Mortance: A Miscarriage of Hope

Lily Ⅱ

"This is where she died," Albert proclaimed. We all stopped with him.

"No, it was up here," Aeric pointed ahead. "I should know. The corpse is likely still there."

"It makes no matter," Beacon dropped her pack. "This is where your trail stops, and this is where my watch begins."

"So it is," Albert agreed.

The forest was dark, and covered with snow. It had been that way since we'd left. Snow made things worse. Tracking was harder, walking was harder... it would be much worse without the trees, I told myself, but that didn't make it better. Half a week, we'd been away. The snow never let up, nor did the dark. Half of us were carrying torches, and the other half dared not risk provoking the precariously perched clusters of snow in the trees above.

Beacon loosened her furs. "What are you doing?" Peter asked as he too dropped his pack.

"Shifting," she answered bluntly without pause. I watched silently as the furs fell from her body, and she stood naked in the snow. Her body was strong, and the scars only made her seem stronger. The sight did not bring forth the same stirrings in me as it would've in my sister, but I would not deny her beauty either. Beacon stepped out of her boots and rested her bare feet on snow. She seemed not to feel the cold at all. I watched as our tracker grit her teeth and shrank. Feathers grew from her skin, wings formed of her arms, a beak grew from her face, and then she was a hawk.

"Show me where she died," I commanded of Aeric once Beacon had set out.

"It was a bit farther on..." I dropped my pack of furs and skins and followed him. "Just down here..." He trudged carefully through snow. "This should be it, here."

"Can I see the other corpse?" I asked.

Aeric nodded. "If we can find it."

I leaned down next to him and helped dig up the snow. "Thank you," I thanked him. My gloves became wet with snow, and I tore them off when I began to sweat. Aeric did the same. We dug through half the clearing... then we found the corpse.

"There's not much left of her," Aeric pointed out. It was true. The corpse had been ravaged beyond recognition, and what was left had mostly rotted away.

"She only died a week ago," I stared at her face. "She shouldn't look this bad already."

"I can't say why. Maybe the rain destroyed her, maybe the snow melted her, maybe the creatures of the forest-"

"That's the work of magic," a voice came from behind me. "I should know."

"Must be," agreed Liz. She stood behind us next to Elyssa, and just behind them stood most everyone else. Liz had long blonde hair, a round face, fair skin, and deep brown eyes. She was exiled for witchcraft in Sacreon, and I'd heard talk of her noble blood. Even she didn't know what magic had allowed her to survive the burning, though, much less again in Elsinct and again in Viri. "I can feel it."

"You think the vir was also a witch?" I asked.

"Most likely," Elyssa said. "But something doesn't feel right..." She ran a hand through her light red hair, thinking. Elyssa's mother, Keara, had come to Espar after being raped by a vir. Elyssa was the product of that rape. She had since become a witch with some strange magic, though she was said to be weak in that art.

"I feel it too," Winter said. "There has to be something we're missing."

"Neither of us saw what truly happened," Albert reminded us. "Now let us eat while we wait for Beacon to return."

We ate. Dani unpacked food from her pack, and we shared it around the circle. The cured meat was tough and chewy. I sat on a log as I ate, brushing snow from my hair. Somewhere high above the trees, the sun was shining down. But at the forest floor, there was only a dull gray glow from up above. Clouds and trees stopped sunlight from reaching us.