A laugh of disbelief escaped me. I turned away, knowing I had lost our little showdown. “Fine.” I looked at Ben. “You’re sure that thing is off.”
Ben had the back panel of the camera off now, and several pieces were strewn on a handkerchief he had laid out on the dirt. “Yeah, pretty sure, Jacq.” He hoisted the dark skeleton of the camera.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. I knew no one over the Hedge but Orin, and I had no idea where to find Cass if I was ever able to get away from the race to look. Maybe Orin could help. Surely stranger things had happened. “My sister was into magic. A few years ago, she met a faerie. She kept it secret, but she started acting strangely. Secretive and weird—we used to tell each other everything, and then, she just clammed up. Two years ago, she disappeared. I think he took her over the Hedge.” I closed my eyes against the barrage of memories--police questioning, searching her room, years of missing her.
“That’s it?” Orin asked. “Met faerie, disappeared, now you’re certain she’s here?” He let out a sharp laugh. “Prejudiced much?”
“What other explanation is there?” I said. “She hasn’t contacted us in over two years! If she’s safe, if she’s free, then why haven’t we heard from her?”
Orin’s pale brow furrowed in an expression that looked almost like sympathy. His words were soft. “I didn’t say she was safe, Jacq. But there have been human murderers and creeps as long as time. What makes you so sure it was a faerie and not some ordinary human wacko?”
I looked away, fighting tears. “She went off with him. I saw them leave together—she told me she was going to be gone a few days and not to say anything. Besides, she was magically talented. She could have fought off a human attacker. Whoever took her had magic stronger than hers. Or had something on her. Was blackmailing her or threatening her or something. I just know it.” And then there was that mysterious book and the ICCF investigation. Why would the feds have been nosing around if there wasn’t a faerie involved? I wasn’t quite ready to tell Orin that part.
“So you’re here to find her?”
I nodded, lifting my chin.
“And you have what to go on?”
“If I win the race, I won’t need anything to go on. I’ll wish for the king to bring her to me safely.” I decided to keep to myself the fact that I originally planned to run for it—to find her myself in Faerwild. That plan was feeling more and more foolish the longer I spent over the Hedge. There was no way I’d be able to find her in this place without the boon.
He inclined his head at me.
“What about you, Orin? Who was that man? What was that room?”
Orin looked at Ben and opened his mouth.
Ben beat him to it. “Yes, the camera’s off! Jesus, you two seem to think you’re hiding state secrets here.”
Orin growled softly but turned back to me. “My father was a woodworker. A talented one. The Faerie king wanted him in his royal service, but my father refused. He liked to work for everyone and set his own terms. My mother was a forest elemental. Before I was born, she grew sick, and to save her, my father went to the king for a cure. The king said he’d give him the cure if my father bound himself in service for one hundred years.”
“One hundred years!” I said. “That seems a little excessive!”
“You’re telling me. But, we live a lot longer than humans. My father was desperate, so he agreed. My mother got better as promised and decided to swear to the king as well so they could spend that time together. She didn’t realize she was pregnant. They begged the king to release them from their bond so they could raise their son, but the king said no.”
“That was you?”
Orin nodded woodenly. “He kicked me out of his castle. The king didn’t want a child of his servants underfoot. I’ve been…an orphan, basically. My mother’s elemental sister raised me when I was young, but the elementals are nomads, and I couldn’t live with them forever. Since then, I’ve been moving between distant relatives to the homes of opportunistic faeries who thought to take advantage of free labor.”
“That man…he was one of those?”
Orin rubbed his chin. His eyes were distant as if he was reliving the memories. “One of the worst. He was my great-great uncle. I lived with him for five years until…I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Orin,” I said. Somehow, his closed-off demeanor made a lot more sense. Orin hadn’t had the upbringing I had, with loving parents and soccer practice and hot chocolate after sledding. He’d had to make it on his own, and it had made him hard.
“Was a long time ago,” he replied gruffly, indicating that the subject was closed.
“So you want the wish…to free your parents?” I ventured a guess, moving away from the topic of the man.
He nodded, meeting my eyes. “Eighty-one more years. That’s how much longer they’ll have to serve that bastard. Unless I do something about it.”
“Okay,” I said softly, resolve growing in me. “So we win.”
I reached out hesitantly and laid my hand over his, where it rested on his knee. “We can do this.”
He shook his head angrily, but he didn’t move his hand from under mine. “We lost all our supplies. We haven’t eaten anything but apples for days.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re still in it. We have the sword. You’ve been through worse than this and survived. And me…well, I’m just awesome.”
He looked up in disbelief and found me grinning at him. Orin laughed. “Again with that humility.”
“I got it!” Ben cried, startling us apart.
We both looked at him and found him once more behind his camera, the red blinking light recording our every movement. I pulled my hands into the sleeves of my jacket, trying to ignore where my right one had just been.
20
With the weird moment between us now broken, my attention turned to the sword Orin had laid in the grass by his side. I knew a little about swords thanks to working on film sets for various period movies and shows, but this one was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Its long blade curved slightly and was inlaid with some kind of foreign script.
“This looks like a prop from Lord of the Rings,” I murmured, wishing that I recognized the strange writing.
“Lord who?” Orin asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Lord of the R…oh, never mind. Do you know what this says? Is it like…Elvish or something?”
Orin took the sword back and examined the length of the blade, running his fingers into the grooves made by the long drawn out shapes.
“It’s no language I know, although I do know that Elvish isn’t a language. Honestly, did you not read about Faerwild before coming in here?”
I’d read everything I could about this place ever since my sister had disappeared, but there were very few books on the subject as not many humans had passed through the portal before now, and the fae were not very forthcoming about life here.
“What about the hilt?” I asked, ignoring his snappy attitude. While the blade had been interesting, the hilt was something else entirely. Gold in color, the grip carved into the shape of a dragon with its long tail forming the guard.
“Looks to be something to do with dragons,” he said, being deliberately obtuse. At that moment, my stomach grumbled, and I wondered if I was just feeling hangry. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Leaving Orin alone with the sword, I scavenged around for something we could eat, some berries at the very least. Finding edible plants wasn’t my strong point, but I could recognize a raspberry when I saw one. Unfortunately, raspberries didn’t seem to be in plentiful supply here.
I was almost at the point of resorting to pulling bark off a tree and seeing if it was edible when I became aware I was being watched. I stopped still, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck rise. There was definitely something in the woods with me, although I didn’t feel the faint crackle of magic that any weird faerie creature w
ould produce.
Keeping my feet steady, I slowly rotated my head, surveying the forest around me. I didn’t see it at first, so well was its coat camouflaged in the trees. But when I finally caught sight of a pair of charcoal eyes—and what they were attached to—I ran like hell.
It was a panther.
The big cat crashed through the underbrush after me, closing the distance between us with each powerful bound. I was an excellent runner, even on uneven terrain like this, but I knew there was no way I could outrun a damn panther. A snarl sounded behind me, so close it made my heart stutter.
But I couldn’t look back to see how close it was. To do that would take valuable seconds away from me and I frankly didn’t have that many seconds available to me.
I was going to die if I didn’t come up with a plan soon. Orin would have just zapped it with his magic or something equally inane, but I didn’t have magic at my disposal. I only had myself and my wits. I thought of flinging myself up a tree. If I caught a low branch at the right angle, at this speed, I could swing up and over to safety, but as my dismal luck played out, there were no branches low enough. Plus, couldn’t panthers climb trees? Panthers could definitely climb trees.
It was then that I realized with a shock that Orin and Ben were in a clearing directly in front of me. Not only had I put myself in danger, I’d put the guys in danger too. Ben might be all right—he had the protective enchantments keeping him safe, but Orin was going to end up as the main course to my hors d'oeuvres.
I only had seconds left to take action. Even if I ran past Orin, there was no way he’d be able to react in time to get off his ass and throw a spell. Besides, I could hear the panther’s ragged breaths right on my heels.
As I crashed into the clearing, I yelled a warning. I only had enough time to take in Orin’s crazed expression before I grabbed the sword from his hand and twisted in mid-air. It felt like it happened in slow motion, but in reality, it must have taken less than a few seconds.
As I fell back to the ground, I raised my legs and thrust the sword forward. In the same instant, the panther leapt into the air. The sound as the sword pierced the panther’s soft underbelly was haunting. Its cry of pain was followed by the horrible squelch of metal rending flesh and sinew and organs. My feet planted in its underside, allowing me to kick it off to the side as it came crashing down.
It was dead seconds after it hit the ground.
“Bloody hell!” Orin said, standing open-mouthed to one side of me.
To the other, I heard Ben mutter “awesome” from behind his camera.
“Help a girl up?” I asked, trying to look a lot more casual than I felt. “I thought we could eat this for dinner.”
I knew how this must look on camera. It might have been a complete accident, but the viewers wouldn’t know that. The producers wouldn’t know that either. I could almost imagine John peeing his pants at that spectacular piece of footage. I looked like a hero and damn, it felt good after having my ass kicked six ways from Sunday since I set foot in this place.
My only hope was that Ben’s camera wasn’t too sensitive to sound because from where I was, it felt like a drummer from a rock concert was playing a beat inside my ribcage.
Orin grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.
His mouth was still hanging open as I reached for the sword, still buried hilt deep in the panther’s chest.
I looked Orin straight in the eye. “We’ll need a fire to cook it.”
I reveled in the expression on his face—the mixture of awe and incredulity. I shot him a winning grin and turned back to the panther.
I didn’t relish the idea of skinning it and cutting up its body for meat, but I was so frickin’ hungry, and it was already dead. Leaving it to rot would be a waste. I wasn’t a butcher, but I’d been deer hunting a few times with my father and understood the basics of the task. The sword wasn’t the best instrument to cut precisely, but it was sharp, and it wasn’t too long before we had two slabs of meat cooking on the open fire that Orin had magicked up.
I’d never considered panther a meat I’d try, but it smelled delicious. Orin tended to the meat as I began the task of cleaning the panther’s blood off the sword using a couple of leaves. It was either that or using the clothes I was wearing, and they were filthy enough as it was.
As I wiped the leaves down the blade, something peculiar began to happen. As expected, the blood sank into the grooves of the strange language, but it followed other paths too. Grooves I’d not seen originally were now beginning to appear thanks to the panther’s blood.
I didn’t say anything to Orin as I pushed the blood, concentrating on the line of symbols, and when I’d finished, the words looked completely different. Though, unfortunately, they looked equally as undecipherable as they had before the other parts of the letters had appeared.
I scrutinized the sword, trying to decipher what the strange elongated letters meant. There was something oddly familiar about them. I traced my fingers along the first letter if that’s what it was. It was comprised of a long straight line, with a much shorter line at a ninety-degree angle on top. It almost looked like the uppercase letter T except it was so tall and thin. Something registered in the back of my mind. I had seen this script before after all.
As a child, Cass had a book on optical illusions. She was obsessed with them, and I think it’s what led her to becoming involved in magic. In the book, was a word. It was written in English but was impossible to read as the letters were extremely thin and tall. The only way to read the word was to hold the book up and tilt it backwards, shortening the perspective of the word and making it readable. No wonder I’d recognized this language. It wasn’t Elven or elvish, or whatever it was called, it was written in plain English. As I tilted the sword, hope and excitement fluttered in my chest. If I was right, not only would I have saved his life and brought him dinner, I’d also beat Orin to figuring out the next clue. With a grin, I read at the words. Dragon’s Keep on Emerald Mountain. That’s all it said, but it was enough.
Giddiness flooded me as I laid the sword on the grass beside me and rubbed vigorously until the blood came off and the blade appeared shiny again. I noticed that Ben had the camera trained on Orin and his cooking rather than me so when I told Orin what the next clue was, no one else would know how I managed to figure it out. I stifled a grin as Orin handed me one of the panther steaks.
My stomach flipped at the scent of it, and though it was so hot it almost burned my tongue, I devoured it with gusto, saving just a little for later. I pushed what was left of it into my jacket pocket, which wasn’t ideal, but without my pack, it was the only way I had of carrying it.
“We should probably set up camp here while we figure out the clue,” Orin said after finishing the last of his steak.
I stood up and sheathed the sword through my belt. I’d never been more aware that I was being broadcast to millions of people. I didn’t care much about popularity—that’s not why I was in this race, but damn it, I was going to enjoy my moment.
“No need,” I said sweetly. “I already figured it out. We’re headed to Emerald Mountain.”
21
Emerald Mountain was easy to spot, being higher than any of the other hills we’d crossed and getting its name from the brightly colored grass that grew around its base. At least, I assumed that’s why it was called Emerald Mountain. For all I knew, it was full of precious gems.
The tall peak loomed over us as we drew closer. Orin trekked silently at my side, and though I knew he was dying to ask me how I’d figured out the clue in the sword, he held his tongue. Stupid male pride.
With my belly filled with a warm meal and our destination in hand, I felt something akin to content. My mind wandered from thoughts of Cass to the other competitors, to Orin’s parents—enslaved to the Faerie king. I thought the human realm was a rough place, but at least there, cruelties were usually sharp and short-lived. The fae knew how to make someone suffer for generations.
; We passed through the northern edge of the forest into a wide grassland interspersed with rocky outcroppings that stretched to the foot of the mountain.
I paused for a moment to take in the vista. “Wow,” I breathed. It was like a painting, undulating green against the blue sky. Well, blue and grey sky. From the east, the sky was turning dark, with threatening black thunderclouds rolling across it. That didn’t look fun.
I turned back to the mountain, and the glint of metal caught my eye. I squinted. Far ahead of us, towards the base of the mountain, two tiny figures moved. Other competitors.
“Can you see who that is?” I asked. Perhaps faerie eyesight was better than human.
Orin held his hand up to shield his eyes. “Genevieve and Zee. I can see Zee’s red hair.”
I nodded, satisfied. I supposed of all the other competitors, I was least bothered by the thought of those two being ahead of us. But not too far ahead.
“Let’s go,” I said. “See how far we can get before that weather moves in.”
Orin and I jogged into the grass; the fresh air and exertion exhilarating me, buoying my spirits. It reminded me of home, well, a freakish, trying-to-kill-you-at-every-turn version of home. The wide-open skies, the scenery painted in sharp colors of green and yellow and brown. Even when the sky darkened, and a cold wind whipped my ponytail, and fat drops began to fall on us, the smile stayed on my face, the endorphins of the run lifting me higher than I’d been in days.
Orin had kept up reasonably well, faerie metabolism and all that, but he was lagging, and I could hear his ragged breathing behind me. “We should find a place to make camp,” he said as a bolt of lightning split the sky, followed by a bellow of thunder.
It was as if the sky opened up in answer. A deluge poured down upon us, cold water streaming down our faces, soaking us instantly. I gasped at the shock of it and wiped the water from my face, desperately searching the landscape before us for a place we could shelter out of the weather. “There!” I shouted over the din of the rain. Another fork of lightning exploded above us, illuminating the cluster of rocks above and to the right of us. “I think we could find an overhang there, it should provide some cover.”
The Sorcery Trial (The Faerie Race Book 1) Page 14