That night, long after Canya and Allan had retired, after the wind had hushed and the house had settled into its deep silence, a different stirring began in the woods beyond the homestead.
She stood beneath a grotesquely crooked tree, cloaked in a brown shawl that pulsed with a faint, unsettling glow under the moon. In her hand, a carved bone totem pulsed faintly too, etched with symbols only a precious few still remembered how to read. A crow's call fractured the quiet above her, and she turned, her silhouette melting deeper into the forest's embrace. Behind her, the air shimmered briefly, as though the world itself had blinked, its eyes slowly reopening. She wielded a staff, sinister as death itself making the moonlit forest feel, profoundly dark.
"It is time," she whispered, the totem held close to her mouth.
While everyone else slept, Thomas toiled in his small hut, chanting incantations. He clung to the prophecy his wife had shared – a daughter, destined to marry a spirit painter. Many thought spirit painters were just overpowered artists; compared to wizards, they were lacking, but Thomas knew better. Their power, though different from a wizard's, was formidable. He'd seen their healing touch, capable of mending what even powerful sorcerers couldn't touch. A curse, unyielding to a wizard's might, could be banished with a few strokes of a spirit painter's "freakish" brush.
If a spirit painter married an ordinary woman, she'd know no ailment. But if she possessed magic, her abilities would ascend to unimaginable heights. Canya was far from ordinary. Her bloodline, bestowing each firstborn daughter with unimaginable power, would be supercharged by such a union. His incantations, then, were meant to forge this destiny.
Long before Allan ever stepped foot in these woods, Thomas had cast a spell, blanketing the forest like an invisible net. He'd been told the time was drawing near, and he intended to smooth the path.
With the spell cast, any man caught within its ethereal threads would be known to him, no matter where Thomas was. He could sense their essence, their very being. And when the right man arrived, all he had to do was extend a welcoming hand. That's how he'd found Allan.
Beads of sweat glistened on his face. The fire at the room's heart, once yellow, now blazed a furious red, its heat intensifying. The room brightened, filled with a chorus of eerie, incoherent voices, whispering, then rising to a clamor. A slow smile spread across Thomas's face.
"I am succeeding," he chuckled, the sound echoing unnaturally.
"No, you are not."
The voice, cutting through the cacophony from the center of the room, made Thomas freeze. The voices quelled instantly, the fire shrinking back to a gentle yellow. The bright room dulled, illuminated only by the fire's flickering light, barely outlining shapes.
Opposite him, across the dwindling fire, Thomas saw her: a hunched old woman with a gnarled stick. Her pale face, eyes barely slits, and long white hair spilling from beneath her cloak made her seem, at first glance, utterly ordinary. But the fact that she had dissolved his powerful spell without a bead of sweat made her terrifyingly dangerous.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in my lair?" he demanded, his cautious gaze locked on hers.
"You are meddling with things beyond your grasp," her coarse voice rasped, seeming to seep from every corner of the room, straight into Thomas's soul. "Just because you know of a prophecy, you believe you have the power to force it into being? For this, Thomas, you are going to pay dearly."
He trembled, a shiver of fear he quickly masked with a veneer of confidence. "I do not know what you are talking about," he said, shaking his head.
"Whether you know or not is the least of my concern. I am here to stop what you intend. This young man you are trapping in your web is more than just a spirit painter. He is meant for things far beyond your petty schemes. If you don't stop, you will endanger countless lives."
"But the prophecy…" Thomas began.
"Damn your prophecy!" Her voice sharpened, making even the fire recoil, further dimming the room. "Because of your selfishness, you made Whimper believe your stupid interpretation of that prophecy. She died because of it. Now you have brought that young man here, trapped him in a web of a love that isn't his. I have to destroy your web."
"You may be powerful, but only I can break the web," Thomas declared, his fear receding, his forced confidence solidifying into genuine defiance. "You destroy the web, he dies."
"You are right, I cannot break the spell. But he can…"
"His spirit painting cannot break it while he is in it. That leaves only me."
"Then you are a bigger fool than I thought," the woman scowled. "I have given you until morning to break the spell. Otherwise, he is going to do it. And that is an option you will not like."
With a contemptuous laugh that seemed to echo long after she was gone, the woman vanished, leaving Thomas alone in the oppressive silence.