White Fells

by R. Garland Gray

  “Tell me where the warrior is, Princess.”

  “Who?” she countered softly.

  “Do not play me for a fool, Scota. Do you see my four bowmen over there? I could order them to aim their arrows for each of your limbs.” He rubbed his chin. “Maybe a better convincer would be to toss you on your back and have all six of my men take turns on your sweet flesh.”

  She refused to flinch. “It matters not to me, I am already dead.”

  He knelt in front of her, the Darkshade dagger flashing in his hand. “I will make your death quick, a simple cut to the throat …” he made a slashing motion, “… if you tell me the location of the golden warrior. Where is he, Scota?”

  “I do not know where he is,” she wheezed, the colors around her gradually becoming lifeless and dull.

  “Do not try my patience.”

  She had every intention of doing just that, every intention of setting off his temper for a quick death. She did not wish to linger in horrible suffocation while the men violated her body. Behind the captain, a strange glimmering in the air formed on the bank of the rippling spring. Scota wondered if the banshee, sensing death, had returned for her.

  The strange glimmering was not the banshee.

  “ENDING COMES,” the reflection of herself whispered.

  “Who are you?” Scota asked.

  The captain’s hand grasped her chin in hurtful domination. “Look at me, Scota.”

  Her gaze slid back to her killer.

  “I am Captain Rigoberto. Tell me where I can find the warrior and I will make all this terrible pain go away.”

  “What pain?” she murmured.

  He tapped the arrowhead peeking out of her side with the dagger’s hilt, and she nearly fainted.

  Fingers dug into her chin, holding her steady for the next torture. “Do not make me hurt you more.”

  Swallowing hard, she crafted a lie, hoping to misdirect. “The warrior left me tied to a tree. I have been trying to find my way back to our camp ever since.”

  “Lost, Princess? I do not believe you. I think the warrior is near.”

  “He is not.”

  “You protect him too swiftly. I saw the way he looked at you and you at him. He would not leave you, at least not before taking you.” He leaned in close, releasing her chin and stealing more of her air. “I will not kill him, Scota. I only want the fey treasure.”

  Enough. She used what air remained in her lungs in a burst of fury. “There is no treasure except in your stupid and greedy little mind.”

  “Liar!” he roared, jumping to his feet in a fit of temper. A fist connected hard with her cheek, and Scota’s head flew back, the warm taste of blood pooling in her mouth. Her right hand flung out for balance, fingers digging into damp soil and pebbles. Eyes tearing, ears ringing, she turned slowly back to the captain. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an enraged tawny warrior silently slit the throats of two of the bowmen.

  Boyden had come.

  But he was too late to save her.

  “Bitch,” the captain growled, oblivious to the soundless attack going on behind him.

  Scota crumpled to her side, the will to live spilling out of her in a cloak of red crimson. Cold wind blew hair off her face, and when she lifted heavy lashes, the captain had vanished. She blinked slowly, her body growing more and more chilled with each labored breath.

  The reflection knelt before her, a willowy figure becoming more opaque than transparent. The faery, for that is what she thought of the slender creature, wore the sheerest white gown of crisscrossed cording. The clearest of crystals were embedded in the gown’s weave and in the faery’s black hair. Threads of pitch entwined in web crystal wings that folded against a small back.

  “I AM HERE,” the reflection murmured in her mind, impressions with no words.

  Scota was no longer afraid of the unknowing, an easing gift bestowed with death’s nearness. She met a hard gaze of faceted blue and rasped, “Who are you?”

  Gaoth Shee came the reply, thoughts and translations meshing with her own.

  “Faery Wind,” she echoed low, the world pausing in an eternity of long moments.

  The lovely creature bowed her dark head in acknowledgment.

  Silence came to the land and Scota’s ears.

  Colors dulled in her vision.

  The scent of the air and life dwindled.

  Crimson wetness stained her quivering hands, side, and leg.

  Her body felt blunted, numb, and colder than she had ever been.

  “ENDING COMES.”

  Yes, Scota thought. I am dying.

  “SAVE?” The Faery Wind’s intentions entered her mind.

  “Can you?” she asked in desperate hope, searching the smooth face.

  “CLAIMING.”

  “Claiming?” She did not understand the meaning and heard a man’s gurgle followed by a splash. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Boyden kill her third attacker and throw the dead man into the moving spring. Three of the enemy remained, not counting the missing captain.

  The faery creature tilted her head, eyes watchful and glinting. “AGREE?”

  “What do you mean by claiming?” Scota would rather die than give up her self.

  “BECOME OF YOU.”

  “No.” She shook her head. She would not be a vessel for another, would never submit her mind and body to another’s whim.

  Rolling waves of desolation and terrible loneliness, not her own, engulfed her. “Stop,” she gasped, her heart pounding. “I … stop.”

  A man’s guttural scream pierced the air.

  “IF NOT CLAIM, SHARE?”

  The faery creature’s wants flowed swiftly into her.

  The Faery Wind was a primordial being seeking release from a curse of a long and terrible isolation. Her one fragile connection to life remained with Boyden and now, with the babe growing in her womb. The mystical being wanted closeness, wanted Scota to share her body when Boyden mated with her. Not always, and not in a possession, but in the senses, touching, tasting, hearing, seeing … sharing.

  “If I do not agree?” she countered in a breathless whisper.

  “ENDING THEN.”

  That was the alternative. If she did not agree, she would not live to see another twilight. Would not see her child grown, would not feel Boyden’s touch ever again, would not end the war, but end herself instead. She nodded. “So be it.”

  “AGREE?”

  “I agree to share my body once, but only when I will it.”

  Not two horse lengths before her, Boyden dropped another man dead to the ground. Blood stained his arms and chest as he turned to meet the attack of the last man, one of greater height and girth, wielding a sword. The cowardly captain had gone missing, retreating to find reinforcements, a plausible excuse.

  “SHARING WHEN I WISH IT,” the faery creature’s words forcibly entered her mind.

  Scota’s head lowered heavily between her shoulders. “No,” she answered, losing the last of her strength.

  A change came to the air, a sweeping to chilliness.

  Scota forced herself to look up.

  The Faery Wind, the ancient being, shimmered into circles of swirling mist.

  Scota trembled and clutched her side. Her back felt like a mass of wet, red fire. I am dying. There is no other way, she reasoned inwardly, no other way and felt a momentary panic. Boyden! Her mind screamed with dread.

  It was too late.

  Bright colors danced before her eyes.

  Icy cold sensations hurt her skin.

  She wheezed, straining for air … and a glacial wind of incredible power, virulence, and mist flowed into her mouth, her nose. It stole down her throat, meshing with her heart, her lungs, her womb …

  A silent cry of terror tore into her and, in that one defining moment … she became a being of dark purpose and enchantment.

  Her life evaporated into the before days, leaving behind her life’s knowledge, sorrows, and desires.

  She became of
the fey, geayee, of wind.

  Off to the side, her enraged rescuer landed in the pool with a big splash, his dagger pressed against the bigger man’s throat.

  She did not blink.

  Reaching behind her back, Scota broke off the feathered end of the arrow with a crack. Pushing the remaining shaft forward, she gripped the emerging flint arrowhead with her other hand and slid it clear from her bleeding body. She felt no pain. The Faery Wind within her protected her unborn child and preserved her lung.

  Her lips parted, and the fey wind left her body in the exhaling of breath, leaving behind shades of ancient memories. In the bloodstained pool, three tiny undines watched her with fearful, jeweled eyes.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE EBBING OF THE DARKSHADE enchantment left him weakened, but the protective rage boiling in his blood more than compensated for it. Boyden shoved the dead man off his hips with a forceful kick and a loud splash. Rolling to his side, he pushed up in bloodstained waters.

  “Scota?”

  Her head was bowed in a tangle of wet black hair. She sat on her hip near the spring’s edge, an arrow sticking out of her back.

  He watched with frozen horror as she reached behind her back and broke the wooden shaft of the arrow at the point of the gray feathers. With a purposeful movement, she pushed the shaft through her body without sounds of torment, and his fist tightened on the dagger’s hilt. By the winds! He could not believe her strength and courage. By the shaft’s responsiveness to her insistence, he knew it was not lodged in bone. She grabbed the arrowhead appearing beneath her breast and pulled it out free and clear.

  Her hand opened, dropping the bloody shaft to the ground near her knees, and she turned to the pool, no doubt seeking him among the dead.

  He scrambled to his feet. In the next breath, he knelt before her.

  “Scota,” he said with an agonized whisper, jamming his dagger back in his waistband.

  Black lashes lifted, and through a twist of hair, he stared into a waning sea of blankness. He gently tucked black strands behind delicate ears.

  “I am here. You are safe.”

  Her eyes appeared dull and lifeless despite the tiny golden shards of light in their turquoise depths.

  He let his breath out slowly.

  Her eyes.

  The marker of a fey claiming glittered in her eyes.

  The sight of it caught him off guard. Never had he seen golden shards in the eyes of a non-blooded, but he would deal with this later.

  For now, her life was threatened.

  Reaching for her arm, he said the words softly, “Scota, let me see how badly you are hurt.” She remained unmoving, breathing in and out, no wheezing or forcing.

  He lifted the wet and bloody shirt, her lost gaze focusing on him.

  “Easy, my warrior,” he whispered.

  With gentle fingers, he lifted her white breast and inspected the blackened exit wound beneath. A small opening appeared already congealed. He slid behind her and shoved wet hair out of his eyes. Lifting her shirt higher, he inspected the entrance wound under her shoulder blade. With the skin already purpling from the injury, he skimmed the black opening with his fingertips searching for shards of wood the shaft may have left behind.

  “The wound looks clean, Scota. No pieces of wood left behind.”

  He came around and faced her.

  Her shattered gaze, riddled with hurtful shades, drew him into her pain.

  If her lung was punctured, and he suspected it was from discerning the arrow’s angle, she would likely die. He did not know if he could survive without her.

  Her gaze remained steady on his, trusting him to save her life.

  “I must get you to safety, a place to rest and heal.”

  A spark of awareness flickered in the depths of her eyes.

  “I am going to carry you back to the passage tomb, Scota. There remains some of Derina’s magical healing paste, and I want to smear it on your wounds. If it can heal me of the Darkshade enchantment, mayhap it can heal you.” He prayed silently for it to be true and scooped her up.

  With slender arms locked around his neck and her head resting lightly on his shoulder, he made his way back to the Grange in the bright sunlight. The drive to keep her from harm beat at him strongly. She felt part of him, a linking deep in his bloodline. The only time he had ever felt such a connection was with the Gaoth Shee. She pressed her nose under his chin and he held her tightly, striding quickly up the grassy ridge.

  He knew something had happened to her out there near the spring.

  Never before did the faery marker of his brethren glimmer gold in a non-blooded.

  Emerging from a strange dream of entangled sorrows and desires, Scota awoke slowly, trying to understand what happened to her.

  Breathing in cautiously, she listened to the silence around her. Where she lay, fragrant herbs wafted in the air from a bed of green leaves and crushed wildflowers. Cool moist shadows soothed and waited, hugging close gray walls of stone. Her body felt … curious. No longer clenched in shock and hurt, she felt the pulse of life and yearnings.

  Strange images flowed through her mind, images she did not comprehend. Her thoughts and heart remained her own except for a residual echoing within. It was a vault of knowledge of the long-ago times left over from a brief claiming of an ancient being. The Faery Wind had claimed her and just as swiftly, relinquished her. It was a promised saving and not a possession. She remained Scota, a woman of strength and decision, except … for the blood memories of the Elemental, except for the forevermore binding and sensing of the fey wind. Images continued to flow through her. She waited for them to dim. When they did not, she allowed them freedom and watched from within.

  Many of the Daoine Sidhe, the faery folk, hungered for the surprise and wonder retained by their mortal kin who had not accepted, or yet passed from the in-between. A few, like the ancient wind, ached for the experience of it.

  She remembered seeing a gray seal once. When the animal popped his head out of a swell of foamy waves, she had jumped with surprise. A faery, sensing the presence of the animal, would not have been. Her thoughts returned to the primordial being who wanted much more than a simple sensing.

  Scota understood the Elemental’s desire for Boyden. He was the last of the mortals to carry the blood threads of her wind heritage, except for the unborn babe within her womb, and the Elemental had been too long alone.

  Even the dark magical became lonely.

  Slowly, Scota closed and opened her eyes in an inner shifting and acquiescence. She turned her head toward the slow cadence of male breathing, images fading into black mist.

  “Good eve, warrior,” he said.

  “Boyden,” she said achingly.

  “Aye.” He smiled, and her world centered into an inner glowing.

  Her senses now keen in the ways of the fey, she could hear the strong beat of his heart, the gentle rush of air in his lungs, and the grumbling of hunger in his belly. He smelled of berry sweetness, and her mouth watered to taste him.

  Dark purple shadows and concern showed within his eyes along with a cold curiosity.

  She suspected he sensed the change in her and took a calming breath, deep and full. He nodded.

  “Derina’s healing. I dinna know if it would help you.” His fingers splayed over the bandage under her breast, and the heat of his hand comforted through her shirt. Any pain from the wounds was long gone.

  Her senses told her they were no longer in the great passage tomb, but northeast in one of the lesser burial tombs dotting the countryside.

  “How do you feel?” he asked. “You slept for three days.”

  “I am well.”

  “Does the wound hurt still?”

  “It no longer hurts, Boyden.”

  Reaching out, she caressed his cheek tenderly.

  Large fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he guided her hand back to her side.

  She frowned.

  “Rest, I have food and water when you are r
eady, then we talk.”

  She rose abruptly to her elbow. She did not want to talk. She wanted to taste him in her mouth, to reclaim the sweetness of life. Curling her hand behind his nape, she pulled him roughly down, her lips fitting over his in demand.

  She could feel his surprise in her mouth, the tensing of male power and muscle. He tasted of fresh water, and she thirsted, her body humming.

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled free. “Easy there, warrior.” His voice was low in her ears.

  She searched his face, not understanding.

  “Why did the captain hurt you?” he questioned with quiet intensity.

  She gingerly touched her side, more in nervousness than hurt. “He wanted you and I refused to tell him where you were.”

  “I suspected as much.” He followed her hand.

  “Hurts?”

  Scota shook her head. She knew she should be frail with injury, not restless with desire.

  A long silence came and went, the rush of air and breath loud in her ears.

  “What happened out there, Scota?” His voice dropped an octave, a command for information.

  Truth or untruth? Her mouth clamped shut with indecision.

  “You bear a fey marker in your eyes, Scota. The golden shards were not present before.”

  She blinked.

  His head tilted with observation. “Your body heals faster than any I have ever encountered.”

  “Derina’s healing,” she offered with quick explanation.

  A disdainful smile played about his lips before he answered. “Derina’s healing canna add the shards of a fey marker in your eyes, Scota.”

  She looked away and thought that at least they were not amethyst like his, not a blooded claim.

  “You were not born of this land or of the in-between of my faery kin, Scota. You are one of the non-blooded. What happened?”

  She stared at the rock face, a hand’s span from her nose.

  “Look at me.”

  She turned back to him.

  “What happened out there?”

  “I am unsure,” she murmured in truth, not fully understanding.

  “Take your time and tell me what you remember.”

  “Pain.” She turned back to the rock face and stared blankly at it. “I remember terrible pain shooting through my back and side. The captain’s greed fouled my air so I could no longer breathe. His fist …” She touched her jaw. It was no longer tender.