by Cindy Dees
Gabrielle was deeply alarmed to realize that the Emperor or his agents could have been using this passage to spy on her and Regalo for years, and she and her husband had been none the wiser.
“This is where I leave you all,” the thief announced. “How do I get to an exit that brings me out near the south bridge of the Imperial Plaza?”
“Take this tunnel to the end and turn right, then take your first left. Go to the end and climb the stairs there. You’ll come out next to the south gatehouse.”
The thief gave Gabrielle a small bow, touched his brow in a mockery of an Imperial military salute, and raced off down the hall so fast Gabrielle hardly had time to register that he was leaving before he was gone from view.
“Man, that guy’s fast,” Korgan muttered.
She was more inclined to mutter something along the lines of good riddance.
Bekkan turned sideways to go up the stair, and she followed carefully, feeling for each new step with her foot since her skirts were too big to see past. Stupid court fashions.
Bekkan halted abruptly in front of her. He whispered over his shoulder, “Were you expecting company tonight?”
“No,” she answered, startled.
“Then I’ll go first,” Bekkan declared, easing his sword out of its sheath at his waist, a feat to accomplish in silence in the confined quarters. “I hear voices.”
“No. I’ll go first. You’re a thousand times more important than I,” she disagreed. “And these are my quarters. No one will question me stepping into my own rooms. The rest of you could be accused of breaking and entering.”
Which was ironic given how they’d spent the past hour.
“Stay here, all of you. If I am arrested or killed, use the tunnels and make your way out of the palace to safety.”
“Nay—” the rokken started.
“Roland and Giselle are my only children,” she declared forcefully. “At all costs, keep them safe. You hear me, Bekkan Kopathul? That’s a direct order from the Queen of Haraland. Protect Roland and Giselle with your life. All of you protect them with your lives.”
She glared down the whole party, putting the full weight of her royal authority behind her stare. Only when every last one of them had looked down or away from her did she nod firmly. “All right, then. Let me pass, Bekkan.”
He frowned, but she squeezed past him determinedly. Praying she wasn’t in fact about to die, she lifted an old-fashioned door latch and inched the panel open.
CHAPTER
24
As Will led the party deeper into the Wychwold, the trees grew even larger, the moss thicker, the hills steeper, and the mist ever more mysterious. Truly, he was falling in love with this place.
They’d stopped for the night, and he was a little way from their campsite, gathering an armload of wood for a fire, when he heard Rosana scream. He dropped the wood and sprinted for the clearing, yanking his staff free of its strap across his back as he ran.
He burst into the clearing from one side just as Rynn burst into it from the other. A pair of dryads stood there, along with a bare-chested man who, at a glance, appeared to be wearing furred pants, standing on oddly backward bending knees. On closer inspection, the man also had small horns upon his head, shaggy hair around his face, and dark, upward-slanting eyes. A satyr.
“Why come ye to these protected lands?” the satyr demanded. “Your kind be not welcome in this place.”
Rynn held out his bare hands as if to indicate that he was not armed. Which was laughable. Will had never seen another fighter so fast and deadly with his hands and feet. “We come in peace, brother,” Rynn intoned.
Hah. Also not true.
“I am no brother to you!” the satyr snapped.
Rynn answered prettily and with a graceful bow, “Nonetheless, I am brother to you in my love of the natural forest, in my wish for humans to leave it alone, and in my desire for a warm fire and pleasant conversation. Will you not join us and sit a while?”
The dryads cooed and put their heads together, whispering. A giggle, and then one of them said, “We like you. We will sit with you, paxan prince.”
Prince? What did they mean by that?
“Have I met you before?” Rynn asked, frowning slightly. “I confess, your beauty so dazzles me that I have lost my memory.”
More giggling.
The brightest green dryad said rather regally, “I am Nerra, and this is my handmaiden, Seritsa.”
Handmaiden, huh? Did that make Nerra some sort of noble among her kind? Will asked, “Are you acquainted with Lady Elysia of the Thornwold, perchance? I count her among my friends.”
The dryad Elysia had helped Will and his friends dodge Anton Constantine and his mercenary army in the Forest of Thorns two summers ago. Apparently, she was some sort of fae princess.
“She is not of the Green Court, as I am, but I know her,” Nerra replied. The dryad stared fixedly at Will, who looked back, privately amused. Wait until she figured out he was immune to her charm spells. It always caused consternation among her kind.
“Sit with me, human boy. Tell me all about yourself and what brings you to my grove.”
He was happy to oblige, but not because she willed it so. He and his companions rolled several downed logs over to the fire they’d built, and everyone sat down, save the satyr, who stomped around the clearing on hooved feet that rustled in last year’s dead leaves. Whether he stood guard or was merely impatient, Will could not tell.
Several more dryads and another satyr appeared in the grove, these darker shades of green, the deep, velvet tones of leaves in the late evening as dusk falls. Without comment, they took places at the fire, as well. Will noted that a half dozen more creatures, some humanoid and some not, milled around the edges of the clearing.
They must be near the fane. What else would explain this large gathering of fae creatures?
Following Rynn’s lead, Will made small talk and traded pleasantries with the dryads as Rosana and Sha’Li roasted a brace of rabbits and served them to everyone. After dinner, Will took the lead in the conversation, asking, “Perhaps I could ask you a question about your history without giving you offense, Lady Nerra?”
She purred, “Ask, pretty boy.”
“Do any fanes still exist in this forest?”
The congenial atmosphere evaporated in the blink of an eye. “Why do you ask?” the dryad asked sharply.
Will looked around at his companions, and they all nodded, indicating that he should answer the question. “My friends and I are on a quest. To complete it, we believe we need to find the last fane in the Valelands. Or at least, we need to discover where it was once located.”
“Why?”
“We seek the home of an elf who we believe lived close to the last fane. He was called Eliassan.”
“The Trollslayer?” Nerra blurted. “Why do you seek his abode?”
Will checked again with his friends, and again, he received nods all around. “We seek his bow.”
That got a hiss from all the light green dryads, and Nerra’s satyr surged toward Will as if he would attack. Nerra waved him back, but not before Will jumped to his feet and took up his staff.
“Power down, Will,” Rynn muttered.
He sank cautiously to the log as the satyr reluctantly obeyed Nerra’s order to back off.
“You are not the first treasure seekers who have come looking for this bow, and you will not be the last, I wager,” the dryad said coolly.
Will scowled. “I will take that wager. We need that bow, and we will find it.”
“For what purpose do you seek it?” the satyr growled, speaking for the first time since they’d come to this clearing.
“We believe it belonged to an ancient king and that part of his spirit might have been imbued into it. We seek to wake that king and need the shard of his spirit that resides in the bow to help restore him.”
The dark green dryads traded interested glances among themselves. For her part, Nerra rocked back o
n the log, staring intently at Will, not as if to charm him but rather to measure the truth of his words. “Have you proof that this is what you do?”
“A friend of ours has proof, but she is not with us at the moment. She holds the Sleeping King’s crown, a wreath of eternally living leaves edged in gold. Also, she wears his signet ring, carved from the horn of a unicorn.”
The dryad snorted. “And you wish me to believe you and hand over this precious bow simply because you can describe a few items that might have belonged to this supposed king?”
“I’ve met him myself,” Will started hotly. He paused to take a calming breath. “Or at least I’ve met his dreaming echo. He’s trapped in the dream realm in a beautiful grove much like this one. To wake him, he told us to find his regalia and bring it to his physical body on this plane. The bow we seek is part of that regalia.”
The dark dryads murmured among themselves, and one said, “Perhaps you should give him that which he seeks, Lady of the Green Court.”
“You are Night Court. Stay out of this!” she snapped back. Testament to her power was the fact that the other dryads subsided. They looked annoyed, but they did not challenge Nerra.
Nerra was speaking again. “You may have some of the details correct, but they would be known to others besides yourself. You could simply have overheard them. How am I to believe you?”
“Because I’m telling the truth,” he declared.
“Are you willing to put your life where your words are?” she challenged.
“Meaning what?”
“Will you risk death to have this bow?”
“Risk it how?” He’d learned long ago to be cautious of making deals with dryads.
“If you want me to hand over the bow, fight my champion for it.” She gestured at the fuming satyr behind her. “Drest is my champion. A duel against him to the death. Winner keeps the bow. What say you, human?”
“How do I know you even have the bow?”
“You come here to my lands, invading my grove, demanding the life’s blood of my forest, and you dare to question my word?” Nerra’s voice rose in anger with every syllable.
Will raised up his hands to ward off her fury. “You wanted proof from me. Why should I deserve any less from you?”
She did try to charm him then, staring intently into his eyes for many long seconds. At length, he commented mildly, “If you seek to ensorcel me, I am immune to your kind’s magics. Elysia and her sisters in the Forest of Thorns found it most frustrating.”
The satyr made an angry sound deep in his throat, and Will eyed his possible opponent warily. Drest’s inhuman legs looked heavily muscled, and those backward-bending knee joints looked immensely strong. The satyr’s human chest was likewise wreathed in massive, supple muscles that promised to be both powerful and fast. He would be a formidable foe.
“I have the bow,” she said flatly.
He was inclined to believe her.
“May I consult with my friends in private for a moment?” he asked Nerra.
She nodded her consent, and he moved across the clearing, gesturing for his companions to follow. They huddled close for a murmured consultation. Except before he could ask his friends their opinions, the dark satyr sidled up beside Will. “I’ve seen Drest fight before. I know his weakness. I can help you. I have a blade he’s particularly vulnerable to.”
Will frowned. “Thanks be, but no thanks. If I do combat against him, it will be a fair fight.”
The satyr snorted, disgusted, and moved away.
“What do you think?” Will asked his friends. “Should I accept Nerra’s offer and fight Drest for the bow?”
Sha’Li answered first. “We don’t even know if she has it. I do not trust these green tree faeries.”
“Neither do I,” Rosana chimed in.
“You could take the satyr,” Eben declared stoutly.
“Thanks be, brother,” Will replied. “But is it worth the risk?”
Kendrick spoke up slowly. “I think that is not the key question. Rather, I think the question we should be discussing is whether or not it is right to accept her challenge.”
Kendrick’s words struck a chord in Will’s gut. His initial impulse had also been to wonder at the honor in killing another being in order to possess the bow. It had been the same impulse that led him to ask for this consultation rather than immediately accepting the challenge.
Will asked Rynn, “Can you read anything of Nerra’s motives in offering the challenge to me?”
“Sorry, no. These fae creatures are adept at guarding their thoughts, and even if they were not, their minds are so foreign to mine that I would not trust any reading I got from them.”
“Should we vote?” Will suggested.
Everyone frowned doubtfully at that, and no one volunteered an answer.
Will sighed. “If Raina were here, we all know how she would vote.”
Rosana looked up at him, her dark eyes serious. “What would Gawaine say if he were here?”
He stared back at her, torn. The aggressive, impatient part of him, perhaps fueled by Bloodroot’s pride, believed he could win the fight and take the bow. He’d been trained by the best warriors in the land and was quickly coming into his own.
But that part of him raised by his father to be a knight one day, the part of him trained by his grandfather to honor the De’Vir name, the part of him that had met the Sleeping King and strove to be like him, and most importantly, the part of him that desperately wished to be worthy of Rosana—that part of him doubted the wisdom of accepting a challenge that could only end in death.
Will answered slowly, “Gawaine would flatly refuse to accept the challenge. He was the Mythar, guardian of all the forest creatures. Although they may be fae, they are still creatures of this place.”
Silence met his words, but one by one, his friends nodded in agreement. Eben was last, but even he reluctantly acknowledged it would be dishonorable to kill for an item meant to bring life and hope back to this land.
Will turned around to face the dryad. “I am sorry, Nerra. While I appreciate your offer, I cannot accept. Waking the Sleeping King is a quest to restore life, and killing another cannot be part of that. Honor demands that I decline the combat. Is there not another way we can come to some agreement?”
The satyr growled in frustration while Nerra tilted her head to study him. “Tell me more of your meeting with the Mythar.”
So she did know who Gawaine was. Will hadn’t referred to him as the Mythar at all in their conversation.
Will sat down cautiously on the log beside her. “His grove, although a prison at heart, is very beautiful. We had to overcome an array of great and terrible creatures to reach it…”
He warmed to his subject, describing in detail his conversation with the Mythar, the manifestation of Lord Bloodroot in the grove, and how Gawaine had offered him the choice of keeping the treant’s heartwood on his person or releasing it.
“Why do you keep the shard of the bloodthorn if it still tries to kill you?” Nerra asked curiously.
“Because it’s the right thing to do. For the Great Circle to be restored one day, his spirit must be protected now. Yes, there’s a cost to me, and my health has suffered. But maybe someday I can find a way to restore Bloodroot’s tree and in so doing repair the Great Circle.”
“You wish to be Mythar?” she asked.
“Stars, no! But when he returns to this place and time, Gawaine will have larger problems to deal with than fixing the Great Circle. That work can be left to people like me and my friends while he overthrows Koth and establishes a new kingdom.”
Nerra tilted her head, considering Will thoughtfully. “You speak easily of treason.”
He retorted, “I’ve earned the right. I’ve lost everything—my family, my home, even my name. All I have left is this quest.”
“Your heart is pure, Will Cobb, vessel of Bloodroot.”
He doubted that. But if she thought so and it would make her hand ov
er Eliassan’s bow, he wasn’t about to contradict her.
Nerra bowed her head slowly and said solemnly, “I will give you Eliassan’s bow.”
“No!” The satyr leaped forward, all but standing in the fire to loom in front of her, oblivious of his fur singeing with a stink of burning hair. “You cannot! You know what giving it away will do to your tree, the entire forest—my lady, what it will do to you!”
Will looked back and forth between the pair as they engaged in a silent battle of wills, the satyr in desperation, the dryad in long-suffering resignation.
“We always knew this day would come,” Nerra said heavily. “Maybe we did not know what the reason for it would be. But the bow was never ours. We merely protected it until its true owner returned.”
“That tree-infested human is not the bow’s true owner!” the satyr shouted.
“Nay, but he will carry it to the Mythar.”
“Let me fight him,” the satyr urged. “To the death. Winner keeps the bow.”
“No, Drest,” she replied gently.
The satyr fell to his hocks, burying his face in her lap. “Do not do this!” he cried, his voice muffled.
Will frowned. The satyr’s reaction seemed a little excessive. Unless Will was missing something here. Aloud, he inquired, “Why is Drest so distressed, Lady Nerra?”
“No reason—”
“Yes, there’s a reason!” the satyr interrupted, lifting his head, his eyes red-rimmed with fury, or perhaps despair. “If you take the bow, her tree will die, and she will die!”
Rosana audibly let out the gasp that echoed Will’s mental one. “We cannot kill a dryad tree!” she exclaimed.
It was Nerra’s turn to surge to her feet, emerald eyes flashing. “It’s not your choice to make, human children. I have made my decision.”
“Wait!” a new voice called out strongly, startling the dryad in the act of stepping into her tree and Will and the satyr from lunging after her.
Sha’Li was on her feet, every scale standing up in agitation, making her look ferocious. “What if there’s a way to remove the bow and save your tree and your life, lady dryad?”