Cora the Wraith appeared as three distinct lantern bearers, each identical, the look of betrayal on their faces exactly the same. Their lanterns were only pieces of a whole, each one a few floating fragments of metal holding a nebulous, shifting light. Kindred felt herself becoming nauseous as her eyes moved between these lantern bearers, each a not-quite-complete piece of a whole.
The lost crew—those gone in the wyrm attack, those who had failed the test—flickered into being from the darkness of the trees, glaring their anger, their confusion, their heartbreak at her. Stone-Gwen, her lantern caught on the end of her great banded cudgel, her face mournful, walked next to Grimm, their ghostly hands reaching for one another but never meeting.
You did this, they shouted, and Kindred could only nod and continue along, unable to meet their eyes.
Even Ragged Sarah was there, perfect and whole, her body unbroken and unharmed. She smiled and whispered to Kindred, secret things to make her heart break and sing, whisperings of things Kindred desired and things she did not yet know she desired, and the darkness was a blanket around her, one which might warm Kindred too. This Ragged Sarah called to her, and Kindred felt a hitching in her chest as she turned away.
“If you go with them, you will not come back,” Yllstra said, ignoring her own lantern bearer, who stood deeper in the woods and bore no smile at all. This lantern bearer bore no resemblance to Yllstra. Its lantern was a free-floating flame like the firebugs Kindred had seen floating over the Sea during the last few hot days of a year. Arms like tentacles curved through shadows around it, mere suggestions of themselves, promises of something bigger lurking in the dark. Its face was cruel and bitter, composed of hard angles and lines. This lantern bearer’s invitation was vengeance, and Kindred shivered as it stared.
Kindred left Ragged Sarah behind even as the bearer mourned, weeping and speaking of what might have been, what could no longer be.
“This path was once wide enough for five, six people to walk down, shoulder to shoulder, but each time some idiot gave in to the bearers’ calls, the Forest pushed in closer.” Yllstra spoke as she continued to walk, casting glances over her shoulders at Kindred to make sure she followed. “We can perform some spells each span to push back against the Forest’s expansion, but they only accomplish so much. The architects in our order have designs for new paths, more efficient ways to move through the Forest, but it takes all of our efforts to keep this one open, and we’re losing. It slims a tiny bit every year despite our work. The trees are closing in.”
Kindred considered the path, how narrow and close it felt. She walked closer to Yllstra.
Lantern bearers began appearing more frequently now, coming in twos and threes, in tens and twenties, people Kindred had seen for much of her life walking arm in arm with people Kindred had seen twice, once, never. It was as if the Forest were an artist attempting to paint what it had only ever heard of: lantern bearers appeared that were nearly exact copies of people Kindred had known—nearly perfect but always missing something, and Kindred found the missing bits lined up with her memory. There, a man who Kindred could not remember if he was tall or short was both. And there, a pair of girls that Kindred thought might have died aboard a ship, but had it been Antilles roaches that had swept over their ship or a storm that had suddenly come upon them? One of the girls looked waterlogged, her skin drenched and drowned, her mouth and nostrils sluicing out a steady stream of water. The other smiled through the scratches and bites that ranged over her skin, despite the chunks of flesh seized and ripped from her body, a missing ear, her bone-white jaw exposed, an arm half-gone, half-there.
What Kindred remembered appeared in the lantern bearers, and what she forgot blurred them into madness.
“Eyes on me,” Yllstra kept saying, and Kindred mostly did, the task growing easier as the Forest became more and more desperate, flinging lantern bearers at her that were more absent than they were present, people Kindred had seen only once or only heard about.
“Nearly there,” Yllstra said as they followed a sharp curve in the path, and Kindred meant to follow her around it, meant to reach the end of this path.
But there was the Marchess.
It was her, Kindred thought, Kindred knew. It was her grandmother, the woman with whom she had spent most of her life, who had trained her to keep the fire, to sail the Forever Sea, to live in and with and from the world.
It was her.
She bore no fantastical lantern. What use did she have for that? She walked on the Sea, in the Sea, and the ways of the world had opened themselves to her.
“Hello, child,” the Marchess said, her voice an undercurrent in the darkness, whispering through it. Kindred found she was crying.
“Hello, Grandmother,” she said, keeping her own voice low. Tears touched her cheeks and fell to the path.
The Marchess looked down at Kindred, eyes kind and warm, smile a little sad.
“I’m sorry to have left without telling you,” she said, looking down for a moment. Her hair was plaited down her back as it had been aboard Revenger when Kindred had sailed with her, a long rope of grey hair proudly displayed to the world.
“I miss you,” Kindred whispered, stepping forward a little. “I feel so lost now.”
The Marchess looked up and nodded, sad.
“You have only begun to lose yourself, child. It gets easier.”
“Are you okay?” Kindred asked, looking her grandmother over.
The Marchess laughed, and Kindred smiled through her tears. She thought she’d never hear that laugh again, and yet there it was, as if it had never left the world. The Marchess held out her arms for inspection.
“I’ve never been better.”
“Are you . . . you?”
The Marchess thought for a moment, her eyes on Kindred.
“In a way. I am an imagining, close enough to be true.”
Kindred’s breath stopped.
“Why did she—why did you go?”
The Marchess leaned forward now, smiling that old smile Kindred knew so well, kind and wise and calm and safe and true, a smile that served a good heart.
“To see,” she said.
Kindred stepped forward, the space between them conspiratorial now.
“Can I go with you?”
The Marchess considered her for a moment, eyes pitying, her head cocked to the side in a look Kindred remembered so well. Her grandmother had once told her, “I want to give you the world, child. If only I could, if only I knew how.”
And here was that same expression, that same desire to help Kindred, and she felt like a child again, hopes and dreams and sadnesses and great energies crashing through her body, confused and joyous and riotous all at once.
The Marchess extended a hand, and Kindred reached for it.