The Ruins of Nightshard Hall
This is the bonus story that goes with Fractured Night. It can be read as a standalone.
When I was ten years old, my grandmother took me into the Cairnclaim Hills, in the Thunderhead Ward, along lonely roads to where the ruins of a broken stone mansion sprawled under the sky. Around us, tall trees encircled the toppled walls like hungry beasts.
Grandma rolled the battered sedan into the driveway.
I sprang from the car, eager to stretch my legs. Grandmother was fond of driving for long periods, but always stopped at a restaurant for lunch. “Why are we here? It’s the middle of nowhere!” My stomach rumbled.
Grandma followed, stretching, and stood before a heap of cracked masonry. “Why don’t you play over there?” She pointed at the base of a tree in front of our vehicle. “I’ll only be a little while.”
Usually I could be trusted to entertain myself, but I was full of energy after the journey, and trailed after my grandmother through the ruins, where she stepped into a wide space, her arms extended.
“Did you live here?” I asked.
“Hah, I knew you couldn’t keep away. Yes, a long time ago.” Grandma moved around the tumbled walls, gliding with practiced steps. “This was the dance hall, Arana! There were springs under the polished wood floor, and it felt like we were moving amongst the clouds.” She bent and picked a twist of rusted metal from the ground. “They’re still here, under the grass. Mind where you step.”
Then she pointed to the corner where a flight of stairs extended halfway into the empty air. “Those led to the upper floors, where the family had their rooms. One looked over the back garden.” And then she moved amongst the overgrown shrubs and trees. “This was all lawn once, with beautiful flowerbeds. In each of the six seasons, new flowers would bloom; a seasonal clock, the gardener called it.”
“What’s the name of this place?” I asked.
Grandma remained lost in her reverie. I don’t know if she heard me as she pointed to a narrow-leaved oak tree. “And under there, the lady of the house would sit in a hanging chair and…” Her voice broke off. Then she tensed, like a hound that had picked up a scent, and hurried towards the treeline.
I followed her to where she stood under the spreading branches, a haunted expression on her face. “I should follow,” she whispered, her eyes wide. She did a half-step forward and froze.
“What’s going on?”” I took her hand.
Her fingers sweated against my palm. “I thought I saw something. Now I’m not sure.”
“But what was it? A wolf?” I shuddered, even though our national animal was rarely seen in the wild these days. “Or a bear, or—”
“Nothing like that,” Grandma said, and refused to explain further as she hurried me back to the car.
She opened the door, and I clambered into the seat. “You haven’t explained anything!” I complained.
“One day, I promise,” Grandma said. “When you’re old enough to understand—‘
“Why not now?”
“Because stories are precious, and need to be told at the right moment.” Grandma tapped the side of her head. “You can only hear a story the first time once. Let’s return to the city.”
During the winter in which I turned twelve, I caught a dreadful fever and was too sick to go to school. Grandma tended me with a chilly cloth and spoonfuls of hot soup that I could barely stomach. She had made sure I grew up surrounded by books, but I was so weary I could not bring myself to turn a page, and so I asked her for a story.
“What do you want to know?” Grandma checked my pulse, her fingers cool against my sweating skin.
“About the mansion!” I said. “You’ve been promising me for years that you’ll tell me what happened! Did you live there once?”
Grandma gave a crooked smile and settled in her chair near my bed.
Once upon a time, a family called the Nightshards lived at Nightshard Hall. They were wealthy, descended from ancient kings. Their hair was dark, like polished obsidian, and their eyes were a pale silver-gray. So faded that from a distance they appeared white. Nowadays, after so many uprising and revolutions, it’s not unusual to see those marks outside of the old nobility, but back then it always marked the gentry as a people apart.
In that house, there was a little girl called Brineth Nightshard, with black hair and silver eyes, who loved books. She was born sickly, with a cough that wouldn’t go away, and so she spent her days reading stories of knights and dragons, staring out the back window over the lawn, and wishing for a different world.
Brineth had a best friend, a servant girl called Ellna.
Ellna was the daughter of the groundskeeper. She was fast and strong and ran errands all the time, descending to the village to purchase supplies. She had more freedom than most other serving girls, and would often slip away to visit Brineth in her room.
Brineth was always glad to see Ellna, and would read to her from her faerie tale books. The servant girl listened, almost in a trance, as Brineth spoke of the lost age of magic, when dragons wheeled in the sky, and knights defended vast crystal castles.
In return, Ellna told Brineth of her life and family in the village. And oh, how amazing it seemed! Her uncle owned the inn, where she stayed when she was not running errands for her father. He had a big bushy beard, and he was always there to hug her when she saw him. Her aunt made the most wonderful apple pies in the world, with thick slices and just the right amount of cinnamon. And at the Winterdark festival, by a cozy fire burning in the hearth, Ellna would gather with her cousins and they would put on green cloaks to re-enact the Battle of Reladon. Her uncle played the Dark Emperor, who would fall dramatically to the floor when struck by Saint Hawkbow’s sword.
Brineth barely saw her parents. She was an afterthought to her family. She was young and sickly, but she had two older brothers, and a sister near marriageable age. Perhaps the closest thing she had to an aunt was the housekeeper, a dwarrow matron called Mrs. Overbridge, who combed Brineth’s hair, and complained when she asked to go into the garden. ‘Don’t do that,’ she snapped. ‘You’ll make your cough worse’.”
And one day it was Spring Revel, and Brineth desperately wanted to attend: to wear a goat’s mask and march around in a circle with her family and drink bitterwater after, yet Mrs. Overbridge told her she had to stay in her room. “Your father is having visitors from the capital, and a little coughing girl would get in the way.”
Later that evening, Ellna appeared at the window, and the two girls crept to the forgotten salon that faced the rear garden and watched the festival of masks, and the Important People, all wearing shining military uniforms with bright silver buttons and ornaments. Brineth’s father bowed towards the man with the most impressive uniform and poured him the ceremonial cup of bitterwater from the sacred family ewer.
After the guests left, Ellna escorted her back to her room. “You haven’t coughed once. I don’t think you’re as sick as they say.”
“You’re right,” Brineth said. “What if it’s all a trick, and they don’t want me around at all? She rested her head against Ellna’s. “Let’s run away together, like the princess and the cook in the story of the golden horn.”
But Ellna helped her clamber into bed and pulled the covers to her chin. “I have a better idea.” The serving girl leaned forward. “I’ve told you about my life and family.”
“They sound so wonderful.”
“What if they were yours?”
“Oh, how I wish they were.” Brineth had daydreamed about the uncle with bushy red whiskers, the aunt who served apple pie, and the dozens of cheerful cousins. A proper family, like people had in books.
A smile slipped across Ellna’s face and the girl leaned forward, whispering. “What if we swapped places?”
Brineth’s widened like an owl’s. She was no stranger to the concept, for it happened many times in her stories. She glanced at her thin, pale frame in the nearby mirror, with her ghostly eyes wide. “We look nothing alike!”
Ellna, by contrast, was ruddy and tall, with the brown hair and eyes of the Stormfields common folk.
“I met an elf lord at the inn,” said her friend. “Or lady. I wasn’t sure. It felt rude to ask. But they told me how, at certain times, a spirit appears in the woods that will grant wishes. And the spirit will be there next week, at sunset.”
Brineth leaned forward, a look of wonder on her face.“Wishes? Like in fairy tales?”
“And we could wish to swap places,” Ellna said. “You could stay at the inn with my aunt and uncle, and have that kind of family you’ve always wanted.”
“But…” Brineth frowned. “Why do you want to be here? And me?”
“Oh, I’d like to live in a place like this, and not run about all the time,” her friend said. “And I’m sure I could make your parents and siblings notice and love me more, as I’m good at that. They would invite me to all the balls. I wouldn’t spend my life in a room surrounded by books.”
Brineth’s cheeks reddened with shame. How much of her family’s neglect of her was her own fault? If she was as bright and friendly and energetic as Ellna, could she have made them love her?
Ellna pinched Brineth’s arm. “Don’t worry, you’d get my enormous family, and we’d still see each other frequently, like we do now. We’d be like sisters, forever.”
Over the next few days, Brineth thought about exchanging places with her friend. She studied her shelves of books and wondered what she would do without them. She recalled what Ellna had said about getting her parents to love her, and so she tried. Brineth knocked on Mama’s parlor, where she sat with ladies in fancy dress, doing strange things with crystals and oddly marked cards.
“Mama!” Brineth edged into the room. “I would like to spend more time with—“
“I’m very busy,” Mama said. “This doesn’t concern you. Go back to your room. Where is Mrs. Overbridge?”
Brineth also tried to visit her father. “Papa?” She opened the door to his study.
“Go away!” he growled. All around him were men in the steel grey uniforms from the capital.
“What are you doing—“
“It’s not for you to know. Leave!”
And it was the same for her siblings. Her brothers stared at her like she was some strange creature, and her sister snapped at her presence.
Brineth fled to her room and cried into her pillow. And Mrs. Overbridge came and lectured her about propriety and not disturbing the household.
That night, Brineth curled her fingers under the sheets. Her family was a mystery to her, all of them living in their own stories with no time for her. She didn’t belong here. She would make the wish and swap with Ellna and never have to bother with these distant people ever again.
Brineth finally fell asleep and woke to a mild day. She passed the morning staring out the window, daydreaming about what her new life in Ellna’s family would be like. Ellna finally arrived atmidday, panting. “Quickly. We must travel, and it’s a long walk.”
Brineth followed her friend through the house, using all the servant’s corridors and doors so it would look like she had simply vanished. And she traveled with Ellna along a road lined with thick trees.
Brineth had never walked so far in her life. Her legs ached, and her stomach growled with hunger. “Keep going!” Ellna snapped. “If we’re late, we’ll never get a chance to wish!” The cough sawed in Brineth’s lungs, and she had to rest a few times for it to settle, and she wished she hadn’t upset Ellna. She’d never seen her friend this angry or cruel before, but it must have only been because she was nervous.
The sun was touching the horizon when they arrived at a lightning-blasted tree stump in the woods. Brineth did not know how far they had come or where they were. Only that her sides ached, her feet were sore, and her breath rattled in her lungs as though they were full of dust.
Above them, branches covered in broad leaves blocked off the dying orange sky above.
And then the elf stepped from the trees. Like Ellna had said, it was difficult to ascertain if they were a lord or lady. They wore simple traveling robes, with no clan emblems. Their long hair was brushed straight, and their green, glass-like eyes lacked whites.
“You’re late,” the elf pointed at the sky. “Hurry.”
Ellna bowed, contrite. “I’m sorry, Pavish, we got lost, and—”
“That’s not important now,” the elf said. “We must quickly travel to the shrine.”
Pavish guided them deeper into the forest. Finally, to Brineth’s relief, they stopped before a building. At first glance, it appeared to be a cave amongst the trees, and on the second, was in fact a hexagonal structure festooned with overhanging vines. Moss covered the fallen pillars around the shrine, obscuring indecipherable ancient scripts.
Another elf stood under a stone archway, this one clearly female. She had similar features to Pavish, with tawny skin, solid green eyes, and long brown hair. Brineth wondered if they were related, or if all elves looked that way. There were other people. Were they fellow wish seekers? A woman with bedraggled matted plaits, and a man in rich clothing, now torn and mud-stained.
“Sirendel,” Pavish greeted the elven woman, and the two murmured in their strange, liquid tongue that Brineth did not understand.
She collapsed to the ground in a coughing fit, and by the time she recovered, she had missed a great deal of a speech that Pavish and Sirendel had said. Now that she and Ellna were here, the elves seemed uninterested in her health. In a way, they reminded her of her parents.
Then, some of what Pavish said cut into her consciousness: “We are here at the ritual, where you will ask the Gift Giver for a wish. Know that one of you will be granted their heart’s desire, and the rest will receive a twisted version instead.”
A bad wish? She swallowed, because Ellna hadn’t mentioned that at all. She’d been so excited about seeing things in a faerie tale for real, that she hadn’t thought hard about how matters often went wrong in stories.
She tried to move, to leave, but then her legs turned to jelly as Pavish removed a curve-bladed silver knife from their robes. She shivered, fearful that the elf might stab her, but instead Pavish slashed the weapon through the air, chanting words in a strange language.
A few seconds later, light gleamed from inside the shrine. And someone walked from the building. Brineth gasped at the beautiful figure: an elven prince, with eyes the hue of twilight and hair as dark as a raven’s wing. Pavish and Sirendel had seemed otherworldly and elegant to Brineth, but next to the newcomer, they were like peasants.
“I am the Gift Giver,” the prince announced to the group in a mellifluous voice. “I have come to hear your stories.”
Around her, the faces of the others gleamed with excitement.
Brineth pressed her hands against her temples, coughing again. It seemed only like a moment later that there was a light touch on her shoulder, and she stared into the Gift Giver’s shining face. “Tell me your story,” he whispered as he helped her to her feet.
All of her loneliness spilled forth. Brineth told the Gift Giver of her parents, who didn’t love her, and the enormous house that rattled around her. “I want to be Ellna, and have adventures and a family…” She thought of the red-bearded uncle and all the rambunctious cousins in the inn.
After she finished the story, she was spent. She curled in a ball on the ground; drained and wanting everything to be over.
Later, she wished she’d listened to what the other people had said, and what they had so desired for, but now she was a little girl that had run through the day, her sides aching and was far from home. All she could do was cling to her vision of the Gift Giver, and think that at least, she had seen this wonder.
There was a moment as though she had fallen asleep, and when she blinked, it was night and a pale band of ringlight cut through the glade. She stood, confused. No one was there. Where was Ellna? She’d promised to stay, and they’d go back together. What if it had been a dream?
Then she stared at her hands.
They weren’t hers. They were larger, and rougher, and she touched the alien callouses. The skin was ruddy rather than pale, and her hair was wild. “Ellna!” she screamed in a panic, and she didn’t know her voice at all.
She panicked and went into the hexagonal shrine. Ellna stood, peering at her, a confused and horrified expression on her face. When she raised her hands, so did Ellna, and then Brineth realized she was looking in a large mirror that hung on the wall.
Sirendel appeared behind her, a faint scowl on her features.
“We swapped.” Brineth bit her fingers, and so did the reflection of Ellna. “I thought only one wish would be good. But it worked.”
“Perhaps. It can take a while to find out,” the elven woman said. “Decades even. And sometimes, I’m never sure. What the gods think is ‘good’ differs from what we mortals presume.” She pursed her lips. “And there are some fates we never learn of.” She stared at the mirror, her gaze distant. “Perhaps there are some things you’re just not meant to know.”
“Where did the others go?” Brineth asked.
Sirendel scowled, as if angered Brineth had disturbed her thoughts. “They departed shortly after the Gift Giver returned to his realm.”
“Ellna said she’d wait for me—”
Sirendel shrugged. “You were in such a deep slumber, you didn’t stir. A few minutes after the ritual’s completion, the white-eyed girl left. Anyway, you have recovered. Now, leave,” Sirendel’s voice was stern. “This is a holy place.”
“Where do I go?” Brineth whispered. “I don’t know how to get back to Nightshard Hall.”
“I’ll show you.” Sirendel guided Brineth through the forest to the road. “Breachstone Village, and Nightshard, is that way.” She pointed. “Don’t come here again. You won’t find anything.”
“But—” Brineth turned, yet Sirendel had already vanished amongst the trees.
Brineth ran, fleeing along the dusty thoroughfare towards her home, fear gnawing at her. As she jogged, she realized a few things. She hadn’t coughed, not even once, and her feet were so calloused that they didn’t feel the rough stones.
The lights of Breachstone village gleamed before her: lamps full of whale oil, and fat candles. At once, Brineth headed to the Wild Pony, whose sign swung on the breeze. Inside, people laughed and sang songs. Inside, too, was Ellna’s uncle with the red beard, and the wonderful aunt who made cinnamon apple pie. She entered the bustling common room, palms sweating in nervous anticipation.
The smells of sweat and body odor clouded Brineth’s nostrils and she sorted through the pile of travelers and farmers, until she saw him behind the counter, serving tankards of foaming ale.
“Uncle!” Brineth raced forward, her face lit, her arms outstretched, ready to receive his hug.
His smile, polished for his customers, transformed into a scowl. “You little shit. What are you doing here?”
Brineth stopped, because this reaction was something she was completely unprepared for. “Don’t I live here?”
The man scowled. “Not after you stole all my copper pieces.”
“Run her out, Tobin,” a woman said, also scowling. Her cheeks were flushed. In the story, she had been the aunt who had made the wonderful pies.
“But—“
Firm hands gripped Brineth and dragged outside the inn; someone kicked her in the ribs, sending her sprawling into a puddle of mud. A nearby horse snorted at her from its trough.
“Thieving liar,” the red-bearded uncle said. “Leave. No one here will have you after what you’ve done.”
“What?” Brineth gasped. “What did she do?”
The door slammed shut behind her.
Brineth hunched on her knees in the street, crying. People stalked past. No one stopped.
The good wish must have gone to Ellna.
A fierce longing gripped Brineth, for Mrs. Overbridge, for her room with its comfortable bed and shelves of books. She ran her hands through her bedraggled hair, wincing at her bruises, and struggled towards the mansion.
Brineth was used to slipping ghost-like through her own home, and so she entered via the rear servant’s entrance, padding past a snoring footman, and padded up the back stairs. Unused to her taller body, she bumped against a doorframe, and the wooden stairs creaked alarmingly under her weight. Yet no one disturbed her and reached her room. Buttery oil light spilled from the crack under.
She opened the door. She shivered as she saw a thin, pale girl with long dark hair and almost-white eyes standing before a mirror, stroking a velvet gown.
“You smell like horseshit,” Ellna said, her tone cold. She stifled a wheezing cough, and her face twisted with anger.
“I went to the inn,” Brineth said. “And they told me you were a thief and a liar…”
Ellna snorted and tangled a finger in long, dark hair. “They never cared to learn the full story.”
“Why did you lie to me?” Brineth’s voice raised.
“Because you’re rich, stupid, pampered and you’ve never had to do a day’s work in your life.” Ellna mimicked Brineth’s upper-class way of speech.
“You said we’d be like sisters,” Brineth begged.
“We can be,” Ellna said.
Brineth sighed with relief.
Ellna reached over to a bell and rang it, and a while later, Mrs. Overbridge answered the door.
“The thing is, sisters don’t always get along,” Ellna whispered. “Or see each other.”
“But—”
“Mrs. Overbridge.” Ellna coughed, and raised her voice. “Throw this girl out of the house. She’s stolen my jewelry.”
“The errand lass? I thought better of you,” Mrs. Overbridge said. “Told me you’d behave after Mr. Ostler at the inn all but ran you out, yet here you are…”
“But—” Brineth cried, unable to resist as her own beloved housekeeper dragged her from the room. “It’s me,” she begged. “It’s me, Brineth! We swapped places with a wish, but I got the bad one and—”
“Enough of your nonsense!” Mrs. Overbridge said. “Never return to this household.” She took a broad switch, repeatedly striking the girl until she fled the mansion’s grounds into the woods.
Later, Brineth searched for the elves and the shrine. All she could see were the thick trees around her and hear the distant cawing of the crows.
#
Grandma stopped and rose to make chicken soup for lunch.
“What happened next?” I called.
“What do you mean?” She returned to my bedside, passing me the bowl.
“You can’t end the story there!”
“Oh, my sweet, that’s how life is. Dreams and magic in your youth, and then a struggle until you get comfortable again.”
“Did that happen to you, too?” I asked.
Grandma gave a knowing smile.
“Wait… no! That was you? Brineth?” I said, even though I knew her to have another name.
“Your mother never believed me when I told her this tale.” Grandma snorted.
“Why didn’t you wish for something better? For your parents to love you more? To be healthy?”
Grandma gave a bitter smile. “I was a very sheltered, naive girl. And in any case, that’s how these stories always go. Since when have wish-makers ever been possessed of common sense?” She sighed. “That’s always been a problem in our family, believing fancies above all else. Look at your mother, when she believed that man who said he could make her a famous actress…” Her voice darkened when she spoke of my long absent parents, and she stared into the distance.
“What happened after you swapped places? How did you become a reporter?”
“Hard work, and good luck. I changed my name and ran away to the big city. I found some people who took me in. And because I could read and write, which wasn’t a common skill amongst the working class in those days, I got a job as a secretary, and worked my way into a wonderful career at the national newspaper. And while it wasn’t a rich, comfortable life, there was plenty of adventure.”
I glanced at the wall, where Grandma had hung her favorite articles from her career in brass frames.
“There. Perhaps you should sleep—”
“No! How did the house get ruined?” I said. “Did Ellna burn it down?”
“No,” Grandma said. “The mansion fell during the 1930s People’s Revolution, where a multitude of rich houses were destroyed. Some noble families survived by surrendering their titles and lands, while others died, or were imprisoned or scattered.” She walked over to her desk and unearthed a large folder filled with notes and clippings. “I wish I had been there, to see what had happened to the Nightshard family. Sometimes I dream of the Hall burning, with all the people trapped inside. I’ve written about the fall of the old families so often that I can all play it in my head like a movie. Ellna coughing in her room, still wearing a velvet dress as soldiers broke open the doors below. My parents dragged outside into trucks, to be taken to the labour camps. I can only speculate—the uprising destroyed so much! So many moved or fled or changed their names.” She glanced at a pile of thick scrapbooks in the corner. Next to them was a larger stack connected with my mother’s disappearance.
“Anyway,” Grandma said. “I wish I had been there to do something. I spent a long time trying to research the family, but was never sure what had happened. Perhaps it was part of the magic.”
Later that year, we returned to the mansion.
Maybe I would have grown up there, had there not been a wish-granting spirit or a revolution. Or maybe I would have never existed at all.
As we explored the ruins, Grandma pointed into the trees. She rushed over, and I followed her into the dark expanse of the woods, and for a brief second, I thought I saw a figure slip away into the shadows: an old woman, her eyes silver, with wild tangled hair like a mad witch.
A moment later, she wasn’t there at all.
“Ellna!” Grandma called. “I only want to talk!”
A faint racking cough echoed back over the hills.
We entered the forest and searched along the trails, but could find no sign of where the figure had gone. It grew dark, and Grandma shook her head. “Let’s go back to the car.”
She hung her head as we returned to the world of ruins and sunlight outside. “Perhaps it wasn’t even her.”
“Why did you want to speak to her? She stole everything from you.”
“When I saw the Gift Giver, so beautiful and otherworldly, I wondered why a creature of magic prized the stories of ordinary people so highly,” Grandma said as we clambered into the vehicle. “But now I do as well. I wanted to hear, from her own lips, how she lived, what she did, and what had happened to them all.” Her eyes misted. “But like your mother’s fate, we’ll never know the full story. And that’s the way of things.” She was quiet as we drove to the city.
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