by Anise Rae
But her pursuer was gone.
Outside the trees, another red-headed man had joined the first. Brothers, she thought. Their sharp, beaked noses matched, too. “Where’d Stephens go?”
Brother One squinted into the trees. Judging by his side-to-side movements, he couldn’t see her anymore.
This land was full of power, and now it blocked her from them.
“Gone,” he said. “Can’t believe he went in. Stupid man. You know the stories about this place.”
“Of course he went in. That’s his job.” Brother Two looked around and then nodded toward the street. “Lordan! Get over here!” Another outlaw jogged over. Brother Two grabbed the white scarf from the branch. “I’m knotting this around your belt loop. You go in as far as you can. See what you can see. I’ll pull you out.”
“Yes, sir.” Lordan was a fool.
This time the forest let her see. The scene played before Mara like a story come to life—otherworldly and horrific.
The man came through the trees. He looked around, his eyes widening and mouth gaping, as if everything he saw terrified him. But Mara saw only green trees and the city beyond.
Lordan’s gaze passed over her as if she were invisible. Shadowed clouds coalesced between them, gathered from nothing, until he almost disappeared in the fog. His scream echoed as the cloud molded into a mass of women, translucent and wispy—the ghosts of the river maidens. Their naked shapes got lost each time they moved into the sunlight.
Another long scream and a shuffle of clothes, a hard crack—was that bone?—and then the cloud disappeared.
Like before, the outlaw was gone.
“What do you see?” the first brother called, his tone impatient.
Mara cried out, a quiet, quick noise that held her own terror. She tripped over her feet as she backed up. But her stumble was abruptly halted as she bumped into the sturdy softness of a person, cold and wet. She spun, her scream dying before it could form.
The river maiden queen stood in the forest. Around her, the trees had parted as if they walked on their roots, clearing the area around her, framing her naked body. A path behind her stretched deeper into the woods.
The light trickling through the trees played beneath the queen’s skin. Translucent rainbows flashed in muted colors. Her irises glowed blue and silver, the colors moving in a current, waving in and out. They were so large there was little white left in her eyes. Her pale skin dripped with water as if she’d just stepped out of her bath or a pool…or the river.
“A safe course lies this way, mistress.” Her voice was in multiple pitches and played through the air as if more than one person spoke.
Mara stepped back, a fresh shot of fright coursing through her. She tried to control it, to act normal so she didn’t spook the river maiden queen. One boat trip across the river hardly qualified them as friends and the creature wasn’t known for leaving her findings alive.
Mara pointed behind her. Her hand shook. “There was another man just there. Two men, actually. Do you know where they are?” Her voice was too high, too fast.
“Your course lies this way,” the queen repeated, pointing in the other direction from Mara.
She shook her head. “I need to go this way to get to the train. I’m meeting someone there, the mage who crossed over with Daegan. I need to get out of here.” She looked toward the street, but there were only trees now. Surely that was the right direction. Where had the road gone?
“It’s not in my power to leave, mistress.”
“Is it in my power? Can I leave?” The words dashed out, claustrophobia dancing on their heels. Mara spun toward the street. She stomped through the trees, determined to march to freedom. She would get out of here.
Step after step led only to more green saplings that reached so high they should have drooped over. The road that had been just a short distance away remained hidden.
The river maiden queen walked beside her in silence. Her pace was calm and sedate. Mara’s was frantic. Water dripped from the queen’s skin and sweat dripped from Mara’s. As they progressed, trees moved out of their way, but Mara did not reach the forest’s edge. By now she should be past the train station and walking on the tracks out of the city.
She was trapped. There was no way out.
The river queen looked over when Mara stopped as if waiting for her to lead.
Where exactly was she to go? Mara slipped off her spectacles, pocketed them, and let her mage power flood around her.
The river queen inhaled sharply, the gills along her neck snapped closed. Her shoulders sank down as if relieved though her expression was unchanging.
With her mage sight in place, the thin tree saplings disappeared. Enormous white glister oaks stood in place of the whip-thin green trees, giants born from a cocoon of premature saplings. Mara gasped. Wonder and impossibility settled around her. Like the wolfman, she’d seen this before too…the grand forests were depicted in one of the High Councilor’s tapestries. But the glister oaks were supposed to be extinct.
She looked up. The tops of the trees stretched higher than she’d ever imagined. She blinked at the motionless clouds above that erased the bright blue of the sunny day. Another blink and she saw the truth. Those weren’t clouds. The trees’ canopies blossomed across the entire sky in a span of pure white too stalwart to blow in the breeze.
Mara looked beyond the ancient woods toward the train station and found she was only feet from the edge of the forest. Out there, Gregor jogged up the station’s steps and disappeared inside. Then Cecilia, of all people, strode up to the building. The two bounty hunters from the train walked on either side of her. They didn’t have their AWOL sorceress. They were going home empty-handed.
Thank the lost girls for that.
Directly outside the trees, the red-headed brothers still waited though Mara felt like she’d been in here forever, walking miles. The forest’s power played with her perceptions.
The brother on the right held the scarf. Its pointy hem was gone, a ragged curve left in its place as if someone had taken a bite out of it. Blood soaked it.
Mara clamped her hands over her mouth. She backed away, one small step at a time.
Brother Two eyed the scarf as if it might devour him. “What the fuck! Is he dead? Does that mean she’s dead? Damn it all!”
“That could explain why the tracker isn’t working.” Brother One held up a rectangular box, smaller than his hand.
Brother Two scowled. “What the hell is that?”
“Tracker tech. I’ve seen this stuff once before. The other guy must’ve put it on her. The receiver fell outta his pocket when he was on the run.”
“The other guy? Her boyfriend?”
“Some boyfriend, huh? I picked it up. But it stopped working when she went in here.” Brother One turned the device over. An emblem marked its back. Mara could see it through the trees. It was a picture of a wire wrapped around a bolt of lightning. Its gold paint shined against the black of the device.
Power United.
Gregor had been tracking her with Power United equipment.
Betrayal stabbed her with its sharp spikes.
“Shit.” Brother Two grabbed the tracker and tossed it into the trees.
22
The power of the ancient glister forest played around Mara, picking up tendrils of her energy and fluttering in circles like streamers on a Maypole. Time and space frolicked here too, shaking off their ridged confines and basking in the magic. They danced around her, flying out of reach.
Mara sat against the thick trunk of a white glister oak tree. She should get up, she thought. But she felt anchored here. An odd sense of fragile safety had settled around her. She’d been seeking safety at one point. When had that been? Before her heart broke or after? She’d been here for so long now, hadn’t she? Accuracy was beyond her grip. Just like her mage power. It hovered, free and easy, as if it had never been tucked away, as if it would never know captivity again.
Somewhere
at the edge of her consciousness, the train whistle blew.
Two blasts.
Was the train only now moving out? Was that possible? Or had days passed and a half-dozen trains come and gone?
Did it matter?
No one could get to her here. Not Power United’s bounty hunters or the Black Skulls. Not Cecilia with her vindictive campaign against her.
Not Gregor…who’d lost his tracker.
How had her life spun so out of control?
“The forest…it will keep you, mistress, if you wish it.” The river maiden’s queen bowed her head. “Housed and fed with its power.”
As she spoke, pale pink berries grew up from the soil on a thin vine.
“If I eat it….” Mara’s voice faded.
“It will nourish you.”
She picked one and put it in her mouth. The sweetest taste flooded her senses.
“I should go home,” she whispered. But there, she had to hide and keep her mage energy wound up tight. Here, her power had unraveled. Uninhibited. Free.
Strong.
“Why do I feel like this here?” she asked though she wasn’t certain her companion would know the answer.
The river maiden lifted her gaze, moving with the grace of an underwater dancer. “Glister land calls forth true self.”
“I feel drunk.” But it was more than that. Her power floated, barely tethered to her. One snip of a thin thread and she’d never tame it again. She was unrestrained and unchecked. “Is that the true me?”
“Your power is potent.” The river maiden queen held out her arms and tipped her head back as if she pulled it into her and savored it. “The finest blood.”
“Are you going to eat me?” Somewhere in the back of her mind, she cared about the answer.
“Never.” She tilted her head at Mara, her brow pinched and puzzled. “The forest blossoms for the brave and honorable. For others”—she shrugged—“it does not do this.” Her harmonic voice flowed as if she stood beneath her river and not in the air. “Not many dare to walk it now.”
“What about those men?”
“They were not brave.”
Mara wasn’t brave either though she was grateful the glister land had a different opinion. Regardless, she did have to go back home. Her sorceresses waited. She stood.
The river maiden queen gestured deeper into the woods, away from the city. “The current flows this way.”
With no more than a few steps, Mara found herself in front of a small, white sailboat bobbing in a minuscule pool of water. Its sail was delicate white lace. The tiny craft was carved with intricate swirls and ripples as if it mirrored the river. It had a regal allure. Neither the boat nor the pool had been there a moment before.
The river queen touched her wet hair with her webbed fingers, and the scarf suddenly appeared draped over her head. No blood marred the fabric. It was perfectly repaired as if it had stepped back in time. A neat trick.
“I will take you to the brother.” The queen turned and paced toward her boat. She walked into the small body of water and sank down as if it were a bottomless pool.
The small craft bobbed back and forth, beckoning Mara to climb aboard.
“Who’s the brother?”
But the river maiden had descended beneath the water.
She looked back in the direction of the train station. She was alone. No allies. No city beyond the trees.
If she ever let herself cry, this might have been the time for tears. But the futility of tears had been hammered home early. She’d given them up long ago.
Tossing her pack into the front of the boat, she took the single seat.
The small craft shoved forward and picked up speed. The wind pressed her back. The trees passed her by and gave way to an ethereal cloud, glistening like stars, stretched and swirling. In seconds, the scenery changed into a wide river, the land around it vast, rolling with hills and dotted with stands of woods. The air was hot and the sun high, burning the blue sky to white. The boat slowed without a lurch, bobbing along leisurely.
In the distance ahead, a train raced along tracks, its rumble a persistent whisper. It barreled on, traveling into a sparse wood. Far away, birds took flight from their resting places on leafy branches as the train’s noise disturbed their peace. The train was a flicker, darting between hills and trees.
Was that the train she was supposed to be on? Was Gregor on board? Did he know she wasn’t? Where was the other part of the tracking device? The part attached to her? She had no idea what it was called. She brushed her arms and legs and ran her fingers over her scalp but found nothing. How could he have done that to her?
The cloudy veil of stars descended again bringing silence with it as if someone had cast a mute spell. The boat surged forward.
No one in the Republic would ever admit that the glister might have fantastical abilities. They believed the glister had nothing worth coveting. But no mage in existence could do this. Skipping through the land was dazzling…and highly convenient, assuming the destination was correct.
Once again, the cloud dissipated. The scenery re-formed, and a sigh of relief tumbled from her chest.
Daegan stood waiting for her on his ferry on the Mississippi’s west bank, the same place where the river queen had let her off to catch the train. Was that still only two days ago?
Mara’s small craft came to a graceful halt next to the ferry and held still like the maiden had paused the current.
He sucked in a breath. “You’ve been in the forest. It’s left its mark on you.”
The maiden lifted her head from the water, and she and Daegan shared a stare, some silent communication passing between them.
The queen turned to Mara, bowed her head, and disappeared beneath the water.
Mara scrambled up, heaving her pack to Daegan, before the maiden decided she wanted her boat back. The boat tossed side to side with her clumsy efforts, but Daegan pulled her out with a strong hand.
Standing on his ferry, Mara eyed the Republic across the river. How would she find the strength to stand up to everything that land held? Maybe she should have stayed in the forest. “Are you the river maiden’s brother?” Her words were flat and tired.
“She spoke to you.” He studied her, his face tight. “And no, I’m not her brother. Where’s the mage?” His eyes swirled with silver, but they lacked the usual threat, their twirl slow and casual.
“On the train, I presume.” Her voice felt fragile. If she said too much, it might break. She might break.
Daegan frowned and looked up at the grassy bank as if he might see the train and the mage in question. “Why is he not with you?”
She leaned against the boat’s railing, her body heavy. Betrayal ought to weigh down its perpetrator, not its victim. “How well do you know him?”
“I know his heart.”
She was so shocked she almost laughed. “And what do glister know of hearts?” Perhaps if she’d been more levelheaded, she wouldn’t have said it so coldly.
“What do you know of hearts, Mara Rand, who’s never bothered to love?” His retort kicked at her chest.
“I loved once.” Her shrill words stirred a small rabbit in the bank’s tall grass. Frightened, it fled, sprinting. Smart creature. She could never move, much less sprint, when fear crept forth, much like now. The memories threatened to freeze her. “And it nearly killed me.”
“Because you were a stupid girl.”
“Well, maybe I’m still that stupid girl. Maybe I’d still fall for a guy who only wants to sell me to the highest bidder.” Her fear came tumbling out of her mouth and she wanted to eat the words right back up and never let them see the light of day much less the inside of her head. She didn’t even want to think them. Her throat ached, seizing up, and she gasped for a breath that sounded too much like a sob.
“I think you can spot a bounty hunter at a hundred paces now, even with your power wrapped up tight and those fucking spectacles. If you were wearing them right now, I think I’
d rip them off.”
She hardly registered his comment. “What if he’s one of them and I can’t see it?” She thrust out her hands. “He has connections to Power United and they keep cropping up. He works for them. He was tracking me!”
Daegan lifted a disapproving eyebrow. “Perhaps because you run away from him?”
She flinched. Whose side was he on?
“A glister-marked would never be a bounty hunter,” he said. “And if one dared, we would take care of that. We would not stand for one of the marked to hurt sorceresses.”
Sorceresses were the mothers of the original glister if one believed the stories. But every sorceress avoided that connection.
Mara avoided most connections in life.
What do you know of hearts? Daegan’s question reverberated around her. Did she know her own heart? Her focus was on surviving. It was hard to look inward when the outside world stampeded forward with derision and judgment, censure and rules. She had constructed a well-weathered shield and embodied it inside and out.
She patted the pocket that housed her spectacles.
Gregor was right. She hadn’t given Fancy what she’d bargained for. She’d danced and her power had swelled through the space, delighting herself and her audience. But she’d covered her eyes, hiding behind a curtain of her own making.
She’d shut herself away. Somewhere she’d lost hope that she’d live any freer than she’d started out in life, though perhaps she’d never had such hope to begin with. Yet she’d spent years trying to push beyond the wall that mage culture had built around the wayward, the weak, and the imperfect. She’d wanted to knock it down a few stones and climb over. But who was she to wave hope around, a scarf of silky promise, to hold it high and show the people in the discard bin that there was possibility and potential? She certainly didn’t live up to her own.
Along the bank, a bird with a wingspan as wide as she was tall took off and flew over the river. Its gray wings tilted, turning its sleek body to glide over the steel-colored water. Its fast flight took it far down the river, but it stayed crystal-clear to her eyes, and she watched it soar.