The oldest and most experienced among them was a dark-haired man with pale-blue sídhe marks and a small iron scar on his chin, who introduced himself in a gruff voice as Major Anlon McDermott.
To his right was a beanpole of a man with a buzz cut and a pinched face, who claimed in a barely discernible mumble that he was Captain Niall Kavanagh.
And lastly, to Kavanagh’s right was a woman who was as ludicrously short as the captain was tall, and whose rounded features created a false impression of youth and naïveté. Her name was Second Lieutenant Shona Graham.
The trio swallowed their orders like bitter medicine, their barely restrained disdain for us foolhardy mortals softened only by Maguire’s decision to put McDermott in charge of the mission.
“He’s ventured into the old forests before, and come out in one piece,” she told us, “which is more than I can say for half of those who’ve dared to brave the wilds. He has a good head and a strong sense of impending danger, and I believe he will keep you all as safe as you can possibly be on such a risky mission.”
Orlagh hid how bummed she was to be denied command with a stiff salute. “Understood, ma’am.”
Boyle mimicked her response, even less enthused. I got the impression he’d butted heads with McDermott in the past.
General Maguire frowned at their reticence—especially since saying that they “understood” the orders was not an explicit acceptance of them—but she didn’t call them out. As we’d been loitering in the courtyard, waiting for the three soldiers to arrive, Orlagh and Boyle had detailed McCullough’s every misstep over the past several months. Maguire had shaken her head in disgust no less than twenty times before the recap ended.
After being stuck under the thumb of a commander that bad, it was natural to be hesitant to fall under the sway of anyone else. So Maguire let them have the out. If McDermott misbehaved and violated the mission parameters, for whatever reason, they had her tacit permission to course correct.
Before she turned away from Orlagh to address the rest of us though, she slapped her daughter with a punitive look. Do not take your disobedience too far, or act with the same degree of reckless indiscretion you used to defy McCullough, said that look. If you do, I will not hesitate to punish you, regardless of your justifications.
Orlagh bowed her head slightly, and I could’ve sworn I saw her mouth, Yes, Mother.
Somewhat satisfied, Maguire dragged her focus to me. “Even on this day of many revelations, I remain unsure why Queen Mab seeks to designate a half-sídhe in exile with tasks of such monumental importance. But as always, I will follow her will on such matters and bid you good luck, Vincent Whelan.
“You do have a knack for surviving violent encounters with adversaries far beyond your level. Perhaps that pattern will hold seven hours more and give you the opportunity to save that little
city you care about ever so much. At the very least, I wish it so, and hope your luck extends to those who accompany you.
“The old forests give no heed to mortal souls. The beings that live within will try as hard to crush you underfoot as they do each other.”
I suppressed a smirk. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re excellent at pep talks?”
“I am afraid the time to be ‘peppy’ has long passed. With the Interloper roaming the hills and dales of our realm, and the Enemy from Beyond looming higher and higher on a horizon that is beginning to seem less distant, pragmatism must win out over feeling, no matter how keen or passionate.”
I swallowed, my throat still sore from the strangulation. “I suppose you’re right, but bear in mind there is a difference between pragmatism and cynicism. I think you’re leaning too far toward the latter. ‘Nothing is hopeless until there’s no one left to hope.’”
Saoirse had told me that once, years before the collapse.
I hadn’t believed it was true until recently.
Maguire eyed me curiously for a moment, then replied, “Wise enough words for a mortal.”
Her gaze drifted over my shoulder, to the rest of my “crew,” all of them loitering near the stables so they could pet the horses.
Indira, being half lesser Seelie, warranted only a passing glance; Maguire was used to seeing half-bloods of all flavors.
Odette she studied for a second longer, lingering on the metal arm that was never meant for a human body.
Finally, her cold gray eyes scrutinized Drake. “Though I do wish you and all your allies well, Vincent Whelan,” she said in a frigid tone, “I question your rationale in recruiting a necromancer to the cause.”
Orlagh cleared her throat. “About that, General…”
She went on to succinctly describe all the instances during which Drake had provided substantial aid to me personally and to the general populace of Kinsale during the unfolding of Abarta and Vianu’s plot to summon the Hunt. She expounded on those points by repeating what I had told her about the binding spell that enslaved Drake to Vianu, and Vianu’s plan to kill Drake, his own son, when the binding spell finally ran its course.
“Based on his recent actions, I strongly believe he holds no particular malice toward the humans or the fae,” she finished,
“and that his crimes are wholly the result of unfortunate
circumstance. As such, I vowed that, if he helped us on the mission to locate the Morrígan, I would speak to you on his behalf and ask that you seek absolution for his past transgressions against the court.”
Maguire looked from her daughter to Drake—who was stroking a pretty beige horse and cooing—and back again. Sighing, she said,
“If you all are not lost on this mission, and the dhampir performs admirably, I will consider discussing with Queen Mab the potential for absolving him of his crimes. But I will make no further determination on the matter at this time.”
Sagging in relief, as I was seriously worried Drake might lose his head before we escaped from Fort Drochrath, I said, “Thank you. I was concerned I was going to have to ask Tildrum to speak to Mab on the matter. That’s what I originally promised Drake I would do.”
Maguire drew her lips into a thin line. “Be careful how closely you consort with the King of the Cats, Vincent Whelan. His fealty may in theory belong to Queen Mab, but he is not blood of our blood, soul of our soul, and he hails not from the forgotten lands where truth flowed like water and honor was a song the wind sang.”
The “forgotten lands” referred to the realm from which the sídhe had originated. A realm that had collapsed after a great cataclysm split its ruling god into two opposing halves that had become two opposing queens.
“Tildrum may not tell lies, but he walks the fine line between truth and falsehood with far more skill, and far more intent, than the rest of us,” she added. “Every piece of information he has passed you since Mab first decreed your role in the plan to surreptitiously thwart Abarta has been nothing but a twisted fragment of a truth.”
The recently recovered memory of Tildrum comforting me as a child floated to the forefront of my mind. “Yeah,” I muttered, “I am well aware of that.”
“Do try not to forget it.”
Maguire turned away and whistled sharply to the grooms who were saddling two horses. They jumped and sped up their work, adjusting the straps to make sure they were tight and checking the saddlebags to make sure they were adequately supplied. When they finished, one of them led the horses over to Orlagh and Boyle.
None of us mortals got our own ride. Horses with military training were reserved for soldiers only.
After Orlagh and Boyle mounted their steeds, I called out to everyone at the stables. They all shuffled over, dour that their short reprieve had ended. General Maguire reviewed our orders one final time. When no one threw any objections or questions, she told us the mission was a go and we were to head out immediately.
The crystalline portcullis set into the curtain wall, which had been lowered sometime after our escort into the fort, was raised again at the general’s hand signal. As the heavy ga
te clanked upward in its track, McDermott tugged the reins of his horse and set off at a leisurely trot with which the unfortunates on foot could keep pace without running ourselves ragged. The other soldiers on horseback followed McDermott’s lead, the rest of us bringing up the rear.
The trek to our first stop wasn’t a long one: It was the same part of the hill where we’d teleported in earlier. That point was just beyond the reach of the fort’s massive ward array, Orlagh explained to me as I ambled along just behind her horse, so it saw regular traffic from soldiers coming and going via teleportation.
McDermott brought his horse to a stop and gestured for everyone to gather closely around him. Once we were all in position, he launched into an invocation for the same teleportation spell that O’Sullivan had used to carry us off from the Royal Mainway. He altered only two lines, the coordinates for the point of departure and those for the destination.
The coordinates for the former were a simple string of numbers.
But the latter was actually a name in an old fae language that vaguely translated to “the place where the phantoms of the past lay claim.”
There was a reason for that.
The teleportation spell encapsulated us inside its cage of light, and then we were off in a flash toward an end point that no one could accurately predict.
When the light of the teleportation spell flickered out, the light of a glaring midday sun took its place.
Everyone groaned as midsummer heat leached away the cold that had hitched a ride inside the magic circle. That crispness was replaced by overbearing humidity, sweat beading up on my armpits and chest in a matter of seconds. The air smelled like fresh rain in place of freshly fallen snow, and the frozen soil beneath our feet had been swapped out for a mud slick, as the bright-green grass of the rolling hills gave way to the edge of the towering forest before us.
Trees taller than skyscrapers pierced fluffy white clouds high in the sky, their canopies so dense that little light from the
blazing sun penetrated the depths of the forest. The entire expanse of trees was a gradient of shadow, punctuated by thousands of lights of various color and size. Some shades of shadow were fifty feet tall and moved at a languorous pace, unaccompanied by the incredible noise that such large creatures would necessarily create if they obeyed the laws of Earth physics.
Other hues belonged to smaller beings, dark dots and blurs flittering up and down, left and right, leaping or flying between the branches of different trees. And the lights? Some were eyes, like the ones that had watched us approach the Royal Mainway. But other lights were not so easily explained away. They were ghost lights, blinking into existence only to vanish a moment later.
They were warning lights, telling us that we did not truly grasp the nature of the beings that had lived in the darkness since time immemorial.
Everybody took a quiet minute to absorb the sense of the forest’s nearly unfathomable scale.
When the stupor wore off, Indira asked, “Is this specifically the old forest that the Morrígan was last seen entering, or is this just the first forest we’re going to check?”
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” I replied. “Technically, the ‘old forests’ are actually just one big forest. They’re referred to in the plural because different stretches of the forest exist in different places across the continent. The theory goes that sometime during the primordial age of the realm, a great magic disturbance prompted the forest to split itself into forty different pieces.
“But none of those pieces completely disconnected from each other. Which is why, if you enter one patch of forest, you can end up exiting a completely different patch hundreds of miles away. And if you try to teleport to the outskirts of any patch of forest, you can wind up standing in front of one on the opposite end of the continent from where you intended to be.”
“So that’s how we got to the Seelie Court,” Odette muttered, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Sheesh. Why does Tír na nÓg have to be so freaking weird?”
Even the sídhe soldiers shrugged at that question. No one understood all of the realm’s idiosyncrasies. At least no one who was willing to share that knowledge with others.
Drake looked out at the expanse of lush grass swaying in the breeze behind us. “Are the Seelie not going to get upset that a bunch of Unseelie soldiers are tromping around in their territory?”
“Technically, this is not Seelie territory.” Boyle pointed at a small square stone sticking out of the grass about thirty feet away. “Neutral buffer zones were created around each segment of the old forests specifically to prevent the sort of diplomatic incidents that would naturally arise from this geographic quirk.
As long as we don’t cross the buffer boundary, the Seelie will not hassle us.”
“You all just have a solution for everything, don’t you?” Odette mocked.
Orlagh shrugged. “Preparedness is a necessity of living in Tír na nÓg.”
McDermott whistled to get everyone’s attention and gestured to a wide break in the tree line up ahead that appeared to be a remnant of an overgrown walking path. “We’ll enter there, two riders at the lead and three at the back, with the mortals in between,” he said in his standard fae dialect.
At the blank looks from Odette, Indira, and Drake, he rubbed his head and tried again in his best rendition of English. Which sounded like it had been run through nine different languages on an internet translation site. Even so, everyone got the gist of what McDermott was saying and fell into his desired formation.
Then we set off toward the towering forest.
As we stepped into the shadows of the enormous trees, the sounds of the rushing wind and rustling grass abruptly cut out and were replaced by a rich cacophony of background noise. The flapping of bird wings and whizzing of insect wings. The scrabbling of claws on bark and the skittering of spindly legs through brush. The faint patter of dainty hoofbeats on thick moss and dull thudding of much larger feet on solid-packed earth.
We were surrounded by life, and all of it could kill us. But nothing attacked us—yet—so we plodded onto the snaking path that led toward the heart of the forest. A heart that was bathed in a darkness not even sídhe senses could penetrate. It hung in the distance like a physical wall, that darkness, and no fae knew the extent of what lay past that boundary.
Everything in Tír na nÓg belonged to Mab or her counterpart now.
Except the old forests, which belonged to the things that had come before, the things that had been born long before the faerie queens were a twinkle in the Otherworld’s eye.
Tom Tildrum had likely been born here, among a million other ancient creatures of which modern fae society had little to no understanding.
Odette eyed a bird the size of a Labrador retriever that was perched on a wide branch sixty feet above us. It had nine eyes
and a beak the length of a chainsaw. “That’s not freaky,” she said under her breath, “not freaky at all.”
Indira leaned toward her and spoke through the corner of her mouth. “I got a feeling that freaky birds are going to be the least of our problems.”
“You got that right,” Drake mumbled. “We’ll be lucky if death is the worst of our problems.”
Deep into the forest we walked, crossing two burbling streams by hopping rocks and chancing an ancient stone bridge built over a jagged gully, until the path bottomed out at the base of a shallow hill and branched off in five different directions. A wooden post suggested that there had once been signs declaring where each of the branches went. But the signs were long gone, and the post weathered down to three feet of damp, rotten wood.
We would have to make an educated guess about which direction to go from here.
“All right, we’re deep inside the creepy woods,” Odette said, inching away from a nearby tree where a centipede the size of a cat had just emerged from a deep hole in the trunk. “Now how do we actually find the Morrígan? We can’t just go hiking on five different trails, turning over rocks
and yelling into caves, until the forest spits us out at some other random place on the continent.”
“There are several things we can try,” I said, “but I think our first shot should be the simplest: we give her a shout.”
Indira’s brow furrowed. “Like, we shout her name at the top of our lungs?”
Drake snapped his fingers. “That but enhanced with magic, so the sound carries to every corner of the forest. Right?”
I nodded. “Even if she doesn’t respond immediately, it’ll alert her to our presence, and she’ll keep an eye on us until she can make a determination about whether or not to engage.”
Odette kicked a loose rock against the tree behind her, scaring the huge centipede back into its hole. “But a shout like that will be a beacon to everything else in the forest as well, so all sorts of creepy-crawlies might come slinking our way, looking for a hot meal.”
“That’s why we brought them.” I gestured to the soldiers. “Not many creatures are willing to fight a bunch of sídhe for a single meal, no matter how desperately hungry they may be. It’s more probable that the worst we’ll do is pique the curiosity of most of the forest inhabitants.”
“Most of them already know we are here,” said Graham, her tone as soft as the rest of her features. “There was a subtle shift in the undertones of the general buzz the second we passed the first tree, a shift that to my ears spoke of excitement. I take it we are the most interesting group to venture into the old forests in some time. A bizarre mix of fae and not fae, the kind of arrangement you rarely see in modern times, now that the population of Tír na nÓg has settled far in favor of the former.”
“That excitement may not last,” said Kavanagh, in a deep voice at odds with his willowy frame. “If the Morrígan has allies or enemies among the listeners, they may interpret the ’shout’ as some sort of threat. We should not let our guard down.”
“Agreed.” McDermott made a series of hand signals, directing the mounted soldiers to form a protective circle around the group.
“Anything can happen in these forests, so we must be prepared for everything.”
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