A White So Red

by Krystle Jones

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  Roses were supposed to be gone, having vanished the day Octavia became queen and poisoned the land with her Dark Magic. But there was no mistaking the multi-petal blooms, a flower she had seen every day for the first ten years of her life and would know anywhere.

  These roses were similar but different from any she could remember. The blooms were the color of spider silk, as were the leaves and stems, which glittered like diamonds in the moonlight. Petals sliced along her arm, followed by a sharp pain. She winced, seeing a rising welt of blood.

  The bush shuddered as blood ran down her arm, dripping onto the petals and staining them scarlet. The thorns were swollen, nearly as big as her pinky, and they appeared to glow red within their centers.

  A chill prickled her skin, but it was not from the night air.

  It was impossible. Plants did not have blood.

  Something brushed her hand and she frowned.

  One of the roses was lying against the back of her hand, wallowing in the network of cuts. It wiggled, creating new slices in her skin, and the rose began to turn red as the petals soaked up her blood. She gasped, scrambling to her feet and jerking free of the wretched vines. The thorns glowed bright red in the moonlight, and she stumbled away from the plant, unable to believe what her eyes were trying to tell her.

  Something rustled in the darkness to her right, and she whirled as a hulky shadow came into view. Her mouth dropped open in horror and confusion.

  It was a deer, or at least, it resembled one. Matted silver fur coated the animal, and its massive, twelve-pronged antlers gleamed like knives. It sniffed the air and turned its head, fixing two scarlet eyes on her and baring a mouthful of sharp teeth.

  She reached for the knife in her left boot, but it was gone. The river must have swallowed it.

  The deer watched her, still as a wraith, as she slowly backed away, her heart hammering in her chest. Suddenly, the dear’s head snapped in the opposite direction as a great roar rumbled through the air.

  Her blood ran cold.

  She listened, frozen in place. After a few seconds of silence, the deer at last eased. It turned its gaze back to her right before a great black shadow leapt out of the night and pinned it to the forest floor. She threw her hands over her mouth, stifling a scream as the bear tore into the deer, which bucked and squealed under the bear’s weight. The smell of blood filled the air. Taking her opportunity, she turned and bolted in the opposite direction, not caring if she cut herself to pieces on the stray branches.

  The ground rumbled beneath her feet, and branches snapped behind her, followed by deep snarls. Fear gripped her chest as she glanced around, seeing the bear tearing through the forest in her wake. The tip of her boot caught on a rock and she tripped, catching her weight with her hands before she could completely fall. She pushed herself upright, smelling blood on the bear’s breath. It was close now.

  A branch smacked her in the face, tearing a gash through her cheek, but she didn’t stop. Her fists pumped harder, and her breath came in quick, cold spurts that charged her nerves. The bear did not seem to have as much trouble with the snares and nets of vines as she did. It tore through them like they were spider webs, charging after her like a boulder crashing down a mountain.

  She ran without caring which direction she was going. If someone had asked her where the river was, she wouldn’t be able to tell him. She had to be deep within the forest. The plant life seemed to grow thicker here, and a crystalline mist coated the undergrowth, so dense she couldn’t see past her knees. Her feet were pounding the ground when suddenly there was nothing there to hold her up. With a cry, she tumbled down the embankment, rolling along the incline until the momentum threw her facedown into a pile of leaves. A ruckus from above – the bear was charging down the slope.

  With her heart in her throat, she tried to stand when her back lit up with fire. With an ear-shattering scream, her spine arched backward, and she saw the bear’s blood-soaked claws dangling above her head. Falling forward, she flipped over and faced the bear, terror holding her in place. Its eyes glowed red. Its fur was tipped in silver – like darts – as it reared up. The bear towered over her, a twelve-foot black silhouette against the blinding white circle of the moon.

  Natalia’s palms dug into the ground, prickling with cuts as she shuffled backward. The bear stomped forward, both paws outstretched to either side, while its massive silver claws gleamed like daggers. It jaws opened wide, illuminating long canines.

  Her shoulders were starting to go numb from blood loss, as was her back. She looked around for an opening. If she ran, how far would she get at the rate she was losing blood?

  The bear growled and leapt for her, paws reaching for her throat and ready to tear her apart. She sucked in a breath, throwing her arms up as her back slammed into a tree.

  There was a click, right before the world whirled past in a blur of silver and black as she was hoisted into the air. The bear disappeared, and she was hovering high above the ground, wrapped up in a black net.

  Below, the bear looked a bit smaller but no less lethal. It growled, standing and swiping but unable to breach the generous space between the net and its claws.

  For a moment, her heart stopped, more from relief than anything.

  The bear turned, making for the tree, and her stomach lurched.

  Something flew through the air – an arrow. It landed in the bear’s chest, directly where its heart was. The bear stepped back with a roar as another arrow fell and another, piercing its chest close to the first arrow.

  Natalia clung to the net, watching as shadows shifted in the mist. A silhouette stepped out of the murk, the outline of a bow in its hand. Images of the huntsman coming at her in the catacombs flashed through her mind, and she tore at the rough rope but only succeeded in making her fingernails hurt. Swallowing against a hard knot in her throat, she braced herself. Injured and without a weapon, she was sure to die this time.

  “Forgive me, Rose,” she whispered.

  The bear eyed the figure as blood dribbled down its chest from the arrows. With an agitated growl, it retreated, running up the embankment and disappearing into the forest.

  The silhouette paused before taking a few steps forward. Everything was incredibly blurry, despite the fact she was squinting hard; it was difficult to focus because she was quickly growing dizzy from blood loss and pain. The shadow looked far shorter than she remembered the huntsman to be. Her confusion was quickly replaced by fear as several more shadows emerged from the woods, all bearing knives and daggers the size of her forearm.

  He had brought reinforcements. The Queen probably said she would have his head if he failed.

  Her heart sank lower, and her throat ran dry with fear as she waited for the huntsman to step out of the shadows and claim her.

  Chapter Six

  What Tangled Webs

  The first silhouette stepped into a patch of moonlight, and she blinked hard. It was shaped like a short, bulky man; he was about four feet tall, with a bulbous head and mean, beady black eyes. The skull of a dead mouse, accompanied by several other bones, hung in the sparse gray hair of his beard. His ashy skin was riddled with wrinkles, and his animal hide clothing was covered in dust. He gripped the pickax in both hands, leering at her with a mouthful of large, jagged teeth.

  Her stomach lurched. She had read about dwarves. They were a reclusive race that lived near caverns, mining for precious gems. They were rumored to be nasty, vicious creatures that preferred the taste of fresh meat to plants.

  “What is it, Wormwart?” cried one of the shadowy figures. “Did we catch the bear?”

  Wormwart studied her and hissed. “No, it got away. Thanks to this witch.”

  She grated her teeth together. The dwarf’s voice had an unpleasant screeching quality to it, like nails clawing stone. “I am not a witch,” she said. “I am an ordinary human girl, a Barren.”

  “Tch!” Wormwart spit on the ground and wiped blac
k drool from his mouth. “Yer far from ordinary. Yeh stink of power. Clearly, yer one of the Charmed.”

  She thought of her mother’s necklace and how it had glowed in the water like a torch. Maybe she had imagined it. Or maybe there was another explanation for why the Mark had suddenly vanished, or why she could travel through Magic Mirrors. Either way, the dwarf had to be mistaken. She had never once been able to use magic, which only meant one thing – she was a Barren.

  The dwarf’s face grew more wrinkled as he sniffed. “Yeh smell foul. I ain’t taking no chances. We’ve had as much of the Charmed as we can stand, putting up with that witch queen all these years.”

  Another dwarf, this one taller and with rough brown skin that reminded her of a twig, skittered up to his leader. “Can we eat her?” he chirped. “Oh, oh! Can I please have the brains? You never give me the good parts.”

  “We might have to, Twix, considering she’s the reason our net didn’t snare the bear,” Wormwart snarled. “Decent food is hard enough to come by. Even I’m hungry enough to risk eating a Charmed one right now.”

  She swallowed hard. “I am not a thing to be eaten,” she said fiercely, gripping the net tighter so as not to show that her hands were trembling.

  “Yeh are if we say yeh are,” Wormwart said, pointing his ax at her. He started toward the tree; the blade of the ax rose in the air as he prepared to cut the rope holding her up.

  Darkness danced along her vision. It couldn’t be long before she would black out, possibly never to wake up again. “Wait!” she cried, reaching out through the net. Rose popped into her thoughts. You have to fight, for her. Natalia’s mind raced, and her mouth sputtered words before she could fully process what she was saying. “I can help you.”

  Wormwart paused. “Nobody can help us. We were damned the day that miserable queen took the throne.”

  “Look at all of you,” she said. She swore the shadows stood a little straighter as she addressed them. She melted her voice to butter, widening her eyes in sympathy. “You’re beaten and downtrodden. You work hard at your labors, and at the end of the day, you have no one to come home to.”

  “We don’t keep wives,” Wormwart said, sticking out his tongue as if the very word tasted bad. “Female dwarves are too much trouble. Yeh can’t trust any of them. They steal all yer riches and leave yeh with nothing.”

  “I am not offering to marry you,” she said dryly. “What I’m bargaining for is… an exchange, of sorts,” she added quickly, not knowing what else to say.

  Wormwart stroked his beard, eyeing her suspiciously. “Exchange? What kind of exchange?”

  She paused, thinking. What her mind had come up with sounded ridiculous, but what else did she have to lose? At this point, she would have tried to sing while standing on her head if they had asked for it.

  For Rose.

  “Well, how about this: If you let me live, I’ll cook and clean for you. How does that sound?”

  Wormwart blinked, looking stunned. Then his whole body shook as he broke into laughter. “Yeh be our servant?” he said, laughing and slapping his knee. “That’s the richest thing I ever heard. Yeh’d be dead within a week if yeh worked fer us.”

  Around her, the shadows echoed his amusement, their laughter ranging from the bubbling of a brook to the crackle of lightning on a summer’s night.

  Her chest puffed up. “I think you’ll find I can handle anything you throw at me.”

  “Anything?” Wormwart asked with a leer, and she bit her lip. Maybe she had spoken too rashly.

  “Oh, do let her do it, Wormwart! Oh, pretty please!” the twiggy dwarf chirped, bouncing up and down while clapping his hands together. “I always wanted a pet!”

  Her nose wrinkled in distaste. A pet. Well, she supposed it couldn’t be worse than being the Queen’s servant girl. It was certainly a better title than “tonight’s main course.”

  More shouts of agreement rang from the other shadows, which she assumed were also dwarves. Wormwart at last set down his ax, which she took as a sign of his resignation. “All right,” he drawled. “We’ll keep her. I could use a little entertainment. But first, yeh must swear an oath.”

  Her face soured.

  When she made no reply, Wormwart shrugged. “We could always eat yeh –”

  “No!” she yelled, then cleared her throat. “No,” she said again, more calmly. “That won’t be necessary.” She took a deep breath. “I make a pact with Wormwart to cook and clean for his house.”

  He laughed. “Very clever, gurl. How about we make it a bit more specific? ‘Until I release yeh from service.’ Go on, say it.”

  Her voice was deadpanned. “Until he releases me from service,” she echoed.

  Instantly, her body tingled and two Marks appeared, one around each wrist. They were binding contracts, a typical type of faery magic. They were similar to binding curses, except binding contracts required an actual agreement or “contract” between two or more parties. Skilled Charmed ones could conjure binding curses, though the Fey tended to use binding contracts regularly in their pacts, or so Natalia had heard. There was no such thing as an agreement among them without some sort of price, a way of keeping their propensity for backstabbing in check, she supposed.

  Wormwart grinned up at her. “We are in accord.”

  Whoops rang up from the dwarves as Wormwart sauntered to the tree and swung his great ax, slicing the rope clean through.

  She fell to the ground, landing hard on her rump and swearing loudly. Aching all over, she stood up and tried to work free of the net, which proved difficult considering it was stuck to the blood on her back. When someone ripped the net off without warning, she started to scream and then bit down so hard on her lip that she nearly severed it. Her wrists were jerked forward and someone began twining rope around them.

  The dwarf binding her was small and a bit timid. He kept his little head down and did his best to avoid her eyes while his hands worked swiftly at setting the knot.

  “Hurry up, Midnight!” Wormwart bellowed.

  The little dwarf flinched and worked faster. Once he was done, Wormwart scuttled toward her. “Turn around.”

  She did as he said, turning in a wobbly circle. Her vision was beginning to spot.

  He grunted. “Bear nearly got yeh. Yer no good to me dead. Go on, heal yerself.”

  “… I can’t.”

  “Yer lying.” His face shriveled up in a sneer. “I could gag on the reek of magic wafting off yeh.”

  Exhaustion was setting in, making her edgy. “I told you, I’m a Barren.”

  Wormwart knocked her down and pinned her to the ground, digging his elbow into the hollow of her throat. “Don’t lie to me, witch!”

  “I told you I’m not a witch!”

  Her screamed words echoed in the chilly silence. Wormwart searched her eyes and then her face. Something shifted in his black orbs, right before he pulled back his arm. She inhaled deeply, coughing violently as cold air rushed into her lungs.

  He looked down at her like she was a cockroach. “Fine,” he barked. “But yeh better not die before we get there.”

  He bent over, sticking his face so close to hers that she could feel his spit slap across her cheek. She had to turn her head; otherwise, she was afraid she would gag on the smell wafting from his mouth, like dead rabbits and sour milk.

  “What’s yer name, slave girl?” he hissed.

  Blood loss was quickly making her dizzy and slowing down her thought process, but she remembered her father warning her of the Fey’s tricks. He told her to never, ever give out her true name to a stranger. “Names have power in them,” he said. “Let something as precious as a name slip, and you could find yourself an elf king’s captive for all eternity.”

  “Snow,” she blurted. It was the first word that came to her mind. Her mother had called Natalia “her little snowdrop.” Queen Irynis would never let Natalia play in the snow for fear she would disappear into a snow bank and she wouldn’t be able to find her daught
er because her skin was so pale.

  Wormwart seemed skeptical but then gave her a curt bob of his head. “Very well, Snow.” A great wad of spit flew onto her face when he spoke her name. “Yer first duty is to carry our wares home.”

  She relaxed. That didn’t sound so –

  Two gigantic bags bulging with pointy lumps landed at her feet, nearly squashing her toes. She jerked her legs out of the way and gaped at the bags. “What’s this?”

  Wormwart grinned, looking very cat-like. “Our bargain,” he purred. “And if yeh don’t keep up, I’ll flog yeh until your body runs red.”

  “The bear has a head start on you,” she muttered.

  Though the world was spinning in fantastic silver blurs, she forced herself to focus, gripped the sacks awkwardly, and rose to her feet. It was all she could do to lift them because they were so bulky and her arms were growing numb. The tiny dwarf – Midnight – lingered beside her. His skin was black as oil; she almost couldn’t see his eyes, which were also black.

  She quirked a brow at him in question.

  He jabbed a finger at the sack and then made a motion, as if lifting some invisible weight with his hands and setting it behind his head.

  She blinked. “You can’t talk, can you?”

  His eyes saddened and he shook his head.

  Her voice softened. “Sorry.”

  He perked up slightly.

  “What is it you want me to do?”

  He made the motion again.

  She stood there a moment, thinking. “You want me to carry it on my back?”

  He nodded, smiling.

  “Somehow, I don’t think my back would appreciate that right now.” Slowly, she adjusted her grip, doing as he said, except instead of moving it to her back, she moved the brunt of the weight across her shoulders. Though the sacks still weighed as much as a horse – or at least that is what it felt like – the weight was now bearable. She tried giving the dwarf a smile, but it turned out to be more of a grimace.

  “Thank you.”