The High Mountain Court (The Five Crowns of Okrith Book 1)

by AK Mulford

  Hale’s pupils dilated as he stared, seemingly mesmerized by Remy’s glowing eyes. It was a strange sensation to have someone look at her with appreciation instead of fear. The only people who didn’t run from her magic were Heather and Fenrin. But Hale looked at her with awe, not terror.

  Remy dropped her eyes to her feet.

  “Don’t,” Hale said, his voice dropping an octave. Remy looked back at him, but the intensity of his attention made her shift on her feet. “You don’t need to hide your magic from me.”

  “Yes, you’ve already made it clear that I’m a hiding coward.” Remy jabbed.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” Now Hale was the one to shift, his posture tightening.

  “It’s true though.” Remy kept her eyes down, willing away her magic. She felt it ebbing, the glow fading.

  Hale took another step and was right before her, a hair’s breadth away. He lifted her chin so she would look at him. Her magic flared again, and she saw the red glow reflected in his eyes.

  “You did what you needed to survive.” His voice softened. His breath warmed her cheek. “But your magic . . . it’s as powerful as it is beautiful.”

  Remy’s heart leapt into her throat. No one had ever complimented her magic before. It had always been something to be ashamed of. But beautiful? He thought she looked beautiful with glowing red eyes and hands? It couldn’t be true. But if the prince lied, she wondered why he said it at all.

  “Thank you,” Remy whispered, trapped in those gleaming eyes and the faintest connection of his finger pressed against her chin. Hale’s gravity tugged at her, as if she would plummet into his arms if she released her control.

  Remy scolded herself. It was not only a ridiculous thought, but also a dangerous one.

  She cleared her throat.

  “Shall we go bring back some dinner, then?” she asked, halfheartedly stepping out of his touch. She didn’t know what else to say to him. Hale had only been rigid and callous before this, and she did not know what to do with this version of him . . . but at least she had won herself a new bow.

  Chapter Five

  They moved on foot through the woods, traversing a wide, dirt path. The back trail through the Western Wood was quiet, travelers preferring to take horses through the high roads. Only one other caravan had passed them, headed in the opposite direction.

  The witches seemed to be the only ones in their convoy making a sound: sticks snapping under their boots and their ragged breaths echoing through the air.

  “How much further?” Fenrin panted, breaking their long silence. Remy bet he was regretting carrying both his pack and the brown witch wares now. The sun was high, the promise of cooler weather ceding to the strong sun.

  Hale had been walking far ahead, lost in his thoughts, but his fae ears had picked up on Fenrin’s question. Carys hiked not far behind the prince. The struggling witches walked in the middle, with the Twin Eagles taking up the rear.

  Hale looked at the witches, and the group shuffled to a stop. Remy’s feet ached. Her muscles weren’t yet tiring, but her feet were on fire. She was eager to stop, but she wasn’t sure if she would ever start again.

  “Only a few more hours,” Hale said. He spoke like it was nothing at all.

  “Hours?” Fenrin whined. Heather said nothing, but she leaned forward and rested her hands on her knees, gulping air. Her cornflower blue dress was wet with sweat.

  “Your legs are taller than me, witch. You should be fine,” Briata called from behind them. Her brother snickered.

  “We could stop here,” Carys offered, “but then we won’t reach the next town by tomorrow.”

  “Aw come on!” Talhan was the one to whine now. “I want to sleep in a bed tomorrow.”

  Remy found the nearest rock and collapsed with a groan. She couldn’t wait another few hours. She needed to get her bloody boots off right away. Gods curse this fae prince. She should make him carry her.

  “Let’s break for some water,” Carys said, eyeing Remy. “Ten minutes. Then we can decide how to proceed.”

  Remy noted how Carys had taken the lead. It seemed the rest of the fae warriors did not care that the witches were struggling. Fae had body magic, and so it was easy for them. That was the selfishness of the fae; they could never put themselves in someone else’s shoes. And right now, Remy’s boots were filling with blood.

  Each of the fae dropped their packs and sat on them, except for Carys, who leaned against a tree trunk. She and Hale rested far ahead while everyone else sat in a circle. They maneuvered their packs in a practiced way that told Remy this was their normal life. How strange these nomadic fae warriors were.

  “You must do this a lot,” Fenrin said, voicing Remy’s thoughts. Briata shrugged at him. “Where’s the rest of your comrades?”

  “Falhampton,” Briata said, as if everyone would know where that was.

  “It’s on the border with the Northern Court,” Talhan explained. His tan cheeks were flushed red, but that was the only sign of exertion. “The Northern fae like to cross the Eastern border and cause trouble there. They’ve been doing it for years. The King sent Hale last year to finally rid the town of them.”

  “And I’m guessing he succeeded?” Fenrin asked.

  “It’s not as easy as running out a few Northerners,” Briata said.

  “Bri’s right,” Talhan added. “You’ve got to build walls, train the locals, ensure that when the Northerners come back—”

  “Which they always do,” Briata cut in.

  “—we will have trained the townspeople how to keep them out,” Talhan finished. “Hale’s soldiers are still there defending the town until the King gives the order to pull them back.”

  Fenrin took a long swig of his water and then passed the skin to Remy. She accepted it gratefully, the cool liquid soothing her scratchy throat. Passing it to Heather, she turned her attention to her feet.

  Remy removed her boots with a hiss.

  “You should leave those on.” Briata nodded to Remy.

  “Your feet will swell and you won’t be able to get them back in,” Talhan added, passing his sister a stick of dried meat.

  “I’d rather walk barefoot than wear these one more second.” Remy stifled a cry as she peeled her thick wool socks off her feet. The damage was visible now. Two egg-sized blisters covered the backs of her heels. The boots had rubbed the first layers of skin right off, opening red, weeping wounds. Her big toenail, too, was already turning blue. Remy was sure it would fall off within a day.

  Heather gasped. “Gods, I thought those boots fit you?”

  Remy shrugged. She thought her feet had stopped growing, but she was wrong. The boots had always been tight and uncomfortable but it had been fine working all day on her feet at the Rusty Hatchet, so she assumed it would be fine hiking too.

  “Oof,” Talhan said, looking at her feet.

  “That’s nasty,” Briata said. Her sarcastic smile was at odds with the blunt words she spoke.

  The Twin Eagles were a strange mixture of odd, beautiful features and muscular bodies. Talhan reminded Remy of every merry drunk who passed the taverns. Briata reminded her of the gruff old men who spat at everyone except for those with a crude sense of humor.

  “Here.” Heather was already pilfering through one of Fenrin’s packs. She pulled out two brown bottles and a thin strip of clean white linen.

  Remy realized Hale had disappeared.

  “Where’s he gone?” she asked, nodding toward his abandoned pack.

  “Probably to have a shit,” Talhan said, biting into a piece of hard cheese.

  Briata elbowed her chuckling twin. “He’s going to brief the King.”

  Remy arched an eyebrow at them.

  Fenrin whispered, “Fae fires.”

  Ah, yes.

  Remy had forgotten about that magic. Most of the fae’s powers were powers of the body: incredible vision, hearing, smell, healing, and strength. But they also had other powers, like their power to glamour themselves
into human form and communicate through fires. Through the flames, they had a direct line of communication with whomever they wanted to reach on the other side. Many royal fae kept a magical fire continuously burning in their palaces, attended by servants who could fetch them if ever they were contacted.

  Red witches had stolen that magic from the fae, creating spelled candles to call upon each other. But the candles required vast amounts of magic and only worked for a single use. Remy looked to her pack, where one such red candle remained hidden. Most witches resorted to the same means of communication as the humans, though: sending messenger pigeons or letters through the traveling post.

  “I don’t know why he bothers going off like that,” Talhan said, looking in the direction Hale went, “it’s not like you witches can hear the whispers through the fire like the fae can.”

  “He’s trying to be mysterious.” Bri snorted.

  Remy wondered what Hale was telling his father. Did King Norwood know his son had found a red witch? Did the King know where the Shil-de ring was?

  A sharp stinging on the back of her heel pulled Remy from her thoughts. She hissed through clenched teeth as Heather dabbed a healing potion onto Remy’s wounds.

  “Damn,” Briata said, shaking her short, brown hair out of her eyes.

  “Sorry,” Heather muttered as she yanked the cork out of the second bottle with her teeth. She poured a drop of thick, yellow ointment on her finger and patted it over the wound. At least the ointment didn’t sting.

  “You must be a powerful brown witch,” Talhan said, his amber eyes moving from Heather’s skilled hands to Remy’s forehead. “That bruise on her head is gone already.”

  Heather’s hands stilled for a moment, but then she carried on.

  “My complexion hides the bruising better than some,” Remy said, looking at the twins. “But yes, she is the most skilled brown witch I’ve ever met.”

  Heather smiled as she continued her ministrations on Remy’s injured feet.

  The brown witch sat back on her heels and said, “I’ll bandage them to prevent any dirt getting into the wounds, but it won’t do much to protect your feet on this terrain.”

  “I am not putting my feet back in those things.” Remy tilted her head toward her discarded boots.

  Heather made quick work of the bandaging. Remy regretted using up some of her remedies and linens. Heather would be a rich witch were it not for Remy’s constant self-injuries. She silently promised that she would restock the used goods in the next town.

  Hale reappeared through the trees. He and Carys exchanged glances and nodded. Hale drew a knife from his belt and cut the brown leather pocket off his pack.

  The witches stared at him in confusion.

  Without a word, Hale walked to Remy, cutting the leather in half as he moved. He knelt before her.

  “What are you doing?” Remy looked at him bewildered as he took her freshly bandaged foot and placed it on his knee. He rolled back her gray trouser leg, the same shade of stone gray as his stormy eyes.

  “We will not make it to the campsite if you are barefoot. The path turns to gravel up ahead,” he said, as if that were reason enough for his pack’s destruction.

  Wrapping the leather around the sole of Remy’s foot, Hale reached for her boots, unlacing them and holding her foot tightly. Goosebumps rose along her leg as his thumb swept over the top of her foot.

  The prince poked the bootlace through the leather as if it were paper. It was such a minor act of fae strength, and yet it was still impressive. He laced up the leather as if he had done it a million times before, wrapping the extra laces around Remy’s ankle and tying a bow. He was careful to avoid the wounds that he had not seen but sensed.

  He put Remy’s foot down and moved to her other. Remy didn’t know what to say. Seeing him knelt before her, lacing up her makeshift shoes, felt incredibly intimate. Everyone else had fallen back into simple conversation, eating and drinking water. But Remy only stared as the prince’s deft hands moved over her foot.

  When he finished, their gazes locked. What was it about his eyes? She hated how they seemed to say so much more than his voice ever did. She hated how her eyes might tell him something in return.

  “Good?” he asked in that low, rumbling voice.

  Remy gave a tiny nod, pulling her foot away, and stood. Her raw skin still burned, but Heather’s ointment was already helping.

  Hale moved back to his pack and hauled it up over his shoulder.

  “No more breaks. Let’s go,” Hale said and took off again.

  Remy rolled her eyes. Hale was equal parts general and prince . . . and far too good at giving orders.

  In a single breath, the fae seemed ready to go.

  Fenrin moved to grab the pack nearest him, thinking it was his. He almost yanked his arm off.

  “Gods,” he said, looking to Briata. “Is it filled with rocks?”

  The fae easily lifted her pack and put it on her back, her muscles flexing at the movement. Remy watched Briata through narrowed eyes. Fenrin was not weak. The pack must have weighed a ton, especially considering several weapons already weighted down each of the fae.

  “Just the normal gear.” Briata winked at Fenrin. “And a couple lucky stones.”

  It took the witches longer to pack their belongings. Talhan helped Heather, lifting her pack up to put on her shoulders.

  They carried on, crunching through the leaves, the world quiet once more. Remy moved her feet with such relief, not having that grinding, burning pain every time she shifted her weight. She was grateful to Heather and her healing remedies for saving her feet from an arduous walk. She was grateful to the inconveniently handsome prince too.

  The cool morning breeze whipped through Hale’s hair as he stood at the clearing ahead. Carys had taken off her pack the moment they stopped and now leaned against a tree, looking in the same direction.

  As Remy neared them, a village emerged. Downhill from the trail, rooftops and chimneys poked above the tree line. A signpost on the trail pointed eastward: Newpond 10 miles. Someone had nailed a smaller, scraggly sign below it: Guilford 1 mile. So the tiny village they saw was Guilford, then, and if they stayed on the trail, they would reach a bigger town called Newpond. Remy tucked that information into the back of her mind. She hoped to stumble upon a map in Guilford to get her bearings.

  She suspected they were heading to the border between the Western Court and Southern Court, but she couldn’t confirm it without a map. Remy, Heather, and Fenrin had worked their way only through the rural towns in the middle of the Western Court.

  These quiet villages arose all along the Western trails. They serviced back-road travelers and proffered all the usual merchants and traders. Whatever they needed for their journey, they would find in the town below.

  Fenrin, who had been trailing farther behind Remy all day, caught up. The grueling past two days were wearing him out.

  Heather approached the lookout with Fenrin. The Twin Eagles were right behind them. Talhan broke into a smile when he saw the village of Guilford. He had been talking incessantly about sleeping in a bed all morning. They offloaded their packs and plopped down on them straight away, seizing any opportunity for a break.

  “What supplies do we need?” Hale asked without looking back to them.

  “Just the usual restock.” Carys folded her arms.

  “Flint and twine for me.” Briata grinned like a fox. “And maybe something to refill my flask.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a look at the pocketknives,” Talhan said. He looked to the three witches and remembered. “Oh, and three more bowls and spoons.”

  Talhan carried light wood receptacles and utensils for his comrades. But he only carried four, one for each of the fae. The three witches shared Talhan’s bowl while he shared with his twin, but three more bowls would help.

  “I need some supplies as well,” Heather piped up. She had used up a few of her healing remedies on Remy’s feet.

  “And I need
new shoes,” Remy added. Hale looked over his shoulder to Remy’s makeshift shoes. They had gotten her this far, but the gravel trail wore away at the thin leather. They wouldn’t last another day.

  “The rest of us should get the supplies—one of us should take the witch to the inn,” Briata said, waving her block of cheese toward Remy. “She shouldn’t come.”

  “Good idea.” Talhan was already producing a piece of dried meat from his pocket and fishing out his waterskin.

  “Why?” Fenrin asked. He and Heather kept their packs on but leaned their heavy weight against a wide trunk of a conifer. It was too much effort to get the packs back on otherwise.

  “Fae use the back road to Newpond,” Briata said. “One might stop for supplies in Guilford. It’s not a good idea for a red witch to be walking from store to store.”

  “Agreed.” Hale lifted the hem of his tunic to mop his sweaty brow. Remy’s eyes dropped to the peek of golden skin revealed at his waist. It wasn’t until his tunic dropped again that she remembered what she was going to say.

  “How am I meant to get shoes if I can’t come?” Remy waved her arms in exasperation.

  “Bri has an eye for people’s sizes,” Carys said, folding her arms as she leaned against the tree trunk. “She will be able to pick you something suitable.”

  Heather leaned over to Fenrin and whispered, “I need your help getting supplies.”

  Remy pursed her lips at their exchange. Something more was being said there that she didn’t understand. But Fenrin simply dipped his chin to their guardian.

  “I’ll head to the inn with the witch,” Hale said, surveying the village below.

  Remy opened her mouth to protest, but Heather gave her a look. The lines around her guardian’s mouth deepened into a frown. She knew Heather didn’t want her walking through a town filled with fae. Heaving a sigh, Remy knew the decision was made: she would go with Hale.

  “Glamours,” Hale said, turning into his human form even as he spoke. The shine of his wavy, brown hair dulled. The chestnut red streaks disappeared. His ears had rounded and his gray eyes no longer shone like steel.