“Aiya~! Ai~~~ Yo!~”

  A strange cry echoed through the forest.

  At first, Sebi, Zott, and Rae didn’t even register it. It blended into the whooping of the monkeys, the whistling of birds, and the gentle creak of old wood. The sound came a few more times before something about it disturbed Rae.

  “What bird is making that call?” He asked.

  They thought for a minute.

  “Nothing makes sounds like that near Camp Bejuk,” Sebi said.

  It was the same for Camp Ashem and Camp Kaolin.

  While it was strange, they were all lying next to dying embers, on beds of moss and leaves. Nobody fancied investigating.

  “It’s quite a fanciful song,” Rae said.

  “Maybe it’s not a bird at all” Zott said. Rae could make out the outline of his jaw in the gloom. He was watching the stars, as he had done on every other night.

  “What are you suggesting? Some manner of spirit?” Sebi asked.

  “Probably your monkey,” Zott replied.

  Sebi let out a huff.

  Before anyone else could speak, the sound rang out again. Lilting, like a love song.

  “It’s definitely not a monkey,” Rae said.

  The three of them chatted for a while longer before they tired. The strange song continued intermittently, drifting close, then further away, like a gentle tide. What had first seemed alien to Rae, soon became something like a sweet lullaby, and he soon fell asleep.

  Rei’s dreams, for the first time in months, were of dark twisting branches. Throttling branches. A thud. Rocks and water and rushing wind. A child was crying.

  Aiya~! Ai~~~ Yo!~

  The camp was quiet when he startled awake. There was a gentle breeze, cool but not cold. The sun had not yet risen, but the moon was bright, casting a blueish light on the surrounding foliage.

  Rae’s eyes were dry and his skin clammy. He crawled out of his cocoon of furs and crept past the sleeping forms of Sebi and Zott.

  Not far from the camp was a clear, narrow brook with a bank polished smooth by the winter rains.

  Rae splashed his face. Other than the sound of the water, there were no squawks, to scurrying of tiny feet. Rae sat beside the river and listened.

  Rae, of course, was a child of the mountains. He had been on hunting expeditions. He had spent nights in the wilderness. His people had trained their ears to discern hundreds of different animal calls. To hear the the direction of their movement, to sense their own position in the forested mountains, just from the feel of the wind and angle of the sun.

  And yet, something about the forest that morning had Rae at a loss.

  “Am I still dreaming?” he wondered.

  Something caught his eye. Flitting movement, weaving between the trees. A few hundred yards from where Rae was sitting.

  As quiet as snow, Rae crept towards the sight. And it took shape into a figure. It was a girl in white, with black hair and pearlescent skin.

  Her body was twisting and flailing, as if to music. The simple white slip, torn at the hem, swirling behind her as she went. Face in a state of rapture, her eyes were glassy, as if she saw nothing before her.

  “Aiya~! Ai~~~ Yo!~” she sang, in a voice as beautiful as it was wild.

  Rae crouched in the bush, his heart in his throat.

  This is the stuff of stories. A real-life witch!

  Watching her more closely, he saw she was youthful. A noble countenance, accentuated by careful makeup. Her bare arms were coated with a sheen of sweat, like dew on a spring blossom.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  So even immortal witches sweat? Do they tire also?

  Rae leaned forward, craned his neck, took in every minuscule movement he could perceive. His wonderings grew more and more fanciful as he looked.

  Suddenly, the dance ended. The girl whipped her head around, and he eyes met Rae’s.

  “…You,” she said.

  Her eyes shone like an owl’s reflecting moonshine. Her movements stilled, and time stretched. For an eternity they stared at each other and Rae was stunned silent.

  “…You…” she repeated, and tension entered her muscles. Like something that recoils before it strikes.

  But before the strike, someone burst onto the scene.

  “Ruli! Ruli! There you are! Everyone has been worried sick!” Another girl, warm where the first seemed cold, flung her arms around her friend.

  The witch-girl startled, blinking.

  “Are you still feeling unwell?” her friend asked, “come, come. Let’s go back to the others. You’ll feel better soon,”

  At that moment, the friend noticed something. She wasn’t perturbed by her companion’s glassy stare, nor her strange movements, nor her silence. What bothered her was the way the dead gaze was fixed on a single spot.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  Rae released the breath he’d been holding.

  “Forgive me, miss. I meant no trouble,” he said, in a light, quiet voice. Trying to exude the air of youth and harmlessness, he rose from his hiding place.

  “What were you doing, hiding there?” the mortal-seeming one said.

  She held her dead-eyed companion by the shoulders, as if she was scared she might bolt. Or pounce.

  “I was washing in the stream,” Rae said, “I heard someone approach and took it to be an animal. By the time I realised I was wrong, I was quite embarrassed, and tried to remain hidden,”

  The girl scowled at him, but before she could voice any complaints, her friend distracted her.

  The witch-like girl, who had been staring at Rae like a corpse, blinked twice, and a shudder ran down her body.

  “Where…?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “Don’t be scared,” her friend said, loosening the grip on her shoulders, “you went strange again. We’re not far from the others,” with the final statement, she shot another dirty look at Rae.

  He stepped back, “I’ll be returning to my companions, too. Safe travels!”

  Rae slinked back to where he had left Sebi and Zott, feeling like a weasel, or some other manner of vermin. And foolish. No matter how strange and haunted that girl appeared, she was an ordinary girl. Clearly troubled by something, but it was none of Rae’s business.

  Still, at least he had maintained his anonymity. If word got out that the Shak was crouching in bushes, spying on his poor, deranged subjects… Rae’s father, if his ghost still persisted somewhere, would deny his paternity till the end of time.

  However, peacefully putting the ordeal out of his mind wasn;t what fate had in store for Rae.

  When he returned to his companions, he found them entertaining a great number of peculiar characters.

  About a dozen women. Jewel-toned silks peaking out from under wool cloaks. Hair and teeth that glistened like compacted snow.

  Rae didn’t see Zott at first, until he followed the gaze of one of the women. She was waving up at his occasional murderer / occasional bodyguard, as he was perched in a tree.

  Rae sighed. The woman’s dark eyes turned on him.

  “So it’s you. What a pleasure,” she hummed.

  She was Edomi, the lead performer of the Azalea Hall, who Rae had met a few months ago. Azalea was a place men went to enjoy wine, dancing, and beautiful girls. Specifically, Edomi was the one who had talked Rae into drinking himself into a stupor and confessing his feelings to Ven. If he hadn’t spared any mind to this troublesome vixen’s words, he would have been saved a lot of embarrassment. That’s how Rae saw it.

  In other words, he owed her a great debt.

  “What a coincidence!” Rae said, “This is hardly the place I expected we would meet again,”

  She smiled a perfect smile, “I could say the same to you, sir,”

  The other girls were also from Azalea Hall, she soon explained. They had travelled east to serve as attendants at a banquet. When the girls asked her who Rae was, Edomi prudently didn’t say the whole truth.

  “The short young master with the flawless skin is a relative of Duke Kaolin. The one hiding in the tree runs errands for the Ashems, named Zott Wolavu. And I assume you all recognise the beautiful prodigy of Camp Bejuk?”

  They all nodded their agreement.

  Sebi’s face was always hard like granite, but it only grew more pale and severe at the mention of this fitting nickname.

  Zott, who had been hiding in the tree, climbed down from his perch. Only Rae, who had seen him clamber up and down countless trees in their time together, could perceive how he was moving with greater care than usual.

  “Enough with the pleasantries. We should move on,”

  Immediately, Sebi spoke up too. “Yes, yes. I agree,”

  “Forgive my insolence, but I must ask something of the young masters,” Edomi’s words were deferential, but her eyes sparkled in a way that made Rae’s jaw clench.

  “What can we do for you?”

  “It’s not what you can do, young master Kaolin. It’s what the beauty beside you can do for me,”