Book One – Chapter 13

The strings they had carried connected the Barnstream settlements situated around the north-eastern coastline — where Yves had stated to reunite with Midnight — down the river to the villages in the Northern Midlands, where the Barnstream Harbour Guild was located.

At the time Midnight and Yves became couriers, regular boat traffic along the Barnstream, which usually carried the post, had been impossible. The watercourse that originated from the Albweiss and flowed down the mountain to form several lakes, main branches, and a couple of side streams before reaching the sea, had become impassable. As couriers following the river route, Midnight and Yves had predominantly carried regular strings. They delivered routine communications between isolated families, traders arranging the transport of their wares overland, and other exchanges essential to the villages’ connectivity.

Yves, in the rare instances that he conveyed messages, insisted on something more reliable, something that could withstand the harshest of conditions. They had learned their lesson four years ago, when crucial messages they had left in the Bahatu moors had been destroyed, never reaching their intended recipient — a mistake they had discovered much too late.

Since then, Yves carried quality strings that could endure physical, magical, and ethereal attacks. Depending on their maker and quality, the various types of messenger strings had equally diverse names. The ones he carried were known as lifelines.

Midnight could not discern whether it was an enchantment or the fact that the strings were in themselves inanimate objects that allowed her to carry them past the witch runes. From what she had read and felt, the grand runes were designed to ward off intruders and contain powerful forces like sprites, yet they had neither affected the messenger strings nor the sigil ring. While Midnight had left behind the Rings of Light that Yves had given her, since were not entirely ethereal and could thus not pass through matter, these objects seemed impervious to the physical realm. Occasionally, Midnight encountered a faint resistance when passing through areas with sparse traces of vegetation or minute creatures nestled within small fissures in the stone, but even then, the strings and sigil ring slipped through unaffected.