In this place, the land itself is trickery. It coils around her feet, shifting and reshaping and willing her to slip. It is a place between places, not water nor solid ground, never one thing or another. It is dependable only in its treachery. This is her home.

She seldom treads the same path twice. She scarcely notices her own footsteps – she moves by instinct and inspiration. Ritona will guide her. Ritona always guides her.

The fire is lit. She can see Bertram and another man in conversation. Holt. Perhaps Holt has brought some skins, some string, some stories from the village. It is always pleasant to hear what is happening in the world. But as she approaches, both men stand. Holt does not smile. He gives her a little nod, gathers his coat about him, and then he is striding away across the marshes.

Turning to her husband, she knows at once that something is wrong.

His mouth shapes her name – “Aefwine”, and then his face crumples and the tears are rolling down his cheeks. She goes to him, holds him. “My dear, my dear, hush now, my dear, and tell me what has happened.”

His shoulders are shaking. He cannot speak. She has not seen him like this in years. She kisses the crown of his head, tutting and cooing as one might for an infant.

At last, he summons the words he needs. “She’s dead, Aefwine. She’s dead.”

She feels it like a blow to the gut. Twenty years, twenty years of holding on, of telling herself Ritona would guide their daughter home one day. Twenty years, and now this.

“Tell me,” she says, gently.

Bertram’s words fall in fragments between heavy sobs. “Oh, Aefwine. She was… killed. She had done… terrible things. She wanted… she wanted everyone to die.”

No. No, that is not her child. “This is… not true.”

He shakes his head. “Holt was sure. The stories even mention her raven. She was a monster, they say, at the end.”

She feels the grief rising through her. She clings to him as the first wave breaks, and then her own tears are wetting his head. “How?” she hears herself ask. “How?”

“I… Holt couldn’t tell. Bad friends, bad gods, they say. I suppose she just… got in with the wrong company… and then….” His voice trails off.

The fire sputters. She will not let go of him; he is the only stable thing in the world. She cannot hold this sorrow by herself. My little girl, my little girl – what happened to you? She remembers a smiling, vibrant child, rowing out at the breaking of the dawn to see the kingfishers play. She remembers the wonder on her daughter’s face as they watched the tiny birds darting in and out of the water, green and gold in the half-light. “And you, you too will be beautiful someday, my dear, loved by every lord and lady in the land.” If only you’d never left. If only, if only….

How is she supposed to believe that her little girl could become something so wicked? It is too cruel, overwhelmingly cruel. But of course she knows the answer, though it breaks her heart – every monster was once a child.

Somewhere, perhaps, another mother is receiving news of her own daughter, killed saving the world from Aelindis. I am sorry. I am so sorry for what she did. But, oh gods, I wish I could be in your place right now.

They stand, locked in each other’s arms, as the fire burns down and the night is lost in the mists and every last tear is shed.

At last, he draws back, kisses her, brushes the moisture from her cheek. His eyes are fierce with sadness and strength. “I love you. I love you. We will weather this.”

And then the sky is full of birdsong. A little wisp of light comes darting across the marsh, a hob’s lantern, green and gold. It plays around the embers of the fire in bright circles, once, twice, before dying in the water at her feet.

In defiance of everything, a new day is dawning.