"The Dawn that Rose from Fire"

Day 18 of Novel November- Alenyah kills

Read earlier chapters to understand segment



By the next morning, Alenyah had started to regain some of her strength. They took a slow pace, and she noticed someone was constantly within reach of her the entire day, even the Stoneborn. A lump grew in her throat as she realized she had forgotten how it felt to be the protected rather than the protector.

Kaelen led them towards an evergreen wood, glancing back at her and the party, making sure no one had fallen behind. He rode with a surety, she noted. It seemed odd that a people so native to tunnels under stone would be able to ride with such grace. But all of them had a fine seat with a loose hand on the reins. She’d never admit it aloud, but she found it oddly beautiful, that strength could coexist with such ease.

In fact, the ones who seemed to be having the most trouble were Berin and Althea. Bumpkin had a habit of suddenly stopping and starting, causing the Rhea to reel in her seat. She’d nearly tumbled off once, and Seth had caught her laughing. Berin was a bucket of tense, thighs clenched and hands tightly fisted in his reins. Each evening and at breaks, Alenyah saw him grimacing and rubbing his muscles whenever he dismounted. Tavren ended up giving him a salve to rub on his legs to help with the soreness.

As they rode, a sea of green waved before them, tall conifers and pines, so unlike the Ironwood trees of her childhood. She felt a brief, sharp pang of memory: cold bark beneath her palms, the whistle of winter wind through branches that never bent. The ache of it quickly settled back into the quiet place she kept all the things she no longer had the right to miss. They camped on the edge that night before daring to venture in the next morning.

Berin and Althea were not as used to the darkness of the wood, akin to being underwater. The trees grew so close in sections they were forced to dismount and assist the horses in winding their way through the wood. No one spoke as the air was so close and heavy, cloying with the scene of pine and decay.

Ill at ease, Althea flinched at every snapping twig or hidden rustle in the undergrowth. Alenyah wanted to comfort her, but her eyes were half closed as she strained to listen for any approaching danger.

She only heard the skittering of tiny feet and scratching underneath ferns and pine needles. A small rabbit soft and brown emerged in front of her. Valka halted, lifting her muzzle to sniff. The small body was hunched, face hidden from them. The tune of it’s heart was cracked, confused, in pain. Then, the rabbit turned, a hop towards them. Tumors hid the rabbit’s eyes completely, purple and pulsing like overripe fruit. Its whiskers quivered as though sensing them through the rot.

Althea cried out in horror, and Alenyah dismounted.

“Ally, don’t,” Berin tried to grab her, concerned, but she shook him off.

The blind face lifted, sensing her approach. A flurry of movement on the trees revealed gray squirrels running up and down the bark. At first glance they appeared perfectly healthy. Alenyah sighed, relieved. Then, she saw their movements. Muscles hitching and jerking. Pain radiating off tiny pelts like smoke. Some parasite writhing under their skin like a nest of worms. She couldn’t let this continue.

She knelt in the needles and shut her eyes, the faint rustle of corruption brushing against her mind like a cold, wet thread. Not like the fields. Not nearly as grand or deadly. But wrong in a quieter way like a wound that had festered so long it no longer hurt.

She inhaled.

And began to sing.

This song was not to be heard. It was older than speech, thrumming from the center of her chest, sending a ripple through the unseen weave between all living things. The pine branches overhead creaked. The corrupted creatures froze, listening.

Her Song wrapped around the nearest squirrels first, seeking out the flies burrowing through flesh. She wanted to heal, to ease suffering. She felt the discordant twisting rhythm of small hearts. She soothed it, unwinding the noise where she could, guiding its panic into rest. Permanently.

Soft thuds of the squirrels landed in a twenty foot radius around where she knelt.

“Maker,” she heard someone whisper behind her. Sorrow filled her. They would fear her now.

Her green eyes, blazing, opened. The rabbit’s heartbeat thrummed, fear tinged the air. The little thing was so much worse off than the squirrels. And with it’s panic, it wouldn’t stay still long enough to end its suffering.

She soothed it, unwinding the noise where she could, guiding its panic into rest. Her hand lifted. Her Song shifted, threads gathering like a closing fist. Then she gently coaxed it towards the rushing stream on their left.

As though compelled not by her hand, but by a mercy it recognized in its bones. It hopped toward the stream beside the trail, water glinting through the reeds.

Alenyah could feel the others watching with Her Song. Tavern looked away, and Foxran hummed with distrust and fear. Berin bowed his head, seeing firsthand what being a Singer truly looked like. Alenyah’s chest tightened. She guided its final steps with the gentlest whisper of Song, a hush of silence.

The rabbit slipped beneath the surface with barely a ripple.

When the small creature felt the urge to surface and breathed, she soothed the heartbeat and eased the burning of lungs until the splashing stopped.

The forest was silent, and the tension in her chest eased. She stood and brushed the forest detritus off her breeches.

When she finally looked up, the others were staring at her as though she’d stepped out of a nightmare.

Their expressions struck her harder than the corrupted creatures had.

Tavren’s eyes were lowered toward the stream, jaw tight with a grief they didn’t want her to see. Foxran’s hand hovered near his axe. Seth shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, gaze darting from her to the drowned rabbit and back again. Berin’s face was a knot of emotions she couldn’t unspool: sorrow, reverence, fear.

Fear.

Always fear.

Only Althea looked at her without flinching, though her eyes were round as moons. She pressed a hand to her mouth, as if unsure whether to thank Alenyah or weep for the little creature’s fate.

“There was no saving them,” Alenyah murmured. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what she was apologizing for. Was it the knowledge of who she was?

She cleared her throat. “We should keep moving,” she said, though the words felt thin, brittle. “The deeper we go, the worse it will be.”

Kaelen hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t moved. His eyes drifted from the stream, to the huddles of grey fur littering the forest floor. Valka trotted to her side, nudging Alenyah’s hand as if to remind her she wasn’t alone. The gesture nearly unraveled her composure.

Instead, she lifted her foot to the stirrup, swinging herself into the seat. Unlike she feels, she felt only slightly tired. The smaller the life force the less energy weaving the Song required. But here in these sickened woods? She was a single lone Fey’ri, and no Singer could heal that much evil alone.

Foxran cleared his throat. “I think you should go first,” he said pragmatically. Something almost like respect laced his tone. “You can feel any disturbance before it reaches us.”

“Keep a sharp eye,” she responded. “There are much more dangerous things than rabbits and squirrels here.”

And for the first time since Veilwatch, not one person argued with her.

By the fourth day, the forest felt crowded.

Not by people, by watchers. By shapes that scurried or perched or slithered just at the edges of sight. The deeper they pushed, the more the very air felt weighted, as though the corruption thickened with every step.

Foxes with limbs fused together, raccoons that chewed off their own limbs. Alenyah struggled because she did not have the time nor strength to help them all. Kaelen forced them to keep moving, unceasingly. She couldn’t tell if it was concern or impatience just that they could not stop for every suffering creature.

The others questioned her as a distraction, their voices soft and muffled in the heavy air.

“I can’t harm people,” Alenyah explained. The light was growing dimmer, appearing only as sudden shafts of light through the crowns of the trees. “It’s not like I can control everyone’s Song. I can only untwist what is off key. And the more sentience some possess, the more draining and difficult.”

“Wyrms aren’t that peaceful of a tune then?” Seth asked, eyes narrowed. Alenyah almost laughed.

“Not even close.”