I woke in a burrow of straw to find that Zgavra left me again. Each time it vanishes, I think that was the last time I'd ever see it. I must think that. If I held onto the hope it would appear, that would be too much. I had enough of a time holding onto the belief that I'd find my cohort siblings. Johan. Adrian. Paullula. My heart aches for them.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  The structure wasn’t so much a tavern as a shed out behind a farmer’s house, but it made do to stay out of the rain.

  Dragos had traveled away from the mountains to avoid the cascade of water that swelled rivers over their banks and turned greening woods into veritable fens. Weeks had passed with no news of strigoi, Solomonari, or of the inclement hailstorms for which they were known.

  Sitting on a stool, looking out through the pattering curtain that wept from the gray sky to the ridges of peaks.

  One ridge in particular held his weary attention.

  The wanderer’s head dipped, and he shifted to lean a shoulder against a thick wooden beam that ran to the thatched ceiling. He’d eaten a warm bowl of stew and the mug in his hand dipped dangerously as he dreamed with open eyes.

  The mountains called to him. It had been over two years since he’d been there in the Spineback, where the Black School had burned. Its stone entrance arches fell and buried the entrance. He couldn’t climb back in through the vent he’d escaped from. As if the dream had presence, the fallen arches superimposed themselves on dim wet fields swathed in fog.

  The soaring mountain peak above loomed, casting its shadow, as if it had come to him.

  Dragos shook his head and looked up. A thick-bodied farmer stood before him in homespun clothes caked with dirt, dried to crusts that flaked away when he moved. The traveler didn’t see the man’s face; he didn’t lift his chin further than to see the man’s work-roughened hands.

  The Spineback disappeared, leaving him in chilly, wet reality again.

  “What’s in there?” The man asked, pointing at Dragos's peddler’s box.

  “Cures, restoratives, remedies for simple ailments,” Dragos replied, lifting his mug to sip from the dregs.

  The man’s hands scuffed together. He cleared his throat, then asked, “Got somethin’ for a cough?”

  “I do,” Dragos said, slipping the box off his back. He set it on the rickety makeshift counter in the shed to open it. “Dry or wet cough?”

  “Uh, wet, I guess.” The man shuffled around to peer into the box as Dragos opened a drawer and plucked a folded bit of paper out.

  Dragos shook it and squinted at it once before holding it up.

  “For a dry spot in your barn for the night, I’ll give it to you,” Dragos said, holding the paper with fingers folded over it.

  The farmer nodded. “Fair enough. Come with me.”

  The rain let up, from downpour to sprinkle. Dampness clung inside his hood as he followed the farmer down the center of a mucky road. The clouds parted, blazing sunlight sliced through the voluminous gray clouds in shafts of light that grew.

  Color danced at the corner of Dragos's hooded vision. His head lifted, and he caught a glimpse of rainbow smears capering amongst the clouds.

  A weary smile tugged at his lips. He turned away to follow the man to a house and was almost bowled over by a child. More than a child, really, shy a foot of height, a sapling that had just begun to reason like an adult.

  The boy careened away, racing for the fields with a shouted, “Scuze!”

  Dragos turned a step, watching the boy run towards the sunlight slanting through the glittering rain.

  “What is your name, peddler?” The farmer’s voice broke his half-formed thoughts.

  “Dragos, Dominule,” he said, facing the man again.

  “I’m called Dimi.” The man offered, before leading him through the yard.

  He gestured at the barn. Beside it, a burdei frame rose from the clay. Rusting iron nails jutted at the cardinal points, suggesting the family knew Unspoken lore. The thatch gleamed wetly, and shadows clung in the eaves like parasites.

  Seedlings in the field had begun their sprouting, protected from wandering livestock by stone walls. A modest plot for a simple man. He gestured toward the barn, a skeleton of a structure.

  At least it would be reasonably dry, having a roof.

  Dragos handed the man the packet and gave him instructions on how to use it. A gurgling paroxysm of coughing rose from the house just beside the barn. Pausing, Dragos glanced at the house again.

  “Lay hide or felt over the window near the sick one. The humid draft of rainy days like this will give her trouble.”

  The man stilled. Dragos felt a sudden menace as the man’s quiet stretched.

  “How do you know the sick one is a woman?”

  Dragos blinked. What had he said? A second later, he realized and chuckled softly, “Sir, you have a son. As far as I know, those don’t grow in fields.”

  Though they could be found in one. He wisely didn’t mention that.

  The man’s tension eased with a nervous chuckle of his own. Dimi’s terse expression remained uncertain, but he relaxed a notch. “Ah, yes. True. I haven’t much to offer for breakfast but a bit of porridge and ale. Come morning.”

  “Well enough,” Dragos nodded, “And thank you.”

  The strong scent of animal radiated from the ground, though the stalls were kept clean. The cattle, goats, and sheep were out wandering the town. No doubt the boy’s job to chase them all back at dusk. Dragos looked up at the hayloft. Not much lingered above; just enough straw to bed down.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “If I need more medicine…” the man trailed off as Dragos gripped the loft ladder.

  The wanderer turned. “I’ll be here.”

  “Good,” the man sighed. He seemed conflicted by his choice, but decisive enough to stick with it.

  “She is gravely ill?” Dragos asked, feeling the weight in the air all around him. The barn supports groaned with it, bowing with the pressure.

  There was pain at the farm. Something soul-deep.

  “With child and ill. I’m doubly worried,” Dimi admitted, running a rough hand over his black beard. His small eyes flicked around the barn, as if the weight were not his own, but he felt it as well.

  Dragos frowned and nodded but could offer no consolation. Death was a constant companion to each living thing. The dark sparrowhawk that circled and struck at its own will, unless one was foolish enough to court its attention.

  Dimi seemed prone to spirits, sensitive. The man was not moroi viu, but as Dragos watched the man’s hands, he saw a flicker.

  Something much like what he’d seen when Radu was afflicted, and Ewa. Dimi had no signs of Unspoken possession. What was that?

  The farmer nodded in parting and made for the house. Dragos's gaze followed the man’s long stride. Whatever he’d seen, it hadn’t borne the mark of Nerostit?. No flickers of spirits, light or dark, lingered around Dimi.

  When the door banged shut, the albstrig? moved back to the open barn gate and leaned just within the muddy line where water dripped from the eaves.

  The boy skipped in a field, distant enough to be a mere silhouette. A flash of color made Dragos squint to see what it was. Sunlight on a puddle? Some blaze of light reflecting off the wet field?

  It winked in pink and yellow, blue and green, more dazzling than flame. It moved like—a dog.

  Caine soarelui, parahelion creatures of ice crystals and light.

  Dragos watched with awe, a wondering smile appearing on his face. For once, not particularly worried about something Unspoken finding its way to the living world. Just a sun dog.

  He tensed, waiting for the zmeu to appear and have something sarcastic to say about his childish grin, but it didn’t. It must have been elsewhere. He hadn’t seen it in days. It went off on its own more often since the winter. As if it only just realized he was not its mother duck. Perhaps he bored it with his quiet ways.

  He almost thought good riddance. Almost.

  In a flash, the sun dog vanished, and the boy’s shoulders drooped. He slogged out of the puddle he’d stomped in and wandered toward the commons. The sun dipped to the horizon as Dragos fell into his thoughts, the daze lasting until the boy came back down the track, nudging a milk cow, a handful of sheep, and another of goats with a staff.

  The animals plodded toward the barn. Dragos took up a perch on the stone fence nearby as the summer air brought the scent of sun on warm flanks. Chickens waddled in a run for their roosts in the lower rafters. The boy wandered behind, his staff in hand, head down.

  Brown hair fell to hide most of his wedge-shaped face. Until he seemed to notice a strange presence. His chin shot up.

  Dragos, a black crow of a figure, perched on the uneven stone piling of a wall.

  The boy stopped. His muddy hand tightened on his staff, narrow eyes shifting to the house. A gurgling cough and a low murmured voice from within did not seem to calm the boy’s sudden nerves, for as Dragos silently watched him, the boy’s other hand gripped the staff.

  “Striga?” the boy murmured, swallowing.

  Dragos smirked. “Just a travelling peddler.”

  “A strange one,” the boy said, his voice floating between doubt and accusation.

  “I am.” Dragos couldn’t deny what was obvious. Even with Ewa’s scarf around his head to keep his unruly white hair from escaping, he could do little about his eyes or the fact that the sun never kissed his skin. “I’ve brought medicine for your mother.”

  “Oh?” A hint of hope added to the blend of the boy’s notes. Followed by suspicion. “I’ll kill you myself if she gets worse.”

  Dragos smiled thinly and merely nodded to the threat. The boy stood there a while, staring at him.

  The traveller sat there on the fence, taking in the last rays of the sinking sun as it painted the world with peach and lavender, darkening the horizon to shades of black. The boy’s shoulders hunched, but he stayed put, as if a self-chosen sentinel to this stranger.

  “You play with sun dogs,” Dragos said bluntly, from the hollow of his hood.

  The boy flinched. He covered it, shuffling to lean on his staff casually. The Solomonari student didn’t miss the twitch of jerky muscles.

  His parents didn’t know. No doubt he’d be beaten silly for it, had they heard.

  “I have a dog, and it comes after the rain. That’s all,” the child snapped.

  “Caine soarelui are harmless, just don’t chase it off a cliff. They don’t need ground to walk,” Dragos offered.

  “I know,” the boy said defensively, followed by a momentary silence.

  It built with pressure until he blurted, “What do you know about them?”

  “Your dog? It’s made of ice crystals and light, from the pure spirit-breath of the Zioruluc. Their bodies only last a few minutes. You’re lucky. Most people never see one once, much less have one as a playmate.” The wanderer slipped off the wall smoothly, his cloak snapping softly like the flap of a bat’s wings. As if in an aside, he added, “I’m Dragos.”

  “Coman,” the boy replied, his doubt lingering, though curiosity tested its walls.

  “Lumina s?-?i fie pa?ii,” Dragos said, for saying such things soothed those who clung to the Light as if it were a savior.

  Coman smiled, the faint curve of his lips carved in shadow. The firesmoke from the house’s chimney brought a welcoming scent. Porridge was just beginning to bubble in a pot. Coman’s expression fell, and he glanced at the house. “I should go. Tati wouldn’t like me talking to you.”

  “And yet he brought me,” Dragos said, the dark sarcasm breaking out before he could rein it in.

  Coman shrugged and turned away—stopped. He glanced back and said, “Maybe tell me more about my dog tomorrow?”

  “If your father allows,” Dragos replied.

  He slipped into the barn gate, pushing through animals to get to the ladder. The summer’s growing warmth was well on its way, and soon he wouldn’t bother with people for a while. Curious, treacherous things, people. Easily as dangerous as Nerostit?. In his opinion.

  He could have mused about having a childhood like Coman’s, with parents and a farm, surrounded by life. Instead, he lay on the rickety hayloft, carefully balanced on straw and slats, his box by his side.

  Sleep didn’t take him.

  He found himself rummaging for the embellishment he’d taken from his first box. A silver owl in a crescent moon. He couldn’t see it in the dark, but his fingers knew the contours of the thing pried from the kit he used to carry when he was a student instead of a peddler.

  He’d just begun to drift into a fitful dream when he heard the noise.

  Like metal on wood. A scratching along the side of the house beyond the night’s barrier.

  Dragos eased upright, the creak of his high bower making him grit his teeth. He listened.

  Long, slow scrapes. Revelation came with the sound.

  Coman’s mother wasn’t merely sick from drafts. Something haunted her. He’d assumed it was a mortal affliction.

  He didn’t know what it was, but his clever mind supplied a name. If the woman was pregnant…

  Samca?

  (stree-GOY): All manner of creatures with wounded souls. It could refer to the undead, to witches, or ghosts, depending on the context.

  Solomonari (so-lo-mo-NAH-ree) [rolled r]: A race of wizard strigoi that rode zmeu. Legend has it they worked blood magic and made pacts with demons and animals. Their school, known as The Dark School, was also known in distant lands as Scholomance.

  Scuze (SKOO-zeh): Sorry.

  Dominule (DOM-uh-nyool): Lord or sir

  Burdei (boor-DAY): A type of pit-house or half-dug out shelter, combining sod house and log cabin build concepts.

  Moroi viu (mo-roi vee-oo)[rolled r]: A living person lacking a soul. Someone strange, atypical.

  Nerostit? (neh-ross-TEE-teh): Calruthian word for all things unnatural or strange, synonymous with Unspoken. Places, events, and situations can be referred to as this, as well as beings.

  Albstrig? (ALV-streeguh): White witch. Barn owl. A pale ghost or evil spirit.

  Caine soarelui (KUY-neh swa-REH-loo-ee)[R is rolled]: Parahelion creatures of ice crystals and light. Sun dog.

  Zmeu (zmyeh-oo): a form of dragon. A shapeshifter that travels between the world of the living and other realms. They are known to steal fair maids to be their wives. Suffers great hubris. Very powerful monster given to chaos, born of the Umbregrin. Solomonari wizards ride them when controlling weather patterns.

  Lumina s?-?i fie pa?ii. (loo-MEE-nee-leh suh-tsheef-YEH PAH-shee): May light guide your steps.