The bushes in the Glade spilled over with berries, even some which should have been out of season months ago. Bathed in the glow, I ate my fill and drank from the bubbling water. Cool, but not cold. One moon still lingered in the inky sky but I couldn’t wait any longer. Big day ahead. A couple of owls watched me as I scanned the horizon: I could just about make out three mountaintops among the low stars, and if I was right, I’d need to trek a couple hundreds through the forest on a route I didn’t know, never mind the luxury of a path. I wrapped the cloak over my robe and hauled my kit onto my shoulders, and considered hoping I didn’t run into any bears, wolves, or worse. No: I was a Forester and I was ready to fight like the hells if I needed. They’d better hope they didn’t run into me.

  So I walked.

  And I thought of what I’d say.

  And I trusted myself among the endless dark of the forest, the eternal labyrinth of the trunks and branches, trekking and slipping across the boundless grey snow. I trusted myself to know what I was doing and where I was going.

  And I walked.

  *

  Dreadfall was almost pretty in the early daybreak. Almost. Before everyone was awake for the day, when the roads are quiet and empty and no one’s causing any problems. Without all that, perhaps it could be redeemed one day. A few birds chirruped and cooed in the first silvery hints of light, and maybe Calico was among them. If she was, she’d see me long before I saw her anyway. She’d know what I was up to. She’d always kept an eye on me.

  I walked down the middle of the desolate streets. Not like anyone here noticed me unless I was stealing something. I turned towards the nicer houses, those whose walls were all arguably vertical. The one I was looking for emerged like a name I hadn’t uttered in years. Too long a time. Not since we shared the night in the backyard on his eighteenth birthday.

  The gate creaked open like a cat who didn’t appreciate being woken up. I lingered on the path. Someone had swept it clear of snow. Who took the duty now? Not Omen. I lingered longer. Not knowing was the worst part. Went to pick at my jaw, managed to stop myself: it’s not what he would have wanted. Finally I heard movement within the house. So I knocked on the door.

  Mrs Halestrom was the kind of woman they talked about in campfire tales down the generations. Her face was a constellation of scars. Before I’d even opened my mouth, she’d called her husband to the door in that voice people only ever used for times like these. And in that same voice I told them. They stood strong. She wobbled, he wobbled, but together they stood. And when they asked for details, I told them he’d been a hero till the very last day. Memories span in a whirlwind round my mind: the month I’d spent unknowingly treating him near-mummified in bandages, how broken he’d looked when he’d been unwrapped, the shock of the sight of him every time I saw him, and yet through it all he persisted. How hard he worked to regain his strength. The awe I felt over the progress he made. How he’d even worked out a way to be somewhat at ease with a new path in life. Everything he’d rebuilt for himself, until… “You should have seen him. These past couple of months, he’s been stronger than I’ve ever known him. Inspirational to those around him to improve themselves and he fought so bravely until his final moments.” I was no longer myself on their doorstep: I was the messenger, doing what had to be done. Telling them how he should be remembered. “Heroic all the way.”

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  They pulled each other close for a moment, and half of me thought about the rest of the plan, but their voices pulled me back: “What happened in the end?”

  Words danced on the tip of my tongue. I longed more than anything to tell them to instead ask Oldfield when they saw him next. I saw the argument break out, I saw how one side would set the other’s house alight and have their own torched in return. I saw the entire town split along the division of which families were losing loved ones to the war, and which ones were content to cheer it on regardless of any personal suffering. I saw fire, fire, endless fire until there was no Dreadfall left to burn. And I desired it with an infernal passion, seeing every last thing here razed to the ground, but… what good would that do? Would it help those who were hurting? The cycles had to be broken and no one else was gonna do it. “He got pushed at the wrong moment,” I said. I chose kindness. “He’d been carrying too much, or else he would have caught himself.”

  “We had carts and wagons back in the day,” she said disparagingly, painting a stoic face over the strain. “Did Oldfield lose them when he took over?”

  “I think we ought to remember Omen as he lived, and not for a moment of misfortune.” Choosing kindness hurt. “He showed incredible strength wherever he went, and never let himself get beaten down.” That was half the problem. “He was a hero in many ways to many people. A miracle of starlight, I heard someone say.”

  They were taking the bad news in that traditional Forester way: poorly. Faces undulating like they were wrapping their tear ducts in a vicious chokehold. They said I must have set off at such a time to make it here by dawn, invited me in, and I stepped in from the cold but declined a drink. Even this early, in this town, it could have a proof to it. I heard the bounding of two smaller sets of feet and I readied to make a quick escape up the stairs. I didn’t want to be down here when that conversation happened. Oleander and Laurel slid in and I slid out. Running away again? I decided I was allowed this one exception. So here I stood in Omen’s room, and I knew if I froze, I’d listen to the muffled words, and if I listened…

  I dug an old shirt from my kit and opened the window and began sweeping the fine grey patina of dust from his shelves and shelves of medals, all the snapped and broken weapons propped up like trophies, the coarse sheets of a well-made bed, and all the way to the corner of the floor where five pairs of boots lined up in size order: from barely old enough to walk, to ones he must have left behind a few months ago. If I stopped, I’d cry. I couldn’t cry. I had too much to do later. I ran the shirt down the outside of the wardrobe and levered the doors open to dust inside too. I’d seen him in most of the clothes and that was fine, yet the one coat pushed away to the side sparked a memory so vivid I had to prop myself up.

  The beer stain still proud by the shoulder. On the night of his eighteenth, he’d kissed me, twice, and in the aftermath he’d spilled half a beer there. Right there. I remembered now. I hadn’t seen that coat again and for a while, I wondered, and then I let it filter away. Now here it was. Pushed on its own to the side of the rail.

  Why had he never cleaned it up?

  The air slipped from my chest and I slipped backwards and my hands found the wall and I was so lost I barely registered the noise, not a muffled conversation but something much closer, the tuneful tweets of a bird, a bird that had found its way to the window sill. I slid down the wall and the bird watched me. A four-winged mystral regarding me with that innocent curiosity only birds could manage. Calico, watching over me the way she always had done. Sitting with me. Like she understood. My fingers grasped at fragments which together might give me an answer, the answer, and I clutched it close to my chest. She watched over me as I cried as hard as I ever had.