by Amy Pennza
From nowhere, a rush of fire shot straight up from the pack.
Heat blasted my face. Alarm made me stumble back, my heart thumping hard.
As suddenly as it had appeared, the fire vanished. Where the pack had sat, there was nothing but a small, scorched ring of leaves.
I looked at Hauk, who was shaking his hands like they hurt. “What was that? Are you okay?”
He blew on his palms. “Just a little nuclear fusion in my hand. Hurts like a bitch.”
“Let me see.” I rushed forward and took his hands in mine. The palms were black and blistered. “Hauk!” I looked up. “You can’t hold a sword like this.”
“I’ll be all right.” He pulled his hands from my grasp and tapped the end of my nose. “I like you fussing over me, though.” He lowered his voice, his tone teasing and lascivious. “Maybe I’ll sprain my ankle next or get bitten by a venomous snake. You’ll have to suck the poison out. I know exactly where I want it to—”
“Hauk!” I put my hands on my hips, the mirror tucked in my palm. “I’m being serious.”
He laughed. The jerk actually laughed. “I promise I’m fine. I’ve fought demons with much worse.”
“You have?”
“Yep. Took one down with a broken arm once.”
That made me feel a bit better. Radegast might be Fae, but there were other Mythicals with greater fighting abilities—demons and berserkers included. As Crom had demonstrated, magic could confuse and mesmerize. In the right hands, it could even kill. But it was ultimately a smokescreen. The most powerful magic user in the world could be taken down with a simple blow to the neck, assuming the sword swung hard and fast enough.
“Come, my fierce shieldmaiden,” Hauk said. He looked around at the trees looming over us. “The sooner we get out of this place, the better.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t sooner. We walked . . . and walked. And walked. The snow smashed under our boots. The light overhead remained steady and unchanging. More sweat gathered at my nape and dampened my underarms. I swiped beads of it off my upper lip. The mirror grew warmer in my sweaty palm. I started using the staff as a walking stick, poking one end in the ground and propelling my body forward.
Beside me, Hauk cursed. “I feel like I’ve seen the same damn tree twenty times.”
I slowed, then stopped.
He walked a few paces ahead before he seemed to realize I wasn’t beside him. He came to a halt and turned. “What—”
“You’re right,” I said.
Snow crunched as he made his way back to me. “Elin?”
I turned in a slow circle. “These are the same trees.”
“That’s impossible. We’ve been walking for hours.”
“I know trees, Hauk.” I gazed at the trunks surrounding us. There were dozens of species crammed together, their leaves various sizes and shapes. Several maple leaves littered the ground, their pointed tips sharp against the snow.
An idea fired in my mind. “Come with me.” I tucked the staff under my arm and grabbed Hauk’s arm. I pulled him forward, determination pounding through me.
He fell into step beside me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“What are we doing?”
“You’ll see.” I walked faster, eager to prove my idea correct.
“Just so you know,” Hauk said, “that’s like the worst thing you can say when walking through an enchanted forest.”
I glanced at him. “That’s just it. It is enchanted. I’m going to show you.”
We walked about another thirty minutes before I saw them.
I jerked to a stop, excitement in my voice. “There!” I pointed. The same configuration of maple leaves covered the ground.
Hauk walked to them and crouched, his sword angled across his back. He put a hand on his nape, then rubbed at the shaved hairs on the back of his head. “I don’t get it,” he murmured. “There should be tracks.”
I went to his side.
He looked up at me. “You’re right. These are the same leaves. But where are our footprints? The snow should be trampled to bits, especially if we keep passing the same spot.”
“I guess it’s enchanted for a reason.”
He stood and chucked me under the chin. “Good work, sweetheart.”
His praise did funny things to my stomach. “I wish I’d noticed sooner. I could have saved us hours.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, we might have walked until we were exhausted. We could have gotten stuck here.” He made a face. “In fact, I think that’s the point.”
Worry nagged at me. “But how do we get out? We can’t just keep walking.”
He seemed to think for a minute. Then he grasped my upper arms. “You said you know trees. Well, that’s all we’ve got to work with. Is there any trick you can think of? Any special knowledge you’ve come by that could unlock a puzzle involving trees?”
I racked my brain, reviewing everything Asher had ever told me about trees or plants or forests. Most of the time, he just liked to go on and on about how awesome they were. “Two hundred sixty pounds of oxygen per year, Elin! And that’s just from one tree.”
“Anything?” Hauk asked.
“I don’t know . . .” I went to one and stood before it. Leaning the staff against my shoulder, I lay my palm on the bark. I closed my eyes and waited for the familiar rush of images to flash through my mind—a tree’s usual way of introducing itself.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes. Maybe going full-out nymph had depleted my dryad powers, as mediocre as they were. Had I traded tree communication for mind-blowing orgasms?
But no. The staff still seemed in tune with me. I gripped it and turned back to Hauk.
“I’m not getting anything.”
“Think, baby. This is important.”
Well, no kidding it was important. It was literally life or death. Frustration rose, but I pushed it away. I had to think.
I let my mind wander.
Puzzle, puzzle. Hauk had said to use any special knowledge I had to unlock a puzzle.
Unlock a puzzle.
Unlock. Lock and key. Locks and keys and trees. Keys and trees.
Words whirled through my mind, but nothing stuck. I looked at Hauk, defeated. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know.”
He was disappointed, but he covered it well. “Easy, love.” He pulled me against him and ran his hand over my plaits.
“How will we get out?” I said, my cheek pressed to his chest. His heart thudded in my ear.
“Hmmm?” He continued stroking my hair. “Don’t worry about it now. I’ll think of something.” He hummed low under his breath. Even without words, the song was recognizably Celtic.
I would have wrapped my arms around him, but my hands were full of the staff and mirror.
Mirror.
My breath hitched. Now words flew through my head, clicking into place—like pieces of a puzzle.
Song. Mirror. Tree. Puzzle. Key.
I pushed away, my blood pumping.
Hauk sensed something was happening. “Elin? What is it?”
“Here.” I thrust the staff at him, barely waiting for him to grab it before I opened the mirror.
He moved close to my side, his head bent. And he was the most amazing male to have ever lived, because he didn’t pester me about what I was doing or demand an explanation.
Hands trembling, I opened the mirror.
My mother stood in the forest, facing me. Her dress was thin and white, little more than a shift. It draped from one shoulder, leaving the other bare. Sunlight dappled her skin and made her hair glow red. Vines weaved among the fiery strands.
“Elin!” She clasped her hands in front of her. For a second, it seemed her green eyes shifted to Hauk.
But that couldn’t be right. Asher had looked into the mirror with me, and she never noticed him. He’d left the room before she ever started her song, his face closed down and tight.
She smiled. “Tell me everything. O
h, I’ve missed you!”
“Me too,” I said quickly. “Look, I need you to sing that song.”
Behind her, wind picked up. Leaves swept around her feet.
Her expression changed. Where she usually looked dreamy, almost distant, now she seemed . . . afraid. She looked over her shoulder.
“Mom?”
The wind blew harder. The sunlight dimmed, as if clouds had rolled in. Tiny flakes of snow drifted around her. She shivered, one hand going to the opposite arm. Somewhere on her side of the mirror, lightning flashed. A second later, thunder boomed, the sound so loud it seemed to shake the mirror in my hand.
What is happening?
I gripped the mirror until my hand hurt. “Mom? Are you in danger?” But that was impossible. She was dead.
She came forward, almost as if she walked right up to an actual mirror. Her voice shook, her beautiful face pinched in fear. “He approaches, Elin. You have a choice to make.”
“Radegast? He’s coming here?”
More lightning. Her eyes were wild. Frightened. “Doors will be closed to you, my daughter. You must make your own!”
“What?” I shouted into the mirror. “What do you mean?”
She acted as if she hadn’t heard. Instead, her face filling the frame, she chanted. The words were the same as her usual song, but her voice was low and terrible, like a witch invoking a spell.
Ash and oak and willow, three
Which one shall my dearest be?
Her eyes glowed, the green almost too bright to look at. Her hair lifted away from her head, the brownish-red tossed on an invisible current. Moss creeped across her neck. Her ears tapered to points. Yet she was still beautiful. Dangerous, deadly beautiful.
Oh, ash with leaves the first to fall
And ancient oak, its branches tall
The hairs on my nape lifted. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears.
Still willow weeps for Babylon
And forgotten times once here, now gone
Each one so very dear to me
YET ASH WITH FRUIT THAT HOLDS THE KEY
As the last word echoed, she stepped back and tossed something into the air. Small and gold, it flipped end over end.
And into the air in front of me.
“Shit!” I fumbled for it, dropping the mirror in the process.
Hauk’s hand snapped out, snatching the object from midair.
I whirled on him, my heart in my throat. “Gods, what is it?”
He opened his hand. A small, golden skeleton key lay on his palm.
An actual key?
My words spilled in a fast babble. “She never does that. The mirror is spelled. She’s supposed to be like a recording; she just plays the same thing over and over. She’s never talked to me like that, and the scenery has never changed. Did you see that lightning? I think someone is trying to hurt her.”
He touched my shoulder, almost like he was afraid for me. Or maybe of me. “Elin. How could someone hurt her? I thought she was dead.”
“She is. Or she was.” I gulped. “I don’t know!”
He was quiet, like he wasn’t sure what to say.
If I had to be honest, I didn’t know what to say, either. Close to tears, I stooped and retrieved the mirror from the ground. It was just a shell now, the glass missing entirely.
“Here.” Hauk held out his hand. “I’ll put it in my pocket.”
“You’ve had pockets this whole time?”
He looked taken aback. “Yeah. Don’t you?”
“Are you kidding? Women’s clothing never has pockets. I might as well be wearing a wet suit.”
The ground rumbled. We both jumped, then braced ourselves. Hauk grabbed my arm. Straight ahead of us, a golden line appeared on a tree trunk.
Hauk and I stared at it, our bodies tense.
“It’s an ash tree,” I said. “Just like in the song.”
Hauk passed me the staff. “Take this. And be ready for anything.”
Like a trick forest? My mother tossing a key through the mirror? Sure, I was ready for more freaky shit.
He reached over his shoulder and pulled his sword from the leather scabbard strapped around his chest.
At least one of us has a sword.
The golden line continued up the ash trunk, trailing tiny sparks like some invisible metalsmith was soldering it into the wood. It blazed a path up and up, then made an abrupt right angle and went in a straight line. After a short distance, it made another right angle and trailed down.
“It’s a door,” Hauk murmured.
I tilted my head. It did resemble a portal. When the line reached the base of the trunk, it sputtered out, leaving a perfect rectangle outlined in gold.
I opened my mouth.
A blaze of light fired halfway up the rectangle, the light so bright Hauk and I shielded our eyes.
It sputtered out again.
Hauk lowered his hand. “Definitely a door. And there’s a place for a key.” He held up the one my mother had tossed us.
“Well,” I said. “We have one.”
“Should we see if it fits?”
“It seems like a better option than living in this forest forever.”
He nodded. “Definitely. There’s no TV here, which means no Project Runway.”
“You like Project Runway?”
“No. I don’t like it. I love it.”
Against my will, a goofy smile pulled at my mouth.
He nodded toward the tree. “Let’s go get Project Runway, Elin.”
“Okay.”
“Stay behind me.”
“I already planned to.”
He grinned.
I moved into place at his back. Despite the danger we probably faced, there was something intensely reassuring about having his big body and shiny sword in front of me. He wasn’t invincible—he wasn’t even immortal—but I knew he’d do anything to protect me.
He walked forward, his movements a lesson in stealth. His footsteps were nearly silent on the snow, each one placed with more grace than I possess in my entire body. I felt like an elephant stumbling along in his path.
When we reached the tree, he glanced at me over his shoulder. “Ready?”
Hell no. “Yes.”
Like the outline itself, the door “handle” was just a small circle burned into the bark. Beneath it, however, an obvious keyhole had been drilled into the wood.
He didn’t waste any time being dramatic. He just stuck the key in the hole and turned.
Click.
More rumbling, then the outline shimmered. With an exaggerated creak, the bark swung inward.
Hauk held his sword at the ready, his knees slightly bent. When nothing came barreling through the door, he relaxed. Without taking his eyes off the opening, he spoke in a low, calm voice. “I’m going in. You stay on my ass, all right?”
“All right.” I had no problem with that. I would have climbed on his back like a spider monkey if I could.
He angled his body sideways—I assumed to avoid touching the bark. Figuring that was a good idea, I did the same, holding my breath as I shimmied through the opening. The second I crossed over the threshold, the forest door disappeared behind me.
I’m not sure what I expected on the other side. Maybe a hollowed-out trunk? A tiny cookie factory staffed with Keebler elves? What I didn’t expect was a long stone hallway lit with primitive torches.
The shock of it was so great—and so disorienting—I stumbled into Hauk.
He rounded on me, a steadying hand on my shoulder. “Hey. It’s okay. It was just a portal.”
“Sorry. Just feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland here. But without the benefit of being really high.”
He chuckled. “If you stumble across any mushrooms in this place, I recommend not eating them.”
I scanned the hallway, which could have come out of any medieval castle in Europe. “What, exactly, is ‘this place’? Is it . . .” I didn’t want to say Radegast’s name. Not in what I su
spected was his castle.
“Nochnaya Krepost. The Night Fortress.”
That sounded like the sort of place that belonged to a guy who ate hikers.
I lowered my voice. For some reason, it felt better to whisper. “Are we in Faerie?” I wasn’t sure I could handle another encounter like the one I’d had with Crom.
Hauk shook his head. “No. I’d have felt it if we crossed the planes.”
“What should we do now?”
“We follow this wherever it leads.”
I gazed down the line of torches, and anxiety stirred in my gut. I couldn’t help feeling like something awful lay at the end of the hallway. It was like a cardinal rule of every horror movie. Don’t wander down deserted hallways. Hauk and I might as well run screaming into the nearest windowless attic.
Out of the blue, he gripped my chin and brought my mouth to his. The kiss was gentle but passionate, his tongue doing a quick dance against mine.
When we broke apart, I was breathless. “What was that for?”
He shrugged. “You looked like you needed it.”
“Well . . . thanks.”
“Anytime, baby.”
Damn, but I liked when he called me pet names. I was still smiling like an idiot when he gestured me forward. “Come on, sweetheart. Glory and honor await.”
Spoken like a deranged berserker. But my insides still glowed from the “baby” and “sweetheart” he’d tossed at me. Some of my apprehension eased, and I fell into step beside him, my staff held lightly in one hand.
As we had in the forest, we walked for a long time. The hallway seemed to stretch forever—longer than it had seemed at the outset. And like the forest, the scenery never changed. It was just block walls, stone floors, and torches. For a while, I counted them to pass the time. I lost track somewhere around six hundred and decided to call it quits.
Just as I prepared to tell Hauk something was wrong, a nasty voice called out behind us.
“You two got lucky once. It won’t happen again.”
In a movement so fast I couldn’t track it, Hauk pulled me behind him, whirled toward the voice, and lifted his sword.
A short, childlike figure stood in the hallway, its hands on its hips. It could have been male or female. Its body was boyish, its features androgynous. A shock of red hair stood up from its head, giving it the look of one of those pot-bellied troll dolls.