by Karen Chance
“I don’t know why not! I’ve never done this before! And thanks to whatever you did, I can’t even tell whether you’re in my mind, or I’m in yours. But try as I might, nothing changes.”
Great. I was stuck in mental hell, in an outfit that was sure to trip me up every five feet. Not to mention being lined and damned hot, despite the fact that I hadn’t bothered with a petticoat. I hiked up my skirt and felt around underneath.
“What are you doing?” Guinn demanded.
“Checking for a crotch slit.”
“What?”
Oh, thank God. Edwardian ladies didn’t always stitch up the seam on their underwear, because going to the bathroom in a corset and half a dozen petticoats was hard enough. This led to the infamous crotch slit, which was exactly what it sounded like, and was often so wide that it made me wonder why they bothered with underwear at all.
But this pair of bloomers had actually been sewn up. I tore the sagging dress off at the waist, leaving me in a lace top and a cute set of wide legged cotton shorts, voluminous enough to look like a skirt and modest enough to preserve my dignity—whatever I had left. It wasn’t a perfect solution, since I still had the high-necked, long sleeved, lace shirt to contend with, but it would have to do.
“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” Guinn asked, apropos of nothing.
“Stop whining,” I told her. “And come on.”
~~~
“Stop,” Guinn said, what felt like hours later, and I gladly followed orders. I flopped down on the ground, panting heavily. The forest was a nightmare, tall and close and dark, with roots that tried to trip you up when they weren’t doing even worse.
There were also leaves crunching underfoot, if that was even the right term, since we’d had to wade through waist-deep piles in places, and they were washed up against some of the larger trees in drifts twice as high as my head. They cut off a lot of what little light there was, and would have made an already difficult situation basically impossible, only I was here with two witches.
As a result, we had two light sources, although they were mostly illuminating leaf piles at the moment. Rhea had magicked up an orb of the kind that the dark mages had used in the tunnels, and Guinn had festooned a dead tree branch with strange, blue flame. We hadn’t wanted to risk using either of them, in case there were fey about, but there hadn’t been a choice.
Now, contrasting colors of electric blue and gold danced over the scene, highlighting two tired faces, predatory trees, and yet more leaves. Who knew that Faerie could be so boring, I thought, flopping back and looking up. And then catching my breath in wonder.
I’d been so busy watching my footsteps, that I hadn’t paid much attention to what was above me. Although it wouldn’t have mattered for much of our hike, which had taken place under heavy tree cover. But we’d reached, not a clearing, but a gap in the branches overhead, showing off a sight that you’d never see on Earth, unless visiting the famous Sequoias.
Although I didn’t know whether even they were this big. I was staring up at trees as thick around as apartment buildings, with leafy tops that speared so far into the starlit sky that I could barely see them. It looked like we’d stumbled into a massive cathedral of wood rather than stone, with the trunks like columns and the branches like buttresses.
It was almost like being in two forests at once. The sequoia-like trees looked like they touched the stars, while the tops of the shorter varieties, many of which were still pretty big, formed a second canopy far below. No wonder it was so dark! Through a gap, I could see crisscrossing beams of moonlight bouncing off the huge trunks far above us, but only an occasional ray reached the forest floor. And by the time it did, it had disintegrated into practically nothing.
“Douse the lights,” Guinn said suddenly, a second before hers went out.
“Why?” I asked, as Rhea followed suit.
Guinn didn’t answer. I couldn’t see her at all now, except as a silhouette against the night, framed by rapidly fading after images. But unlike me and Rhea, she was on her feet, with her head turning this way and that. She almost looked like she was sniffing the air, and maybe she was. Faerie was so damned weird that nothing would have surprised me.
Scare the living crap out of me yes; surprise me no.
“Guinn?” I prompted, when she didn’t answer after a moment. “Guinevere?”
“There’s something wrong.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet; stop talking!”
I stopped talking. But it was considerably less enchanting to sit here in the dark, with sweat dripping down my back and strange insects buzzing in my ears. There were some with natural bioluminescence, like fireflies only larger—the size of beetles. They gave off a soft blue light that wasn’t enough to illuminate much, but it added to the weird.
I’d seen a few of them before, but our light sources had mostly drowned them out. But now, as my vision adjusted, I could see them everywhere. They were flitting through the air, trundling over the ground, and lighting up piles of leaves, providing a dim, ambient sort of illumination that would have been strangely pretty, if I wasn’t tense as all hell.
I wanted to prompt Guinn again, but she was prickly, which . . . yeah. Didn’t really blame her. This was way more than she’d signed up for.
Join the club, I thought, glancing around. And hoping against hope that whatever she was sensing was Mircea or Pritkin, heading for us through the trees. Because they should be, right?
Mircea had been right there when he’d pulled me in before; I’d literally appeared beside him. Of course, I’d pulled myself in this time, but still. I would have expected to have found him by now, or at least to be able to hear him in my head.
But I couldn’t, which was why we’d been stumbling around, trying to zero in on his location. He was here; I could feel him, like a warm glow in the back of my mind. But I couldn’t contact him and that worried me—a lot.
He’d been able to communicate even stoned half out of his mind yesterday. And by now, whatever the dark mages had put in that potion bomb should have worn off. Yet I couldn’t even tell if I was getting warmer or not. For all I knew, we were walking around in circles, lost forever in a leafy maze . . .
Until we were eaten by hungry roots, I thought, as another one inched towards me.
“Cut it out!” I said, and slammed a knife down through the bastard thing, pinning it to the forest floor.
Before stopping and staring, because I hadn’t brought a knife.
“Take cover!” Rhea yelled, as more knives clattered against a shield that I guessed she’d thrown up, because I sure hadn’t. And I didn’t think that Guinn had, either, since she’d just hit the dirt beside me.
“In the tree,” she panted.
“What tree?” I said, looking around wildly. We were in a forest; there were a thousand trees!
“That one!” she pointed. “Over there.”
I followed her finger, but I couldn’t see anything. But then something moved, and I caught a glimpse of silver hair, flashing in a ray of moonlight as a Svarestri warrior leapt from one branch to another. And then caught fire when Rhea sent a fireball blistering at him through the air.
A very undignified yelp drifted down to us, and the fey took off. But no one else followed, because despite the barrage we’d just suffered, there appeared to be only one. And that was the best news I’d heard all day.
“Where are you going?” Guinn demanded, as I jumped to my feet.
“After him!”
“What? But he’s leaving—”
“I know.”
“So, let him go!”
“Not a chance—”
“Why?”
“I need answers!” I said, before running full out—into the side of the shield that Rhea had thrown back up. “Drop it!” I told her, staggering back, and she, at least, didn’t argue.
She dropped it, and I took off after the fleeing fey.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I could almost hear Mircea laugh at the fey’s surprised expression as he had to dodge his own weapon, but I didn’t laugh along. I was too busy tearing through the trees, pushing both mine and Mircea’s abilities to the limit to catch up. It was easier than I’d thought to leap from branch to branch, even at a dead run, since many of them overlapped and smaller limbs and leaves and forest gunk had formed a thatch underfoot.
It almost looked deliberate, as if the tree branches had been trained to grow together and create pathways in the sky. But if they had, the system had broken down long ago, with large boughs hanging low enough to threaten me with decapitation, forcing me to duck or jump, and sizeable gaps in the path underfoot showing dizzyingly long drops if I missed a step. But I couldn’t slow down, no matter how much I would have liked to.
Because the fey wasn’t alone.
I could see a camp, glimmering through the trees, in the distance. The leafy walls and dense tree cover had hidden it from the ground, but it was clearly visible up here, twinkling with dozens of campfires. I could also see it in the fey’s mind, with Mircea’s abilities grabbing hold of his consciousness as I raced along. I used the connection to stop him from alerting anyone to our presence by calling out or blowing the horn at his waist, which seemed to work.
But something else didn’t.
Kåre! The call was as loud as he could make it, but the worthless child sitting by the fire, staring forlornly at his bone flute, did not hear. They were too far south for him to be allowed to play it, in case the sound carried to enemy ears. But he had been moaning about it for days, and was too preoccupied to listen to more important things on the wind.
Ødger Redspear! The large fey was standing nearby, polishing the stolen weapon that had given him his byname. He’d taken it off a troll, after dueling him as if the creature was an equal. It should have been a sign of dishonor, yet he treated it as a trophy. He had as much intellect as that troll, Erri thought savagely, when he did not hear the message, either.
Arne! The lanky eagle tender did look up, as if hearing something, at least. But then his cursed bird screeched and stole his attention. He smoothed its feathers, calming it down, while his shield brother ran for his life, unheard—
The fey’s attempt at mental communication suddenly cut out when I plowed into someone. Someone I hadn’t seen because my mind had been busy with the camp, but who now yelled and fought and fell—and grabbed hold to take me along with him. The fey and I plunged what must have been thirty feet, leaving both of us stunned on impact despite landing in a massive pile of leaves. But I somehow managed to get an arm up, seconds before he stabbed an arrow through my heart, and caught his wrist.
Sleep, I thought desperately, and watched his eyes fall closed.
I fell back against the ground, shivering and shaking and wondering how many things I’d just broken.
It felt like a lot.
It felt like everything.
You’re okay, I told myself. You’re not really here, remember? But it was hard to keep that in mind as I writhed and twisted, fighting to pull air back into lungs that felt as flattened as the rest of me.
I finally managed it, gulping in a shallow breath a moment before Rhea and Guinn ran up, calling my name. I couldn’t see them, being buried under a mountain of leaves, and couldn’t hear them much better. But that last wasn’t the leaves’ fault.
My ears were still full of the sounds of the distant camp. Fires popped, horses whinnied, and a few light notes from a flute sighed on the wind. Whatever part of my mind that controlled hearing seemed to be stuck inside the fey’s head, and I didn’t know how to get it out.
Some of the rest of my senses were there, too, because I felt the flute being torn from my grasp a moment later, and an angry fey telling me off in words I only half understood. He must be speaking some dialect that Pritkin didn’t know, I thought, as he shook me. Only he wasn’t shaking me; my body was currently being dragged out of the leaf pile by a couple of panting, cursing women. But Kåre . . .
The forest winked out, and in its place, I saw a little boy, sitting at a rough wooden table in a house made of stone, being presented with a flute by an older, male fey. The older fey was dressed in a leather jerkin that looked like it had seen more than a few winters, and his face contained lines that I’d rarely seen on one of their kind. And, unlike the fey warriors I’d encountered a few times, who had mostly left their long hair free, his was barely shoulder-length and tied back with a leather thong.
“I’ll teach you how to play it, shall I?”
The boy looked up, excitement brightening his eyes. “Will I be as good as papa?”
The older fey’s smile faltered for a second, before he recovered and mussed the fair hair. “Perhaps. Although very few were as good as your sire, boy.”
I tried to pull away, to free myself from this, whatever this was. It felt like an imprint, except that it was crystal clear, like the fey version that the telepath had shown me. But I wasn’t touching anything but leaves, so I didn’t know what was happening.
Just that I needed to get out.
But the only reward for my struggles was that the view skewed, showing me a scarred wooden cutting board and an old woman’s hands. She was setting down a bone-handled knife and sweeping some vegetable tops into a wooden pail. Which she then picked up and headed out of the cottage door, carrying me along with her.
The cold was beyond bracing, causing us to pull our shawl closer around our shoulders and to view the quiet valley in front of us through a haze of our own breath. There was a cluster of gray, stacked stone cottages, like the one we’d just left; there was a dirt road, potholed with ice-covered puddles; and there were hills covered in fir trees, the branches of which hung heavily with snow. There were also some outbuildings down a small hill, and we headed toward one of those.
Our booted feet crunched over the icy ground, while we watched some distant neighbors moving behind horn covered windows, throwing shadows onto the snow outside. They were cooking, too, with thin threads of smoke curling out of their chimneys before blending into the slate gray sky. A lone fey came by, driving a wagon piled high with wood and pulled by an old white horse, and lifted a hand in greeting as we reached what I guessed was a barn.
It didn’t look much different than the house, except for a few gaps in the thatched roof, which would need mending by spring, and some holes in the sides that had been patched with wattle and daub. But the scent was suggestive, and then a couple of pigs poked pink and gray snouts out of the door, sniffing at our offerings as we broke the ice on a hand pump, to fill a water bucket. But they didn’t come out of the warm barn.
They knew we’d be in soon enough, and for carrot tops, they’d wait.
It was a peaceful, picture-postcard-like scene. Or it would have been, if it hadn’t also been a prison. Let me go, I thought, mentally thrashing. Let me go!
But the only response was the view skewing again, hard enough to make me dizzy. And when it stopped, I didn’t think I was the same person anymore. Not unless the old woman had a lover, I thought, as my arm drew a plump girl closer, feeling the curves that I’d enjoyed the night before.
My mouth came down on hers, and she was sweet, sweet as honey, sweeter than the cold aristocrats’ daughters in the city, who became incensed if you so much as mussed their hair. Hers was already mussed, and I ran my hand through it, admiring the bright red color and the curls—so strange, so different—flowing through my fingers, and then bouncing back delightfully. She needed no artifice, no long sessions with curling irons and crimps. She rolled out of bed looking better than they ever would.
My bed, I thought, and kissed her aga
in, reluctant to leave even though I was already late.
“Come again soon?” she said, as I broke away. It was as much as she ever asked of me.
“As soon as I can.” It was as much as I ever promised, as much as I could.
I had an ice maiden waiting for me; a good match, the king had said. From a family nearly as old as mine, and far more respected these days. One with hair like moonlight and skin like fresh cream—and all the passion of the icicle she so closely resembled.
She was likely barren to boot, being her parents’ only child, even after hundreds of years of trying—one way to make sure that my line died out, I thought viciously. Only I had already found fertile fields here. My hand rested for a moment on Ronog’s belly, swollen with the proof of that. I looked into her freckled face and felt my heart clench. Marred, they called it, and alien and mixed blood and common, and a thousand more insults besides.
Beautiful, I thought, and broke away.
I pulled back, desperately trying to separate my consciousness from the fey’s before I lost myself in it, but it only brought me back to that half immersion I’d started out with. It left me feeling less like the person in question and more like his backpack, one he was carrying along whether I liked it or not. It was maddening!
There was no way to know who he was, but the shadow on the ground in front of me looked like someone dressed in armor, and his hand had been gauntleted. He also had a helmet on, topped by a feathered plume. Its shadow bounced as he jogged away from the girl’s small house.
I hadn’t known that people could jog in full armor, but he barely felt the weight of it, although whether that was because fey armor was lighter than the human variety, or because he was stronger, I didn’t know.
He headed up a hill overtopping the village, where a huge, feathered creature was tethered to a pole. The beast was in the middle of eating a mole that had gotten too close, its great beak ripping into the red flesh held between its mighty talons, its eagle-like eyes watching us warily, as if it thought we might be after its snack. I saw the fey’s hand reach out and grab its bridle, and heard his voice tell it to hurry up, that they had work to do.