“I was able to take her head off.”Brynn’s gaze grew vacant.“I’m not sure what happened.Another being seemed to crawl out of her corpse—a creature with scales and misshapen limbs.But she’s dead.At least, she didn’t chase us.The scaled creature vanished.Like smoke.”
Cenric wasn’t sure what to make of that.
“That one spoke to me.”
“It did?”Cenric shifted at that.His talking dogs were one thing, but talking fiends were another.“What did it say?”
“It knew I was a sorceress.She said that the tree had been weakened, which had allowed her and the Wulfwir out.”
“I think Ovrek cut down pieces of the Grandfather Yew to build part of his ship.”Cenric felt sacrilegious just saying the words.
“I see.”Brynn did not seem surprised.“Your cousin hinted at that, I think.”
Cenric briefly wished that his uncle was still alive.Hróarr’s father would have thrashed him within an inch of his life.Who else knew Ovrek had done this?It wasn’t as if the king could have done it alone.A good number of men must have helped him.
Dagrún had also confirmed the tales right before the assassination attempt.It made sense why Egill and his son would become oath breakers.Even if they had not known the Father’s Foes still lay beneath the roots of the great yew, they had known of Ovrek’s desecration.
“The burned girl said other things, but most of it didn’t make sense.”Brynn’s gaze turned vacant.“She said they were children of the moon, but I don’t think she meant Eponine.”
“What other moon is there?”Cenric was no Istovari, but he had seen the night sky often enough to know.
“Moreyne.”
“The Dread Mother?”Cenric wanted to argue with that possibility, but under the circumstances, couldn’t.
“She was Eponine’s sister,” Brynn explained.“There were once two moons.”
Cenric knew Moreyne only as the cursed goddess, the one that fell from grace.She had been trapped in the Dread Marches by the other gods at the beginning of time.Her children were evil spirits, warped, bodiless creatures forged from shadows and spite.“Does that tell us how to kill them?”
Brynn considered it a moment.“No.I know as much as you.”
“We don’t need to know everything to kill them.”Cenric tried to sound encouraging.“You killed one, which leaves only one, yes?”
“There was also a giant scaled creature, I think some manner of serpent.”Brynn’s voice shook, as if she hardly believed the words herself.“It was still trapped within the roots of the dead tree, but I don’t know for how much longer.”
“A serpent?”Cenric’s dream from last night burned hot in his memory.“Did it have red eyes?”
Brynn cast him a curious look.“I didn’t get a look at the serpent’s eyes, but the other two did.Why?”
“I had a foretelling,” Cenric admitted.“I thought it might be an ordinary nightmare, but…” He shook his head.“I saw a giant serpent making its way through Istra while the town burned.”
“Oh.”Brynn seemed to wither with dread.
“You were there.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“I heard you call my name and then I woke up.”
A serpent, a she-troll, and a wolf.What if the First of Fathers had not been as thorough in his defeat as the legend claimed?
“They had all been trapped under the tree, according to the girl.”Brynn ran a hand over her face.“Are we supposed to deal with this on top of everything else?”
“You and Hróarr said they wouldn’t cross the boundary stones,” Cenric pointed out.
Brynn seemed to deflate, slumping beside the fire.“There were powerful spells cast over that circle.The Grandfather Yew’skawas feeding them.”
“Spells?”Cenric had attended the sacrifices to the Grandfather Yew a few times in his life.It was a holy place, but of course, he hadn’t been able to sense anything magical about it.
