Bram Thistleside was fairly certain rats were not meant to glow.
He crouched low in the musty shadows of a grain barn on the outskirts of Mottlewick. The interior reeked of damp straw and anxiety. Burlap sacks of oats loomed around him like half-forgotten tombstones, and dust danced in the golden shafts of sunlight streaming through cracks in the roof.
Before him skittered a dozen twitchy, bioluminescent rodents. Each one no larger than a pear, their fur shimmered with a pale, moonlit blue that pulsed with a rhythm not entirely in sync with the laws of biology. Their eyes glowed faintly purple. Whiskers crackled with miniature arcs of static, and when one sneezedâa high-pitched, explosive "peep!"âa nearby sack of oats combusted in a puff of spice-scented flame.
"Right," Bram muttered, reaching into his satchel with the steady weariness of a man used to madness. He pulled out a copper-threaded net, its frame softly humming with residual enchantment. "So youâre not ordinary vermin. Fine. Neither am I."
He lunged.
The rats exploded into motion, scattering like spilled marbles on a ballroom floor.
Chaos ensued. Oats erupted into the air like confetti. A lantern tipped and began a slow-motion fall toward catastrophe. A wheelbarrow, previously innocent and inert, quivered, blinked into sentience, and tore through the barn doors wailing something about "justice for the pumpkins."
Bram, mid-sprint, caught his foot on a feed bucket and flew face-first into a haystack that let out a resentful moan.
"Oh, not again," the hay muttered.
Bram, spitting straw, swung his net and snagged one glowing rat mid-leap. It squealed like a kettle under pressure. He reached for a containment jarâa sturdy glass number lined with silver runesâbut the jar clamped its lid shut and barked, "Off-duty!"
"I should've gone into plumbing," Bram said to no one in particular, cradling his bruised nose.
Above, from the high rafters, came a voice both familiar and profoundly irritating.
"Elegant as always," it said.
Bram tilted his head back. There, perched smugly atop a beam like an opinionated gargoyle, sat Croaksley. The frog's emerald-green skin gleamed in the sunlight, and his golden eyes twinkled with gleeful judgment. He tapped one webbed toe against the beam as if conducting a symphony of Bram's misfortune.
"Lost you two towns back," Bram called.
Croaksley sniffed. "You say 'lost.' I say 'strategically avoided a man who confused pixie powder with seasoning salt.'"
Bram finally cornered a second rat near a spilled barrel of barley. It hissed in a voice like cracking glass and uttered a phrase in an eldritch tongue that made a pitchfork wilt. Then it vanished in a puff of indigo smoke, leaving behind a single tooth and the smell of toasted marshmallows.
"Brilliant," Bram grumbled, rubbing ash off his coat.
Croaksley dropped gracefully to a lower beam, landing with all the smug elegance of a thespian accepting applause.
"Word is the disturbances are spreading," he said, casually brushing dust off his nonexistent sleeves. "The village cheese wheel started quoting dramatic soliloquies last week."
Bram straightened slowly. "That actually explains lunch."
The frog tilted his head, watching Bram intently. "Need help?"
Bram sighed and eyed the last rat, which was currently writing something on the barn floor in glowing droppings.
"Only if you're offering something more useful than sarcasm."
"Unlikely," Croaksley replied, and leapt to Bram's shoulder with a flourish. "Still, I like a challenge."
Together, they turned to face the last of the glowing rodents, who squeaked once and fled.
"After him?" Croaksley asked.
Bram nodded. "After him."
And with that, pest-controller and frog sprinted into the hay-dusted sun, in pursuit of answers, rodents, and whatever madness came next.
***
Meanwhile, far to the east, Princess Eleanor and her two escorts guided their horses through the winding paths of Tallowmare Forest. The morning had begun with birdsong and dappled sunlight, but now a thick mist crept in like a hush falling over a crowd. The trees grew twisted and close, their branches curling inward as if to whisper secrets or ensnare the unwary. The trunks leaned like crooked teeth, gnarled and dark, the bark streaked with crimson lichen. The air carried an eerie sweetnessâcinnamon and something sharper beneath, like spice hiding a blade.
Eleanor slowed her mount, a grey mare named Sally, trained for war and wreathed in quiet tension. The horseâs hooves thudded softly against the damp earth, muffled by moss and fallen leaves.
Then it happened.
A sudden burst of motion from the underbrushâa flash of feathers, rust-red and gleamingâerupted into the mist. One bird. Then another. Then an entire flock exploded from the trees with shrieks like metal on stone.
They came fast and low. The birds were strange: lean and angular with rust-colored plumage that shimmered like oil on water. Their spiral-shaped eyes spun like tiny whirlpools, and their beaks caught the weak sunlight with the gleam of ground glass. They screamed as they dove.
Eleanor was already moving.
She kicked Sally into a gallop and drew her sword with a single motion so practiced it felt like breath. The steel rang out like a silver bell, clean and cold.
A bird dived. Eleanor leaned low, ducking beneath its whirling talons, and sliced upward in a sharp arc. Feathers scattered like autumn leaves.
Two more spiraled in. Their feathers flickered chaotically, changing color in bursts like angry chameleons on a carousel. She twisted in the saddle, blade flashing. One bird fell. The other veered away, only to be caught in a net of glowing thread flung with expert aim.
Four birds tangled in the net, screeching and flapping until the enchantment tightened around them. The net flashed, then shrank into a silvery knot, holding the creatures silent and still.
A fifth dove straight for Sally's eyes. Eleanor didnât hesitate.
"Kallien dâalora!" she commanded, speaking in the sharp cadence of old High Speech.
The runes carved into her saddle burst into golden light. Sally surged forward with a burst of magical speed, hooves pounding the earth like war drums. The attacking bird met the glowing field of protective magic and erupted in a harmless puff of multicolored petals.
Eleanor pulled the reins, circling slowly. The forest was silent again.
Petals drifted to the ground like confetti from a chaotic parade. Steam rose from the earth. The air held its breath.
She dismounted, boots crunching softly on pine needles.
Near the path lay a bird unlike the othersâa crow, motionless. She knelt beside it.
It wasnât dead. It had been petrified. Frozen in place, wings half-unfurled, eyes locked wide in eternal terror. Its feathers gleamed with an unnatural lacquer, each strand rigid as glass. Eleanor reached out and felt the air above the creatureâs body hum faintly, like a harp string plucked in slow motion.
The magic clung to it like cobwebs, faint and sticky. Old. Wrong.
Eleanor stood, sword still in hand, scanning the trees. Every leaf and branch seemed to shiver with watchful intent.
"We haven't had magic like this since before Morvaene's restrictions," she whispered.
Her voice did not echo.
***
Bram and Croaksley strolled through the singed remains of Mottlewickâs cheese cellar. What was left of the wheel had, in its dying words, praised Bramâs bravery and declared war on lactose intolerance.
"Too much flair," Croaksley said. "Youâll never sneak up on anything if your coat keeps catching on fire."
"I didnât set it on fire. The rat did. With its sneeze."
Croaksley blinked. "Unimpressive excuse."
Bram kicked a smoldering log. "These infestations are getting worse. Smarter."
He crouched beside a patch of scorched dirt. Among the soot was a curious patternâa spiral etched in green powder, faintly glowing.
"Recognize that?" he asked.
Croaksley hopped closer. His eyes narrowed. "Thatâs no natural sigil. Thatâs spellcraft. Old school. Morvaene's style."
Bram frowned. "He hasnât been allowed to do magic like this in years."
"Doesnât mean he stopped meddling."
Bram rose slowly, brushing ash from his knees. The spiral glowed once, then faded into nothing.
***
Elsewhere in the forest, where the undergrowth grew thick and the trees formed a near-solid canopy of rustling green, Eleanor discovered another clue.
She pulled Sally to a halt before an ancient, hollow treeâits bark warped and darkened, its trunk split wide as if riven by a bolt of lightning or a scream held too long. The opening yawned like the mouth of a beast mid-roar. Inside, where rot or squirrels might normally be expected, lay something altogether stranger.
A bundle of red and gold magical thread was tangled inside, knotted and glinting as if it held the last gasp of daylight. It pulsed faintly with a rhythmic shimmer, like breath or heartbeat. Surrounding it, etched into the inner bark, was a scorched spiral. The burn marks were deep, still smoking faintly, and nearly identical to the one Bram had found in Mottlewick.
Eleanor dismounted, her boots sinking slightly into the moss-carpeted earth. She stepped closer, reaching out. As her fingers brushed the scorched edge of the spiral, the wood beneath her hand gave a soft pulseânot warm exactly, but responsive, like something half-asleep and dreaming.
She pulled her hand back slowly.
Her brow furrowed, and her eyes narrowed.
"Heâs testing something," she said aloud, voice low. "Experimenting."
The air seemed to tighten around her, as though the forest were listening. She turned her gaze skyward. The treetops swayed, but not a sound emerged. No chirps. No flutter of wings. No birdsong at all.
Eleanor and her two escorts stood alone in a forest that had gone utterly still.
She mounted Sally again and nudged the mare forward, senses sharp.
All around her, the forest held its breath.
***
That night, Bram made camp beside a gentle stream that gurgled like a bard three pints deep into a love ballad. The water ran clear over stones speckled with moss and quartz, and as it bubbled, it insisted on rhyming in coupletsâsome clever, some questionable, and all delivered with a slightly smug tone.
Bram had set up a small fire and arranged his bedroll near a bend in the stream that muttered about ungrateful trout. He leaned back on his elbows, staring into the flickering flames as Croaksley milled around near the fire, poking mushrooms with a sharpened twig as though interrogating them.
"Coincidences," the frog declared, "are rarely this well-synchronized."
Bram looked over. "So what are you saying?"
Croaksley gave a sage nod, then poked the largest mushroom again for good measure. "Iâm saying," he replied, "that whatever's behind this madness isnât just spreading... itâs steering. Like a very angry conductor with a grudge against sheet music."
Bram tilted his head toward the heavens. The sky above the clearing was clear, peppered with stars that blinked slowly, some with a faint twinkle as if winking at the world below.
A few of them, Bram thought uneasily, seemed to blink back.
He wasnât sure he liked that.
***
Far to the east, beneath the boughs of Tallowmare Forest, Eleanor knelt beside her own campfire. A flickering lantern cast warm gold across her small canvas tent, illuminating maps, scrolls, and a patch of linen on which she had arranged the thread she'd collected from the hollow tree.
The thread glowed faintly. It pulsed like a heartbeat, low and slow, its light just enough to make the shadows twitch.
She leaned in, brow furrowed.
It hummed.
Not a sound exactly, but a vibration felt in the bones and behind the eyes. It spoke of magic old and tangled, of spells left unfinished and deliberately unspoken.
Eleanor sat back slowly.
She didnât know what it meant yet.
But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: Morvaeneâs hand was at work again.
And this time, she would not be caught unprepared.