I knew he was right, but I didn’t like it. “Probably not.”
Frost stood and looked around. Hieronymus was near the entrance to the cave, filing out with the others. Frost trotted over and brought Hieronymus back to me.
“Clarinda,” Hieronymus said. “How did this happen?”
“How did it not happen to everyone else?” I asked. “My feet got wet and blistered and I slept in the wet shoes and now I’ve got this.”
Hieronymus huffed. “I would suggest that no one else slept with their shoes on, but also that shoes made in Rubalia are far superior to those produced in the Non. As is everything.”
“Yes,” I said, having heard similar comments from Hieronymus in the past. “I know. Can you heal them without wasting too much energy?”
He nodded without meeting my gaze, his attention on my grotesque feet. “Yes,” he said. “It shouldn’t require too much energy, but I’m not sure what good it will do if you just put the same shoes back on.”
“Well, at least-” I shut up, because he’d dropped his healing energy into my feet and I was already getting some much-needed relief.
It took him close to twenty minutes to heal my feet and, by the time he’d finished, everyone else had left the cave and set out without us. I stuffed my feet back into my shoes, secured my pack around my waist, and ran with Frost and Hieronymus out of the cave after the others.
It only took an hour of walking for new blisters to form. My shoes had been seriously damaged by all the water walking. Not only were they Non-made, but they were the cheapest ones I’d been able to find. I figured I’d never be using them again and I’d wanted to reserve funds for Ephemeral.
We hiked down at a fast rate. The trail we were on was the widest we’d used, yet, and it was well-maintained. We were about halfway down the mountain when a screech rent the air and a harpy dive-bombed straight for Lensy.
She threw her arms over her head and ducked. The harpy didn’t hit Lensy with her talons, but when she came back for a second attack she had two more harpies with her.
Those harpies sent Jerome, Benny, and Vin to the ground, but we kept moving. We kept moving until two more harpies landed in front of our group and stopped us.
Currently, Chelsea was at the head of our group with Vervain and Jerome. I stepped off the trail to make my way to them. The forest and brush around the trail was thick, but I was able to get around the rest of the group to where Chelsea and a harpy were talking. Frost and Lensy followed close behind.
The harpy had shifted her features a bit, her beak replaced by a human nose, her wings smaller and shifted onto the middle of her back to reveal human arms. Her legs were still fluffy with bird feathers and, instead of human feet, she had large, vicious talons. The rest of her was nude.
“I’m Chloe Frangipani,” I said to the harpy. “We are a group of travelers who wish you no harm. We’d just like to pass.”
The harpy frowned, her bird-like eyes narrowed. She appeared to be unimpressed.
“Chloe,” Chelsea said. “This is Ransella, the alpha harpy of the Northern Wilds harpies.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m sorry if we’re causing you concern, but we mean you no harm.”
Ransella scowled. “Fairies are liars and fools. Why should we trust any words from your lips?”
“You have no reason to trust me,” I said. “But you can walk with us until we are out of your territory. We won’t raise our weapons against you.”
“We know what you think of us,” she said, her voice raspy and cold. “We are monsters, freakish beasts that are not welcome among the civilized. The elves and the fauns and the nymphs also said they meant us no harm when they fled to the wilds to seek shelter and protection from the nightmares. They told us we could all share the wilds, and then they forced us out, harried us with their weapons and their magic, threatened our young. They said we were a threat to them, but I ask you who are the real monsters? Us or those who forced us and our children from the safety of our homes?”
I had nothing to say to that. I could understand why the elves and fauns and nymphs had fled to the wilds, likely to protect themselves and their children from the nightmares, but if they’d truly forced out creatures who’d made the wilds their home, like the sasquatch and the harpies, that wasn’t right either. I figured there were always two sides to every story, but I couldn’t blame the harpies for their fear or their reasonable concern.
“One of my very best friends is a harpy,” I said, only stretching the truth a bit. I felt no animosity toward Lilith, but I didn’t really know her very well at all. “It isn’t right for anyone to be pushed from their land and home. We have no wish to cause you trouble, we just want to pass.”
Ransella considered my words, her expression sad. I could only imagine how she felt, being in this untenable situation, with her children’s and her tribe’s safety at stake. “Where are you going?” she asked.
“We are going to pay obeisance to the nightmare empress, Ludwiggia.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue.
Ransella studied me, her head cocked to the side. “I have heard nothing good of this Ludwiggia,” she said. “But she is powerful. You believe bowing to her will keep you safe?”
I swallowed hard, not wanting to encourage the harpies to embark on a similar mission. “We can carry your kind wishes to the empress,” I said. “We can let her know you will stand with her.”
Ransella raised herself to her full height, her shoulders back, her heavy breasts pushed forward. “Yes,” she said. “We will send gifts. Perhaps under this new leadership, we can resume our rightful place in Rubalia. Perhaps we can find an end to our exile.”
I nodded. “We’d be happy to carry to Ludwiggia any gifts you’d like to send.”
***
A narrow trail in the middle of dense woods on the side of a steep mountain is not the best place to pause, rest, and enjoy a breather, but the harpies refused to let us move forward. If their families, their children, were ahead, I didn’t blame them. We’d given them no concrete reason to trust us. So, we all sat on the trail where we stood and waited for Ransella to return with her gifts for the nightmare empress.
“Missella would be ordering us to fight the harpies and move on,” Lensy said, a fond smile lightening her typically serious expression.
“Did she have something against harpies?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. But she had trouble with anyone who stood in our way. She was a good leader and she wanted the very best for the people of Rubalia, but she didn’t trust easily and she didn’t believe gray areas or empathy helped anyone.”
I mulled that over. “Considering what she was up against, I don’t blame her, but how did she ever find anyone to join her rebellion.” The fairies had terrorized the people of Rubalia with intricate spy networks and harsh punishment for anyone thought to be stepping out of line. It was an atmosphere that understandably engendered fear and paranoia.
Lensy shrugged. “During the years I was with her, she didn’t let anyone join the rebellion who came to her. She recruited those she thought had useful skills or connections or insights. Anyone who came to her could be spying for the fairies.”
“Sounds like a gnarly catch-22.”
“A catch-22?”
I smiled. “It’s a Non phrase. I just mean that it sounds like a difficult way to live.”
Lensy shrugged. “It was, but she wasn’t concerned about living an easy or a happy life. She was interested only in making our world a better place, in improving life for our people. She’d devoted her own happiness to it and she never appeared to resent that sacrifice.”
“And you?” I asked. “Did you make the same level of commitment when you joined?”
“I’d hoped to have happiness and an easy life once we’d ended the tyrannical rule of the fairies. I wanted to have a family, but I couldn’t see bringing children into a world so dangerous and cruel.”
She sighed and looked over the people
ahead of and behind us, all chatting in low voices. “Missella wasn’t wrong. She recruited people she knew would make her rebellion stronger and she trained them until she was sure how each of them would behave in any given situation, how they would work as a part of the whole. We’re going into a battle unlike any she’d ever imagined with a group of untrained, untested, and unknown people. I don’t expect to survive this mission.”
“Do you expect us to defeat the nightmares?”
“I have to believe we will succeed or I can’t lead. I have to be the example of hope that drives the others forward. I have to believe or we are already defeated.”
I wished I could offer her words of hope or promise, but I had nothing. Every issue she had with our plan was entirely correct, but she was right, thinking about defeat, doubting what we were doing would be the end for all of us. “When you hoped to create a better world,” I said. “When you thought of a world you’d want to bring children into, what did it look like?”
She bit her lip, her eyes going a bit glassy. I’d never seen so much emotion from her. “I doubt there will ever be an easy peace in Rubalia,” she said. “There are too many species with too many radically different beliefs and traditions. Missella envisioned a way to make it better. She believed no one breed of fae should have all the power, but that the rule of the land should be divided between all the species. We weren’t quite sure what that looked like, but we knew at the very least there had to be a council, consisting of every type of fae, that made decisions and limited the power of any one ruler, if we even had one ruler. The people on the council would have to be willing to work together and to tolerate and respect all other fae. Maybe they could rule alone, but Missella suspected they’d have disagreements that sometimes couldn’t be resolved without a leader, someone to mediate and help them find common ground.” She sighed and looked at her hands.
“Maybe the leader could be elected,” I said, thinking of how people came to power in the United States, in the Non.
She shook her head, her eyes lighting with humor. “That would never work here. All the fairies would vote for a fairy and all the fauns would vote for a faun and so on.” She shook her head. “No. The council would have to come first and they would have to choose a leader or the leader would have to be appointed by someone outside the council, someone neutral.”
Like a fairy princess who no longer lives in Rubalia, I thought. I didn’t say it aloud, there was no point even thinking it until we’d rid Rubalia of the nightmares. “I like your vision for Rubalia.”
“It was Missella’s vision. She was the great hope for a better Rubalia. When she died, that hope died with her.”
“Or,” I said, meeting her despairing gaze. “Maybe it lives on in you and in all the people of Rubalia who long for peace, for something better.”
Lensy frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but the harpies returned with a screech, interrupting her.
***
Lensy and I got to our feet as Ransella returned to stand beside us. Behind her, about fifteen more harpies landed in the trees. As far as I knew there were no male harpies, but without males I didn’t understand how the harpies could reproduce. Of course, I was applying my own Non ideas of gender to a mythological, fairy creature. Maybe the attributes I saw that delineated them as female in my limited understanding of gender, didn’t mean they were female. Without more information, I really—
“Chloe,” Lensy said. “What do you think?”
I blinked and realized I’d been so deep in thought that I’d missed a good bit of the conversation between the harpy and Lensy. That sort of thing never happened to me. I blamed it on the endless hours of hiking through trees. “I think I need to hear it again,” I said. “Just to be sure I understand what you’re offering.”
Lensy and Ransella looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but I smiled like everything was fine.
“I would like to send two of my finest warriors to Ludwiggia to join her security forces,” Ransella said. She passed over a small drawstring bag. “And this gift of medicinal herbs.”
I looked at Lensy, unsure of what to do. We couldn’t accept her warriors on a mission we’d completely misrepresented. “Of course,” I said, stalling for more time. “I’m just a bit worried about…The children.”
“Children?” Ransella asked. Lensy shook her head and frowned.
“Yes,” I said. “Who will watch out for the children if your warriors join us?”
Ransella smiled and I mentally sighed in relief. “Our men will take care of the children, as they always do. They are, of course, unable to fight off any foes, but we still have plenty of warriors to protect them.”
“That’s very good,” I said. “And we’d be glad to have your warriors with us. I just…I wonder if you might not want to put together your own delegation to approach Ludwiggia?”
Ransella’s brow twisted in confusion and I looked to Lensy for help.
“What I think Chloe means,” Lensy said. “Is that we have but paltry offerings to give Ludwiggia and your warriors are so fine. It would be much more impressive to—”
Lensy stopped because Ransella was frowning in anger. Frost stepped up behind me, his hand on the small of my back, going into protective mode. There was nothing we could do. We either offended Ransella by refusing to take her warriors with us, or we told her the truth about our mission. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she used that information to curry favor with Ludwiggia. “We’d be happy to have them with us,” I said. “It is, in fact, an honor to have them accompany us to see Ludwiggia. Thank you.”
Ransella smiled and bowed her head. “You are welcome. Journey well.”
Ransella turned and left us alone with her warriors. She was apparently unconcerned that we might turn on them or her. She was either very trusting or very confident in the ability of her warriors to destroy us. Just to be safe, I’d assume the second conclusion.
The two harpy warriors introduced themselves as Lualla and Morra and rose to the air, hovering there and waiting to see where we’d go. Vervain directed us to continue down the mountain.
We hiked for three hours. The forest around us was becoming less dense and there were more wide-open clearings as we neared the bottom. I wondered if the clearings had been made by people or if they were naturally occurring. I didn’t know enough about nature or mountains to posit a logical guess.
The harpies began screeching when we were about two-thirds of the way down. Benny and Chelsea, who’d also taken to the sky to watch for trouble, roared and swooped down and out of sight.
Lensy, and I were still at the front of the line. We picked up our pace, jogging ahead to catch up before real trouble started.
Our friends raced after us and the whole group of us managed to get to another, very large clearing in a matter of moments. In the clearing was the largest dragon I’d ever seen. Benny and Chelsea dropped from the sky and circled the humongous dragon. His scales were a purple so deep they were almost black and they sparkled in the sunlight. He didn’t make a move to attack, he just sat and watched the two dragons land next to him. Benny and Chelsea shifted to human and retrieved their packs from Jerome and Vin. Lensy and I walked over to them as soon as we could see that they were fully clothed.
Benny met us as we neared the group. “Come with me, and I’ll introduce you.”
Frost stayed close to me, but he didn’t touch me and he didn’t object to Benny touching me. The enormous dragon had shifted into an enormous man with gray hair and a wrinkled, sharp-angled face. He had to be nearly seven feet tall and was wide with muscle. He appeared to be strong in every way that Benny was soft. I’d never call Benny weak. He had a way about him that encouraged fear and respect, even as we laughed at him behind our hands.
“Chloe Frangipani, heir to the fairy throne, meet Archibald Freewind.”
I walked over to the massive dragon man, feeling not only overwhelmed by his size, but also by the way he looked me over, studying me as I approac
hed. I rarely cared about what others thought of me, but the way he looked at me made me feel insecure, and less than in some vital way.
I extended a hand, forgetting that very few in Rubalia shook hands in greeting. “It’s very nice to meet you, Archibald.”
Finally, Archibald smiled, but it was a predatory smile, a smile that chilled me to the bone. He grabbed my hand, but not to shake. He pulled me close, until I was plastered against him. Frost grabbed my hand and squeezed tight to let me know he was there, but he didn’t try to pull me away from Archibald.
Archibald sniffed me with one long indrawn breath and released me, pushing me from him so forcefully I would have fallen if Frost hadn’t been there to catch me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight against his side. I probably should have protested, to remind Frost I was strong and didn’t need to lean on anyone, but at some point I’d stopped seeing that as a weakness. I enjoyed the comfort and support his arm around me offered and knew he’d have my back whether I decided to make Archibald my best friend or kill him.
“She doesn’t smell like royalty,” Archibald said with a sneer. An exaggerated sneer. A sneer that looked far too studied to be genuine. Up close, I could see his expression didn’t reach his eyes and I wondered if he was as prone to the dramatic as Benny. Maybe all dragons were actors at heart.
Benny stepped up next to me. “Maybe you can’t smell as well as you used to, old man.” Benny pretended not to fear the larger beast, but I could feel the tension radiating from him even as he spoke. “Chloe is the daughter of the faun king, the granddaughter of the most recent fairy king, and the daughter of Althea, the last fairy queen.”
The last. Was my mother truly the last fairy who would rule in Rubalia?
“I can scent better than you, boy,” Archibald said. “And no half-breed ever has been nor ever will be royal in my book.”
I might have been offended, if I really wanted to be royalty or hadn’t heard similar insults about my mixed heritage too many times to count. I wasn’t offended, but Archibald lost a hold on a bit of the affection and respect he could have hoped to lay claim to before he insulted me.
Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files Book 6) Page 17