A hand nudged Quilla’s shoulder. With a groan, she opened her eyes and stared sleepily into Annai’s face. Was it morning already? Gods, it felt like she’d only just laid her head down to sleep.

“So, let’s see it,” Annai whispered.

“See what?” Of course, given how late she’d gone to sleep, it probably shouldn’t be surprising it was morning already.

“The tattoo.”

“I didn’t get it.”

“Oh.” Annai sat back. “That’s good news, I guess, but you were out there so long.”

Quilla propped herself up on her elbows and blinked several times, trying to clear her vision. “Yeah, we were…” Should she tell Annai? “We were talking.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. They’d done a little talking.

“Talking? About what? Not getting the tattoo? She wasn’t angry, was she?”

“No. Well, only a little at first, but that didn’t last long. Then we...talked.” And what a night it had been. The last thing in the world she would have expected, and she still wasn’t sure a part of her wouldn’t grow to regret it—Vern was a Darker, after all—but for the moment, at least, she was glad it had happened. The tiredness was worth it.

“What are you smiling about?” Annai said.

“Smiling?” She tried to wipe the smile from her face, but it was very reluctant to leave. “Oh, we just had a good talk. That’s all.”

Annai stared at her a moment. “I’ve never seen talks produce a smile like that. I have seen—”

She was saved from any further explanation when Ookpik came out of her room, loudly proclaiming, “Time to rise! Get dressed, have a bite to eat, and get to work!”

Quilla gave Annai a commiserating smile. “Duty calls.”

Annai made a mock scowl, which quickly turned into a grin. “Tell me later then.”

While they all got ready for the day’s activities, Quilla found a moment to approach Ookpik and say quietly, “I didn’t do it.”

The old woman gave Quilla’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Good. We’ll talk later.”

Quilla nodded. She wasn’t sure how she was going to tell Ookpik she didn’t want the magic tattoo either. She couldn’t really tell her she was going to get the goat skull later. Maybe Ookpik would believe she had decided to not get anything, that she was going to take care of herself. Doubtful. Oh well, there was time to figure something out.

The sound of barking dogs caught her attention. Dogs barking in the morning wasn’t unusual. But this wasn’t the excited barking associated with anticipation of the hunt. This was aggressive barking, followed by a dog yowling like it was in pain. Then the aggressive barking intensified, along with more yelps and yowls.

Vern moved for the window, but Ookpik held up a hand. “No, I’ll check.” She approached the window and pulled back the curtain only slightly. Then she turned back around, letting the curtain drop back in place. “You three, stay out of sight.”

“Why?” Annai asked. “What’s happening?”

Ookpik wagged a finger at her. “I said stay out of sight. Use the cellar if you need to. We’ll deal with this.” She already had her parka on and started doing it up as she approached the door. “And be quiet!” She opened the door, slipped through it, and was gone.

Vern immediately rushed over to the window and pulled back the curtain. “Shit.”

“What’s happening?” Annai hissed.

“There’s a group of people,” Vern said, “about half a dozen maybe. One of them has a bloody axe and is standing over several dead or very badly injured dogs. The village elders are approaching them.”

“They’ve found us,” Quilla said.

Vern shook her head. “Not necessarily. They’re probably checking every village they find. They might not know we’re in this one.”

“Then why kill the dogs?” Quilla asked.

“Intimidation. They want to scare the locals into telling them the truth.”

“Let me see,” Annai said.

After a slight hesitation, Vern moved aside, so Annai could get in close to the window’s corner. “Just a short look,” Vern said. “We need to stay out of sight like Ookpik said.”

“I won’t let them see me,” Annai said, peering out the window.

“I’m sure you’ll try,” Vern said, “but…”

Annai shot a look back at Vern and scowled.

“Okay, that’s enough. You’ve had your look.” Vern gave Annai a gentle shove, but Annai didn’t move.

Annai turned back to the window. “I’ve barely looked.”

“Hurry the fuck up then.”

Quilla went over to the other side of the window and reached for the curtain.

“Quilla,” Vern said.

“I need to see what’s happening.”

“Gods damn it,” Vern muttered. “If they happen to look in this direction and see people peeking out the windows, they might get suspicious.”

“They’ll probably just think it’s curious locals,” Annai said. “Children maybe.”

“Or they might get suspicious.”

Quilla moved the curtain as little as she could manage, and looked through the corner of the window.

She didn’t have a good angle from here, but she could see Ookpik and the other village elders. Forming a defensive circle around them were several other villagers, mostly hunters, all armed with a mixture of spears, harpoons, and knives. One of the elders was speaking, but Quilla couldn’t make out the words from here. After a moment, several of the armed villagers hurriedly moved in front of the elder, weapons readied.

Quilla glanced at Annai. “What’s happening?”

“The guy with the axe just threatened Apaata.”

Quilla was fairly certain that was the name of the old man who had been speaking. She really ought to know people’s names better, but she spent almost all her time with Ookpik, and hadn’t had much chance to get to know anyone else.

“One of the people is yelling at the elder. I can’t tell what they’re saying though, and—” Annai gasped.

At the same moment, the villagers all hurriedly backed up several paces, some of them stumbling and tripping. Several dogs, whimpering loudly, ran off into the distance.

“What’s happening?” Quilla said, doing her best to ignore the desire to pull the curtain back farther, so she could get a better angle and actually see the invaders.

Vern shoved Annai aside and looked out. “Oh fuck.”

“What?” Quilla repeated.

“Volgs,” Annai said.

One of the Volgs came into view at that moment, a particularly large one, maybe even taller than Nibdenoff had been. A villager lunged with a spear, but the Volg caught it and ripped it from the terrified man’s hands. The Volg tossed the spear aside and raised its head, turning it from side to side, the grey hairs on its muzzle pulling back and its nose twitching. Was it sniffing?

“Fuck,” Vern said. “If they get close enough, they’ll get our scent. Or they might even get it off Ookpik, or any of the villagers who have spent a lot of time with us. We have to get out of here now.”

The Volg lowered its head and looked towards Ookpik, its snout curling into a hideous smile.

Right then, the villagers rushed forward in attack. The invaders came into sight to join the fight: the man with the axe, several others, and three more Volgs. But Quilla kept her eyes on the first Volg with its heavy, bent horns. It strode towards Ookpik, batting aside attackers while barely looking at them.

“We have to go, now!” Vern said. “Quilla!”

“We can’t leave them,” Annai said.

“And we can’t help them either. Trust me. The Volg leader there. He’s not just any Volg. We don’t stand a chance.”

“How do you know?” Annai said.

“Don’t worry about that now. Let’s go. Quilla!”

The Volg reached Ookpik, grabbing one of her defenders by the neck, crushing it, and tossing the body aside.

Ookpik stared defiantly up at the Volg, saying something to it. Then she reached out and traced something on the Volg’s hand, which started to smoke. With a roar of rage, the Volg swatted out, hitting Ookpik in the side of the head. She went flying into the snow and lay there unmoving.

Someone grabbed Quilla’s shoulders. “Quilla!” Vern said. “We can’t help her. Don’t let her die in vain.”

Quilla wiped tears from her eyes and nodded, she backing away from the window.

Annai was already gathering bags and shoving items into them.

“The cellar?” Quilla said.

Vern shook her head. “No, they’ll sniff us out too easily.” She looked to Annai. “The clothes we were wearing when we got here, do you have them?”

Annai quickly looked over the bags at her feet. “Yes, they’re...uh...they’re in here.”

Vern picked up the bag Annai was indicating. “Find something to break the window in Ookpik’s room. Go through it and head north into the woods. Keep going. Don’t stop. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“Where are you going?” Annai asked.

Vern patted the bag. “I’m going to create a false trail for them to follow. Now hurry up! This won’t work if they get here before I leave and I can’t leave until after you do. My scent has to be the most recent!”

Quilla helped Annai with the remainder of what needed to be packed. Luckily, they didn’t have a lot. Then she looked about for something to break the window, finding an axe by the fireplace. She grabbed that, and together, she and Annai rushed into Ookpik’s room.

It was a small room, with the small bed pushed up against the curtained window. Quilla rushed forward, jumped onto the bed and pulled back the curtains. With all her strength, she swung the axe at the window. It took a couple tries, but she broke through. She then reversed her grip on the axe and used the handle to break away the largest pieces of glass that still jutted from the perimeter. Then she threw the axe into the snow on the other side, along with the bags as Annai handed them to her. Hopefully, no one had heard the window breaking, but with all the noise from the ongoing fight, it was unlikely anyone had.

Annai looked back towards the front room. “Will Vern be all right?”

“I hope so.” Quilla held out her hand to Annai, who took it. She helped Annai through the window and then climbed through herself. They gathered their bags and the axe, and ran into the woods, not looking back until they were long out of sight of the village.

* * * * *

It was a somewhat bright night, but the canopy of trees meant the moon’s light only made it through in scattered small bits, creating numerous shadows in every direction. Quilla and Annai sat huddled together, trying to keep warm. They had shelter from the the wind, but it was still bitterly cold, and they couldn’t risk a fire.

They had run until they could run no more, and then they had run a little farther until they found shelter. It was the trunk of a fallen tree. Some previous animal, or perhaps just natural decay, had carved out much of the interior, leaving just enough room to sit in and huddle side by side. The tree’s snow-covered, dead roots hung over like a canopy, providing just a little more shelter from the wind, and making it a little more difficult to tell anyone was hiding within.

At least, it would, if there wasn’t an obvious trail leading right up to it.

Quilla had no idea how Vern was going to misdirect the Volgs. Their trail—from Ookpick’s home all the way here—was obvious. There hadn’t been any way to hide it without moving slowly. Even if they had slowed down, Quilla wasn’t sure it would have been possible. She understood that Vern’s plan was to misdirect them with a false trail, but even if the false trail was “more recent”, surely it would be obvious that it was only more recent by a very small margin. At best, the Volgs were likely to think they had split up, and follow both trails.

Still, they hadn’t been found yet, and it had been hours, so maybe whatever Vern had done had worked.

But, in that case, where was Vern?

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Annai said.

Quilla grunted, “Really?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t she be? She’s...she’s very competent.”

“So was Gabby, and you gave up on her pretty quickly.”

“No I didn’t! I…” Annai lowered her head and whimpered. “I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I just… Fine, you’re right. Vern’s probably dead. I was just trying to be comforting.”

Quilla blinked away a couple tears and nodded. “I know, and I appreciate it.”

“I still can’t believe you slept with her,” Annai said.

Quilla couldn’t help chuckling a little. There hadn’t been much to do huddling here for hours, other than take turns sleeping, and—as that didn’t work well for either of them—talk. So Quilla had told Annai about last night. It was something she’d learn eventually if it kept up. Quilla didn’t really have any reason to believe it would continue, but she did find herself wanting it to. At the very least, she wanted Vern to still be alive.

“Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Annai continued. “You were so into her, right from the start.”

Quilla stared at her. “What? I was not! I hated her at first.”

“Yes, you did, and you also wanted her.”

“I did not!”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.” She hadn’t, had she? She had kind of taken to her, she supposed. And she had grown to like and trust her faster than had probably been wise. Was that because she’d been attracted to her the entire time? “At the very least, I didn’t want her as much as you wanted Jakka.”

Annai gasped and pulled away from Quilla as much as the limited space would allow. “How dare you suggest such a thing!” But there was a smile on her face.

Quilla stuck her tongue out at her, and Annai laughed.

Annai huddled back in close again. “Is it wrong that I kind of wanted to sleep with him?”

Quilla shook her head. “No, not at all.”

“I’m sure he’ll be very honoured if he’s still alive.”

Annai shrieked as Vern dropped down from the overhanging roots.

“You...you scared the shit out of me!” Annai said.

“Sorry about that,” Vern said. “Sometimes I get so used to hiding and sneaking, I forget to warn the people I’m not hiding from.”

Quilla climbed out of the tree trunk and threw her arms around Vern, pulling her in tight.

Vern grunted. “Careful. I’m a little sore in places.”

Quilla released her grip only a little and buried her head in Vern’s shoulder. “I thought you were dead.”

Vern put her arms around Quilla. “I almost was.”

“What happened to your arm?” Annai asked.

Quilla let go and backed away from Vern a little to get a better view of her.

“Like I said, I was almost dead. I might have taken a few injuries.” She grimaced. The right sleeve of her parka was shredded and cloth now stained red was wrapped around her upper arm. She stumbled a little and reached out with her left hand to a root for support.

Quilla stepped back up to her, putting one arm around her for support. “Let me see that.”

With another grimace, Vern shook her head. “Later. We need to get the fuck out of here. I could only delay them so long.”

“Delay them?” Quilla said. “I thought you were sending them down a false trail.”

“Yeah, and that’ll delay them, but not forever.”

Vern wasn’t looking at her, so Quilla placed her free hand on Vern’s cheek and turned her head to look her in the eyes. “And you got beat up doing that? You let them see you?”

“Not exactly. Sometimes things don’t go according to plan, okay?”

Quilla gave her a sad smile. “Fair.”

“How did you get away?” Annai asked. She had come out of the tree trunk and was standing beside the two of them now.

Vern grimaced again, though Quilla was fairly certain this time it wasn’t from pain, especially as she pulled away from the hand on her cheek and looked away.. “I...uh...had to make a deal with Ofstakim.”

“Who?” Quilla asked, though she had a good idea what the answer was going to be.

Vern looked back at her. “The Volg. The big one I warned you about.”

Quilla helped Vern sit down, then crossed her arms as she stood over her. “You know him, don’t you?”

Vern stared at the ground and nodded. “We’ve met. More than a few times.” She looked up at Quilla. “Look, I’ll tell you all about it later, okay? I promise. But right now, we really have to get moving. Just as soon as I’ve caught my breath.”

“What was the deal?” Quilla asked.

“I have no intention of keeping it.”

“What was it?” Quilla repeated more intensely.

“I promised to turn you over to him. That’s the only way I got away from him alive. But you know I won’t really do that, right? You trust me?”

Quilla stared at her a moment, but then nodded. “Yeah, I trust you. So what do we do? How do we stay away from them.”

Vern looked down at the ground again. “To be honest, I’m not sure. In the short term, we get somewhere I can give you the tattoo as soon as possible. And I’ve had a crazy idea. I have no idea if it’ll work, but…” She looked up at Annai.

Annai looked blankly back at her. “What? Why are you staring at me?”

“You’re not going to like this,” Vern said.

“What?” Annai said. “Tell me!”

“You need to get the tattoo too.”

Annai backed away from her. “No. No way. It’s bad enough Quilla has to get it. I am not sullying myself with that disgusting—”

“Do you want to live?”

Annai glared down at her. “Of course I do.”

“Then get the fucking tattoo. If you don’t, you die for sure. Get it and maybe I can keep you alive.”

“What are you getting at?” Quilla asked. This was the same kind of language Vern had used to convince Quilla to get the tattoo, but that was for the bonding that would come after.

Vern looked up at Quilla. “I have no idea if it’ll work, but… I told you the bonding would likely be different with you, right?”

Quilla nodded.

“I don’t know exactly how your powers will affect things. I just sense they will somehow.”

“That still doesn’t explain why Annai—”

“I’m going to try bonding both of you, all right?”

She could do that?

“You...you can do that?” Annai asked.

Vern lowered her head again and sighed. “I don’t really know. Everything I know about my abilities, I’ve had to find out through trial and error. When you go through these rituals that Servants undertake, and you survive, you never know what you’ll end up with. There’s nobody who can train you. I’ve never tried to bond two people at the same time before. With most people, I don’t think it would be possible. I think it would be too much of a strain.” She looked up expectantly at Quilla. “But your powers might make it possible. I can’t promise anything, but it’s the only idea I have.” She looked to Annai. “So unless you’ve got a better one, get the fucking tattoo.”

Annai put a hand to her face and whimpered. She looked to Quilla.

Quilla sighed. She hated to do this, but assuming it would work, Vern was right. “I’m sorry, Annai. I think you should do it.”

“But I’m not a Darker! I don’t want to be one!”

“Just because you have the tattoo doesn’t mean you have to be a Darker,” Vern said. “For fuck’s sake, I’ve been over this countless times with Quilla. You don’t have to fucking believe!”

Annai had both hands over her mouth and nose now as she sniffled, and tears formed in her eyes. “Is she right?”

Ookpik’s warning ran through Quilla’s head. The Lord of Darkness is real, and his symbols have power. Let that power in you, and there will be no turning back. She should tell Annai, let her have as much information as possible to make a decision. But with that information, Annai would certainly decide against getting the tattoo, and she needed to get it. There wasn’t any other option. “I’m getting one and I’m not a Darker, and I have no intention of becoming one. You know that. Please, Annai, you have to do it. I don’t want to run forever, and this is the only way to fight back.”

Tears were streaming down Annai’s face now, but she nodded. “Okay, fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do it.”

Vern pulled herself to her feet. “Good. Now let’s get the fuck out of here and find some place we can hole up for a couple days.”

Quilla put a hand on Vern’s shoulder. “Where we’ll deal with your wounds as well as the tattoo.”

Vern blew her a kiss. “Of course. I don’t want to die either. Come on, let’s move.”

Quilla held back a moment as Vern headed out into the snowy woods, followed by a sobbing Annai.

Ookpik had to be wrong, right? The tattoo was just a tattoo. It didn’t corrupt people. People corrupted themselves.

Right?

If Ookpik was right, Quilla was risking corruption herself, never mind Annai. So Ookpik had to be wrong. She simply had to be.

I’m sorry, Annai.

She picked up her bags and followed after the others.

Gods forgive her.