by K. C. M.
The shadow leapt from his hand and somehow it was in her mouth.
Panic, sheer and powerful tore through her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even breathe. She remembered suddenly how Connor had used the shadows to choke one of the Masks. The man had looked so stunned and utterly terrified. Now she was him, facing down a foe that she could never hope to win against.
How had humans ever survived this long, she wondered. The other races were far more powerful…
Connor voice floated up out of the depths of memory. When the human races were attacked during the war, it was the wind horses who carried them from their separate villages and cities to the Protected Isles.
Her lungs burned. She glanced over at Connor.
Only one of the three werebeasts was still up fighting.
Connor moved far quicker than the beast.
He was like lightening, ever unpredictable and wickedly fast.
With a quicksilver slice, he finished off the third beast.
At long last, his movements stilled.
Silently, he faced down Sirus.
Neither of the two elves said anything at first, just stared at each other.
Finally Sirus broke the silence. “I would welcome you, Caranthir, but what welcome can a master give a student who has forgotten what he was taught?” Sirus didn’t move from his spot where he towered over Holly. Holly could hardly see him. Her mind was painfully and slowly shutting down from lack of air.
Connor didn’t reply. Instead, he took a careful step to the side. His eyes were ever watchful as Sirus turned slightly to continue facing him.
“You’ve had your fun, Caranthir. Is there nothing I can do to persuade you to join with me once more? It pains me to see how you’ve thrown away the precious lessons I slaved to teach you.”
Still, Connor didn’t reply. Another step, and Sirus had turned so much that his back was to Holly. In typical lightening fashion, Connor struck. Sirus met his named blade with named blade of his own. It was then that Holly felt something, a shifting within her mouth. The shadow was painfully drawn out of her mouth. It hovered for a second above her and then suddenly dissipated in the fading light of the sun.
Holly gulped in air, blinking and crying as her vision cleared. Her body burned and she trembled violently. A few more gulps of air and the trembling slowed, becoming more of an occasional twitch.
Connor and Sirus were locked in a battle now. Both men moved too fast for her to see. Shadows whirled willy nilly from Sirus’s hands. Connor had wrapped himself in shadows, a kind of armor that deflected the wild strikes from Sirus.
Holly gritted her teeth and started to drag herself away. Suddenly, there was a quick movement to her left.
One of the werebeasts wasn’t quite dead.
Holly tried to slide away, unable to rise with her broken leg.
The beast rose up above and then fell, its jaws gaping wide.
One last word ripped from her lips. “Saragon!”
Then the creature’s head knocked hers painfully and its jaws closed around her throat.
Holly drifted in a sea of darkness.
“Well, what is it you want this time?”
Holly stirred and tried to open her eyes. Something terrible was happening…her throat was squeezing tight and she couldn’t seem to breath. She wanted to speak, but she couldn’t.
“Good riddance, you are a needy little mortal, aren’t you?”
She finally got her eyes to open. The red haired fairy frowned down at her. She looked worried.
“Please…” Holly’s mouth finally moved.
The fairy started slightly. Eyes the color of newly grown plants met Holly’s. Then the woman scowled. “You’ve got no right to ask for another favor. I’ve already provided you with two.”
“How can I…serve you…if I’m dead?” Holly rasped.
The fey girl laughed, throwing back her wild red haired head and letting her laughter find wings to fly up into the sky. “I knew I would like you, Holly. That’s why I’ve been watching out for you. But tell me, how are you injured again so soon? Have humans grown weaker in my absence?”
It was hard to speak. “Werebeast,” She managed.
Her red hair spilled over one shoulder as she tilted her head. “Another? So soon,” She murmured, more to herself than to Holly.
Her image shimmered for a second before steadying. She reached up and for the first time, Holly noticed she wore a crown. Vines of silver and gold wrapped around her head and the jeweled leaves were the same shade as her eyes. Flowers of every color trailed through the crown and down through her hair. Twining, golden branches reached high, like spires.
The fairy plucked one of the flowers from the lofty branches.
“Take this and you will not die.” The fairy’s eyes twinkled with power. “As the queen, I promise that I will not let you die.” She whispered as Holly reached with a trembling hand.
As Holly took the flower from the fairy’s hand, she felt something odd. The flower pressed into her skin. New growth sprouted and wrapped, tying it to her hand. For a moment it was just an odd sensation. Then the plant tightened.
Holly gasped.
It was pressing into her skin, trying to force its way into her, melding with her.
It hurt.
She jerked and suddenly she was awake and screaming.
Her hand was on fire. It was terribly painful.
“Enough of you, human!” A beast with black pits for eyes snarled over her.
Sirus swiped downward and a shadow sliced through the air.
Holly threw her hands up to protect herself.
Light, golden and brilliant, flashed.
Sirus stilled above her and Holly blinked, stunned.
“How…” Sirus started and then he reached down, grasping her elbow, lifting her hand so he could see. “Fairy marked,” He breathed and the darkness in his eyes swirled hungrily.
Suddenly a knife was embedded in his arm.
Sirus jerked and his mouth twisted in pain.
“Do not touch her.” Connor’s voice was cold and without inflection. He sounded like death.
Sirus didn’t release Holly, though. His hand tightened and shadows started to whirl.
Holly felt something unusual in the air. Her blood suddenly coursed through her body faster. Something similar to adrenaline, but not quite the same, built up in her. As the shadows formed a gaping hole in the very air, Holly threw back her head and screamed. Something was boiling inside her, too hot to bear. She had to get it out, had to relieve the pressure.
Sirus yanked her towards the gaping blackness. She threw up her hand to stop him and in a wild rush, fiery golden light burst from her palm.
She heard Connor shout, but then she knew no more.
There was a flash of fiery light. Connor dropped into a crouch, yanking his own shadow around himself in a tight ball of defense. The light went out quickly. He caught a glimpse of Holly collapsed on the ground, but his focus was on the dark elf next to her.
Connor shot forward.
Sirus was still recovering from the heat of the light. He was slow to rise, but a shadow still sliced towards Connor.
He turned, taking the hit on his arm, and continued to barrel forward.
His knife slipped between ribs.
There was a brief moment where his eyes met Sirus’s.
Where there had once been green, was only blackness. The black billowed angrily. “I cannot die.” Sirus whispered in a gravelly voice. “I don’t die by your hand, Caranthir.”
Connor eased back, withdrawing his knife. “I don’t care.” He replied softly. He turned towards Holly, confident of the blow he’d dealt.
Prickles. A rush of power swarmed along the shadows.
He whirled, weapon raised.
Three more beasts stood at the edge of the forest. They raised their hideous faces and sniffed, savoring the scent of death.
That’s not possible, he thought briefly numbed.
He
turned back to the dying man.
But Sirus was sitting up. The skin of his face was thinned, so pale it was the color of the bone it stretched over. His mouth was split in an eerie smile, even though Connor pressed the sharp knife against his throat.
“Tell me how you’re controlling them.”
“Come back with me, Caranthir.” Sirus whispered. “I could use your talents.”
Connor didn’t react.
The Den never gave second chances. Second chances were risks that their society couldn’t afford. There was no place for mercy amid death.
“The only place you’re going is back into the ground.” He finally said.
Sirus’s smile spread. “You’ve killed enough people to know when someone is dying.”
Unwillingly, Connor’s gaze drifted down to where he’d stabbed Sirus.
The bleeding had already stopped.
His senses prickled with unease. He pressed the knife hard enough to draw a drop of blood. “How?”
“Knowledge is power. Are you willing to pay the price?” Sirus’s eyes drifted meaningfully towards Holly.
Connor didn’t look at her. “I should kill you.”
A dark chuckle followed that. “But can you kill all of the beasts before they get to her?”
“You want me to let you go.”
“I want you to come with me.”
“That will never happen.”
But Sirus only seemed more assured. “You won’t kill me, Caranthir.”
He was too certain. Connor felt close to something, something that he’d unknowingly been chasing…or, perhaps, something he’d unknowingly been living.
“Time’s running out. The beasts grow hungry for flesh.”
He barely lowered the blade, but Sirus was suddenly gone.
He stood between the lurking beasts. “Its just beginning, Caranthir. We won’t wait forever.”
Very slowly, Connor turned his head and looked at his old teacher. “We?”
The smile was back. “What did the seer tell you that made you abandon your people when they need you?”
“They, but not you.” Connor mused and a faint frown tinged Sirus’s face at his conversational tone.
Sirus tried to cover it. “I won’t hunt you any longer. You will come to me.”
Those weren’t the words of a master from the den. Connor stood with a knowing smirk. “The only way I will go to you is to put a knife through your heart.”
The beasts surged forward before Sirus reined them in. “I already told you that you don’t kill me.”
“Is that what the seer told you?”
“You always were a clever pupil.”
“Seers have been wrong before. Why have the Den send me to kill her?”
Sirus’s whole body relaxed, almost melting with an uncharacteristic confidence and laxity. “I see you didn’t talk to her. It’s just as well. You’ll play your part to perfection.” He smiled broadly, cruelly. “You already have.” He purred with a nonchalant gesture towards Holly.
Connor was between them immediately. The hungry gleam in Sirus’s eyes was malevolent. “She has no part in your schemes.”
“On the contrary, you’ve made her into a crucial part. Pretend all you want, Caranthir, but everything that happens from here on out, is very much a result of what you have done. You haven’t stopped being a tool. You’ve just changed into different hands.”
Suddenly Sirus jerked slightly and for a moment, a single moment, Connor thought he caught a glimpse of something in his eyes. Within the black depths swirled the slightest hint of red.
“Times up.” Sirus breathed in a voice that was almost dead, except the hint of strain in it.
Connor opened his mouth. He needed to keep Sirus talking. There was so much more he needed to discover, to learn, and right now he was very much behind on whatever game was being played.
Before a sound could leave his mouth, the beasts converged around Sirus, limbs intertwining. It was like a frenzied dance of mutated shadows. Then, in less than a second, they were gone and he was blinking, wondering if he’d imagined it.
For just a second, in the midst of the werebeasts, he’d seen something, a glimpse of another place.
Rings…circles…fairies…
He turned and gathered Holly tightly in his arms.
His head bent over her still form. She should have died and the fact that she was alive meant only one thing. He checked over her. Nothing, the wounds were all healed, even her leg. His hands paused. Such a quick and completely healing? That was rare. Very slowly, he reached for her wrists and then turned her hands, so the palms were up. Standing out against pale skin of her right hand were swooping golden lines that shaped a flower. Slowly, he touched it and then cradled her hand in his own. The mark…it had saved her, but at what price? What would the fairy who had placed it demand of Holly?
She should never have had to endure all this, Connor thought bitterly. Rage filled him. Holly should have been living a normal, human life. She should have been working at the inn. She should have been laughing with her friends.
He’d torn her away from it all and for what?
Why had he even done it?
He had never longed for a companion, especially an inept one. Loneliness was one thing, but he could have solved that any number of ways. He shouldn’t have let her travel with him. He should have just taken one day to guide her back to Myre.
Regret was a painful, unwelcome whiplash.
Holly suddenly twitched and her eyes fluttered open. The green circles glowed accusingly at him, or so it seemed.
“Connor.” Her voice was hoarse. “Are you okay?”
If he hadn’t been so angry with himself, he might have laughed. She was worried about him? Why did she even care? For that matter, why had she ever followed him in the first place?
“You should have never followed me.” He sounded angry and accusing. Although it wasn’t really directed at her, she must have felt like it was because she flinched.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered. “I went back to the camp.”
She thought he meant that morning, when she’d followed after him so he wouldn’t be alone.
Connor closed his eyes. “You shouldn’t have followed me in the forest. I shouldn’t have let you.” He finished bitterly.
Holly stirred and he helped her sit upright, even though she pushed his hands away with annoyance. “Stop it. It wasn’t like it was just your choice. I chose to follow you.”
He caught her hand as she pushed at him. “I’m so sorry, Holly.” He whispered and lifted her hand. Her eyes fell on the glowing lines of the flower and she looked shocked. He bowed his head over her hand and gently traced the mark with a finger. “I wish we had never met.”
“Don’t say that, Connor.” She whispered.
He lifted her hand. He had never felt so much regret in his entire life. Her skin was salty as he pressed a kiss on the mark. Her hand trembled. “I don’t know what to do.” He confessed, his lips still brushing her palm.
He felt her shiver. Her eyes widened and something like fear skittered across her face, but all he saw was the green of her eyes. “What do you mean?”
He let out a breath and slowly, reluctantly lowered her hand. “They’ll call in their debt to you. I won’t let you face them alone.”
The fear in her grew, but she took a deep breath, trying to still it. “You promised never to leave me.”
“So I did.” A bitter smile lifted his lips briefly. “The Den will never stop hunting me, Holly…and there’s something going on that I know nothing of. I can’t protect you from what I don’t understand.”
“Then we’ll run! You said yourself we could use this time to gain advantage, to disappear where they’d never find us.”
Guilt and anger and regret lashed him again at her words. He shut his eyes tightly. He couldn’t look at the green in her eyes anymore. He couldn’t bear to see the gold staining her hand. “Sirus isn’t dead.” He whispered
hoarsely. “And you are fairy marked.”
She was quiet and when she spoke, her voice trembled badly. “Connor?”