Many of the ravine’s occupants carved out homes within the massive tree trunks, or some perched up high in canvas tents balanced on the branches. Others braved sleeping out in the open in the lowlands where the ash was thinner, though to do so risked being swallowed by a wandering quag-puddle or dragged by vines into the domain of the shrouds.
As for Crony, she’d claimed a secluded, airless grove. Her home was a scaffold with no walls, set atop a floor of wide, flat rocks to keep out quag-puddles. The wooden frame—fashioned of willow, the most receptive wood to magic—was propped between a circle of black trunks and nailed slipshod into place, forming three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a doorway around her dusty furniture. The discarded furnishings from Eldoria’s citizens partnered ideally with her cadaver abode: chairs purging their cushioning from ripped-out seams, torn mattresses restuffed with straw and rotted leaves, ottomans made of upended boxes, a fire pit hedged in with broken bricks, one splintering cedar chest, and several busted casks that smiled like snarl-toothed jesters.
The windows were empty frames as well, each crafted of four pieces of wood nailed together and hanging midway in the air, supported by wires secured to the intertwined tree limbs overhead.
Luce liked to tease her about the absurdity of windows in a home devoid of walls, but Crony insisted even an old, grubby witch needed some semblance of refinement. Upon each sill sat a fractured vase or chipped teacup packed with bird feathers or fresh flowers. Silk and velvet patchwork valances lined the top of the window frames, stitched from clothes Crony had peeled off the best-dressed corpses she’d pillaged. Similar patchwork curtains stretched overhead from the branches to the floor to hide the princess’s room—an addition she’d made for the girl’s privacy. Any leftover fabric covered Crony’s supplies: potions, potables, and food stores, all tucked within stairstep branches and knotholes serving as shelves and cupboards in the kitchen. She’d lost her spell-recipes centuries earlier but knew the important ones by memory.
Some might think hers a primitive way to live, but there was no need for windowpanes or sturdy walls in an enclosed wood where the rains never penetrated and the winds never wailed. In the civilized world, walls, roof, and glass kept the wilds out. But being of the wilds herself, Crony welcomed such things—moldering moss, ash, and grime alike.
In this wasteland, the mortal occupants were the vermin. To stave them off, Crony had infused her house’s framework with horrific visions—an attack by phantasmal, skull-faced figures in dark robes; a growing quagmire enveloping the surroundings; falling face-first into a pit of vipers—memories of the dying so vivid the prowler would believe them to be their own.
In the earlier years, Crony had often returned home from the market or hunting to find a would-be attacker or thief rolled up in fetal position beside the door’s frame. Today, her reputation preceded her, making it a rare occurrence for anyone to enter even her yard.
Thoughts of said yard drew Crony’s attention back to the rainbow at her knees—the only flowers in the whole ravine, other than the ones decorating her shop. She barely heard Luce’s footsteps shuffling over until two feet stopped at her side, encased in dusty black boots. He wore his human form today and looked ostentatious and completely out of place here in his red fineries.
“They’re withering.” A canine growl punctuated his observation as he nudged a cluster of larkspur with his boot’s toe. “She’s been neglecting them to spend time with the jackass.”
Crony hesitated to respond, half-amused by Luce’s annoyance, but also saddened. Before the princess had come, Crony’s and Luce’s lives had been limited to shades of black and gray, like everyone else’s in this accursed place. Nothing but ash and brambles met the eye. In so many ways, the princess had brought color to their world. Crony wondered how long the flowers would last once she and Luce lived alone again. Though in truth, she didn’t expect to be alive long enough to know.
Jaw clenched, Crony shoved a hand beneath the sooty ground cover and found it hot to the touch. “May-let it has more to do with the heat than any negligence. It be blistering in Eldoria. Though me bones decry a storm on the horizon.” The ravine was always cooler than Eldoria; but the ash writhing about their ankles carried hints of the kingdom’s weather, being warmed by patches of sunlight that seeped through thinner spots in the canopy.
Luce bent down to pluck a stalk of columbine. The periwinkle petals and maroon foliage stood out vivid against his luminous flesh. “You’re just looking for excuses. She’s growing irresponsible. Goes off with her fancy donkey until all hours. Exploring every inch of this ravine. She’s lucky the shrouds haven’t eaten them both.”
“Ye bein’ a bit hard on her. Seein’ as she helps us in the market each day.”
“But her heart’s rarely there. She’s always wishing to be with him, caught up in frivolities that can’t possibly lead her to the throne. You’re the one who says she needs to practice her gifts and ‘political’ skills, however difficult and boring.”
“Aye, since we can’t be touting who she is.”
“Exactly so. We can’t even share her age. Her responsibilities are the only way she’ll rediscover her identity. It’s time she starts taking them seriously. And to that end, I aim to see she rectifies the garden today, before we head out.”
Crony glanced up, stifling the smile that wanted to break free. She couldn’t risk withering the flowers further.
“What?” he asked, his dazzling face scowling down on her.
“Just ne’er thought a doggish dandy would fit the parental mold so ably. Those apron strings will need to be loosed one day soon.”
His pointy teeth glinted on a mocking laugh that reverberated through the trees. “Apron strings, bah. We stuck out our necks for her. I won’t let the last five years of sacrifice be for nothing.” He shifted two large leather pouches strung from his shoulder by straps. “Stain owes me a set of wings, and owes you . . . well, whatever it is you expect to gain. Redemption, was it? Come to think, you’ve yet to share the details of your misdeeds and why we’re bound by this vow of noninterference.” He tapped his lower lip with the plucked columbine, his gaze pointedly narrow.
Crony redirected the conversation. He’d learn of her secrets soon enough. “D’ye forget? Yer wings hinge on a selfless sacrifice. Ye best be taking yer wants and needs out of the equation to meet that criterium. Aye?”
Before he could answer, they heard movement in the house as Stain stepped from behind her curtain. Her flesh blended into the dimness—permanently tinted a dingy gray by the enchanted sun-solvent clay Crony insisted she wear, both for protection from strands of daylight and to hide her true identity. Her loose muslin tunic, burlap vest, and canvas breeches served the latter purpose, too, as did her shorn scalp. For some inexplicable reason, the girl’s long silver locks had never grown back after Luce and Crony rescued her—not past a fine fuzz. One of several oddities, for her lashes couldn’t be pulled or clipped without causing the child immense internal pain, as if they were a living part of her, formed of nerves and purest moonlight. Crony had surmised that was why they grew so long and curled upward, reaching for the sky where the moon once hung. Since they couldn’t change her eyes, they’d concentrated on making the silver sheen upon her scalp more ordinary, dying the stubble with blackberry juice and maintaining it thus to this very day.
As a result of these changes and the abuse her body had endured, the girl was nothing special to look upon. Her only attributes were lashes and lips a mite too pretty. Those didn’t seem to matter, as people couldn’t see past her grimy, scarred, and stick-slender shell. Crony worried the transformation had been too complete. For what grand prince would find the girl marriable in such a ruffian state?
Stain paused where the kitchen window was strung over a sink made of a discarded wine cask. She glanced up—framed by the four slats of wood—and waved to her keepers. Her sparkling lilac eyes and smiling lips lit up the dim house.
Crony had to avert her gaze or risk responding in kind. That smile, and the depth of kindness and wisdom in those eyes, shone so bright against the girl’s plainness it was contagious.
As if proving Crony’s point, Luce offered an answering wave and grin. Crony raised a brow and gave him a knowing look. He caught himself and cursed, tucking his hand into his pocket.