We’d never heard, seen, or felt anything out of the ordinary. No one would admit it, but the Border Grays were something the Governor insisted on in order to give a sense of security to the people of Ironton, mostly to appease the Slopers who demanded a guard—and mostly to keep the Trenchers in line.
But the Border Grays were respected, honored, and loved, which is why none of the citizens bothered me while I was in Iric’s presence. He was the fastest runner in Ironton, and considered handsome and charming, from the amount of giggles and whispers from the girls we passed at the Reveal today—Trencher and Sloper alike.
I wondered what would happen if a monster did make it through the thinning smoke. What did fae beasts look and smell like? How fast could they level a human village like Ironton and slaughter everyone inside? Would the large bells above the towers give enough warning for the people of Ironton to flee, or would the tinkling of the tiny iron ones drown out their cries?
Maybe the Slopers could find a place to hide. Iric remembered that some had hidden rooms hewn into the bedrock, with locking iron doors to keep them safe in case an attack came. But the people in the Trenches already lived on top of one another. There were no rocky hills, no secure iron doors—just earth and excrement and squalor. There was nowhere for us to hide.
If one of the fae managed to find its way through the thinning smoke, would everyone still assume the monster was me?
Trava was beyond the smoke.
That was the only thing I could think about. Sitting on the small porch of the watch tower, I pulled my legs into my chest and wondered what was happening to her. Could Iric be right? Was she just wandering through a forest in the dark of night, or had she already been slaughtered?
Iric’s light snoring mixed with the insect song, barely louder than the iron bells rattling in the Trenches, and the faint sound of them ringing out from the tops of the Slopes in the distance. I’d asked Iric what it was like up there. He described the houses made of thick timber, strong and sound. Nothing like the Trench hovels and shacks comprised of scraps and discarded material, anything to try and keep the weather outside.
Our home was a rare exception, a small cave that now sported a wooden floor. Iric and a few of his Border Gray brothers had spent an entire day cutting and hammering boards into place to keep us from freezing on the ground. We had a solid door now, recently replaced after the latest incident, and Iric was saving up to have a lock forged.
I agreed about the lock, but Iric wasn’t content with our little hole in the rock. He was always bringing salvaged scrap from Sloper homes to make it more comfortable, but I couldn’t have been happier with it. It was all we needed. And having what you needed was the most important thing in the world. You found that out when you didn’t have those things.
Aside from our cots and a small table, a few dishes and glasses, and pots and pans for cooking, our house was largely empty and Iric hated it. He wanted to dig farther into the mountain to make more rooms. Maybe that meant he was ready for a family.
I needed to find a job and make my own way. It wasn’t fair that he had to work all day and night for us to survive. I got alms, but it wasn’t enough. Not even to feed me, let alone both of us. And definitely not enough to help the boys with food and clothing as they grew. The alms program was a joke—a way for the Governor to pat himself on the back for giving to the damaged. The Slopers had no idea how little iron we actually received, or how much it took to buy the most basic of necessities in our markets. They had plenty – why should they worry themselves over those beneath them?
Closing my eyes, I propped my head up on the side of the tower and took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. I’d been tense since leaving Vivica’s, but now that tension leaked slowly from my muscles.
I let it bleed out of me as I breathed in the fresh air, appreciating the fact that my headache had eased. For a moment, I was at peace.
Overhead, a sudden clap of thunder startled me, my muscles tightening once more. My heart jolted. The wind gusted, but it wasn’t raining. I listened closely. The thunder hadn’t woken Iric. He didn’t even shift positions, and his breathing remained rhythmic and steady.
There came another tremendous boom, but it was different; closer, and low to the ground. Thunder only came from above. Something was wrong. That wasn’t thunder...
Something was making the noise and it was near the ground, just outside the wall. Opening the trap door, I felt the edges of the cut square, kicking the ladder rungs to orient myself before climbing down.
When my feet hit the soft ground, I turned toward the wall, my hands outstretched. My vision, normally black as night, began to clear. And the more I blinked, the clearer my vision became. I could see the wall in front of me. Sucking in a sharp breath, my heart galloped in my chest.
I could see.
4
LOFTIN
Panting, I waited, knife in hand behind a large oak. He approached quietly, the pads of his feet barely crunching the leaves beneath him. He knew I had stopped, but hadn’t scented me yet. The stench of him hit my nose; putrid and reeking of rot and blood that was not his own. The hound had fed recently, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from trying to feed upon me as well.
In the pursuit, he’d called for his friends. I’d already cut two of the bloody bastards down. He would be the third, and hopefully the last.
He was close.
Within feet now.
He stopped and sniffed the air, and then let loose a growl.
He’d found me.
Springing out from behind the tree, I lunged at him, plunging the knife into his side as his canines tore at my leather bracers. A quick stab to the neck and his high-pitched keening was all that remained of him as I kicked his thick body off me. Laying on the ground, his chest rose and fell sharply as his tongue lolled from his mouth. The beast’s white fur was stained red, and the stain was growing.
I’d been to four human villages, each one blocked with a wall of smoke. And though the smoke was thin, I couldn’t see inside and didn’t sense any fae within the domes that sheltered them. I couldn’t sense any power within them, only the power of the wall itself. And the humans who exited those domes? Worthless. Blathering on about smoke and holding out an assortment of spices hung in bags around their necks or from their belts to repel the fae. I let them think it worked. They weren’t worth my time.
Nemain was sure the girl was in one of the human villages. She’d scoured the land of Faery and come up empty-handed, but she disclosed that her mirror showed smoke—like the walls that bound the human cities. Maybe she was right. Maybe the girl was inside. Despite their weakened state, the walls were still powerful, strong enough that Nemain couldn’t weaken them, let alone bring them down. But I wondered if it wasn’t just another diversion meant to throw a hunter from the girl’s trail.
I wiped my blade with my thumb and forefinger and rubbed the blood that came off it onto the Dorchan’s back. Devil mutt.
It would be wise to stop and rest, but something would be along soon to feast on the canine, and I didn’t want to be around when it did. Exhaustion had set in, and I needed to find shelter and food for the night if I wanted to make it to the next villages and still be able to defend myself the following day.
I was strong, a warrior, the best hunter in Faery, turned bounty hunter out of sheer desperation. But food and a short rest would see that I didn’t fall to one of the Unseelie beasts that still roamed the woods.
Time to make and cover my own tracks.
A few miles away, a human scent lingered in the air. I sniffed and followed the trail to find a small human female. She’d climbed a tree and was sitting on a low, but wide branch, clinging to the trunk and crying as quietly as she could.
She saw me, whimpering as I approached. “Please, don’t hurt me. I just want to get the smoke and go home.”
I already knew about the human’s silly superstitions, but played along anyway. “Smoke?”
“We need s
moke for our wall. I just want to get it and go home. Please don’t hurt me.”
I ticked my head to the side. “Why would I hurt you?”
“Because you’re fae.”
“Do fae often hurt humans where you’re from?”
She sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve. “We have no fae where I live.”
“And where is that?”
“I shouldn’t tell you.”
I smiled. Smart girl. “My guess is Ironton.” It was the closest village.
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. “You know of Ironton?”
“I know of all the human villages. You’re far from home. I’m surprised you’ve managed to survive in Faery for so long a time.”
Her sobbing began in earnest. “Something just chased me here. I... I’m hurt.” Her hand trembled as she wiped her wet cheeks. The other arm was wrapped around her middle. One of the legs of her pants was mangled. Blood dripped from her calf onto the ground below. Something had torn into her. Although her leg wound wasn’t fatal, I hadn’t seen the wound at her stomach yet.
“What’s your name?” I asked. If this girl was Nemain’s daughter, I was going to fall on my knees and weep.
“We’re not supposed to give our names to the fae,” she recited.
“I can’t help you unless you do.”
She considered it for a moment, adjusting her grip on the tree trunk. “It’s Trava,” she confessed quietly. Her clothing was finely made and her red, braided hair was snarled with leaves, twigs poking out from the strands.
“What attacked you?”
“I don’t know!” she cried. “I couldn’t see anything, even when it bit into me.”
“Come down from the tree, Trava,” I urged, compelling her to listen and obey. She shouldn’t have given me her name. Now, I could use it against her. Slowly, she threw her leg over the branch and gingerly made her way down the trunk. Trava stood in front of me, quivering from head to toe. She was so unfortunately human it was pathetic.
“What will happen if you don’t return with the smoke, Trava?”
“I can’t go back until I gather it. I am the Retriever this year, and so many others have failed. That’s why the wall grows thin,” she explained in a dreamy voice.
“And if you go back without it?”
She shook her head. “My father forbade it. It would shame our family.”
Her own father would rather her die than return empty-handed. The humans had grown as cruel as the fae.
“Will anyone else leave Ironton soon?”
She shook her head. “I am the Retriever, and the only one they’ll send until next year.”
She was condemned. The truth was that there was nothing in Faery to repair their precious wall; no magic smoke or fae who would be able to help. But her family would join her in death soon enough. As would all of the humans in the villages that dotted this land. Because their smoky domes were thinning. Their magic was failing, dying like everything else touched by the Ash in this land. It might take years for them to completely dissipate, but once the magic and the walls were gone, the Unseelie would slaughter them all.
There was no one who would come to their aid. The Seelie that survived Nemain were too scared to come out of hiding to help them.
“Are you sure there are no fae in Ironton?” I asked.
Her pupils dilated. “There are no fae.” She winced as she shifted her weight. “There is a girl, though. Everyone calls her a Changeling. She’s a Trencher. I’ve only seen her once. Her ears aren’t pointed at the tops like yours, and she’s blind. I think people just like to pick on her.”
A Changeling? My core tensed, bracing for the hope that this was a true clue to the girl’s whereabouts. That was the first time any of the sniveling humans I’ve spoken to have mentioned an aberration.
“What’s the Changeling’s name?”
“Karis, I think,” she conceded, eyes wide and fixated on me.
Whomever had hidden her didn’t bother changing her name? How careless.
And fortunate.
“You say she’s a Trencher. What is that, exactly?”
Her lip curled. “She lives in the Trenches, a disgusting slum. The Trenchers aren’t like us. The stench of that place sometimes wafts up into the Slopes. I’m a Sloper, you see,” she boasted.
Humans. Always trying to separate themselves, when they were all the same.
“What does Karis look like?” I asked.
“It’s been years since I saw her, but she has the strangest hair. It’s like this,” she divulged, reaching up to catch a piece of dark ash in her hand. “Not quite black, but not gray. Some shade in between.”
“Her eyes?”
She shook her head. “Can’t remember. Like I said, it’s been years. I don’t go near the Trenchers unless I have to. Even in the amphitheater, we’re given premier seating, and the Trenchers have to sit far up on the mountainside.”
“A reversal of your living arrangements,” I mused.
“The most important among us get the best seats,” she answered, shrugging.
“How would I find her?”
She crinkled her brow. “Fae can’t get through the wall.”
“Assume that I have magical powers and can get through. Where would I find Karis?”
“I have no idea. In the Trenches, that’s all I know. She lives with a runner. He’s delivered things to our house before. His name is Iric. He’s fast and—”
“What does he look like?”
“Chestnut hair and brown eyes. Long lashes. He’s tall and lean and handsome,” she swooned.
“I thought you didn’t like Trenchers.”
“He’s probably the only exception to that rule, not that my father would ever approve of a Trencher for a husband, but the Slopers love him. He’s fastest to deliver anything, and strong enough to carry anything we order home.”
“You say Karis is blind?”
“Yes, she is. It’s strange, though…”
“What is strange?” I prodded.
She sighed. “The last time I saw her, she looked at me. And it felt like she could see me, but she uses a stick to feel in front of her, and at the time, Iric was guiding her. I’d said hello because he had just been to our house earlier that day. He introduced her to me.”
I blew out a breath. Karis was in Ironton, living with a human male in a slum. How in the hell was I going to get through the wall? The information would be valuable to Nemain, but if I didn’t return to her with Karis, she wouldn’t bring my father’s life force back.
“Trava, are you sure you don’t want to return to Ironton?”
She coughed and blood blossomed across her middle. I knew she wouldn’t survive the trip back to Ironton. “I’m sure,” she asserted. “I don’t want to shame my family.”
She was choosing death. “I want you to walk north. Don’t stop until you come to a wide river.” She wouldn’t make it another half mile. How she’d survived thus far was pure luck, but she clearly didn’t want to return to Ironton, and I wouldn’t take her life. “If you hear another fae, climb a tree if you can. Try to get away. And don’t trust them. Don’t give them your name.”
“Okay.” She blinked and began walking in the direction I instructed, and I made tracks toward Ironton with an unsettled feeling in my gut. There could be other humans named Karis, but what were the odds? If the missing princess were indeed hidden within the human city, how in the hell was I going to get her out? If Trava wasn’t dying, I would have sent her in to get Karis. However, in her condition, she wouldn’t be able to search the Trenches for the blind girl.
I had to find another way, or else find another human whose guts weren’t spilling out of her abdomen.
The magic was strong enough that I couldn’t pass through the wall.
At least, I thought it was.
There was only one way to find out, and I had to figure something out fast. Nemain didn’t say how long I had, but I knew her patience was worn thin
ner than the wall I was about to try to break through.
KARIS
I watched the wall until Iric stirred, mesmerized and unable to glance away from the undulating surface. The fae I saw on the other side didn’t linger and hadn’t returned. It still felt like a dream. I pinched myself often enough to know that I was lucid, but it didn’t seem real.
Now I knew what Iric meant when he described it as less a wall and more a dome that settled over the city. Broad at the base and arced over Ironton, its top was clear and completely open, with no smoke roiling over the sky. But that was all I could see; the wall, the smoke within it, and the things that were trying to get into the city. When I tried to inspect my hands, the damp skirts over my legs, the grass beneath my fingers, or the watchtower itself, I saw nothing but darkness. In Ironton, I was still blind.
The Governor made a mistake. Trava couldn’t have been gifted with fae sight, because I was. And I received the gift precious hours too late to stop her. But what if I could save her? What if I could get the smoke and save us all?
By dawn, the reasons why I should go far outweighed the reasons I shouldn’t. I’d been given a gift and needed to be brave enough to use it. On my own.
“Iric?”
I needed supplies, and Iric could help me get them. His sleepy reply came from above. “Yeah?”
“Can you come down here?”
“What are you doing?” I listened as he climbed down from the tower and reached a hand out to him. His callouses brushed my skin as he took hold of my hand. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. What is it?”
“Iric, something is very wrong on the other side of the wall.” My lips and chin trembled as I spoke the words. I thought I’d calmed myself down by now, but was wrong.
“Did you hear something? Do we need to sound the bell?” he asked anxiously.
I swallowed thickly. “No, but I saw it. I can see through the smoke, Iric. I’ve been gifted with the faery sight.”
Glamour of Midnight Page 3