by A. M. Manay
“How long did you know about me?” Shiloh asked.
“You were about five years old when I found out,” Keegan confessed. “It was all I could do not to tear into that village and snatch you up that very night.”
She closed her eyes again to hide her swirling emotions.
“So I sent Honey to watch you,” he continued. “That’s what you call him, isn’t it?”
Shiloh’s eyes snapped open. “You did what?”
“Well, you knew he was no ordinary bird, didn’t you?” Keegan asked, smiling.
“Well, yes, but . . .”
“Hey, Barr,” Keegan called. “Show our girl your trick.”
A tall, skinny young man strode toward them, grinning. Halfway there, he leapt and turned into a familiar falcon, then settled onto the ground next to Shiloh. He nuzzled her cheek with his head, and she laughed. A moment later, the bird was boy once more, sitting with his knees tucked against his chest.
“Well met,” Shiloh offered, when she could finally speak through the shock. “And thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Barr replied, eyes bright. “I can’t believe he made me wait all this time to tell you. I’ve been fixing to burst.”
“He’s your brother. Half-brother,” Keegan explained. “From my first wife. She died before the war.”
“I’m sorry,” Shiloh replied.
Keegan and Barr gave identical shrugs. Though they had much different builds, their resemblance was plain.
“Huh. I have a brother.”
Shiloh smiled.
Silas lay down to sleep by Shiloh’s side, at a judicious distance, as she couldn’t bear to be touched. The poor girl is red as an apple.
He’d been as impressed as anyone at the shapeshifter’s trick, though he’d long suspected the bird was more than he appeared to be. It’s a rare gift. The church tried to wipe it out centuries ago. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it would persist among the Feralfolk.
“I keep hearing them screaming,” Shiloh whispered.
Silas looked over at her in surprise. He’d hoped she was finally asleep.
“Who?” he asked, brows drawing in concern.
“The priests at the Citadel, when the ground opened up and swallowed them.”
“Even if you meant to kill them all, which I know you did not, you would have been completely justified. You know that, right?”
“Sometimes,” she answered in a small voice.
“I would be more worried if it didn’t haunt you, to be honest,” Silas replied gently. “I still have nightmares about the war. And about the night I ended it.”
“Keegan really hates you for that,” Shiloh pointed out.
“Indeed. And he has every right to hate me, and to hate Edmun for not avenging her. I don’t want you to worry about that. If you want to build a relationship with him, I don’t want to stop you,” he told her.
“I don’t hate him anymore,” she admitted.
“I can tell,” Silas replied with a ghost of a smile.
“I think Penn and Lady Mosspeak are afraid of them. Riah, too. Afraid of the Feralfolk, I mean,” she observed. “The Free, I guess they prefer to be called.”
“Very likely. We are all taught to fear and loathe them, especially the girls, lest they decide the Feral might offer them a better deal than the civilized world does,” Silas said. “I hope it isn’t too difficult for us, learning to live among them. There is no place else to go in Bryn, at least as long as Esta and Westan reign.”
“And when they don’t anymore, then what? What if Esta dies without an heir?” Shiloh asked.
Silas shook his head and gazed across the cave at Loor, sleeping on Penn’s chest.
“Then we fight another war.”
Freehold
Young Silas sat on a barrel and bit into an apple. The noises of camp surrounded him, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes open as he waited for Edmun to finally dismiss him to his bedroll. Around the fire, Feralfolk and some of the conscripts from the Teeth took turns singing folk songs. After the long march, no one had the energy to clog to the music.
Keegan’s errand boy sang very sweetly of a place called Freehold. All the Feralfolk, ordinarily terrifying, had tears in their eyes when he was through.
Edmun called Silas into his tent and set him to copying one last letter. He wiped his hands clean and set to work.
“Master, what’s Freehold?” Silas asked as he wrote.
Edmun snorted. “It’s the legendary homeland of the Feralfolk. The stories say that it is the most beautiful valley in all of the Teeth and that it is populated by hundreds of powerful wizards who keep it hidden from those who are not pure of heart, or some such nonsense. I doubt it even exists. If it does, it’s likely a filthy den of iniquity.”
It sounded pretty real in the song, he thought to himself. But he was smart enough not to say that aloud.
They stood at the bottom of a great cliff. They’d been climbing for days on foot, and all afternoon the men had had to cut through the undergrowth to make a path. Before that, it had been more than a week getting through the Range, resting as best they could in the blistering heat of the day and riding all night. Shiloh swayed on her feet.
“If I’m supposed to climb that, we’re out of luck,” she panted.
Keegan grinned. “Have a little faith, daughter. We’re not going over it.” He pulled his wand and sang a long string of spells. A crack appeared in the granite, wide enough for two people abreast. Shiloh could make out the soft glow of magic lanterns inside the passageway.
“We will walk about an hour before we come to a resting place,” Keegan explained. “It will be much easier, even ground. Then an easy walk tomorrow.”
Shiloh nodded and squared her shoulders. “Then what?”
“Then we’re home,” he said, grinning. “Come along.”
Keegan took her hand, and she let him lead her into the tunnel. Their companions followed. Shiloh took a glance back over her shoulder to check on her friends. Loor whimpered and hid her face against Penn’s neck, and Shiloh couldn’t blame her. She could see Keelie trembling behind them, her shallow breathing betraying her fear. Lord Mosspeak’s low voice murmured soothingly, and his wife managed to calm herself.
Two of Keegan’s men sealed the hidden entrance behind them, and the late afternoon sunlight disappeared, leaving only the dim light of the lanterns. The lamps glowed for about ten yards ahead of them, but beyond that, there was darkness. As they passed, lanterns behind them extinguished, plunging the tunnel back into darkness to the rear. Shiloh could see that Silas found it disconcerting, his shoulders tensing up beneath his cloak. Bluebell, of course, walked serenely onward. Hana eyed everything with suspicion, but seemed unafraid. Shiloh, for her part, was mostly just grateful for the easier footing and looking forward to a rest.
“You seem unfazed by the tunnel,” Keegan remarked, sounding pleased.
“I’ve been in a lot worse tunnels on mining duty,” she reminded him. “And I am curious to see what is on the other side.”
Every so many feet, Keegan would stop and draw his wand, murmuring incantations. Booby traps, Shiloh realized. He has to disarm them, then someone has to reset them behind us.
She shivered a bit in the damp darkness beneath the mountain. She picked up her pace, trying to warm herself. Soon, the tunnel widened into a cave about half the size of the one they’d sheltered in a week earlier.
“No fire, I’m afraid,” Keegan warned. “Ventilation isn’t good enough. But we’ve plenty of furs stored here, and dried food.”
He flicked his wand, and more lanterns lit up. Again, Shiloh was struck by the artwork previous visitors had left behind. One fresco depicted a mother and her nursing baby. Shiloh watched as Penn walked over, running her fingers lightly over the paint. Shiloh crossed to join her, slipping her arm around her friend’s waist. A tear fell from Penn’s eye, splashing to the rock floor below.
“I’m sorry for your grief, Penny,�
� Shiloh whispered, thinking of Penn’s son who had lived but one day.
“I know,” Penn replied, kissing Shiloh on the temple. “At least I have Loor. And perhaps a new beginning in this new place, as fearful as I am about that prospect.”
Hana joined them, having overhead the last comment. “Going to find yourself a Feral husband, are you, Your Grace?” she asked. There was a touch of her old mocking tone in her voice.
Shiloh and Penn turned unified glares on her, and Hana held up her hands. “What? By the Maiden, I might do it myself. Neither of us could do much worse than we did the first time. And the Gods only know how long we’ll be stuck way out here. Esta could live another fifty years. So I’m on board if the plan is to find a handsome savage or two to pass the time.”
Shiloh expected Penn to defend the late king, or proclaim no interest in Feral men, but the widow simply sighed. “I heard the Feralfolk let girls choose their own husbands. That sounds rather nice.”
“They’d better, for their sakes. Because the next man who tries anything on me without invitation gets a knife somewhere painful,” Hana declared. She tapped the dagger she’d taken to wearing on her belt.
Shiloh smiled. “See, you’re a Feral already.”
After a few hours’ march, a new sound filled the tunnel. It soon grew into a roar.
“Water?” Shiloh shouted, looking up at her husband.
Silas nodded. “A lot of it!”
The tunnel took a few bends. The floor beneath their boots grew slippery and wet. At last, they took a final turn and were greeted by a wall of rushing water. Cold mist blew against Silas’s face, making him grateful for the beard Shiloh had advised him to keep in anticipation of the winter to come.
“What am I looking at?” Silas cried.
“The gate of Freehold,” Keegan yelled back, grinning.
“You got a key?” Silas asked.
Keegan pulled out his wand. A few more of his men joined him, including Shiloh’s brother, Barr, and they chanted together. The water began to bow outward over the river, as though the wizards were inflating a giant balloon behind it, until the waterfall arced over, creating a gap between the passageway’s exit and the rushing water.
Cautiously, the members of the party stepped beneath the arch of water, mindful of the now-exposed and smooth river rocks still wet beneath their feet. Beneath the dome of magic, all was quiet, and Silas looked up in awe at the river crashing and flowing above his head.
He realized Shiloh wasn’t at his side, and he turned to find her. She stood, frozen, at the tunnel’s exit.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What if they don’t want me, once they see me?” she whispered.
Whatever heart he had left cracked in two. “Of course, they want you,” he assured her, hoping he wasn’t lying. He reached out his hand, and she took it. He could feel her trembling as they walked beneath the water.
He helped Shiloh climb out of the riverbed and onto dry ground. Keegan and his men joined them, still chanting as they got out of the water’s accustomed path. Finally, all accounted for, the Feral wizards let go of their magic, and the water crashed down with an enormous splash.
Silas watched Keegan cross to join Shiloh.
“Welcome home!” the chief shouted. Shiloh smiled, her eyes turning hopeful.
Silas shivered.
“It’s beautiful here,” Shiloh confessed. She walked alongside Keegan, whose weathered face beamed. The long, narrow valley was surrounded by mountains of granite, and they walked next to a gentle river.
“You didn’t expect it to be?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I always looked down on Fer—the Free. Thought you were just a bunch of thieves and heathens, too selfish and lazy to work and pay taxes and live like proper people.”
“I hear Edmun’s voice there,” Keegan replied.
Shiloh snorted. “True, but not just his. You must know how folks talk about you.”
“We’re aware,” Keegan allowed, unoffended. “I can’t help hating Edmun, Shiloh. He let Hatch kill my wife and did nothing. He kept you from me, filled your head with lies about us. Lies about yourself.”
“Well, I hope you don’t expect me to hate him, because I refuse. He made mistakes. He wasn’t honest with me. I see that now. I am angry about that.” Shiloh stopped walking and turned to face him. “But he loved me, and I love him. He taught me every day from the moment I was out of diapers until the day he died. He made me the best-educated sorceress in Bryn. And he took care of me every night that I paid for my mother’s sins.
“What you saw back there in the cave, the night I was going mad with itching, was a stroll in the Greenhill Palace gardens compared to most of those nights. And Edmun Courtborn is the one who got me through them. Including the ones when I prayed I would die, and the ones I nearly did. And then he’d nurse me back to health, knowing full well it would happen again. My da, he couldn’t bear the screaming, the tears. He would have to leave. I guess it takes an imperfect man to manage it. So I’ll forgive Edmun his imperfections, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.” Keegan replied. “I wasn’t trying to start a fight with you, Shiloh.” He reached for her hand, and she flinched.
“Sorry,” she whispered. She swallowed, then reached out and took his elbow. “People don’t reach for my hand. And if they do it unknowing, and then realize what I am . . . and I’m not wearing a glove, which I’m not today . . . It doesn’t end well.”
He looked down at her, and they began walking again. “I don’t suppose your neighbors were too kind to you.”
“No, they were not.”
“Well, Shiloh, I think you’ll find your new neighbors a sight more friendly.”
They came to the edge of the main settlement. In the meadow stood rings of large, round tents with straight walls and domed roofs. Most of them were set upon wooden platforms elevated a few feet above the ground. Beyond them, Shiloh could see a sheer outcropping of rock. She gasped when she realized that the wall of stone was speckled with openings and crisscrossed with terraces, ladders, and staircases. Baskets moved up and down on pulleys, some small and others large enough to hold a person or two.
“You . . . you carved a village into the mountain,” she breathed.
“Dwellings, food storage, water cisterns, shops, armory,” Keegan elaborated. “A temple, even, though we mostly worship out of doors.”
Shiloh gave a wordless sigh.
“In the warm months, most come down and live in the yurts. We hunt and gather stores, sheer the goats, travel.” He glanced at her sideways. “Maybe appropriate a few more goats,” he admitted.
Children ran between the tents, playing and shrieking. Loor clapped her hands and wriggled out of Keelie’s arms, impatient to join them, stomping away on her chubby little legs with Penn and Keelie trailing behind.
A woman with long brown braids and kind eyes strode toward them. She wore a tunic and knee-length skirt, her feet stained purple. A streak of silver over her left eye was her only concession to age.
“Elderberry wine-making?” Keegan asked, laughing.
“Blackberries,” she corrected him. “It’s been a banner year for them, the wet winter we had,” she replied, then kissed him. She turned toward Shiloh. “Is this our lost lamb?”
Keegan laughed again. “It is. Shiloh, this is Gret, my wife.”
Gret opened her arms. “We’re so glad to have you, Shiloh. Everyone has been hoping and praying Keegan would bring you home.”
Feeling terribly awkward, Shiloh allowed the woman to embrace her.
“Thank you,” Shiloh said. “I appreciate your welcome. This is my husband, Silas Hatch.”
“I know who that is,” Gret replied, keeping her hand by her side.
Silas ignored the snub and bowed deeply. “We are most grateful for your kind hospitality, madam. May I present Zavier Vernon, Lord Mosspeak of the Southlands. His wife, Keelie, is over there chasing the baby with Penn, the dow
ager queen of Bryn. The baby is Princess Loor, Rischar’s youngest daughter. Jonn here is a healer, as is Riah. Hana Gray, the dowager Lady Kepler. Bluebell of Vreeland, a sister of Mount Tarwin. And Jivan Woodborn, age twelve.”
Gret gave each of them a thorough once over, then raised both eyebrows at her husband. “I wasn’t expecting quite so many. Or so fancy. But there is plenty of room and plenty of food.”
Keegan shrugged. “Shiloh insisted. They’ve learned to rough it a bit. And I warned them their titles mean nothing here. Besides, you’d have had my hide if I’d left women and children to Gernish wolves in the woods. Jonn and Riah are both healers, and we’ve been without a proper one since Yarroh died in the spring. Hatch, Jonn, and Mosspeak will have to face the trial, of course. Prove they’re worthy of welcome. I think Jivan is young enough to be exempt.”
Hatch slowly turned his head toward Keegan, and Shiloh saw a dangerous gleam in his eye. “I beg your pardon?” came her husband’s icy question.
“Well, you know we don’t accept men grown without testing their mettle first,” Keegan replied, grinning like a crocodile.
“I’d have thought Mosspeak’s gold was proof enough for him,” Hatch said. The way he bit off his words filled Shiloh with dread.
“Proof enough for the journey. Not to live among us,” Keegan answered.
“What does he mean by facing the trial?” Mosspeak demanded. He sounded more tired than alarmed. Jonn, on the other hand, looked alarmed enough for the both of them.
“He’s going to make us fight the young warriors so he can laugh at us getting knocked around,” Silas explained, rolling his eyes.
“The hell he is,” Shiloh declared, shoulders square and chin raised toward Keegan in defiance.
“It’s the only way any of my people will respect them,” Keegan countered. “We’ll do it tomorrow morning. Have the welcoming feast tomorrow night.”
“Do they get to use their wands? Or help each other?” Shiloh demanded.