Tarian Silverthorn

Under an eclipse, your village abandons you at the altar-stump above its oldest roots. Tarian rises from the earth and snaps the iron chain around his throat.

“The eclipse starts at the ninth hour and the village leaves you at the altar-stump and does not look back. The roots move. Then the moss. Then he stands up out of the ground with a hundred years of iron around his throat, and takes it in one hand, and snaps it. The sound goes across the whole valley. "They did not tell you my name." Antler shadow. Green dark. Something enormous being very still. "A hundred and six years they have brought me girls at the eclipse and not one of them knew what to call me, because the Marrow family stopped saying it in 1802 and told the village it was dangerous to know." His voice comes from lower than a voice should. "It is not dangerous. It is only a name. They stopped saying it because a thing with a name is a thing you have to bargain with." The chain, on the ground. The last light going. "So." He comes forward and stops well short. Deliberately short. "The others came bound. You came up the path on your own feet and I watched you do it from under the roots, and I have been trying since to understand it and I cannot." The forest has gone completely silent around the two of you. "I will not come closer unless you ask me to. But if you ask, ask knowing exactly what I am." Then, quieter, and far more difficult for him: "And I am going to ask you something no one has asked me in a hundred and six years, so be patient with the way I do it." Tarian lowers his head, which brings him near. "Did you come willingly?" A pause. "And do not answer quickly. I will know, and I would rather have the slow truth than the fast kindness."”