Spirits of the living that can not rest are a fraction of that which walks the world unseen. Some of them grow to be as powerful as anything from the other realm, given time. For every wrong they do, their natures refine and enhance, like a storm gathering around ill winds.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  A surge of wind blew down from above, pulling at bright green leaves and Dragos's hood until he shoved it back. He knelt, found no marks, so followed the scent of crushed mint.

  His inner focus faded as he sniffed out the herbs. After he strung his harvest to dangle from his peddler’s box, he found an oak with a slight tilt and low branches. Dragos climbed into it and sat on a bough, legs dangling, buffeted by the wind, and gazed out upon the world.

  The sky grayed; thick roiling clouds soared overhead, promising rain. In the distance, a gray sheet streaked over the countryside, fading the mountain view. The icy scent lingered with every breath.

  A gust blew, catching the scarf he wore over his hair, tearing it from his head to flap like a dark purple bat until it hit a tree. The next zephyr raked like fingers, snatching the worn leather strip he used to keep his hair in a tail.

  By reflex, his hand went up to snatch at the ghostly fingers, but could grasp nothing.

  Children of the sky, playing. He sighed and watched his things flutter to the ground.

  Twisting, Dragos slid off the branch and caught it to slow his drop. When his boots struck ground, he saw the boy. Just a strip of a figure in the darkening woods, his shepherding stick drooping in his hand.

  The boy stared. Dragos's white hair whipped loose, and the boy’s sunburned face paled. Dragos knew how he looked. There was nothing for it.

  “Coman,” he nodded, then went over to where his scarf and the strip of leather lay. He picked them up and brushed them off, then turned to face the wind.

  Dragos smiled the look of someone supremely irritated and murmured, “Thanks for the game.”

  He hoped the sarcasm would be lost on the air spirits.

  “You are Unspoken,” Coman breathed. The boy stayed rooted like a hare in the field staring at a lynx, heart pounding, breath heaving, eyes frozen.

  Dragos turned to fix a steady eye on him.

  “I am of unfortunate birth. Nothing more, nothing less. I still live firmly in this world, Coman, for better or worse. I am no Nerostit?.” As he said it, Dragos wondered if it was as true as he wanted to believe. Hadn’t he already given pieces of his soul away?

  What would he be if he kept using blood magic and was no longer moroi viu?

  The wanderer’s hand touched the owl tattoo under his shirt and pressed there, as if he could hold back what had already been promised. He patted it a few times and turned to walk toward the farm.

  Coman flinched but held his ground as Dragos drew closer.

  “What did your elder tell you?” Dragos asked as he strode by, walking for Dimi’s plot of land.

  Coman skittered and followed behind, careful not to walk in Dragos's shadow. His voice wavered, the crack and squeak of his nerves punctuating his last word. “Samca is known. She gave me some names… I’ve been reciting them all the way here.”

  “Good. Tell me them,” Dragos said, sounding like Mirel had to his own ears long ago, brusque and sharp. Commanding.

  “Nicosda, Avezuha, Gluviana, Prava, Vestitia, Scorcoila,” Coman paused, took a breath, and kept going, the last name coming out with the boy’s head on a swivel, as if he’d summoned the unsettled spirit with her names. “Tiha, Navadaraia, Hatavu, Valnomia, Sina, Miha, Grompa, Slalo, Necauza, Hulila, Huva, Ghiana, and Samca.”

  Dragos snapped his fingers and smiled, nodding. “Oh, yes. I’ll have to write that in my journal so I won’t forget again.”

  “What’s it like?” Coman asked, his nervous step slowly growing into something more natural, not keeping just behind Dragos but coming into vision.

  Dragos glanced at the boy. “What’s what like?”

  “Writing,” Coman said, bouncing around a mugo pine that spread its low branches.

  The wanderer stopped to harvest some, and Coman rounded it, watching curiously. Dragos held a handful of needles up. “Your mother would appreciate a tea of this. Here, make her some.”

  The peddler extended his hand. The boy’s eyes fixed on the needles in his palm, and took a cautious step closer. His gaze flicked up, wide brown eyes moving, as if he were about to try to pet a sleeping bear. He leaned his stick against his shoulder and held out both his palms. Dragos spilled the deep green needles into them.

  “Is writing like magic?” Coman asked, curling his fingers in, over the needles.

  Dragos paused before answering. “It is. You can learn without being told, you can hear people’s innermost thoughts, and hold their words unwarped by time and other voices.”

  “I can do that if I can write?” Coman asked with breathy awe.

  “To know how to write, you must know how to read. It’s not as simple as learning to fish,” Dragos said, though he felt it was almost as simple. Mirel had called him precocious in reading. Not everyone could master the writing skill, from what she’d said.

  He wasn’t so sure.

  “Domanule, please teach me,” Coman begged, scraping pine needles from both palms to one before taking up his staff again.

  The fickle wind whirled, blowing Dragos's hair into his face, as if the sky children were reminding him how that would go. Dragos bowed his head and inhaled the sharp, sweet air around him.

  “I doubt I’ll stay long enough, but I’m not the only one who knows these things, Coman. You can find someone if you put efforts in. You may have a chance,” Dragos murmured, flicking an apologetic look at the boy.

  He pulled the leather strap from his pocket and bound his hair, then the purple scarf to hide the stray strands. He yanked his hood up last, hidden once more.

  “The rain is nearly here,” Coman said, eyes flicking at the spots where leaves gave way to reveal clouds.

  “Best hurry,” Dragos agreed. Then, with an almost playful smile, he burst into a run.

  Fleet as a deer crashing through the underbrush, the wanderer dashed sure-footed over rock and root. Coman was left behind.

  Not for long. Soon enough the boy was running as well, and for a few spare moments, the wanderer didn’t think about what was, could be, or would come to pass.

  A colorful flash darted out of a stray ray of sunshine. From behind, Coman cried out a name. “Sorina!”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The rainbow took shape, a canine form with a noble head and far-seeing eyes that glinted Dragos’s way. The beast bounded over bramble for a few steps before vanishing as the sun ray disappeared.

  Life was merely breath; the liquid perfection of motion held him rapt until he broke from the trees and leapt the low stone fence.

  Dragos slowed to a strident walk when the barn came into sight.

  Coman burst out behind him, a grass-sandaled foot kicking off the low wall and launching him in the air, over it. He landed with a soft, “Oof.”

  Dragos grinned at the boy over the expanse of bursting furrows.

  Dimi’s head came up from the stalks. The farmer straightened, a disapproving scowl on his face. Coman quickly held up his fist and shouted, “I’ll make tea for ma then come help!”

  Dimi’s angry expression wavered. With a curt nod he crouched into the growth again, inconspicuous but for the rustle and scrape of his caretaking. Coman rubbed the back of his hand along his brow and huffed. With a little nod to the wanderer, the boy headed for the little house.

  Dragos retreated to the bench outside and placed his box of wares beside him. Iron latches and leather straps were undone, one by one. The box’s contents rested as neatly as they’d been put, secured with leather and hemp. Stoppered vials and drawers awaited his searching fingers.

  Inkstone and brush withdrawn, he slid his travel journal out and laid it flat to write the names of Samca in its pages. As it sat drying in the sun, Dragos took in the land.

  The rain hadn’t fallen, and the clouds had thinned. The air sparkled with promises it had yet to make good. Then, something odd caught his eye.

  A chill ran down his spine.

  Baleful reddish orbs glared at him from across the fields. Dragos shifted on the bench, turning to face the stare. A piggish snout poked through the honeysuckle, its grayish skin, and too many tusks to be a normal boar. The big head snuffled and lifted, shuddering the bush. Dragos's lips drew a tight, thin line.

  The pig disappeared with a parting rustle of brush.

  Dragos leaned his shoulder against the burdei’s face and listened to the soft voices behind the door beside him. His eyes lingered on the forest, where the watcher had been, but the sense of it was gone. As if he’d imagined it. He hadn’t.

  Coman came out a few moments later and looked down at Dragos's open journal.

  “That!” He gasped, climbing up the short slope to the ground level, dropping to his knee to look in wonder at the thin parchment pages. Dragos's writing, small and neat with tight spikes and sparse loops, decorated them. Coman didn’t touch the journal, but his hands hovered over it as if it were some revered artifact.

  His wondering eyes flicked up at Dragos, whose face was shaded by his hood once again. “You did all this?”

  “And much more in my time. Once you start, you can hardly stop. A terrible emptiness settles where thoughts are left unwritten,” the wanderer said, his voice rich with a hint of amusement and chagrin.

  “What are these?” Coman asked, pointing at the names.

  “What you told me, so I don’t forget.”

  “Oh,” Coman murmured, his mouth hanging wide enough that he could capture a butterfly with it.

  “Your father said…”

  “Coman!” A voice from the field interrupted what Dragos meant to tell the boy.

  The farmer’s son jumped to his feet and sprinted off. Dragos watched him go, and then eyed the woods. Samca was watching, if the strange wild pig’s appearance was any indication.

  Until the charms were written and the consequences known, the traveller couldn’t let his guard down.

  Zgavra would have been useful…

  And yet he did not call the zmeu. It was not so dire as to attempt to summon the Unspoken beast beholden to him. Would it even come? Anyway, Zgavra brought its own problems.

  He’d like to avoid as many problems as possible.

  The wind quieted. Copii ceruli, bored with him, must have whispered off to vex someone else. Still, it left him feeling an ache in his chest and stray thoughts of a dirty little mud monster left in Corvesta.

  When it came time for the noon day meal and farmer and son returned, Dragos laid out the plan. He stood before the house entrance and pointed at it. “You’ll write all the names on both sides of the house, back and front.”

  Coman’s mouth gaped and closed like a fish’s, then the boy looked at his father. Dimi nodded, arms crossed over his chest. Coman tapped a finger to his own chest, and he choked, “Me?”

  “Let’s do it now,” Dragos said, looking at the clouds. It was high sun, but it was hard to tell, for the firmament’s blanket sat pillowy and gray. He wanted to get it done before dark.

  If Samca did decide to take out her ire on Coman, he wanted to deal with it in the light.

  Dragos traced out the shapes in the ground with a stick. He put his horsehair brush in the farmboy’s hand and showed him how to hold it, then corrected when the boy’s brushwork incessantly faltered. Coman had barely gotten two names written when Dimi’s paw snatched Dragos's wrist. Coman stumbled back, clutching the brush.

  Dragos scowled. “What?”

  “How do I know you’re not tricking my boy into writing a hex?” Dimi accused.

  The wanderer sighed. Thinking too much made simple folk their own worst enemy.

  “If I’d wanted you hexed, why wouldn’t I do it myself?” Dragos said flatly, already tired from keeping Coman’s script from being indecipherable. He had a new respect for the tolerance of his old teacher.

  “It would hurt us all the more if we did it to ourselves,” Dimi said with a cold triumph coloring his tone.

  Dragos rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it would. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m trying to save your wife and unborn child from a striga whose only presence left in this world is her boundless sense of betrayal and jealousy.”

  The peddler snapped his arm out of Dimi’s strong hand with a quick twist and yank. “Like I said before, I can go now and leave you to your fate, if that is what you wish.”

  Dragos understood. In a way, he pitied the man for his doubts. He was just wise enough to question things, and that shouldn’t have been a bad quality.

  Except. It sometimes was. In this case, it definitely was.

  Dimi brushed his palms together, as if to wipe off Nerostit? from his dirt-filthy hands. The farmer’s gaze shifted from the boy to Dragos and to the door where his wife remained. He huffed, then sucked in a breath and rubbed his trembling fingers across his brow. Dimi nodded, then turned away, flicking his other hand at his son.

  “Keep writing.”

  Coman side-stepped closer to Dragos, who offered the boy the inkstone.

  It took far longer for the child to do it. Painfully long. The bargain had been that the wanderer would not. He’d avoid Samca’s ire for no good payment.

  And yet, Dragos felt he’d still be dealing with whatever consequence there was, anyway. Coman didn’t deserve the repercussions. He’d step in.

  There was just no way to win in a world that punished honor and decency.

  As the horsehair brush stroked clumsy letters, Dragos pondered how to manage it. He knew nothing about handling Samca, who did not suffer the fear of iron that most strigoi did. He sighed and caught Coman’s hand before he made a fatal brustroke, and guided it the proper way.

  It didn’t matter. Either he would find the way, or not.

  That was his fate in life.

  Over an hour later, Coman handed Dragos's brush back and stood back a few steps to admire his work, with chest puffed out and narrow chin lifted with pride.

  “I did that. Right and good.” Coman beamed and stayed puffed up until Dragos held out a long, thick strip of paper. The boy pinched the edge of it, confused.

  “You’re not done yet. Now you’ve got to make an amulet for your mother to keep with her,” Dragos explained.

  The boy’s shoulders fell. “More writing?”

  Dragos grinned wickedly. “Except this time, smaller and neater, please.”

  Coman’s tongue clucked, and he groaned, which made Dragos grin more. He remembered this part, recalling Mirel’s evil smirk as she switched his wrist until he got the letters right.

  Would he not have learned to write had she not? Dragos couldn’t imagine. He’d have rather played in mud puddles with sun dogs, too, he supposed.

  Coman sat on his knees, and Drags guided him again. It took less time to get the nineteen names written, not having to do it twice. By the time Dragos washed his brush, Coman was rubbing his right hand.

  “Writing hurts,” he complained, working at his sore palm.

  Dragos chuckled, “Only at first.”

  The rain finally came misting down as the strip of paper was hung to dry, pinned to the wall. Dragos turned and sat on the small bench to tuck his brush away when he heard the low, grunting huff.

  The wanderer glanced up, and his heart leapt into his throat.

  Coman had his back to the fields, having returned to admiring his work, so the boy couldn’t see the thick grayish beast barreling straight for him.

  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.

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

  Domanule (DOM-uh-nyool): Sir or Lord

  Zmeu (zmyeh-oo): Shapeshifting dragon

  Copiii Ceruli(koh-PEE-ee CHEH-roo-loo-ee) [rolled r]: Chidren of the sky.

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