Adren cried out.
Nadin turned. Before she could shape the words to tell him what was happening, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled. She stumbled after him. The magic bristled and sped up to touch her mind. There, it seemed to have found what it wanted. Ignoring the dark place and Adren’s connection to the unicorn, it shuffled through everything else as her magic fought it with helpless rage. Still, the distance between the invading magic and the source of its power kept growing. As it did, the magic’s patient purpose began to warp under the pressure of her inborn defense. Not break. Alter. Unclear as its original intent was, Adren wasn’t sure this was better.
Her legs fell out from under her. They simply stopped responding. Nadin almost fell, too, but he steadied himself in time.
“Adren! Adren, hold on, it’s going to be fine.”
Adren.
Hold on, Adren.
Hold on.
The twisted magic found its hold and dug right into the tissue of it. Pain ran through Adren’s bones, deep in the marrow.
There was a little girl dancing.
There was a fire.
There was a sword.
As Adren collapsed, Nadin rushed to her.
“Adren! Adren!”
She didn’t respond. Nadin grabbed his hair and groaned. They still hadn’t gotten to the end of the path and, thin as it was, the thread that connected the spell in Adren back to its source at the start of the path hadn’t broken yet. The spell itself ran all through her, a beacon to all who had eyes to see and who cared to look in that direction. Nadin picked her up. She muttered something, but so quiet that the words were incomprehensible.
“Not again.” As he rushed on, something darted through the trees. He flinched, but kept going. The something might have been a deer, from its size, except its coat was too pale.
The unicorn stepped out in front of Nadin, horn lowered. He stopped.
“I’m not hurting her,” he said in a gentle, if strained, voice. The unicorn snorted and stamped the ground. “Please, I promise I’m not. I’m trying to help her.” He circled the unicorn, step by careful step, towards its flank. The horn followed.
As soon as he’d gotten far enough that the unicorn couldn’t just turn its head, it danced away from him and angled its body in his direction more comfortably.
“No, don’t do that,” Nadin exhaled through his teeth. “I’m trying to put her on your back. Don’t you see?” He illustrated as best he could while still holding Adren. “You can keep her safe that way, and we can walk faster.”
Although the unicorn pawed the ground, it did so less fiercely. Again Nadin went around it.
“It’s all right. You know me,” he said in soothing tones. As he carried Adren to the unicorn’s side, he kept reassuring it. So long as he remained slow enough, it let him come. The moment he moved too fast, it stomped its hind legs and danced away. Nadin took this in stride, pausing until the unicorn calmed and he could continue again.
Which would have made him seem the pinnacle of patience if not for how often he grimaced and glanced back at the mound whenever the unicorn became agitated. Still, it was to his credit he didn’t try to pass by and disregard the unicorn entirely. He might not have survived that decision.
Getting Adren onto the unicorn’s back proved awkward. She had enough awareness to grab onto its mane, but the strength of her grip wavered and her balance overall left much to be desired. In the end Nadin sort of draped her over the unicorn and walked alongside it, holding one of Adren’s arms to keep her from sliding off.
As they went, the thread of magic that stretched along behind them became thinner and thinner until it finally broke. The moment it did, Nadin took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling in an even rhythm for the first time since Adren had cried out.
They followed the edge of town, far enough that the unicorn remained hidden in the trees, close enough that the occasional enchantment could be seen. Troublesome as fairies were, they did make things humans couldn’t usually get. One house in particular had quite a number of enchantments in and around it, not all of them fairy-made, but all of them enough to drown out the sight of the spell in Adren. It lay near the edge of the town, on the side farthest from the fairy mound and, as Nadin approached it, its walled yard became visible.
“If only we could get in…” Nadin scratched his head. He led the unicorn around the wall until they came to a gate. “Uh.” Watching Adren, he let go of her arm and paused, both hands at the ready. When she didn’t fall, he went to the gate and tried to open it. This met resistance, but he peered over the top and reached down to undo the latch.
Gate now open, Nadin was about to turn back when a woman came out into the yard, lamp in hand. She was the one from the market who had argued with her brother over egg placement.
“You!” The woman stepped back, turned as if for flight.
“No, please! She needs help!”
At Nadin’s cry, the woman paused. She watched as he led the unicorn into the open. It quivered, but turned until the woman could see Adren.
“Did you do this to her?” asked the woman, eyebrow raised despite being visibly unsettled.
Nadin shook his head. “The fairies did. Could you help her? And put the unicorn somewhere it won’t be seen? I need to go back and get them to break the spell. Please.”
The woman sighed. “I’ll help. But don’t go tonight. You can stay here, get some sleep. Don’t go until you’re rested.”
“I’ll help them get settled, but I need to go back before morning—”
“Nonsense. You may not feel it yet, but I can tell you’re about to drop right where you stand, and you will if you’re not careful.” She beckoned to him.
“Were you the one who sent the soldiers after me?”
“Yes.”
“Will you do it again?” His voice was soft, without accusation.
“Only if I need to.” Nadin slumped. “But I don’t need to tonight. I have other things to attend to. You, for instance. My name is Denyeh.”
“Denyeh!”
“What? What’s wrong with my name?”
“Nothing,” said Nadin as he made a placating gesture. “The guards mentioned you. You’re the one who made the barrier around the prison, right?”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes.
“They’re going to need another one. Adren took it down to get me out of there.” A sad smile touched the corners of his lips. “My name’s Nadin. Thank you for helping us.”
Denyeh paused but, with a sigh, beckoned again. Nadin followed her in, bringing the unicorn and Adren with him.
A jumble of sensations. A little girl laughing. Speaking. Somewhere there was a fire and a man… weeping? No, he wasn’t weeping by the fire. That was somewhere else. Or maybe that was all together, all at once?
The new dress twirled beautifully as she danced and her fair hair spun with it, at times resting a moment to hide the whiteness of her face.
Magic. There was magic.
Oh, gods, there was that sword. The sword, held by a man whose face Adren could not make sense of. He swung the weapon down towards her until her forehead burned. She could hear little-girl screaming, but the man’s voice cut through it, pleading even as it shook with anger. The words all mashed together, an incoherent stream of deformed sentences.
Run!
Running.
Running.
A misstep as the whole world shook, as if someone below the earth had gone into a rage and beaten its foundations. Everything shaped oddly after that. And more magic, still shaking the earth.
Hold on, Adren, hold on.
A panicked unicorn and a little girl ran, swallowed up in the darkness of the trees.
At this point, it was as if Adren’s head were shoved underwater, the whole event made to waver into nothing as she gasped for breath. Until, piece by piece, the whirling black revealed a kaleidoscope, a sword, flight. Plunge. Chaos. Pain. Fear.
Plunge.
Plunge.
Plunge.
Fragments of Nadin’s and other voices worked their way through, pieces of glass that hung in the air at odd intervals. She tried to speak, to do what they asked. She didn’t know how well it worked, or if it worked at all. The spell had taken hold of her senses, overlaid what it had gathered from her mind on them such that she couldn’t tell what was real and what was memory.
She had no choice but to trust Nadin now.
Chapter Seven
Once he’d made sure the unicorn and Adren would be safe with Denyeh—and once Denyeh had made sure he’d at least eaten—Nadin went back to the forest. The morning air still held the night’s lingering chill, a chill which Nadin hadn’t reacted to while Adren was still in danger. He did now, though, rubbing his arms as he walked briskly. He winced when he rubbed the scratches Adren had made, back before either of them had entered the town.
The magic of fairies dotted the forest around the mound, and not just along the pathway. Nadin moved with caution through the trees, avoiding the path. It wasn’t simply magic that hung in the air like will o’ the wisps throughout the forests—the fairies themselves were out, too. Despite his care, one followed him from behind, swift when he was not, and taking a meandering path that could have been random as much as if it could have been purposeful.
Nadin followed his own twists and turns as he wove around trees to keep out of sight of fairies. Except for the few who followed their pathway, their locations had no order to them. Some clumped together, some were alone. Most made their way back to the mound.
Nadin had stopped behind a tree while a group of fairies walked past when his follower caught up with him.
The fairy sent a line of magic at him as he stared, eyebrows raised. He ducked the moment he collected himself, and the magic singed a few hairs as it whizzed past.
“Loram?”
She grimaced. “How did you get out?” A spell worked its way through the ground and up the tree behind Nadin before it lashed out at him. This one he didn’t dodge in time, fascinated as he was the by glow of magic in Loram’s satchel. The spell knocked him over and Loram rushed to grab him. They struggled, Loram sending spats of magic out even as she tried to immobilize his limbs. Nadin reached for the satchel as he defended himself.
As soon as he grabbed it, Loram pulled away and the struggle turned to one over whatever was inside. Both of them scrabbled at the satchel. Nadin, thanks to his human blood, managed to keep Loram at bay long enough for his hand to close on the object. He wrenched it from Loram and retreated a few paces.
The wooden hand lay in his grasp, full with a magic that flowed in strange configurations. Not a spell in wait, not an enchantment. Nothing like the magic another being might hold.
With a cry, Loram lashed out at him, both with magic and with her fists. Most of it landed. None of it left a mark. She fell back.
“What kind of magic is this?” asked Nadin.
“I could ask you the same question, since you seem to be using it.”
“Me?”
“How long have you known? Was it your fairy family who told you about it?”
Nadin blinked. “Told me about what? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Loram stared at him with an expression of bitter envy. “That I do not believe.”
“I really don’t,” said Nadin with a shrug. He frowned, giving the fake hand a thoughtful look. As he did, Loram sent out magic through the ground, this time outwards, towards the other fairies. It went in streaks, like shooting stars below the earth, only there a moment before it vanished. Nadin raised his head when the last flew to their targets, one of them quite close. He met Loram’s eyes, which had grown hard, and gulped.
And ran.
With a shout, Loram pursued him, as did the nearby fairy. As he ran, Nadin clutched the wooden hand to his chest as if it were the most valuable thing he had ever held. He stumbled and fell a few times in the undergrowth, but his grip never loosened. Loram never stumbled. Neither did the other fairy. Each time Nadin did, they gained on him, Loram especially.
Nadin gasped for breath as he skirted the edge of the town. His stumbles became more frequent. Soon, Loram had grown close enough that she only needed him to falter once more before she could reach out to grab him. The other fairy pursued him from not far behind her, but still far enough to be hidden by the trees.
Chickadees called out their name as the three neared their perches, only to fly off in an explosion of wingbeats. Nadin jumped at the sound, set his foot down wrong, and fell forwards into the underbrush. He struggled to rise, and Loram was reaching, reaching…
Behind her, the other fairy sent a blast of magic that knocked Loram over. The smell of smoke hung in the air where it hit her.
“Hinor!” she cried. “Not me.” Crackles of the fairy’s spell closed in around her, stinging her every time she got too near.
The other fairy, a boy, came into sight. While Loram tried to pick herself back up, he shooed Nadin away. Nadin hesitated, but that made the boy’s motions only more agitated.
“Run,” he mouthed.
As Nadin raced away, the boy cried apologies to Loram. He really hadn’t been aiming for her. He promised he hadn’t.
When Nadin arrived, flushed and out of breath, at Denyeh’s house, he headed straight for Adren. Denyeh had put her in her own room. Holding out the fake hand, Nadin pointed its fingers towards Adren, who tossed on the bed.
Her muscles strained against nothing; she kept clenching and unclenching her fists. A sheen of sweat covered every bare part of her skin. As for her breathing, the motion of her chest was so erratic it wasn’t clear how often she was able to fill her lungs, if at all. Denyeh, who had followed Nadin into the room, stared at the hand as he caught his breath.
“Is that real?”
“No.” Nadin rapped his knuckle against it. “It’s just wood. But it has magic in it of some kind, which might be able to help her.”
“I swear I’ll never understand fairies.”
Nadin shrugged, returned his focus to the fake hand. His magic poked at it, nibbled along the edges of what it contained.
“I wonder if I…” The hand shuddered as his magic slammed into it. At which point the magic under the wood began to leak from the fingers. Leaking turned to flowing. Flowing turned to pouring. The hand was becoming empty at an alarming rate. “Hell.”
“What?” Denyeh’s eyes went round.
“I, uh, might have let loose all the magic in this thing. Hold on. I have to stop it before it goes crazy.” Holding the wooden hand with both of his flesh-and-blood ones, Nadin strained as his magic tried to force itself through the flow of the strange magic that now poured over Adren.
“Can I do anything to help?”
“Maybe. Yes. Can you put a barrier around this hand? Uh. Quickly?”
Now completely covered in magic, Adren moaned and shifted on the bed. Her breathing had calmed, but she still tangled the blankets with her movement.
“I might be able to. Give me a moment.” Denyeh hurried from the room.
“Wait, what? Where are you going?” Nadin’s eyes bulged as he stared back at the now Denyeh-less spot. “Denyeh!”
Frantic now, his magic threw itself against the outpouring from the wooden hand, widening to capture it, narrowing to pierce it, wedging itself into the flow. The hand’s magic didn’t appear to appreciate being forced and opted to shove Nadin’s away each time. Finally, he covered the hand with his and sent his magic out from his skin to wrap around the object. The wooden hand shook and leapt as the magic tried to find a way out, but he held his grip steady and didn’t let go. Before long, the shaking stopped and the hand settled back to the way it had been, albeit more empty than full. As Nadin let go of the hand, Denyeh returned.
“I thought I had something that might help, but it looks like it’s nothing more than a saint’s gauntlet.” Her eyes went to the wooden hand, then to Nadin.
“Saint’s gauntlet?”
he asked.
“Oh, it’s just a phrase. There’s a story around here that one of the saints had gauntlets that he wore when they fought the gods and locked them into hell. As a result, the gauntlets supposedly gained the ability to make the wearer invulnerable, and could give them access to powerful magic. But the saint lost them on the way to heaven because he followed the advice of a demon and took them off when he stopped to drink. They fell, one into the water and the belly of the dragon that lived underneath, and the other to the earth. I just meant I lost the thing that would have helped stop this magic from getting everywhere.”
“Do the gauntlets really exist?”
Denyeh shrugged. “You know how it is with the lives of the saints. Stories pop up here and there. Who can say how much of it is true? Anyways. You seem to have managed on your own.” They turned to Adren. She had become still and as close to relaxed as she ever got, but nothing more had happened.
“I hope so… How long do you think it will take for us to find out how badly I did?”
“How badly?” Denyeh laughed. “You went to the fairy mound and came back with a fake hand full of magic. Yes, you spilled it all over her rather inelegantly, but that’s minor. I know a thing or two about fairy spells and cleaning up after them. It comes with living in a town so near their mound.”
“Oh, good,” said Nadin as he breathed a sigh of relief. “I was trying so hard to fix this. I don’t know what I would do if I’d hurt her just because I had no idea what I was doing.”
From the bed there was a grunt as Adren shifted and opened her eyes. Both Denyeh and Nadin held their breaths.
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