Fergus glanced down at Hazel. She shifted from one foot to the other, but the tide had turned. She would find herself at the forefront of this fight whether she wanted to or not. In the end, all the hard decisions would devolve to her, so she better get used to it.
She knit her fingers together and fidgeted. “I guess that’s all right,” she muttered. “We really have nothing to lose, and maybe the witch can give us some idea about this curse. If there’s a way we can get rid of it for good, we should do it.”
The trio set off. Athol led the way down the hill. He took a sloping angular path across the crumbly gravel surface. They hiked on and on for the rest of the day. Hazel’s knees ached climbing down that mountain, but she refused to complain. This could be her one chance to talk to someone with some magical power. She only hoped the witch could give her some tips on how to use this force rising up inside her and exploding to get out.
By the time they got near the lake, the cloud blew out of the sky. A hint of blue peeked through in time to show the sun disappearing behind the mountain. Athol paused to look around. “We mun’ find a patch of woods tae spend the night.”
“What do you suggest?” Hazel asked. “There’s not so much as a bush anywhere around this lake. If you’re right that this is Loch Nagar, we won’t be going anywhere to find any woods.”
“I ken it,” he replied, “but what choice ha’e we? We cinnae spend the night out ’ere. It’s out o’ the question. We’d freeze.”
“We better keep moving, then,” Hazel replied.
“If ye’re right,” Fergus chimed in, “we’d be better tae go alaing tae the castle. We’ll no freeze in there.”
“We better keep moving, either way,” Hazel decided. “If we don’t find the castle, we’re no closer to finding any woods, either. We can look for both at the same time.”
The men didn’t argue with her decision. Athol marched on with Hazel and Fergus trailing him. He skirted the lake until he got to the other side, where he paused and gazed back in the direction from which they came. “Weel, there’s no castle ’ere. It appears I made a mistake, lad.”
“Ne’er ye mind,” Fergus replied. “Ye could ha’e been right, and as yes say, we’ve lost naught in the tryin’. Let’s off tae the side ’ere somewhere and find some wood tae make a fire.”
The party turned off where a little stream trickled out of the lake. They wound by its side while the mountains darkened all around in the gloom. By nightfall, the three foot-weary travelers came to the first scrubby trees down in the hollow of a steep gully.
Athol peered at the other two in the darkness. None of them could make out each other’s features. “Ye twa stay ’ere. It looks a mite flatter ’ere. I’ll fetch some sticks, and we’ll make a cheery blaze tae take the edge off our stomachs.”
He disappeared in a trice and left Hazel and Fergus standing face to face in the dark. Fergus whispered low. “Are ye awright, lass?”
“You don’t have to keep asking me that,” she replied. “I’m fine, and I won’t slow you down. This is all my doing, so whatever you and Athol decide to do is fine with me.”
“Ye’re no too hungry nor thirsty nor tired?”
She shook her head. How could she make him understand? “I might not be as tough as Carmen or Elle, but I can take care of myself. You guys will never have anything to complain about from me.”
“Not as tough as Carmen or Elle?” He snorted. “I ken ye’re as tough as both of ’em put taegether.”
“What? I am not!”
“Do ye think either of ’em would ha’e the nerve tae stand up tae those ghouls the way ye did?” he asked. “Do ye think either of ’em would ha’e been able to defeat them the way ye did? Ye dinnae fight wi’ swords and knives, but ye dinnae ha’e tae. Ye fight wi’ different weapons—stronger weapons. Ye ha’e tae be ten times as tough tae handle those weapons. Believe ye me. None kens it like I ken it.”
“How do you know if you don’t handle those weapons yourself?” she asked. “How do you know what it takes to handle them?”
He smacked his lips. “Lass, fer the love o’ heaven, will ye listen tae yerself for once’t? I cinnae handle ‘em meself. That’s what I’m tellin’ ye—or tryin’ tae if ye’ll ainly listen. Not a one o’ us is as strong as ye. Not a mon o’ the Camerons has yer power. When will ye understand that? Ye’re tougher and stronger and more powerful. Ye’ve got a nerve o’ steel beyond any o’ us. Ye dinnae e’en ken it. That’s the strangest piece o’ all. Ye dinnae e’en ken how strong ye are. I ainly wisht the King himself woulda told ye, fer ye’ll no believe it comin’ from me.”
Hazel stared at him in the dark. How could she be stronger and tougher and more powerful than Elle and Carmen? It flew in the face of everything she ever thought about herself. She was no fighter like them. She never wielded a sword or a knife. Both those women spent years in combat training. What did Hazel have that compared with that?
Even so, his words weaseled their way into her mind. He always did. He could make her believe anything, even when she didn’t believe it herself.
What if he was right? What if the Faery King was right that she had more power in her little finger than she knew what to do with? If that was the case, she should be able to annul this curse with no problem. She made it, so she should be able to unmake it. If she really set her mind to it, she should be able to unmake it without separating Carmen and Elle from the Highlanders they loved so much.
She couldn’t answer him just then. She couldn’t say a word. His comments gave this situation a completely different cast. Why did she hesitate to use this power? She cast the spell that brought her and her friends to Urlu, so he must be right.
Just then, Athol returned. He put all his sticks on the ground and cleared away the fallen leaves. Hazel and Fergus squatted down to watch him arrange the branches to his liking. “Now then. I’ll just….”
Hazel never knew what came over her at that moment. She leaned forward and stuck her finger into the pile of crisscrossed sticks. The whole stack blazed up, the fire crackled, and light and heat pulsed out into their faces.
Athol started back with a cry. Fergus stared at Hazel, and she stared back at him. How did she do that? Why did she do it? She couldn’t understand how it happened. It just sort of came out of her by itself. They needed to start the fire, so she did.
For a long, terrible moment, the three of them sat there and stared at each other in wonder. Then Athol shrugged and settled back. “Ah, weel, it’s no a steamin’ rabbit pie, but just as good, I say.”
He stretched out his legs and relaxed by the fire. Hazel sat transfixed. Something was happening to her. She was turning into something unrecognizable to herself. She didn’t want this power. She wanted to go back to being plain old Hazel Green from middle America. She didn’t want to be…
She almost thought she didn’t want to be Faery, but she stopped herself. She did want to be Faery. She wanted to be Faery more than anything. She wanted to belong to that magnificent company she saw at the Faeries’ moonlight party. She wanted to belong to that King and to that mystical world beyond the reaches of reality.
Not even Urlu could match it. She never found a world she wanted to belong to more than that, and now she did. She looked across the fire at Athol pillowing his head on his arm. He looked like any ordinary man in a kilt. His chest rose and fell under his shirt in the soft tide before sleep. He wasn’t an ordinary man, though. He was Faery. All three of them were.
That was the real problem back in Urlu. Her reserve had nothing to do with the Urlus being dragons. She wasn’t one of them, and she never would be. She belonged somewhere else. Her people and her country existed somewhere else beyond sight.
Her eyes migrated around to Fergus, and she found him watching her with his clear, direct eyes. “What do you see when you look at me?”
He blinked. “Just ye, lass. I ainly see ye.”
“I wish I had your sight.”
Somehow, he seemed to dr
ift closer to her. “Dinnae wish that, lass. It’s no blessing, ye ken.”
“How can it not be? You can see so much more than anybody else. You can see when someone’s human or Faery. That must be a good skill to have.”
“Ye can see it, too,” he replied. “Ye just need tae learn how. Once’t ye learn that, ye’ll no think me anythin’ special.”
Hazel’s head whipped around. “I will so! I’ll always think you’re special.”
A hint of a smile touched his lips. “I’ll ne’er be naught but an Urlu tae ye, lass.”
Hazel flinched. “I’m sorry I acted that way. I don’t know why you keep trying to help me. I don’t deserve it.”
“Do ye really want tae ken why I keep helpin’ ye?”
“Sure. Tell me.”
“I had naught fer help when I was a wee lad,” he replied. “No one e’er told me what I was nor what was happening tae me—not until Ross came and told Angus we had tae leave home. Up until that night, I was on me own wi’ it, ye ken. I was alone. No one kenned. I ne’er told a livin’ soul. I carried it all in ’ere.” He struck his fist against his chest.
Hazel couldn’t look at him. She gazed into the fire. What a lonely, wretched existence he must have led all those years, seeing Faery everywhere and never confiding in anyone. His own mother called him a liar when he tried to tell her, even when he carried the evidence in his own pocket.
Which was worse—to know what you were and what you could do and never be able to tell anyone, or never to know at all? She could almost wish she had known all along what she could do, but maybe she was better off living in ignorance. She never found out until she came to Urlu, where people helped her and showed her the way.
When she looked up at him again, he returned her stare with his same bright expression. He never wavered, not even when she shunned him and hated him. He stood up for her, and he helped her use her power to save the country from the ghouls.
An impalpable wave of gratitude for him swept over her. He would never quit until he helped her use her power and find her place in this world. She put out her hand and covered his with her own. She squeezed him hard, but she couldn’t say the words out loud. She could never repay him for what he’d done, and ‘thank you’ didn’t begin to cover it.
Would she ever find a way to return the favor? She couldn’t exactly explain his sight to him. He knew so much more about the Faery world than she ever would.
He returned her squeeze, and his wide-open face cracked into a smile. He snorted with laughter. “Perhaps ye can cook us up a rabbit pie wi’ yer power.”
She blushed and looked away, but she couldn’t stop laughing. “Don’t even joke about that. I’m too hungry to think about food.”
Chapter 6
Fergus walked out into the dark woods to collect another stack of sticks to keep everybody warm during the night. He waited until he got far out into the night before he paused to indulge in a shudder.
It was happening. Hazel was waking up to her power. If only she could learn to control it in time, they might have a chance to stop the curse destroying the country. If she became too powerful or not powerful enough, the curse would consume the whole world. It would start with Faery, and when that disappeared, the rest of the world would fall to ruin, too.
The Faery King didn’t say so. Maybe he didn’t know, but Fergus saw it. The human world couldn’t survive without Faery. More likely the King didn’t say it so he wouldn’t frighten Hazel too much. She already felt bad enough about causing the curse in the first place.
Fergus gathered as many sticks as he could carry, but he didn’t hurry back to the fire. He had to think. He had to figure out what to do. At least Hazel was gaining confidence. She made more decisions. Her power grew with her confidence, but that display lighting the fire gave Fergus no peace.
She did it in a loss of control. The power took over her and did it itself without any conscious decision from here. She didn’t need power like that. If her power ballooned out of control, the travelers were just as lost as if she didn’t use it at all.
He couldn’t tell her that, though. He couldn’t tell her the stakes, or she might crumble. She might have power and she might be tough enough to handle it, but she was still fragile. She still questioned her power and herself. She wasn’t ready yet.
He didn’t argue with her or Athol when they suggested finding the Loch Nagar witch. That could be the best thing for Hazel, or it could be a disaster. The Loch Nagar witch already used her power to stop the curse, and that power backlashed against Hazel.
What if the witch tried to destroy Hazel to stop the curse? She might be a good witch the way the Faery King said. All the more reason she would want to get rid of Hazel to protect her people. The curse and these rapacious holes surrounded Hazel. They moved close to Urlu to find her, and they would find her here.
He carried his armload of sticks around for what seemed like hours, but he kept revolving through the same questions and worries and conflicting ideas. Should he discuss his concerns with Hazel? She had as much right to understand the situation as anybody. Maybe if she understood the stakes, she would work to hone her power in the right way. She wouldn’t know enough to control herself if she didn’t know why she needed to.
He didn’t want to discuss it with her. He didn’t want to disturb her more than she already had been. Who was he to tell her to control herself? She knew nothing.
The harsh fact struck him in the face. He didn’t want her to turn into a mysterious witch like Ross. He wanted to keep her pure and innocent and…well, helpless. That couldn’t be right, could it? He didn’t really want her helpless and stupid. Did he?
He shook that thought out of his head. Of course it was preposterous. He didn’t want her helpless. He wanted her to gain her power. That’s all.
He started back toward the fire burning in the distance. Athol snored on the ground with his eyes closed. Hazel raised her head to smile at Fergus when he appeared with his load. At that moment, a twig snapped somewhere out in the forest.
His experience at the mound made Fergus’s ears prick up, but no howling announced a catastrophe appearing out of nowhere. A footstep rustled, followed by another. A different branch cracked from the opposite direction.
Out of nowhere, dozens of footsteps surrounded the camp on every side. Fergus dropped his sticks and spun around. Hazel leapt to her feet, and Athol’s eyes popped open. His hand flew to his saber hilt.
Countless feet hustled through the woods heading straight for their camp from every direction at once. Seven months on the road fighting wraiths taught Fergus what to do. He whirled around to face the threat. He turned his back to the fire with Hazel on one side and Athol on the other.
The other two did the same thing, and all three friends backed into a circle. The fire warmed their backs, but the danger outside chilled Fergus’s heart. Dark forces assaulted them even here. Nowhere was safe. The curse still tracked them down halfway across the country from their home. As long as Hazel stayed with them, they would face constant danger.
Fergus’s hand drifted to his saber. Athol drew his weapon. It grated metal against metal sliding out of its scabbard. The sound set Fergus’s hair on end. His instincts drew his saber for him without his knowledge. The next thing he knew, he faced the darkness with his weapon in his hand.
He longed to take Hazel’s hand, but he couldn’t fight one-handed. She didn’t need his hand, anyway. Cold, hard determination radiated off her into his back. She told the truth. She would be okay, no matter what happened. Her power was on its way out of her, one way or the other, on its way to the open world where everyone could see it and feel its might. This threat moving in on them didn’t stand a chance, once it triggered her into reacting.
For the hundredth time since meeting her in the clearing, a horrible realization forced its way into Fergus’s mind. She didn’t need to hold hands with him to get ready for this attack. He needed her, not the other way around. He wanted reassu
rance she was still there, that she was ready, that she would marshal all her reserves when the time came.
He never got a chance to get his bearings before the enemy struck. Fergus couldn’t tell exactly when it happened. Something massive and hairy and black thundered out of the forest heading straight for him. He staggered back to get away from it. He almost stepped into the burning coals in his desperate bid to hold his ground before the thing collided with him.
A deafening blow of steel against steel rent the night. Fergus barely raised his saber in time to meet another sword coming down with mind-blowing power to cleave his head in half. At the same instant, Athol closed with another opponent coming at him just as hard and just as fast.
The two Highlanders locked blades with their adversaries, but Fergus couldn’t get his mind to function. He stared into the snarling face of the ugliest demon he ever beheld. Two glittering blue eyes burned out of its hideous contorted face. It bared its fangs out of its black lips, and it crushed the life out of Fergus until his spirits quailed.
At that moment, Hazel spun around to face the things. Her two hands flew out from her sides. Before anyone could stop her, four projectiles rocketed out of her, two from each hand. They struck the two assailants, and the next thing Fergus knew, he found himself staring at two men pinned to two trees by daggers driven through their shirtsleeves.
Athol’s saber fell limp at his sides. Fergus struggled to breathe. He couldn’t believe the evidence of his own senses. The four daggers Hazel sent flying at the men penetrated their shirts at the shoulder with such force they lifted the men back. They fixed them in place so they couldn’t move, but they left the men unharmed.
Athol gasped. “I’ll be hanged! It’s Sinclair!”
Fergus blinked. It was true. Alasdair Sinclair and Faing Douglas stared back at their friends in mute astonishment. No one was more surprised than Hazel.
Gravity caught Alasdair’s weight. He slumped, and the daggers ripped his shirt so he hit the ground. He staggered to get his feet under him. “Ye boke geggit! What’d ye do that fer?”
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