Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
The water was dark and freezing cold, but I couldn’t stop swimming.
There was no sign of the guards coming after me, but Wilhelm wouldn’t let go of me that easily. Wherever the other side of this portal was, if it didn’t show up soon, I would be drowning myself to escape a lifetime of exploitation and servitude.
That wasn’t much worse than what I was due to live before I’d met Roderick. But whether he’d known it or not, once he’d put the idea in my head, that I could have something other than such a dead end existence, he’d undone me.
I wasn’t going back. Not on my life.
My arms burned from the effort, and my lungs quickly joined them under the strain of swimming further away from where I’d started. I was aching to open my mouth, to take in deep breaths, but there was still no sign of release.
I struggled further still, every part of me straining, until my eyes bulged and my extremities went numb. That was it. I was dying. I’d managed to end my life quickly rather than die in increments under that despot’s whims.
Suddenly, something flashed up ahead. Light poured in through a circular gap in the darkness, and hope flared within me, just enough to push me further down and straight for the opening.
A great force pulled me through, and spat me out the other side. My head broke through the surface to gasp.
Treading water and trembling all over, my sight adjusted to the light, until shapes faded in and I could make sense of them. Leafless trees sprouting from snow-covered ground, in shades of blue. I was in a lake somewhere in the woods.
Teeth chattering, I swam toward the shore, already debating what I’d do once I reached the city whose spires were barely visible beyond the woods.
Roderick had said faeries might put me through the wringer before deciding I was worth their attention, let alone their help.
But I was ready to go through anything if it meant not going back to the palace.
And then, Roderick had mentioned his mother had returned to live here.
Perhaps I could find her, tell her I was a friend of her son’s—
Something caught me by the ankle and tugged. My head went under with a cut-off scream that continued, muffled in a trail of bubbles as I saw what had me in its grip. A nightmarish creature, somewhere between a horse and a woman.
A kelpie!
The grey abomination opened its massive mouth, baring rows of small, sharp teeth, ready to sink into the leg it held until panic set in and I kicked its head.
The kelpie bellowed its frustration, rippling the water around me, but didn’t let me go.
Blood curdling with horror and revulsion, I kicked it again, then brought my other foot swinging into its eye.
But it wouldn’t release me, and I was running out of air.
In a few more seconds it would drown and eat me.
Only one thought came to mind when it pulled me down to face it. Once it screeched in my face, I slapped my hands on its chest, thinking of nothing but the glinting bracelet on my wrist.
Gold came to life beneath my touch, spreading fast along the surface of the kelpie until it released me with a cry of distress.
But it was too late, the enchantment continued, making it grow stiff and heavy as it fell further and further away from me into the unseen depths of the lake.
With the last wisp of air and strength in my body, I kicked my way back up.
Lungs burning, exhaustion and cold bone-deep, I couldn’t waste another second for one of its brethren to capture me next, so I withstood the pain, and swam as fast as I could, to the lakeshore.
I dragged myself out of the water and onto the dead, snowy grass, panting out agonized clouds of vapor.
I needed to rest, just for a second, then I had to get up and search for help.
But I couldn’t move. Using my borrowed magic had exhausted what was left of my fight, and within instants my swollen lids grew heavy and fell shut
It was warm. So warm that it verged on too hot, like I was sitting on a furnace.
I heard arguing. Loud, deep voices that broke through the barrier with sleep as I registered movement from everywhere around me.
No. I was the one moving. Rolling, over and over.
Bleary, I opened my eyes, and found everything before me shifting too fast for my waterlogged mind to register. I blinked away the haze of sleep, relishing in the warmth that was drying my clothes and hair as I focused on the sounds of an argument.
A big, booming man’s voice declared, “I’m bigger, I should get the thigh!”
“I’m the one who caught it, I should be getting half!” replied a very deep woman’s voice.
“Are you forgetting that this one is for all of us?” A third voice added, just as loud and dissonant. “And I want the chest!”
“You’ll get what I give you!” yelled the woman. “This isn’t a bird, you can’t just separate the pieces that easily.”
“And it’s a female, and a scrawny one at that,” complained the first man. “She’s going to be gamey, I know it.”
Food. They were talking about food.
Awareness slapped into me as I realized where the warmth was coming from before I rolled to see the bed of coals beneath me.
I was tied to a spit and being roasted!
“No!” I screamed. “Don’t eat me!”
The arguing figures came over me and the shock alone silenced me.
Gigantic, lumpy and murky green, the trolls looked down at me with mild interest, their low, protruding foreheads shading their little eyes.
“Mother, it’s still alive,” whined the smaller male troll.
The female among them picked me up by the spit, bringing me close to her face to examine. Her odorous breath almost knocked me back unconscious.
She sighed. “I could have sworn it had drowned when I found it.”
“I’m very much alive! Please don’t eat me!” I begged, heart ramming itself against my ribs.
“Well, this is uncomfortable,” said the older male, the father no doubt. “I don’t like it when they talk, it ruins the enjoyment.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just snap its neck and it’ll go back to being dead and limp,” said the mother.
“No! No! Wait!”
“What is it?” she asked, annoyed.
“You don’t have to do this! I can give you something else! I can give you gold!”
“Now what would we do with gold?” asked the father troll. “We can’t eat that.”
“No, but you can exchange it for unlimited food in the city!” I choked, shaking, this time with the prospect of being roasted and eaten like a chicken. “There’s a city nearby, I saw it!”
“The last time we went into Midnight, they turned some of us into ice sculptures,” said the mother. “Be quiet, and stay still, so I can get this over with for all of us.”
Her hand came around my neck, gripping it with her giant fingers, and I knew it wouldn’t take much to snap my bones. I couldn’t gild her like I had the kelpie with my arms bound to my sides. I was trapped.
I braced myself for a quick death, where my remains would be cooked and crunched between their rotten teeth, a wolf-whistle cut the brutal silence.
All their heads swung around in time to be met with a blinding blast of light. The trolls barely had the time to scream before they turned to stone before my very eyes.
Gone were the monsters, and in their place were enormous, ugly sculptures of what had found me in these woods.
Puzzled, I debated being stuck like this forever and dying tied to this post until signs of movement came from nearby. I couldn’t help calling out “Help me! Help me, please!”
A hooded figure appeared over the back of the mother troll’s shoulder. “On my way!”
Heart fluttering with relief, I could barely see through the tears streaming from my overheated eyes.
It was Roderick, he had come for me!
“I can’t believe you did this.” He slid down the statue’s left arm with the ease, coming to a halt near my head. “What were you thinking coming here?”
“Is this really the time for this conversation?” I struggled against my bindings, desperate to be freed immediately. “Cut me loose!”
His fingertips sparked. “As you wish.”
The ropes were split down the middle, slipping off me and leaving me unbalanced and ready for the wrong twitch to send me down into the burning coals.
“Roderick, get me down. Get me down before I fall to a burning death.”
He shook his head at me. “Fates, you’re demanding.”
“Oh, am I supposed to be glad I’m stuck up here?”
Roderick stretched across the hand that held me and stuck his own under my arms before swiftly pulling me off the spit and into his arms. “No, but a ‘please’ would be nice.”
I clung to him, not caring if it was improper, not when I had nearly died. I was deliriously glad to be alive, and that he was here. I was deeply, utterly glad to see him. “Please and thank you for saving me from the consequences of the mess you landed me in, once again.”
He chuckled, stroking the back of my head. “You’re very mouthy for a maid, you know that?”
“There are probably scars in the middle of my tongue from how often I’ve had to bite it.”
He threw back his head and laughed, displaying his teeth, the incisors longer than a human’s. Sighing raggedly at the wonderful sound, I looked up too, and found a cloudless sky. I hadn’t considered looking up before, to see if it was the same in Faerie as it was back home.
I tilted my head back, and panned my still blurry gaze around. The dark blue sky served as a rich, velvety backdrop for a tapestry of a million bright, silvery stars.
“I’ve never seen so many before.” I breathed, so spellbound I almost forgot about my horrific ordeal and bedraggled condition. “Is this magic?”
“It’s a lack of humidity in this court,” he replied softly, voice seeming deeper. “The sun doesn’t always shine here as well.”
“Is it always like this?” I asked, awed by the view.
“Half the time, at least.” He stood carefully with me still in his arms. “If you think this sight is amazing, you should see the northern lights.”
“I’ve heard of them, but we never got them where I’ve lived,” I said, neck beginning to hurt.
Every inch of me felt on fire. But I didn’t mind.
All I cared about was that I was safe in his arms as he carried me away, so carefully, so effortlessly.
A thankful smile trembled on my numb lips.
“There was a book Gertrude liked me to read to her during midwinter, about finding the personification of snow, and that when you go north of the uncharted edges of the Winter Court—”
“—you’d end up on the moon,” he finished for me. “The Winter King, Ursula Weissheim.”
Lightheaded wonder filled me, making me eagerly trade the view of the stars for that of his face, so close to my own. “You’ve read it?”
He nodded, his nose almost touching mine. “I was obsessed with it as a child,” he said. “My mother knew there was nothing north of the Winter Court but wastelands and ocean, but she didn’t want to ruin the fantasy for me.”
“That’s sweet,” I said, surprised.
“Why the astonishment?”
“I didn’t realize faeries could be sweet.”
“Faeries are people, just like humans, anything you’re capable of, so are we.”
“Except magic.” I paused, disoriented from weakness. “Wait. Never mind.”
His eyes darkened in concern. “Your brain must have been rocked hard from everything you’ve endured in your grand escape.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” I groaned, making him gather me closer.
“We better get you out of the cold before you get sick.”
I sniffled loudly, nose feeling clogged and the back of my throat was warm and tender. “I think it’s a little late for that.”
“It will be all right, once I get you home.”
Alarm had me stiffening in his hold. “I know we had a deal, but please, don’t take me back there.”
His hands tightened over my back. “I won’t. Not yet at least.”
I licked my dry, cracked lips. “Then where are we going?”
Roderick’s eyes shone bright enough to rival the stars. “To Ravenstock.”