Solomonari were a race of wizard strigoi that rode zmeu or balar and were masters of the elements. They worked blood magic and made pacts with demons and animals, for which they were reviled throughout Calruthia, maybe the whole world. Their school was known as The Dark School, ?oloman??. They were not the evil beings the rest of the world trembles over, not to me. I was raised in isolated mountain sunshine, until my seven years of darkness came due. Even then, they were cold, but not unkind.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  The shepherd on the hill would die if no one helped him.

  The first warning came with a throaty bleating and the rustle of sheep through tall grass. They raced at the traveling man in a black cloak, parting around him as he dodged the first runner. Rough wool scraped past.

  Dragos broke into a run before he thought about what he was running toward.

  On the hill, a shepherd boy was locked in a struggle with something inhuman. A hulking figure of grass and wildflowers knocked the shepherd boy down. The boy’s limbs flailed, and the curved stick he used to guide his flock flipped through the air.

  The rough-worn peddler’s box on Dragos’ back rattled as he pushed up the slope. His cloak snapped in the wind of an oncoming storm, hood flung back. Gray clouds billowed on the mountainous horizon. Hair white as snow whipped around his head, the hemp cord he used to tame it lost to the wind. He had no time to conceal it. Instead, his hands scrambled for the heavy leather pouch at his hip while his legs pumped up the slope. Dark, well-oiled gloves were drawn forth, the knuckles tipped with iron claws. Like an owl’s talons served to rend, that was the sole purpose of his gloves.

  Hastily, he buckled them, the iron boning comforting in leather sheathing.

  “Fanea??iele!”

  The boy thrashed in the waving spring grasses while the creature bound him. His fingers bled from the razored edges he tore at trying to escape. Dragos closed the distance to the iele’s shoulders, which bore some passing resemblance to a human’s. Like an owl’s, its head swiveled all the way around until its semblance of a face considered him.

  He considered it in turn, fists up. Meadow spirit, risen from unmarked graves and nurtured to a sort of unlife by the spirit rivers far within the earth.

  Yellow arnica flowers sat in its head where eyes would have been. It was a handspan taller than Dragos, its body a woven mass of grass and stalk, limbs slithering like vines around the shepherd, whose thrashing slowed.

  “Let him go, or I’ll make you regret it.” The threat sounded thin to Dragos’ ears, though it was delivered without a tremor. His ragged growl was too soft from disuse.

  Grass parted on its face. A riot of flowering stalks burst out in a vomit of colorful petals. Dragos sidestepped; his punch slashed through the assault of thick stalks easily. Grass and creeping phlox rippled over the matted meadow carpet. Although he didn’t look healthy with his too-pale skin and lean form, he was fast—blindingly fast, dodging the binding attacks, slashing at others.

  “I’ll take him and go! Leave us!” Dragos barked, spending precious breath on talking as a tendril wound around his ragged wolfhide boot. He twisted, snapping it, and surged in close to drag his talons through the meadow spirit’s woven arm.

  The thing unmade itself. Plantlife unwound, slithering back into the disturbed grasses around them. He shot a glance at the boy, whose bloody hands grasped at his throat, digging at blades and stalks that were no longer there.

  Dragos didn’t let his guard down, gaze flicking around the hilltop, searching for unusual movement in the fluttering heads of flowers and shuddering blades of green. Beside him, the boy coughed.

  “Lumini—she was a woman a moment ago,” the young man gasped.

  Just a boy, not quite a man. Not that Dragos had much to say about that. He was a mere few years older, at best. The shepherd wore simple peasant clothes of hemp, with a woolen vest and cap. Shoes of woven grass protected his feet.

  “Why are you here?” Dragos asked, as he turned slowly, heart still raging in his chest. A rustle, and a field mouse later, his arms slowly lowered.

  “I just wanted to see what was beyond the hill. I don’t usually go this far, but…” The boy plucked at his vest and, seeing blood, frowned at his hands.

  “Don’t. Some places have spirits, and sometimes a strange presence is enough to anger them,” Dragos said. Noticing the cuts, he shrugged the box off his back. “I have something to stop the bleeding.”

  “Mul?umesc—Ah!” The boy said, his brown eyes turning up to his savior, and the sudden shock visibly shook him.

  The hood’s weight was gone. Nothing blinded the periphery of his vision. The things Dragos usually concealed were visible to the world. He knew what the boy saw: a man neither tall nor short, and lean from a year of fending for himself. Fishbelly pale and young, despite white hair, fine as spider silk. And then there were his damning eyes. If eyes were windows of the soul, his spirit was made of winter’s ice-blue frost.

  “Nerostit?,” the boy murmured, taking a step back.

  “Moroi viu,” Dragos corrected, dropping to a knee to undo the latches. The box groaned open to reveal a multitude of small drawers on one side. On the other, loops of leather restrained a few dozen small waxed and stoppered vials. “Not Unspoken. Living. Just cursed from birth.”

  “Is that better?” the boy asked, though he didn’t back away.

  Dragos flicked a look up and smirked. “Better for you. Here. Hold out your hands.”

  The boy held out his palms, which had the worst cuts. Dragos held up a small packet and tipped the powdered contents over the welling slices. “Yarrow powder. It will help.”

  “Where did you learn how to…” The shepherd flicked brown hair out of his eyes and then mimicked punching.

  “My old school,” Dragos murmured. Belatedly, he thought it wiser not to mention it, though it was gone. He pinched his lips shut and could almost feel his teacher’s willow switch.

  Secrecy and wisdom. Do not forget the Owl’s virtues. With a sigh, he stood.

  The whisper of grass alerted him a breath before the fanea??iele surged up from the ground. A rope of twisted grasses shot for Dragos’ throat from one arm, and the other mirrored the move on the boy.

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  The shepherd dug fingernails into the thick living rope that wound tightly around his throat. It only took a second for his cheeks to go purple, but he had fight left in him. The boy weakly pounded on thick stalks.

  Dragos’ arm flashed, slicing brutally through the attack. His lips peeled back in a snarl. Terror coursed through his veins, but fear’s current couldn’t hold against his anger. The shepherd’s spirit, should he die there, would add to the strength of the meadow’s malevolence.

  “You said you would go,” the fanea??iele whispered, its voice like the wind in the weeds.

  “And I will!” Dragos spat, each word punctuated by a ripping punch that ate into the iele, shredding the greenery it used to walk the earth. On ragged breath, he warned, “Let him go, or I’ll set your field on fire!”

  “You’ve no fire,” it hissed.

  Dragos dashed back a few paces. He hadn’t been able to re-latch his box, so finding the compounds was easy. He plucked two vials and held them apart from each other with a vicious smile. Flicking off the stoppers with his thumbs, he threw them both at the iele’s floral base.

  Instantly, a purple flame ignited. A nearly inaudible shriek echoed over the hills as the verdant mass heaved away, its leaves and tendrils vanishing into the sward. The purple fire burned out almost as quickly as it ignited with a faint stink and hiss. Dragos glanced at the two slender glass tubes and sighed.

  Making those compounds had been difficult in ?oloman??, with his cohort around him and all the resources that had been gathered by the school’s masters. Doing it again? Nearly impossible.

  “Do you have any food?” Dragos asked. If nothing else, this could get him a meal.

  The shepherd hadn’t stood up. He went to the boy’s side and grabbed his wrist. The pulse there beat, weak and steady. Unconscious. As much as he did not want to carry someone near his own weight, he didn’t see another choice.

  Head falling back, he looked to the sky and exhaled an irritated grunt. One day he’d learn to walk past these things like the rest of the world. Impulse always seemed to beat out wisdom, and for what?

  To be stuck carrying an unconscious shepherd, that’s what.

  Tucking his gloves away, he replaced his hood on his head and his box on his back before rolling the boy. Dragos crouched and grabbed his arm, slinging him carefully over his shoulders.

  Standing was difficult, but not as awful as picking his way down the hill and back to the track he’d been walking when he saw all the trouble. Even though he was surefooted as a goat, he had a few moments where he slid and almost didn’t catch himself. Dragos caught up to the sheep a few minutes later, the flock idly nipping at tender spring shoots. He left them to it.

  The village was a sorry collection of burdei, most large enough to house their livestock along with the farmers. No other building graced the commons. To Dragos, that suggested either a new community or a terribly impoverished one. The half-buried houses with rough thatch grew as he trudged.

  A few heads came up from the fields. A figure appeared at a doorway. A couple of men hurried forward, their sunworn faces creased with worry.

  He hefted the boy, who slid dangerously while he was considering the village. The bounce and repositioning was a mistake. Dragos lurched to the side and fell, crashing to the dirt. The shepherd rolled away. His box rattled and jammed into his ribs hard enough to make him hiss.

  The ache set in as he lay there, breathing through it. Rolling, he slid an elbow under himself to push upwards. A voice nearby said a name. “Amal!”

  Dragos turned his head enough to see past his hood. A woman crouched beside the shepherd, patting him. The boy groaned.

  A hand grasped Drago’s elbow and tugged him up. Panic hit in a wave. Too close. People were risky.

  “Wh—Nerostit?!”

  Dragos stared into the peasant’s face, cragged as a sun-baked field. The lines bent in terror as the man let go of him, brushing his hands on his chest.

  Another man surged forward, a crude shovel in his hand. He held the blade up and shouted, “What did you do to my son?”

  “I didn’t,” Dragos said, steadily backing away, hands up.

  A dog barked. People moved toward him, some grabbing up rakes, shovels, and pitchforks. Dragos shook his head and pivoted, breaking into a sprint for the road he’d left behind.

  The villagers followed him for a ways, until it was clear he’d outrun them.

  He always outran them.

  When the rain came, riding on angry winds coming wild down the mountains, he found shelter in the forest. The eldritch trees grew massive in the untold distance. Calruthia was as much forest as it was cultivated land. Over the past year, Dragos had learned how to survive. What he hadn’t learned from school, he learned from luck and cleverness.

  Like how to stay reasonably dry in a raging thunderstorm. He found shelter in the hollow of an oak, worm-ridden but not yet dead. The goatish stench within the rotting hollow was a welcome one. It didn’t take long to dig out a nice handful of fat goat moth larvae. When the rain lightened, he made a fire and roasted them. Their flavor and scent didn’t matter. They warmed his blood as he ate them.

  Once the clouds had finished their weeping, he set out again, walking the long, lonely road. Dragos thought briefly of the boy, hoped Amal would tell the true tale, and maybe he could travel back that way. One day. Sometimes people remembered. Help wasn’t always forgotten.

  He walked for hours through the forest and into a collection of fields, thoughts still stuck on the boy. He didn’t regret it, exactly. But why? The school pitted the cohorts against various spirits like the fanea??iele in the past. Perhaps it was that.

  They’d learned to help each other. Survival was greatest with help. Maybe he jumped in because he knew what he could do, though that time he hadn’t gotten a hot meal or a dry place to sleep as a reward.

  Altruism was a bad habit he’d yet to break, it seemed.

  The track beneath his feet stretched on. He kept his head down, eyes on the ground, head in his thoughts.

  Until something broke them.

  A wail rose to the hollow sky, careening across the gray clouds. Dragos’ chin lifted, his pale eyes shifted to the side, toward the sound. The deep hood obscured his vision of the surroundings as he plodded along the rutted, muddy path that cut through the fields. He turned to squint toward the sound.

  It sounded like a raven. A raven pretending to be a baby.

  The bird must have come out of the canopy to pluck at worms forced upwards by the recent heavy rain. Birds found easy prey in drowning insects trying to escape muddy graves.

  Still… His skin prickled in response to the sound. It sparked a primal urge to investigate. He debated with himself as he squelched along in the slightly drier mud, left relatively untouched by the absence of wagon wheels.

  It was simple logic. Ravens were tricksters known for teasing people and each other with their playful mimicry. The bird must have heard an infant’s cry and amused itself with the sound. Nothing more. There was no point in investigating any further.

  And yet—something wasn’t quite right. Ravens didn’t hitch and choke with the inconsistency of distressed breath when they pretended to be other things. If anything, this bird copied the sound too perfectly. Like a clock—rhythmic, timed, a perfect replica of a moment in time.

  Dragos stopped walking.

  Across the sodden, reeking expanse of spring tilling, he could see something writhing on the ground. The traveler shoved his hood back. Albino wisps of hair escaped as he scanned the lumps of upturned earth. He confirmed his suspicion. Far in the distance, something squirmed in the mud.

  Dragos exhaled a sigh and hitched up the strap to his box of wares and other precious cargo. He stared off into the distance at the source of the noise and movement, remaining still as a post in the lonely wind. A second of hesitation held him on the mound between the ruts.

  And then he strode out across the dark line, full of rainwater from the earlier storm. Dragos rested a hand on the crumbling stone wall and looked. Pale, thick, worm-like things sprouted from the squirming, muddy lump before him. The wails came from there. The fluttering limbs. The softly incessant howling.

  It was a child—no, a baby. A newborn, perhaps.

  Another howl rose, so forlorn it hurt his heart.

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  Pronunciation: You can pretty much roll or trill any 'r' that appears.

  Fanea??iele (fuh-NYUH-tsuh-leh-yeh): Meadow spirit.

  Mul?umesc (mool-tsoo-MESK): Thanks.

  Nerostit? (neh-ross-TEE-teh) [rolled r]: Calruthian word for all things unnatural or strange. Usually synonymous with Unspoken.

  Moroi viu (mo-roi vee-oo) [rolled r]: A living person lacking a soul, according to some. People with strange appearances or habits.

  ?oloman?? (Shoh-loh-MAHN-tsuh): Dragos' old school, known in other places as Scholomance.