by C. R. Grey
“Bailey! Tremelo! Mr. Walker!” Gwen, Phi, Tori, and Hal called to them from the pines, then ran down the sloping sides of the riverbank to join them. Phi wore an oversized tunic that the women of Defiance wore. Someone must’ve given it to her just after she’d transformed. She placed a hand over her heart as she looked down the cliff.
“Are you okay?” Bailey and Phi said in unison the moment they made eye contact.
“I’m okay now. But them—those poor creatures,” cried Phi. “The animals.”
“They’re at peace now,” Tremelo said, trying to offer some comfort.
Bailey pulled back from Phi. “This is my dad,” he said to Phi, and Gwen, who now stood next to her. Herman smiled weakly at the girls from the ground. Phi put her hand up in a small wave, though her face was etched in worry. Gwen’s too. Tori and Hal introduced themselves and sat down on either side of Herman.
The trees were then full of sound: birdsong and scuttled leaves as so many living animals emerged from the woods. Carin landed on a low branch, and Phi nodded at her. Bailey’s heart grew warm as he sensed the tigers coming closer. He looked toward the Ally camp and saw the pack running between the pine trees toward him and his friends. Annika had just arrived and gave everyone a nod as she stood at Bailey’s side.
“It’s not over,” Phi warned. She pointed up the riverbed, where the ash had yet to settle. Viviana made her way toward them on foot. When she passed through the cloud of black ash, her proud expression softened as soon as she laid eyes on Annika.
“Viv?” Annika said.
For a moment, Viviana looked thoughtful, and Bailey saw the resemblance between her and Tremelo. It was the same look he’d had so many times in the past, when the man was trying to describe the mechanics of his newest invention, or when he talked about the bond.
But Viviana’s face hardened, and Bailey saw sparks bouncing off of her hands and hair. Her power flashed, weak and chaotic, but still alive.
“I don’t need anyone to tell me who I am,” she called. “I’m the queen of Aldermere!” An electro-current static cracked around her and floated in the black dust.
“How are we supposed to stop her?” Tori said.
“I think I know a way,” Phi answered. “No—I know I know a way. When I was a bird, I resisted her Dominance by remembering my friendships. My family. People who love me.”
“Could it be that easy?” Hal said.
“I know it sounds easy, but there was something powerful enough about those memories that I just snapped out of her spell. I had to relive those moments….”
Out of the corner of his eye, Bailey saw many white shapes moving slowly, crouched, around him and Viviana. The tigers had come to join the fight. Viviana saw them too—she reached out with her right hand and sent a burst of ash, flashing like lightning, in the direction of the prowling tigers. One of them, a broad-nosed male, shook his head and stepped back. Dark-eyed, he approached Viviana like a faithful servant. The male tiger’s presence in Bailey’s mind extinguished like a spent candle.
“She still has her power!” he shouted. “We have to listen to Phi! It’s worth trying.”
“Annika has good memories with her, don’t you?” Gwen asked. “And Tremelo!”
But Tremelo was no longer listening. He stepped forward and pleaded with her. “Viviana, listen to me!” he said. “You don’t want this power—maybe you never have. You’re afraid of it. Afraid of yourself. Let us help you. You could use the bond as we do, without hurting anyone. You don’t have to be a creature of fear.”
Viviana took a deep breath. Bailey remained focused on her face, and he swore he saw it soften, for a moment. But then, all too quickly, her violet eyes narrowed.
“Afraid?” she hissed. “How can I be afraid now? Everything has been taken from me. Even you, little brother.” She flinched, and the male tiger leapt forward, its teeth and claws bared at Tremelo. Tremelo braced himself with the sword.
“No, don’t hurt it!” Bailey cried. He couldn’t bear to watch Tremelo kill one of his own kin. But something happened when the tiger came close to the sword: it growled and backed away.
“Damn you!” screamed Viviana. Another tiger plodded to her side, then another, and another. Bailey’s hands shook as he sensed each one being overtaken by Viviana. Soon all of the white tigers stood at Viviana’s side. She marched forward with the tigers flanking her.
The Allies had begun to return to the riverbed; they watched as Viviana advanced on Tremelo, using the tigers almost as guards. Tremelo, strengthened by the sword, could keep them at bay, but Viviana’s Dominance was still powerful enough to drive him backward, straight over the cliff if she wanted.
“We have to do something,” Phi urged.
Eneas and several more of the Velyn emerged from the pine woods and ran out onto the rocks. With him was yet one more white tiger. Puzzled, Bailey tried to think if he’d seen this one before; it felt different than the others to him. He couldn’t sense its mind, but at the same time, he was certain that Viviana couldn’t, either. It was acting on its own accord: its movements fast and instinctual, not at all like the empty, mechanical actions of the Dominated animals. Its blue eyes burned with inner life. When it saw Viviana, it began to run. It leapt, hurdling itself through the mass of its kin.
Viviana shielded herself with a dagger—she plunged it deep into the tiger’s chest, and drops of its bright blood fell on the smooth white rock.
“NO!” Bailey cried. He pulled the two orbs out of his pocket and shoved one in Tremelo’s hand. Gwen quickly found hers and handed it to Annika, while Bailey kept the third one for himself and made them hold hands.
“What is this about?” Annika asked.
“Bailey, I don’t know if this will work! They’re designed to—”
“Shhh. Just listen for a minute,” he said. Then he called to Phi: “Tell us what to do!”
She grabbed on to Gwen’s arm for support. “Everyone, think of a memory—a good one—of Viviana. A time when she showed you kindness!”
Bailey felt uncertain. He couldn’t think of a moment when she’d showed him kindness, so he kept his mind blank and thought of Taleth. And then suddenly memories streamed through him—Annika’s and Tremelo’s—and they were powerful and charged with goodwill. There was Annika and Viviana as children in the Dust Plains, distributing water and helping other girls who trudged along in their chains. There was a little boy, Tremelo, being carried by Viviana after he’d fallen. His sister clutched him tightly as he tried not to cry, searching through the palace for King Melore himself—who swept them both into a hug. But there were many, many more. They were beautiful and full of joy. Vivana, the girl with the purple eyes, under a tree in the summertime. She wore a smile as she laid her head on the belly of a happy pig. Her kin.
“Oh Nature!” Viviana cried at the memory of her with her kin. It was the first time Bailey had ever heard her sound like what she once was—a little girl, afraid. She looked to Tremelo. “Brother! Help me!”
“It’s weakening her,” Tremelo yelled in a pained voice. But Annika clutched his hand even tighter.
“She must remember these moments. The past is painful.”
“Please,” Viviana pleaded once more. Then she dropped to the ground.
Tremelo ran to his sister and took her hand in his. The white tigers, now free, crowded around them both. “Is she alive?” Tremelo asked. “She knew me, in the end. You saw those memories. She’s my family. Maybe we pushed her too far.”
Bailey saw how pained Tremelo was. It was because he had faith in the bond, and saw the best in people, that he thought Viviana could’ve been saved.
“She needed to remember the girl, the woman, she was. The one with kindness, with a sense of justice…” Annika said behind them.
Taleth gave a mournful growl, and Bailey remembered the white tiger whom Viviana had hurt. It lay on the rocks, bleeding. Taleth rubbed her head against the wounded tiger’s shoulder. Taleth looked at Bailey and roare
d—a short, desperate roar that tore at Bailey’s heart. He tried to follow her thoughts, but they were saturated with feeling, with loss and fear and heavy, heavy love. The others, Bailey’s friends and fellow warriors, began to gather around.
Then: a miracle. Viviana stirred. “Ollie,” she whispered.
“Who’s Ollie?” Hal asked, pushing up his glasses. Everyone had taken a step back, Bailey included.
“Ollie was her kin. Her friend and her kin,” Tremelo said. “She remembered….”
“What will you do?” Bailey asked Tremelo. He was still terrified of her, even if she lay barely conscious in her brother’s arms.
“She’ll stand trial. A fair trial.”
One of the Velyn women came and took Viviana in her arms. “We’ll see she’s confined, and see to her health care in the meantime,” she said. Bailey didn’t think she deserved as much, but stopped himself from thinking such dark thoughts. Everyone deserved a trial and to be treated with humanity—even if they themselves weren’t willing to do the same.
“The Dominae troops have scattered,” announced Digby. “With their queen weakened and their metal trinkets dead, they’re soft as dormice.”
Phi and Gwen joined Bailey over the injured tiger.
“Eneas!” Bailey called, thinking of the Velyn’s potent King’s Fingers salve. “Eneas, help!”
To Bailey’s surprise, Eneas stopped short when he saw the tiger lying on its side before him. He clutched a hand to his heart.
“Oh Nature,” he said. “Not this.”
“Can you help her?” Bailey asked.
Eneas shook his head. He rubbed his beard and looked at the tiger sadly.
“The salve can help ease her pain, but it cannot completely heal. If she were human…our skin takes to the salve best. But I have asked her before…and after so many years…”
“What do you mean?” Bailey asked. “Asked who?”
Eneas knelt next to the tiger. He placed a careful hand on the side of its neck. The tiger blinked and breathed out in a huff, shaking its whiskers.
“My queen,” Eneas whispered, “if you have any strength left, use it now.”
“What are you saying?” asked Tremelo. “What is this creature?”
Eneas looked up and nodded toward the women from Defiance, who were now running to join them. He did not move his hand from the tiger’s neck, but with his other hand, he pointed at the Tully.
“Ask her,” he said. “This creature made a vow, and after so much time—too much time, I fear—I must ask her to break it.”
Phi gasped. The Tully hastened to Eneas’s side, breathing heavily.
“Is it her?” she cried.
Eneas placed his other hand on the tiger’s forehead. It—she—closed her eyes at his touch. She shuddered; her fur shook.
Bailey felt Phi grab his hand.
“It’s impossible,” the Tully whispered. “Not after years.”
Bailey could hardly comprehend what he saw happening in front of his very eyes. First, the tiger’s body seemed to shrink and grow narrower. Her thick forepaws lengthened and thinned, and her claws disappeared. In their place, human fingers grasped at the cold earth, and lean, muscular arms reached out to the Tully, who clasped the creature’s hand in her own. The fur melted away, and in its place Bailey saw human skin and a messy mane of long, curly hair the color of dark honey. The Tully pulled off her cloak and used it to cover the body of the woman who now lay where the tiger had been.
No one spoke—in fact, it seemed to Bailey as if every human and beast on the battlefield was holding its breath, watching. The air had gone still as death. Eneas bent over the woman, applying his salve to the wound in her side.
“Who is she?” asked Phi.
“Help me lift her,” called Eneas, gesturing to Tremelo, whose face had gone white. Bailey had never seen his eyes so wide. But at Eneas’s command, Tremelo lifted the woman’s shoulders, and the two men carried her away from the edge of the cliff and back to the encampment.
Bailey grabbed Phi’s hand. “Let’s go,” he said. Gwen scrambled behind Eneas and Tremelo to follow. Taleth ran next to them, and Bailey felt a radiating hope coming from her, mixed with intense worry. Whoever this tiger—this woman—was, Taleth loved her, and he wanted to find out why.
“Bailey,” Tori said. She grabbed his wrist. Her face was crumpled, as if she was on the verge of crying. “You have to come see your dad. I think the bleeding is internal—”
Bailey didn’t wait for her to finish. He ran back toward his dad, who was now leaning against Hal for support. “Dad!” Bailey called.
“Nice work back there,” his dad said, his voice a raspy whisper. He clutched his side. Bailey moved his hand away and saw the blood had soaked through his shirt and jacket. There was a gaping wound. “It looks worse than it actually is,” he joked.
“We need a doctor!” Bailey exclaimed, and threaded his arm under Herman’s as if to lift him. But Herman moaned and Bailey pulled back, so as not to hurt him any further. “I’ll run and get one right now.”
“There’s no time, Bailey,” his dad said, doing his best to sit up. Hal helped him lean forward, and when he was secure in Bailey’s arms, he moved to Tori’s side to give him and his dad some room.
“Dad, I’m so sorry,” Bailey said, his eyes welling with tears. “I got you into this. You wouldn’t have fought if I hadn’t—”
“If you hadn’t been here,” he said, touching his forehead to Bailey’s, “then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to fight for the things I believe in. Fighting for your future made my life worthwhile.”
“Dad, don’t talk like that!” he whispered fiercely. “You still have a life ahead of you! We’re going to patch you up. You’ll get better. It’s just a little blood.” Though even as Bailey looked down he knew it wasn’t a little blood—it was a lot of blood. His dad’s skin was getting colder.
“I love you,” he said, his eyes looking glassy. “Will you tell your mom I love her too?”
“You’ll tell her yourself, Dad!”
But Bailey wasn’t sure if he’d heard him or not. His dad’s eyes were open but unfocused, like he was casually looking up at the sky. But he’d breathed his last breath, and Bailey clung to his body and cried.
TREMELO KNELT ON THE dirt inside the cool darkness of the tent. The woman lay on the table before him, and yet he almost did not believe that she was there. He knew her face so well that he was certain his memory was playing a strange and convincing trick on him, a trick that would soon end in baffled disappointment. He knew that face—but he had not seen it since he was nineteen years old.
“Elen,” he whispered, although the woman was still asleep. “Is it you?”
The tent flap opened, letting in a triangle of moonlight. Eneas entered and held the flap open for the Tully, who carried a bowl of water and a jar of salve.
“I’ve sent Bailey and the others away,” Eneas said. “She needs rest.”
“Do you know her?” asked Tremelo. “Do you know who she was—I mean, who she is?”
Eneas smiled with pride.
“I am one of the few who knows that the Queen of the Underlands was not a tiger, but a human woman, one of the Velyn,” said Eneas. “Elen saved the white tigers from massacre by leading them into the wilderness, in the only way she could. There, they waited until the kingdom needed them.”
Tremelo brushed a piece of straw-colored hair away from Elen’s sleeping face.
“She was always so brave,” he said. “But that’s not what I meant. Don’t you know who she was to me? Isn’t that why you brought me to her?”
Eneas looked puzzled.
“I brought you to her because you’re the rightful ruler of Aldermere,” he said.
Elen made a small moan of pain. Tremelo placed his hand over hers.
“She’ll be very weak for a long time,” said the Tully. “Weak in body, and weak in mind. She has been away from her own form for many years.”
�
��Will she remember anything from before?” Tremelo asked. “Will she remember—?” He faltered. His own memories, which he had tried for so long to forget, were crowding his mind. He could hardly speak. He could remember everything.
“Do you know this woman?” asked Eneas.
Tremelo remembered a grove of thin, sparse evergreens, their needles shimmering after a mountain rainstorm. He remembered Elen’s hand in his, and the ring he’d placed on her finger. He’d hammered the silver himself.
My father’s taking me back to the Gray City tomorrow, he’d said to her. He says it’s becoming too dangerous in the Peaks.
You’re never far away, she’d said. I keep you in my heart, always.
Nature bond us, they’d said together, until Nature break us.
Tremelo stood up to allow the Tully closer to the table. He placed his hand over his heart, which was beating so fast he felt he might either collapse, or lift into the air and fly.
“Who is she?” Eneas asked.
Tremelo smiled as it occurred to him that he had never before said what he was about to say—not even to his own father. Eneas would be the first human who would hear his secret, who would know what lived in his heart for twelve long years.
“She is my wife,” he said.
Eneas stared at him, unspeaking. Then he looked down at Elen.
“Sir,” he began, but faltered.
“We met as children,” Tremelo said. “I loved her all my life. The Loon never knew. No one did. And when the Jackal—” He stopped. The memory of how he’d thought he’d lost her was still all too sharp. The news of the massacre had reached him and the Loon in the Gray City, and even then, he hadn’t confessed just how much heartbreak it brought him.
Eneas stepped closer and lightly touched Tremelo’s arm, drawing it away from Elen.
“My king, if this is true,” Eneas began, “then there is something else you must know.”
BAILEY SAT BY HIS mother’s side in the makeshift hospital, where the Tully tended to the wounded Allies and the Velyn sent out parties to gather the dead. And in the hours after his father died, his mother had remained stoic, though every so often she’d hug Bailey fiercely. “Your father loved you very much.”