by R. A. Rock
Before she could recover or say a word, dirt began raining down upon them, the hole filling up faster than was possible.
“Tessa, hold on to my shirt,” Finn shouted, and she grasped the material. “With both hands. Hold on tight.”
She clutched the fabric as though it was the only thing keeping her alive—and maybe it was.
The dirt reached her neck, and she couldn’t move, but Finn could. He was keeping the dirt away from their faces. And then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes as it covered their faces.
But Finn wasn’t a prisoner of the magic that had a hold of Tessa. Strangely, it felt as though he were swimming up through the dirt. She could hear his strained breathing as he struggled through the earth, but finally, he broke free.
A moment later, he grabbed Tessa under the arms and pulled her out of the ground, dragging her away from the hole and setting her gently on the damp ground.
“Tessa,” he said, his voice sounding both far away and frantic. “Tessa, please, wake up.”
But Tessa didn’t want to wake up. There was too much pain. Too much unhappiness. Too much darkness. She didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.
She let the darkness take her.
Chapter 12
Tessa really didn’t want to wake up. She would rather die than face the pain she knew awaited her.
“Tessa, please,” Finn said, his breathing shaky. She became aware that he was holding her in his arms.
“Oh Stars above, please don’t let her die,” Finn said, rocking her back and forth. “This is all my fault. Please don’t let her die.”
He sounded so distraught that she made an effort. Nothing happened. She tried again and managed to pry open one eyelid. Tessa tried to say something, but only a croak came out. Her voice was almost gone from screaming when she had paid the price for the blades. She remembered that they were still in Perdira’s Mire.
And apparently, she hadn’t died.
Which she supposed was a good thing. Though she wasn’t sure about that yet.
“Tessa.” Finn’s attention was immediately on her face. “What did you say?”
“Not dead yet,” she managed to get out.
“Thank the Stars,” he said. “Are you injured?”
Tessa paid attention to her body. She frowned. “Not sure. Help me up?”
He helped her to a sitting position.
“This is very odd,” she said, her voice rasping. “But I don’t feel hurt anywhere.”
Finn’s eyes were stormy. “Well, you were in pain when it was happening,” he said, looking around for Perdira. “She said that it was the usual price to pay. Seems to me it was too steep, Tessa.”
“I’m all right,” she said, though that was patently untrue. “I’m tougher than I look. Too late now anyway.”
“You didn’t see what that magic did to you.”
The distress and strain on his face made him look years older. She wondered how harrowing the experience had been for him if he looked like that.
She had no idea how much time had passed since she had gone unconscious. But if she had to guess, she’d say it had only been minutes. The strange half-light of the swamp was still at the same brightness as when they had arrived, as if the sun’s rising and setting didn’t affect this place. Tessa assumed, without much caring, that time moved differently in Perdira’s Shadow-cursed Mire.
“Where are the Unity Blades?” she asked, and from the look on Finn’s face, she knew that he didn’t have them. They both glanced around, and a moment later, a steady wind began swirling around them, forming a funnel cloud, and Tessa felt a sharp stab of fear that the pain would start again.
But it didn’t. And in a minute, the cloud lifted her off the ground. There was so much dust and debris that she couldn’t see Finn, but she could feel that she was being moved. After a couple minutes of this, she was dumped on the ground next to Finn, and there were two thumps as the curved knives fell beside them.
“There they are,” Finn said, taking off his pack. “You better put them away immediately.”
Tessa stiffly got to her feet and stood staring at the blades. She was satisfied that she had gotten them, but it was an empty satisfaction. She hardly wanted them anymore. Didn’t even feel like touching them. But since when did she get to decide what she did or didn’t have to do? She was as trapped now as she was when she was at Direwood Castle. And nothing was going to change that. Tessa knelt on the ground and stowed the blades in Finn’s pack. Then she slid her arms into the straps and turned to face Finn.
“Where are we?” she asked, finally beginning to take notice of their surroundings.
“Stars above,” Finn said in wonder. “We’re out of Perdira’s Mire. Back where we started, Tessa. And…” He looked around. “And it looks like the same time of day, too. Even though we were in there for what felt like hours.”
She sighed heavily. “Shadows take me, but I’m tired, Finn. Let’s get back to the village. I need some time to recover. We’ll need to get a room at the inn.”
Finn nodded and set off resolutely in the direction of the village. The horses were gone. They had no idea where. So they had to walk. Tessa followed, feeling wearier than she ever had in her life.
But as she thought about her home in the Light Court, where she would now never be able to go back to, she wondered if it had been worth it. Tears pricked her eyes.
Not that she had had a choice.
The king and queen had decided her fate long ago, beginning with the Severance and ending with the king denying her request to come home and the queen sending her to find the blades.
Both of them were responsible for the pain she had just endured, though she knew there would never be a reckoning where they would have to pay for all the suffering they had caused. That wasn’t how things worked.
She had suffered, but she had the blades. That was all that mattered.
Not that she cared about anything anymore.
She felt so tired, she could barely put one foot in front of the other.
And there was still so much farther on this journey to go.
When they were back at the inn, they settled into their tiny room. There was only one available, of course. With only one bed, of course. This village was as backwater as they got.
Tessa laid down to try and sleep. To Finn, it seemed like now that she could finally rest, she wasn’t able to. He was at the window, watching the forest and trying to make sense of what had just happened when she shifted position for the twentieth time. Finn sighed and got up, going over to Tessa.
“You okay?” he asked, sitting down beside her on the double bed that nearly filled the tiny room. She looked at him, and he swallowed hard when he saw the despair in her eyes.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said with a look on her face of such desolation that he didn’t know what to do.
“Thank you,” Finn said, though it sounded so inadequate to his ears.
“For what?” she asked, seeming both irritated and bewildered with his appreciation.
“For doing this. You didn’t have to. You could have backed out. A lot of other people would have.”
“No,” she said, with a shake of her head. “I couldn’t.”
“Well, anyway I owe you a thank you for saving me. I would be on the run right now with no hope of ever living any other way. If it wasn’t for you. At least this buys me some more time.”
“You’re welcome,” she said woodenly.
They sat in silence for long minutes.
“Tessa Callahan,” Finn said, studying her face. “I don’t quite understand you.”
“What don’t you understand, Finn Noble?” she asked, using his full name too.
“You’re the right hand of the Dark Queen,” he said, and she met his eyes. Ah, so he had gotten her attention with that. “And I’ve heard tales that the Captain of the Guard is cruel, ruthless, and has no mercy for her enemies.”
“That’s true,” Tessa said, and
he examined her because he felt that when she said it, it was true.
“But how can I reconcile these stories of you with the way you behaved today?”
“And how did I behave today?” Tessa asked, lying down and curling onto her side. She stared at the bed, not looking at him and not wanting to have this conversation. Not now. Not ever.
“You gave up what you wanted most.” There was a perplexed tone to his voice. “Why?”
“The Queen ordered me to.”
“I don’t buy it,” Finn said, shaking his head.
“What?” Tessa asked in a mocking tone of voice. “You think I did it to save your life?”
“No,” he said, feeling embarrassed that she was even suggesting it. Of course, she hadn’t done it to save him. “No, of course not. But what I’m wondering…”
He stopped speaking.
Would she make fun of him or deflect him?
“What are you wondering, Finn Noble?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“Why?” he whispered.
Tessa rolled over and turned her back to him, and he wondered if she was going to go to sleep without answering his question.
Tessa was so close to crying. But she hadn’t cried in years, and she wouldn’t cry tonight. No matter what she had gone through today. No matter how kind Finn’s tone of voice was and how much he seemed to want to help and understand. She pulled the rough sheets up around her face, where the fabric irritated the soft skin of her cheeks.
“Tessa?” he asked softly. “I’m not just asking out of curiosity.”
This confused her and she sat up. “What do you mean?”
“I have to get that Otherworld sheath, and I—well, I just wanted to know why you chose to get the Unity Blades, even though it meant immense personal loss for you.”
“I told you before,” she said, throwing the covers off herself and getting up. She took the two steps to the window and bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. Why was he pushing this? “The Queen ordered me to.”
“And you’re loyal to your monarch.”
“Yes,” she said, and he heard the ring of truth in her voice. “I am absolutely loyal to my monarch.”
“Shadows and Chasm, seriously, Tessa? How can you say that?” Finn’s voice was completely flabbergasted and angry.
Tessa whipped around to face him, exasperated. “I can say it because it’s the truth, Finn. You don’t have to like it. I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything.”
“I know,” he said, sitting down, all the anger gone out of him. “That’s why I don’t understand why you saved me today. Can’t you be honest with me? I told you, I can’t stand lying. Just tell me the truth.”
Tessa swallowed hard, so close to losing it that she needed to hit something or she would. She strode to the door and hit it so hard that the entire thing rattled. She felt her knuckles bruise and split. The pain radiating all the way up her arm helped her focus. She drew a deep breath, paying attention to how much her hand hurt and forgetting about how Shadow-cursed her life was.
It bothered Tess to lie to him, since he seemed like a good man. He had saved her in the swamp and she appreciated that. But in the end she wasn’t lying to him any more than she was lying to every other person. She was a spy deep undercover. Lying was her life.
“You want to know the truth, Finn?” she asked, steeling her heart.
He nodded as she stalked toward him. “I was given an order.” He tensed. “I am a soldier. I obeyed. Nothing more.”
Occasionally, she had to cover her tracks when she did something out of character for her Captain of the Guard persona. But no one had ever been so dogged about figuring out her motivations. Finn was stubborn. She would give him that.
“Really,” he said, standing up and getting a little too close.
He loomed over her, and she could smell his sweat from the long walk back to the village. They could both use a bath. Unfortunately, Tessa was pretty sure this little village had never heard of washing. There probably wasn’t a bathing tub within ten miles.
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you, Miss Callahan.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, inhaling deeply in surprise.
Shadows take him, why did he have to smell so good?
He leaned in so close, she thought he might kiss her, and her heart pounded harder at the thought. She wasn’t sure if she would push him away… or not.
“I. Don’t. Believe you.” He withdrew one of his blades from its sheath and, at the same time, grabbed a handful of her curls.
“What are you doing?” she asked in surprise.
He didn’t answer, only sliced off a perfect ringlet and re-sheathed the blade, pocketing the curl.
“I need this,” he said. Then he knelt before the grate in the fireplace. He pulled a packet out of the satchel he always carried and poured a small amount of a dark powder in, then struck a match. The powder exploded with a small poof, creating a black cloud of smoke.
“What the hell is that?” she asked, backing up until she hit the door.
“Just a communication spell,” Finn said, giving her an intense look. “I need to get you an Otherworld sheath. Remember, Captain of the Guard?”
“I remember,” she said, unsure of what was going on and why Finn’s easygoing nature had disappeared, along with his use of her first name. Maybe it had all been an act to begin with. Her eyes were drawn to the smoke when it cleared, showing a house. The scene zoomed in and entered a bedroom.
“Finn, what the hell?” A round man appeared in the smoke, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes.
“I need to call in that favor you owe me, Isadore.”
“Tonight?” the man asked, blinking and peering at Finn. “Now?”
“Tonight,” Finn said, his voice hard. “Now.”
“But Finn, I don’t think—”
“Doesn’t matter what you think, Isadore,” Finn said, interrupting him and taking Tessa’s hand. “We’ll be right there.”
Chapter 13
Tessa glanced around the bare bedroom that Finn had gotten for them at the inn. The inn itself was located within the village that lay near Perdira’s Mire. She didn’t know what she was looking around for. Finn was clearly determined to get the Otherworld sheath, and nothing she could say or do would change his mind.
She tried to pull her hand out of his, but he wouldn’t let her, and instead, he unsheathed one of his blades with a metallic and magical humming sound.
“Wait, Finn,” Tessa said, trying one more time to convince him.
But Finn was closing his eyes. Then he cut the air with the blade from as high as he could reach, all the way down to the floor. A portal appeared. Tessa could see the same building she had seen when Finn had used the communication spell.
What the hell? The Unity Blades created portals too?
She stared at the portal, open mouthed.
“You’re not sure?” he asked her, not seeming to notice how dumbfounded she was. “The magic’s already pulling at me. Have you never made a vow touching palms before?”
She snapped her jaw shut and looked at him. “I have but—”
“Then you know how the magic urges you on. I have to get you that sheath, Tessa. Without it, anyone could make you give them the blades. We can’t have that happening.”
“Finn,” she exclaimed, not liking how he was rushing her into this madness.
“No time for it, Captain. We have to go.” Finn yanked on her hand.
“I told you to stop calling me that,” she muttered as she half-walked and was half-dragged toward the portal. “Call me Tessa.”
“Nuh uh,” he said, a hard look coming into his eyes. “You’re just a soldier, the Captain of the Guard, following orders. Only friends call each other by their first names.”
Finn paused at the threshold.
“And we’re not friends,” he said and then stepped through.
Tessa was as infuriating as she was beautiful, Finn
thought as he brought her along on his trip to Isadore’s house to get the Otherworld sheath. Well, it wasn’t like he could leave her behind. He had the curl, but Izzie still needed her actual presence to key the sheath to her specific Starlight.
He was sure she was lying about being loyal to the queen. But he had heard the ring of truth in her voice, and it confused him. He knew that at least part of the reason she had gotten the blades today had been to save him. She had said so herself to Perdira. But now she was trying to convince him that she had just been following orders. And she had been very convincing, admittedly.
But he wasn’t convinced.
He was bewildered.
And he didn’t like it.
Tessa didn’t fit into any mold that he had ever seen. She was unlike any Faerie that he had ever met. And he was worried that he was starting to care about her more than he ought to, considering who she was in the Dark Court.
But what was he doing offering to get her an Otherworld sheath if he didn’t care about her? The price was far too high to do it for a stranger. Finn shuddered when he thought about the first time he had gotten an Otherworld sheath. Izzie almost hadn’t been able to wake him.
So what was he doing, offering to get an Otherworld sheath for some lackey of the Dark Queen?
And that was where it got confusing.
Finn was certain that she was not a lackey for the Dark Queen. He knew it deep in his bones. Tessa had nearly given her life for him, and no matter what sort of enigma she was, he would repay her by getting her that sheath. No matter the cost. That, at least, was clear. He owed her, and he would repay that debt.
Night had fallen and the moon was out. And Finn could smell wood smoke coming from Isadore’s house.
“Where are we?” Tess whispered.
“An old friend of mine lives here. His name’s Isadore. He’s the most knowledgeable Fae in Ahlenerra when it comes to magic and Fae history. Whatever you need to know, he knows it.”
“And why would he have an Otherworld sheath?”