Even the following day, Casek’s clothes still hadn’t truly dried. His sodden boots, in particular, were a source of sharp misery. His buoyant mood had waned with the tree cover, with only sparse weeping willow left to break up the endless marshland, their dense, drooping branches reflecting his mindset.

  He tried to focus on the rhythm of chewing the piece of stale resin swirling in his mouth, as within his subconscious, he cut free another piece of the Drau, despite its best efforts to sway him. Its well of power had been drained almost to completion, with only the dregs remaining, its surface now nearly as still and serene as Tauph’s.

  Unfortunately, this left his own mind at fever pitch, as the Drau’s magic did everything it could to get his concentration to slip.

  Its voice in his mind screamed and howled, and the pain in his temple had become so great, it felt as though someone were driving a stake directly through it by hand.

  That might be better, he groused, and caught a distinct flutter of sympathy from Tauph.

  Only a little longer, Casek, and it will be gone. Half a day, I’d say. Raelynn warned you this would be the worst of it—it’s dying gasp.

  She had. That didn’t make it any easier to bear, though. Any chance you think I could speed it up a little?

  Not a chance. Remember, that’s what it’s hoping for. You siphon off too much at once, and it has an opening.

  He sighed and stepped round an especially sloppy segment of thick mud. This, of course, was the other ever-present danger of their trek through the marshes. The bog sprawled out in every direction around them; large marshy lakes, lined with thick reed beds and rushes, lay placid between unbroken stretches of tacky mud.

  Each step was just as likely to suck you in, knee deep, as it was to take your weight, and there was precious little way of telling for sure where was safe to tread. Oddly, he was managing better than Raelynn, and for the first time, he was leading them with her following close behind, tracing his steps exactly.

  He swore as his left foot passed straight through what he thought was solid ground, leaving him knee deep in the mud. Raelynn helped haul him free, and they trudged on, the mud beneath each step clinging onto their boots just fiercely enough to be draining.

  Miles passed before they saw a landmark to differentiate this part of the marsh from another. A small shack, made from rickety planks of aged wood, and built upon stilts raising it up above the moisture of the bog below. A small set of wooden stairs, rotting and crumbling, led up to a collapsed door. Casek frowned, as he peered at the surprisingly good condition of the place.

  Unbidden, his mind summoned images of pine resin-curing timber for longevity in damp conditions. Still, even allowing that the curing process would have allowed the cabin to stand intended for centuries, the prickling familiarity of the place told Casek it was older than even that.

  This place should not still be standing.

  “What do you think?” he called back to Raelynn.

  “I think we should be very careful. This seems far too inviting for it not to be on purpose.”

  “Do we ignore it, then?”

  Raelynn grimaced. “No. It’s a good trap for a reason—it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. Food? Books, even? Gods, we have found foci in stranger places than this. It would be negligent for me to ignore this as a Binder.”

  “We could come back,” he suggested. “With some of your companions, once we’ve freed them?”

  “Something we find here might come in useful during the rescue. Besides, once we have Idris, we won’t be coming back this way.”

  “Okay,” Casek muttered. “Headfirst into the potentially deadly trap it is. Is there any plan here—besides ‘hoping for the best?’”

  Raelynn tilted her head, the corners of her mouth turning ever so slightly upward. “Huh. Never would have pegged you for a coward.”

  “Common sense isn’t cowardice,” he said. “Stupid-brave is, in fact, usually just stupid.”

  Raelynn chuckled, pulling level with him. “Point taken. Look, it’s a risk, and given the state of that place, the rewards aren’t likely to be great. But you’re walking through this marsh in crumbling, soaked through boots and rags. Even if it’s just an extra blanket or something, we’re hard-up enough that it’ll be worth our while. We’ve been lucky with the weather so far. That won’t last.”

  He hadn’t considered the potential of new clothing. Even now, he could feel the holes in his boots, and they had been growing daily. Attempts to keep his only shirt and trousers clean had also failed spectacularly, and he was increasingly conscious of the biting chill in the air come the afternoon. There was no telling how much travelling was left to do, or even what the weather would do next, and he was clad, essentially, in rags.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “Fine,” he muttered, “but you’re going in there first.”

  Raelynn smirked and quickened her pace to pull ahead of him as they approached the base of the stairs. Casek activated his weapon at the same time as her, and Raelynn raised a black boot and pressed it down on the first step, testing its structural integrity.

  When nothing gave way beneath her, she climbed, testing each step carefully as she kept her eyes fixed on the doorway. Casek followed her movements, but also scanned their surroundings, in case something decided to try to take advantage of their distraction.

  Only when they reached the top of the stairs did anything stir from inside. A rush of Shades swarmed from the musty interior of the shack, gibbering and frenzied, and each met their end at the tip of a sword. The pair dispatched the last of them with ritual ease, and Raelynn nodded to him before stepping inside the ruined doorway.

  Casek followed, teeth grinding.

  Inside had been homely once. Humble, but well-loved. A child’s drawings lined the walls, the parchment they had been drawn on now yellowed and decrepit, looking as though it might crumble to the touch. At the sides of the room, various boxes and dressers lay, covered in a millennia of dust and cobwebs, but appearing on the surface, at least, to be as sturdy as the day they had been built.

  That, too, should not have been possible.

  Raelynn moved straight for these, pulling open drawers and beginning to unceremoniously rifle through what had once been somebody’s life. Casek’s hands began to tremble as his eyes wandered to the centre-right of the room, where a rusted kettle hung over a long-dead fire, ash and half-spent fuel still at the base. On a small table before it stood a table, slightly uneven, with two moth-eaten and ragged cushions just before it.

  Lying on top and riddled with dust were the unclean wooden plates of the last meal the people that lived here ever ate.

  Raelynn muttered away to herself, itemising the things she was finding and cataloguing their usefulness as Casek finally allowed his eyes to wander to the very back of the cabin. To the thing he had been trying to avoid looking at again since he’d stepped through the threshold.

  At the very back, a pair of beds lay, just as time-ruined and crumbling as the rest of the place.

  The first, the smaller of the two, lay still-made and empty, ragged blankets still neatly tucked beneath its straw blanket. Upon the other, larger bed, two figures lay unmistakably intertwined in a last embrace.

  Casek’s feet were moving against his will, pulling him towards the back of the shack, heart thundering in his ears.

  Oh, Gods. Casek…

  He barely registered Tauph’s voice as he approached the bed, and the sight of the two skeletal figures filled his mind. An adult man, a father, had died, his arms wrapped around his dead or dying child. They had died together, these two, and the rusted knife in the man’s hand told him exactly how.

  His eyes drifted upward, to a scrawled carving on the shack’s wall, a final message from a man a very long-time dead.

  They have us surrounded now. I can see them in the water, and behind the trees. At night, they even come right to the steps. They haven’t the courage or numbers to climb them yet, but it’s only a matter of time. We haven’t heard from the wood-folk for months, nor any town. No help is coming. We have no food, no clean water. I Can’t leave to get any without being taken.

  I won’t let them have Catelyn. I’ve seen what they do. I won’t allow that to happen to my girl. Mixed henbane and bryony through the last of our food. She won’t feel what I must do now.

  Gods forgive me, for I never can.

  Casek shook, as hot tears stung at his eyes. I knew these people, didn’t I?

  Yes.

  Raelynn stepped beside him then, eyes soft as she looked down at the figures on the bed.

  “You see this, sometimes, outside of the city. People knew what was coming. Some ended things on their own terms. I won’t tell you it gets easier, but you do get desensitised to it. Come on, let’s move. I’ve gathered some supplies. We shouldn’t test our luck.”

  Raelynn made for the door, and Casek’s teeth ground painfully, jaw muscles twitching at his cheeks.

  “No.” He ground out, eyes never leaving the bodies.

  “What?”

  “I said no,” he insisted. “I won’t leave these people here like this.”

  Raelynn blinked slowly, aghast. “You can’t be serious. Look, I get it, I really do—but we don’t have the time. What would you do, bury them out there? We’re too close to nightfall already, and we still haven’t made camp.”

  Casek shook his head, instinct telling him that burying would have been wrong, even if it was dangerous. “We need to burn them.”

  “That’s even worse!” Raelynn exclaimed, pitch rising ever so slightly. “Every Shadowspawn for miles around will see it. It’s an absurd risk.”

  It was true, and he knew it. But he couldn’t let this go. These were not just strangers. He couldn’t picture their living faces, nor could he remember the sound of their voice, but every fibre of his being screamed at him that these people had known him. Had been friendly, even.

  Allowing his heart to rule his mind was dangerous, and there was no room for sentimentality when there was a job to be done. He knew that. He just didn’t care.

  “If you won’t help, you’ll have to go on without me. I’m doing this.”

  Raelynn’s eyes narrowed, and the heady weight of her power filled the room. It seemed to shrink around them, making the shack feel far too small for the two of them to stand in it together.

  “I won’t let you jeopardize the chances of saving lives for this, Casek. We leave. Now.”

  “You’re free to drag me away from here—I couldn’t stop you,” he said, meeting her gaze with a steely look of his own. “But if you want your friends free, you need me alive and, crucially, willing.”

  Her eyes widened, furious, and she stalked out of the shack without another word. Her power dissipated along with her presence, and Casek sank to his knees as its weight disappeared from his shoulders.

  We’d best hurry, Tauph muttered. As much as I can appreciate what you’re trying to do, Raelynn wasn’t wrong. We need to be going.

  Casek sighed. He’d dug himself a fine hole trying to do what felt right—now it was time to see if he could dig himself out again.