Lavinia's comfort with these people amazed me. I saw how they looked at her with a mix of doubt and pity. Perhaps she was safe from their abuse, since one of their own had saved her. She was my protection from them, and yet, I know my appearance had shifted the equilibrium she lived in. I have to restrain my fears. Perhaps Cold Well is a good place, and I am simply paranoid.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  The blacksmith wasn’t a large man, but his jaw could have been used to plow a field. A pole barn around the back of his house was open to the elements, and let the breath of the forge stain the sky. His raw materials rested in crates under the thatching, waiting to be used.

  Lavinia used her teeth to unscrew one of her wooden hook attachments and waved it at him, then explained what she wanted. “I want something that attaches to this, something that I can—sew with. I want to be able to push thread straight down, like this.”

  She gestured with the hook still attached in a downward motion, as if stabbing into something flat. “Can you fashion something to fit on the end of that hook that will go straight down? A needle?”

  “How will you pull it through?” The man asked, his low brows almost concealing his eyes with a thoughtful frown.

  “I’ve got that part figured out,” Lavinia glibly lied. “I only need to pierce and push thread in.”

  Dragos leaned against a sturdy pole, ever-present peddler’s box clacking merrily against it. Observing Lavinia, he started to wonder if adaptability meant lying when the truth was too confusing or dangerous to mention. He preferred simple silence, himself.

  Still. He had to learn the serpent’s ways.

  If he was honest with himself, he already followed the way of lying when the truth was too complicated to explain. Caring for Mirel—Maria—taught him to lie more effectively than anything else.

  To understand serpents, he had to embody their virtues to control the creatures he would be able to call, when this was over. If he failed to truly absorb their virtues, his nature as an Owl would battle with the Serpent, and he’d be caught in a sort of philosophical paradox. Of his own invitation, no less.

  He blinked when a hook waved in front of his face. His focus swam back from the ether of thought to the woman standing in front of him.

  “Let’s go, my woolgathering cousin. I’ve a basket of wares to trade. Pay the man, hmm?”

  Dragos pulled the thaler out from the pouch hidden in his sleeve and strode over to hand it to the man. Being a few hairs shorter than Dragos, the man leaned forward and tried to peer up into the depths of the traveler’s hood. The blacksmith smiled, his teeth rivaling his chin for prominence.

  “Cousin, eh?” the man asked with a note of something sly in his voice.

  “Yes,” Dragos said flatly. “It was a surprise to come across her here.”

  “Not a very close family, eh? You don’t look much like her, with that narrow, pale face. They said you were sickly. Did a physician say what it was?”

  “An affliction of birth,” Dragos replied with a final bitter note that seemed to still the man’s strange amusement.

  The blacksmith backed away a step, then tossed the coins in his palm, jingling them. “I’ll have it done before supper.”

  “Thank you,” Dragos said, not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t want to cause Lavinia more trouble.

  The wanderer turned on his heel and followed Lavinia, who had already made it to the market stalls.

  That night, they prepared the blood ritual. It was a simple affair, though not without danger. The anointing of the needle could cause infection, so Dragos ate well that day. Bor? de pe?te, a sour fish soup loaded with garlic, along with redcurrant tarts.

  Good food was good medicine. He knew it, but often forgot it. Lavinia didn’t.

  A half-dozen streams teemed with fish, and he was a capable fisherman. What he hadn’t grasped in his Cohort, starvation taught him to perfect. He was best at catching them bare-handed, still as a meditating monk, and, with the chill waters seeping up his pants, struck with a deft scoop, flinging his prey to the shore.

  Lavinia gathered the rest, for which he was belatedly grateful as he lay on her table, bare arm stretched out, slipped through the undone collar of his shirt. She used ash from the fireplace to sketch out the serpent. It looked like Zgavra when he craned his neck and twisted his arm to see. His lip curled up slightly.

  “You’re putting Zgavra on my arm?”

  “Shush. It’s a serpent, and one you’re already bonded to, Owl.” Lavinia said, giving his head an admonishing rap with a hook.

  “Don’t remind me,” he sighed. He hadn’t seen the monster in nearly a fortnight. He didn’t want to think too hard about what trouble it got up to when he wasn’t there.

  Lavinia clucked her tongue, then said, “Focus on the virtues and what you’ve observed from the serpent world, just as you had when you took on the owl.”

  Dragos closed his eyes, the better to remember what he’d seen. Snakes sunning on rocks, slithering along, tasting the air for danger and prey. Sensitive to heat and sound. Though the owl and the serpent were mortal enemies, they had a great deal in common.

  The Snake’s voice intoned, her low, humming words slipped through his consciousness, to something primal in his mind. Dry and soft, coiled and firm. Flexible. Like he’d been when escaping the school. Adaptable, as he’d been, learning to survive outside.

  Lavinia tapped the needle in the bowl of snake’s blood she’d prepared. The sizzle of it, kissed by fire, as she hummed. Her voice buzzed through his flesh.

  “This man’s blood is your blood, your blood is his,” she whispered as the needle tapped into a different vial, then pierced his flesh. Over and over, she pushed the ink in, black as umbre, darker than night. He felt his muscles tense, and forced them to relax.

  Accept the bond, the blood, the mark.

  As he thought it, she said it.

  “Accept the bond, the blood, the mark. Accept the bond, the blood, the mark…” Each time punctuated by a stab of the needle and the next dip into ink.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Over and over. It stung too much to fall asleep, but the lulling rhythm of it put him into a dulled, sluggish daze. Like a stilled snake in cold weather. Stasis gripped him.

  Cel?lalt t?ram swelled around him, subsuming the living world.

  An owl screeched.

  Dragos heard it in his soul, resistant. It had been only them, all this time, and what is this? This interloper, this prey.

  He could almost see them, the owl’s wings outstretched, talons splayed. The snake’s head lifted high, venomous fangs sliding out, ready to strike.

  “You’re both a part of this world,” Dragos murmured out loud.

  Lavinia’s needle did not stop its stabbing. He felt it, across the veil.

  His will surged, engulfing both spirits. “Now, I am the world to you both.”

  The creatures froze, as if time stopped in the dark of his soul. The moment hung in a stillness that stretched beyond time.

  Their aggression dissipated.

  The vision disappeared. Dragos snapped back fully to the living, word, aware of the needle’s stab, the crackling fire, the dusty scent of earthy mushrooms drying.

  “I can tell by that silly little grin on your face that you succeeded,” Lavinia commented.

  She’d stopped humming a while ago, but the needle kept biting him. The tattoo went from his shoulder to his elbow. The whole thing throbbed. Dragos opened his eyes.

  “Did it have to be this big?” He asked, glancing down at his arm.

  A fox-sly smile crept over her face. “Of course.”

  “Not because you wanted to draw this out?”

  “Why would I want to do that? This is tedious.” Lavinia muttered, stabbing ink into his skin.

  That satisfied him. Why would she?

  His heart slammed against the table when a violent rapping came at the door. Lavinia did jump, the flinch gouging his arm painfully. He hissed at the sting. Dulled lassitude vanished.

  She scrambled, flicking her sleeves down to hide the needle.

  Dragos rolled to his feet and swiftly tucked his throbbing arm into his shirt. Luckily, both ink and blood hid well under tattered black silk. Heart pounding, he tugged his collar shut just as Lavinia toggled the latch.

  A slim, sun-worn man clutched his hat, mouth trembling, as if he struggled to find the right words to say. Silence hung as his watery eyes slipped from the ragged woman to the pale, white-haired Dragos behind her, in blackest silk. He choked visibly.

  The miserable stone that lived in Dragos's stomach swelled.

  “What is it, Felix?” Lavinia asked, then glanced over her shoulder, shooting Dragos an accusing stare. Her head tipped, almost imperceptibly.

  Dragos froze like a deer listening to the silence of the woods. He blinked rapidly and snatched his cloak. “Yes, cousin, I’ll fetch you more wood for the hearth.”

  The man’s eyes widened as the ghostly figure in black moved toward him, toward the door. Felix stumbled and nearly fell, grabbing at the rickety pole the door clung to by rope alone. He gasped, “Unspoken…”

  “No,” Dragos said, stepping quickly past him. “Just a sickly man, old with a young face.”

  It wasn’t really a lie. He felt ancient. The ritual left him feeling hollow, like he’d walked a hundred miles.

  Still, he moved past the man, around the house to the single window shutters, which were latched from the inside, and listened shamelessly. Lavinia would have done the same. He heard Felix enter, and tug the door shut.

  “Is that really your cousin?” Felix whispered.

  “To my shame,” Lavinia said.

  Dragos didn’t take that with any offence. He leaned his head gently against the wall beside the shutters to hear better. The press of dewy wood under his palm, the scent of the herbs he’d stepped on in his rush to get to his listening spot, the cool, humid air all pressed in. Distractions.

  He put them aside and strained his ears.

  “What brings you to me at this hour, Felix?” Lavinia asked again.

  Her footsteps whispered on the earthen floor. The gentle clank of the tea pot from its hook over the fire and then the nearly imperceptible sound of liquid pouring explained things clearly. She poured her visitor some tea.

  “The little one has a fever. It’s a bad one. We bathed him in cold spring water, but it barely did a thing. He hasn’t eaten in days. The Luminitori came and prayed over him but… I’m at my wits end.” Felix shuffled around, not moving far from the door.

  His trembling voice and the scuff of his grass sandals all told the grim yet familiar tale. “They say—they say you know forest medicines. Like a—a—hedge witch.”

  Lavinia scoffed. “I’m no hedge witch, but I do know a bit. I should see the boy…”

  “No!” Felix gasped, then quieted to repeat himself more civilly. “No. Casca didn’t want me to come here. But what else can I do?”

  Silence. Dragos remembered to breathe, slowly, lest the poor farmer feared he was nearby, lurking like some Unspoken monster, ready to pounce.

  The long moment, punctuated only by the man’s scuffling pacing, ended when Lavinia spoke. “Here. Let me see what I can find in my cousin’s box.”

  Dragos's fingers clamped on the window frame. That was his box, not hers! Didn’t she have her own herbs hanging everywhere? Did she even know what she’d find in there?

  He calmed after the moment of irritation. The box had remedies she didn’t. He’d seen her herbs, and few were much good for the symptoms, sight unseen. Yet, offering a remedy without seeing the child wasn’t ideal.

  The box hinges creaked. A crawling, uncomfortable sensation wriggled up his neck as he listened to Lavinia clumsily rummage through his things. “Did you try… oooh, lemon balm? Dragos, you’ve been holding out… Here. Make some tea with these, but Felix?”

  “Yes?”

  “These are just herbs. There’s no magic, no witchery. If your son is dying, no simple herbs can save him.”

  “Is there nothing? What about your cousin? I—I’ll give him my soul, to save my son. Do you understand? I’d do anything!”

  Felix’s voice balanced on the edge of madness.

  “Anything! Just save him! Pius is my only living child!”

  Dragos leaned away from the house and snatched up a few chunks of wood he’d cut the day before. He strode to the door and threw it wide.

  Felix spun around, clutching his hat to his chest, eyes red with tears, brown hair wild from fingers raked through it. He looked as unhinged as he sounded.

  He clutched at Dragos's arm as he passed. Wire-thin, but strong from field work, those hands paused Dragos in his path to the fireplace. “Please!”

  “If the Light wills your loss, what can we do?” Dragos asked, staring into the man’s eyes. “We only have the wink of a chance to save it, even if we are allowed to see the boy.”

  “Sometimes children get better. Such miracles happen, prin harul lumini.” Lavinia murmured.

  The untouched cup of tea steamed on the worktable in the center of the room, beside the little packets of lemon balm and elderflower. Right next to a bright bead of Dragos's blood.

  Felix glanced at the table. He snatched the packets and pushed past Dragos. His footsteps echoed through the forest, the crunch and crack of his passing heard for a long distance before Dragos nudged the door shut and set the latch.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Lavinia murmured.

  Dragos held her gaze. He had little to say. It always went this way, sooner or later. He’d learned never to outstay his welcome. Lavinia had years here. She’d been lucky.

  “We should go,” he said, glancing around the hut. The winds of fortune pushed against him. He knew her time there was done, as an animal knew when a storm approached.

  “As soon as we finish your tattoo,” she replied, her chin set in a stubborn jut.

  Dragos merely nodded.

  Please take a moment to This link opens a new window. This is important to me, since someone smacked Owl with another 2 rating on chapter 5. If they said why they didn't like it, that's fine, but no comment, no DM, nothing. The silent negs are the killers.

  (THAY-lur): A unit of money greater than obloi and lesser than denarii

  Cel?lalt t?ram (chel-uh-LULT tuh-RUHM)[rolled r]: spirit world

  (loo-min-ah-TOR-ee)[rolled r]: Order of monks dedicated to the Light.

  Prin harul lumini (PREEN HAH-rool loo-MEE-nee) [rolled r]: By the grace of the light.