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“Astin, please! Lean! Bas!” she screamed, begging her brothers to listen. “This isn’t right. You know it isn’t. Don’t let him leave me here!”

A howl rent the air, and panic twisted their features.

“We need to go,” Winnie murmured, slinking further into the darkness. “Right now.”

“No!” Eira jumped then, no thought or plan except to free herself from this nightmare.

She wouldn’t be grateful to Aelthys or his iron hold on her stupid collar for a long, long time.

✧ ✧ ✧

Most confusing of all was the slow realization that her family…might have left her there to die.

On purpose.

Ygritte’s hand tightened around hers as Eira peered into the gloom and wished they at least had the decency to discard her in the daytime. Aelthys held his dagger before him, his other arm stretched out to protect her and his mate as they walked, but she knew it was pointless.

Even at her tender age, Eira knew what regret looked like. Knew it was pained resignation that had shadowed the younger of her brothers’ faces and lain tense upon their jaws. Knew they hadn’t really agreed with what they’d done.

Hadn’t stopped them from doing it, though. From blindly following, instead of saving her.

Eira made sure to place her small feet wherever Ael’s landed, knowing the Fae only ever stepped rightly. At least, so Winnie always said.

The thought made her hesitate, her next step not quite landing in the depression Aelthys left behind.

What other lies had Winnie told her?

“We have to find shelter,” Ygritte whispered, the handle of her war hammer creaking in her grip.

“I’m well aware,” he grumbled, his gritty voice a balm on Eira’s ears. “If you’ve got any blimmin’ ideas, I’d love to⁠—”

A twig snapped nearby, the white trees of the Ghostwood seeming to loom closer with its echoing crack. Ygritte spun, put her back to Ael’s, and shoved Eira between their bodies. The three of them froze like that. One breath, two…

Time stretched as they waited, a heavy, horrible thing that set her heart to pounding. She swore the night grew darker in that suspended moment. That the shadows thickened and turned viscous around them, dampening her senses, until an eerie breeze cleared them away. It blew through the papery, burgundy leaves of the ‘Wood, running its frigid fingers along the lengths of Eira’s white hair and sending a shiver down her spine.

Soft and sweet, as if the wind…knew her. Was welcoming her with a touch.

When there was no other movement, no ominous sounds, Aelthys loosed a slow breath. Her own shoulders slumped along with his, the world and its passing minutes snapping back to their rightful place. After adjusting their pack of provisions, he sheathed his dagger and readied his bow instead, green eyes roaming as they set off once more.

✧ ✧ ✧

For weeks, that icy gust tugged at her.

It was there when they took shelter under jutting hillsides and in darkened hollows. When they searched for food and lit their fires. When they trekked the barren forest and huddled close for warmth at night. When they ran from the Ghostwood’s monstrosities and spilled their blood in self-defense.

It was there when Eira started hearing the whispers.

A soughing word here and there turned into urgent murmurs. The murmurs turned to closer cries, the cries to clamoring, until it was the only sound she heard. Over and over, overlapping, the next lamentation drowning out the last before it even finished.

At least it covered up the remnants of her mother’s screaming.

The name it called was not her own, and yet…it was. She knew it down deep, like the ache in her bones or the twist in her empty stomach. It pulled from the very center of her being, rendering everything else impossible.

Rest, thought, movement—all of it became a slog. There was no such thing as sleep, or want, or tears anymore.

No such thing as fear.

Hard to be scared when a mind is so thoroughly overwhelmed.