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Petyr watched the jumping beams of light that were Liam’s sight. They followed the contours of the animal’s limbs, lingering first on the stains of blood, and then for a longer time on the black rimmed eyes.

Presently, the light began to quiver and fade and Petyr glanced at Liam. He was crying.

Petyr felt a great wave of sympathy for him, for he’d been through such an ordeal these past few days. He reached out to comfort him, then saw with a stab of dread that his mouth was hanging open. He was getting ready to bawl. Petyr clamped his hands over Liam’s mouth, but too late. A high-pitched cry escaped the child’s mouth, startling the buck. It snorted in agitation.

Clutching the boy to his chest, Petyr stared up at the branches, awaiting the dreaded attack. He heard a scuffle from behind and then Shallah landed nearly on top of them both. Liam’s cry had told her she could move at will. She held her dagger at the ready.

“What is it?” she asked, a hand on each of their shoulders.

A sound like the hissing of steam filled the air.

“We’ve awakened it,” Petyr said.

Taking hold of his axe, Petyr got to his feet and Shallah did the same. They stood back to back, holding their weapons aloft, for no owl could harm them now. They’d already been given up.

Released from Petyr’s hold, Liam approached the deer, seemingly unaware of his companions’ alarm.

“Liam, no!” Petyr cried. “Stay back!”

But the boy had ceased paying heed to their warnings. He stroked the buck’s fur, circling the cuts with his fingertips. Then, as Petyr watched, he covered the oozing wounds with his tiny hands. As the hissing took up once more, louder now, the buck jerked in alarm. It calmed only when Liam pressed his cheek against its back, feeling the rise and fall of its breath.

“Petyr, what’s happening?” Shallah asked breathlessly.

Petyr looked up at the tree. It remained still as the puzzling sound continued.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“I’ve heard this sound before,” she said.

“I’ve heard this sound before,”

Suddenly, it became very cold.

Liam was the first to notice it, for the buck shivered beneath his grasp. Opening his eyes, he spied a whiteness like frost rising up from the base of the tree. As he watched, it drew higher, coming level with his gaze, then rose farther still. He couldn’t understand it. How could there be frost without winter?

The tide of ice reached the branches and began to encircle them.

Shallah shivered and a knowing look came across her face.

“It’s freezing over,” she said.

Liam could see his breath wafting before him. He tore his gaze away from the frost and looked at the buck. The light in its eyes was fading, and something was wrong with its fur. It looked less … alive. He didn’t want to think about what that could mean. He looked at his hands. The frost was covering his fingers! He pulled his hands away. The ice had crept up the animal’s legs and was spreading over its torso. Whatever was happening to the oak was happening to the buck as well.

It was going to freeze to death.

The boy sat down heavily before the buck, watching it come to pass. The animal was afraid, he knew. He felt the same fear, the same heart-wrenching sorrow. As the ice closed over the deer’s eyes, Liam felt its ache of death. Sadness welled in his chest. He let out a scream that cut through the cold like a knife.

“Run!” Petyr cried. Shallah pulled Liam away from the buck and turned to flee. But before they’d taken one step, a new sound began.

The monstrous tree was cracking along its icy branches, tiny fissures snaking down to the end of each twisted twig. Liam took a tentative step back as the cracking came to a halt. Then, as Petyr and Liam watched, the mighty oak cracked open along its cuts and exploded in their faces, flattening them to the ground.

Moments later, Liam looked up through dazed eyes as the others stirred beside him. The oak had vanished.

A fine white powder fell through the air.

Chapter Eighteen

Liam was inconsolable for many hours. He wrapped his arms about Shallah’s neck and wouldn’t be parted from her. Shallah and Petyr found the animal’s path and turned onto it. They walked in stunned silence.

It was Petyr who noticed that the buck remained. They’d all gotten to their feet and were dusting the powder from each other when he saw the mound. It was dying but no longer frozen, its eyes staring vacantly. Shallah wished Petyr had left it alone instead of rubbing the cover of white from the body, revealing it again to Liam, who immediately began to shake. The deer’s blood ran still, soaking into the ground beneath it.

Shallah crouched before the creature to close its mournful eyes, for in her blindness she pitied those who were forced to stare into death. But when she touched its lids, a startling thing took place. Her arms jolted as though the buck’s body had jerked violently, when all the while it lay deathly still. Her fingers seemed to fuse with the fur and she couldn’t break away. In her mind’s eye, she saw the buck turn to face her, its eyes locking on hers. It spoke to her without emitting a sound. It simply looked at her and she knew.

She had received the second prophecy.

She nearly fell backwards as her hands were abruptly released. Petyr said it was a terrible shame, but that animals died in the forest every day. Shallah realized he was trying to console Liam. They showed no awareness that anything unusual had taken place.

The buck was now quite dead, but Liam was unwilling to leave its side. Still reeling inwardly, Shallah said quietly, “He’s passed on now. There’s nothing we can do for him. Come away.”

Since then, she couldn’t get any reaction from the child, try as she might. He’d retreated into himself and would not come out.

Not long after, the path began to dip steeply. Shallah’s limp became more pronounced and she admitted she could go no further that day. Petyr found a spot to make camp in a round depression of earth where the decline couldn’t be felt. They took turns sipping from the flasks, taking note of the growing water shortage as though it were a worry from long ago, being remembered.

Once Liam had drifted off and finally released his stealthy hold on her, Shallah went to join Petyr as he stoked the fire. Stepping into the circle of warmth, she breathed in a scent that reminded her of her father’s late-night talks with Jos, and of festival days on the green. The smell of home.

“Is that Isemay Wray’s tobacco?” she inquired. “I didn’t realize you smoked, Petyr.” Pipe smoking had fallen out of fashion in the village in recent years, and had come to be seen as an old man’s habit. Isemay continued to trade regularly with Malcol Klink, Thurstan Turvey and Jos Guerin (without his wife’s knowledge), as well as the occasional curious adolescent boy.

Petyr fingered the pipe in his hands. “I haven’t touched the stuff in years,” he admitted. “Not since I was twelve. I took it up to rile my father, and it worked – I could tell. But he never tried to stop me, never told me it was a man’s hobby, never said a word. So, I lost interest.”

“You hadn’t yet developed your stubborn resolve?” Shallah asked as she sat down by Petyr’s side.

He grinned and lit the pipe by the fire’s flame. “Not quite yet,” he said, between puffs.

His smile changed to a look of astonishment as Shallah took the pipe from his hand and placed it in her own mouth, her girlish curls and freckles contrasting drastically with the manly purse of her lips. She rested her chin in her palm and cocked an eyebrow at Petyr. “What is it, Petyr Fleete?” she remarked. “You think a woman can’t smoke just as well as a man?”

“I-I-I,” Petyr stuttered. “When did you learn to smoke?” he asked finally.

“I took it up one year, mostly to rile Trallee’s womanfolk who’d taken to calling me a witch.” Shallah gave Petyr a sly look. “It worked – I could tell.” She passed the pipe back to Petyr who handled it gingerly, as though by using it she’d turned it to gold, or a serpent.

“Did your father smoke?” he asked.

“No,” she said wistfully. “There wasn’t much about my father that was usual or expected. Smoking would have been much too social for his taste. He might have partaken once or twice with Jos, but not as a rule. I don’t know, perhaps it was the rule itself that irked him.”

“Was he so rebellious?”

She took a deep breath and raised her face to the canopy as the pipe smoke rose above them in swirling wreaths. “Not really. He was more of a dreamer. He lived in dreams, I think, because the reality of his shattered life was too much for him. When he told me fairy stories as a girl, he always seemed to enjoy them more than I, as though he truly believed them. I think, when he left, he really thought he would return and save us all. He wanted to be the hero.” She smiled sadly. “How I wish he were here with us now.”

Shallah heard Petyr take something from the pouch at his belt. She wondered what it could be, but didn’t ask.

“Can I ask … ?” Petyr’s voice was thick with emotion. “What was it like for you during all those years alone in that house? Didn’t you yearn for companionship after your father had gone?”

Shallah had the feeling Petyr was thinking more of his own loss than hers.

“I loved it,” she replied candidly. “I loved being alone, where no one could touch me. I think I thought I deserved it. I would listen in on the talk between husbands and wives – it was all so foreign to me. I wanted none of it. Being alone seemed safer to me.”

“I can understand that,” Petyr said. “After Marion … I tried to shut the world out. But it wasn’t so easy for me. I had my children to care for. There were days when I wished them gone, but in truth I know that without them I would have been lost. You had no one. You must know inner strength far beyond my own.”

“It wasn’t strength, Petyr,” Shallah said. “I was hiding.”

“But you’re here now,” he said.

His words brought them both back to the present. They shared the pipe between them, sitting shoulder to shoulder, as they talked it over.

“Do you think he knows?” Petyr began.

“Liam?” Shallah said. She puffed on the pipe before replying. “I’m not sure.”

“It was him they wanted all along. That’s why they didn’t take you in the beginning. They must see him as a threat to their survival.”

“It seems he’s often seen in that light,” she said grimly.

Petyr shook his head. “How can this be, Shallah? I waver between belief and absolute incredulity. His voice … that child’s voice. Let me say it aloud: he destroyed that oak with his voice alone, didn’t he?” He regarded Shallah, awaiting her answer.

She swallowed. “He did indeed,” she said.

“Such power in a voice,” Petyr said, awed. “It’s difficult to grasp. I fear we must be in much greater danger than we realized.”

The mention of danger reminded Shallah that she’d her own revelation to disclose. She wearied to think of it. He might really think I’ve gone round the bend this time, she thought. This could be the end.

The idea upset her more than she’d expected.

What’s the matter with me? she asked herself. Am I so reliant on him already?

But that wasn’t it at all.

Though Shallah knew she ought to be concentrating on the matter at hand, she found herself distracted. She’d never sat so close to Petyr before. She could feel his thigh pressing against hers. Surprisingly, she found she had to fight the urge to lean into him, to put her head on his shoulder, to hold and be held. She’d spoken to him of her father, of herself, however briefly, and his understanding had filled her heart. But there was more to it than that. A bright light she’d thought extinguished had flared within her. She felt a flush of heat rising up her neck. She fiddled with the cloth of her skirts, twisting the material about her fingers. Having never felt any such feelings before, she’d not the slightest idea what to do with them. And what a time to be feeling such things!

“This explains the white powder on the night of the battle,” Petyr went on, oblivious to her struggle. “He destroyed those oaks as well. I heard him cry out, I remember it now. I didn’t think to connect the two.”

Shallah allowed the discussion to draw her back in. “How could you have, Petyr?” she replied. She was relieved that she didn’t stutter or collapse into a fit of giggles like a lovesick maiden. I’m imagining things, she thought to herself. It’s only Petyr! Still, as he spoke, and as serious as his words were, she couldn’t help wishing he would give her some sign that he was imagining the same things as she.

Petyr was lost in his own thoughts. Suddenly he looked up. “The oak was reaching for me just as Liam cried out,” he said reflectively. “I suppose if it had caught me, I would have died as the buck did.”

“Not necessarily,” Shallah reasoned. “The buck wasn’t just held, but bound to the oak, locked to its trunk.” she shuddered. “The poor thing. What a horrid way to die; first stabbed through, then frozen.” Her thoughts turned to the buck’s dying moments. A shiver ran up her spine as she recalled the way her fingers had burned as she'd touched its face. Her cheeks, flushed just a moment before, turned pale. She closed her eyes.

“Petyr,” Shallah said, as she reached once again for the pipe, as though its sturdiness make her feel more solid, more sure, “there’s something I have to tell you …”

“This changes everything,” he said, his mind racing. “We have a real chance of escaping now that we know their aims.”

“I should have told you long ago. I don’t know why I held back. I thought it all a dream …”

“We know how to fight them, how to destroy them. Don’t you see what that means? We hold all the power now.” He paused, as though unwilling to believe it. “We are free!”

“Petyr,” Shallah said softly and something in her tone alerted him. His exuberance was snuffed out like a flame by a sudden gust of wind.

“What is it?” Petyr asked, noticing the paleness of Shallah’s cheek. He turned to face her, wanting to put his arm around her shoulders but hesitant, recalling her sudden anger hours before. I never know where I stand with her, he mused to himself. Sometimes she seems as glad of my presence as I am of hers, and at other times she seems to disdain me. If only she would give me some sign.