Nassir slept, and I meditated.

The cabin was cold but I found an old blanket for Nassir to use. He was clearly worn out from his day's efforts to build up his magic. As he slept, I sat near the fire and focused.

One... Two... Three...

I was in my cabin. Doors and windows shut, now fearing the openings in my mind's cabin could be a way for DuVarick to find us.

Inside myself, I built up the fire I had managed to get back after burning through it all during my escape from Asher. Gently I held the flames and urged them to grow bigger and stronger. I still wasn't sure how strong I was. I seemed to burn every bit of it up as soon as I got it back. How deep did this well of magic go? How hot could I burn? How strong could it be?

Time passed, though I didn't know how much, while I sat there watching my flames. Eventually, I withdrew back to the real world around me. Frost webbed across the glass windows and my toes were terribly cold. I shivered, despite sitting right by the fire, and stood up. I tossed more wood on the fire and left a sleeping Nassir.

A run would warm up my blood, and I had been meaning to see the fate of my old home since we were so close to it. I had a feeling Thain wouldn't want me to go back, and maybe he would be right, but I just had to see it once more.

I borrowed an old grain sack to wrap around myself, since I was still missing my tunic. I used a tiny amount of my fire to keep warm as I trekked down the familiar path to a woodcutter's cabin down the mountain.

The walk was quiet, and eerie in the half-moonlight, but there wasn't anything here to be afraid of, not after what I had seen in the Wyldes.

Then again, that barrier was thinning. Maybe there were already things here that shouldn't be.

A chill ran up my back, I quickened my pace but I didn't turn back to Mila's cabin.

My heart was hammering in my chest by the time I reached the bend that would reveal Bryn's cabin. I wasn't sure what I wanted to see more, the cabin to be gone or for it to remain untouched as the day I left it.

Hints of a solid structure peered through the bare winter trees as I drew close. I bit my lower lip and held a breath as I rounded the last copse of pines and revealed a blackened husk.

I stopped in my tracks. "No..."

Falling to my knees, I clutched fistfuls of grass on either side of me to keep steady. It had been burned, but not fully.

I sucked in a breath and stood. I ran for the husk of a cabin that remained while I still had the courage to look at it. The ground had signs of many feet at it, and the door had been splintered open.

I walked inside and looked up. The loft was gone and where the roof should have been was just open sky. It was numbing to walk into the burned down cabin. I expected tears, but instead I felt empty. I didn't have enough in me to cry.

I walked carefully through the ash, trying not to slip and fall. Anything of value that I hadn't taken with me was gone. Our large cooking kettle, the furniture, the chest of extra bedding.

The fireplace remained mostly intact. The lower halves of all the walls did too, as though a rain or snow came through and put an end to the fire before it was entirely gone.

I felt something uneven under a boot, and when I lifted it I found a charred lump that had once been a carving of a bear. I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath, moving on.

The cabin had little left to it, so I went back outside and decided to walk the outside length instead.

The charred walls were a sad and lonely sight under the moon, surrounded by tall trees. I found more footprints that meant nothing to me, and the scrape of claws where a dog had run through the mud. But when I went around to the back side, near the fireplace, my heart sank.

There, a flat-ish river stone had been placed over blackened earth, and I knew it was for Bryn. The burning was much older than the cabin, and I approached the stone that had a crudely carved axe on it. They must have brought him here for his burning separately.

That's when the tears started. It wasn't the loud sobbing I had done the day he died, but a flow of silent tears that fell down my cheeks and dripped off my chin. I didn't think whoever burned the cabin was the same people who gave Bryn his burning, but I couldn't be sure either. No matter what the humans around here thought of me, they loved Bryn.

I looked around for a tribute for Bryn on the ground. Usually it was a precious rock or a gem if you could afford it. Since I had neither in my possession, I had to settle on an interesting brown rock. I gave it a kiss and placed it under the edge of the larger stone.

I walked away, feeling this place lift off my shoulders. Any remaining connection I had to these mountains was now gone for good.

I wiped my face and sighed, turning back the way I came. I rounded the remains of the cabin and left the clearing. I was numb to the cold, and since this would be my last trip through this part of the mountains I decided to take the longer, winding path back to Mila's. I walked past the stream I would bathe in. The last patch of oak wood Bryn and I had started clearing. We would have been clearing the rest of it about now, in the winter when the sap content was lower. I even walked past the small hill where Bryn had found me all those years ago, when something bright purple flashed to the side of my vision.

I whipped my head around, looking for whatever it was.

There, by the treeline was a small purple light. A witchlight. Mila had shown me one once. They were too flashy for most witches to use unless it was very important to pass on a message. If I was seeing a witch light, it was because I was supposed to see it.

I took a gentle step toward it when it dimmed quickly and disappeared from sight. No sooner did it fade, than another one showed itself several paces away, further in the trees.

I sped up.

So did the witchlight.

Soon I found myself trying to run without tripping over the mess of roots and branches on the forest floor. I ran deeper into the dark trees, up narrow deer paths I hadn't traveled before. Still the light persisted.

Brush and branches tore at my exposed skin as I grew desperate chasing the light. What witch would want to tell me something? Mila? Gilly? One of the southern mountain sisters?

Through the trees and up a slope, I desperately clung onto the rocks jutting out of the increasingly steep hillside as I used all four limbs to reach higher and higher.

The light finally danced on the very top of a small cliff side. I struggled to the top of it, and the witchlight went out.

I sat down, panting hard, and looking around me for what message I was supposed to find. Other than giving me a view of the treetops around me, there was nothing to see.

Disappointment sank like a stone in my belly as I fell back onto the dead winter grass. The moon hung low above me, sinking and making way for the sun to rise in a few hours. I watched it's slow journey through the sky as I thought about the witches in a new light.

Did Mila know Lark? Did she know Lark was my mother? How did she not sense I was part witch? Or maybe she did but she never told me for some reason.

And if Lark had a baby, why didn't her coven go looking for it? I knew how precious a witch child was to them.

Maybe I could try to find Mila after all this was over with. Maybe I should just leave the Wyldes for good. I could take Schula and we could get far far away from DuVarick and the Winter lands and everything else.

The midnight blue sky stared down at me. I felt the memory of a velvet skin under my fingertips and the rare sound of a deep laugh rumbling around my head.

I rolled over, away from the deep blue sky and away from intrusive thoughts of a certain blue fae. I wasn't sure what would happen between us if I had to flee the Wyldes.

Then, I saw it.

It was a curious stone. It was carved with a number of strange symbols and it was half-buried in the soil.

And it glowed a soft purple.

I snatched it from the ground and sat up wide-eyed as it glowed brighter and then-

I was standing on the cliff, my arms outstretched as I enjoyed the breeze. The sun was high overhead and my black dress billowed around my legs. A cawing bird overhead drew my attention, and I looked up to see a sleek black raven gliding in lazy circles above me. He circled down and landed on one of my outstretched arms as I giggled.

'Puko! Welcome back,' a voice that wasn't mine said.

The light flashed again.

I inspected the sapphire bracelet on my wrist, watching as the little stones caught the candlelight. It brought me both joy and sorrow to look at. I was in a tavern room, sitting in a dark corner with a very handsome figure on the other side of the table. He had a cloak drawn over most of his face but his smile was enough to melt any girl's heart, and a few gentlemen's too.

'Lark, my love,' he murmured. 'Come back with me to Eidelhein. I wish I had never let you leave in the first place. Surely the Mother never meant you to have this heartbreak. We can go back and build that greenhouse you wanted and forget this ever happened.'

I sighed and played absently with my wine glass. 'I can't just leave Nassir like that. There has to be a way to get him out of there.'

'You barely got out yourself,' the figure whispered. 'Please, I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you. We can get you back safely, and I'll come with a few warriors to get him out. We can bring him back to live with us, we can treat his eyes.'

I looked down and rubbed the growing bud that was my stomach. The warm thought of our future brought a smile to my face.

'Alright, my love. If you promise to come back for Nassir, I promise to come to Eidelhein. And there is something else I think we need to discuss...'

The light flashed a third time.

Weak from the sickness, I handed my sleeping baby to a dark, scarred man with concern in his eyes. I sat resting on the forest floor under my favorite tree.

'I can't come back without you, Lark,' he said. 'I will wait for you.'

'Do as I said!' I cried out desperately. 'Do not wait for me. The Mother calls me to her, but I have one last task before I can go. Lay her gently where I told you, and play the whistle. If I can give her nothing else, let them know her name. They will come, and they will call her Wren.'

The man steeled his face and nodded, before turning away. I watched him go, then I turned to Puko.

'I'm sorry, old friend. Please find Mila, she will take care of you,' I removed a small scroll from my pocket with labored breath and shaking hands. 'This will tell her what to do. Fly swiftly, fly safely.'

I kissed his beak and he nodded once, taking off in the dawn sky.

The light faded, and I stumbled backward on the cliff, barely catching myself before I fell. I sucked in a sharp breath and stared at the now lifeless stone in my palm.

If there was any doubt before, there wasn't now. Lark was my mother.

I tucked the rock into the top of my boot and ran for Mila's cabin. There was a reason Lark wanted me to see this, and I hoped Nassir might have some answers.