Witchsign. Den Patrick

The Empire mean to take my brother.

      The kitchen door rattled on its hinges and blew open, smashing into the kitchen counter behind it. The fire in the grate was swept up and cinders and ashes swirled about the dim chamber, an angry blizzard of grey and radiant embers. An old rag was blown about like a discarded flag of surrender. Marek and Verner stumbled backwards, one of them calling out in alarm. Kjellrunn fled the kitchen, her eyes shut tight, almost tumbling through the door and out into the street.

      Marek was at the door coughing, reaching after her, but she retreated from the man who used the truth so sparingly when it meant so much.

      ‘Kjell, please. You don’t know what it does to a person.’ His voice was a harsh whisper, afraid of being overheard on the quiet street. ‘Over time the body rejects the arcane, or is burned up by it. I’ve seen people turned to stone, petrified for all time.’

      ‘I won’t let them take him,’ she said, loud enough that a few curtains twitched in the neighbouring windows.

      She sprinted down the street, glad to be away from the smithy and the smell of metal and fire, glad to be away from the low-ceilinged kitchen and the over-large table. And though she was loath to admit it, she was glad to be away from people, even her own father, her own uncle. People. She’d rather have the company of trees and her own restful solitude.

      The wind howled, given voice by the jagged cliffs. It wailed and sang, filling Kjellrunn’s senses with a deep unease. She squinted through a flurry of grey snow, finding her way through the drab town, slinking through side streets and shadows so she might avoid the patrols of Imperial soldiers.

      The winding roads were almost completely dark at this time of night and she’d fled without torch or lantern to light her way. Slivers of illumination spilled from windows, ribbons of glowing gold shining from the cobbles or glittering on the snows. How many families lived in Cinderfell, she wondered? How many families lived in these shuttered cottages? How many people with nothing to consume their thoughts but the simple pressure of existence? Where to work? Where to find food, find comfort, find peace? Here they slept, these simple families, beneath thatched roofs, untroubled by old secrets and unearthly powers. Only the howling wind and the ever-present cold troubled them, and Kjellrunn felt a deep wellspring of envy.

      Bjørner’s tavern was a beacon in the darkness, light streaming from windows, declaring a welcome to any who might climb the steep street leading to its door. Kjellrunn’s teeth chattered as she pushed herself onward. She had no desire to be here, but it was the only place she could think of where Steiner might seek refuge. A burst of laughter sounded from inside, though it sounded coarse and unfriendly, and the smells that greeted her were no different. She wrinkled her nose as she lifted the latch on the door, pressing her shoulder against it.

      ‘Everything seems coarse and unfriendly tonight,’ she muttered to herself, willing the courage to look for Steiner and find him and bring him home.

      She had no sooner placed one tentative foot across the threshold of the tavern when the wind gusted in behind her, blowing the door wide open. All eyes in the tavern turned to her and chagrin made her small as she struggled to close the door. No one moved to help her, no one spoke.

      Bjørner came out from behind the bar, hands fussing with a cloth, struggling for a serious expression if Kjellrunn had to guess, though she hadn’t missed the shock in his eyes as she’d entered.

      ‘Kjellrunn Vartiainen,’ was all he said, and still no one spoke. Håkon the butcher stood behind the tavern owner and two dozen faces all gawped, mouths open, like fish caught up in nets and just as stuck.

      ‘I’m looking for my brother,’ she said, though the silence of the room made her words sound frail and weak.

      ‘He’s not welcome here,’ said Bjørner. ‘And neither are you, Kjellrunn.’

      ‘Has anyone seen him?’ She turned to the room, trying to make eye contact with any one of them, but they all turned to their drinks or cast guilty glances at their boots. ‘Has anyone seen Steiner?’ she said, and now her voice was loud, too loud in the strangling quiet of the tavern.

      ‘Best you head home now, girl,’ said Håkon, rubbing one hand over his huge beard.

      Kjellrunn looked around desperately. ‘Someone must have seen him.’

      ‘You need to go now,’ repeated Bjørner. He stood a little taller now with Håkon beside him.

      Kjellrunn glared at them, then held up four fingers. ‘Go to Hel, all of you can go to Hel for all I care.’ The door slammed after her and she stalked down the street trailing curses.

      Marek and Verner were waiting for her when she returned. They had built up the fire and swept out the ashes, but made a bad job of it as men are wont to do. A lantern had been lit and the room had a cosy glow to it after the bright light and stark truth of the tavern.

      He’s not welcome here, and neither are you, Kjellrunn. Had Bjørner meant the tavern, or all of Cinderfell?

      ‘You didn’t find him then,’ said Verner. He looked strange, with his beard fringed in milk. A steaming mug sat before him and another before Marek.

      ‘Why are you drinking hot milk like old women?’ she replied. ‘I would have thought you’d be well into the mead by now.’

      ‘Mind your mouth,’ growled Marek. ‘No good comes of getting drunk at a time like this. It’s a cold night is all. Perhaps if you keep a civil tongue in your head you can have some too.’

      Kjellrunn dragged a chair out and slumped into it, crossed her arms on the table and rested her head on her forearms.

      ‘Where did you go?’ asked Verner softly.

      ‘To Bjørner’s, of course,’ replied Kjellrunn, not looking up. ‘Where else?’

      ‘Not much of a welcome there, I suspect,’ said Verner.

      ‘There won’t be much of a welcome anywhere after this,’ said Marek. ‘We’ll be lucky not to be run out of town.’

      ‘Why is the witchsign regarded as a bad thing?’ asked Kjellrunn. ‘I’m hardly a great danger, am I? A girl of sixteen who can predict the weather.’

      ‘You’ve heard the tales, Kjell,’ said Verner. ‘You’ve been asking me for stories of dragons and the arcane for as long as I can recall.’

      ‘But surely that’s all they are. Stories. The dragons have been dead for nearly a hundred years—’

      ‘Seventy-five,’ said Marek, pouring hot milk from the pan into a mug.

      ‘Longer than living memory,’ replied Kjellrunn, determined to make her point.

      ‘There are those who remember the war, Kjell,’ said Marek. ‘And those whose fathers fought in it passed their memories to their sons.’

      ‘But the witchsign as something dangerous?’ Kjellrunn frowned. ‘That’s just old tales, embellished by time.’

      ‘Embellished,’ said Verner, and grinned. ‘She even speaks like her mother.’

      ‘She certainly doesn’t get her vocabulary from me,’ said Marek. Kjellrunn slipped her chilled fingers around the mug and felt the warmth.

      ‘The Empire blames the emergence of the arcane on the dragons,’ said Marek. ‘And for that they will not rest until all trace of it is scoured from the world.’

      ‘Even if it means murdering children?’ asked Kjellrunn, her thoughts straying to Steiner, though he could hardly be mistaken for a child these days.

      ‘Even if it means murdering children,’ replied Marek. ‘There is nothing they will not do to keep the arcane out of the hands of commoners and serfs.’

      Kjellrunn drank and drank deep, but there was a bitter note to the milk that caused her to hesitate. Marek and Verner continued to sup and stare at the fire, as if