Mystwalker 01: The Trouble with Fate

by Leigh Evans

  The light inside her amber core flashed orange.

  Danger. “What? Where?”

  She stabbed a bristling leaf over my shoulder. I turned my head. Behind us, Biggs was crouched over, his hands reaching down for Lou.

  My stomach tightened. “If I could, I’d kill her for what she has done to you … if I had ever thought she was that dangerous…” My voice trailed off. A lie. I’d always known she was deadly, but I hadn’t anticipated her hurting me or mine. So I mixed a morsel of truth with a tidbit of false promise and fed it to my friend. “I can’t do anything to her because we need her. Once we get to Merenwyn…” A weak threat. Lou would be stronger in the Fae realm.

  Merry’s ivy prickled needle-sharp. “Listen!” her body silently screamed. Her stone pulsated with hues. Red. Purple. Orange. A hysterical flurry of flash cards. Love. Pain. Danger. “Listen!” She gestured to the water once more.

  My eyes searched the pond. Water, iron-tainted. Floating body. George staring up at us from the log. Lilies …

  “Oh Sweet Jesus!” Biggs exclaimed, recoiling from Lou’s limp body.

  The mist licked over my aunt’s torso, sipping at the Fae in her, but Lou lay quietly under its caress. She was oddly limp, her face frozen in an expression of fixed hunger. Her mouth slightly open, her eyes unblinking.

  “What is it?” I heard Cordelia say.

  No, no, no. My hands crept up to cover my mouth.

  “She’s dead,” said Biggs. “I didn’t do it! I put her on the floor and she … was just gone!” He touched her chest, his face appalled.

  A sweeping tsunami of cold horror swallowed me whole. “She killed Mannus,” I said, feeling the panic rise. “I forgot about the mate bond. I knew it was hurting her, but with everything that happened … oh my Goddess, I wanted her dead. I wanted to kill her myself. And now she is dead and she can’t guide us.” My eyes flew to the gate. “Without her, we can’t find Merenwyn. I don’t know the way. You have to know the way! The winds … we’ll get lost in them.” “An endless hell for the wrong traveler,” Mad-one had said. Those voices! Not demons from the land in-between, but lost souls screaming from within the portal walls.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  My mate’s life was leaking away, right here, while I knelt beside him, staring in growing hysteria at Merenwyn’s green fields. Yes, Trowbridge’s pulse was a little stronger. His breathing a little less shallow. But for how long? Not forever. A little bit of fairy juice riding a current of air couldn’t be expected to support his life—and for crap’s sake, mine—for eternity. Its healing touch was ephemeral and unreliable; not a cure, only a promise of one.

  Merry stretched an insistent tendril toward the water. “What is it with the freakin’ water!” My gaze roved over it and found the answer.

  One Royal Amulet, floating on a lily pad, at the deep end of the pond.

  I raised my hand, pointed my finger, and said, “Up.” And nothing happened. “Up!” There was no itch in my fingers. No exultant rush up through my veins. My magic slept. “He will have to wait.” Merry sent up a color flare of distress. “I don’t have any juice left, and he’s safe enough now…” My voice floundered. Merry jabbed at the Royal Amulet again. “I know, Merry.” Her jabs turned into stabs—furious, pointed, and urgent. “What do you want from me? Can’t you see…” The tip of her leaf touched my mouth. Lay there trembling, the same shushing gesture she’d used to calm me when I was little. She pointed to herself, then to Bridge, and then, finally, to the portal.

  Hope flamed inside me. “You know the way. You can take Trowbridge to Merenwyn. You’ll get him to the Pool of Life…”

  My words dribbled away, because a warning blip of purple began throbbing in her center. She turned a leaf flat to me, poised it like a crossing guard’s sign. Then very slowly, she tipped the leaf toward me, and then down to the Royal Amulet floating on his precarious leaf.

  Ah. I saw it then. A trade.

  “You’ll do it if I stay here and rescue your prince.” She made a go-on motion. “Help him heal … keep him safe from harm. Sure, Merry, I can…” I could hear myself speak. The glibness. The quick assurance.

  And something strange happened. It felt like I stood outside myself for a second, and saw all of us. My unmoving mate. Cordelia’s heavy frown. The gate’s glittering vision of Merenwyn. And me, the girl with the quick, meaningless promise, with an amulet perched on her shoulder.

  And in so doing, I saw the thorn in me. The thing Merry already had recognized.

  The balance of our future relied on the value of the one quality I’d forgotten I’d ever owned.

  My word of honor.

  My cheeks burned with shame.

  “But for that to work,” I said, quietly, “you’d have to believe that I’d keep to my word. That I’d feed him and protect him. That I wouldn’t forget or rationalize that it was too difficult.” I stared at Merenwyn, where all hope lay, but inside my mind’s eye, I was seeing something far less pretty.

  All the lies. All the twists from truth, and the quick-steps away from responsibilities.

  “I know the difference between right and wrong. Sometimes I make the wrong choice, but it’s never because … That’s a lie, isn’t it? I don’t make decisions based on right or wrong. I always opt for the easiest thing.” I touched my mate, and felt the coolness of his flesh. Then I slanted my eyes to my friend. “I’ve lied to you at least a hundred times. And to others, whom I love, I’ve lied … And broken promises more times than I can count … forgotten stuff I shouldn’t have … but if you can tru—” I looked away and swallowed hard, but the burning ache in my throat didn’t go away. I felt her heat warm my shoulder, encouraging me to go on.

  It came out raw. “Trust me. Just this one more time. Please, Merry. Trust my word. I will rescue him and care for him as if he were my Trowbridge.”

  For the space of two of Bridge’s wet breaths, she thought about it. And then from deep inside her, I saw a warm dark ember of red.

  I held out my palm.

  She crawled into it and curled a leaf around my thumb.

  My chin crumpled.

  * * *

  And so, the last of the worst.

  Cordelia cradled Trowbridge’s head as I carefully drew Merry’s chain over his matted curls. I hid my sadness with lowered eyes, and nestled her in the hollow of his throat. A warm pulse, a little cradle to keep her snug as they soared to Merenwyn. She shortened her chain, and tightened her grip, twining her tendrils securing links of her gold necklace. Seat belt on, ready for the perilous winds.

  I bent down to brush Trowbridge’s lips. “Get to the Pool, no matter how you hurt.” His eyes moved restlessly under his lids. “If you—when you come back, you won’t find Candy. You need to know that.”

  I laid another kiss on my finger then brushed it across my amulet’s amber core. “I’ll keep my promise, Merry-mine. You know the way. Take him home.” A tendril of gold briefly touched my finger in response. I smiled. A weak effort. “Remember to abandon ship well before he hits the water.”

  I’ve witnessed enough soul death this day, please let Merry remember the way.

  Another loud boom made us flinch.

  No more time.

  I settled my sooty hands on his legs. Cordelia gave me a resolute smile, the type Daniel probably gave the lion. She placed her hands, one on his bicep, one on his hip. She swung her head my way, and raised her eyebrow. The wind whipped her hair off her face, stripping away her artifice, showing me her bones and grit.

  How had I ever thought her plain?

  She nodded to me, a silent signal that time had ended.

  Together, Cordelia and I sent them to Merenwyn. The wind chimes tinkled their haunting song as the gate’s mouth caught Trowbridge’s feet, and sucked them inward. His fingers twitched as his torso was tugged across the threshold. I watched the last curl of his trailing hair disappear through the mouth, thinking, Come back to me.

  Thump …

  Don
’t die.

  Thump.

  And then my world and history changed, one more time. My mate and friend flickered between this world and that, and were gone.

  * * *

  We waited. I found my lips moving on their own. One thousand. Two thousand. Nothing. Merenwyn’s green field lay empty. He’s dead. It was too late. A yellow wildflower nodded in its wind. Twenty thousand. Twenty-two. It’s been too long. What have I done? The land-in-between … I took a step toward the gate.

  “Wait, the bells are still ringing,” Cordelia said. “Watch the surface.”

  The faintest ripple shivered across it. It grew, and bloomed, a circle within a circle, until the entire surface was distorted with concentric rings. Through them, I saw the broken image of a shooting blur of gray. The image lingered, frozen, as the gate’s skin gave one last shimmering undulation before it settled.

  He landed hard in Merenwyn, all four feet splayed in the grassy field. For a few seconds, Trowbridge’s wolf just lay there, sides heaving. Then he lifted his massive gray head, and rolled onto his side. His ears twitched as he inspected the world around him. He tried to stand. Fell. Tried again and this time made it to his feet. A huge canine shake, from head to stern. Something bright gold flew off his neck and bounced into the grass.

  Oh Goddess. That was Merry. How will he get to the Pool of Life?

  His wolf’s face was lean and angular, with darkly rimmed eyes set tilted in a white mask. The same black outlined his lips, giving him a clever, foxlike mouth. He had streaks of blood on his thick coat but still he was large and powerful, even listing to one side as he stood on his throne of flattened weeds.

  His ears flicked forward as he tested the wind for its scents. Then, favoring a paw, he limped across the grass toward the gate. Closer and closer he came, stopping only when he was a few feet from the portal. Trowbridge’s wolf made an anxious noise, part yelp, part yawn, followed by another sharp bark that made my Were tremble.

  “Here,” I whispered. His head snapped up. Then, his dark-rimmed eyes looked through Merewyn’s gate, straight through one realm into another. There was intelligence in those honey-brown eyes. But they were indifferently predatory, until—

  They found me.

  For a breath his eyes remained golden. On the next they flared blue. The pure, clean fire of his Alpha flame tinted my face, reached into my heart and held it warm and safe. My eyes burned. My chin came up, my face softened, and I flared.

  “Look at that!” said Biggs, as everything around us turned turquoise blue.

  I was the one. The one.

  But I’d forgot about Karma, hadn’t I? She sat down beside Fate and murmured something in her ear. And then because there is a cost to every deed, Merenwyn delivered its final slap. A breeze ruffled the wolf’s fur, slid over his snout, and slipped through the gate.

  Trowbridge’s scent was hot and layered. A wedge of love, a segment of pain, and a thick core of fury.

  Cordelia’s mouth barely moved. “We did the unforgivable when we broke the Treaty.”

  And I am not sweet as Candy.

  The wolf took two steps backward. Three more, then another. Alpha proud, he painfully backed up, veering a little more to the left as he favored his right side. He sank lower, until he was crouched on trembling haunches. I saw his fierce blue eyes measure the distance. And then I realized with a sickening drop of my stomach that he was coming back. Without the healing. Without an amulet to guide him through the terrible wind.

  “You’re not strong enough to do it again. You’ll die,” I said, whisper soft. “We’ll die.”

  His muzzle crinkled up into a snarl.

  I’d learned some things over the last forty-eight hours. How you can love, and be loved, and still not come out of it with a love.

  “Sy’ehella,” I said.

  The pregnant hush of our realm was pierced by the pitiless screams of a hundred trapped souls from the land-in-between. In Merenwyn, his gray wolf let out a howl of pure rage.

  And this time, without an Alpha to muck up the works, the gate did what it was supposed to do. Smoothly, without fanfare, its liquid surface clouded over and choked off those terrible cries. “Jump, girl!” Cordelia said as she leaped for safety. Biggs soon followed.

  It would have been the smart thing to do.

  But I stayed, believing the portal would linger as long as I knelt beside it and waited. Merry would find him. Together they’d make it to the Pool. He’d be back soon.

  Heartsick stupid, that was.

  The portal to Merenwyn didn’t give a flying fig about my self-imposed vigil of penitence and woe. Around me, the high, shimmering columns slumped and flattened until they were nothing more than a lazy circuit of rolling, white fog sheathing the softening floor. Then the wondrous pink lights dimmed, one by one. The sky grew gray.

  It wouldn’t leave, it couldn’t leave.

  But it did.

  When the gate was less than a transparent wash before my eyes, I raised my hand to touch it. It scattered like ash. Gone, I thought, as the floor beneath me fragmented.

  I fell.

  Were-sired, Fae-bred, mortal soft, I plummeted earthward. I felt the sharp streak of pain as my foot glanced off the log; another bone-crunching hurt as my hip smacked a moment later. And then—

  I was plunging into the fairy pond’s bitter cold, feet first, arms trailing high over my head. Past my knees, just an instant. Past my thighs, just a flash. Past my heart—

  Oh Goddess, I still had one.

  The iron scum on the pond’s bottom waited. My pointed feet sank into the mud, drilling deep through accumulated years of rot and slime, cutting like a butter knife through a bottomless layer of sludge and compost, until finally, my descent stopped.

  I floated, feet caught.

  The iron-poisoned sludge wrapped cold hands around my ankles and squeezed.

  I was just mortal-me. No longer strong-by-three. I felt the cold creep up my legs, the burn in my chest for air, and realized I am going to haunt the fairy pond.

  Enough. There was no plan. Just instinct.

  Hedi chose life.

  Four frantic backstrokes earned freedom for my right foot. I searched for a toehold and found one as my bare toe brushed against the soft, rounded hump of a large granite rock—the twin of Lexi’s pirate rock; waiting for me where the last ice age had left it, patient, under all the lily pads and sludge, knowing that I’d find it again. I flattened my right foot on its rounded top, bent at my knees and shoved off.

  Pop! The mud spat me free. Cheeks fat with souring air, I winnowed my way skyward. My head broke surface. My first breath was greedy and foul; a mixture of oxygen and swamp water. Coughing and spluttering, I dog-paddled my way to the log. Too tired to swim any farther, I stayed low in the water and wrapped a weary arm around the sacred old pine trunk.

  I looked up into the sky.

  What was left of Merenwyn’s portal shimmered like a shred of white gauze floating on a zephyr of air. Then, in silence, it vanished as the sun sank below my horizon.

  Gone.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Open your eyes, you bloody stupid girl.” I was being smothered by a wet towel. “Don’t make me smack you again. Wake up.”

  I wish people would stop hitting me.

  When I rolled my head away from the wet, breathing became easier. I coughed a bit, and felt a hand whack me on my back again. My cheek stung. So … I could feel pain again. I could sense when something was dry, and when something was wet.

  “Open your eyes,” said the same throaty voice. “We’re not out of trouble yet.”

  I was afraid to open my eyes.

  “They’re through the wards.” A different speaker; this one much younger and male. “We’re shit out of luck if she doesn’t open her eyes and flare. Do you think she can do it again? We could really use an ace up our sleeve.”

  I was sitting upright, my back being supported by someone who felt warm. My ribs and hips hurt, my hands throb
bed. A hand smoothed my hair back. Fingers briefly touched the curve of my ear. “You can’t let them win,” she whispered. I heard a sniff. Refined. Snot withheld. “Not now. Not after what we’ve done.”

  I opened my eyes, and looked up into her blue ones. Not Trowbridge blue. Not Mannus blue. Cordelia blue. The cover-up had caked itself into the lines under her lower lashes. She had a smudge of mascara under one eye, and I could see one end of her false eyelashes had pulled away, and was coyly fluttering with each of my breaths.

  I bit my lip until it hurt. “I closed the gate on him.”

  “You did.”

  Tears welled.

  “None of that,” she said. “Look around you.” I turned my head against her bosom. Biggs was kneeling beside us. I didn’t know how I felt about that, so I turned my head back to her bosom.

  “No, over there,” Cordelia said firmly, steering my chin upward. An outline of people stood on top of the Trowbridge cliff. Too many to count. “And here,” she said, helping my head rotate toward my old home. More silhouettes.

  “The pack,” I said.

  “They’ve just watched you and Cordelia shove their brand-new Alpha through the Gate,” said Biggs. “You flared before, please tell me you can do it again.”

  “They don’t want me; they want him.”

  “Yes, but as long as you’re alive, and bear his scent, you’re proof that he’s living,” Biggs said. “So, in the meantime, you’re it. If you’ve got any flare that can impress the bejesus out of them, now’s the time to put on a light show.” Biggs still had clever eyes. “Anyhow,” he said with a lopsided smile. “He’ll be back. With his luck, he’ll come back smelling like roses.”

  More like freesias.

  “I’m not really his mate,” I said.

  “Yes you are,” said Cordelia in a hard voice. “In every way.”