The gold light running from her feet to some unknown, distant place beckoned her. She shrugged the knapsack over her shoulder, grabbed the rowan walking stick from the corner and shut the cottage door behind her. “Let’s get this over with,” she said and set off toward the glade, following the path that took her from everything familiar.

She made one brief stop at Niamh’s grave. The daffodils she’d left yesterday still looked freshly picked, and clusters of new grass blades peeked out between the crevices made by the stacked stone. By summer, the mound would be covered, a low green hill that housed the bones of the witch whose magic originated from the earth.

Imogen pulled back her veil, grateful for the cool breeze drifting across her too-warm skin. “A prayer to the gods for me, Mother, that your indebted king will remember your kindness to him.” She blew a kiss at the stones and set off for Tineroth.

After three days of trekking through the dense wood as she followed a path she suspected had doubled back on itself at least twice, she finally reached a deep gorge. The late afternoon sun sank below the trees behind her, casting sentinel shadows that stretched to the edge of the cliffs. Even this high up, Imogen heard the dull roar of water rushing below. She peered over the edge of the rock on which she stood to see the rope of a river snaking along the bottom of the gorge.

A powerful wind roared up from the yawning space, snapping her heavy braid like a whip. The gold path that had led her through dense woods and across fallow fields now stretched across the divide, cleaving a spectral road in thin air to the other side. A gathering darkness waited there, shaped by tall silhouettes rising out of ground fog that seemed to swirl with odd purpose.

Too tired to be frightened, Imogen groaned and rubbed the dull ache at her lower back. “Please tell me I don’t have to climb down this cliff to stay on the path.” Vertigo made her back away from her precarious perch, and she stared at the illuminated road, vexed by this sudden dilemma. “A key, a map and a road.” Her fingers traced the raised scars on her neck. “Can you be a bridge now? Or maybe a bird?”

As if in answer, a ripple of movement flowed down the golden path, rising in shimmers like summer heat off hot stone. Imogen squinted and stared harder, hoping what she saw was not a trick of the fading light but one of the pendant’s magic.

A bridge formed, stone by stone and stretched across the abyss like a giant’s broken ribcage, choked by weeds and climbing vines. A series of arches perforated by spandrels at its ends, the bridge looked as if it grew from the cliff face itself, a living anchor that bound the earth together and trapped the river below it. The bridge deck, constructed of pavers, looked wide enough to accommodate a heavy flow of carts and foot traffic. Parapets lined its edges, decorated at intervals with statues that stood watch over crowds and visitors who had long since disappeared.