When we were about a quarter-mile away, the guard stopped. The lead guard—his name was Hale—stamped his feet in the snow as he clapped his hands to get warm.
“If we camp here for the night, we’ll be able to have a fire. Any closer and his Lordship Cernunnos forbids it. To be safe, we make camp now.” He motioned to the other four guards and they dismounted, helping Angel and Talia and me down from our horses. Viktor’s horse, a massive stallion, knelt to allow him to scramble down.
“He’s well-trained,” I said to Hale.
“Aye, that he is. He is one of Lord Cernunnos’s personal mounts. He can bear the half-ogre’s weight without a problem.” Hale looked around, then put his fingers to his lips and whistled. The other guards immediately beelined to his side. “Set up camp, and build a fire. Then make dinner.”
The guards jumped to work immediately, setting up the camp in a smoothly choreographed pattern that told me they had done this time and again. Yutani and Viktor went to help them as I trudged out into the snow, arms crossed over my chest as I tried to keep warm.
As I gazed up into the sky, stars began to twinkle across the darkening panorama. They were brilliant here, with no light pollution to obscure their path.
A storm was coming in from the east, moving at a good clip, so we would probably have cloud cover by midnight. I didn’t mind, considering the clouds would hold in the warmth. There was a crispness to the air and it practically sliced through my lungs, it was so cold and clear.
I was wearing a pair of jeans, a turtleneck sweater, and a jacket that Raven had given me. She had several like it, and I had begged one off of her. It was charmed so that it used my body heat to keep me warm. Lightweight, it was easy to move in, and one of the best gifts I had ever received. I wasn’t toasty warm, not at these temperatures, but I was definitely far warmer than I would have been if I had worn one of my uncharmed jackets.
As I exhaled, my breath formed clouds in front of my face, and I shifted my scarf to cover my nose and mouth. I watched the forest, shivering as I noticed a faint green glow rising from it. The entire skyline surrounding the tops of the trees lit with an olive glow. It had to be the magic inherent within the forest. Y’Bain was most definitely alive, and I had the uneasy feeling it knew we were out here, waiting on the outskirts.
Herne came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist as he pressed against my back. I looked up, and he leaned around to kiss me, reaching up to shift the scarf away from my lips.
“What do you think of my world?”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “But it frightens me. There’s a wildness here that you don’t find over in my realm. I’m sure we still have places like this, but nothing quite so grand or intense.”
“Actually, you do have places like this. They tend to be remote, far away from human interference. The top of Everest will never be tamed, and the volcanoes of the world have this same wild sense. And there are some forests and parts of the jungles that are still hidden from mankind, still thriving and alive on their own. But yes, my realm is far more rugged and wild than yours.”
I pressed back against his chest, grateful that he was here. “Do you really think I can do this? Do you really think I retrieve Brighid’s Flame and go up against Nuanda?”
“I have faith in you. And Cernunnos and Morgana and Brighid have faith in you. The Weaver would not have given you the challenge if she did not think there was a way for you to meet and win. No one faces insurmountable tasks in life, not when it comes to destiny. When you are fated to meet something, there will always be a chance for you to win. Perhaps a slim chance, but there will always be hope.”
He turned me around to face him. “Ember, every day you amaze me in what you are capable of. And every day, I fall a little more in love with you. I don’t know what it is that brought us together. I don’t know whether we were fated to meet or whether we just happened on one another. But whatever the reason, I bless the day we met.”
His eyes were glowing in the dim light of twilight. He truly belonged here. This was his realm, his home, and here, he was among the others of his own kind—the gods. I caught my breath again. It was hard enough to find love in the world, but to find love with one of the gods? I had never imagined this could happen.
As he leaned down to kiss me, pulling me close, every care in the world faded, leaving me in the present, awash in his love. He buoyed me up and gave me the hope that I needed to face the morning.
A moment later, Hale called to us. As we turned, a fire crackled in the center of camp, and a stew pot hung over the fire. I could smell something cooking and my stomach rumbled.
Herne laughed. “Let’s get you back to the fire, and get some food inside you. Although after lunch today, I’m surprised you’re hungry.”
I laughed in returned. “I’m mortal, remember? I need food regularly, and being Fae, I need more food than usual. Humans are lucky in that they don’t have to eat nearly as much to keep going.”
“Well then, come on. I don’t want you to starve.” He wrapped his arm around my waist.
As we ambled back to the fire, the others were gathering around it, huddled with blankets around their shoulders. One of the guards was passing around what looked to be enameled campfire cups and again, I grinned. Yet another small victory for my home. And the tents were also from one of the large camping store outlets. Yes, there were definitely some things that we did better and I was grateful to see the gods acknowledged it.
I spent my last night in the tent with Angel and Talia. Herne, Yutani, and Viktor were bunking together. And the guards were sleeping in yet another two tents, five standing watch and five asleep at a time. It was cold, but the guards had heated rocks in the fire, and tucked them beneath the feet of our sleeping bags, wrapped in towels. The sleeping bags were from REI or some other store like that and they were actually comfortable and warm. They were mummy bags, which gave me a touch of claustrophobia, but they kept the cold air out except for my face.
“Are you asleep?” Angel whispered from my right side.
“Not yet. It’s so quiet out here that it’s hard to sleep. I’m so used to all the sounds of the city,” I said.
“Me too. But I have to tell you, this is a beautiful place. I’d like to bring DJ here sometime—not to the forest, that would be too dangerous. But to Annwn. I think he’d love it.”
“You’re probably right. I bet he would love it. We can talk to Herne some time. Maybe we can take a company vacation—a camping trip—and bring him.” A few Lightning Flits lit up the inside of the tent just enough to see and give us a warm comfort.
“Annwn feels a cold place to me,” Talia said. “Beautiful, but rugged and isolated. I think I’ve become so used to the city that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I had to move out to the country.” She paused for a moment, then said, “What do you think of this Typhon business? I’ve heard of him, of course. He comes from the pantheon of my world. But for something so ancient and dangerous to awake…everything will change, you know. It has to.”
I had pushed thoughts of Typhon out of my head, in order to focus on the coming quest, but now the future loomed heavy. Even if I was able to take down Nuanda, that only meant we were clear for the next round of danger. And that would make the battle we were fighting look like child’s play.
“I don’t know what to think,” I said. “They said that Raven knows about this as well. Her mother must have told her when she came to visit. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk since then, or I’m sure she would have told us. But it sounds like we’ll all be fighting in this battle, each in our own way. Perhaps we can unite the Fae in TirNaNog and Navane—at home, at least—to fight with us.”
“I wonder if they’ll tell the United Coalition about this. If so, then perhaps we can enlist people from all walks of life to do what they can. We have to hope that Typhon won’t be able to control the vampires. That would be an incredibly complex and delicate situation.”
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��You can say that again,” Angel said. “If he can control them, nobody’s safe.” She paused, then asked, “Can vampires turn the Fae? Or harpies? Or shifters?”
“It can happen,” I said, “but it’s rare. It’s not often that one of the Fae or a shifter falls prey to them. But it has been known to occur, and when that happens, the vampire is far more powerful than if they were just human to begin with.”
Vampires tended to prefer human victims, because they were easier to overpower. Vampires were strong, usually stronger than most shifters or Fae, but it was much easier for them to track and take down humans.
While they were proscribed by law from killing for their food—by an amendment to a treaty forged between the Vampire Nation and the United Coalition—that didn’t prevent the lone vamp from going rogue. However, the Vampire Nation was quick to hunt down those vamps who violated the laws, and they staked them, usually dragging them in front of other witnesses since filming the execution would be useless.
There was too much to be lost by allowing rogue vampires to cause havoc. The Vampire Nation controlled a large percentage of the country’s financial institutions, and they owned Wall Street. Something about the process of being turned heightened their mathematical abilities, and they had an excellent sense for anything to do with numbers and accounting, which led to rules forbidding them to enter casinos as guests. However, a number of vampires actually owned casinos around the world.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever met a vampire other than Charlie,” Angel said.
Charlie Darren was a member of the Wild Hunt Agency—the most recent agent taken aboard. But he was spending most of his time taking accounting classes. It’d been his major when he was human. We had first met him during another case, and Herne took a liking to him. He was paying for Charlie to finish college, and when Charlie did, he would take over our books and become our official accountant. He was turned when he was just nineteen, and he still had a newness about him that was both naïve and nerve-racking. His sire had been rogue, and the VN had tracked him down and staked him, which put Charlie at a disadvantage within the vamp community. He was a good sort, and we all liked him even though we didn’t see him very often. He also caught up on entering data for us when we were overwhelmed with cases.
“You probably have,” I said. “Vampires easily can pass in society when they choose to, and I’ll bet you when we’ve been out clubbing at night you’ve met a few.”
“We better get to sleep,” Talia said. “You have a long day tomorrow, and a long journey ahead of you. You need your rest.”
And with that, we burrowed down in our sleeping bags, but it was a long time before I was able to fall asleep. Finally, the muffled silence around me took hold, and I let myself tumble into a troubled slumber, filled with uneasy dreams.
The next morning, Viktor, Yutani, and I headed into the forest. We kept our good-byes short, because otherwise it would have been far too easy to give up and turn my back on the whole mess. So, at first light, we ate breakfast and then rode to the tree line, along with Herne and one of the guards. As we dismounted and handed the reins to them, I blew Herne a kiss. With one last reluctant look back at the distant campsite and the fire, I took a deep breath and led the way beneath the tree covering.
Chapter Seventeen
The forest immediately closed in around us, and even only a few yards in, it was difficult to see the opening behind us. I shivered, glancing up at the trees. They loomed large overhead, towering out of sight. The oaks and maples were bare and I could see the remains of birds’ nests in the lower branches. The forest of Y’Bain was teeming with life. Everywhere I turned, I could hear the rustle of animals in the bushes—or what I hoped were animals. Birdsong filled the air, low and haunting, as though the birds were calling out, “A storm is coming!”
The path we were on was wide enough for two to go abreast, two arms’ lengths apart. A horse could have traversed the trail easily, but given the horses refused to come near the woodlands, we were on foot. The trees around us seemed to loom large and dark, blocking out much of the sun and shrouding the path. The snow blanketing the land reflected what light came through, giving an eerie glow to the forest.
Viktor and Yutani had fallen silent, walking as unobtrusively as they could. And I was following suit. It was as though we could escape notice if we went on tiptoe, if we crept through the forest.
Y’Bain rose up around us, like a shroud. It felt as though the forest went on forever, with no beginning and no ending. I blinked, trying to remember how long we had been walking. It wasn’t dark yet, but it seemed as though we had been traveling all day. My thoughts began to echo in my head and, mingling with them, I realized I was hearing whispers, the sounds of someone calling my name. I tried to focus on the voices but the moment I did, they vanished, and then—when I ignored them again—they started back up. Finally, feeling like I was playing some macabre game of cat and mouse, I turned to the men.
“Do either of you hear someone calling your name? I could swear it’s audible, but when I focus, I only hear someone in the back of my mind, like they’re a long, long ways away and my name is echoing on the wind.” I stopped, realizing how odd that sounded, but Viktor regarded me gravely, and Yutani immediately began to look around us.
“I don’t hear anybody calling, but I hear the sound of someone singing. It’s a man’s voice.” Viktor looked around nervously. “Kelpie, maybe?”
“This forest is riddled with streams, but I don’t hear singing. Maybe it’s because I’m not listening?” I turned to Yutani. “What about you?”
“This forest is one big creature, and it’s watching us as we pass through. At any moment, I expect something to sweep down from the trees to capture us.” His eyes were somber, and he was wearing his deadman’s hat, which gave him a dangerous, handsome look. “I feel an energy within the borders of this forest that reminds me of my father. Chaos incarnate, and a temper that can swing either way depending on what we do.”
Yutani’s father was the Great Coyote. We—including him—had only recently found out about his parentage, and no one knew exactly what to think about it, except that Coyote had dogged Yutani’s heels all of his life and thrown him into situations that had caved in beneath him. Until Herne had taken him in, Yutani had been nomadic, wandering from town to town, working for tech companies here and there as the years progressed.
“We should reach the lake by tomorrow evening, which means we’ll have two nights to camp. Given it’s…what time is it?” I asked.
“We’ve been traveling about four hours now, so it’s nearing noon. I suggest we take a break for lunch, but don’t make it long. We’ll want to continue on as far as we can before dusk falls. We can use flashlights, but no fire, remember, so we should make camp in about five hours. I don’t want to chance veering off the path if we try to travel after dark.” Viktor held my gaze, and I realized he wasn’t making a suggestion so much as giving an order, which suited me just fine. I really didn’t want to be in charge of this trip.
“All right. Let’s stop right here—there are a couple logs to the side. We can eat and rest for fifteen minutes, and then be on the move again.” I motioned to a couple of fallen logs.
As I carefully brushed the snow from the tops so we could sit down, Viktor shrugged off his pack and sat down, opening it to find our food. Brighid’s servants had provided a dozen large dinner rolls, a dozen hardboiled eggs, a thick roll of salami, and a small wheel of cheese for our trip, along with apples, cookies, and nuts. We also had a couple large water bottles each—the guards had encouraged us not to drink the water within the woodland. Viktor pulled out his knife and carved off wedges of cheese for us, then a thick slice of salami, while I handed an egg, a dinner roll, and an apple to Yutani, and then the same to Viktor. The cookies and nuts we would keep for snacks.
I broke open my dinner roll and sandwiched the cheese and salami into it for a makeshift sandwich. Then, I peeled the egg and dinner was ready. As I b
it into the sandwich, the rich, mellow flavors of the cheese blended with the sharp edge of the salami and I relaxed, the food warming my spirits.
“I don’t even care that we’re going to be eating the same thing for the next few meals. This is so good. Brighid’s cooks know what they’re doing,” I said between bites.
Viktor nodded. “That they do.”
Yutani glanced around the forest. The turnout we had stopped at was small—back home it would have been large enough for one campsite. “I wonder how far this forest goes. If it’s the biggest forest in Annwn, it probably stretches out for a thousand miles or more.”
“Cernunnos was right, though,” I said. “It’s one giant hive mind. You can feel it beneath the surface, if you focus. I can almost feel the heartbeat of the forest beneath our feet. It’s like this tingle, almost like being shocked by a frayed cord. I’d feel a lot better if we could have a—” I paused, not even sure if the word should be spoken out loud under the boughs of the trees. “F-I-R-E. That’s funny, I’m even afraid to say the word out loud here.”
“There’s good reason for that. The forest is listening to us even now,” Yutani said. “I can feel it, too. Its eyes and ears are everywhere. It may not know English, but it knows intent. And the forest is crafty, and cunning. I wouldn’t want to be lost in here.”
“I suggest we eat quickly and get a move on. We don’t want to be here any longer than we have to.” Viktor took another big bite of his sandwich and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
A Sacred Magic: A Wild Hunt Novel, Book 9 Page 17