Chronicles of the Moon Quill

Erwin stands over a makeshift grave, dug by young, inexperienced hands. A little to his left stands a small girl who looks about nine. Her fair skin, with a pearly sheen like the inside of a seashell, is even paler now, though that hardly seems possible. Hair the colour of wet sand hides her face, hiding her fear and shock from the world. She presses against his side, her small hands clutching the fabric of his cloak near his wrist.

Erwin clenches his right hand into a fist. Drops of fae blood fall slowly from it. This will be the first of many scars he will take by his own choice.

Dawn begins to break. The only sounds are the murmur of a stream and the quiet crying of a child who was almost robbed of her freedom. They stand like that until the first ray of light spills over the hill and falls across his back.

And his back explodes with pain.

The old scars on his shoulder blades, which have ached before every storm for nine winters, split open like a badly stitched wound. Erwin doesn’t even have time to breathe. Something tears its way from the inside out, breaking through his skin, slowly, as if on purpose, and with every moment the sun climbs higher and burns hotter. The Twilight Court receive their wings at sunset, when the light is fading and it doesn’t hurt to look at it. His come at dawn, in a stranger’s hour, beneath a light that runs like red-hot wire through every new vein of the membrane.

He falls to his knees beside the uneven mound. The blood from his cut palm and the blood from his back mingle on the fresh earth. The girl doesn’t let go of his cloak. She cries and holds on, holds on with all her strength, as if, should she let go, he would be taken too.

When the sun has fully risen, two enormous dark wings unfurl behind him, wet with blood, too large to be real. And where the drops fell from his fist, the first shoots of a beautiful and dangerous plant push up through the soil. At first glance it enchants with its elegance and proclaims its own grandeur. Many obsessed fools who longed to possess it regretted it the instant they touched it with a fingertip, and afterwards, catching themselves on the rose’s thorns, stained its white, untouched petals with their own blood. Such is the magic of the flower that embodies the Briar Court.

Silently, without a word, Erwin lifts the child in both arms and, hissing through his teeth, starts walking south along the Gloamwood, which stretches along the entire western edge of the Tide Court. A full day’s journey lies ahead of them: with the wounds on his back still bleeding, they cannot make it any faster. All that is left is to put every ounce of effort into staying on his feet and not losing consciousness.

The girl wraps her arms around Erwin’s neck and, burying her face in his shoulder, begins to fall asleep. He feels her breathing grow calm and peaceful.

After a couple of hours on the road, they come upon the longest river in all the lands of the fae courts. The Hush runs fast over the stones, dark and cold, here in its upper reaches only four strides wide, maybe five. The water beats against the boulders and foams white.

It flows out of the great waters, and the locals call it “the sea’s younger sister”. It has been called the Hush since ancient times. It makes the usual sounds of a river, but the people of the Tide never raise their voices on its banks. Whoever shouts by the Hush risks losing their voice forever, and with it the greatest treasure the people of these dangerous lands possess.

Sounds and voices are the local currency. With them one can pay for pearls, for a ship, and for a secret, because the sea knows every secret there is, even the most carefully hidden. In these lands, secrets that the fae have been forgetting since time immemorial will always be kept in its depths.

The waters can take anyone’s voice, if they so choose. Among sailors especially, there are daredevils who dare to raise their voices during a storm. Sometimes the sea doesn’t take the most precious thing they have. But if anyone, whoever they may be, sings during a storm, the sea will take its payment. First the voice; one can live without it for a while. If they try to sing, only the splash of waves comes from their throat, white crystals of salt appear on their lips, and every morning there is salt on their pillow. Then come the worst, final weeks, and sometimes only days, for the offender: little by little, they lose their breath. First there are lumps in the throat, like stones under the water, that make it hard to swallow. Later, at night, something gurgles in the chest like water in a grotto. And the last stage: those final possible breaths, like being under the sea. The one drowning on dry land leaves their body behind, while their soul goes into the sea and finds peace forever.

And now, still silent and breathing heavily, Erwin decides that in his current state he won’t be able to swim across, and he doesn’t want to get the child wet either. The only option left is to try to fly. He walks to the edge of the river, closes his eyes for a moment, listens to the current, feels the ground beneath him. He remembers how the other young fae of the Court where he grew up soared over the cliffs, how elegant and at the same time predatory it looked. The only difference is that they went through long years of flight training. They were taught. Erwin has had no time to learn anything in these few short hours.

The girl opens her eyes and turns her head back, looking at the river, still without making a sound.

“Hold on tight,” he says. His voice is hoarse, as if it belongs to someone else. “And don’t look down.”

The girl’s fingers dig into the fabric of his cloak, and she squeezes her eyes shut, trusting herself completely to this fae.

He steps back three paces: with a short run-up, he should be able to push off hard enough to clear the river. His back pulls; the new membranes on his shoulders are heavy. He doesn’t know yet how they work, only that they are there.

He runs, jumps, and the wings open on their own before he has time to think. He beats them once in the air and manages to fly a little way. He tries to do it again, but the agonising pain drains his strength; his right wing shoots with pain worst of all. Acting on instinct, he folds his wings and drops from about five metres above the ground. He lets go with his left arm, the one under the child’s knees, and holds her tighter with his right. He stretches out his free hand and lands on his knees on the far bank, catching hold of the earth just in time to keep from falling face-first into the dirt.

They have made it across the river. Ahead lies a quiet path through the forest: all they have to do is follow the trail and not even glance toward the pines.

“You flew,” the little fae girl whispers.

Erwin doesn’t have the strength for a single word. After catching his breath, he rises from his knees and keeps moving, holding to the right path.

* * *

Erwin stops at the very edge of the light falling from the windows.

The girl has been asleep in his arms for the last hour: warm, light, her eyelashes still wet with tears. Her small fist still grips the edge of his cloak, as if she’s afraid he’ll vanish if she lets go.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “We’re here.”

She doesn’t open her eyes right away. First she frowns, then breathes in through her nose (smoke, salt, fish stew) and suddenly goes taut in his arms like a bowstring.

Erwin kneels on one knee and sets her down on the ground.

His wings, heavy and alien, settle behind him on the wet grass. He still hasn’t learned how to hold them up. All day they have dragged behind him, catching on branches and pulling him back, as if they wanted to return to where they came from. To the place where he got them.

The girl stands still for a second, looking at the door. Then she turns back to him, as if asking permission.

“Go,” Erwin says.

And she runs.

Her bare heels slap against the wet boards of the porch. The copper cauldron above the door sways and hums. The door flies open so hard it bangs against the wall, and light, warmth and someone’s voice burst out from inside, breaking off mid-word.

“Pa-a-apa!”

Erwin slowly rises and follows her. Not because he wants to. Because that is the rule: a blade who has carried out a sentence must show himself to the one who swore the oath.

The tavern is crowded and hot. The fishermen at the long tables freeze, some with spoons halfway to their mouths, some with mugs in hand. It smells of stew and smoke, nets hang from the walls, and the firelight trembles in the green glass of the fishing floats.

Brann is on his knees in the middle of the room. He holds his daughter so tightly that she squeaks, and rocks with her like a boat on a wave. His shoulders are shaking. His broad hands, scarred from the nets, stroke her tangled hair, her cheeks, her shoulders, as if checking that all of her is really here.

Erwin stays by the door. Water drips from his cloak onto the threshold.

Brann doesn’t look up right away. And when he does, his gaze travels over Erwin from head to toe: the dark stains on his sleeves, the blade at his belt, the enormous black wings, too big for the doorway. He looks at the wings the longest.

“Twilight,” Brann says hoarsely.

“The Twilight Court,” Erwin answers. “A godfather’s oath was broken. The debt has been collected. The one who took her will never take anyone again.”

Someone in the room draws a sharp breath. Brann doesn’t ask who it was. Maybe he already knows. Maybe he doesn’t want to know.

He slowly gets to his feet, still holding his daughter.

“I swore,” he says, and his voice grows firmer. “I swore before one of your own blades. Whoever brings my daughter back to me alive will eat at my table for as long as my house stands. Free. Always.”

“You owe me nothing. I was carrying out the Circle’s orders.”

“I swore,” Brann repeats. “And oaths, as your people like to say, cannot be taken back.”

Erwin finds nothing to say. The Twilight Court really does say that. He has said it many times himself, just never about himself.

“Twilight has heard,” he says at last.

The girl peeks out from behind her father’s shoulder and looks at him. Not with fear, the way everyone else is looking at him, but with a stubborn, shining curiosity, as if he weren’t an executioner covered in someone else’s blood, but someone out of a fairy tale.

By the window, over a half-mended net, sits a lanky boy of about eighteen. Hair the colour of wet sand, tied back with a cord, salt freckles across his nose. He never lowers his needle; he just watches, quietly and closely. No one in the tavern is looking at him.

Erwin wants to say something more. That he’ll come back to eat later. That he has to go to the Nests, to the Circle, with the feather. That...

The floor tilts.

It takes him a moment to realise it isn’t the floor that’s tilting, but him. The firelight swims and runs down the walls, the voices go muffled, as if heard through water. His wings suddenly drag him backwards, heavy, alien, unbearable, and his knees stop obeying him.

The last thing he feels is someone’s hands catching him before he hits the floor.

And then everything goes dark.