Like Mist Over the Eyes

by Thea van Diepen

  “You did convince us to treat her poorly,” said Barsae to Iraem. “I wondered at that.” He disentangled himself from her and made his way to the barrier. The other fairies, eyeing both Iraem and the barrier in turn, let him pass through. Adren wondered how many other things Iraem had done that one might wonder at.

  Barsae put one hand on the barrier and pushed. His fingers went through without much resistance, and his palm and arm passed through the magic only a little slower. The rest of his body, however, made no perceptible progress. He strained against the barrier, both arms now inside, his feet sliding back every time he tried for a better angle.

  The king, with a gleam of understanding, whispered to the queen and smiled. Adren held the queen’s gaze, defiant, but the queen merely inclined her head.

  “Nadin, help him through. Can’t you see he’s having a hard time?”

  “Can’t I…” Nadin’s voice trailed off. He nodded.

  As Nadin worked on the spell that held Barsae, the fairies drew back. Except Iraem. Adren could almost feel the rage flowing off her in waves.

  Barsae had forced half his body through the barrier by now, and the resistance he faced grew less with each passing moment. It would not be long before he was free of whatever spell Iraem had put on him to make him forget who and what he really was.

  “Um, Adren? I think Iraem’s sending some kind of spell towards Barsae.”

  Saints.

  A flash lit the room as if the sun had decided to join them. As it dimmed, Iraem gave a wordless cry, and Barsae entered into the protection of the barrier.

  Nadin blinked. “The monarchs stopped it.”

  The monarchs… really? Adren felt a throb of hope that Denyeh had been wrong, that Adren had been wrong, that the world could right itself and be as it was again.

  “Leave them be, Iraem,” commanded the king. Iraem paused. “Thou hast lost this game, and we shall not support thy steps to begin another. The White Changeling has played it well and impressed us. We would not, however”—here he turned back to Adren—“suggest she play it again. Our treatment of her shall not be so gentle a second time.”

  That stung. She would have thought he was lying if not for the taste of honeysuckle at his words. Adren may not have been a fairy, but she still had her pride. Turning on her heel, she led the others out of the throne room, taking the pieces of the Demonic Vessel with her.

  “Damn fairies,” said Barsae once they were well away from the mound. Nadin grimaced, but didn’t say anything.

  “I take it your name isn’t really Barsae?” Adren asked.

  “It’s Parsa, actually. How did you know I wasn’t a fairy?”

  Adren indicated Nadin. “He can see magic.”

  “And you’re the White Changeling. I ought to arrest you, but I think I’ll find an excuse not to, all things considered. I thought you never helped humans?”

  “I thought so, too.” She avoided Parsa’s eyes. “Would you do us a favour?”

  “Anything.”

  “His pack is somewhere in the prison. Could you get it back for him?” Parsa gave the pack on Nadin’s back a quizzical look. “He’s carrying mine right now.”

  “I want to know why you would need his pack from prison, but I think I won’t ask.”

  “You can always ask your wife later. She’s the one who made sure he got in there in the first place.”

  Parsa’s eyes went round.

  “It’s a long story,” said Nadin, earning him a raised eyebrow from Adren.

  “I believe you. A lot seems to have happened while I’ve been away,” Parsa said. He stretched. “I feel a little sorry for Iraem.”

  “Don’t,” Adren replied quickly.

  “But I do. She never seemed in control of her life—always reacting, always scrabbling for power. She never had peace, living like that.” He sighed. “I’m glad to be rid of her. These last two weeks have been a nightmare.”

  “What about the spell? That can’t have been pleasant.”

  “Oh, it was bad. But Iraem was worse. She was the one who made it, after all.”

  A soft wind played through the trees. With the sun near setting, deer had come out to feed. They watched the group, alert, a few darting off with the slightest crack of a twig. Others stayed, munching leaves, at least one ear towards the interlopers at all times. A chickadee called its name and several birds took off.

  “Adren! Nadin!”

  Loram came after them, waving. A barrier surrounded her at about an arm’s length away on all sides. Adren interrupted the enchantment for their barrier so the fairy didn’t have to stand at an awkward distance from them.

  “Loram?” This was Parsa.

  “Oh, Parsa!” Loram pulled out a spoon. The barrier around her followed, keeping the utensil at its centre. “Tell Denyeh thank you for this!”

  “A spoon?”

  “An enchanted spoon.” Loram grinned, putting it back into her skirt pocket. “The monarchs were furious that I helped all of you, but they couldn’t do anything to me through the barrier. Of course, I can’t stay here anymore—”

  “Come with us,” said Adren. “You’ll have a place with the fairies I grew up with.”

  Loram gave a roar of laughter, startling the deer. She seemed about ready to dance. Instead, she adjusted her shawl. “And here I thought I only had the one choice! Thank you, Adren, but I’ll be leaving with Hin tomorrow morning to stay with his people. Which is why I came. You’ll be heading north when you leave, right? Then will you two join us for however long you can?”

  “I was thinking of leaving once we had Nadin’s pack.”

  “Adren!” Nadin’s voice cracked.

  “What? The soldiers want to put both of us in prison.”

  He groaned. “I was looking forward to a full night’s sleep on an actual bed. In an inn.”

  “If you go to sleep in an inn, you might never want to leave.”

  “I’ve been dreaming of pillows and mattresses for a week. If I could have, I would have slept for days at Denyeh’s house.” Nadin had a faraway look in his eyes. He gave a deep, forlorn sigh.

  Parsa chuckled. “If you want a night in an inn so badly, I can help you with that. I’m not the captain of the prison guards for nothing, and being kidnapped by fairies will give me pity points.”

  “You,” said Nadin, “are my new favourite person.”

  Adren agreed to the idea only because she hadn’t really wanted to leave right away. While she didn’t mind sleeping outside, she’d still missed a lot of sleep in this whole debacle, and the attacks had kept her from a full night’s rest often enough that she’d started to feel it.

  Aw, who was she kidding? She wanted to stay at an inn, too.

  Parsa took the lead to the prison. As he did, Adren beckoned for Loram to join her. When the fairy had fixed her shawl, it had reminded Adren of something. The two of them drew back a bit from the others.

  “I have a question.”

  “Anything.”

  “It’s a bit embarrassing… please don’t tell anyone I didn’t know the answer to this.” Especially since she’d lived with fairies.

  “I shall keep silent. But you intrigue me with your hesitation.”

  “Nadin heard you say to Iraem that she’d bared your back to someone. What does that mean?”

  The corners of Loram’s lips turned down. “Have you heard the stories humans tell about what the backs of fairies are like?”

  Adren nodded. The day the children had told her that fairies stole children, they’d also told her how fairies had hollow backs. Or backs covered in bark. Or no backs at all. She’d thought they were making it up.

  “Our backs are the one thing we can never cover with illusion. We can hide it under clothing and cast an illusion on that clothing, of course, but the moment our skin is bare, it can only be seen as it is.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ridged. Mine can be mistaken for cedar bark, at a distance. Iraem made sure the soldiers knew I wasn�
�t human, even if they only thought they’d been lucky and saw it before I could set an illusion. You didn’t know about any of this?”

  “The fairies I lived with didn’t tell me.”

  “But surely you must have seen—”

  “No. Their clothing always covered them to the neck, not like the ones here. I mean, I saw it a bit on babies and toddlers, but I thought they grew out of it.” For once, the humans had gotten it right. Mostly. Imagine if they knew they had, at least in this town. The humans would all always be able to know if they were dealing with a fairy without having to rely on Denyeh’s warning signals, which fairies could always tamper with. But what if that knowledge spread and humans started to use it to ostracize the part-fae living with them? What if they took what was meant only as defense and used it as a weapon? Considering all the fairies had done here, Adren wouldn’t be surprised if there were humans who wanted vengeance.

  “Humans shall have to know sometime,” said Loram, both hands on her shawl. “We have all our magic, and what do they have? Stories and half-truths. So long as the army thinks it can get the Saint’s Gauntlet, this town is protected. But now that you’ve broken it, the people here need something more. What better way than to give them a way to see through our illusions?”

  “But what if they use that to hurt you?”

  “We still have our other magic. We’re not helpless, after all. Our positions would simply become more equal.” She laughed. “What a thought.”

  For a fairy, yes.

  “You know,” Loram continued, “the fairies here are terrified of the humans, with their stories of saints giving them power. And I think the more we’re scared of someone, the more we hide from them.”

  “We? Fairies?”

  “Anyone.”

  Nadin and Adren waited in the forest just outside the prison while Loram and Parsa went in to talk to the soldiers, Parsa carrying Denyeh’s enchanted spoon. Parsa hadn’t thought anything would go wrong, but Adren refused to be indoors if it did. Nadin agreed with Adren.

  They could see Denyeh rush, tears on her face, to meet her husband before he’d gotten anywhere near the entrance. The two embraced and kissed each other before they went around to the entrance, arms linked and hands clasped together.

  “I’m so glad we found him,” Nadin said.

  “Me too,” said Adren, at which Nadin leaned back, eyebrows raised. But Adren was smiling, her sun-through-the-clouds kind of smile.

  The sky had turned red with the end of the day and, as they waited, they made themselves comfortable. Adren, who hadn’t had the benefit of a nap, and who had only just managed to convince the unicorn to leave for a while, lay down and used a mossy log for a pillow. Before long, she had fallen asleep.

  Nadin lasted a bit longer, sitting with his back against a tree, watching the prison intently. He nodded and snapped his head up. Nodded a bit more. Made some sort of half-hearted complaint under his breath. Nodded again. Drifted off.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Something hard shoved at Adren’s shoulder. She opened her eyes. The sky had turned velvet black and full of stars. Beneath it, soldiers stood around her and Nadin, a couple carrying lamps.

  “You might want to wake him up,” said Parsa, indicating Nadin. He’d changed out of the fairy clothing and now wore his captain’s uniform. Rubbing her eyes, Adren sat up. Nadin sat against a tree, chin on his chest and a little puddle of drool on his shirt.

  She supposed she couldn’t blame him.

  “Nadin!” she said, with a jab to his ribs.

  “No!” he said, head lolling to the side. “You have to put the porcupine on the haystack. It’s the only way it can fly.”

  Adren smirked and got up to shake him. He opened bleary eyes.

  “The colour blue and the colour green are fighting again,” he said with the enunciated clarity of a child. “What are you pointing at?” When he followed her gaze to the soldiers, he started.

  “We’d like to escort you to the inn,” said Parsa. “As it turns out, the lord of our county has no warrant out for anyone of Adren’s description and someone who stayed in town to deal with the fairies after being imprisoned couldn’t possibly be a Breimic spy.” He shrugged. “Who knew? As thank you, the stay at the inn for both of you is covered, but we’ll have to escort you there and escort you out of town. To make sure Adren leaves without causing trouble.”

  “I’m confused,” said Nadin. “You’re using way too many words and I’m way too sleepy.”

  “We’re going to sleep at the inn,” said Adren, helping him up and grabbing their packs.

  “I told you Parsa was my new favourite person.”

  The soldiers brought the two of them to an inn near the market, where two adjacent rooms had been made ready for them. Nadin went into his and, with a happy sigh, plopped onto the bed. He was asleep in a moment.

  Adren closed the door for him and went into her room. Like Nadin’s, it was clean and small, just big enough for the bed and a space for her to put her things. She pulled out her extra set of clothing from her pack and changed before slipping under the blanket and into dreamless sleep.

  They both woke in the early afternoon to find a note from Loram saying that she and Hin would be waiting for them by the main road and not to hurry. It seemed she’d heard how tired they were. So, while Adren took a bath, Nadin cleaned their clothing—and the cloth he’d gotten all bloody—and hung it to dry on the inn’s electric heater. He got to talking with the innkeeper about how the machine worked, which led to telling the innkeeper about Lord Watorej’s motorized carts, which led to Adren having to yell for her clothing. While Adren organized food, Nadin had his bath without having to yell for anything.

  Before they left, they sat in the dining area to eat. Nadin kept getting bowl after bowl of food, long after Adren had finished.

  “Parsa’s going to regret paying for everything,” Adren commented. “You could bankrupt the entire army at the rate you’re eating.” She made as if to say something else, but stopped herself.

  Nadin responded between bites of his fourth serving. “He should have known better. I’m still growing.”

  It took bowl number six to vanquish his appetite.

  “So good,” he said as he sat back and patted his stomach. He grimaced. “So full.”

  “Then it’s time to get going,” said Adren as she got up and shouldered her pack. The soldiers waiting for them took this as their cue and stood as well. Adren frowned.

  “What?” asked Nadin.

  “Later,” she said. “When the soldiers are gone.”

  The townspeople stared as the soldiers escorted Adren and Nadin out of the town. Nadin tried to start a conversation several times, but Adren only responded with monosyllables. At the edge of the town, Nadin told the soldiers to say goodbye to Denyeh and Parsa for him. The soldiers said they would, and then waited at the edge of the town as Nadin and Adren headed out.

  “Nadin—”

  “Adren, Nadin! Look who joined us!”

  Loram stood up from the place by the road where she and Hin had been waiting. The unicorn, spotting Adren, trotted up to her and snorted in her face. Its pleasure at seeing her danced through their connection even as Adren wiped her face of the droplets it had sprayed onto her skin. So much for that bath.

  So much for talking to Nadin alone.

  After greeting each other, they got off the road and settled into formation with Loram, Adren, and the unicorn in the front, and Hin and Nadin in the back. Adren wasn’t sure she felt comfortable with this arrangement. She kept thinking of what Loram had said about the unicorn.

  “Were you telling the truth when you said that you knew of the cure I’m looking for? The one for insanity?”

  “That was for the unicorn, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Loram took a deep breath. “Half of what I said was truth. We might have been able to cure it, with the power we had.”

  “The magic of the Demonic Vessel.” />
  “Aye.”

  Tears burned to be released. The unicorn drew closer to Adren and she leaned against it, eyes closed and face turned from Loram.

  “You care about it deeply, don’t you?” Loram asked.

  “I do.”

  “I understand you not, Adren. You act as if all you care about in the world is magical creatures, and yet you did everything in your power to understand and solve the conflict here so even the humans would be protected. I had expected you would have given me the Demonic Vessel the moment I’d removed the spell from you, bade me return to the mound, and left town then. Or simply left when Nadin returned with the Demonic Vessel partway filled with magic and used it to essay to heal the unicorn, leaving us and the humans to deal with each other. Such actions would have found applause among my kind. But you acted entirely outside of our struggles for power, and you succeeded not only for yourself, but also for all you spoke for and to.” While some of this relieved the heaviness in Adren’s chest, she couldn’t help but think of the king’s final words in the throne room.

  “It only worked because your monarch played with me. Gently.”

  “I heard you in the throne room, and I know better. Aye, they played. All is a game in their minds. But they did not play gently. They played thinking you would adhere to their rules and you did not. Their rules keep the game ongoing. Their rules create and nurture people like Iraem. And when you chose to follow new rules, you chose those that, when followed to their natural outcome, would end all games of the kind the monarchs play. So, to hold their power, they spoke to make you fear them and shrink from any future dealings with them. Otherwise, you would destroy all that they had and valued.”