“Rook!” Fer hadn’t seen him since she’d become the Lady back in the early spring.
He crouched and glared down at Fer. “Stupid wolves,” he growled.
Rook wore ragged shorts and nothing else; his hair was tangled, and his bare legs were muddy and scratched, as if he’d been running through a bramble patch. He had scars on his arms and shoulder from the wolf bites he’d gotten while serving the Mór. They looked like jagged white slashes against his tan skin.
Without saying hello, Rook lay down on the branch. He glanced at her, and she grinned at him.
“Don’t be looking at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?” she asked, still smiling.
“I don’t know. As if you’re glad to see me.”
“I am glad to see you,” Fer said. “You’re my best friend.”
He stared at her. “No, I’m not. I’m a puck.”
Before, when she had first met him, Rook had been oath-bound to the Mór, the false Lady who had ruled this place after she killed Fer’s mother—and that meant he’d been like the Mór’s slave and had to obey her every order. Rook had sworn those oaths to save his puck-brother Phouka’s life. Even so, he had found a way to help Fer defeat the Mór, though he had almost died doing it. With the Mór defeated and gone from the Summerlands, Rook had been freed from his oaths—he was a puck unbound. Grand-Jane had warned Fer that this Rook would be a different creature entirely from the Rook Fer had known before. Don’t trust him, Grand-Jane had said with a dire frown. He is a puck, and that means it is his nature to be false, a liar and a trickster. He is not your friend.
“I missed you,” Fer found herself saying. “What have you been up to?”
Rook shrugged.
She shrugged back at him, crossed her eyes, and grinned.
He turned his face away, but she caught a glimpse of a smile.
Fer had heard Grand-Jane’s warnings, but she couldn’t help the happiness that bubbled up inside her. He could be surly and rude, but that was what made him Rook, and the Rook she knew was a true friend. “Well,” she went on. “Why have you come back?”
He looked as if he was weighing a decision. Then he dug in the pocket of his ragged shorts and pulled out a packet of paper. “I met a messenger,” he said, “and I offered him a ride in my horse form.”
As a puck, Rook had a shifter-tooth that turned him into a black dog when he put it under his tongue, and he had a bit of shifter-bone that turned him into a horse.
“So where is this messenger now?” Fer asked.
“He accepted the ride,” Rook said, shooting her an evil grin.
Uh-oh. “What did you do with him, Rook?” she asked sternly.
Rook shrugged. “He’s all right. If he can swim. He was bringing you this.” He tossed the packet of paper toward her.
Fer reached out to catch it and felt herself slipping. She grabbed the packet out of the air and with her other hand clung to the branch; her head spun, and her stomach lurched, and below her she saw a whirl of branches and leaves and empty space. It was a long way to the ground. When she righted herself, she found Rook was watching her, a gleam of mischief in his flame-bright eyes.
He’d done that on purpose, thrown the paper so she’d reach for it and almost fall. Grand-Jane’s warning echoed in her head: He is not your friend.
“See?” Rook said. “Puck.”
“Puck or not,” Fer grumbled to herself, “you’re still my friend.” With shaking hands, she unfolded the paper and saw that it was a letter that had been sealed with a blob of scented golden wax stamped with a foxglove flower. A good medicinal herb, foxglove, if used properly, but deadly poison in larger doses. A strange choice for a seal. She wondered whose it was. The seal was broken and the paper smudged and wrinkled. “You read this?”
Rook lay back on his branch again and closed his eyes. “So what if I did?”
Fer took a deep breath and didn’t answer. She read the letter.
To Gwynnefar of the Summerlands, greetings from the High Ones.
We have received word that you defeated the Mór, who was your mother the Lady Laurelin’s betrayer and who stained the land with blood, and that you have cleansed the land of this stain. We have been told, too, that your father was one Owen, a human man.
We are aware that you have the ability to open the Way between the human world and our own lands, and a Lady’s glamorie, and that you have a Lady’s power to feel the Summerlands and its people. And we hear also that you are a healer of some note.
You would claim to be Lady of the Summerlands, yet you yourself are a human usurper until you have proven yourself worthy to us, the High Ones who rule over all the Lands.
Thus we summon you at once to the nathe, where you may compete with those who would also claim the right to rule the Summerlands. Should you fail to win this competition, you will be cast back into the human world and the Way to our lands closed to you forever.
“Wait,” Fer muttered. “They say I have to prove myself?” She read the letter again. It sounded bad. As if the High Ones, whoever they were, didn’t believe she was really the Lady, even though the Summerlands sang in her blood, and she felt a spiderweb thread of connection to every one of the people who lived here. “What’s the nathe?” she asked Rook, not sure if he would answer or not.
Rook hopped from his branch to crouch next to her. “It’s the High Ones’ court,” he answered. “It’s where they live.”
And the High Ones ruled over all the Lords and Ladies and all the lands on this side of the Way, it sounded like. Fer frowned. If she ignored the letter, she risked losing the Summerlands and its people, and she couldn’t bear that, not after all she’d done to free them from the Mór, not when being here felt so right. But proving herself in a competition? She shivered. Still . . . “I have to go, don’t I?”
“You do, yes,” Rook said, his voice quiet, without a trace of mischief in it.
She looked over at him, straight into his eyes. She could easily see the wildness in him, and the darkness. He was a puck, yes. He followed no rules but his own. But that didn’t matter. She’d saved his life three times, and he’d risked his life again to help her defeat the Mór. He was the best friend she’d ever had. “Will you come with me?” she asked.
He flinched as if she’d hit him, then shook his head and jumped to his feet. “I won’t, no,” he snarled, and then stalked off along the branch to the tree trunk, where he swung himself onto the ladder and climbed down.
Fer stared after him. It hadn’t been such a terrible thing to ask, had it?
This new Rook was going to take a lot of getting used to.
Three
In his dog form, Rook raced away from the Lady Tree, cursing himself. Going to see Fer had been tame, and stupid, and he’d really done her a favor, hadn’t he, delivering the letter from the High Ones when he should have given it to his brother-pucks to make trouble with. It was a good thing his brothers would never know that he’d had the letter in his hands and had given it away.
Panting, he trotted on, his paws silent and sure on the mossy ground, his black fur blending with the shadows of the late-afternoon forest. Arriving at a clearing at the edge of Fer’s land, he spat the shifter-tooth from his mouth and felt the blurring dizziness of the change. He caught the tooth in his hand and shoved it into his pocket. His head down, he went on. No, he wouldn’t go back to see Fer again. Fer, with her strange, human ideas about friendship. As if a puck could ever truly be friends with anyone but another puck.
Yes, it’d be better for her if he stayed away.
The sky, what he could see of it through the trees, grew darker, and shadows gathered in the branches overhead. He set off across a clearing gray with twilight.
“Hellooooo, Rook,” came a voice from behind him.
He whirled, but nobody was there.
He turned back, and Tatter stood before him, grinning. “Rook!” Tatter exclaimed, and pulled him into a rough hug.
Rook g
rinned back at his brother-puck. Tatter was older—almost all of the other pucks were older than he was—and taller, and wore his black hair in a matted mane down his back. His skin was the red-brown color of oak leaves in the autumn; for clothes he wore a shapeless wrap made of tattered and stained yellow silk. His flame-orange eyes danced. “Haven’t seen you in ages, Rook-pup.”
“I’ve been around,” Rook said.
“No you haven’t.” Tatter gave him a quick cuff on the side of the head. “You’ve been playing hard-to-find.” He looped an arm over Rook’s shoulders, then pulled him closer to kiss the spot where he’d hit him. “Come on,” he said, bringing Rook along with him. “Asher wants to see you.”
In his chest, Rook felt a surge of longing mixed with a curl of fear. Pucks didn’t like to be alone; they tended to gather with other pucks, and wherever they gathered, that was their home. Ever since the trouble with the Mór, Rook had been keeping himself apart. He mostly wanted to see Asher and the others, but part of him wanted to run away and hide. Asher was not going to like what he’d gotten himself mixed up in. Still, if Asher called, a puck did well to answer, or his life would get very tricky.
Tatter shifted into his dog form, and Rook did too, and they trotted through the growing night to the nearest Way. Ways that led from one land to another, like doors that led from one room to another, were kept open so that anyone—even pucks—could come and go as they wished. This Way led from the twilit clearing in Fer’s Summerlands to another Way that lay at the bottom of a steep hill crowded with brambles, then to the next Way, which waited in the shadow of a huge boulder, to a last Way that led to the Foglands, where a chilly wind whistled through the bare branches over their heads and leaves crunched under their paws. They passed over that land like two dog-shaped shadows until they came to a high cliff. Overhead, a half-moon shone down. Tatter spat out his shifter-tooth, and so did Rook.
The chilly breeze brushed across his bare shoulders, and Rook shivered, missing his black fur, and wishing for more clothes than just his ragged shorts.
“Not far now,” Tatter said, and led Rook along the cliff until they reached a path so narrow they had to go up it sideways, clinging to handholds that were bumps of shadow in the harsh moonlight.
Rook felt the cold cliff face grating against his chest and tried not to look down at the dark ground below as they climbed higher. His fingers grew numb from gripping the knobs of rock that kept him from falling off.
“Just here,” Tatter said, crouched down, and disappeared.
Rook edged farther along until he saw a deeper shadow in the cliff face. An opening. Stooping, he crawled through, then around a corner, coming out into a cave. It was wide and high ceilinged, with smooth, sand-colored stone walls and a bright fire burning at its center. His eyes automatically searched for another way out, then found it—two openings in a side wall, tunnels, no doubt, that led outside. No puck would let himself be caught in a place without a back exit.
“Look who I brought!” Tatter was announcing, and then, as Rook climbed to his feet, he heard Brother! Puppy! It’s our Rook! echoing from the cave walls, and a few cheerful yips from the other pucks lounging around the fire. All of them jumped up and gathered around Rook, hugging him and tousling his hair. A younger puck toddled over and grabbed Rook’s knees, grinning up at him. He found himself laughing and returning hugs, and buzzing with sudden happiness.
Then another puck pushed through the crowd and seized Rook in a fierce hug. Asher was lithe and tall, had skin tinged ashy gray, and wore gleaming crystals woven into his many long black braids. His eyes burned with a redder flame than most yellow-eyed pucks.
He gripped Rook’s shoulders and looked him over, his eyes narrowing when he saw the scars from the wolf bites. “Ah, it’s our young Rook, come home at last,” Asher said. “How we’ve missed you!”
He’d missed them, too. Being bound to the Mór, being away from his brother-pucks—it had been like having a hollow, empty place inside him. Seeing them again filled it up, to overflowing.
He bent down and picked up the baby, Scrap, and hugged him. “Hello, little one,” he whispered. Rook himself had found the abandoned baby-puck and brought him to his brothers when Scrap had been tiny. As the next-youngest of the pucks, Rook had spent many long nights feeding the baby with stolen milk and rocking him to sleep. “And here you are, walking on your own legs like a grown-up lad,” Rook said, giving the baby a kiss. Scrap squirmed and laughed, his yellow eyes alight, and Rook set him on the stone floor. Scrap staggered away, and another puck caught him before he could fall and took him away to the warm fire that blazed at the center of the cave.
“Come on,” Asher said. “We want to talk to you.” The other pucks faded away, went back to sit by the fire. Asher put an arm around Rook’s bare shoulders and pulled him to a darker corner of the cave. Tatter came too.
Another puck was waiting for them, crouched in shadow. Rip, it was, sharp-faced and wearing nothing at all except for swirls of red and black paint on his skin. He gave Rook a narrow-eyed nod.
Rook shivered and nodded back.
“You’re cold, Rook-pup,” Tatter said, settling on a pile of blankets. “Have a shirt.” He dug into a bag at his feet and pulled out a wad of stained green cloth, which he tossed to Rook.
“Thanks,” Rook said, and pulled the shirt over his head. It must’ve come from somebody even bigger than Fer’s wolf-guards, because its ragged hem hung almost to his knees and the sleeves were too long.
Asher went to lean against the smooth cave wall, where he looked Rook up and down. “Been out wandering?”
Rook nodded, then busied himself with rolling up the sleeves of his new shirt.
“From the looks of those scars, you’ve been fighting.” Asher glanced aside at Rip. “Wouldn’t you say, Brother?”
“Wolves, at a guess,” Rip answered from the shadows.
“Should’ve asked your brothers for help dealing with them,” Asher said, testing.
Rook shrugged. It’d happened too fast to ask for help with the wolves or with anything else. Rook had been on his way to see his puck-brother Finn and had arrived just as the Mór was about to kill him in one of her bloody hunts. The only thing she would take in return for sparing Finn’s life was Rook’s thrice-sworn oath, and that had bound him to her more tightly than iron chains.
“Didn’t you miss us?” Asher went on.
“I did, yes,” Rook answered.
“But you didn’t ask us for help.” Asher’s voice had turned cold. “And you were gone such a long time.”
“A long time,” Rip echoed, his narrow eyes fixed on Rook.
Rook stared at them, not sure what to say. Behind him, the rest of the pucks in the cave, even the baby, had fallen silent, as if they were all listening to hear how Rook would explain why he’d stayed away from home for so long.
Suddenly Asher grinned. “It’s all right, Puppy. We know about your little troubles with the Mór. Not very smart of you, was it, binding yourself to one like that. Letting her wolves get at you?”
Rook breathed out a sigh of relief. So he didn’t have to explain. “It was stupid, yes,” he agreed.
“You were trying to save that idiot Finn!” Tatter put in, from where he sat in his nest of blankets. “Not stupid at all, dear Rook.”
“Finn is the horse Phouka now, and he’s not come back to us, has he?” Rip said.
“He hasn’t, no,” Asher agreed. His red eyes watched Rook carefully. “Instead of coming home to us he’s staying with that new Lady, the one who somehow managed to defeat the Mór even though she’s no more than a girl.”
Rook nodded. He didn’t add anything, because the less he said about Fer, the better.
Asher straightened and stepped closer. “But Rook, it’s been ages since the Mór lost her bid to be a Lady. What’ve you been up to since then?”
The question he’d been dreading. “This and that,” Rook mumbled.
“Really!” Asher exclaimed.
Beside him, Rip rose to his feet. His black and red body paint made him look like a creature of shadow and burning coals. His eyes gleamed orange in his black-painted face.
“This and that, is it?” Asher went on. He glanced at Rip and gave a slight nod. “We heard this”—Rip reached out and gave Rook a rough shove. Asher went on, leaning closer. “You’ve spent the last little while skulking ’round the borders of that new Lady-girl’s lands, and we’ve heard that”—Rip shoved harder, and Rook stumbled back, his heart pounding—“you gave a ride to a nathe’s messenger but didn’t bring his message to us, as you should have.”
Rip shoved with both hands and, as Rook crashed to the cave floor, Rip flicked his shifter-tooth into his mouth, blurring into his dog shape. Rook scrambled backward as Rip came snarling after him. A heavy leap, and Rip forced him to the ground, breathing down on him with two big paws on his chest. Panting, Rook stared up. The Rip-dog had a heavy muzzle and small eyes, and he growled deep in his chest. His breath was hot and smelled of dead rabbits. Rook lifted an arm to push the dog off; Rip seized his wrist in his teeth. Rook froze.
Asher crouched next to him. Firelight gleamed from the crystals knotted into his braids. “What we hear is, you brought the nathe message to the girl instead.” He grinned. “So. What’s going on, Rook?”
Rook shook his head. Not telling.
Rip bit harder, his teeth digging into Rook’s skin.
“Get off me, Rip,” Rook growled.
Asher’s eyes narrowed. After a moment he stood and gave his sideways nod to Rip, and the dog released his grip.
Rook got shakily to his feet, rubbing his wrist. Rip’s teeth had left indentations but hadn’t drawn blood.
“Ah, Rook.” Tatter loomed up beside him and before Rook could flinch away, put a comforting hand on his head. “We raised you from a baby, didn’t we? You’ve always been a strange one, but we know what you’re thinking.”
“That’s right, we do,” Asher said, coming up on Rook’s other side. He shot Rook a sideways grin. “That girl’s got some kind of binding magic. She used it on Phouka, and now she’s trying to use it on you. But you’re a puck, after all. Come on and tell us the rest, and we’ll help you get free of her.”
Winterling 02: Summerkin Page 2