“I’m coming with you.” 

Eirlys looked up from packing away her tools, shoulders bowed under the weight of an invisible burden. The anger in her burned like the fire of a wrathful god, but she softened as she looked into her son’s eyes. “You know that this means taking up arms against your father, Viljami,” she said quietly. “I am going to war.”

“I…” The young man sucked in a deep breath, fear easily visible on his face. “I know. I’ve talked it over with Ritva. I want to go with you.” 

Eirlys set aside her pack and stepped towards him, framing his face in forge-roughened hands. “I’m sorry. I wish you didn’t have to make such a choice, but I will never turn you away.”

Viljami nodded, jaw tightening as he thought of their future. His father was locked in negotiations with some of the landholders to the south and would be out of Sjaligr for a time, enough for them to leave without his knowledge. “Sabine and Ritva are going to stay with…Luukas.” He said his father’s name with strain instead of any familiarity, hardening himself to the days to come.

“I know.” Eirlys pulled her son into a fierce hug. “I know we have quarrelled, but I am proud of the man you want to become.”

Viljami nodded. “We will find her,” he promised his mother. “I…was not the brother she needed.” 

I hate you! Void take you all!

Those venom-filled words echoed in his mind often, particularly when he remembered Mara charging into the jaws of the accursed beast to save him. He had given her every reason on earth and under heaven to hate him, and yet she had bolted forward without a second thought. Remorse was an emotion Viljami Storm-Born now knew like the palm of his own hand. 

Eirlys smiled at her son. “You can be,” she said gently. 

“That...that thing that she fled with…” Viljami’s words halted slightly as he stepped back from his mother. “It was a demon, wasn’t it?” 

His mother’s expression turned stony. “It was. Sammael, the Venom of God.”

“You know the creature?” He picked up his mother’s pack, shouldering it and glancing over. His movements had a nervous energy now. Viljami had trained to fight many beasts, but never a demon.

The older woman ran her hand over her hair, catching strands of silver in with the blonde and red. “I encountered it once before,” Eirlys said in a low voice. “Of all the demons in the world, I think it is the most dangerous.” 

Viljami fought down a shudder as he thought of those obsidian eyes. “How did you meet it? What did it want?” 

Eirlys was quiet for a long moment, weighing her words carefully. “I don’t know what it intended. I remember little of our meeting.” She pulled in a deep breath and looked directly into her son’s eyes. “It was when Mara slept beneath my heart. I was so very ill.”

He froze. “Is that why she breaks spells? She really is tainted by sorcery?” It made a horrible amount of sense.

“Does it matter?” Eirlys asked. She touched Viljami’s shoulder with her fingertips. “I need to know if you will fight for her, whatever that thing did. If there is any doubt in your heart, stay with your father.” 

Viljami seemed to thaw at that, determination settling into his features. “She faced a monster for me. How can I not do the same?” 

The soft sound of a sword being drawn cut through their conversation. Eirlys and Viljami turned to see the tall, proud figure of a spell-knight in their way, his lips twisted into cruelty. 

“Gareth,” Eirlys said curtly, hand settling onto her own blade’s hilt. “You are not going to stop me.” 

Viljami’s uncle glared, leveling the blade at her. “I will bury you, wife of my brother. I do not care what Luukas says. You nursed a poison and let it flourish. The deaths that came are on your hands.” 

The young man stepped between his mother and uncle, face settling into the hardness it was accustomed to. “Mara is my sister, not a poison.” 

“How you have changed your tune, Storm-Born,” Gareth said with stabbing disapproval. “You know better. I taught you better.” 

“You taught my son cruelty,” Eirlys said, a fire blazing in her blue eyes. “You taught him hatred. A plague on you and your brother, Gareth Earth-Cleaver. I am leaving Sjaligr and when I return, it will be with an army.” 

Before Gareth could speak to mock or challenge her, Eirlys surged forward like a crashing wave, slamming her shield into his side. Gareth spun, hooking the edge of her shield, but by the time he moved to strike, Eirlys was past him and accelerating. 

Viljami sprinted after his mother, catching her with both arms as the surging wave of stone from behind tried to smash them to pieces against the wall. He focused his power and pivoted back to face Gareth. His hands clapped together with a thunderous boom, a wall of howling gale springing from his fingertips as he channeled the storm with a few sharp words of incantation. It hit the smashing rock with barely enough force to stop the assault short. Gareth’s earth-shaping was mastery in motion, but Viljami’s raw power, even with less training, was difficult to contend with. 

The wall of earth collapsed into the ground and Gareth charged, driving his sword straight towards Eirlys’s heart. 

She side-stepped out of the way and Viljami punched out, hitting Gareth in the side of the head with enough force to send him crashing into the wall. “I am not you,” Viljami said bitterly. “Nor the one you made. I remember who I was.” 

Gareth lashed out blindly, still disoriented from the blow to the head. His blade stabbed deep into Viljami’s thigh, but missed the artery. He bellowed like a wounded bull, earth magic shoving the pair further and further down the hall away from him. “I will find you wherever you run, Silver-Song! I will rip you and your precious son to pieces!” 

Viljami’s expression twisted with pain, and not all of it was from his wound. He turned to his mother. “We should go.”

Eirlys placed her palm over the wound on his leg and murmured a prayer of healing. Golden light flashed under her hand and a warmth bathed Viljami’s leg as the pain of the blow eased. “I’m sorry, Vil. I know what Gareth meant to you.” 

“I am almost him,” Viljami said, shame coloring his face. 

Eirlys slung her shield over her shoulder and squeezed his hand. “We need to go. Gaius agreed to stay and look after the girls. We have many miles to go before we rest.” 

Viljami nodded, following his mother out of Sjaligr’s main hall. It was late enough that even the few guards posted were dozing at their places. “Where are we going?” 

“Sundvik, to the north-east. That was my first home in the Red Mountains and I have many friends still there, most close as kin. They have no love for Luukas Fire-Bringer,” Eirlys said. She shook her head slightly. “I should have left sooner.” 

“Why did you stay?” he asked quietly as they slipped through the streets. “You could have taken Mara and left.” 

“I didn’t want to abandon you and Sabine,” Eirlys said softly. “And then Ritva came along...I thought Sjaligr would be safe enough, that I could protect Mara if I could make your father listen to me.” She clenched her fists. “It seems he cares nothing for what I say.”

“We’ll find her,” Viljami said again. He had promised himself and Mara over the long dark of winter nights that he would find a way back to the little boy that had bloodied his fists in fights every time his sister cried.