Page 7 of The Arrow and the Alder

The space was dark, save the candle burning atop a small table beside the bed where Nora lay buried beneath a pile of old woolen blankets. When Nora’s lungs had succumbed to a nasty illness a few months ago, they’d moved her to their parents’ bed, where she could be near the fire, out of the drafts. The bed was too large for her little frame and her skin looked wan despite the candle’s warm glow, but her breathing wasn’t labored anymore, thank the saints.

Seph approached the end of the bed and slipped her hands beneath the blankets, reaching for the stones she’d placed earlier. They’d gone cold. She pulled them out and set them aside, then sat on the edge of the bed and brushed the dark hair back from Nora’s sweet face.

All of her siblings possessed that trademark black hair—hair they’d inherited from their papa, who’d inherited it from their unconscious grandfather. All of them except for Seph.

Hers was white. Not flaxen, butwhite. The same soft ivory as the bones she boiled and sometimes carved into arrowheads. The white of bishop’s lace that bloomed in spring and blanketed Harran’s small pastures like snow. Seph might have been concerned over her parentage, except she’d incontrovertibly inherited her papa’s blue eyes, which he’d inherited from Nani.

Nora’s dark lashes fluttered and she opened her eyes just a crack. “You’re back,” she said, trying to sit up before a fit of coughing took her.

“Shh—shh.” Seph stroked her sister’s hair, waiting for the coughing to pass. Mama was right. Nora’s lungs sounded better, but those coughs were still too big for Nora’s little body.

Once it subsided, Nora leaned back upon her pillow and closed her eyes.

“I caught a rabbit today,” Seph said gently, trying not to dwell on Nora’s wilting frame. “No more broth for you, little lion. Tonight, we feast like queens.”

If only she’d killed that stag, but as she considered it, perhaps the saintshadbeen kind to her after all. There was no way she could’ve carried pieces of that beast through the crowd this morning without being spotted.

Nora’s lips twitched into a small smile, and she curled into Seph, who resumed stroking her hair. “Tell me a story, Seesee,” Nora whispered.

“A story.” Seph sifted through the arsenal of fanciful tales passed down from their grandfather. He’d always had a passion for stories, one Seph inherited, though where he sourced them, only the saints could say. “Let’s see. Shall we do the one about the alder tree?” It had always been a favorite of Nora’s for its romantic flare.

Nora shook her head and said, “The twin princes.”

“Oh, but that one’s so dismal.”

Nora settled in, clutching Seph’s arms with both of her hands. Seph smiled and resigned herself to the whims of her sister, leaning back on Nora’s pillow as she began.

“Deep in the woods, there stood a palace, and at this palace lived a little family: a father, a mother, and their two children. Twins, both sons, one as beastly as a bear, the other handsome and full of mischief. They had everything their hearts desired, for they lived in the Court of Light, the grandest of all. The celestial father of the kith, Demas, had made it so, blessing them with light that came from the stars, and from those stars, the sons were granted power that the other kith courts did not have, which, as you can imagine, brought them unprecedented riches. But the brothers did not understand—as very few do—that it is notrichesthat give one wealth. It is love, and the relationships rooted within it.

“As the decades passed, the princes grew bored in their court of always light. First came the parties. Lavish things you can’t even imagine, with plates of gold and endless vats of wine and goblets rimmed with gemstones from every region. They danced beneath a tapestry of stars while entertaining and indulging to their hearts’ content, but still, this did not satisfy, and they grew bored once more.

“And so, they turned to games. Tournaments and competitions, from archery to the arcane. They fought against targets; they fought each other. Enchantment and sword. Each battle growing more brutal, more deadly, until boredom grew again.

“They decided they did not like rules anymore, that it made things too predictable, so they stopped heeding them. They plundered and killed for sport—this was a very dark time, even by kith standards—and they eventually crossed the veil into the goddess Ava’s realm—the mortal world—where land was ripe for the taking, and mortal kind was defenseless against them. One day, after the beastly prince had slaughtered an entire village of men, women, and children, Ava’s saints finally heard the mortals’ cries. They interceded for their children and Ava demanded Demas reprimand his.

“When the princes returned home, an old woman arrived at the palace gates. She had a face like wrinkled linen and eyes like small moons, and she requested an audience with the twins. They suspected the woman was not as fragile as she appeared, for they could sense hereloit—the special connection that ties all kith to the well of Demas’s power—and it was much stronger than anyeloitthey’d ever felt.”

Nora’s little hands squeezed Seph’s arms at this part, and Seph realized that this was why Nora had asked for this story. Because of the power that existed in a body so frail.

Seph continued, “‘I have heard of your conquests,’ the old woman said, ‘only I could not believe it. I came for myself to see if my sister’s claims were true, for my sister is First, and she has seen you with her Sight, but I am Second, and though I cannot See, I can Speak, and, at the behest of Demas, I have come to vindicate those you have tormented.’

“And so she spoke the curse that has plagued both kith and mortal kind for over a century: ‘Through blood, by blood, may your sins be paid, spent from a mortal heart, the heir must claim. A babe wrought by harvest’s light, and virgin be, by immortal’s sight, holds the only path to your salvation.’” Seph paused here for emphasis, as their grandfather had always done. “And that was the day the mist and monsters came.”

And that was the beginning of the kith’s long and arduous war with the depraved—winged, demon-like monsters that infested their lands. Of course, mortals could not possibly know the breadth of that war; the veil had become an elusive thing, opening only every seven years until closing completely, which is how it’d remained these past sixty years. But in that time, the kith hadsuffered, and when the veil had unexpectedly reopened three years ago at a place called the Rift—so named for the gaping hole that it was—the kith had stormed through and into Kestwich proper—the mortal lands—demanding aid and fighters, before the curse bled into the mortal realm too.

Which was where her family and Elias, and so many others had gone.

Nora sighed into Seph’s arm and said, “I wish the veil had stayed closed.”

Seph knew Nora was thinking of their papa and two brothers, Rys and Levi, who’d been stationed at the Rift, caught up in this war and age-old curse.

“I do too, little lion,” Seph whispered as this morning’s hopelessness settled upon her once again.

Suddenly, the front door opened and slammed shut, and voices erupted in the next room.

Linnea.

Seph was in no mood to see her sister Linnea right now, but she couldn’t smother her curiosity either. Had Linnea learned anything about the kith’s sudden arrival in little Harran?

---