by Ron C. Nieto
“Yes.” Cadowain inclined his head and offered her his free arm. “Those were the exact terms of our bargain. Now, if you will follow me?”
Lily adjusted her knapsack so it would be as far away from him as possible—knowing faeries, he would notice the iron anyway, but she hoped he wouldn’t take offense—and hooked her hand through his elbow.
“Is it far?” She didn’t want to admit it, but crossing One’s path had left her a bit unsteady on her feet, especially taking into account everything that had happened before. It had been a long day.
“Not at all,” he assured her. “Just one short path away, My Lady.”
Lily did her best not to balk, but she couldn’t contain the jerk, the sudden rigidity of her spine.
“A problem, My Lady?”
“No.” Yes. A huge one. “I was just wondering . . . I understand mortals are not exactly designed to traveling paths?”
“Just the one will cause you no harm.”
She hadn’t crossed just the one. There were the paths away from the Unseelie Court and back to the Cairngorms, the path One had torn to bring her here. And, of course, there was the glamour to add to it—Troy’s to keep her warm and alive, Ayalga’s to drown and freeze her, perhaps even the Wild Hunt had left its mark on her after being summoned. “How many paths are too many paths?” she asked at length.
“Depends on the mortal in question.”
“And on the nature of the paths, I assume.”
Cadowain tilted his head and looked at her, an amused grin twisting his lips. “And what do you know of the nature of paths, My Lady?”
Lily bit her tongue. I shouldn’t have said that. Troy warned me to keep courtiers guessing if I wanted to be safe, and I guess that applies to both Seelie and Unseelie faeries.
“Not much.” She shrugged, suddenly wishing she hadn’t brought up the topic. “Some link areas very closely related in mortal and fay realms, others link remote areas, others are temporary.”
Cadowain hummed. “Not too bad, My Lady. You will become a real Faerie Doctor yet.”
“It seems I can’t. The title is already occupied.”
He smiled, not saying anything else, and they kept walking for a while in silence, the only noise the soft rustling of his trailing overcoat on the floor.
Then, the world shifted on its axis without moving an inch, and Lily felt nauseated, stumbling and tripping over her own feet. Only Cadowain’s firm arm under her hand kept her upright, and it took long, drawn out moments for her to recover.
“What was that?” she asked.
“The other type of path,” he said. He disentangled his arm from her grip and gently cupped her shoulder, directing her to turn around. “From fay land to fay land.”
The land clearly belonged to the Seelie Court, but at the same time it was different from the heart of Summer. The trees weren’t smooth colossus displayed in orderly lines, but chaotic, gnarled trees that seemed to follow no pattern in their growth. It was incredibly beautiful in its wildness, but Lily had no time to appreciate it.
There was her grandmother.
One of the huge, thick trunks was empty, and the wood grain had grown to create a cocooned recliner, dry golden leaves acting as padding and spilling around the raised roots. Sitting there, wearing the same clothes as she had when she was taken from her home, was Mackenna. Her hands were clasped over her lap, her hair perfectly coiffed, and her features relaxed in a serene smile.
Lily couldn’t breathe.
“Grandma!” She forgot all about the faerie at her side and ran to her.
A dying leaf that had held on to the tree’s branches far beyond all others trembled and fell, fluttering, tangling in Lily’s hair before joining all the other leaves upon the grove’s floor.
Nothing else moved.
“Grandma?” Lily stopped in front of her, suddenly afraid. There was no reason, because Glaistig had told her she had been taken, not killed, and Cadowain had told her he was keeping her where the Unseelie couldn’t reach her, and now here she was, in front of her, peaceful, her skin warm and rosy as it ever had been, the lines of age softened in her sleep. The cast was gone from her leg too, and she looked better than she had the last time Lily had seen her. Younger, healthier, stronger.
But her eyes remained closed.
Lily knelt between the tree’s roots and covered Mackenna’s hands with her own. “Grandma?” she asked again, a bit louder, fighting to keep the panic from her tone.
“Grandma, wake up.” A detached part of her realized that her voice sounded strained, the pitch too close to a whine, and tried to force a semblance of calm at least into her tone. Reaching out with her free hand, she shook her shoulder, gently.
Mackenna didn’t budge, and Lily saw it then. A tiny, delicate net of roots, each no thicker than a hair, woven together in an intricate latticework pattern that curled over her grandmother’s neck, upper arms, back.
Except it didn’t just curl over her, it curled into her.
The trunk wasn’t rotting and empty, it was hale and open, the fine tendrils reaching from its core and covering Mackenna, pulling her inside. Her grandmother’s legs weren’t cocooned into the hollow of the tree, they were gone into it.
A terrible, terrible wail broke the silent, and the detached part of Lily noted the noise had come from her.
“What have you done to her?” she screeched, turning on Cadowain like a wounded feral wolf.
Cadowain raised his eyes from the engraved designs of the Wild Horn, the same easy, genuine smile still painted on his lips. “Me?” he asked, no hint of surprise on his tone or demeanor. “Nothing at all. I did tell you, didn’t I? I would never harm Mackenna or her blood.”
“Wake her up then.”
“Impossible, I am afraid.” Cadowain shrugged. “She is not asleep, after all.”
“She wasn’t dead! She wasn’t supposed to be dead!”
“She isn’t dead. Her life has been incorporated to the grove, which is vastly different. In fact, now that she is part of the fay realms, you could say she has become immortal.” His smile widened into a grin. “It is a favor, really.”
The world fell from under Lily’s feet. “You told me she was fine.”
“I told you she was in Seelie custody. As you can see, it is the truth.”
“You told me you wouldn’t harm her! You’ve just repeated it!”
“One: as I said, she is part of the fay realms now. It is highly debatable whether that constitutes ‘harm.’ And two: regardless, you will note the transformation isn’t my doing anyway.” He took his eyes from Lily and clasped the Wild Horn to his belt, much like Lily had for her audience with the Unseelie Queen. “So there you are. Truth, and truth. Nothing but truth in my words,” he added, shrugging again.
Another leaf fell somewhere, rustling the thick carpeting of the grove. Then, the world went silent for Lily. Color leached, scent became muffled.
She saw her own body as if from the outside, and she knew her shoulders were shaking with wrenching sobs, her eyes crying all the tears she’d thought exhausted, her throat making an inhuman noise of agony. She knew it, but it didn’t even begin to describe how she felt.
Loss, loneliness, regret, betrayal. It was all too much, and her mind disconnected from her feelings, if only to hold on to a piece of sanity.
In that one moment of stark, terrible clarity, she remembered.
Iron. I have iron.
As if through a dream, she grabbed the knapsack and rushed Cadowain. The sidhe courtier was waiting for her, however, and easily sidestepped her charge.
She still managed to clip him with the knapsack, and he hissed.
He thinks that hurt? No, he has no idea about pain.
But she would show him. She threw back her arm and attempted to hit him again.
This time, the smile was gone from his face. Instead of dodging, Cadowain moved forward, his elbow shooting out and sinking into her side. Something cracked—her ribs, Lily knew, but she d
idn’t care. Gathering her feet after tumbling to the floor, she ignored the stab of fire against her lungs and jumped at him once more.
He wasn’t where she had last seen him.
“I fear I don’t have time for this,” he said behind her. She twisted, but he was quicker and he swept her legs from under her, sending her down once more. “This sort of violent games are tasteless and trying for my patience.”
Lily sprung again, and he shot his elbow the moment she tensed to move. It hit the side of her head and she went down, limp like a rag doll, the grove fading to black around her.
“Of course, if Mackenna requests it of me, I shall give her the Horn right away. As per our bargain.” She heard Cadowain’s amused voice, wavering as if she were hearing it through water, and fought to hang on to consciousness, to keep fighting. “No? She doesn’t? Well. I simply must keep it then.”
Lily thought she heard footsteps and rustling dead leaves. Cadowain walking away.
I will kill him. I will destroy him, she vowed before the darkness swallowed her up.
C H A P T E R XXXI
“Herald. Herald, come now. Wake up.”
The words pierced through the veil of darkness and Lily followed them.
Being knocked unconscious is getting so old.
She attempted to move, but a splitting pain in her skull made her give up before she did more than twitch.
“Do not rush yourself.” The owner of the voice cupped the side of her face, the touch cool and firm, holding her steady. It was pleasant.
Then, every memory slammed into her and she opened her eyes with a gasp.
Troy knelt by her side, her upper body reclined against his chest, his hand keeping her neck from straining. His hair was slicked back and wet, fine droplets running down his neck, and his shirt was plastered to his skin. He was hale and whole after all, but his features were somber. His lips were pressed in a thin line, the line of his jaw harsh, and his eyes showed a mixture of concern and anger.
The anger wasn’t directed at her, though. She had become so very good at reading him.
“I—” her voice broke because she did know what unsettled him. It was the same thing twisting her up in knots. “I couldn’t save her.”
Troy swallowed. “I know.”
“I made a mistake.” She shouldn’t have trusted Cadowain. What had he done for her, except tell her he would tell her where her grandmother was if she met his conditions? Court oath or not, she should have been smarter. She should have realized he had been using her—he had been the one thing he had accused Troy of.
“I know,” he said.
Troy, who had been loyal to her grandmother, even when he hadn’t held any hope, and who had done nothing but help her. So what if he had used her True Name to command her? So what if he had seen her more as a pet than an equal? At least he hadn’t harmed her. He hadn’t tricked her.
“I was an idiot.” Except idiot didn’t even begin to cover it, did it? Mackenna gone, the Horn in the hands of the faerie Court who had caused it, and Troy . . .
What have I done?
“I would be more concerned about being a traitor,” another voice spat. Marast’s.
Lily squirmed a little, and with help, she managed to turn and stare at him.
She recoiled. So much hatred. His eyes burned bright with it, glaciers in flames, and he held his saber loosely in his hand. Why am I not dead?
As if he had read her mind, Marast smiled, all humor gone from his expression. “The instant the Queen releases me from my duty of protecting you, Herald of Nothing, the chase will begin.”
“Marast,” Troy cut in. “Let her explain her actions.”
The Royal Hunter laughed bitterly. “What is there to explain, pray tell?”
“I made a bargain,” Lily forced herself to say. “Before I went to the Unseelie Court, before I even recovered the Wild Horn. I made a bargain with Cadowain because he knew where my grandmother was.”
“Go on,” Troy said, glaring at Marast to be silent.
“Marast is right. He tricked me, and there’s not much more to it,” she said, the sense of loss growing sharper the longer she was awake. “He said Grandma was in Seelie custody because the Unseelie faeries were trying to find her Wild Horn and she was the one who hid it. He said he could take me to her, but that I was too involved with the Unseelie Court to believe they wouldn’t use me to get their hands on it. He said . . . we agreed I would get the Horn, give it to him to hold while he took me to Grandma, and then he would give it to her. That way, the Courts would assume Grandma no longer knew where the Horn was, so she would be safe, and she would hide it again somewhere else so it would be safe as well.” Troy moved his fingers over her cheeks and she realized she was crying. “God, I was so stupid. How could I believe that?”
“Because you are just a mortal,” Marast spat.
“And you counted on Cadowain being unable to lie,” Troy added. He looked away from Lily, the anger in his eyes tempered by sadness, and Lily kept herself from following his gaze. She knew what he was looking at. Who he was looking at.
She didn’t want to see Mackenna again. She couldn’t afford to, or she would break beyond repair.
“Do you even understand what you have done?” Marast went on. “Do you even comprehend the power you have given him? The consequences when his Court uses it?”
“In her mind, I am sure they are no direr than the consequences of our Court owning it,” Troy said.
“They are! The Queen intended to destroy the Horn and disperse the Hunt.” Marast clenched his fist over his blade, then relaxed his grip again with visible effort. “Now, it shall be a war the like of which neither fay nor mortal realm has ever seen.”
“What?” Lily gasped, the new revelation another punch to her stomach.
Marast shook his head and turned his back on her. Troy squeezed her gently.
“That is part of the reason she became so enraged when the glamour at Court attempted to force battle,” he explained. “Our Queen understands the role of balance, and while she would not have made the decision without the agreement of the Council, the mere fact that she presented the question before her Councilors indicates her preference in the matter.”
Lily took a deep breath and closed her eyes. After a steadying moment, she struggled to sit up, accepting Troy’s help. Then, she cast around for her knapsack while avoiding the gnarled tree where Mackenna would lie to rest until the fay realm finished claiming her body in the same manner it had consumed her life.
“There will be war,” she nodded, her fingers fumbling at the straps. “I plan to avenge my grandmother. Troy, you said you would do it too, if it came to that.”
A hand still bracing her back, he nodded. “I gave you my word, Herald.” His mouth twisted in a grim line. “However, you should understand a war against the Wild Hunt will not be easily won.”
“Not easy?” Marast twisted around again, taking a step toward them. “You saw them. They are clad in iron. There is iron in their weapons, even in their mounts. Your precious Herald has doomed us, no matter how badly she wants to crush the Seelie Court now.”
“Not the Seelie Court,” Lily said. “Your Queen believes balance is important, so we won’t break it. Just Cadowain.”
Marast curled his lip in a snarl similar to those of his glamour hounds. “Of course. Just Cadowain and his Wild Hunt.”
“No,” Lily insisted. She took something out from her knapsack, her fingers clutching it in a white-knuckled grip. “I am the Herald of the Wild Hunt, not him.”
There, in her hand, was the iron mouthpiece of the Wild Horn.
“The bargain said I would give him the Horn,” she said into the ensuing silence. “It was my duty to remove the one piece of it he couldn’t touch, wasn’t it?”
Marast’s features went blank, and then his lips pulled in a feral, dangerous grin. “Well, well, well. Kelpie, you do have an exquisite taste in mortals. She might redeem herself yet.”
; A U T H O R ’S N O T E
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OTHER TITLES
Faerie Sworn Series
Story 0.5: Faerie Nights (available for free to Newsletter subscribers)
Book 1: The Wild Hunt
Story 1.5: Faerie Oaths (available for free to Newsletter subscribers)
Book 2: The Wild Curse
Story 2.5: Faerie Hearts (coming soon)
Ghostly Rhapsody Duology
Book 1: Silent Song
Book 2: Shattered Silence