by Sumida, Amy
“Fenrir,” I turned to him but he held up a hand to stop my tirade.
“He's well within his rights. Plus, if your lion can beat or even get close to beating UnnúlfR, he's assured a place in the Froekn. Let the boys duke out their issues. It'll be good for them.”
“If you say so,” I turned back to watch, immediately cringing when the first thing I saw was Fallon's large lion head being flung to the side with the force of UnnúlfR's blow. Fallon shook it off and roared, sending a vibration through the air and silencing the howling wolves.
UnnúlfR growled back and dove toward my lion. He got a good swipe to Fallon's side but Fallon twisted and bit into UnnúlfR's arm deep enough to leave it hanging useless. Any other fighter may have tapped out at that point but not UnnúlfR. Oh no, he did a somersault and landed on Fallon's back. His one good arm went around Fallon's neck, strangling him till he fainted.
UnnúlfR had won.
My stomach sank but contrary to my disappointment, the Froekn were cheering wildly and even Sam was smiling. Within a few minutes, Fallon was stumbling to his feet as a man and UnnúlfR was back in human form helping him up. The men shook hands and headed out of the pit together, like close friends. I huffed a laugh and looked over at a smiling Fenrir.
“I told you,” he shrugged. “Sometimes boys just need to be boys.”
“Or lions and wolves,” I smirked.
“Indeed,” he laughed and got up to help me out of my chair and direct the frolicking Froekn toward the awaiting feast.
Chapter Thirteen
The Froekn welcomed Fallon as vivaciously as they had welcomed me after I'd won my trials. It hadn't mattered that he'd lost the last one. In fact, losing the last fight had given UnnúlfR satisfaction for his wounded pride over Samantha while allowing the Froekn to keep their own pride in their fighting abilities. By winning the first two fights, Fallon had proved himself to be a valuable asset but one which wasn't a threat to the Froekn royalty. It was perfect.
Too perfect.
I looked over at Fallon suspiciously and he gave me a knowing grin. I shook my head and raised my glass to salute him. I should have known he'd handle the situation perfectly. He'd been an officer, in charge of his own army, under the notorious Shaka Zulu. Nyavirezi had taken him at the height of their success and soon after his removal, Shaka was killed by his brothers and all of his hard work for Zulu independence was destroyed. It made me wonder how far Shaka would have gotten had Fallon not been taken from him.
Fallon's original name had been Bhekifa Lungani. He told me it meant something like One who guards the treasure while promoting goodness and kindness among others. I told him that was a lot to say in two little words. His lion brothers had shortened it even further, to Fallon, basically the middle portion of his names put together, and he'd accepted the new name as part of his new life. Fallon was like that, accepting things and moving on easily.
It took quite awhile for him to open up to me about his past and I don't think it was him being secretive as much as the way he viewed his past as being done and not something for him to dwell on. I liked that about him and seeing him celebrating with the Froekn, embracing his new future, made me like it even more. I admired him greatly in that moment.
The Froekn did too. The wolves didn't need to know Fallon's past to admire him. His nature had been exposed to them in very basic ways, speaking the language of beasts and soldiers. The language of hunters. He had shown them strength first, then agility, cunning, and finally sacrifice. It was a little mind-boggling in its simplicity. The strategy of winning the war by losing a battle. He'd proved to the Froekn that not only was he a skilled fighter and a capable strategist, but he was humble enough to allow another warrior to shine. Of course, maybe I was reading too much into it. Maybe he had simply been the lesser fighter.
A booming laugh brought my attention back to where Fallon was sitting. It was UnnúlfR, patting his new relation on the back while he joked with him. Fallon caught my eye again, gave me that same shit-eating grin, and then had the audacity to wink at me. Nope, definitely not misreading it. He'd known exactly what he was doing and was happily reaping the benefits of his careful planning. The cheeky bastard.
I went back to my meal with improved gusto, Fenrir a warm presence on my right, and Kirill a steady calm on my left. Trevor was seated on Fenrir's right, his place of honor as the First-Born. Usually UnnúlfR would be next to Trevor and Ty would sit next to me but UnnúlfR was hanging out with his new best friend at one of the lower tables, so Ty was beside Trevor and I got to have my Ganza beside me.
It was a fabulous feast followed by hours of dancing, as usual. So it was late when I finally gave up the fight and decided to head home but Trevor looked like he was still having a good time. I didn't want to cut into his family time, so I told him I'd head back to Pride Palace with Kirill and he could come home whenever he was ready. He smiled gratefully at me, giving me a quick kiss before going back to his conversation with his father.
I took Kirill's hand and we walked along the wall, toward the door, pausing to make our goodbyes along the way. I was so happy to see the results of my two families starting to become one, that by the time we made it to the tracing room, I'd become inspired to try something adventurous myself.
“I think I want to try to trace the Aether alone,” I said to Kirill.
“Tima,” he shook his head, his eyes filled with concern.
“It'll be okay,” I patted his arm. “I'm a goddess now. I should be able to handle it easily. I've just been letting my fear hold me back.”
“Sometimes fear is simply prudence in disguise,” he looked so serious but that was par for the course with Kirill.
“I need to be able to do this,” I countered. “What happens if someone grabs me again and I'm able to free myself but can't trace away? I need to be able to trace anywhere on my own.”
“You know how to trace home.”
“Yes but home is Pride Palace now.”
“You know how to trace zere as vell.”
“Only from the Human Realm, I can't go from one god territory to another without help. If I could, I would have left Duat and gone straight to Pride Palace, being that much safer, that much faster but instead, I had to go home first and risk Anubis calling me back.”
“No matter,” he made a slashing motion with his hand. “If you can get to home in Kaneohe, ve can come for you zere. You have no need for tracing to Palace.”
“Kirill,” I sighed, “you know this is for the best. Let me try.”
“And if you fail?” His chest was rising and falling rapidly and I almost gave in just to stop his fear. “Zen vat? Vere vill ve look for you? You vill be lost in Aether. Forever!”
A zing of fear shot through me but I quashed it down. “I need to do this. I know I can and I'm not going to hold myself back from it anymore. All the Atlanteans had to face this at some point. You had to face this. I can face it too.”
“You don't have to do zis,” he took my hand and rubbed his thumb over my palm in soothing circles.
“Stop it,” I pulled away from him. “I love you and I'm sorry to cause you anxiety but I've made my decision.”
“Vervain,” he whispered and jerked me against his chest. His mouth covered mine, searing me with a violent kiss made up of not only lips and tongue but teeth as well. I was bruised, a faint taste of blood in my mouth, when he finally pulled away. “Go, zen,” he pushed me toward the tracing point.
I stared at him hard, taking in his heaving chest, the disarray of his usually smooth hair, and his flashing eyes. He was so beautiful. I wanted to take that picture with me, in case he was right and I never made it out of the Aether. At least I would have one vibrant memory to hold onto. Then I turned away and focused on the task.
I knew the most important thing in tracing was focus and tracing wasn't something new for me. I'd faced this very same fear when I traced using a chant for the first time. I was merely graduating to a new level, tracing without t
he use of a directional chant. It would be fine. I could do it, just as I'd done chant tracing before, even though humans hadn't traced in centuries. I'd already proven myself. All I had to do was take it one step further and I'd have unlimited freedom. I'd never have to rely on another god to carry me through the Aether again.
Okay, focus on the Palace. Pride Palace, with its lofty ceilings, airy rooms, and safari feel. My beautiful inner courtyard and the wide surrounding plain. Home, it was home for the Intare and now, for me. I needed to go home. I focused on this and then stepped into the Aether.
“Take me home,” I whispered.
There was that confusing moment of becoming pure thought, of having my body shift to a different form of energy. Then I was flying, coasting through the currents of the Aether rapidly. I felt my body condense, become whole again, my lungs filling with crisp, clean air and my feet forming on solid ground. I had done it! I traced the Aether on my own. I knew it! I knew I could do it!
I opened my eyes to a landscape completely foreign to me. A landscape foreign to anyone on Earth. Somehow, I knew that not only was I not in Pride Palace but I was no longer in the God Realm and I was most definitely not in the Human Realm. I stared at the massive trees around me, the trunks wider than my house back in Hawaii, and felt a jolt of terror slice through me.
They were just trees, massive trees, but trees nonetheless. It wasn't what they were that was so frightening. It was how they were. How they creaked liked they were speaking, little clicking and clacking noises adding cadence. How their roots shivered, giving the impression that they could reach for me if they so chose. How their trunks seemed to expand just slightly with breath before condensing again. These were not normal trees.
Then there was the strange, vivid green foliage surrounding the base of the trees. Luckily, I was standing in some kind of clearing with a straight path leading out ahead of me. If I had arrived in the bushes, I might not have been so calm. Not only were they a bright, poisonous green, they shivered along with the trees, some particularly sharp looking stalks actually striking out at the air as if defending their territory. Behind and among them, I could feel the weight of stares focused on me.
Then another movement caught my eye. Up ahead, high above me, a graceful form was floating down in a slow and controlled manner. When it got close enough, I was able to see that it was a man. Well, a man with wings. Beautiful, illogically thin, membranous, iridescent wings. He landed about four feet away from me without a sound. Bright orange eyes raked over me while his wings settled and he flicked a long, yellow (not blonde but yellow) braid over a shoulder, before pulling an even longer sword from a sheath at his side. He leveled the point of his blade at me and said something in a language I didn't recognize.
“Oh fuck,” I breathed. “What the hell did I do now?”
“English?” He tilted his angular face, the tip of his sword lowering ever so slightly. “What are you? What House are you of and why do you speak the English?”
“I speak the English because I'm from the America,” I frowned at him, “and I'm a human. What exactly are you and, if you don't mind, where are we?”
“Human?” His sword fell to his side, thumping lightly on the grass, his jaw unhinging slightly.
Then he seemed to recover, sheathing his sword before stepping forward and looking me over from all angles. I mean all angles, he stalked around me in a circle, then got down on one knee and peered at me some more. He even sniffed my boots. He finally stood, a look of disbelief spreading over his vibrant features, and just kind of blinked at me for awhile.
“You are human.” He said some more things in that language I didn't know, they had the distinct tone of curse words. You can always tell when someone is swearing, no matter the language. Then he nodded decisively and grabbed my hand. “You will come with me.”
“Whoa,” I held up my free hand, “you haven't answered me. What are you and where am I?”
“I am Danal of the House of Air, knight of Faerie, and you are in the Forgetful Forest, of Tir Nan Og, the Faerie Realm.” He pulled me against his chest, wrapping an arm securely about my waist before jumping into the air and spreading his wings. “The High King and Queen will want to see you.”
“Look,” I shouted over my pounding heart, as I tried to not do any looking myself, mainly in the direction of the ground, “I'm not even sure how I got here but I just want to be on my way. I've got people who will be missing me. So maybe I should just go back to where you found me and try to trace the Aether again.”
“You rode the Aether here?” The strangely colored eyes swiveled down to mine. “What kind of human rides the currents of thought? That is a road for fey or gods alone.”
“I'm a goddess, technically.”
“What is technically?”
“Ah,” right, if he was fey, and it was hard to deny that he was talking pure truth, he wouldn't know any modern terms. I bit my lip as thoughts whizzed through my brain. How did I land in Faerie? What was I going to do to get home? What was it Thor had told me? Something about the fey withdrawing a long time ago and how no one wanted them back. Leave it to me to find them.
“Yes?” Danal prompted.
“Oh, sorry,” I gave an uneasy laugh. “I was born human and then made a goddess.”
“How so?”
“I drank something,” I shrugged as much as one could while being carried through the air by a faerie.
“Ah, of course,” he nodded like it had made perfect sense. “What is your name and talent?”
“Talent?”
“Your magic?”
“Oh, right,” I laughed. “My name is Vervain and I'm a goddess of love, lust, victory, war, and lions.”
“Vervain? A very powerful name for a human or was this granted to you upon your ascension to goddesshood?”
“No, it's mine,” I smiled, happy to find someone who understood my name. “I was a witch before I was a goddess.”
“Ah, a wise woman,” he nodded again, as if I had impressed him. “And here we are.”
I looked over my shoulder, expecting some Tolkein-esque, ethereal, elven castle, all white spires and stuff. It was a castle all right but that's where the similarity ended. We were still in the forest and the castle was made of the forest, it was a castle of trees. Not lumber, trees, and I'm not talking about some kind of Ewok village, with rope bridges in the branches. The trees were the castle, shaped into it. There were eight of them total, all grown together, widening into walls at their bases while splitting into towers at their tops. Seven formed a circle around the largest tree, which sat at the center and whose top formed into three separate towers adorned with scores of branches, all lush with leaves.
There were numerous windows in the trunks and even branches, through which light shone, giving it the appearance of a holiday monstrosity, and from the tops of several leafy towers, banners poked out even higher, waving in the breeze. We started descending toward an opening in one of the walls, some kind of gate with its doors flung wide, and I began to make out the figures of armored men walking the battlements formed of living trees. Some called out to us, raising hands in greeting, and Danal called back to them in their language.
“Do not speak until we reach the High King and he gives you leave to do so,” he whispered to me as we landed.
“Right, got it, no talking,” I mumbled as he let me go.
He gave me a sharp look, probably trying to decide whether or not I was being sassy, and I gave him my innocent face. Big blinky eyes, blink, blink, blink.
He frowned and took my hand, wrapping it around his arm and leading me toward the gate as if I was some visiting dignitary. I was suddenly glad I'd worn a nice black dress, long sleeved but body skimming, with my high boots. At least I wasn't in fighting leathers or jeans. I was even more glad that I had my wolverine gloves on, along with the emerald pendant Odin had given me. This just might be the situation for which I needed them both.
We passed through the gate and I co
uldn't help looking up to where the trunk of the tree formed seamless walls and a vaulted ceiling. It was amazing, like when you grew a fruit in a bottle and it conformed to that shape. Somehow, the faeries had made the tree grow to suit their needs. I reached out to touch the bark and immediately pulled my hand back when I realized that this tree, like the others I'd noticed earlier, seemed to be breathing.
“Don't touch anything,” Danal whispered to me and pulled me along.
“Why do the trees breathe?” I whispered back.
“Because they're alive,” he looked at me like I was an imbecile. “They filter toxins through their roots and release clean air through their leaves.”
“Yeah, our trees do that too but they don't move with each breath.”
“Maybe you shouldn't speak at all,” he frowned at me, “even after King Cian gives you leave.”
We emerged into a courtyard that seemed to flow around the central tree completely. It was sectioned off with gardens and orderly paths which were being walked by all sorts of interesting people. Hair colors were every shade of the rainbow and then some, competing not only with the beautiful clothing they wore but with the fantastical flowers and fruit growing everywhere. The air was scented with blossoms and ripe fruit, while the sound of conversations and music flowed as gracefully as the people themselves.
Beneath it all was the sound of water on stone and I noticed several water features sprinkled about, ranging from pools to fountains. I watched as a head broke the surface of one of the pools, greenish-blue hair melting into the color of the water and liquid eyes staring at me intensely. I shivered and looked away.
A dog raced by and then stopped short, lifting its head and blasting a stream of fire from its nostrils. A brazier I hadn't noticed till then, lit up and the dog huffed once and ran away. I focused my attention back onto the trees.
Each tree making up the outer wall seemed to be a castle unto itself, with mass amounts of faeries entering and exiting, going about the business of being fey I guess. There were also smaller creatures whose appearances were too numerous for me to focus on. They were mostly of darker skins, with misshapen or overly exaggerated features. A little scary but in light of everything else, they were minor disturbances for me.