Moonkind (Winterling)

by Sarah Prineas

  Before the wolf-guard could make her decision, the bees made their move. With a shrieking buzz they broke away from where they’d been hovering over Rook’s head and shot through the air like golden arrows, straight toward the Forsworn.

  “Come on!” Rook shouted, and as he leaped to his feet, he shifted into his dog shape and charged. He took a bound and felt an arrow flit past him, and caught a quick glimpse of Fray and Twig following him, Fray drawing her long knife from its sheath.

  Hopefully they were coming to help, not grab him for the Forsworn.

  Rook leaped past an archer cowering from a swarm of bees and, ducking a slash from a Lord’s knife, bore him to the ground, snarling—but, keeping his promise to Fer, he was careful not to touch him with the forepaw that had the shadow-web stuck to it. Quickly he shifted into his person shape and the Lord rolled him over in the long grass and raised his knife to stab. Rook laughed and popped the shifter-bone into his mouth, and the Lord dropped the knife to dodge Rook’s flailing horse hooves as he scrambled to stand on his four legs.

  In a flash, Rook shifted again to his person shape and picked up the long knife. Panting, he held it up to the Lord’s throat. “Hold,” he shouted. The Lord froze, still kneeling on the ground. With a wild glance over his shoulder, Rook saw that Fray and Twig each had a Lord or Lady at bay, and Phouka stood over the fourth Forsworn with a hoof on her chest. The bees swooped around them, buzzing and bright against the blue sky. He shot them a fierce grin. They’d won.

  Now it was time to go get Fer.

  Sixteen

  Fer had run out of time. Her throat was dry; her lips were dry and cracked; her eyes felt like they were full of sand, and whirling sparks kept creeping in at the edge of her vision. Her hands, when she looked at them, looked bony, and when she pinched the skin on the backs of them, it felt papery under her fingers. Her head pounded, and she felt sleepy. Somehow she couldn’t seem to think straight.

  The seagull had disappeared. It had flown away to a better island, Fer guessed, where there was food and water to drink. The whole day she had been keeping to the tower’s shadow while the brassy sun blazed down, watching for a ship on the horizon, or a rain cloud, or something that never came.

  As night fell—her last night, she thought dizzily—she dragged herself up the narrow stone steps that wound around to the top of the tower. The Way opened there. Maybe the Forsworn would unseal it and come back for her before it was too late. Maybe her bee had found its way to the Summerlands and would bring Fray and Twig in time to save her.

  Or maybe she didn’t deserve to be saved. Sorrow about the death of the Birch-Lady gnawed at her with needle teeth—it was even worse than the hunger, the thirst.

  She stretched herself out on the roof, clinging to the last warmth of the sun that radiated from the stones. Soon it would be gone and the cold would set in.

  A full moon climbed into the sky. From where she lay, the ocean was a blurry, dark plain reflecting light in a shimmering path to the moon. The chill breeze blew over her, but she felt hot inside. Fever, the healer in her realized. Shivering, she curled into a tight ball and closed her eyes. She felt like crying, but she didn’t have any tears left in her.

  After a long time she heard noises. Voices lapped at her ears like waves, making words she couldn’t understand. She cracked her eyes open. A shadow crouched beside her. It said something that sounded urgent, talking to somebody else. The figure shifted and the moon shone down over its shoulder, and she thought she saw . . .

  “Rook?” she croaked.

  In the moonlight his eyes were smudged with weariness and his face was crossed with shadows. She thought she saw him frown, and his mouth moved as if he was saying something to her. Then he was gone, or maybe she’d just imagined him, and Fray was there, a solid, safe presence. She felt Fray’s strong arms under her back and knees, lifting her up. Then there was the swift wind of a passage through a Way and she fell down into a darkness so deep she thought she’d never find the bottom of it.

  She came back to herself a long time later. It was the same dream she’d had before, that she was in the Lady Tree and it was rocking in the wind, only this time when she opened her eyes she saw the familiar wooden walls of her house in the Lady Tree with the rich blue-and-green fish carpet on the floor, and her chest of clothes, and sitting on a stool beside her bed, a puck with shaggy, black hair, his head bent so she couldn’t see his face.

  Rook was her first thought, and her stomach lurched, but no, he was older and bigger, and then he looked up and she recognized Tatter’s yellower eyes, and skin the red-brown color of oak leaves in the autumn. Back when she’d healed Arenthiel after his defeat, Tatter had been the one to help her.

  He cocked a grin at her and leaned back to call out the door. “Your Lady’s awake, Fray.” Then he leaned closer to look her in the face. “Feeling wretched, are you?” he asked. He lay a gentle hand on her forehead.

  Her head ached a little, but she felt surprisingly comfortable. It was so, so good to be back in her own land. She had been parched, but now she felt like a tree whose roots were plunging into the earth and drinking deeply of the water. She gave him a wan smile.

  Then she remembered the dead Birch-Lady, and her happiness dried up. She was back in the world now, and would have to face the consequences of what she’d done. Like the broken friendship with Rook, this was another thing that could never be fixed. She sighed.

  Tatter had bent to pick up a mug from the floor. He straightened. “See if you can take a bit more of this.” He held the cup to her lips and she drank. Bitter yarrow sweetened a bit with elderflower. Just what she’d give a patient suffering from a fever and from being stranded on an island for however many days it had been.

  Fray came in then, with a tray holding a jar of honey and a spoon. Seeing Fer awake, she shoved the tray at Tatter and rushed to kneel at her bedside. “Fer!”

  “Fray,” Fer said. Talking was hard, but she had to get it out. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

  Behind her, Tatter raised his eyebrows; she saw Fray glance over her shoulder at him and then she flushed. “No, it wasn’t us, Ladyfer,” she admitted. “I was there, and so was Twig, but it was that puck who saved you.”

  So she had seen Rook at the tower.

  Fray leaned closer. “Lady,” she whispered. “Why did you send your bee to him instead of to us?”

  But she hadn’t, had she? She thought back. She’d been in the tower and she’d asked the bee to go to her true friends. Why had it gone to Rook? And if it had, why had he come to save her? With the death of the Birch-Lady he had betrayed her—again—and she had broken the thread that had connected them; they were not friends anymore.

  She shook her head. “The bee made a mistake, Fray,” she answered weakly. “Tell me what happened.”

  Fray told her how Rook—that puck, she called him—had come to the Summerlands and after what she called some discussion—Fer guessed it had involved more than just talking—that Fray and Twig had agreed to go with Rook to rescue Fer, and how the bees had come too, and Phouka, then how they’d fought through the Forsworn to the Way, and how they’d had to let the Forsworn go so they could get to the tower island, where they’d found Fer nearly dead, and how the puck had shifted into a horse and galloped ahead with her to the Summerlands.

  “Then the puck went off to fetch this other puck”—Fray nodded at Tatter—“because he’s a healer.” Then she added darkly, “Or so he says.”

  “So Rook is here?” Fer asked.

  “No, Lady,” Fray answered. She shrugged. “He’s gone off somewhere.”

  “That’s our Rook,” Tatter put in. “He’s a wanderer.”

  Fer would have nodded agreement, but her eyelids felt so heavy. Oh, Tatter had put valerian in the tea, hadn’t he, to make her sleepy. She fought it for moment, wanting to ask one more question, but then she forgot what the question was and tumbled back into the darkness.

  Seventeen

  Rook felt li
ke he’d been running for days, but he didn’t have time to rest. After leaving Fer at the Summerlands, he’d fetched his brother Tatter to look after her, which had taken some arguing, first with his brothers and then with Fer’s people, who didn’t want a nasty puck looking after their Lady, even if he was a healer.

  Then he’d left the Summerlands again, and he was in a hurry.

  When leading him to Fer, the bee had taken him to Ways that should have been open, but were closed. The pucks knew all the Ways: the ones that were open, and others that were only open at certain times. He’d never known so many Ways to be closed, though. Something was wrong about that. It must have something to do with the Forsworn.

  In his dog shape, he retraced the route the bee had used when taking him to the prairie land. It led through a land of stony, dry desert, through a Way that should have led to a land of rolling, grassy hills dotted with knobs of rock; after that land came the prairie land. He loped along a rutted, rocky path and came up to that Way—he’d just passed through it the day before with Fray and Twig, and he’d come back through it in his horse form, carrying Fer to the Summerlands.

  He shifted to his person shape and stepped into the Way.

  It flung him back, like running into a stone wall. He landed in a heap on the rocky path. Climbing painfully to his feet, he stepped closer to the Way and raised his hand to open it, but it stayed closed.

  “Locked,” said a timid voice from behind him.

  He jerked around. Two mouse-boys with twitchy noses and smooth, brown hair peered from behind a cairn of piled stones.

  Rook narrowed his eyes, looking at them with his puck-vision. Their noses were too sharp; their hair was too much like a mouse’s pelt. They were in the early stages of wildling, both of them.

  “It’s a puck,” he heard one of them whisper.

  They cowered away.

  “No, wait,” Rook said. “Why is this Way closed? Do you know?”

  “We want to go home,” one mouse-boy said. “But it’s locked.”

  “Our Lord closed it,” the other said. “Then he went away.”

  “He is afraid,” the first mouse-boy said. “So he left us, and he left the land.”

  A Lord, afraid? A Lord leaving his land and his people to fend for themselves? “What’s he afraid of?” Rook asked, stepping closer to the mouse-boys.

  They ducked behind the cairn. “Leave us alone, Puck!” one of them squeaked.

  “I’m not doing anything,” Rook protested. He crouched and tried softening his voice. Mouse-people were well known for their timidity. “Why has your Lord closed the Way leading into his land? Why has he abandoned you?”

  “He’s afraid,” one mouse-boy said.

  Yes, they’d said that already. “Why, exactly?” he asked.

  “The stillness,” the other added. “The stilth. It creeps from land to land. It’s coming.”

  Rook stood; the suddenness of his movement made the mouse-boys skitter away, squeaking. The stillness. Or the stilth, as the mouse had called it. He frowned. He’d seen the Sealands of the Forsworn Sea-Lord. That Lord’s broken oath had made time stop in his land. The rhythms of the land were broken too. If that’s what the stilth was—if the stillness and broken time caused by the broken oaths was spreading through the Ways—then yes, it made sense that the other Lords and Ladies were afraid and closing the Ways. But it didn’t make sense that the Lords and Ladies were abandoning their lands. They were the pucks’ enemies, and they wore glamories and were false liars, but the Lords and Ladies really were connected to their lands. Even a puck had to admit that at a time like this, the lands and people needed their Lords and Ladies.

  Meanwhile, if the stilth spread through the Ways, it would mean silence and stillness would come to all the lands; it would mean nothing would change ever again. It would mean death for everyone.

  He rubbed at the bit of shadow-web stuck to his palm and stared at the rocky ground. He wasn’t sure what to do. Fer needed to know about this, and she was the obvious person to deal with this problem, but she was sick in bed in the Summerlands. His brothers—yes, he really needed to tell them what was going on. But first . . .

  He sighed. Arenthiel had asked him to come back to the nathe and tell him what he discovered about the effect of the broken oaths of the Forsworn. Now he had to admit it—he’d have to take his chances with the nathe-wardens because he needed to tell Old Scrawny what he knew before he could decide what to do next.

  He found his Way to the Lake of All Ways outside the nathe. Usually the pebbly shore of the Lake was deserted, its gray water still, the wide lawns outside the nathe-wall empty. This time he stepped through the Way into a crowd.

  On the banks of the Lake, tents had been set up made of wool or silk or scraped hide. Outside the tents clusters of people were huddled around campfires or standing, staring at the Lake as if waiting for something.

  As he crossed the shore, his feet crunching loudly on the pebbles, a group of six skunk-people with white stripes in their black hair cowered away from him. He stepped closer. “What’re you doing here?” he asked.

  The skunk-people held bundles or had knapsacks slung on their backs. They didn’t answer, just gazed at him with wide, frightened eyes. A few of them, he realized, were wildling, just like the mouse-boys.

  “Is your Lord or Lady one of the Forsworn?” he asked.

  One of the skunk-people, a girl taller and bolder than the others, shook her head. “He is not, Puck. But the Way to our land is closed and our Lady has left us, and we’re afraid.”

  “So you’ve come here,” Rook finished for her. Maybe they thought being at the nathe would protect them. He surveyed the tents, the crowds of people. Refugees, all of them. Abandoned by their Lords or Ladies.

  He left them, crossing the lawn, then climbing the gray vine-wall that enclosed the forest surrounding the nathe. Once he was on the other side, he shifted into his dog shape, wanting his sharp ears to listen for prowling nathe-wardens.

  He padded through the forest. Time moved slowly here. The High Ones themselves were timeless; change never came to the place where they lived. The forest felt ancient and heavy with the weight of time. It made the fur stand up on the back of Rook’s neck. Keeping his ears pricked, he made his way to the secret entrance that Arenthiel’s stick-person servant had shown him.

  When he slunk inside the nathe, it was strangely quiet. No nathe-wardens accosted him as he padded through its tunnel-like halls. People were there, though. His dog nose could smell them. His ears twitched, catching the slithering sound of hurrying footsteps on the polished floor, or the swish of a gown as somebody scurried away. He caught glimpses of Lords watching him from cracked-open doors; he saw Ladies peer from around corners and then disappear.

  The Lords and Ladies who were abandoning their lands were coming here, to the nathe. To hide. While their people had gathered at the Lake, waiting and wildling.

  It made him want to bare his teeth at them and growl.

  When he reached Arenthiel’s door, he shifted to his person shape and then, without knocking, he went in. An ancient creature made of gnarled bark and root and wearing a dress of withered yellow leaves sat huddled on the green cushions. On a low table before it, tea was laid out, with fine silver cups and plates of sliced fruit. Seeing him, the creature shrieked and skittered sideways off the couch, landing in a flustered heap on the floor. “The puck!” it wailed.

  “I didn’t do anything this time, either,” Rook muttered.

  One of the stick-people stuck its green-tufted head through the other doorway.

  Rook nodded to it. “I need to talk to Old Scrawny.”

  The stick-person bowed, and popped out.

  Ignoring the ancient creature behind the cushions, Rook went to the table, crouched, and poured himself a cup of mint tea. With a snap, he gobbled up three apple slices.

  The door opened, and Arenthiel hobbled into the room. “Robin!” he exclaimed.

  His mouth full, Rook nod
ded to him.

  “I see you’re taking tea with Marharren, the Birch-Lady,” Aren said, pointing to the ancient creature, who was still crouched beside the cushion she’d fallen from.

  Rook blinked. He hadn’t recognized her. He lifted his hand to greet her, then realized it was his left hand with the shadow-web stuck to it, and shoved it into his pocket. Instead he nodded to her, too. Then he washed down the last bite of apple with a gulp of tea and sat on the floor. Old Scrawny settled himself on the cushions; after a moment, the Birch-Lady climbed onto the couch beside him.

  Arenthiel beckoned to a stick-servant. “You’d better bring some more things to eat,” he told it. Then he glanced at Rook. “Be sure some of the pastries have meat in them.” Arenthiel’s toothless mouth widened into a grin. “It’s lovely to see you again, Robin.”

  Rook blinked. Nobody talked that way to a puck. But Arenthiel seemed to really mean it. And, Rook knew, Arenthiel would help him if he asked for it. “You already know my name,” he said. Fer had said it in front of Arenthiel plenty of times. “You might as well call me by it.”

  “Oh!” Arenthiel clasped his hands together. “You honor me, Rook,” he said, then cackled.

  “Leave it,” he growled, regretting it already. “I want to talk to you.” First he told Arenthiel how Fer had been kidnapped by the Forsworn and imprisoned in a tower.

  “You rescued her?” Arenthiel interrupted. When Rook nodded, Arenthiel beamed. “Then she’ll know she can trust you—she’ll know you’re staying true!”

  Rook shrugged. “She’s saved my life five times, Scrawny. Me saving her once isn’t enough.” Then he told Arenthiel about what he’d found in the Sealands—the sun standing on the horizon, the smell of death from the mudflats, the wildling seal-people waiting for a sea that wasn’t coming back.

  “Oh, that is very bad,” Arenthiel mused. “Certainly caused by the Forsworn Lord of the Sealands’ broken oath.” He glanced aside at the Birch-Lady. “I do wonder if the same kind of broken time is affecting your land, Marharren, even though your glamorie is gone and you’ve fulfilled your oath.”