Chapter 27
VALANCE
We seemed to run for hours, though it must have been around twenty minutes. When you craved escape, to see something other than a compact gathering of trees, seconds felt too long to bear.
The sea of ants ended, the forest returning to a semblance of normality in a less than normal night. I slowed, lungs burning, head pounding, until I stopped.
“I need to sit,” I wheezed. But I wouldn’t sit. Not on a forest floor where orange ants may change their minds and devour me after all. Not when we were being hunted by Lasair.
Had the ants really eaten those Fomorians alive? Carried them away to their nests? That is what ants did, wasn’t it? Took food back to their colonies? To their queen?
I’d already answered my own question.
I caught my breath as best I could, set to collapse, watching Kormac watch the forest. Listening to the sounds of the owls and the wildlife. Plotting. At least, I assumed he was.
Now, where? What direction had we run in? I’d completely lost track. I could only hope Kormac had a better sense of things than me.
I held back from asking him questions, both because he couldn’t answer and because I simply didn’t want to speak anymore. I trusted him because the magic linking us together told me I should. It was all I had to trust in now, to hold on to.
Thankfully, for the moment, there were no indications of seelie patrols or unseelie chasers on our trail. I suppose there was such a thing as small mercies.
Lasair… Dead? Had the ants got to her? A pity if so. I’d like a chance at killing her myself. Take her head off as she rested on a cold stone block.
Kormac signaled for us to move again, heading deeper into the thickness of the forest. With every step, it became darker, the moonlight unable to light much of the dirt path ahead of us.
The air was closer, overly balmy. Crickets sang in the dark, and a bird tweeted angrily from above.
I looked up to see if I could spot it, finding only fractured moonlight.
Kormac stopped, his arm shooting out. I almost walked into it.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
He pointed ahead to a small ball of silver light. Similar in size to a pixie, but certainly not one of those creatures. Pixies were not silver. Which meant there was only one explanation.
“The old woman,” I said, grabbing his arm.
He glanced down at my fingers curled around his bicep. For a moment, I let my hand linger there, meeting his eyes. They held me again, drawing me into blue pools. Eyes full of mystery, of a greater depth.
I blinked and dropped my hand.
Cackling from up ahead. A cold finger traced the edges of my soul.
“I see you are both getting along with it,” the old woman’s voice drifted from the silver ball. It gently swung back and forth in the air.
“Are you really there?” I returned.
She cackled again. “What a silly question. I am as here as these trees. You see me, don’t you?”
“Not all of you,” I snapped back.
The silver light brightened.
First, I saw her stooped silhouette, then her terribly lined face nestled within the folds of a black hood.
Piece by piece, she shuffled into view, reminding me of my father’s shuffling, until her entire cloaked body stood illuminated by her silver ball.
It didn’t float before her, as it seemed.
Instead, it sat within a lantern, swinging on the end of a chain hanging from her left arm.
“We meet again, yet for the first time,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Come with me. I have food and water and a hot spring at my home. I will take care of you until you are ready for the road once again.”
Her presence set my nerves on edge. “What are you talking about? Meeting us for the first time?”
“Do you want to stand out here with the dangers all around for a little chat?”
“No.”
“There are plenty of them ahead of you as it is.”
“I said no.”
“That is smart, prince. Follow me now. Come.”
“How can we trust you?” I asked without moving.
“Were my ants not enough?” She cackled. “Before you ask another question, I would strongly suggest you follow me and keep your mouth shut. I think you will like my home.”
She turned, slowly walking away.
I faced Kormac, who stared straight ahead. “What choice do we have?”
He nodded and followed. I kept pace with him in a silent walk down the path.
We arrived at a cottage caught amongst trees.
There was barely enough room for the stone structure, slightly subsiding to the left.
Gnarled branches clawed at it as fingers trying to pry off the thatched roof.
The windows were boarded up, the grass around it thick and as high as my knees and full of crickets and scuttling things.
Certainly not the kind of home I would enjoy living in. But it was shelter and better than hiding in some hollow tree with insects.
The old woman opened the gray wooden door and waddled inside. Kormac took point, and I let him, keeping close behind him, admiring his back, the curve of his buttocks in that tight armor.
There are so many things wrong with you…
Inside wasn’t like the outside. For one, the space stretched far before me and to my left and right.
There were walls that shouldn’t be there, the ceilings high enough to accommodate taller specimens.
We stood in a living room with comfy-looking green upholstered chairs and a table laden with meats and breads and sweet dishes. Even a freshly brewed pot of tea.
Three chairs sat in a circle around the table.
The not-a-cottage was pleasantly cool, the walls stone and painted pale green. There were no windows on this side. Straight ahead was a hallway with many doors leading from it, and the floor was a polished pine.
“Welcome to my home,” the old woman said.
“If you would like to head to the second door to the left,” she pointed to the hallway, “you will find a nice bath and some fresh clothing.” She sat herself down in one of the chairs, groaning as she did.
“These old bones don’t move as I’d like them to.
” The old woman waved us on. “Go. Be clean. Then you can eat and know.”
As hesitant and puzzled as I found myself, I liked the sound of being cleaned and fed. And of fresh clothing.
“This is bizarre,” I said to Kormac as we headed for that second door.
Inside another light wooden-paneled room was a small bath cut into the floor, wooden decking surrounding it.
Atop a small table sat some pain relief potion, bandages, soaps, and folded towels.
Hanging from various hooks in the walls were clothes.
My clothes. Apparently Kormac’s too—black leather armor crafted by elves for me, brown and shabby leather for him. Completely authentic.
With trepidation, I inched into the room and poked the leather. Just leather. Nothing else. No trap, no hidden agenda.
I longed to remove my smelly garb and wash the dirt of the forest out of my hair. But there was only one of these baths.
I pushed past Kormac, our chests brushing against each other, and hurried back to the old woman.
“Is there only one bath?” I asked.
She was busy piling some meat onto a plate. “Greedy prince. Just bathe.”
I gather that’s a yes.
Returning to Kormac, he pointed to me, then the bath and backed down the hallway.
“You want me to go first?” I responded.
He nodded and folded his arms, leaning casually against the wall. I stared at him for a moment, wondering how we ever got to this stage of our… What would you call it? Not a relationship. An entanglement. From him being my prisoner to this. All wreathed with hate.
Not hate…
The quicker we bathed, the quicker we could discover the truth of this connection keeping us from throttling one another.
Without another word, I got down to my business and cleaned up in the blissful hot water.
Soaped up and cleaned every inch of me, used the potion and bandages, got dressed, and stepped back out into the hallway with dripping hair.
Feeling a tiny bit better. At least until my sorrow reminded me of its presence.
Every detail of my armor was the same as my own, aside from no tiny blades in the sheaths. I suppose you can’t have everything.
Kormac took his turn in the bath, returning quickly and looking like he did the first time we’d met. Sans beard and bad smell, his brown hair a glossy mass of wetness
He glared at me and strode back to the living room.
I glared at his back, furious at his existence, and took a seat next to him, both of us facing the old woman chewing merrily on ham.
“That’s better,” she said. “Now eat and be well before it spoils.”
“How long has it been out?” I asked.
“Not the meat, but the special ingredient.”
On closer inspection, some pieces of food from the meat to the bread to the little sugar-dusted cakes carried a slight turquoise sheen to them.
“What is this?” I asked, picking up a slice of ham. “Poison?”
Her cackle made me drop the meat. “Foolish prince. That is mer algae.”
“Mer algae?”
“Yes. A fine substance kept out of the grasp of us up here. Rare and expensive and the last of my stores. Mer do not part with it easily.” She held up her left hand, revealing three fingers. “Too much coin and some flesh to satisfy them.”
I eyed the stumps, one of them looking infected. “The mer took your fingers?”
“Why, yes. For if I were to sell on their algae, the rest of me would follow. They would know. They would find me. They would take me into the depths of the ocean.” She sniffed. “But I will not resell for profit. I have no desire for such things.”
I thought about Adrian, about the festival, about the reputation of the mer among my people. Free spirits of sex and merriment. Not these finger-taking creatures with a secret algae.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Eat. See.” She shrugged. “Or don’t. That’s up to you. It will make things easier this one time. For the road ahead.”
“How?”
“It heals any wound, any loss.” She pointed a long, yellow fingernail at Kormac. “Try it.”
“Any wound? Then why don’t you eat it?”
“I paid for it. I don’t get to benefit.”
Kormac and I glanced at each other. He held a cake to his lips, hesitant.