but he doesn’t stop his incessant pacing. “How many?”

I shrug, attempting to shake the weight of despair from my shoulders, yet I find it tightening like the yoke of my plow. “As many as can reach the river without falling.”

“And you feed them?”

“Yes.”

“With what authority?”

I cannot hold back my incredulous laugh—even now, his desperate need for power, for control, overrules even the most fundamental human sentiments of love, empathy, and care.

“I don’t need authority to feed the starved people that flock to my gate. They are my neighbors and more. I am respecting the law of hospitality.”

His jaw flexes and I swear I can hear his teeth grinding in his skull.

“You cannot sustain this,” he bites out. “Your land is safe, yes, but your crops are as finite as anyone’s. You are alleviating symptoms. Not curing disease.”

“I am feeding children,” I say between gritted teeth. I am feeding them because I have to—I cannot, will not turn them away. I will have no more blood on my hands while there is breath in my body.

“And when your stores are depleted?” he asks evenly. “What will you do when the harsh winter blows in, choking the land once more in ice and snow? How will you decide who eats when the lines at your gate reach clear down the road? Will you decide between feeble elder and nursing mother when the loaves are naught but crumbs to be divided?”

My aching knee threatens to give out entirely and my breath leaves me in a dizzying gust. His vision—so like my own night terrors, my dread given shape—is everything I’ve feared and all that I’ve made myself stand against. Outstretched hands that I cannot fill, grain bins that echo with emptiness, bare shelves and empty crockery… Unbidden, another memory surfaces. Soft, ash-brown hair atop two scrunched up faces that never, ever stopped squalling. Gods, allow my heart to rest! No more blood on my hands, I beg—no more death.

“You were First Knight,” he says, pressing forward smoothly. “You commanded armies! You helped shape policy and justice. You were granted authority, privilege, renown—gifts that once meant something to you. The stability that you helped build is collapsing.”

Heat begins to prickle beneath the worn lawn of my shirt, creeping up the back of my neck like a rash. “You speak as though I caused it.”

“I would never hurl unfounded accusations, Renard.”

Gods, the irony of that statement.

“I simply believe that you have the ability—nay, the capability of addressing the problem,” he replies. “And we both know that your loyalty to Valehar—you did swear a blood oath, after all—is the same thing as obligation to act against all manner of threat to the kingdom and its people. Capability creates obligation.”

Ah, so there it is—the shared assumption that neither of us fully names. Men like us—nay, men like me—trained, clad in the finest armor, decked with the finery of privilege and held to the highest standards—simply must intervene. Our survival is our birthright, and challenges—difficulties—will always bend to us. The weight of expectation has never felt so heavy.

“I believe the cure lies in Hollowmire,” he says, stilling.

The barn seems to still at the name. A drop of water falls from the eaves outside, striking an empty metal bucket with a hollow tap—followed by another. I feel it in my bones before my mind catches up—the old, swamp-thick dread rising like mist through my memories.

“No,” I say immediately.

He smiles faintly. “Do not naysay me yet. You have not heard the rest.”

“I have heard enough.” The rapid plink plink of raindrops outside races as fast as my beating heart—how dare he say the name of that place to me. The soft pattering rain fades behind the rush of blood in my ears as my memories reach up to claw me down, down, down with their heaviness. I can hardly breathe against the scent memories in my nostrils—sickly rotting vegetation, mineral silty stagnant water, and blood. Gods, so much blood.

“Something in Hollowmire has stirred,” he continues, ignoring me. “My men tell me that those wretched, gods-burdened fae have had a prophecy. A seer has named the Blight Mother awakened… drawn up from whatever pit the old world buried her in.”