A song stirs in the quickened rhythm of her heart, harmonizing with the wind's rush, her breath unfurling like smoke in the cold air.
Neva's thoughts rise into the grey-white hush around her. Fog smears the forest beyond into pale shadows of snow-layered pines and branches long stripped of life.
Worry tightens her chest as fog and falling feathers of white smother the path she came from.
"What have I done?" She swallows past the dryness in her mouth. Intent on finding her way back home, she turns, fingers tightening around the veil of her shawl.
Then she halts, crouching as she lifts the hem of her skirt and reaches for the small knife hidden in her boot.
She unclasps the knife and moves toward a tree. The caution her agent husband had ingrained in her echoes steady and clear—no matter what, keep a weapon close.
She carefully carves an arrow into the bark, deep enough to trace if the forest turns her around again.
If he is searching for her, she hopes it will draw him to her sooner. Still, she prays the veiled sun has not fallen far into the west, for she knows neither the cardinal points nor how long the forest has kept her.
She keeps on walking, carving arrows into the bark. The hem of her skirt grows heavy and wet as the snow deepens to her ankles.
Wandering does her no good.
She presses her palm to the rough bark of a dead sycamore,
breath breaking as her fingers follow the jagged curve of an arrow she has already crossed—not once, but twice.
Her lips tremble, tears burning behind her eyes. She can't be this helpless. Hunger gnaws at her stomach, thirst tearing at her strength. She left home without a crumb of bread, without a single drop of water.
Her heart breaks most for the child growing inside her. This little life—who has blessed them for only a lone month—doesn't deserve to suffer for the blind choices of a mother who loses herself too easily.
"Father… please lead me back home," she gasps, peeling herself from the bark as she staggers ahead.
Dizziness overtakes her vision, hunger and the sickness of the first trimester buckling her trembling legs.
Her curls shudder beneath the veil as the freezing air needles her skin. Her stomach drops as the truth strikes—she is lost, far deeper in the forest than she should ever be.
Before the horror can claim her completely, her fingers cinch around the knife.
Footsteps crunch nearby through the rush of wind.
Not an animal, but a human.
And for as long as she has lived, she has understood the tragedy of one lost from God: far crueler, far more frightening that any creature of the wild.
With a prayer in her heart, she presses tight against the rough trunk of a tree. She strains as the heavy, foreboding steps near.
Her chest heaves, eyes fixed on the cloaked shadow stretching across the snow.
The figure passes close, and any movement risks betraying her on the snow. She holds her breath, praying to the Lord that His veil of invisibility shields her from sight.
The figure stops.
A deathly silence grips the world around Neva as the black cloak turns.
Unveils a wrinkled, ghostly face, eyes as dark and bottomless as the ocean's void.
"I see thee now," she croons, the edges of her mouth twisting in a foul grin, teeth black and decayed.
Neva's blood turns to ice at the sight. Each fibre of her being cries out—run!
But she remains fixed to the trunk, fingers gripping the knife as the old woman nears.
Her gaze lingers on the wicker basket hooked upon her arm, the bitter herbs within sending a keen sting to her nose.
Neva compels her frozen limbs to move, and seeks to turn from her.
"Tarry child!" the woman hisses.
Neva freezes, upright and tense.
"I mean thee no ill," she says.
"If thou help me draw water from the well, I shall aid thee. This forest is mine, its ways written upon my soul."
Neva slowly turns. "You... you will help me home?" Her voice comes out scarcely more than breeze.
"Aye," she croons, a grin upon her rotted teeth. "If thou wishest, thou may lodge in my cottage. Long have I been solitary—I should welcome a guest for the hours of darkness."
She swallows hard and scans the pale, obscured sky, glimpsed through the clawing talons of the leafless trees.
She meets those fathomless, black eyes, nodding slowly.
Wrinkles deepening with her widening grin, she inclines her head. "Follow me, child."
She steps forward into the gloom.
Neva peers through the hush once more, flakes of snow thickening. The chill creeps ever deeper into her bones.
Soft snow crunching underfoot,
she follows the bent figure, holding back just enough to keep herself unseen.
Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Beyond twenty-three arrow marks in the bark
a shadowy wooden cottage begins to take form through the thickening mist.
She leans away and picks at a rough fragment of bark with her fingers near the mark carved by her blade.
"Step hither, child." Each of her word drags through the cold air.
Neva looks to the woman, who stands at a timeworn stone well.
A wooden arc crowns the stone well, a bucket suspended from a hook, the wheel bound in ropes coiled many times.
"Lend me thy hand in fetching water." She lowers two weighty vessels of clay.
Neva edges toward the well, breath catching with every step through snow.
The snow lay deep and clean around the cottage, water enough to be hoarded and melted without effort—yet still, the well.
Her hand closes on the rope, numbness flooding her frozen fingers. The slick surface barely stays within her grip.
She does not dare protest.
The old woman disappears into the cottage, and with measured care, she begins to lower the bucket into the well.
She cannot trust the words of the well's mistress. She fervently hopes that aid will come before the dark fully claims her.
Her mouth hardens, arms sore with the strain as she heaves the bucket up and sets it upon the well's rim. Her breath rushes out while water drips down the stones.
With trembling hands, she gathers the freezing water from the bucket and lifts it to her lips, first testing its scent.
Finding nothing amiss, she drinks until her chest eases. The cold blesses and bites, consecrating her from within as she breathes an invocation to Adonai.
She empties the twentieth bucket into the second ceramic vessel as smoke coils from the chimney. The freezing wind snatches it away that shudders through her bones.
Wiping the moisture from her lids, she lowers the bucket again. Her thoughts folds into regret for what today should have been.
It was meant to be a restful day before the sermons and travels resumed—
a day well spent with her husband and son in the warmth of their cottage.
She blinks against the moistening burn of tears. She ruins everything—doesn't she?
She has burdened him with yet another needless worry—
one that could have been spared, had she been only a little more aware.
"Hast thou finished, child?" the old woman asks, her figure framed in the doorway.
Neva lowers her gaze to the second ceramic vessel. The water within it ripples as snow feathers upon it.
One more bucket, and it will be full.
"Almost," she murmurs, her voice faltering beneath hunger and feebleness.
She drags the final bucket upward, arms trembling beneath its weight. And lets it spill into the container until it brims and spills, water trickling over the earthen clay.
She drops the empty bucket upon the stone rim with a dull thud.
Her chest heaves, breaths coming in ragged pulls.
"Let me settle the debt that this aged witch oweth unto thee," the woman intones, stepping forward.
Neva's spine stiffens for a beat, then she straightens herself.
"Late is the hour," she mutters, stepping through the snow. "Thou art famished. It serves thee naught to trudge back so, bearing the babe within—even if thy son's heart beats strong and true."
Her heart skips a beat.
She… knows? A pit opens within her as the crone's gaze latches on her belly, delight glinting in those endless black eyes.
She swallows and pulls the shawl over her stomach. As if the cloth might hide her from the witch's eyes.
She had held her doubts of the woman's craft, yet now they were proven true by the confession that passed her lips.
"I favour thee, young woman of a kind heart," she says.
"I offer thee yet another bargain—one to aid thee in thy need."
"No thanks," Neva says, without hesitation.
A flicker of amusement dances in the witch's eyes. "Why dost thou refuse, child?
Spend three nights and three days with me, and I shall tell thee how to mend thy bonds with thy children's sire.
"For it may be too late ere regret finds thee," she says, her face held in calm restraint. "One of thy children is sure to lose their life."
Neva frowns, forcing her heart to calm lest it show.
Enough for one day—
enough of those women, enough of her own foolishness, enough of the forest's labyrenthine paths. She cannot endure another of the witch's cold tricks.
"Pay the debt you owe," she says,
steadying her tone. "Lead me home, or tell me the path."
Snow crunches beneath the witch's foot as she draws near.
Her eyes are alight with a twisted desire as the world fades into bluish-grey.
Neva's breath hitches as jagged nails slide from bony fingers, reaching for her.
Her heart leaps as she slips on the snow and crashes against the well, fingers clawing desperately at the frosty stones.
Her ears deafen beneath the roar of her pulse. An endless darkness yawns below, the cold tip of a twisted nail pressing to her chest with deliberate menace.
"Such strong hearts," the witch whispers. Her nails curl against her, sharp as razors, aiming for the life she envies in her prey.
Neva meets the witch's burning black eyes, her grip tightening around the knife at the stone rim.
The acrid scent of blood and herbs drives into her senses, pinning her as terror floods the smoldering aftermath of her death.
The witch lunges with a snarl.
"Remove thyself from her presence!" the voice booms—rich with the tenderness of spring and the fathoms of the sea.
Neva's eyes whirl to the side.
Relief washes over her so sharply it nearly aches in her ribs.
Jeriah. Amber-bright against the gloom,
an archangel sent from Heaven. An answer wrought by her Father to her prayer.
Neva watches as terror ripples across the witch's face. Clawed fingers quiver an inch above her thundering heart.
She reels, a shiver racking her as the witch's shadow flees into the forest.
"Let me bring you home." Jeriah offers a hand.
Neva glances at his hand, then his face.
A smile warms his seraphic features, white robes floating in the wind, a divine glow filtering through the forest's grey pall.
And in that moment,
she feels the warmth enclose her, the dry clothes embracing her. Life's vigour rushes anew through her frame, and the pallor of her fingers kissed by returning hue.
She clasps his hand, and he encloses her smaller one, steady and warm.
"You came for me?" Awe threads her voice.
She quietly realises how each step through the snow feels less heavy, less cold.
"The Lord sent me," he says, a gentle certainty in his voice.
"How could I not come for you?"
She smiles, warmth spreading through her chest.
"I have come also bearing a message," he says, calm and measured.
"What?" she breathes.
"Your final steps in teaching must conclude before spring wakes the trees to life." His eyes trace the skeletal silhouettes of branches, less menacing than before.
She inclines her head, speaking gently, "Before He opens the Door through me?"
He meets her eyes, a smile softening his features. "Yes."
She inhales slowly. "Could I bring my son along?"
"Your faith is your own to guard." His tone remains smooth and steady as still water.
She opens her mouth to ask again, but Jeriah's voice stops her. "I have come to warn you of the plague that ravages the lands beyond Miraeth."
She closes her lips, a familiar weight settling in her chest.
Their tenuous link to the world beyond is so rare now, and she wonders if her aunt and uncle are safe.
Whether in Erriador or back home.
"It reached here... the plague?" she whispers.
"Yes. But trust that all is cured through the Lord." He stops to look at her with steady assurance.
She offers him a small, gentle smile.
"You are home," he says, over the muffled clatter of footsteps and the wild commotion of the forest carried on the wind.
Neva gazes around, the soft glow of lanterns painting long shadows on the snow. Voices carry her name through the cold air.
A search party has come for her, and she's been gone so long. Her poor husband must be worried sick.
It strikes her with little surprise that the forest, which had ensnared her in endless turns, seems already behind her.
Crossed in just a few measured breaths since speaking with the angel.
"Thank you," she says, her smile slow and full as she eases back.
Jeriah inclines his head, light catching softly along his features.
"Have a safe journey home," she adds, raising her hand.
He lets out a quiet laugh. "You too."
"Angel!"
His voice comes with the wind. Threaded through falling snow, reaching straight into her chest.
"Rhett," she murmurs.
"Angel!" he calls again, almost breaking the pale darkness that swallows her way home.
"Rhett!" she cries, gathering her skirts as she moves through snow rising nearly to her calves. "Rhett, I'm here!"
A command cuts through the air, silencing every voice that is not his.
Lanternlight flashes over the arrow she carved before.
Hurried footsteps crunch through the snow.
She lifts her gaze, squinting against lanternlight that blurs the figures coming toward her.
"We found the prophetess!" a voice cries, and the words ripple outward, carried from mouth to mouth.
She sways through the snow as a familiar, towering silhouette draws near. A sob racks her body as amber light breathes life back into eyes worn hollow by worry.
"Angel," he breathes, rushing toward her as she stands trembling,
her knees threatening to give way.
The flashlight falls into the snow, and relief rushes out of her in a gasp as strong arms wrap her tight, crushing her to his chest.
His heart pounds hard and fast against her as her fingers tighten in his soaked jacket.
The familiar scent of cedar and warmth undoes her, gently mending her,
as sobs ache through her and she presses closer to his heat.
His lips rest against the crown of her head, arms holding her as though letting go is no longer an option.
"Are you hurt?" he asks softly, a swallow following the words. She shakes her head against his chest. "N—no."
He eases back, his gaze heavy with concern as it moves over her face, her body.
"How did this happen?" he asks quietly.
"I... I got lost," she whispers,
warmth creeping into her cheeks.
His eyes darken with a fiercer weight than mere worry. "I'm so—so angry at you right now," he admits, jaw twitching with restraint.
"I—I'm sorry." Warm tears slide down her cheeks.
He cups her head, pulling her to his chest as his arms enfold her again.
"Let's go home." He curls an arm around her back, slips the other under her knees, lifting her into a bridal carry.
Her arms tighten instinctively around his neck as he moves through the snow.
"Get the flashlight," he commands.
Nodding, the man with a long brown beard crosses ahead to fetch the flashlight.
Golden lights shimmer through the dark, mingling with distant shouts, as the village camp edges closer through the winter rush.
She leans her head against her husband's strong chest, feeling his heart hammering too fast for calm.
Through her lashes, she finds his gaze—steady, fixed ahead, his face a mask of cold restraint.
She knows the heat of his anger, tempered by the terror of what could have been.
She can do nothing,
but melt into him, offering her warmth as a quiet balm for his troubled heart.