The soft murmur of the stream flowing along the outskirts of our valley wakes me the third time. I lie on a bed of crushed, tall grass beneath the canopy of a great oak tree. Its leaves flutter and rustle overhead. I’m folded in a dark cloak that smells like spices and sandalwood, and maybe juniper and the sheep fat used to protect material from rain. The fabric also carries the scent of smoke and a thousand deaths, a scent that rattles my brain awake.
I bolt upright and flinch, bracing my breastbone with my hand. My chest aches like a god pounded it with their fist.
Wary, I take in my surroundings. A warhorse—black as a moonless night—drinks from the stream that moves on lazily as ever, as though the rest of the world has no notion of the devastation that transpired in the night.
And at the water’s edge squats the Witch Collector.
His jet hair—damp and untied—hangs down his back in waves. He wears fitted leather britches, cracked with age, and a loose linen tunic marked by ragged tears and faded bloodstains at the side and sleeve. He’s a contradiction—that’s the thought fluttering through my mind. A towering, intimidating Collector—hard, unstoppable, and unyielding. Yet here in the valley, he kneels, wide shoulders soft, hair lifted just so by a breeze. That dark head bows in reverence, and in his hand rests a bundle of plucked stardrops.
I think of the way Finn touched me with the flower Mother braided in my hair and lift my hand to feel for them. They’re gone.
One by one, the Witch Collector casts petals into the unhurried current where hundreds of blossoms float away to the river.
“A stardrop for every soul,” he says, whispering the words like a prayer.
It isn’t lost on me that he’s performing a ritual of my people. In Silver Hollow, Littledenn, Penrith, and Hampstead Loch, it’s customary to say a prayer to the Ancient Ones for the newly dead and provide a simple offering of the valley’s most beloved bloom.
He turns to look at me, and a charge sparks the air between us again. Though I wish it weren’t so, a shiver dances across my skin. I want to dismiss it as disgust, but that would be a lie.
It’s his eyes. Something about them makes me want to look closer, like I might see a whole universe if I peer hard enough. But it’s just the color. I didn’t think it could be any bolder, any more penetrating. Yet here in the vale, with daylight rising, his eyes shine like emeralds.
“How do you feel?” His voice is soft and kind, not like it sounded when he shouted his warning through the village.
I don’t know how to answer. I feel like I’m floating in a dream. Any second, someone will shake me awake. It will be the morning after Collecting Day, and my shattered world will piece itself back together again. But my throat is raw and dry from soot, and my blue gown is now the color of a stormy sky with brown splotches covering the skirt and bodice.
And my hands…
They’re trembling, and they’re caked in ash and old blood. Blood that belongs to the warriors I killed. Blood that belongs to my mother. Blood that belongs to a vile prince.
The Witch Collector exchanges the stardrops for a half-scorched wooden bowl filled with stream water and reaches me in three long strides.
I quake harder. Mother used to say that grief always strikes when we least expect it, and that we rarely realize how those we love inhabit even the most seemingly inconsequential parts of our lives. It’s in those moments that the pain of their absence strikes so much deeper, because the time we took for granted suddenly shines in sharp relief.
Like right now—as I stare at Mother’s dish.
The Witch Collector sets the vessel in the grass and unsheathes a knife from his boot. He cuts a strip of his tunic from the hem, returns the knife to its hiding place, and with a dip in the clear water, washes my face with a tender touch.
“Shhh. There now, don’t weep. It’s over. You’re safe.” His voice is still so warm, so gentle. It’s the kind of voice a woman could find solace in, a voice that could conquer even the strongest will.
I should pull away from him—from his touch, his aid, his nearness—but my tears flow fiercely, uncontrollably, and the shaking…
I killed so many people.
The Witch Collector strokes my hair away from my face and stares deep into my eyes, anchoring me. “Come to the water. We can clean your hands.”
With an arm tucked around my waist, he helps me to the stream where we kneel next to his abandoned flowers. Already clean, his skin smells crisp and earthy. He must’ve bathed while I slept.
“You exhausted yourself with magick,” he tells me, scrubbing my hands in the lapping waves. “It requires much strength to save a life from the brink of death. I woke at dawn, and you lay collapsed beside me.”
Of all the people to learn my secret, it had to be him. This seemingly kind-natured man my mind can’t even comprehend is here—alive—much less because of my doing.
Those green, soul-searching eyes flick up and hold my gaze. “Thank you for what you did. I owe you my life.” He turns back to the stream, still gently washing my hands, but the blood and soot don’t seem to leave.
In a daze, I pull away from the water and stare at my skin. Silver swirls etched with hints of crimson, violet, and gold vine along the backs of my hands, from wrist to fingertips. The sleeves of my dress are tight, but I push them up, as much as I can, only to find more intricate detail. Startled, I sit back and yank up my skirts. My legs are covered too.
Witch’s marks—that I’ve never had before. Vaguely, I recall noticing them when the Prince of the East came after me. Gold for life magick, red for healing magick, silver for common magick—like the protective magick we build at the wood’s boundary. The violet must be for Sight.
All I can do is stare, disbelieving.
“It was your mother,” the Witch Collector says. “She was far more powerful than anyone knew. She hid your marks, as well as her own, but…” He pauses, and compassion fills his eyes as he takes my cold hand, folding it inside his warmer one. “When she passed, the magick fell apart, and your marks became visible. I watched them appear on the green, Raina.”
My body is so heavy and my mind so sluggish, like my thinking needs to catch up to the moment. Nothing he said makes sense. He called my entire life a lie, my mother the master of deception, and me a fool.
But also…
I yank my hands away. The Witch Collector knows family names, but even those must be difficult to recall. The Owyns. The Bloodgoods. The Foleys. There are hundreds of surnames across the vale. But first names? Of a woman forever overlooked?
“How do you know my name?” I mimic the words with my mouth as best I can and force the question into an expression as I touch my throat and lips, shaking my head, making sure he understands that I cannot speak.
Did he hear my mother call to me?
He must have.
He studies my face before doing the strangest thing: He moves his hands and fingers in the way Mother taught me.
“I have known your name for many years,” he signs.
I scramble to my feet and stumble backward several steps, finally steadying myself against the oak tree. The Witch Collector rises as well, hands lifted in placation.