by Molly Ringle
“Oh. Really? Is Larkin all right? Where—”
Larkin climbed into a view over a ridge of black rock, a sunbeam illuminating the red of his hair. Rosamund clambered after him.
Merrick tried to leap to his feet, then staggered sideways and fell again when his recently-broken leg failed to support him. Larkin dropped to the other side of the ridge, sprinted forward, and caught Merrick in his arms to haul him up into an embrace.
Braced on his good leg, Merrick leaned on Larkin’s chest. “You did this? With a speech?”
Larkin lowered his lashes. “I didn’t think it right to leave you, nor all these others.”
“He summoned all the fae who have ever loved a human,” Haluli said. “These are we.” She turned a wing in a sweeping gesture toward the fae helping the prisoners, cleaning and feeding and clothing them.
Touched, Merrick nestled under Larkin’s arm. “So you believe it now?” he asked. “That they can love.”
“I do,” he answered simply.
Rosamund hobbled up to them, rags flapping from her elbows and feet. “I see now our mutual mistake, Your Highness. We should have worked together in 1799. I with my magic and you with your speeches—we could have accomplished anything.”
“As if we ever could have been convinced to work together,” he said.
“Where did Vowri go?” Merrick scanned the sky.
“It was difficult to see in all the mayhem,” Larkin said. “Arlanuk may have to tell us, should he know. Gracious, you’re soaked in blood! What’s happened?”
A few minutes ensued of fussing over Merrick’s wounds, which he argued were not serious enough to stop him from going to the Kumiahi desert, even though he still walked with a pronounced limp. Haluli warned that the break would not fully heal for a few days and he should treat it with care, so they bound up his leg with an impromptu brace of sticks, stripped of their thorns, from pieces of shattered nest.
Meanwhile Merrick checked his pack for damage—it had sustained rips and burns, as had most of his clothes. His iron weapon had somehow been sheared off; all that was left was a six-inch spike, its wooden handle gone. Though it stung his hand to touch the iron, Merrick put the spike in the largest pocket of his trousers, then let go rapidly and shook his fingers. The spike was his only weapon besides magic, and he might yet need it, sadly inadequate though it was.
At least his food still survived. He gave Rosamund one of the bags of macadamias, which by now had been crushed into crumbs. She dumped them into her mouth, chewing with gusto, lauding the stupendous flavor, the likes of which she hadn’t tasted in years.
Arlanuk and his hunters came to find them, marching across the debris. “You have the dagger?” he asked Larkin.
Larkin produced it from a pocket and handed it to him. “It belongs to you now, as the territory’s owner, I believe.”
“Indeed.” Arlanuk took it. “I have left hunters behind in my forest with the other blade. They are ready to secure the desert border on that front, and now this front is my responsibility as well.”
Merrick lurched to his feet. “What happened to Vowri?”
“Fled,” Arlanuk said. “She had shrunk to the mere size of a palm-leaf by the time we surrounded her. Hardly so daunting anymore.” He smiled, showing square teeth that looked capable of crushing a coconut. “She shot into the sky. We let her go. She knows she cannot take this territory any longer.”
“We shall likely hear of her taking someone else’s, then,” Rosamund remarked.
“Or she faded into the elements high above,” Haluli said. “Air fae often choose to at their end, and ride the wind to their next life.”
“What about all these people?” Merrick nodded to the straggling prisoners around them.
“The fae shall help them home,” Arlanuk said.
The jinn gathered the old woman in his arms, lifted her into the air, and soared downhill toward human lands. A hob helped a trembling man climb to a secure perch on the back of a dryad, who began taking long strides to carry him off. A kelpie, dripping wet, folded its legs to sink down and allow a woman to climb on. Then it galloped away, merfolk streaking alongside as escorts.
“What will become of them in the human world?” Larkin asked.
Merrick leaned on him again, for companionship more than support. Some of these folk could have been here as long as Rosamund had, and Larkin knew better than anyone how disorienting it would be to enter the modern world after that span of time.
“Many may not survive long,” Rosamund admitted. “Vowri’s realm takes its toll. But at least they will die in kinder circumstances, and will feel comfort again.”
“Our doctors and witches will heal as many as they can,” Merrick insisted, though he felt a wrenching uncertainty. Nye’s enchantment couldn’t be healed in the human world except by the rarest of witches. There was no reason to assume these people’s damage could either. To give them kindness and comfort was all that their fellow humans could do.
He picked up his pack and began to put it on, but Haluli took it from him. “Allow me,” she said.
“Thank you. So.” Leaning on his good leg, Merrick hobbled around to face the slopes of Pitchstone Mountain. “To the desert.”
CHAPTER 44
EVEN WITH THE TERRIFYING PROSPECT OF facing Ula Kana within the hour, Larkin felt an anxiety due to a topic unrelated to her.
Merrick might only have said “I love you” because he had feared he would never see Larkin again, a sentiment that would dissolve as soon as they returned to everyday life, should they be so fortunate. Furthermore, Merrick had likely not heard the beginning of Larkin’s speech, and perhaps neither Haluli nor anyone else had told him about Larkin’s own declaration of love during it. Having been willing to tell it to a hundred or so fae, he at least ought to tell Merrick too. But his nerves fell short at the prospect of repeating it face-to-face.
As they climbed a ridge of hardened lava, a terrain that cut little slices in the soles of his shoes, Larkin asked Merrick, “Did anyone tell you what I said in my speech?”
“Some. I only heard the last part myself.” Merrick was panting and sweating, struggling to climb with his injured leg even with the help of Larkin’s hand and a walking stick he had picked up.
“I had wondered if you … well. No matter.”
Rosamund had come within earshot, and Haluli flitted closer too to help lift Merrick up the slope. Larkin didn’t fancy embarking upon an affectionate discussion with an audience.
“I’m glad you thought of that summons.” Merrick sent him a shy glance. “It was a beautiful idea.”
“Inspired by you.”
A shadow raced across the land.
“No,” Larkin said, though his tongue had gone numb. “Not yet.”
Above the ridge, Ula Kana wheeled to face them, her body dyed red by the sinking sun, her cohort of followers ringed in a bloody corona around her. Arrows whistled past, striking some of her team—Arlanuk and his hunters had swept up behind Larkin’s party. But the wounded only flung themselves forward to engage in battle with the archers; fights exploded a few paces to each side, full of snarls and flames. The remaining hunters, five including Arlanuk, drew closer.
They were stranded upon a slope with no cover, exactly the sort of place they had hoped not to be caught. The Kumiahi desert lay over the ridge and at the bottom of another long slope, all of it made of this razor-sharp rock. It would take them several minutes of careful walking to reach it even when not being attacked.
“Who else can help?” Merrick shouted to Arlanuk. “Can anyone come?”
Arlanuk blew another blast on his horn. Though it seemed to Larkin that only his own hunters should know the meaning of such a call, others among the formerly summoned fae began to return. Those who could fly were fastest in arriving: sylphs, fadas, and sprites, who formed a hovering shield over the heads of the party.
“How rude you are,” Ula Kana cajoled. Her furnace teeth gleamed. “No greeting, only an attac
k?”
“This is my land now, Ula Kana,” Arlanuk said. “Get yourself out into the desert, or we’ll throw you there with spears in your eyes.”
“Hello, Arlanuk. I have plenty of time yet to sway you and add you to my party of friends, and I shall.”
Larkin went cold at this realization. She could, and did, compel fae to join her. Fae allies might be turned to powerful enemies at any moment.
“However,” she added, “first I wish to speak to these humans, who seem to be making fae friends of their own, all to stop me in some manner. You could not call this fair dealing?”
The echo of Larkin’s words gave him another chill. He twined his hand tight into Merrick’s.
“Oh yes, little Lava Flower,” Ula Kana went on. “I heard your fine speech. When a summoning makes such a flurry, even those of us not summoned grow curious and come to see. I thank you for making it easier than ever to recognize the traitors among my kind.”
Nausea gripped his belly.
All they had to do was draw her into the desert and send up the firework. Then their task would be finished, and she could do nothing. But to run up the hill, straight beneath her, down the other side, and into the desert, all without being killed—what were the odds?
“I have something in my desert I wish to show you,” she said, and floated backward, beckoning, as if they were her friends and she were inviting them into her home.
Larkin exchanged glances with Merrick. It was certainly a trap, but then, so was their own plan, and lure her into the desert they must, one way or another.
“You will let them climb over this ridge without harming them,” Arlanuk told her, turning the hammer charm so that it winked in the setting sun, “or you will be vanquished.”
“With a charm from a human witch, as you resorted to with Vowri? A sad state you have fallen to, mighty Arlanuk. Yes, you may vanquish me with that, and I would fly away from your domain, then I would only come back again, and eventually your charm would run out of power, and what then?”
The harsh snort from Arlanuk’s nose sounded like a warhorse one ought to move quickly away from.
Ula Kana continued: “Nevertheless, I do promise they will crest this ridge unharmed. In fact, they may come all the way to the edge of our desert. I want them to see what I have.”
Larkin saw his dread reflected in Merrick’s face. But more fae allies had arrived at their backs, and forward was the only way to go. With hands still clasped, they climbed. Rosamund and Haluli followed, along with their guard of fae.
The black expanse of the Kumiahi, shimmering with heat mirages, opened into view at the top of the ridge. Pitchstone Mountain’s smoking bulk hunched at the desert’s far edge, taking up the entire eastern horizon. A craggy slope descended from their feet, and the desert began at the bottom of it—the delineation, Larkin guessed, between Arlanuk’s new territory and that of the fire fae who laid claim to the Kumiahi.
A short distance into the desert stood several figures, some standing firm, others wriggling in their grasp. Fae, holding … human prisoners from the nests. Larkin drew a jagged breath.
Merrick dropped his hand. “We released them!” he shouted at Ula Kana. “They’re on their way home! Let them go. They’re no part of this.”
Larkin’s thoughts raced. The fae taking the prisoners home—some must have been caught by Ula Kana on her way up the mountain. She had swayed them, made them seize the humans, turn round, and carry them here instead.
At least Larkin counted only six, whereas easily over a hundred had been freed today. He prayed the rest were reaching the human realm safely.
“Quite low of you, Ula Kana,” Rosamund agreed. “To prey upon ones so weak. Not that you ever had a shred of pity in you.”
Fire flared in Ula Kana’s mouth as she beamed. “The witch herself! I laugh to hear you speak of pity. For all the land you helped wrest from the fae, you deserved every moment of your stay in Vowri’s realm. Yet it’s far worse now. The humans have made a worse mess of our land than a million rats could.” She cast a fond look down at the prisoners held in the grip of kelpies, fadas, sylphs, and others. “I could have swayed Vowri to come out and join me, but I never saw the need. She was already doing what I would have had more do: capture humans and see that they suffer.”
Merrick began limping forward down the slope, his jaw set. Larkin and the rest came with him. “They’ve suffered enough!” Merrick said. “Why do you want them?”
Yes, keep her talking, Larkin thought. They grew closer to the desert with each step.
“I find it fascinating that you care,” Ula Kana said. “You’ve never met these folk until today.”
“You look after the interests of your fellow fae, in your twisted fashion,” Larkin answered. “We look after our fellow humans. A truly worthy being would care about both.”
They were a quarter of the way down the slope now. Ula Kana let them approach.
“Then this will bother you?” she inquired, and turned to the fae in the desert. “Kill them.”
“Don’t!” Merrick yelped, lunging forward, and Larkin felt a whoosh of magic shoot past him from Rosamund.
But the fae were too far ahead and too swift.
A kelpie smashed a man down with its hoof and tore out his neck in one bite.
A sylph, with a pluck of her fingers, pulled the air from a woman’s lungs, and she collapsed, suffocating, hands clawing at her own chest.
A merman filled a woman’s lungs with water; she thrashed on the ground and then went still.
A fada set fire to two men.
A dryad wrapped vines around a woman’s neck and strangled her.
They were running, Larkin and Merrick and the hunters, screaming for it to stop. Ula Kana laughed overhead. The terrain tore the sole off one of Larkin’s shoes; the next step sliced his foot, but he kept running, now hobbling as badly as Merrick.
A few paces from the desert, a sheet of fire seared up from the ground, and they halted.
Through the flames, Larkin saw the hopelessness of their cause: six dead prisoners, reduced to gray rags and blood and sprawled limbs. The fae who had been their saviors stood over their kills, glowering. The world tilted back and forth. Larkin inhaled carefully, planting his feet firm.
At Larkin’s side, Merrick stopped and bent to hang his head, his hands on his knees. His breath sounded ragged.
“This was dishonorable conduct,” Arlanuk growled.
“Oh, was it?” Ula Kana said. “Wasn’t it also when the humans, here and around the globe, pushed us off our land, set up iron and noise, cut down our forests, fouled our waters, refused to honor or even notice us? I am only doing justice, and you will see it, Arlanuk, when I turn your thoughts to look into mine.”
“Enough.” He gestured in a flick toward his archers.
“You may wish to hold fire a moment,” she called. “We have another captive.”
The hunters paused.
A jinn flew in, holding someone who squirmed in his grip, someone white-haired and dressed in a clean printed shirt and blue trousers. Not a prisoner.
“Dad!” Merrick’s voice cracked. He lunged forward, ready to leap into flight.
Larkin seized him in both arms, stopping him.
The jinn hovered over the border of the desert, a hundred feet up, holding Nye Highvalley.
“Let me go!” Merrick said.
“No!” Larkin said. “She’ll kill you; it’s what she wants.”
“Merrick!” Nye shouted. “Are you all right? You and Larkin?”
“Yes—we’re all right. And … ” He gave a quick glance to Haluli, but Nye had already spotted her.
“Haluli.” Even trapped in enemy arms high in the air, Nye beamed. “Darling. Oh, you can’t know how I’ve missed you. You aren’t seeing me at my best, I’m afraid.”
Haluli unfurled her sapphire wings. She smiled, light-filled tears in her eyes. “You’re beautiful to me every day, my poet.”
“This one was
easy to catch.” Ula Kana sounded disinterested. “I’ve also sent some drakes, little half-fae, to bring back your sibling and niece.”
Merrick twisted so violently he almost escaped, but Larkin held him fast.
“If they had them, they’d have brought them already,” Larkin reminded him quietly.
“Release him to safety, or we attack,” Arlanuk warned.
“My dear hunter, as we discussed, you frighten me not at all.” Ula Kana nodded to the jinn. “Drop him.”
The jinn flung Nye out into the air.
Merrick tore free, leaving his pack in Larkin’s arms, and rose in flight over the line of flames.
Nye’s limbs pinwheeled as he fell.
A streak of blue flashed between Merrick and Nye: Haluli dove and caught Nye a few feet above the ground.
Larkin gasped a breath in relief.
Merrick, alighting on the ground on the other side of the fire line, spun to watch his parents fly back to the group of fae allies.
Arrows arched toward Ula Kana and the jinn, who both incinerated them before they could hit.
Ula Kana played with a ball of fire between her palms. “How sweet. But it only delays the inevitable.” She raised the ball, taking aim at Larkin’s group.
Another flash of blurred motion: Merrick had put on magical speed and was sprinting away, into the desert.
Ula Kana flung the ball.
CHAPTER 45
MERRICK HEARD LARKIN AND NYE SHOUTING behind him, their voices crazed with panic. His leg flared with agony at every step, but he kept running. The splint of sticks broke and fell off. He gathered his magic, holding himself together as best he could, still maintaining his swiftness, dodging fireballs and dive-bombing fae.
A glance back: the fae allies were shielding the humans and taking enemies out of the sky where they could. Larkin slashed his sword at the jinn who had held Nye.
From his pocket Merrick pulled out the clay ball with the wick, which he had put there in preparation as they approached the ridge. He veered toward the dead prisoners and their murderers. The kelpie snorted and pawed the ground, tensing to charge him. The dryad stepped forward, uncurling vines like whips. The sylph launched out and buzzed his scalp; he ducked and went beneath her. The fada turned her fingers upward, each lit with a white-hot flame burning like a blowtorch. Merrick ran at her.