by Jocelyn Fox
I pushed a fig into the soft underbelly of a bread slice. “I haven’t seen what you’ve seen. But I understand as much as I can, I think.” I blew out a breath. “We’ll take it as it comes.”
“That’s the only way to do it.” She tore into a piece of meat. “Day by day. Hour by hour if you must.”
“Speaking of days,” I said, finishing the last of the food on my plate, “I think I’m going to sleep for a whole one.”
Vell raised her eyebrows. “Poisoned dragon ash really takes it out of you, or so I’ve heard.”
That coaxed a smile out of me. “Are you Northerners immune to everything? I mean, iron…dragon poison…”
She shrugged, grinning her wolf-grin. “We’re mutts, no two ways about it, and that works in our favor sometimes.” Rocking back on her haunches, she added, “Though being from a long line of wolf-chosen doesn’t hurt.” She motioned to the cushioned ledge. “Sleep.”
“If they find Luca and Merrick and…well, if they find everyone—”
“I’ll wake you,” she promised. She settled cross-legged in the middle of the room and produced a whetting-stone, laying out all her blades on the bright robin’s egg blue of the plush rug.
As I pulled off my boots, I remembered that tonight was the night that I was meeting Ramel and Liam in the ether. A little frission of excitement burst through my veins. For a moment I forgot I was tired, but when I laid down on the thick cushion of the ledge my entire body ached with both exhaustion and pleasure, the soft delicate bedding a delicious counterpoint to my tender muscles. My eyes drifted shut of their own volition, and I thought I heard Vell softly singing a sweet, wild lullaby as she covered me with a blanket.
Chapter 31
I woke gasping, heaving for breath, my body covered in a cold sweat. I kicked at the blanket tangled around my legs.
“What’s wrong, Tess?” Vell’s face glowed ethereally, lit by the flickering candle of the lantern she held in one hand.
I sat up and scrubbed at my face with my hands, trying to sort through the maelstrom of thoughts and emotions whirling through my head. My voice came out a croak. “Have they found the others yet?”
“Yes,” Vell said. “I just got word.”
“Good. At least there’s that.” I swallowed, forced myself to take a deep breath.
“Tell me what happened.” It was no longer a question.
“A few nights ago I met my brother Liam while I was Walking. Before I brought Murtagh back to the camp from Darkhill.”
“Your brother is still in your world.”
“Yes. At least…I hope so. We were supposed to meet again tonight. Liam and Ramel. I talked to Ramel when I was in Darkhill.”
Vell pressed her mouth into a thin line. “And neither of them kept the appointment.”
I shook my head miserably. “There’s more.” I struggled to keep my tone even and failed, words squeezing past the lump fast forming in my throat. “When I went to where…where we were supposed to meet, in the ether, it was a specific pocket…”
Sudden nausea rose up in my stomach. The Sword thrummed in its sheath, balanced by the edge of the bed against the wall. I took comfort in its low hum. Vell waited.
“It was all ash.” My voice came out a whisper. “Ash and embers. And I could feel…” I shivered involuntarily. “I could feel him. It. Whatever…whatever this thing is that we’re fighting. That we’re about to go find.” I fought the urge to be sick. “It knew where we were going to meet. And it razed it to the ground.” The image of my childhood home reduced to gray-ash timbers, cracked and peeling like the biggest log in a fireplace, floated before me, a very real specter. Walking was not reality, I knew that, but I’d still seen it. I’d stood in front of the ashes, too shocked and numb to do much more than stare, before realizing that whatever power had ripped into the ether and scarred it would most likely be able to kill me in Walker-form, too.
I pressed my head into my hands. “This enemy…it’s stronger than I realized.” I wished I hadn’t said the words aloud. It sounded too much like doubt. “We need Titania. We need at least one of the Queens to stand with us.”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Vell asked.
I pulled on my boots. “We should go. I don’t like the idea of staying here any longer. Where are the others?”
“About an hour’s ride out, from what I was just told.” Vell suddenly crouched down, eyes distant and staring as she went still. I could almost see Beryk in the watchful lines of her body, the sharp flare of her nostrils, the gleam of teeth as she drew her lips back silently. “Something is watching us,” she said in a low voice. “Something not entirely…living.”
“What else is new,” I muttered, but a twinge of foreboding still tugged at me. Something, not someone. “Do you know what it is?”
Vell tilted her head. “No. It’s staying in the shadows.” Her eyes narrowed. “The Seelie know it is here. They are wary of it but not afraid.”
“How do you know that?”
A shudder ran through Vell like a dog shaking water from its coat and she blinked once. The taut lines of her body softened slightly. She looked at me and said simply, “Because Beryk has been watching them all day and into the night. Come on.”
We silently donned our weapons. My dagger didn’t fit as well into my new boot but the Sword’s bandolier slid over my chest as though I’d worn it all my life. I fastened my plain sword at my hip and glanced enviously at Vell’s bow and quiver. All in good time, I promised myself. Surely Brightvale would have an armory to rival the greatest medieval castle in the mortal world, and I’d have my pick of blades and bows before we rode out for our final battle. I paused as Vell strode toward the wall-hanging. “Are we climbing down in the dark?”
“No. Apparently the Court-breds think it amusing to make their guests clamber up like squirrels on their first visit.”
“Don’t tell me there’s a staircase,” I said as I followed Vell out into the velvety darkness. The snatches of moonlight filtering through the tree branches illuminated our path. As we stepped out onto the branch, two lines of little nodding silver flowers opened before our feet, glowing in the darkness, their petals unfurling as though our first step onto the tree had caused a ripple.
“I’ll do better than tell you, I’ll show you,” replied Vell, walking with quick light strides down the silver-lit path. I did my best to match her confident pace. The flowers unfurled before us and closed behind us in an eerily beautiful wave of pale light, echoing the moon above us. I hooked one finger into Gwyneth’s pendant as we fairly leapt down the path. A silver glow suddenly appeared level with my head and I experienced a moment of vertigo as I thought one of the moon-flowers had suddenly levitated. But the glow intensified and grew a comet-tail of indigo and scarlet, streaking toward us, deftly avoiding the branches and bursting through leaves.
“Tess-mortal,” came the high trilling cry, and I had time to brace myself slightly before Farin’s small form barreled into me, burrowing into the curve of my neck. I put up a cupped hand to steady her, still following Vell. Farin spoke high and fast in the melodious Glasidhe tongue, a stream of words that I didn’t understand, but I could hear it in her voice—the joy and relief and the vestiges of some great terror.
In front of me, Vell vanished into the trunk of the tree. I stopped short, looking suspiciously at the very solid-looking trunk. Or at least it looked solid, in the darkness, because when I stepped forward I felt a strange tug and then I was standing on a small landing before an all-white staircase that spiraled down into the trunk of the tree. Glowing sconces lit the walls—the wooden walls. I didn’t spare time to think about the mechanics of how exactly I’d gotten through the trunk, or how exactly the staircase had been crafted in the center of a living tree. I felt a moment’s indignation at being made to climb the tree rather than walk up the stairs the first time, but it quickly faded as Vell started down the stairs at an impossibly fast pace, soon disappearing from my view. After ensur
ing that Farin was still curled into the hollow near my collarbone, I started down after Vell.
I was soon reminded that going down stairs sometimes presents as much of a challenge as going up stairs…especially if you were following a particularly fast-moving ulfdrengr down a tightly curved path. My legs ached but I forced myself to keep Vell in view and not think about what would happen if I missed a step and went tumbling down, bounced like a pinball off the smooth walls until the tree spat me out at the bottom. After a few long minutes of trilling Glasidhe, Farin fell silent. I could feel her trembling against my neck. Finally she spoke into my ear.
“The fire-breather, the monster, the nightmare,” she said, “we thought it had found you, Tess-mortal, Lady Bearer. Not even the valor of a wolf-warrior would save you against its fire!”
“It almost found us,” I said a little breathlessly, focusing on the steps. “We hid under a dead cadengriff.”
I heard rather than saw Farin spit to one side in disgust.
“But then the Seelie found you instead,” she said. “The bright-born, the Summerfree, the golden ones.”
“They’re not that…different…than the Unseelie,” I said, even though it wasn’t really true. I wasn’t loyal to Mab, but I thought of Ramel, Bren, Guinna, Merrick, Murtagh and all the Unseelie who had fought beside me in the Royal Woods.
“They are self-styled heirs to the sun and the summer,” Farin said, as though that explained it all. She patted my ear with one small hand. “They are very different, Tess-mortal.”
“How did you escape the dragon?” I asked, feeling thoroughly slow as I lost sight of Vell around the curve of the staircase for the second time in as many minutes.
Farin’s wings shifted in agitation against my skin, burning-bright silky wisps. “Finnead found a gate. Or not exactly found it, but…”
“A gate? In the forest?”
“A tear, more like,” the Glasidhe scout clarified. “As though it’d been torn.”
My stomach sank. “As though what had been torn, Farin?”
She leaned in close to my ear. “The veil between the worlds.”
I almost ran into Vell as the staircase abruptly ended.
“Farin.” The Glasidhe leapt from my shoulder to hover at eye level. “You said the veil between the worlds?”
Farin’s aura pulsed with agitated scarlet. “Yes, Tess-mortal, I already said that.”
Vell pressed her hand against the trunk and gave a sound of satisfaction when she found the place where her fingers slid through the wood. She squared her shoulders and walked through the trunk. I closed my eyes and pressed through the tree. It felt like walking through a thick layer of mud—not wet, but that sucking resistance—and then I stumbled out into the moonlit forest.
Under the unblinking gaze of the unseen moon, hidden by layers and layers of shadow-dipped leaves, the forest floor was a patchwork of light and dark, pools of silver and hollows of darkness. No shining flowers unfurled before our feet as I followed Vell, my eyes adjusting to the new form of night. Farin leapt from my shoulder and flew before us, her comet-bright aura illuminating our path. We didn’t travel far from the tree. Vell stopped in the center of three birch trees, their slender trunks bright in the darkness. She unslung her bow and slid an arrow from her quiver. I knew enough of her instincts for the hairs on the back of my own neck to stand up. Farin unsheathed her own small blade with a little hiss, her fear gone at the prospect of a foe to fight on the ground. I rested my hand on the hilt of my plain blade. The Sword stayed silent.
“Something watching us,” Vell murmured, her eyes focused on the shadows beyond the farthest slim tree. Straining my eyes, I barely made out the suggestion of Beryk in the darkness—the sketch of an ear, what I thought was the curve of his tail, the sheen of the moonlight on his sable fur. He crouched motionlessly, facing that same patch of darkness.
“Good, you heard,” said Sage, striding up behind us with cat-quiet steps. “They’ll be arriving soon.”
Vell hissed at him between her teeth without taking her eyes from her invisible quarry, flexing her long pale fingers on the shaft of her nocked arrow. Sage looked at me questioningly, golden hair luminous even in the night.
“There’s something in the shadows watching us,” I said quietly.
“Of course there is,” Sage replied. “She’s been there for a few days now. We’ve caught a few glimpses.”
“She?” I raised my eyes.
“A girl, or a young woman.” The Seelie shrugged eloquently. “She just watches. There’s a whiff of power about her, but nothing extraordinary.”
“And you’re okay with some random girl just…creepily hanging around the edge of your camp?”
“We have our defenses,” he said. “Not visible, but they’re still there.”
I thought of the vines wrapping the trunk of the tree and realized how very suited they would be to the task of restraining an intruder.
He shrugged again. “She’s alone. If she wishes us to help her, she’ll let herself be seen eventually.”
Vell shook her head. “You’re wrong.”
Sage cocked his head to one side. “How so, lady ulfdrengr?”
“Her power runs deep. She’s trying to hide it. She’s no innocent girl.”
“And you can tell this from staring into the woods at night,” Sage said.
An edge of cold pine-tinged air swirled around us.
“I wouldn’t question Vell’s ability to sense these things,” I advised Sage.
Sage seemed indifferent. “As you wish then, Lady Bearer.” He paused. “They’re here. Come.”
“Vell?” I looked over my shoulder after a few steps. She stared into the darkness for a moment more, then turned on her heel and followed after me.
Sage led us around the trunk of the tree. Ahead there was a ring of waist-high stones in a larger meadow. As we crossed the ring, the stones flared to life with a gentle, pulsing light, enough to illuminate the meadow in an eerie semblance of a silver-washed day. Riders cantered into the meadow, all riding gleaming white faehal. As they slowed, I picked out one steed burdened with two figures, the more slender of the two holding the one in front with an arm across his chest. I started running toward them.
Vell was close behind me as the riders drew their mounts to a trot, then to a halt. Two ripples through the long grass announced the arrival of Kianryk and Rialla. I counted three dark heads. Finnead, Murtagh and Merrick. I picked out Chael’s silver hair as he slid down from his mount. Chael and the two wolves converged on the steed carrying double.
An iron vise squeezed my chest as Gray looked down at us from behind Luca. “He’s alive,” she said.
“What happened?” I asked breathlessly.
“He was shot,” Finnead replied, sliding past me to steady Luca as Gray handed him down to Chael and Vell.
I blinked. “What did you say?”
“Shot,” Finnead repeated.
“With a…gun?”
“With a semi-automatic military-grade rifle, to be precise.” A fine dust coated Finnead’s boots. I frowned, a memory-chord struck.
“The shot would have killed one of us,” said Merrick. “Lucky we had a second ulfdrengr to remove the bullet.”
Luca was sitting in the long grass, his right arm held protectively across his side. He leaned against Chael and grimaced as Vell lifted his shirt to check the stained bandage wrapped around his ribs. “It was only a glancing shot,” he said to her. She merely grunted and kept prodding.
Kianryk ghosted into view and fluidly took Chael’s place. Luca leaned back against the wolf, a forebearing look on his face as he glanced at Vell. The Sidhe stood a few respectful paces away, the Seelie and Unseelie separated into groups.
“He took a bullet for the Vaelanbrigh, you know,” Gray said, crossing her arms across her shapely chest. Her dazzling eyes rested appraisingly on Luca.
“He’s not the Vaelanbrigh anymore,” I said without thinking. For some reason Gray’s words r
iled a ridge of jealousy in me. I didn’t like the way she looked at Luca, like she was judging a horse or a hunting hound.
Gray turned her luminous eyes to me. “Oh, I know.” She smiled. “I know many things about you, Lady Bearer.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “Thank you for bringing us here.”
“Us?” she raised an eyebrow. “And here I thought you were traveling to Brightvale for aid.”
That raised my hackles. “If you’re fighting Malravenar, you’re our allies.”
“Allies.” She pressed together her full lips. “It is a time beyond my memory when last the Seelie and Unseelie were allies.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Haven’t you ever heard that?”
“It is a quaint little saying. I would not mind taking a few of your friends for my own.” She punctuated her statement with another bright grin. Her gaze shifted to Finnead, who stood talking in a low voice to Merrick and Murtagh. The Unseelie, it seemed, had bonded during their escape from the dragon. Or perhaps it was just because they’d realized they disliked the Seelie more than each other.
“By all means,” I murmured, trying to sound nonchalant as I shifted my focus back to Luca. Gwyneth’s pendant heated at my throat. I hooked two fingers through its curve, frowning.
“The…bullet…most likely hit a rib,” Vell said, rolling the thoroughly mortal word on her tongue. “But the wound is clean.”
Though I’d turned away, I felt Gray slide closer to me. Then her hands were on my elbows and I was facing her again as though I’d thought of it myself. “Oh, come now,” she said, her voice barely more than a purr. “You must understand, my dear Bearer, that no less than half of what we Seelie say is mere frivolity. We can’t resist, especially because it’s been so boring for the past few centuries.” She raised one eyebrow. “These are exciting times.”
I looked over her shoulder and stiffened. The expression on my face was enough to prompt Gray to turn as well. Just outside the circle of glowing stone markers, a dark-haired girl stood in the long grass, eerily still. Slowly the gathered Sidhe fell silent and watched her along with Gray and me. I heard Vell’s breath catch in her throat. The grass parted as Beryk rocketed to Vell’s side, ears laid flat on his skull, a long low growl rumbling continuously from his throat.