Fairmist

by Todd Fahnestock

  “Again, you mean?”

  She clenched her teeth. “I did what I had to do.”

  “Is that what it was?” he asked.

  “Galius...” she started, trying to think of a way to explain without revealing anything. She came up blank. It was supposed to be simple, you and me. A fleeting moment for a girl who cannot have anything of her own.

  She looked at the bath again.

  “It’s your choice,” he said. “We can go as you are.”

  She paused, then went resolutely to the tub, poured the hot water in with the cold and began undressing. She tried to forget he was in the room and stepped into the basin. It was too small to sit down comfortably, but she could crouch. She washed herself quickly and efficiently. There were red, striped welts behind her knees where Selicia’s flying chains had bound her, and they stung in the soapy water.

  When she was done, she touched the bandage under her eye. With careful fingers, she unwrapped it. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before, and she gingerly probed the wound. It was feverish and swollen, and the skin had split about half an inch along her cheekbone.

  “He hit you hard,” Galius said. “Perhaps with the pommel of his dagger. The man is phenomenally strong.”

  “Blevins didn’t do this,” she said. “Selicia kicked me.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise, but he didn’t say anything. She methodically washed away the grime.

  “I’m lost, Adora,” he muttered suddenly, and she looked up. He gazed at the floor, and all of his Highblade certainty was gone. His voice was low. “Last week, I was First Sword of the City. I was in love with the most amazing woman in the empire. I thought she loved me back. And since that moment, I’ve been humbled by a fat man, commanded by a Ringblade, and I’ve discovered my lover is in love with a criminal.” He looked away, as though he could see through the boarded wall of the cellar, then focused on her again. “I don’t understand any of this. Does Grei truly have one of the emperor’s artifacts? Is that how he did it?”

  She shook her head gently, and for a moment he seemed hopeful that she was answering his question. Then he frowned.

  “They’ll force it out of you,” he said. “Why not just tell me?”

  “I can’t.”

  He sighed. “Did you feel anything for me, Adora?” he asked softly. “Sometimes I think you did, but then...” he trailed off. “Can you answer that question, at least?”

  It took her a long moment. Lyndion would demand she keep her lips closed. “Yes,” she said quietly. “But I can’t...” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Galius.”

  She looked away, reached up to touch her hair. It was a hacked mess of stubble and tufts, like her life. Oh Grei, she thought. I failed you. I failed everyone.

  “It can’t be salvaged,” Galius said, and the sadness in his voice made her turn back to him. He had loved her hair, had loved to bury his hands in it. “There simply isn’t enough of it.” He opened his hand, revealing a long razor. She wondered if he had been holding it the entire time.

  “For shaving,” he said. “It’s mine.”

  She swallowed, slowly nodded. “Give it to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Adora. No.”

  “Galius—”

  “I’m not giving you a weapon. But I’ll do it for you.”

  They watched each other across the distance for a long moment.

  “Okay,” she said.

  He came to her. Her naked skin prickled as he left her line of sight, crossed behind her.

  “Kneel down,” he said in a soft voice. “I’ll be quick.”

  She did, and he took the soap, lathered his hand and spread it across her scalp.

  “They say—” he began. He cleared his throat. “I’ve heard this is a fashion in Thiara. A shaved head. For some.”

  She pressed her lips together. It hurt her, just hearing him talk, knowing she must deny him something as simple as answers. He deserved them, if anyone did. She had been horrible to him. He was a good man, and she had used him.

  But there were more important things happening than a Highblade’s feelings. She couldn’t let them take her to Thiara in chains.

  She wondered if she could grab his dagger from his belt while his hands were busy. He might gash her while she jumped away, but then she’d have a weapon.

  And do what? Dripping wet with a dagger against Galius Ash? And even if she could somehow manage to overpower him, what would she do then? Would she—

  “Adora,” he said, interrupting her thoughts as though he could hear them. “Please don’t try anything. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She cleared her throat. “Then don’t.”

  “Okay.”

  He began shaving. It was the oddest sensation having cold steel scrape against her head. Steel on skin on skull. Again and again. Little clumps of hair fell into the water around her knees. She clenched her teeth and let it happen. He was proficient; it didn’t take long.

  He scooped water onto her head, and it washed over her. Her cheek stung.

  “Stand up,” he said. As he came around to her front, he stole glances at her breasts and hips, then grabbed a pitcher of water.

  “I can do that,” she said.

  “Not as well as I can.” He poured the water gently over her head, rinsing away the soap and hair. He walked around her, inspecting and pouring until she was completely rinsed, then he set the pitcher on the floor and went back to stand by the door.

  She dried herself and pulled the tunic over her head, belted it at the waist. It was long enough to form a short skirt. Simple peasant clothing. She may as well have stayed naked, the way he looked at her. He still wanted her, beat-up and shaved and all. She could use that.

  “I must be a sight,” she said, gingerly dabbing at her wound with the towel.

  “It’s not that bad,” he said.

  “I’m bald and disfigured, Galius. I’m wearing a sack.”

  “And still the most beautiful woman in the empire,” he said. “The hair will grow back.”

  She was silent; she hated how his words warmed her.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “For the bath. For everything.”

  “You are welcome.”

  She stepped toward him, reached out and touched him on the arm. His gaze lingered on her, and she let the silence build. He raised his chin and swallowed.

  “Let me go, Galius,” she whispered. She glanced toward the small window. “I could fit. Help me, and I could get away.”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed, and she saw his conflict.

  “Please,” she said. “I will meet you later, back in Fairmist.”

  His hand closed over hers, and she felt his warmth, his strength. Slowly, intentionally, he took her hand from his arm and placed it at her side.

  “I’m a Highblade, Adora. I serve the emperor.”

  “I see. Love only goes so far,” she said.

  “But betrayal lasts forever,” he replied.

  She glanced away, stung. She tried to look bored. “What now?”

  “We ride.”

  “In this?” She pulled at the thin tunic. “I’ll be raw meat by the time we arrive.”

  “You can wear your dirty clothes, if you like.”

  “Can we wash them?”

  “There isn’t time. You can bring them.”

  “Where are the other Highblades?”

  “Pazzek and Captain Delenne are watching Blevins. They will stay here until he dies. I’ll take you on alone.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Only for a moment,” he said. “Then we ride.”

  He bound her again, tying her wrists together with rope, then made her walk in front of him. They were in the cellar of a small house, and he led her upstairs to the main room where Blevins lay on the floor. The big man’s face was white with a splash of red across his cheeks and nose. A bandage, black with blood, wrapped his enormous belly, and he wasn’t moving. For a moment, she thought he was already dead, th
en she heard his shallow breathing. She didn’t know what to feel. There had been days she had burned him in her mind, that she had longed to see him suffer as she had suffered when he’d abandoned her. She turned away from him.

  A Highblade leaned against the wall, a leg cocked behind him. He had a bandage around his head, too, a trickle of dried blood down his temple. He glared at her.

  “We’re leaving,” Galius said.

  “Go to hell, Fairmist,” the man growled.

  “Where is Captain Delenne?”

  “Finishing the graves,” the Highblade spat. He continued to stare at Adora as though he wanted to stab her.

  Galius kept himself between Adora and the Highblade and led her into the yard. “You’ll ride in front of me,” he said, approaching his black horse.

  “Won’t that be fun,” she muttered.

  Chapter 27

  Grei

  “Adora!” Grei jerked awake, then blinked against the intense white light. The brightness receded, and she was there, hovering over him. Her tumbling black and gold hair hung low, framing her face—

  Yellow light flickered in her eyes.

  He scrambled back. This thing was not Adora. It was a seething Dead Woods spirit wearing her face.

  Bright light emanated from white trees all around him. More of the spirits stood between the trunks, all of them dressed in long brown skirts, white tunics, half-boots. All with Adora’s face.

  “He sees a familiar face,” one of them said.

  “He sees what he wants to see,” said another.

  “He should not see us at all.”

  The closest Adora approached him. Her movements were Adora’s, the swing of her hips, the way she crossed her arms. But her scent gave her away. This creature smelled of pine trees and grass.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  She tossed her hair, then bored into him with her yellow gaze. “We do not keep prisoners, manling,” she said.

  “My name is Grei.”

  “Humans poison their own grove. We name you pestilence.”

  “Do you serve the Faia?” Grei asked. The white trees called to him, their whispers more gentle yet more powerful than the angry pines. This was what had drawn him when he looked at the Dead Woods from Baezin’s Road. These trees were charged, like the air before a storm.

  “Not since your leader took Her from us,” she said. She leaned over him. He tried to see through her, see the truth. It didn’t work.

  “How can you see us, manling? How do you hear us?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  The Adoras wailed, and he winced. The sound drove into his ears.

  “Kill him.”

  “Kill him.”

  “Kill him.”

  The lead Adora was fierce. Her yellow eyes glowed brighter, casting shadows down her face that made her nose and chin seem longer. “Your leader took life from the earth and sky,” she said. “He ripped a hole in the land and took the Faia, leaving an empty crust in Her place. Hundreds died, their lives uprooted to give power to one human. And you and your kind walk upon what is left. You ride back and forth on your enslaved beasts and pretend not to notice what you have done.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “The Faia tried to join with you, but you have chosen the Lord of Rifts.”

  “You said our leader. You’re talking about the emperor,” Grei said, trying to puzzle together her furious words.

  “You alone can hear us. See us. You can speak and remake elements like a Faia. What will you do with it?”

  Several of the Adoras came closer. Their hands gripped his arms. He pulled against them, but they were strong. They lifted him effortlessly and took him to an enormous white tree. It towered into the sky overhead. Its limbs looked like slender arms, and the fat white leaves were leeched of color; only the very edges were a pale yellow.

  The Adoras slammed him against the smooth trunk, and the leader approached him, looked into his eyes. She whispered something, and the twisting words burned.

  The tree became soft as mud, and the Adoras shoved him backwards.

  “Hey!” he shouted, fighting them.

  They let go, and the wood became solid, biting into his flesh like a thousand needles. He screamed. Hard fingers grasped his brow and cheeks and shoved his head in.

  His bones splintered. His heart ruptured. His eyes melted to water.

  He died, and then the pain receded. Somehow, Grei could think again.

  He felt the slow creep of water inside the trunk, hundreds of tiny vessels carrying nutrients up from a thousand fingers in the earth. The leaves reached toward the great blue overhead, tasting the air, drawing life from the sun. He felt the connection to every tree in this forest, felt its pervasive force. It bound them all together, giving them strength.

  He saw the memories of the trees.

  Two men stood at the edge of the forest. One was powerfully large, muscles laid over muscles. His face was angular, the jaw chiseled as if from stone, and he had a thick mane of black hair. His chest was broad, his waist narrow. His arms were thick in the shoulders and biceps, slimming down at his bronze forearms. His leathery, scarred hands looked like they could crush a human head with one squeeze. He wore a breastplate and loose red pants, and his midnight eyes glittered. That man could lift a horse onto his shoulders and not wince. He could make an army of swordsmen drop their weapons and flee. He was the emperor’s champion, Jorun Magnus.

  The emperor was almost as tall as Magnus, but slender, and he had a three-pointed beard. The emperor was not the ultimate Highblade like his champion, but he had an air of command. He wore red-and-gold riding clothes and in his left hand he held a dirty brown net. He stared at the forest as though he would see through to the other side, and he whispered something. The whisper formed a brown bubble at the emperor’s mouth, then detached, swirling and pulsing. It floated toward the trees, carrying the whispers around it and throwing brown light outward in streaks. The whispers transformed into a guttural song. The emperor held up the net in both hands. Brown light emanated from it, shooting between the trees.

  Screams erupted, a thousand anguished voices. Yellow fire leapt from tree to tree, all coming to the net, but it was not a normal fire. This fire drew the life from the trees. They withered and burned as the heart of them was drawn out and pulled into the net.

  The emperor was unmaking the world. A yellow Faia swirled at the center of the conflagration, buffeted by flames, disoriented, reaching out desperately to stop herself.

  When the emperor was done, the forest had become the desolate, charred Badlands that Grei had seen from the wagon. At the emperor’s feet knelt the tiny Faia, wrapped tightly in the net. The emperor pulled a steel rod from his belt, pointed it at her brow—

  Grei staggered forward. The tree released him and he fell to his knees, gasping at the sudden absence of fire and fury. He touched the soft grass with his good hand, blinked with eyes that had not turned to water.

  “He killed a Faia,” Grei gasped, feeling the horror throughout his body. The bones over his eyes ached. His arms and back itched as though thick oil had been poured over them. “He unmade a piece of the world.”

  “The Lord of Rifts would rip out the roots of the world, and you humans rush to help him,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  They watched him, seething, waiting. Finally, Grei asked, “Who is the Lord of Rifts?” He clasped his good hand, rubbing it against the grass. The slick, itchy feeling receded.

  “If the slinks had a root, it is he. He tore his way into this world and sank his teeth into it. He will tear it apart if he can.”

  “What are the slinks going to do?”

  “Destroy,” she hissed, drawing the word out.

  The spirit women swayed, and there was the sound of wind passing through leaves.

  “You have power,” she said. “You can cause great
harm, even more than the emperor. You can unmake the elements.”

  “No!” he said. His heart hurt at the emperor’s abominations. “I can stop the emperor,” he said. “And the Lord of Rifts.”

  Adora’s eyes narrowed, and she leaned over him. “That is why we spared you.”

  Chapter 28

  Grei

  Grei had taken off his boots, and his legs hung over the edge of the bank, his feet submerged in the cool brook. He couldn’t walk after being joined with the Root Tree, so they had carried him here and put his feet in water. When he had been one with the tree, he had actually thought like a tree. Perhaps he had actually become the tree. He watched the water, imagining his toes were roots, and he felt nourished.

  He looked at the tree spirit who sat next to him, wearing Adora’s face.

  “Can’t you be someone else?” he asked.

  The tree spirit curled her lip. “Humans see what they want to see. They are not interested in truth.”

  I left her, he thought. To the mercy of those who may kill her, and here I am with my toes in a stream.

  He yanked his feet out of the water and began putting on his boots, fumbling awkwardly with the use of only one hand. The tree spirit watched him struggle. He frowned, flicked a glance at her. “What happens to those taken in the Debt of the Blessed?” he asked. “Do the slinks…eat them?” he asked, barely able to form the question.

  “You see the Lord of Rifts as a ravening beast, when he is only ravening. The Blessed are used for a purpose. If the Lord of Rifts had achieved his desire, we would not be here. The world would be consumed in flames.”

  “He keeps them alive?” Grei slipped and almost kicked his boot into the water. He trapped it against the edge of the bank with his dead arm, which crackled under the bandage. He winced, but there was no feeling there at all.

  “I do not know,” the tree spirit said.

  “Could my brother Julin still be alive?” He finally shoved his foot into the boot.

  “If the Lord of Rifts has him, he is no longer your brother.” She stood up, cocked her hips and put her hands there, exactly as Adora would. It made him dizzy, thinking that he was conjuring these images.