Chapter 2

“He has gone to her,” my mother murmured. “Gretha.”

Gretha was an open-faced widow, her body soft and round and her face quick to laugh. She had always been kind to me. She had a six-month-old baby that was widely known, but never openly acknowledged, to be my half-sister. She would have milk to spare for my father’s precious heir.

Tears ran down my mother’s cheeks into her hair; I wondered if its frequent watering was what kept the locks so lush. Once, I was told, my parents had loved each other, before time and my mother’s failure to bring a living boy-child into the world had taken their toll.

“Come here, Siorin,” she pleaded, patting her hand against the stained bed clothes. I came and sat cautiously, repelled by the smell. I was not often invited into her company as she had come, in recent years, to resent me for living when the boy children had not, but she had summoned me here today, and my arrival had caught the end of her discussion with my father. She had a purpose in calling me into her presence, I knew, and dreaded what it was.

“You must... you must save your brother,” she told me, fervently. “You can do it. Offer them yourself in exchange,” she gripped my hand.

“Mother,” I stared at her, appalled. By them, she meant the Fae. Story told that they were partial to stealing mankind maidens from where-ever they could get them, only to return them, twenty-years older the very next day, grieving being parted from Fae children and husband alike, but cast out for no longer being beautiful. The Fae were cold, cruel, and unfeeling.

We avoided angering the Fae or bringing ourselves to their attention. The only thing worse than being stolen by one as a wife, was being a recipient of their costly altruism. A gift from the Fae would come at an unpayable price, and the punishment for not paying, was harsh and unyielding.

“You are to be married anyway,” she breathed. “Why not to one of them? They’ll be more handsome, and younger than Tilef. It’s better for you, and with my boy back, your father will love me again, I know it.”

I looked away and swallowed. I had memories from childhood of my mother where she had been beautiful, bright, and smiling. She had lavished me with attention, teaching me to read, to sew, with gentle kindness, and loving looks. She had taken care of her appearance and overseen the house, so that the maids had never been slovenly. The house had been bright, warm, and the envy of our neighbours, and my father had been loud, and strong, and happy to come home and greet his little ladies, as he had called us.

Slowly, as pregnancy after pregnancy passed without a baby or a son, those things had changed, and the house was no longer the envy of our neighbours, no longer clean, no longer bright, and no longer home to my father. He blamed her for the losses, and they both blamed me. Something in my birth, had changed their fates for the worse.

“From my chest,” she had not released my hand and her nails dug into my skin in clawed demand. “Take my cloak, the blue one. They favour blue. Go to the standing stones of the Graceplains, at midnight, like they say.”

“Mother...” I would not do it. I would not tempt fate and the Fae by wearing blue on the Graceplains. But I was trapped. My home was falling apart around me, and I had only the one suitor in the village, Tilef, twenty years my senior and who had already buried two wives. I had turned him down, but perhaps I had not been wise in doing so. I had to believe that there was something more for me than the miserable future Tilef offered.

“Take the household money,” she released her grip, exhausted by it. “Don’t fail me.”

“No,” I told her, firmly. “Fiane is yours mother. This is just... motherly misery. It happens.”

“You owe me your life,” she whispered, angrily, a vehement hiss of sound, like the boiling of a kettle. Her eyes glittered with her fervour. “It was having you that ruined me for bearing sons.”

I looked away, shamed. She did not lie. My birth had been a difficult one, and she had almost died bringing me into the world. If it hadn’t been for the good-witch, Isyl, neither of us would have lived. Isyl… Isyl would help us, I was sure. She came every year to the village to tend our ailments, and had once been friends with my mother, when my mother had been young and full of life, love and laughter.

She always came in her visits, to see to my mother in the house, so that mother did not have to come to her. She had witnessed the slow decay of the household, a reflection of the decay of the marriage between my parents. The last time she had been here, she had told me to be strong, that all things passed, and not to marry Tilef. It was her saying so that had made me brave enough to decline his offer.

“I will compromise, mother,” I replied after a long moment. “I will go and fetch Isyl. If she says Fiane is a changeling then I will do as you ask.” Perhaps I could apprentice myself to Isyl, offer to keep her house for her in return for lodging. Perhaps I would not need to return to this miserable house that was no longer a home.

“Thank you, Siorin,” she was contented with this, and her eyes closed. After a moment her breathing eased as she succumbed to sleep. I sat gazing at her, my heart tight within my chest. I loved the mother she had once been to me and grieved that mother as if she had passed. Perhaps mother was right, and there was a changeling in the house, but it was not Fiane.

I went to my room and changed my clothing, discarding dress and slippers for trousers, tunic, and boots. I wrapped my green cloak over my shoulders and belted my dagger to my waist. Into the satchel I normally reserved for foraging trips into the forest, I placed a change of tunic and some handkerchiefs, as well as a fire striker from my bedroom hearth.

My mother’s maid, Yena, was on her way up with my mother’s evening meal as I exited my chamber. “Miss?” she asked me, seeing my clothing.

“My mother wants me to fetch the good-witch Isyl to attend her,” I explained. “Let my father know I have taken Coryfe.” If he returned.

“Yes, miss.”