by Karen Chance
“They were fey,” he repeated. “They think differently than we do. Although I’ve never understood their criteria for who they take and who they don’t. I’ve seen them take some who . . .” He cut himself off.
“Be glad they didn’t take you,” I told him. “You were better off.”
“I doubt that.”
“I don’t. You don’t know what it’s like, growing up around a bunch of people who treat you like an inferior, who see you only as a commodity to be used, who couldn’t give a shit about you unless you’re benefitting them in some way. . . .” I stopped, biting my lip. “You’d have tried to fit in, done your best to learn about them, to be one of them. But it would never have worked. You’d have always felt like what you were—an outsider. Because you’re not like them. You’re not . . . like anybody.”
I looked up to see his face swimming in front of me.
“Be glad they didn’t take you!”
“Someone in your life was stupid, too,” he told me. And then he kissed me.
Chapter Forty-nine
The explosions, flickering light, and gasps and oohs from the crowd, all receded into the background. For a second, there was nothing but sensation: warm hands, stubbled jaw, lips that should have been hard, that were always hard, but were suddenly soft and gentle. And a strange feeling in my stomach, something like when we went over the falls.
I don’t know why; it wasn’t even a particularly passionate kiss. Wasn’t like the one on the riverbank, which had been lusty and amused, a payback for my spying on him coupled with a half-serious offer. Or the one after we got here, which had been all happy and relieved and glad to be alive. I wasn’t sure what this one was, except that it was tender and sweet and yet somehow more unsettling than the others, a lot more, and—
I broke away, half panicked for no reason I could name, and a wash of noise and light broke over me.
“Look,” Pritkin said softly. “It’s your big moment.”
“What?”
I blinked, and looked around in confusion. And then at the big, empty space, which wasn’t empty now. Because it was full of an image of me facing off with the Svarestri leader, a tiny, flimsy figure next to the staunch solidity of the trolls or the jagged electricity of the Svarestri.
With, yes, her mouth still open.
But thankfully, my part was mercifully brief. The story quickly focused on the real hero: the guy under the seats. And it was hard to argue with that logic, since we’d have all been dead without him.
But I thought it was a little unfair that he wasn’t shown with a wide-open mouth, too, considering he’d barely shut up the whole time.
“He was very brave,” I said loudly, because several trolls in a nearby tree were watching me. Our hosts seemed to agree. Mugs were hoisted, fists were pumped, and grins were exchanged all around. And then gasps and ooohs and claps of sheer delight, as fire-us started tear-assing around the circle of trees, which was standing in for the massive cave.
“They know they can’t hold here forever,” Pritkin said, watching them. “The light fey are too powerful, too united. But you take your victories where you can get them.”
And, suddenly, I was seeing it through their eyes. Because today had been a victory, hadn’t it? I’d been focused on surviving for so long that sometimes, even the idea of victory, of winning this, seemed like a child’s dream.
What did I have that could stand up to the kinds of things we faced? Half the time, I didn’t even know what they were. I might have my mother’s blood, but I wasn’t my mother. I might be Agnes’ heir, but I wasn’t Agnes. I was a second-rate, badly trained, mostly clueless Pythia who had been stumbling my way around for three months now, somehow managing not to get killed.
And kind of expecting not to manage it for much longer.
I’d been so focused on that, that I’d forgotten to look at it the other way, the way I had when facing off against the Svarestri leader. Because I was still here, wasn’t I? Despite the attempts of everybody from the Silver Circle to the Black, from my own acolytes to myths and monsters and freaking gods, the bumbling, stumbling, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me Pythia had not only survived but had beaten them. Had beaten the whole damned bunch of them, and suddenly I was yelling, too. And crawling to the edge of the platform to scream along with everyone else as the great Svarestri warriors fired and fired. But kept. Missing. The target.
“You can’t shoot your way out of a paper bag,” I yelled, despite the fact that no one here knew what that was. “A paper bag!”
The crowd agreed. They roared as the whole crazy spectacle ended with sparks raining down from above, like falling boulders, and fire-us zooming out of the cliff side and then on a victory lap around the tree line, through scores of reaching hands that didn’t care if they got a little singed as long as they were part of it.
And for a second, they were, we all were, all the little guys who never figured in anyone’s plans, because we weren’t worth worrying about, weren’t worth thinking about, except to be stepped on and passed over and killed in someone else’s wars. Because the ones with the power thought we didn’t matter, that we were only fit for slaves. Yet today we had proved them wrong. Today we had beaten them.
The show ended with a firework of sparks that lit up the treetops and caused a few unintended blazes here and there that had to be quickly put out. But nobody seemed to mind. The band had struck up again, and everyone was busy drinking and dancing, and leaping back and forth between platforms to gossip with their friends, and to swing by to give us beer, so much beer that Pritkin was laughing and turning it away before long, before we both ended up drunk out of our minds.
I already felt like that a little, grabbing a new mug somebody had put in my hand, somebody with bright eyes and lots of face fuzz and grinning sharp teeth that didn’t look so scary anymore. And watching Pritkin, who was sitting cross-legged, prying the stopper out of a bottle somebody had given him. That held something a lot stronger than beer, by the smell of it.
A lot stronger. He offered it to me, but merely the fumes were enough to singe my eyebrows. But the beer was good and the trees were bright with lights and laughter and songs I didn’t know but that had my toes tapping anyway.
And then I was being pulled to my feet, beer in hand.
And swung off the platform onto a speeding circle of wood already filled with revelers. That deposited us a heart-stopping moment later onto the next tree in line, amid a crowd of laughing faces and grasping hands. And then we were laughing, too, and running across the boards, ducking and dodging and in some cases leaping over the crowd, to catch another passing swing by the skin of our teeth.
“What are we doing?” I asked breathlessly as the trees and the bonfire and the crowd of faces swirled around me.
“Troll dancing!”
“Troll dancing?”
Pritkin nodded, gleeful.
“What the heck is that?”
He didn’t answer. But the next second, I was being pulled from our swing onto the edge of a larger one that had been passing us in midair as we whooshed the other way, only now we were going its way, held on by the grasping hands of a lot of grinning people. And then deposited onto a platform a story or so higher up, after a heart-stopping leap—
Into the middle of a line of revelers on a race around and through and in some cases over the trees.
I just went with it. Rope bridges swayed under my feet, platforms appeared in front of me, above me, on every side, giving glimpses through the foliage of parties taking place everywhere. Swings were caught before I even noticed them being there, stairs appeared out of nowhere, barrels and boxes and in some cases reaching hands substituted for stairs when there weren’t any, and eating, drinking, singing people kept my mug full as we ran past, doing whatever we were doing.
And then Pritkin stopped and pulled me out of the mad stampede into a
corner of a platform.
A blond eyebrow raised. I usually couldn’t see his at any distance at all, but the slight tan made them stand out more. Made him look different, strange. Of course, the easy smiles and casual nudity were already doing that. It was like the guy I knew had been replaced by a happy satyr with leaves in his hair and a glint in his eye and wickedly curving lips.
Which lowered to my ear to say: “Race you.”
And then he was off before I’d even registered what he’d said, catching a passing swing one-handed and zipping away, almost before I could blink. I looked around, a little frantic, and spied a rope ladder going up. I took it to the next platform built onto the tree, a small one with just a couple very drunk guys sitting on it, swinging their legs over the side.
I ran over and knelt beside them, and pulled some branches out of the way so I could see. I didn’t have to ask where Pritkin was headed. There was a tiny platform, like the crow’s nest on a ship, near the top of a huge tree, the tallest in the area. He was looking up at it as he hit a platform on the other side of the open space, and then he paused to look back over his shoulder at me. And grin.
And, oh, it was on.
I grabbed the shoulder of the nearest troll. “I have to get to the top.” I pointed up. “Fast!”
He appeared to be pretty drunk, but the second, who had been draining his mug, finished a few moments later. And let out an appreciative belch that threatened to rupture an eardrum. And pointed.
I followed the unsteady finger upward, to a rope nailed to the trunk above my head. A rope with a loop on the end, like for the size of one foot. And that was it; no platform, not even one of the individual models like the beer fairy had been using. No handhold other than the rope itself. No anything but a noose for the foot of a crazy person, because that was the only kind who would even consider using such an obvious death trap and—
And he was almost there.
I looked out over the clearing and saw Pritkin rapidly ascending a rope ladder, the only thing left between him and his goal. He had less than a couple stories to go, and if there was another way up, I didn’t have time to find it. So, obviously, he was going to win. I should just sit down and drink my beer and wait for him to get back and brag about it, and why was I reaching for the noose?
Which I belatedly realized had been tied down due to tension, and once released—
Was basically a slingshot.
Or maybe a bungee in reverse would be better, because I was jerked up and then across the big open space, before I’d even had a chance to get a good handhold, slipping and floundering and grabbing the rope in front of me with both arms as I tore through a shower of sparks and a haze of wood smoke and ash from the spectacle, which was still fluttering down everywhere, including into my mouth as I kept going up, up, up. And then I caught on something above the crow’s nest, something I couldn’t see but that must have been high, so high, because it jerked me up again and over the edge of the platform and into Pritkin, who was about to step off the ladder. And sent us both falling and rolling and grabbing for the rope balustrade on the far edge, which was the only thing between us and a whole lot of air.
“Are you crazy?” Pritkin was asking, shaking me. “Are you crazy?”
Yes, I thought but couldn’t say because I was laughing too hard. I’d ended up on the bottom, and I stared up into his face and laughed and laughed, I don’t know why. But I couldn’t seem to stop, and I frankly didn’t try too hard.
“You are crazy,” he told me, shaking his head.
“But I won!” I gasped. “I won, I won, I won!”
“By a moment only!”
“It still counts!” I grinned up at him. “So what do I get?”
He didn’t answer. But his lips curved in another of those disturbing smiles, even while his eyes burned. And for a moment, I swear I felt the earth move.
And then I was sure of it, as the platform began to shake underneath us. And a cascade of leaves rained down all around us. And, for a moment, I thought that maybe some new entertainment was starting up, because trolls really knew how to party.
But then the tree actually tilted, almost sending us the rest of the way off the side before Pritkin caught me, pushing me up the now-slanted platform. I grabbed the top and pulled myself the rest of the way up. And looked over and saw—
Something impossible.
The center of the big open space, which a moment ago had been filled with revelers, tables groaning with beer, and a big ox roasting over an even bigger fire, was now a churning, boiling mass of dirt and flaming logs and debris. It looked like the people had managed to jump free, running into the forest or swinging up into the trees, but the feast was gone. And in its place—
“They bypassed the wards by coming up through the ground,” Pritkin said, as silver-haired devils started emerging from the cauldron of earth. “The dark fey’s element is fire. Their wards are smothered by earth—”
“Stop telling me how they got in and tell me what we do about it!” I said.
And then I saw her. A small, dark-eyed girl like the one who had waved at me, standing all alone on what had once been a tabletop but was now a piece of flotsam on a dirt sea. The Svarestri weren’t targeting her, didn’t even seem to notice her, but it wouldn’t matter. Because in a minute they’d be targeting everyone, destroying the last of her people over a weapon they probably couldn’t even use.
A weapon we had brought here.
“Pritkin—” I said, my lips numb.
But he was no longer there. And a second later, neither was I, as an arm swooped down from above. And pulled me up and over the tilted platform, and onto a joist still clinging to the tree.
I didn’t have a chance to ask what was going on, because he was yelling, but not at me.
“Up here!” he bellowed down at the running, screaming, chaotic scene below. The words must have been magically enhanced, because they tore through the forest like he was speaking through a bullhorn, loud and echoing. “Are you deaf? We’re up here!”
And no, I thought, it didn’t look like the Svarestri were deaf. Because he hadn’t even finished speaking when they jerked their heads up, all at once, like they were on a string. And focused. And threw.
The huge tree exploded in a fireball that consumed half a dozen others in the vicinity, like Roman candles. But didn’t consume us, because we weren’t there anymore. A familiar wrenching jerk tore us away right before the bolts landed, sending us sailing through the air back toward the tree I’d come from.
Only we didn’t end up there. Because Pritkin grabbed another rope halfway, one I hadn’t even seen against the dark sky. And a second after that, some sort of pulley system jerked us up even higher, and then—
“What the hell?” I screamed as we started flying forward, skimming through a tunnel of branches barely below the treetops.
“Quick line through forest; it’s their escape route,” Pritkin said breathlessly. “It’ll draw the Svarestri away from the village.”
And then what? I thought but didn’t say. Because it didn’t look like that would be a problem. It didn’t look like that would be a problem at all, with trees exploding all around us as bolt after bolt shot up from the forest floor.
They must have been running and firing, and they were running fast.
“Hold on!” Pritkin told me as a spear exploded just to our left, scattering burning debris and a firestorm of leaves everywhere.
“I am holding on! Holding on is not the problem!” I shrieked, which probably wasn’t helpful, but what would be?
And then I found out.
“You had it?” I yelled as a familiar stick appeared out of nowhere.
“I glamouried a substitute on the way here,” Pritkin told me a second before he activated the staff. And it may as well have been a booster rocket attached to our asses. Because our flight th
rough the treetops suddenly became an express train straight to hell.
We went hurtling through a storm of burning branches and falling leaves, with the forest turning into one long line of fire as bolts hit above, below, and to the side of us. I couldn’t see with a forest’s worth of branches slapping me in the face and smoke and shrapnel flying everywhere and the wind strong enough to make my eyes water without all of that. But that was okay; that was all right.
Because the damned Svarestri couldn’t see us, either. Not hidden by all the foliage and with a firestorm billowing up behind us. The staff fanned the flames into a whirlwind and then what looked like a solid wall of fire as we left the fey in the freaking dust.
There was only one small problem.
Namely the lifeline above our head. Which wasn’t a second later, when a burning tree fell in the wrong direction and toppled over right on top of it. And sent us flying again, only this time, headed straight for the forest floor.
Chapter Fifty
We landed in a bunch of prickly bushes I didn’t feel because there was something in between us. Something that snapped the next second and sent us tumbling to the ground as whatever shield Pritkin had been able to throw up gave out. We hit hard, because even the bushes were more like little trees around here, and high off the ground. But the next second we were rolling back to our feet, and running.
Because they were coming.
I knew that, even though I couldn’t hear anything. Except for the crackling of a not-so-distant fire and the sounds of scurrying animals diving for cover and a random bird overhead, tweeting a confused note. But I knew they were coming anyway, because I knew them.
And really wished I didn’t.
And then we slammed back into the hollow of a tree, and a hand went over my mouth that I didn’t need, because my throat had already closed in terror at the sight of a silver-blond head passing by just outside.
I froze in place, more out of instinct than sense, because he had to see us; he had to. We were almost close enough to touch. And then we were close enough, as he backed almost into the tree, to give himself the widest possible field of vision over a deep, dark forest filled with flickering flame light, and then flickering fey light as several more ghostly Svarestri ran by. And then he was running, too, following them as they moved deeper into the forest, searching for a prey they’d already found but for some reason hadn’t noticed.