Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
CAIRN
“Do we go through or round?”
We’re standing at a fork in the road—one we both recognize well. Mor-Faedha spreads out to our left. Its dense, overgrown canopy marks the true border of Nightward’s territory.
The road through is narrower than it was, the edges swallowed by roots and thorns, but the old marker stones still stand on either side of it.
One has cracked through the middle. The other is almost buried beneath a coil of black creeper.
The warning carved into the stone is half-hidden now, packed with dirt and moss, but I know every word of it.
Death comes to all who enter. None but the Nightwild Guard should pass.
These woods have always been feral and dangerous, even for us. Who knows what has moved into them during our absence. But the narrow path that remains would still have us at the keep before the moon rises.
To our right the road continues over hills and plains. Far less dangerous, but also adds at least another day to our journey.
Therin knows the answer to his question before I give it.
I pull my armor over me, the plates locking smoothly into place across my shoulders and chest, and one of my blades forms in my hand.
We’ve been away for three centuries. I’m not waiting another day to return home.
“Through.”
A flicker of a smile crosses Therin’s face, and his own armor forms. As one, we turn our steeds and move at a slow walk down the left fork. The trees close over our heads before we have ridden more than ten strides.
It’s darker than I remember. Centuries of growth without us riding through have thickened the canopy until the violet of the sky only shows in scattered patches above us.
Roots have pushed through in places, buckling the stone beneath the mud.
The old edges of the road are gone beneath moss and black leaf mold.
The undergrowth crowds us on both sides—thorned creepers, the dark-petaled flowers that only grow here, larger than they used to be, and from the half-decomposed remains of a small rodent hanging from one gnarled stem, infinitely more vicious.
The deeper we go, the more the light dims. The path narrows where it used to widen, the canopy low enough in places that the branches brush the top of my head as we pass beneath them.
Once, we could ride this stretch two abreast without ducking.
Now Selveryn has to pick his way between roots thick enough to crack stone, and I cannot see more than a few lengths ahead before the road bends into green-black shadow.
Selveryn snorts and sidesteps something I can’t see, his ears flattening. Kaethros’ nostrils flare, and Therin shifts his grip on his blade so the flat of it rests along his forearm.
It’s too quiet. There is no movement in the brush, no insects in the damp bark.
Mor-Faedha has never been this still. Selveryn’s ears stay pinned, and every few strides Kaethros tosses his head.
Therin’s gaze cuts once to the canopy, then back to the path.
I adjust my grip on my sword. We have both ridden through Mor-Faedha enough times to know when the forest is giving a warning.
The canopy breaks open over our heads. A creature hits the ground in front of me, its iron boots striking buried stone hard enough to splash mud against Selveryn’s legs.
Its crooked body is wrapped in filthy leather, gray hair hanging in tangled ropes from beneath a cap wet with blood.
One red eye finds us from under the brim, bright with bloodlust and greed, and its lips peel back from small yellow points filed for tearing flesh.
Redcap.
I take its head before that grin has time to finish forming. The cap goes with it, landing in the mud as the body drops heavily at Selveryn’s feet. My second sword manifests just as the rest of the pack drops.
Selveryn wheels hard beneath me as another lands on his right side, claws scrabbling for grip on his neck.
Its boots slam against his flank, and a rusty blade flashes close to my thigh.
I catch the creature by the back of its cap and wrench it away before the strike lands.
It twists in my grip, rancid breath hissing through its mouth, but my sword punches through the side of its throat.
Its claws scrape once against my gauntlet before I use my foot to shove it off the blade.
Another darts low, running on all fours toward us.
Selveryn surges forward before I can bring my blade around.
The sudden movement drives me deeper into the saddle as one hoof comes down on the creature’s wrist hard enough to knock the knife from its hand.
The blade skids across the ground. The redcap shrieks and lunges anyway, snapping for Selveryn’s leg.
My sword cuts its throat before it makes contact.
Therin is a blur of movement at my left.
Kaethros’ shoulder meets a redcap hard enough to fling it off its feet before Therin’s blade opens it from collarbone to ribs.
Another drops behind him, axe raised in both hands.
Kaethros huffs in warning, and Therin ducks low over his neck without looking back.
The axe cuts through empty air, and Kaethros pivots.
Therin’s blade comes around with the motion, and the redcap’s head hits the path before the rest of it follows.
Something thuds down onto Selveryn’s back behind me, too close for a clean swing.
Claws rake over my armor, and its breath washes across the back of my neck as a hooked blade drags against the side of my cuirass, searching for a gap.
Selveryn bunches beneath the added weight, furious, but he holds long enough for me to act.
I drive my elbow back into the creature's face, and there’s a satisfying crack at the impact.
It loses its hold, and falls, hitting the path hard enough to roll. It comes up snarling, one arm already lifting a hooked blade. My blade takes its weapon arm first, then I drive my other sword through its chest.
Selveryn lunges without waiting for my command, going after the last remaining creature.
He cuts off its path with a snap of his teeth and a strike of his hooves that sends it sprawling.
The redcap rolls, quick and ugly, knife already up.
Therin reaches it before I do. His blade cuts through the creature’s spine, and the body drops flat into the mud.
Silence falls.
I keep my blades raised, listening for any signs there are more, but the woods remain quiet. Nothing moves overhead or sounds from deeper in the trees. I wait for another breath anyway, because redcaps are rarely patient unless they are waiting for something to bleed.
Once I’m certain no more are coming, I dismount and move among the bodies, checking for signs of life with the point of my sword.
Redcaps are clever at playing dead, then coming for you when your back is turned.
I roll over one that still has its head and put steel through the throat to be certain, then move to the next.
Therin slides down beside me and does the same.
“Feral fucking bastards.” He nudges one of the bodies with the toe of his boot. “I wonder how they would have handled wearing iron collars.”
“They’re masochistic enough to have liked it.
” I flick my sword toward one of them, and blood drips from my blade, sinking into the mud at my feet.
The skin above its iron boots is blackened and split, scarred where the metal has eaten into it for years.
“But I do wonder if collars would have held them the same way. Redcaps chose iron a long time ago, letting it ruin them until the damage became part of what they are. There’s a difference between a creature trained around pain and one forced into it. They—”
A deep thrum rises through the soles of my boots.
Therin raises his sword and looks around. “What …”
The ground begins to shift.
The thorned creepers crowding the path tear themselves off the trunks they’ve been climbing and snake backward into the deeper wood.
Thick mud splits down the center of the track.
At first only a single line of stone shows beneath it.
Then another. Then the whole road begins to surface, shedding centuries of damp rot in long, dark strips.
The brush along the edges withdraws as if dragged back by invisible hands, leaving clean verges where there had been only thorn a moment before.
Within ten heartbeats, the choked, overgrown track yields to the road beneath it. Pristine, ancient, pale-veined black stone, laid wide enough for the Guard to ride three abreast.
The same road I remember.
The same road that should never have been buried at all.
Mor-Faedha has tasted what we have just done, and it knows what has returned. Now the road opens beneath our feet like it was waiting for us.
Therin breathes out, long and slow, looking around.
“Now that’s a welcome home I like to see.”
“Try not to look too pleased. There’s every possibility it might change its mind.”
“It can try.”
I swing back up into Selveryn’s saddle. “Let’s go home.”
The newly unearthed road carries us out of Mor-Faedha with a speed the overgrown track would never have allowed. The trees thin ahead, the light opens, and Selveryn steps from the forest onto the main road just as a traveling party reaches the same bend.
For half a breath, we’re almost on top of each other.
The nearest rider jerks his mount aside with a hissed curse, his hand dropping to the blade at his hip. Behind him, the rest of the party checks in a hard ripple of movement, hooves striking stone, cloaks snapping.
Someone farther back snarls an order, and three heads turn toward him at once. Their guard then. Or the one foolish enough to think he is.
A pack animal stamps and tosses its head, dragging its handler half a step before he hauls it still. Hands go to weapons.
But none of those weapons clear their sheaths.
The first fae’s gaze catches on Selveryn, then jerks to Kaethros, before tracking upward.
Armor. Blood. Redcap filth across leather and skin.
The fact that we have ridden out of Mor-Faedha on a road that should have been buried.
The curse dies in his mouth, and his hand falls away from the blade at his hip in a slow, careful movement.
“Nightwild.”
The word sends a ripple through the rest of his group. Riders swing down from their saddles. Those on foot lower themselves where they stand. Hands press over hearts. Heads bow. The movement is uneven at first, instinct fighting pride, but instinct quickly wins.
One fae looks up a heartbeat too long before another male beside him catches him by the back of the neck and forces him lower. A second later, the same male lowers his own head until his hair brushes the road.
Selveryn moves forward, and the kneeling fae open a path before we reach them. Their heads dip further as we ride through the center of the party.
I let my gaze sweep over them. Weapons. Court colors.
Faces. The ones who keep their eyes lowered and the ones who dare raise them to look.
I mark the cut of their cloaks, the quality of their blades, the few charms tied into manes and bridles.
Lower court, weaker fae, traveling with caution through land that can turn deadly in less than a breath.
I incline my head once, enough to acknowledge what they have given, but we do not stop, and we’re through them in moments.
Whispers reach us before we are out of earshot. I don’t need to hear them clearly to know what they will be saying.
The Nightwild Guard has returned.
By moonrise, half the nearest court will know. By morning, the rest will be pretending they knew first.
Therin stays silent until the group is out of sight and the road begins to climb.
“How long before the first demands for our attention arrive?”
“Days, at most.”
Therin snorts. “That’s optimistic of you.”
“I was allowing time for them to argue over who will be brave enough to send the first message.”
We fall silent again. Therin’s gaze stays fixed on the road ahead. His posture is relaxed, but Kaethros’s stride lengthens. Selveryn does the same beneath me.
The road climbs at a steady angle, the land falling away behind us.
We’re almost there. I can feel it in my blood, and in the way the threads tying me to the Guard tighten with every rise of the road.
My head turns as the sea comes into view.
The taste of salt reaches me first, carried on a wind strong enough to tug at my hair and lift Selveryn’s mane.
He raises his head into it. I draw in a deep breath, filling my lungs with salt, magic, and the cold air of the coast. Below the road, cliffs drop in black shelves toward water with silver-tipped waves.
They strike stone hard enough for the sound to climb the rise and reach us before the full view opens up.
And then … beyond the water, Nightward rises from the cliff.
Black stone. Silver veins. Tower cutting into the violet sky.
Terraces built into the rock face. High windows catching the last of the light.
The outer walls curve with the line of the cliff, grown into it as much as built upon it, and the bridge stretches toward its gates exactly as I remember it, narrow and black above the water churning below.
It still stands like it was carved to outlast everything foolish enough to threaten it.
For one moment, the last three centuries fall away.
I draw Selveryn to a halt where the road begins to narrow toward the bridge. Therin stops beside me.
My mouth curves.
We’re home.