The Autumn Fairy (The Autumn Fairy Trilogy Book 1)

by Brittany Fichter

  “Atharo will give my ancestors their punishment.” Peter held the olc’s gaze.

  “I’m afraid that’s the answer of a coward.” Again, the iron swung. This time it hit Peter’s knee. He cried out before he could stop himself.

  “The blood of the kings that killed thousands of innocents runs through your veins, and you suggest you have no responsibility?” The iron met Peter’s rib cage.

  “I can’t change the past!” Peter shouted. “But I’ve spent my entire life trying to protect her from it!”

  Tearlach placed the poker on the stone floor like a cane. “And for that, I am grateful.” His tone was amiable again. “It’s the reason I didn’t kill you sooner.”

  “So you weren’t my attacker on the mountain when I was a boy?”

  “I was. And I’ll admit, I thought about killing you. But I didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  The olc paused, then began to pace thoughtfully. “I found something…more worthwhile.”

  “Why did you come back?” Peter did his best to stay standing, but his legs were getting weaker.

  Tearlach made a face at him, and for the first time, his voice was sour. “Why do you think? I knew I couldn’t entrust her happiness to you. Oh, come. Don’t look at me like that. It was you who proposed to that noble brat, wasn’t it? Or was that some other prince?”

  Peter wanted so badly to argue, to shout that he was wrong. But the olc was right. He had chosen Saraid.

  “And what about that little scene you hid from her at the waterfall? I suppose you told her about it later?”

  Peter felt angry tears prick his eyes.

  “That’s what I thought.” Tearlach resumed his casual pacing in front of Peter.

  “I may have been a fool with love,” Peter tried to speak clearly through the sticky residue in his dry mouth, “but I have been trying to move the world for her.He tried to stand up straight, but it was difficult. “Let me see her! I need to know she’s well!”

  Tearlach watched him thoughtfully for a long time before shrugging. “Very well.” He turned and stuck his head out the door. “Clarisant, our guest wishes to see you.”

  “Clarisant?” Peter frowned.

  “Her given name.” His lips thinned a bit. “Her fairy name, given before your father ever set eyes on her.”

  Fairy? Peter tried to remember if he’d ever read anything about fairies, but he didn’t have much time. The door opened again, and a familiar figure slid inside.

  “Katy!” Peter cried out.

  But instead of acknowledging him, Katy just watched him with wide eyes, her gaze flickering nervously to the other man, as though seeking reassurance. She still wore the unusual dress of green. It sparkled in the light of the fire, unlike her blue eyes, which showed no sign of recognition. She had never looked so beautiful. Or so lost.

  “What does he want?” she whispered, moving to stand behind his tormenter.

  “Katy, I came to save you! To bring you home!” Peter leaned forward, but his shackles kept him tightly in place. Icy fear began to trickle through his blood as she withdrew a step, moving into the shadows where she was nearly invisible.

  He turned back to the olc. “What have you done to her?”

  Instead of answering, the olc turned back to Katy. “See what I warned you about? Humans will try anything. He’s very convincing, isn’t he?”

  “He’s lying!” Peter shouted, straining against his chains again. “I don’t know what he’s told you, but it’s a lie! You belong with me! With people!”

  “And why, pray tell?” the man asked, his metallic green eyes darkening a tinge. “Because her own kind isn’t good enough?” A small, nearly invisible smile turned his mouth up at the corner. “Or is it because...”

  Peter ignored him and tried to make eye contact with her. Just look at me. Let her look at me, he prayed. “Katy,” he called more softly. “I made a promise to…” His voice faltered, and he licked his parched lips. “I came to keep that promise.”

  His voice broke as he pleaded, but he didn’t care. If only she would look at him, she could read his heart in his eyes. She always had. “Please, just...just look at me.” His words choked into a sob. But no matter how hard he looked at her, or how hard he begged Atharo, when she didn’t meet his eyes, he felt his heart break.

  The olc turned back to Katy. “Would you give us a few minutes alone? I’d like to talk with him again.”

  Katy, eyes still as round as teacups, nodded and stepped out the door again.

  “What did you do to her?” Peter lunged for Tearlach, but his chains held.

  “I’m giving her what she needs. A life and a future with her own kind where she has no one to fear.” He snorted. “And don’t look so self-righteous. You’ve had nearly twenty-one years to help her. Instead, you just succeeded in raising her hopes falsely again and again. And before you accuse me of being unfair, I had once thought you might actually do it.” He paused, his dark eyes glittering in the light of the fire. “But then you turned just like all the other miserable cowards in your line, and tried to hunt me down, too.”

  “I might not have, had my father been spared,” Peter spat back. “I had no reason to hunt your kind until he was killed by one. And then you went after the villages with whatever you’re doing to the forest—”

  “You act as though you’re innocent of the thousands of lives your line has taken.”

  “I did not commit my fathers’ sins!” Peter roared.

  “Utter denial. I had hoped for more from you.” He fingered the poker’s swirled decorative end. “But then, maybe I didn’t.” For the first time, he broke out in a hard grin. “You’ve been tried and found guilty. And I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

  “Guilty of what?” Peter demanded. “And who made you judge?”

  “All the stories say that Atharo helps the innocent and helpless. But if you’re so innocent, then tell me this!” He slammed the poker hard against Peter’s chest. Peter felt his breath leave him, but the olc continued, his eyes bright and his body wound tightly. “Why is the magic buried so deep inside you?” he shouted. “Why is there a wall erected around the power Atharo gifted your ancestors? A wall so thick that not even good intentions are enough to break through it!” He brought the iron down again on Peter’s back. “You may wish to be free of your fathers’ sins, but the blood is as thick on your hands as it ever was on theirs! And it always will be!”

  Peter wanted to shout his innocence, to declare himself free of the olc’s charges, the same charges that echoed the accusations he constantly heard in his head and heart since his talk with his uncle. But every time the iron struck his chest, it was all he could do to remember how to breathe. His armor had been stripped, and the shirt he had worn beneath lay in shreds across his torso, any protection it had once offered, gone.

  Peter finally gathered enough strength to raise his head. “And what about the blood on the hands of your parents? They killed Katy’s real parents.” He paused to swallow, but it was hard. “My father told me what he saw!”

  “Her parents were cowards, fleeing the other isles just when they had been given the kind of gift that our people have been waiting for!”

  “So your family followed them.”

  “They knew an autumn fairy was unusual. But instead of taking advantage of such a gift, they went into hiding. And when my parents confronted them about it, they tried to flee.”

  “And that doesn’t strike you as wrong?” Peter did his best to meet the olc’s eye. “Tracking down the family of a babe and fighting them with—”

  “She could change this isle! All the isles! And she still can!”

  Somewhere in the back of Peter’s mind, his father’s words echoed. She just might be the key to the isles’ healing and redemption! Ours and the others! How many hours had his father spent late at night, trying to solve the riddle offered by her parents?

  “And she still can,” the olc repeated, aiming another
blow at Peter’s left leg. “But she needed to be freed from the chains that held her down. Chains like you, who never saw her for what she is, only what she might be and how she might fit into your inane little world.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “You claim you love her, but you’ve never seen her true self, something rare and exotic and beautiful. You only sought to change what was unlike yourself. You never imagined that she could be something greater...something more!”

  “So why didn’t you kill me sooner and get on with it long ago?” Peter rasped. He needed to keep the olc talking. If only he could understand his purposes, make out his plan. But then…Well, Peter still wasn’t sure what he would do then.

  “She had to be ready. If she found out I had killed you or your father, she never would have believed me.”

  Rage flared within Peter, and he aimed a solid kick at the olc’s side. The olc stumbled and hit the side of the fireplace with a satisfying crack. When he stood, however, there was a new light to his eyes, one that made Peter second-guess his attack. He tried to focus, to keep the pain separate from his ability to think and speak. “Then…why…” he gasped. “Why take her memories at all?”

  The olc’s face fell infinitesimally. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to let her remain, just because that’s what she would have wanted. She was always so attached to her past. I wanted her to come to me of her own free will after seeing how you would fail her.” He threw Peter an irritated glance. “I knew you wouldn’t listen to my notes, but it was only fair to give you the chance, try to offer you an easy way out.

  “At the same time, she needed to see the futility of trusting humans. Despite your inaction, she did eventually accept my offer, and even decided to stay. But...” he shook his head, “I’m afraid she learned too much too soon. It was more than she was ready to handle.”

  Finally. The slip Peter had been waiting for. So he did have plans. Intricate ones, from what Peter guessed. “And you had to keep those plans from her.”

  Tearlach took a moment and composed himself. When the iron was resting once again on the hearth, he sighed. “In all honesty, I really do respect you. You’ve been more to her than anyone else. But someone has to pay the price, and it’s your turn, I’m afraid.” The olc leaned in as Peter gasped for breath, “So you don’t think me dishonorable, though, I’ll tell you something.”

  Peter did his best to glare.

  “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet. For the blood to be wiped from this land, it must be avenged. By keeping you alive through her manifestation, not only will she clear most of the humans from the isle for me, but the curse you bring down on them through your failure should take care of the rest.” He straightened. “If it serves as any consolation, she will rule the isle as queen, a privilege you would have denied her.” He backed up and nodded once. “That should assuage your conscience at least.”

  * * *

  Peter drifted in and out of consciousness more times than he could count. His nose throbbed and his body still ached from the lightning strike as well as Tearlach’s attack. His parched throat felt like he’d been eating mouthfuls of sand. When was the last time he’d had a drink of water or something to eat? Not that he could have eaten anything anyway.

  How had everything gone so wrong? “Firin Reaghan said you’re a god of mercy,” he whispered into the dark stillness of the room. “If that’s true, Firin Reaghan must have a strange sense of mercy.”

  Really, what had believing in Atharo achieved? Snickers in court when others thought he couldn’t hear. A dead knight and the betrayal of another. A kingdom in shambles because of a promise he’d made in childhood. His body beaten and covered in dried blood.

  And then there was Katy. The fear in her eyes haunted him even now as he moved in and out between twisted dreams and painful awareness. How had he been so blind? If Peter’s throat hadn’t felt like sandpaper, he would have shouted in rage, not only at Atharo, but at himself as well. The most precious jewel in the world had been his, and he’d practically given her away.

  In spite of his determination not to, Peter couldn’t help picturing Katy beside his captor. Full and vivacious, learning to see the world anew. With those flecks of amber inside her sky-blue eyes, she would turn to look at Tearlach in wonder, her head tilted at the angle that had always been reserved for him, that look of absolute trust. And that monster would lift his hand up to caress her cheek, then her neck. He would hold her waist and pull her close to him, and she would never wonder what might have been. One day, Peter shuddered, she might even bear his children. Tearlach would know the taste of her lips, and whenever she was frightened, she would snuggle beneath Tearlach’s chin, unaware that she should be running far, far away instead.

  A single drop slid down Peter’s cheek, but he couldn’t bring himself to wipe it away with his shoulder. For something inside him had broken. But it wasn’t a bone and he couldn’t blame the olc. He had broken himself. In losing Katy, he had shattered the shell of a man he’d managed to convince himself and the world that he was.

  He braced himself for more torture when the door opened again, but instead of the olc, the small silhouette of a woman was framed in the light from the hall.

  “Katy?” Peter called out. His voice felt like gravel.

  She didn’t answer, just watched him from those large, careful eyes as she set a bucket of water on the ground then pressed herself up against the wall.

  Peter licked his cracked lips and tried again. “My name is Peter—”

  “Tearlach said I’m not supposed to talk to you.” She glanced down at the bucket. “I’m supposed to clean the blood off and leave.”

  The little hope that Peter had managed to salvage crumbled. His face was a bloody wreck, but most of his injuries were below the skin. It wouldn’t be long at all before she was gone. He would have to think up a way to keep her curious. After all, she was a naturally curious person. Perhaps...just perhaps, he would bring back her memories, or enough at least to make her question the olc and his story. So he nodded.

  “Very well. May I have some water, first, though?”

  She had picked up the bucket again, put it down beside him, and pulled out a rag. As he asked the question, however, she froze.

  “Please.” He fixed his eyes on hers. She might not remember him, but it could only have been a little while since she’d lost her memory. Tearlach might have made her forget, but the olc couldn’t have completely changed who she was deep down.

  And if nothing else, Katy was kind.

  Slowly, so slowly, she lifted the bucket and inched forward until the bucket’s lip was at his mouth. And she didn’t lower it until he’d drunk his fill.

  Maybe Atharo was listening after all.

  “Thank you,” he whispered as she put the bucket on the ground again and wet the rag. Her hands steamed slightly as the water touched her skin. She didn’t answer him, just began wiping the blood from his wrists where the shackles had cut into them. He knew he didn’t have much time, so he went on. “I know you don’t remember me.”

  She glanced at him and continued her work.

  “But I have something I need to say nonetheless.” He took a deep breath, making his aching lungs scream. “I’m sorry. I’m so wretchedly sorry.” Suddenly it was impossible to meet her gaze. He let his head hang. “I’ve been a hypocrite. I come from a line of them, apparently, and now I’ve trapped us all in an endless maze of riddles and impossible promises and forgotten magic and...” his voice broke, “and I don’t know the way out.”

  The rag paused on his left wrist. Then it began moving again, this time on his chin. The touch felt strangely intimate. To have her so close...and still so far.

  “What’s worse,” he choked out, “is knowing how I’ve hurt you, and how utterly blind I’ve been. I thought I could fix everything.” He barked out a humorless laugh. “I was going to be the hero. For once in my life, I wasn’t going to be the clumsy coward.” He forced himself to look up at
her. “But instead of waiting and being patient, I let them choose what I should have chosen for myself. And what’s worse, I embraced it.” Literally. Every time he thought he was done remembering every touch or peck he had shared with Saraid, another memory resurfaced.

  Katy stayed silent as she wiped his ear. Peter didn’t even recall being struck there.

  “Katy, look at me.”

  Her brows furrowed, but it only made her somehow more mysterious and alluring in the light of the dancing fire, her natural demeanor in every way superior to Saraid’s carefully crafted facade.

  “My name is Clarisant.”

  “Katy, look at me!”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but something in his expression must have made her hesitate. “What do you want of me?” she whispered.

  Peter leaned in as close as his chains would allow. “I want you to know that I swore to save you not because I thought you were broken…but because I hated to see you frightened. Because you were the one to save me over and over again, and for once, I wanted to do the same for you.”

  “I never saved anyone,” she whispered, her face a ghostly white. They both jumped as a stone in the floor cracked beneath them. She moved to work faster, but Peter wasn’t going to be deterred.

  “When no one else believed in me,” he said, keeping his eyes on her face, “you saw what I could be.” He let his head hang once more. “I just wish I could have lived up to those dreams and proved you right.”

  Cool skin touched his feverish cheek and lifted his face. He found himself staring into her familiar azure depths.

  “Clarisant!” Tearlach called from down the hall. “Aren’t you finished?”

  Katy’s eyes widened and she tossed the rag into the bucket before picking it up so fast she sloshed half of it on the floor.

  “I love you, Katy!” Peter called out.

  She froze, her hand on the door. Slowly, she peeked back at him.