by Emma Hamm
Papa wasn’t wrong when he pointed out her lack of care. She’d missed her family dearly, but the distance had provided her with experience and perspective. Her sisters couldn't stop talking about trivial things, men, cleanliness, food and drink. Her father only spoke of his travels, though at least that was slightly entertaining. And none of them had the magical qualities of the Fae who she held dear in her heart.
The old fence door squeaked as she opened it. One of these days, she would fix the rusty hinge. She needed to fix the window shutters, the rotting holes in the roof, clean up the backyard… The list went on and on.
Perhaps she resented this life. For a time, she had lived in a castle, waited on hand and foot. Now she was the one who waited upon others.
“Have I fallen so far?” she questioned and cast a glance towards the silhouette of her home. “Do I resent them for being ill?”
Yes. The answer was a resounding yes that echoed in her head like a scream in a canyon.
She gripped the fence in her hands, glaring up at the house as if it was the problem.
“Sorcha! It's too cold to be outside.” The smooth masculine voice made the hair on the back of her neck raise.
Plastering on a fake smile, she bared her teeth. “Geralt.”
He strode toward her with all the grace of a dancer. Tight pants hugged his legs, accentuating what he believed to be his best feature. A grand cloak of black wool swept the ground behind him clear of fallen snow.
“You’ll catch a cold, Sorcha, and who will take care of you while you take care of your family?”
“I manage quite well on my own.”
“But you shouldn’t have to.” He stripped the leather gloves from his hands, finger by finger. “Please, allow me.”
“I’m not taking your gloves, Geralt.”
“You most certainly are! What kind of gentleman would I be if I let you wander without proper clothing?”
He reached forward and took her hand, pressing the gloves into her palms with a smile that made her want to smack him. She let the leather fall to the ground.
“Is this how you usually treat women? As if they don’t understand when they need to take care of themselves?”
“They shouldn’t have to take care of themselves.”
“What if some of us want to?”
“Why ever would you?”
Sorcha snorted and rolled her eyes. “You’ll never understand.”
“Nor do I wish to. I enjoy taking care of those who are dear to my heart—”
“Don’t.” She lifted a hand to interrupt him. “I have no interest in hearing what you have to say. I have places to be, Geralt. Now, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll walk with you. Are you going into town?”
Certainly if a single woman were traveling, she must be going to town. Sorcha tried not to roll her eyes, and failed horribly. Where else would a single woman be going but to town? Ridiculous man.
“I’m going to the shrine.”
“What shrine? At the church?”
“No. In the forest."
“Ah,” he said and frowned. “You would never have admitted that before your disappearance.”
“People change.”
“Apparently so.”
Her boots crunched through the snow, leaving the faintest hint of footprints in her wake. She wouldn’t stand around and listen to him say anything else about her life. She had no interest in speaking with a man who wanted her to bend to his will.
“Where were you anyways?”
He didn't know when to leave well enough alone.
The hills were all white around them. No trees sprung up from the earth, only small mounds where stone walls stood. Even the sheep stayed close to their barns this time of year. No one wanted to wander too far from the safety of a fire.
Sorcha tucked her cloak tight against her body and ducked her head. Perhaps, if she was lucky, Geralt would leave.
“Did you hear me? I asked where you went.”
She sighed. “You’ve asked me that same question a hundred times over.”
“Yes, I have. And you have yet to give me any kind of answer.”
“I’m not sure why I’m required to answer you at all.”
“You aren’t. I wish to know.”
“Why?”
“I care for you, Sorcha. You know this.”
If she rolled her eyes any harder, she’d see the back of her head. “You care for the idea of me! You don’t know me.”
“I do! I’ve known you since you were a child.”
“You rode past me with your father a few times. That hardly counts as knowing.”
The tromping sounds he made through the snow grated on her nerves. Didn’t the man know how to be quiet? She wanted a peaceful walk to the shrine! Was that really too much to ask?
“I’ve been talking to Briana through the wall, and she told me where you think you were. The faerie world, isn't that the story you've told?”
“Briana talks too much,” she grumbled.
“You know faeries aren’t real, don’t you Sorcha?”
She cast a sidelong glance towards him and stopped walking. He had no right to tell her what was real, and what wasn’t. This man pushed too much, thought he knew far more than a simple woman, and she grew weary of men who thought so highly of themselves.
“Geralt, is the sky blue?”
“Yes.” He hesitated as he answered, looking at her as if she had lost her mind.
“Is the grass green?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s white right now.”
“Well, there’s snow on it.”
“Then how do you know there is green underneath?”
“Because I’ve seen it.”
“And if you hadn’t?” She gestured towards the fields. “If you had never seen green grass before, how would you know what color it was? Would you not think grass was white?”
“I’d move the snow.”
She kicked her foot, toeing the ground until it revealed the yellowed dead grass underneath. “You’d be wrong then, wouldn’t you?”
“What are you trying to teach me?”
“You haven’t seen the faeries, but you seem to think you know about them. Before you judge the hills to be green, I suggest you attempt to see them first. Faeries won’t like you entering their shrine without permission. I really must go alone.”
His jaw dropped, and she didn’t wait to see what he might do next. Geralt had tried for far too long to woo her. And as much as he would make a good, traditional husband, he would not be a good husband for her.
Women were two-dimensional to him. They fit into a little box of his own making so he could explain their reasoning and actions. Sorcha stunned him every time she opened her mouth. Perhaps that was why he found her so intriguing. But she thought it more likely that he wanted to tame her.
That would never happen.
Snow crunched behind her.
“If you keep walking towards me Geralt, I will put you on your back in the snow. Leave me be.”
“You’ve changed!” he called out.
“Yes,” she said. “I have.”
Her father wasn’t the only one to notice. The bitterness in her heart had spread so far that she couldn’t control it. Pain made her angry, and this wasn’t a physical pain she could mend with herbs or medicine.
Bran had been wrong. He said she’d put herself back together, find meaning in saving lives.
She had done exactly the opposite. Bitter anger festered in her soul until she looked at the blood beetle victims as weak creatures. Sorcha didn’t like the changes in herself, but she didn’t know how to stop them.
The forest appeared in the distance. A snow squall headed her way, small enough that it wouldn’t touch her once she ducked beneath the trees. Snow-laden branches touched the ground. They looked as though they were bowing to her as she stepped into the shadows.
If only they were. She wished the trees could hear her, tha
t a man might step out of their bark and beckon her forward. “Come to us,” he would say. “Find our hidden secrets and faerie rings.
She shook her head. The villagers claimed she lost her mind. A strange man must have kidnapped her, done horrible things, and the poor dear had broken. Why else would she speak of faeries as if they were real?
“Forever misplaced,” she grunted as she ducked beneath a branch. “Always the one believing in the wrong things.”
The woods were quiet. Too quiet.
No branches pulled at her hair, warning her to hide her anger. No birds sang their songs. Only stillness and the muffled thump of snow falling from the trees.
Where were the faeries? Where was the wind that brushed through her hair?
Brows furrowed, she stepped into the well-known clearing with anxiety twisting her stomach. There was something wrong.
“Is it me? Have I offended you, Macha?”
Even the light had disappeared from this sacred place. No water burbled in the stones. The triskele carvings turned dull with age, no magical glow giving them life.
She hadn’t thought this was how they would punish her. Silence was worse than the threat of death.
“Are you never going to let me see you again?” A tear slid down her cheek. “You can’t hide from me. I can see through your glamour!”
No giggles danced on the wind. Nothing but silence.
“You’re just going to cut me off?”
She wanted to scream. She wanted to rage at the faeries who thought she deserved this, but the truth rang in her head. They could never see her again and it wouldn’t hurt them at all.
They ripped magic from her life and everyone she held dear.
Sorcha lifted her chin, locking her knees so she would not fall and embarrass herself. She would remain steady. Tears dripped down her cheeks, but she refused to admit that was a weakness.
Only those strong enough to feel let tears fall.
“I will not apologize,” she pleaded. “I was gone longer than expected, and I did not leave willingly, but I had to take care of my family. It was not a slight against you or your kind that I did not keep this shrine alive.”
A sharp pain dug into her ankle, twin points of agony that ground against the delicate bone. She gasped and glanced down. A bright green snake, as long as she was tall, rose out of the snow.
Its mouth closed around her ankle, impossibly wide with silver fangs that dug deeper and deeper into her flesh. It coiled, looping its thick ropey body around her shin.
Pain and numbness spread from the viper’s fangs. It stared up at her with glittering cold eyes.
“Impossible,” she slurred. Snakes couldn’t move in the winter. Snakes like that didn’t live in Ui Neill.
She tasted nightshade on her tongue. Her tongue thickened, lips growing numb. She knew the signs of poison well.
Eamonn lifted his face to the blistering cold wind. It whistled through the crevices on his cheeks, sinking deeper and deeper into his being. The freezing edge of winter was as much a part of him now as the exaggerated limp and useless right arm.
“Master!” Cian shouted through the shrieking wind. “We cannot keep going!”
“We must!”
They could not stop in the storm. Snow blew against them, pushing jagged edges of ice underneath their clothing. Relentless and angry, the Otherworld appeared determined to destroy them.
He pulled the hood of his fur cloak lower and tilted his head down. He would beat back the wind himself if it meant they would reach their destination.
There weren’t many of them left. His brother had ridden onto the isle with single-minded intent. Destroy everything in his path and leave nothing but smears of blood and ash.
“M-Master!” Oona coughed the words, her lungs weak from days in the frigid tundra. “I can’t go any further!”
“We have to keep going.”
“I—”
The wind swept past his ears, drowning out any words she might have said. Anger heated his blood. The crystals around his neck flared with bright violet light.
“Oona, I don’t have time to argue with you. We continue on towards the dwarven stronghold! It’s the only place where we might find sympathetic faeries.”
They didn’t respond.
Growling, Eamonn spun on his heel. His cloak flared around him and cold air buffeted his chest. It sank deep into the crystal wounds lacing his body.
Oona sat in the snow, shoulders slumped and heaving. Cian knelt beside her with his hand on her shoulder, his expression one of complete loss.
They were all bundled up in whatever they could find. Fifteen people left from the hundreds who had lived on the isle. A mother and her child hung near the back, the tiny pooka still healing from an injury a midwife might have tended.
Boggart hung near the back, her thin frame quaking with every breath. She was too thin, too small for such a journey.
He imagined he could see an outline behind the faeries. A pillar of shadows that shifted and moved. Red curls hung about her face, vivid even in the ghostly form.
She stood behind them, watching over each staggered movement. She haunted his footsteps with the echoes of her voice.
"Take care of them," she whispered on the wind. "They need you."
Eamonn sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.
“We’ll stop awhile.”
“The dwarves?” Cian asked.
“Nowhere to be found, my friend. We’re going in the right direction, but they don’t want to make themselves known just yet.”
“Damn dwarves. They’ll let us freeze to death and rob the clothes from our back.”
Oona whimpered. “I remember dwarves. They were kind creatures with hearts made of pure gold. They could sing magic that would let women spin gold from straw.”
“You’re delirious,” Cian grumbled. “That wasn't the dwarves.”
“You’ve never met a dwarf.”
Eamonn didn’t have time to listen to them quarrel about yet another faerie species. Rolling his eyes, he pointed towards the few who remained on their feet.
“You, find something for kindling. You, help me create a bank out of snow to give us some kind of shelter. You, gather up clean snow for water so we can boil it. You—” he pointed at the mother. “Take the extra furs and bundle him up.”
“I couldn’t, m’lord. The others need them just as much as us.”
“Your boy’s lips are turning blue. Let him have a turn with the furs first, and tuck Boggart in with him. We’ll pass them around later.”
Gods, he tired of the cold. He wished for a warm ale in his hand, an able-bodied woman on his lap, and the cold to disappear forever.
None of which were likely to happen. He had sent away the only woman he wanted in his lap, there was no ale, and frost was gathering around his lips again. He grunted and shook ice spikes from his shoulders.
The others quickly set up camp. They’d had enough practice over the weeks of travel. He looked back at them as he set his back to work, pushing the snow into some semblance of a shelter.
They huddled together for warmth and comfort. Not a single faerie kept a hand from each other. Even Cian reached out to smooth hair from a forehead, touching fingers to lips, whispering words of encouragement in ears.
He ground his teeth. They wouldn’t offer anything to him. He was the master, the invincible Tuatha dé Danann who held the sky at bay.
If only that were the truth. He shook his head and pushed the snow until a thick, tightly packed wall sheltered them. Wind dashed over the top, blowing flecks in his face as he stood. It would do for the night.
The selkie looking for kindling returned, shaking his head. “There’s nothing, master.”
“Of course not,” Eamonn grumbled. This cursed land was trying to kill them.
He raised an arm against the biting storm and charged towards their supplies. The sled made for perfect kindling, and it would be drier than whatever was buried underneath the snow.
They could carry the food and water in their packs.
“Master!” Cian called out. The gnome was just a head traveling through the drifts, his body lost in the mass of white. “We need that!”
“We’ll put everything in the packs.”
“We can’t carry any more on our backs!”
“We need to stay warm.”
“Then we’ll huddle in the shelter you made.”
“Without a fire, we’ll all die, Cian. It has to happen.”
Cian reached his side, jumped, and grabbed Eamonn's arm. The weight pulled him to the side. “We cannot carry any more.”
Anger surged through his veins, so strong that he saw red.
“Then I will carry it myself!” he shouted as he loomed over the gnome. “I will lose no more to this fucking cold!”
The storm raged on. Bitter cold winds pummeled their bodies, digging into their furs, and leaving ice crystals on their bare faces. Cian stared at him with a frown.
“We will lose people, master. It is inevitable.”
“Not if I can stop it.”
Eamonn turned and pulled the remaining packs from the sled. He set them with the others, marking their location in his mind so he could find them tomorrow. The snow would bury them.
The sled had served them well, and now it would do even better. He lifted the six foot frame and snapped it like a twig between his hands.
Cian sighed. “Well, you’ll be wearing those.”
“I said I’d carry them.”
“It’s a lot of weight. That’s most of our food and water.”
“Enough, Cian.”
“I’m just trying to look out for you, master. You certainly aren’t doing it.”
“I don’t need someone to look out for me,” Eamonn growled. He cracked the remaining pieces and tucked them under his arm. “Let’s go back and get the others fed.”
They trudged through the snow. Cian spat into the wind as they reached the higher drifts, the wad froze before it hit the ground.
“What are you planning to say to the dwarves?” Cian called out. “They don’t like your kind!”
“They’ll like what I have to say.”
“And if they don’t?” The gnome hopped up to catch a glimpse of Eamonn’s expression. “They aren’t the most amiable lot.”