by E Hall
I’ve had worse from the guards and their boots. I press forward and pound one in the nose while dropping my elbow into the other guy’s flank. He loses his footing and takes us both down. I manage to get the upper hand, as I scramble for my blade and hold him at knifepoint. Kiki and the younger one do battle with their blades, slipping and sliding along the edge of the pool. If she’s actually fae, now would be a good time for her to use her magic.
“We’re just leaving,” I say, panting.
“No, you’re not,” says the older one, exploding to standing and knocking me backward.
I slam down hard on the muddy, rocky ground. My vision blurs for a moment as he pins me down. I stop a shiver at the chill of my own blade turned on my neck.
“We’re going to the Morgorthian Mountains,” I choke out.
The man’s weight shifts as though he considers whether I tell the truth. “This is a ruse. You’re here for the king. He’s no king of mine.”
“We’re not here on behalf of the king. We’re here because he’s destroyed—” I start.
“We know what he’s done,” says the older of the two men.
“As do I,” I answer.
A woman with dark brown hair that matches the man’s heavy coat appears. She lays a hand on his shoulder. He hesitantly gets to his feet and tosses my blade on the ground.
I scramble for my coat, blade, and bow. My chest heaves, and I can hardly catch my breath; the battle rage still pulses through me.
“Be gone,” the man says, striding away with what must be his wife and son. “Don’t come through here again.”
Kiki says, “We wish to bring the people of Raven’s Landing together.”
“To overthrow the king?” the son asks, his voice only slightly less gravely than his father’s.
I nod.
They both appraise me, easily their size and just as fierce.
“If you’d just let us explain before attacking you’d have known that and saved us all the trouble,” Kiki says, annoyed. Mud and blood streak her face.
The older guy growls.
She snarls.
I stiffen as realization dawns on me. “Are you bearmen?” I ask.
He grunts.
“My father was Torsuld’s battle arm. A bearman by blood. Did you leave Raven’s Landing when Leith took power?” I ask.
“Many people fled. We chose not to fight on behalf of a corrupt ruler.”
I smile, cracking open a sliver of a cut on my lip, and tasting blood. “Then we are more alike than you realize.”
“We live in peace now,” the woman says. “Please leave us to it. We don’t want ill tidings brought through here.” She eyes the moorland warily as though the king’s retinue is close at our heels. They may very well be.
“We’ll be on our way.” Kiki doesn’t lower her blade but wipes the threads of blood and sweat from her brow.
We remain there until the husband and wife disappear over the nearby ridge. Their son lumbers behind them and with a glance at us over his shoulder, I get the sense that the bear blood is strong in him, and he’s not yet ready for a quiet life of peace.
“You okay?” I ask.
She smiles and her eyes spark like part of her enjoyed the fight.
We walk until Inverness forest looms darkly ahead of us and nurse our wounds.
“What are bearmen?” Kiki asks.
“They’re shifters. Men who can become bears. I’d only seen my father change a few times. Fiercest fighters around in both forms but especially human. Believe it or not, they’re more peaceful as bears generally but still deadly. In either form, they can summon battle rage. In fact, they thrive off it.”
“Your father was a bearman?”
I nod, knowing what’s coming. I shake my head. “I’ve never shifted.” But sometimes I feel the urge—sharp in my bones and the depths of my being.
“So there are fox shifters, bear shifters...”
“Wolves, dragons, and ravens.”
At the edge of the forest, birds perform a cacophonous symphony of unnerving rattles, trills, deep rasps, and nasal clucking. The golden raven streaks across the sky and disappears. The window in my thoughts opens again about the king’s ravens, the shifters. Hope rustles in my chest just as the wind rustles the browning leaves, and the scent of damp, rotting earth would be suffocating if I weren’t so tired after the long day of walking and fighting.
The next morning the ground is covered in frost. I pluck a lonely, lacy white starflower from its stem and give it to Kiki. She rewards me with a smile, bringing the bloom close to her face, inhaling deeply, but then she frowns and drops it. The petals come loose and drift to the ground like snow.
I bend over, tilting my head with confusion and examine them. Bits of ice cover the fallen petals.
“My hand felt cold and then the flower—” She breathes a puff of icy air from her lips and shivers. She wraps her arms around her chest. “It’s freezing out here.”
We keep moving until the edge of the forest breaks sharply atop a knoll that spills into the ravine containing the ghost town, Nine Days. The golden road of the royals leads directly there. Now that we’re beyond the I’s, it should be safe to follow its path without risk of encountering the patrol. If they’re following us, which I doubt, we’re probably a day ahead of them.
“If it’s a choice between sleeping here by the forest or down there, I say let’s stop in between,” I suggest.
“But there are houses, shelter.” She points.
“It’s a ghost town, remember?” I say only now allowing myself to acknowledge it.
She laughs.
“Actual ghosts.”
Her face pales.
I’m cautious, my senses alert as we near the dusty, deserted town.
A figure wearing a green mage’s robe appears in a doorway, eyes dark and hollow, suspicious. He’s blue-gray, almost vaporous.
Kiki stiffens but bravely moves forward.
We continue and another figure joins the first, walking alongside us. The pair doubles and then triples. I slow my pace, my fingers ready to draw my bow—not that it would do much good. The men’s knuckles are white and ruthless; the women’s mouths pinched and merciless.
Kiki keeps her eyes trained forward, not looking back or around or showing any sign of slowing down, but she says, almost dream-like, “I’ve seen this place before.”
The hairs on the back of my neck lift.
“I said I saw the town, but I mean that I dreamed of it.”
The ghosts form a line, blocking our progress. Uh oh.
“How about we make a run for it? They don’t look too solid.” Even as I speak the words, I know this is a terrible idea.
She shakes her head. “They’ll only let us pass if we answer their riddle correctly.”
“And you know this because of your dream?” I don’t filter the skepticism from my voice.
“Trust me,” she says.
“What happens if we don’t answer the riddle correctly?” I ask then realize why the town is referred to as Nine Days.
A ghost parts his lips to reveal emptiness and I hear, “One for sorrow.”
Then another says, “Two for joy.”
A series of tired voices continue, “Three for girls.”
Then, “Four for boys.”
Another says, “Five for silver.”
Followed by, “Six for gold.”
Then, “Seven for secrets never told.”
“Eight for schemes,” one says slowly.
“Nine for dreams.”
A long silence follows as wind whistles through the ravine. It sounds like mage magic.
“Ten to keep us. Ten to turn us back to dust,” one of the ghosts says.
Conveniently, or inconveniently as the case may be, I count ten ghosts.
“Ten to turn us back to dust...” she repeats. “The answer to the riddle is who attacked them.”
“If you saw it in your dream then you know who did it.”
<
br /> “It was a man. That’s all I know.” Kiki looks up at me with concern and at the same a rock tumbles down the ravine, startling her.
The king’s patrol marches down the Royal Road and toward us.
The ghosts seem to look through us and at them.
“We should really get going,” I urge.
Kiki remains steady, watching, waiting. “What’s the answer to the riddle?” she says as though thinking out loud.
“Sounded more like a rhyme.”
The silver king’s banners wave in the air. They appear like a miniature brigade in the distance but are steadily getting closer.
I grip her close to me as if my size alone can protect her from the ghosts in front of us and the guards behind us.
She holds a stone with green, almost glowing, veins in her hand. “I didn’t want to use this. It’s my last one.”
“What is it?”
“A talisman from my realm. To ward off demons, but apparently, it worked on the night howls. Maybe it’ll—” She clears her throat and addresses the ghosts. “Please, let us pass.”
The stone emits an almost invisible ripple of magic, like water shifting the air around us. The barricade of ghosts turn mist-like and part, allowing us passage.
We hurry through the ravine, I but can’t help feel as if both the ghosts and the guard are closing in at our backs.
Chapter 15
Ineke
I belatedly realize that I’ve dreamed of the Northlands, but didn’t realize it at the time. Most of the dreams were from when it was thriving, the innerlands, and then Nine Days, including a vision of the man my mother loved, my father, and them traveling to a snowy, icy place. I’ve dreamed of babies, birds, evil mages, and more. How could I dream of towns and places and people that I’ve never been to or met?
I experiment with these thoughts before they meet my tongue. Will Soren think I’ve gone mad? My mind iced over and delusional? Like I took a few too many swigs of cider?
I clear my throat as we cross a narrow land bridge spanning a deep chasm. The fading light emphasizes a scar on his cheek and shadow of stubble along his jaw.
“Soren, what do you dream about?”
He pauses in the middle of the bridge and looks at me carefully. I suddenly feel vulnerable and not because the king’s patrol is somewhere behind us—if the ghosts even let them pass. Lucky for me, I had one remaining talisman from Heather, but I don’t have any left.
I glance down; the drop is fathomless. I wonder what it would be like to fly. I’m still awaiting an answer from Soren. His eyes flutter from me to the sky, perhaps also wondering what life would be like with wings.
“If we were birds we’d be there by now,” I say in his silence.
“Or fae. But I dream I can fly,” he says, placing his hand on the middle of my back, moving me away from the edge and impossibility.
However, my mind lingers, dipping curious fingers into this pool of thought.
“I dream of ravens. Black and golden. I dream of freedom,” he adds.
“You said your mother was fae.”
“But not my father. I didn’t get the fae magic or the bear shifter power. Some people are born without abilities or they’re delayed. It’s rare but does happen.”
“You told me that back then magic and supernatural abilities were frowned upon, but your parents were together and they weren’t the same kind of magical being.”
“I suppose love doesn’t see those differences as a problem.” He bites his lip.
I wonder about my father and mother—what it would’ve been like to grow up here and with them.
Once on the other side of the land bridge, the bluff opens to a green and grassy carpet, popping with purple and yellow flowers.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, stepping onto the slim path winding away from us. I spin in a circle and for the first time since I was home, I feel like I can breathe. I step toward Soren. The depth of my feeling wants to flap free from my lips. I’m ready to tell him all of the things I’ve seen when I sleep.
But he points to the distance. “See that?”
Not far off, in a stony field, a tiny glow winks like an eye with a secret.
“If we can make it a little farther, we might be able to take shelter. Word is the residents of Briar Knoll are private people and prefer to keep to their own, but are kind nonetheless.”
The firelight gets closer with every step.
Our footfalls are soft on the grass path, but I feel as though I’m walking to a beat. My heart? Soren’s? But it’s below me, in the ground too. Perhaps the people of Briar Knoll use it to keep the night howls or the ghosts from Nine Days away. The more I tune into it, I find that it’s sweeter than the nightly drumming in Raven’s Landing, almost celebratory. I feel a deep connection to everything—the land and sky, people and animals, the water and ice—even the sun and moon are part of me and I’m part of nature too. The deep thrum, thrum, gets louder, pulsing all the way to my bones the nearer I get.
The dark outlines of domes about the same height as Soren dot the landscape. In the center is the fire, circled by a large group of people, clapping in rhythm while two figures with thin strips of fabric streaming behind them, dance closer and closer to each other in the middle. They stamp their feet in time, echoing the drums. Only, they’re not dancing on their feet, but fluttering on wings. Fae.
Something icy hot surges inside of me and I want to rush into their midst. If my mother was fae, what does that make me? I’m done with all the questions. I want answers.
The firelight illuminates a young man and woman, each with flaxen hair. She wears a silvery-green dress and has ribbons tied around her wrists. He’s dressed in dark green and wears the ribbons too. They continue to circle the fire, spiraling toward each other, brushing up flower petals scattered on the ground.
I recall the white starflower in Inverness and how easily the fire would melt it.
Soren and I remain a few paces away from the ritual and watch. My lips part in awe as the pair doesn’t break their gaze, their eyes locked only on each other. The ribbons dance wildly.
At last, they reach the blaze, and I fear their ribbons will catch fire, but a woman wearing a dress almost the exact shade of the sky lifts the ribbons over the fire. The couple links their fingers, palms together, and the priestess binds their hands together. She speaks words we can’t hear, and the lips of those in the circle smile. Their eyes sparkle.
She says something more and then turns to the crowd and they lift their hands over the licking flames. We edge closer.
In a strident tone, a woman says, “The cords holding these two fast connect them to each other, to all of you gathered here, and across earth and sky, sea and ice, joy and pain, dreams and the waking life. And so the binding is made.”
The couple gazes at each other with tender warmth and then they kiss.
When they part, the woman says, “Let us honor their union with a great celebration.” Her eyes shine the color of amber in the firelight.
The group erupts into cheering and whooping. The clapping and foot-stomping seamlessly transform into music I’ve never heard—especially not the club music or rock from back home. Instead, it’s a plucking noise that rises and falls. There’s a smooth whistling sound like the wind dancing over dents in the ice, but more tuneful. It’s the sound starlight would make.
It doesn’t take long for several of the revelers to notice our outsider status. A child dressed in purple with a thin crown woven of flowers on her head runs toward us. She stops short and then turns around, skittering back the way she came with a giggle. Young women in green dresses peer at us as they dance gleefully. Older women with their silver hair piled on their heads spare us a glance, nattering in low tones.
“I think this is a wedding ceremony,” I whisper to Soren.
A man in blue with light hair and a matching beard eyes us and confers with a woman who wears a wide wreath made of evergreen and berries around her head. She’s at
once regal and earthy. They both approach with hesitant, wary steps. Wings glisten at their backs, conveying their otherworldly power.
“This is the first time I’ve crashed a wedding,” I whisper.
“I am Arth of Briar Knoll. Who are you and what brings you here?” the man in blue asks. His eyes are the color of lavender flowers.
“I am Thea, the elder of Briar Knoll, Seelie fae and daughter of Tawn and Alan of the forest court.” The woman with the wreath nods in a regal way.
Soren looks away from me and meets the man with sharp caution. “I’m Soren, and this is Kiki,” he says. “We’re traveling to the Morgorthian Mountains.”
Their gazes dart from our heads to our feet but mostly linger at our sides, perhaps gauging whether we carry weapons. Soren has blades sheathed under his massive coat and a bow on his back. I carry the blade from work but don’t have any more of Heather’s single-use talismans in my pocket.
“We’re coming from Raven’s Landing.”
Their shifting feet and darting gazes suggest they don’t trust outsiders as Soren said, but perhaps especially not those from Raven’s Landing.
“You made it through Nine Days?” Thea asks.
Soren nods. “We’re merely passing through and would like to stay here the night if possible.”
“We’re not here to burden you with trouble,” I add, though hopefully, the king’s guard doesn’t make it past the ghosts because they could certainly be a problem. I tell them about what happened.
Thea touches the top of my head and closes her eyes. I have the urge to duck out from under her hand and take a swipe, but she’s gentle and I sense she doesn’t mean harm. She does the same to Soren who visibly stiffens and balls his hands into fists.
Even after she removes her hands, she studies us both a long while. “They’re not Unseelie,” she says at last.
This seems to please Arth. “The ghosts of Nine Days are both a blessing and a burden. They keep outsiders away, but it’s rare anyone makes it through.”