by A. L. Knorr
I said nothing and didn't move, thinking. I knew that the maze was divided down the middle. Daracha had seated herself on a bench in a small opening in the west side of the garden. I was in the east side. It wouldn't be long before she found her way out. The maze would provide maybe ten minutes of wandering before coming to an exit.
I swallowed, glancing down the corridor on my left, then down the right. I listened for more muttering but a tense silence had settled over the garden. That wasn't good. Unable to bear staying still, I chose a direction and moved silently through the maze. Peering around corners, I edged my way toward the center. Twice I hit a dead end and had to turn back. When I hit a third dead end, I let out a frustrated sigh and frowned at the oversized roses. What had been an asset had become a nuisance. But was I a Wise, or not? Plants should never be a nuisance for a Wise.
Taking a breath and sending out my will, I walked straight into the wall of leaves and thorns in front of me. Not a single barb scratched me, nor did my feet trip or scrape across any sharp roots. Like thick, leafy drapes, the rosebush pulled itself aside to let me pass. It hugged my skin and clothes with only the space of a hair's breadth between us. Roots shifted and sighed softly as they moved to make way. Thorns bent aside, turning their smooth sides out and their wicked points in and away from my skin.
Stepping through one labyrinthian wall, I moved across the space in between and straight through the next. My ears perked, primed for any small sound. The wind picked up overhead, rustling the trees and bushes. The hoot of an owl sounded in the distant hills, but otherwise, all was quiet.
Surely, I had only one final wall to pass through before I arrived at the center. The path there led straight through the heart of the garden from the castle walls to the forest at the rear. Slowing my pace, I peered from the rosebush, looking in both directions. No sooner had I looked in the direction of the castle than an opaque gray fog rolled around the corner, heading my way, fast.
My stomach churned as I watched the soupy mass tumble over the ground, swallowing everything in its path. In less than a minute, the entire labyrinth would be darker than a moonless night. Visibility would be limited to a foot in front of my face, if I was lucky. My mind raced as I watched the fog come on.
A mad cackle lanced through the air, coming from somewhere inside the fog.
My gaze fell on the huge rosebuds as Daracha's vaporous mass gobbled them up. If the blossom I'd opened earlier had enough magic to eat away at my cage, maybe ...
With a flick of my fingers, a patch of rosebuds burst open, swelling to the size of party balloons, white and fluffy and rich with scent. Relief made me take a massive breath. The fog around the open roses withdrew the way a hot sun burns away moisture.
I grinned triumphantly. Lifting my hands and flicking my fingers, rosebuds all over the place burst into full bloom. Where they opened, the mass vanished, seared away, dissolved like candy-floss in water. The air began to fill with the nearly overpowering scent of rose.
Daracha had stopped laughing. I heard the scrape of a shoe against the ground. I followed the sound of soft footsteps, roses bursting open all along the way. The fog was running backward now. I caught a glimpse of her skirts as she tried to stay within the concealing cloud. She turned a corner and disappeared into an opening in the maze. My heart lifted a little. She was now running from me. Emboldened, I continued opening rosebuds, following her into the maze.
"Afraid to face me now?" I called.
There was a sound like Daracha had started to respond, but her words turned into a cough. Her voice dry and throaty, she said, "What have you done? Stupid girl. Why is it hard to breathe? These flowers reek."
Turning the corner revealed a corridor full of fog. Daracha's voice was close. I stopped there, watching the cloud burn off as white rose blossoms unfolded, dumping their aroma everywhere, along with their magic.
The opaque cloud diminished and I caught sight of Daracha's skirts behind a pair of dark, shadowy legs. Revealed from the bottom up as the roses did their work and the fog dissipated, was Daracha, crouched behind the ithe. She had a hand against her chest as she worked to breathe. She sounded like someone with advanced pneumonia, but her eyes glinted dangerously.
"Kill her," she hissed at the ithe.
The ithe shuddered, the flames of his head flickering quickly as though he was quaking. His shoulders stiffened and his arms jammed in at his sides.
"You are mine," she grated at him, "I said, kill her." Daracha lifted a hand and pale purple electric magic snapped from her fingers to wrap around the ithe's torso. The being who had once been Byrne gave a soundless wrack of pain as her magic seared him. His shoulders bent and neck grew long, his arms quivered as though fighting against physical agony.
"Stop it!" I screamed. "Let him go!"
Daracha's magic gripped the ithe tighter and her gaze shot to my face, her beautiful features lit with insane cruelty.
"What do you care," she sneered, still cowering behind her slave.
"His name is Byrne." My breath came fast now as my heart sped up. The words spilled from my lips too quickly for me to stop and think about them. I thought of Fyfa, of the years that had separated them from one another.
I took a step forward. "Him for me."
Daracha's face expanded with a vicious glee, like such an offer was too good to be true.
The ithe shook his head, black flames twisting even as his body arced over in pain.
"Release him."
"Free this mindless slave in exchange for the last thing I need to complete my transformation? Do you realize how stupid that is?" She cackled but also looked surprised, like she hadn't meant to say that out loud.
It was the roses, forcing the truth out of her.
I narrowed my eyes and felt a sly smile at my lips. "Why is it stupid?"
She snapped the words out fast, almost out of control. "I'll never keep my end of the bargain." Daracha slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes gaped wide. She ripped her hand away and gave a frustrated scream. Her magic tightened itself around the ithe and he fell to his knees.
"You're hurting him!" I took a few more steps forward.
"Stay back!" She added more ropes of hissing pain around the ithe's body. The jagged lines tightened, crackling and sending sparks onto the ground.
I froze. My eyes misted at the sight of the piteous creature, on his knees, looking totally broken. Byrne had helped me, in spite of the cost to him, in spite of the curse. What kind of effort had that taken? What kind of inner fight had commenced within him?
Daracha seemed caught in a bog of confusion. Not understanding why she was telling the truth, afraid of me, her power weakening, and the ithe her only point of leverage. I could practically see the question marks in her eyes.
"It lured your friend, the curly haired human, and would have killed her," Daracha panted. I could almost smell the smoke as she tried to work through what she was dealing with. "It would have killed your other friend too, the fae male, if you hadn't slipped away. Why would you give yourself for my slave?"
The truth slipped out easily. "I know someone who loves him."
"No." She shook her head, rejecting my rationale. "It's more than that. It's ..." She bit her lip as if fighting to keep the words inside. She heaved, bending over as though she was about to vomit on the ground, but only a weak sound came out. A choked gargle.
"What is it then?" I asked. "If you don't believe me, what do you think is the reason?"
She gave a long, rough exhale, like her esophagus had grown too narrow to breathe through. "You know. It's the only explanation. You know he's your father." Daracha looked horrified at the words spilling out of her mouth and gave another scream of frustration.
My mind tripped and fell over the witch's words.
Everything inside me fell still.
My gaze went to the dark figure cowed at her feet, trembling against the pain of her magic.
"It's not possible." My voice was little more than a croak
. But it had to be possible, somehow, because—surrounded by enormous ros fírinn the way we were—Daracha could only tell the truth.
An image of Byrne rose in my mind. Upside down and unconscious, face obscured by long hair. Body dangling over the well, rotating slowly. Totally helpless. Margaret and Daracha scheming and cursing, swallowing up his form with black flames, making a void linking Byrne to the bottom of the well.
I could only find enough voice for one word. One question. "How?"
"You think I can't command my slave to shed his flames? Take on his old handsome body and find women to mate with? He was a powerful fae. Thanks to Margaret, his magic became my magic." Daracha spewed the words as though spitting out rotten food. "His seed meant a new crop of potential Wise whenever I wanted to have them made." She loosed another frustrated scream. "Why can I not stop these words?"
"It's the roses," I said automatically, the truth also surging from my own lips.
Her expression turned wild and horrified as she looked around, cringing away from the nearest blossoms. I was too distracted to care that I'd let the secret out.
My heart ached so much that I put a hand over my chest. My eyes stung with tears. The shadows laying over my past crawled back just a little, revealing something bigger than I had ever imagined it could be.
A sob escaped as I looked at where my father was on his hands and knees, head hanging and shoulders slumped, defeated. Forced to mate with human women to provide possible victims for the witch whose power he was enslaved to. It was too horrible.
I raked a hand across my eyes, feeling the desire to scream, to hate. My gaze caught on a movement in the leaves of the rosebush nearest me. They drew back, curling and sending up tendrils of smoke. The heavy white blossom near me drooped and wilted, the scent changing from fresh to over-ripe and sickly sweet.
I gasped, reigning in the hate that threatened to engulf me. Tears spilled over as I looked at the witch watching me with uncertainty and confusion. If she'd noticed the effect of my emotions on the rosebushes, she hadn't given it away.
Hate turned to pity and the sight of the ithe, my unknown father, lit a fire of love in my heart that flared hot and full. Elphame had abandoned me, as Laec said she might. But I could still try and save my father.
"Him for me," I said softly. "That's the deal."
Byrne's head twisted jerkily as he tried to look up. His flames flickered and roared as if in a high wind. In fact, the wind did pick up again, rustling the leaves of the maze and echoing distantly with a drawn out and breathy cry of dismay.
Daughter. Don't.
Daracha's eyes darted all over the place like mad pinballs: to me, to the towering walls of the labyrinth and sharp thorns there, to the heavy blossoms covering everything, to the the ithe.
"You'll let me burn you if I release your father?"
Not even trying to test the power of the truth roses, I let my honest answer come. "I have no intention of letting you burn me. If you remove the curse from my Byrne then I'll withdraw the ros fírinn. My words are true; I'm unable to lie in their presence. As you are unable to lie."
"Ros fírinn," she hissed the word as her eyes lit up. She gave a hacking cough that transformed into a cackle of malignant delight. "Truth roses. How clever."
"A gift from someone in your past," I replied.
She narrowed her eyes. "Who?"
"Fyfa Blár."
"Fyfa ..." she said on an exhale, recognition coming into her eyes. "Gilbarta's sister."
"The first Wise you ever murdered." I took a step closer. "Do we have a deal?" My bravado was beginning to falter. I wanted my father freed but I had no desire to face Daracha at her full strength. I hadn't forgotten what the queen had told me, that a Wise was not powerful enough to compete with the power Daracha had. And since then, the witch had absorbed the powers of a second Wise. But there was no other way to free my father, and I wouldn't even try to kill Daracha if I knew it would kill him as well, even if it meant my own life.
Daracha came out from behind Byrne and released the ropes of magic keeping him bound. "You have a deal. Now make the bloody ros fírinn go away and face me."
Chapter Twenty-Two
The corners of her mouth twitched in the start of a smile that did not fully form. That smile froze my blood and made my pulse jump. Without the roses weakening her powers, there was no way I could withstand her. But leaving Byrne in her control, or to die if I managed to end her, was just as unthinkable.
I swallowed and kept my mouth closed, savoring my last few moments of having the upper hand. Maybe I'd get lucky and the queen would show up late. But deep inside, the seed of doubt Laec had planted had already grown into a mature tree. If the queen was going to come, surely she would have done so by now.
Daracha raised her hands and began to mutter an incantation. First the purple electricity binding the ithe fell away. Their hissing crackle vanished, letting the sounds of the night soothe my ears.
As I watched Daracha, I felt a small spot of warmth against my leg, like a beam of sunlight aimed at the top of my thigh. I glanced down at my pocket, remembering with a jolt what was hidden inside. I'd forgotten about the rosehip, whatever good it had been for me.
The ithe stayed on his hands and knees as Daracha continued to undo the spell. At first, there was no change, the black flames continued to flicker, but slowly, slowly, the form of a tall fae man could be seen in the shadows. The too-long neck shortened, the too-long head took on a more realistic shape. The rounded shoulders squared and lifted, the arms shortened and thickened. As the last of the flame burned out, my heart twisted with grief for all that Byrne had lost, and Fyfa, and myself too.
Byrne stayed on his knees and hands, head hanging toward the earth. His shoulders rose and fell with his first breaths of freedom in hundreds of years. Long blond hair hung toward the ground, the same color as mine.
I wanted to go to him, to give him my hand and help him up, but shyness kept me back. He was my father, even if he'd fathered me under the command of a black witch, it was apparent how he'd tried to help me. Somehow, through her control, he'd found the strength to defy her. I longed to ask him how.
"There." Daracha looked up defiantly. “Uphold your part of the bargain."
"I will," I replied, eyes still on Byrne. "Give him a minute. It’s been a long time since he's felt free."
Daracha scoffed but didn't protest, just crossed her arms and sat into one hip with coquettish impatience.
Finally, Byrne sat back on his haunches, his back straightened and his head lifted. His pale brown eyes met mine. A tear tracked down his cheek, but he smiled at me. That smile broke the spell holding me back. No longer able to stay away, I almost lunged at him, going to my knees in front of him. He opened his arms wide. I swept into them. Long arms wrapped around me and the feel of his heart thudding powerfully next to mine brought tears to my eyes.
"Let me look at you." His voice was deep and beautifully accented. He spoke the way Fyfa spoke, with a deep, unshakeable calm.
Pulling back, I examined his face too. What I saw was an older, male version of myself. There was so much I had taken from him, and now that he was in front of me, I realized how little I'd taken from Liz. Byrne had a strong jaw, wide forehead, eyes the color of untreated teak, long straight hair of corn silk gold. A wide mouth with expressive lips. The shadow of a golden beard darkened his jawline. His straight hair was pulled half back, revealing a hairline just like mine, with the hint of a widow's peak.
He touched my cheekbone and chin then wrapped his hands around my upper arms, squeezing gently. "You shouldn't have done that," he whispered, his eyes full of both love and sadness.
"I had to." I let him lift me up to standing and was encouraged to feel how much strength he had. At least all the long years of service to Daracha had not weakened him.
He towered over me by a good three inches and I had to laugh as I tilted my head back to look up at him. "I don't get to look up at many people."
> He smiled, though his brows were pinched with concern.
"As touching as this is …" Daracha's sneer made me jump. I'd almost forgotten she was even there. "Your end of the bargain is still waiting to be fulfilled."
Byrne froze, body taut. We looked at one another and the look in his eyes raised gooseflesh on my arms. The dread in his face said there was no way for me to beat Daracha on an even playing field. I already knew it, but somehow his expression hammered the last of the nails into my own coffin lid. If the one who'd been the most closely associated with Daracha all these years couldn't see a way to beat her, then how could I?
"It's okay." I tried to sound reassuring and failed.
He pulled me to him in another hug, squeezing me fiercely to his chest.
Heat blossomed again against my hip as the rosehip pulsed again. It felt as though a small coal wrapped in thick leaves sat in my pocket. Byrne felt it too, and gave a small start of surprise. Without releasing me fully from the embrace, he pulled back a little and looked me in the eye. A smile formed and he whispered, "Retrieve that, please."
"What are you whispering about." Daracha took a few steps toward us, but as I had not yet returned the garden to its original state, she was afraid to get too close.
Reaching my fingers into the pocket of my jeans, I retrieved the rosehip. It was a little squashed but glistened red with good health all the same. It pulsed in my hand like a little heart. I put it in my father's outstretched palm. It gave off a familiar, comforting sensation, not unlike the one the ros fírinn gave, only with more of an edge to it. The rosehip felt dangerous, somehow. Potent with botanical powers and almost acidic in nature.
I felt him vibrate with some very strong emotion as he took the rosehip, eyes wide. Cradling it in both hands, he pierced it with his thumbs. When it split open, a green light shone from the tear, illuminating our faces.
"What is this devilry?" Daracha charged forward, the beauty of her face contorted. "We have a bargain."