Chapter Nine
Nine
If I’m honest, death hurts a lot less than I thought it would.
The fire has turned into sunlight, enveloping me like a blanket.
Nothing hurts. In fact, the opposite. Maybe it’s like the time Misty stepped on my foot and broke several little bones.
I didn’t realize how bad it was until a few hours later.
Cordella told me about how a body can go into shock as she bandaged me in the stables so Joyce wouldn’t see and scold me for getting hurt.
I went into shock over a broken foot. Falling into a raging fire would be a whole different level of numbness.
But I’m not completely gone. There’s shouting in the distance; the garbled words gain a brief moment of clarity before becoming too far off to hear.
I’m drifting in a pale sea, being taken out to the great Beyond I have no choice but to submit myself to.
I hear new voices chanting and singing. This isn’t like the feverish words the fae spoke around the fire.
This singing is bright and joyous. I hear the chords of a thousand lutes playing and somehow know they’re all strumming for me.
I think I hear my mother’s voice in the chorus. She’s singing for me to come home. She’s singing for me to return to her. Finally, finally, the chorus sings, reunited finally.
Silence.
Then a woman says, “What are we going to do with her?”
“We take her to Vena,” a familiar voice decrees. I know that voice. How do I know that voice?
“Are you mad?” a man asks. “We can’t take her to Vena. Even if she could survive that long here—which she can’t—we can’t take a human to Dreamsong.”
“Vena is the only person who will know how to get my magic out of her,” the second voice says. It’s deep, like the lowest note of a lyre rumbling in harmony with thunder on a distant horizon. Unmistakable. I fight for consciousness.
“Hol has a point,” another man says. “Even if we wanted to, she’ll die before we make it to Dreamsong.”
“Then we’ll have to move quickly, won’t we?” the deep voice says.
“Or we leave her back in the Natural World; we go to Dreamsong, ask Vena what we should do, then go back to perform the ritual that will restore the magic to its rightful place,” the woman says.
“Unless you plan on tying her to a chair, I doubt she’ll stay put. That much has been made painfully clear to me.” That’s the deep voice again. He seems to know me.
Do I know him? My head feels so fuzzy and heavy. I crack open my eyes.
“She’s waking up,” Oren says.
It’s midday and the sun is blinding. I blink slowly as the world comes into focus. Oren hovers over me, wearing a shirt this time. However, two slits must have been cut in the back to let out the dragonfly wings that swoop on either side of him.
I jerk away from Oren and the other four people who are behind him.
“It’s all right, we’re not going to hurt you,” Oren says.
“She’s not going to believe you,” the woman with the butterfly wings says. I recognize each of the individuals now—they were the ones who were gathered around the fire.
“Let him coddle the human until he’s blue in the face, then we will force her to do what we want.
” The man with ram’s horns folds his arms over his chest, biceps bulging, highlighting faintly shimmering markings that run up them.
“I don’t care if she has the magic of the kings of Aviness.
She won’t know how to use it. We can overpower her. ”
“You’re not going to force me to do anything,” I snap. Likely not the best thing to say. But my head is splitting, I’m surrounded by fae, and I’m tired of being spoken about like I’m not here—that’s something Joyce would do to me.
All five of them stare at me with varying degrees of shock.
The woman’s lips part and she gapes at me.
The man with the stag horns exchanges a wary look with the man with ram’s horns before turning back to me.
Their leader furrows his brow slightly, dark brown hair cascading into his face with a tousle of the wind.
“I didn’t think you spoke common,” the man with stag horns says to the man with ram’s horns.
“I don’t,” he replies, still staring at me. “And she doesn’t—didn’t—shouldn’t speak faeish either.”
“Is it the magic?” Oren looks to their leader.
“Likely,” he murmurs in that deep voice of his, gaze shifting back to me. His eyes are greener than the sunlight canopy around us. Greener than should be possible. A unique shade, almost like a…
“Lime,” I whisper and inhale sharply. “No, no, no, no.” That single word repeats. It can’t be. It’s not possible.
He crouches down to meet me where I sit on the ground. His tattered wings twitch slightly behind him. There’re still remnants of purple paint underneath his nails.
“You’ve broken all the rules, Katria.” The words are steeped in frustration.
“It’s you,” I breathe. “Lord Fenwood.”
“I suppose now that you’ve seen the real me, you should know my real name too. Davien.” He motions behind him. “The gentleman with the antlers is Hol. My other horned friend is Giles.”
“You’re not even going to attempt a horny joke? Disappointing,” Giles mumbles while grinning like a cat.
Lord Fenwood—Davien—ignores him. “The lady is Shaye. And of course you know Oren.”
I’ve scooted myself all the way back against a tree in an effort to get as much distance as possible between me and these creatures.
As my back presses against the bark, I begin to get a better sense of my surroundings and scan for an escape.
I expect them to launch at my throat any second even though they haven’t killed me yet.
We’re not in the deep pine forest anymore.
Ancient oak trees stretch up with a spiderweb of branches to catch the sunlight and cool afternoon breezes.
Moss dangles off their limbs, swaying. Small motes of light, a rainbow of fireflies bright enough to be seen in the daytime, drift around us.
The moss has an iridescent sheen to it, not unlike the crimson of Davien’s wings.
Every color is brighter than I’ve ever seen it. Every scent is sharper. The air itself feels alive, powerful and fearsome, but in an entirely different way than the dark forest does. I do not feel threatened here. Yet at the same time, this feels like a place of great danger.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“We’re in the Bleeding Woods, to the northeast of what you know as the Slate Mountains.”
“Northeast…” I struggle to process this information. “There is nothing northeast of the Slate Mountains. They’re utterly impassable. The world ends.” Every fool who has ever tried to go across them has never returned.
“Impassable for your kind.” Hol glances in my direction with his purple eyes before going back to scanning the woods around us. Every muscle in his body is tensed, like he’s ready for a fight…or ready to run. “At least, impossible without the help of people like us.”
“The Slate Mountains are a line between worlds,” Davien says with forced calmness.
There’s agitation burning in his eyes. He’s frustrated with me.
Fine. Let him be. He was the one who kept all of this a secret and who’s now dragged me into it.
“On the other side of them is the former kingdom of Aviness—where we are now.”
“Most people call it the fae wilds these days,” Giles says, scanning the forest while he speaks, the wind tousling his blond hair around his horns.
“Why have you not killed me? Why have you taken me here? What do you want from me?” My questions become hasty and frantic.
“I want the magic you stole.” Davien’s voice is a growl. “The magic that was my birthright.”
“I didn’t take any magic,” I say.
He grabs my shoulders with his broad hands and shakes me. “You came into the glen, you disrupted the ritual, you stepped into the flame.”
I suppose I did do all of those things. “I never intended—fine, if you want whatever this magic is, then take it back. I truly don’t know what you’re talking about, and I wouldn’t want it if I did.”
“If only it were so simple.” A shadow crosses his face. “I spent my entire life, nearly twenty-four years, looking for the pieces I needed to complete that ritual. I waited five years just for the stars to be aligned. And you think you can give it to me just because you say so?”
“Enough.” Oren presses fingertips lightly on Davien’s forearm, interrupting the man’s rant. “You’re not accomplishing anything with this.”
“Maybe he will,” Shaye says with a devious grin. “We’ve never had a human who stole fae magic before. Maybe if he shakes her hard enough, it’ll burst out of her. Or her head will pop right off and it’ll leave her body to return where it belongs.”
My eyes go wide.
“None of us are touching her.” He must realize he’s contradicting himself, because Davien releases me with a frustrated sigh.
“I think you just touched—”
“Silence, Giles.” Davien pinches the bridge of his nose. The way he looks at me now reminds me of every measure of disdain Joyce and Helen ever showed me and then some.
“I didn’t mean to—” I begin. My instinct is to placate at that look.
He cuts me off. “That much is clear. And yet you’ve risked ruining everything.” Davien begins to walk off through the woods. “We’re taking her to Vena.”
“Up with you,” Oren says to me gently, helping me to my feet.
“All the way to Dreamsong, through the Bleeding Woods, with a human.” Shaye glances back at me before locking eyes with Hol. “I give her three days.”
“Generous,” Hol says. “I’d be shocked for two.”
“Great, now I have to pick either one day—which seems too short—or four days, which we can all agree is far too generous,” Giles mumbles. “I’ll take four, if I must. Hear that, human? I’m being optimistic for you.”
They’re talking about how long I’ll manage to stay alive, I realize.
I shake my head slowly; it becomes a ripple down my spine that quickly evolves into shudders.
I can’t move with my bones rattling so violently.
My back hits the tree and I slide down it once more, then curl up into a ball and clutch my head.
“We have to get moving.” Oren tries to pull me up by my elbows. “It’s not safe for us out here.”
“Of course it’s not! I’m not safe with any of you.”
“None of us are going to hurt you.”
“At least not while you have Davien’s magic,” Giles says in a singsong voice. His skirt swishes slightly around his thighs as he walks.
A whimper works its way up my throat and escapes as a muted, indistinct noise. “I want to go home.”
“You can’t,” Oren says.
“Take me back,” I demand. “Take me back now,” I repeat, louder.
It’s enough that I gain Davien’s attention.
He stops and slowly turns to face me as I push myself up off the ground without help.
“You—you made a deal when you married me. You took an oath that I would never be left wanting. And I want to go home.”
Davien slowly stalks over, his muscles rippling with a power that calmly promises that he could tear me apart if he desired. His fae magic is like an aura. I’m shocked that it doesn’t ripple the air around him like heat off stones on a summer day.
“About that,” he almost purrs. “First, home—where would that even be? Back to that decrepit manor you told me your family lives in? Is that where you consider your home? Or did you make my estate your home?”
“You left it to me, in your letter.” I try not to let myself be intimidated, but it’s harder and harder the closer he gets. “I want you to take me back there.”
“I hear how you keep using that word, want. But it’s not going to have the effect that you think it will.”
“But—”
“Yes, I made you a vow that, I’ll point out here and now, I did not have to make.
And you’re right that I have to uphold it.
However, you’re forgetting a rather key part of it.
” He comes to a stop before me, stares at me down the bridge of his nose.
“My vow lasted only until one of us departed that mortal plane. And seeing as we have now crossed the Fade into the land of Midscape, we are no longer on that mortal plane. So my vow was fulfilled and is nullified.”
He takes a half step closer. My back hits the tree again, preventing escape. He’s so close that I can feel his breath on the edge of the brisk air.
“You have no claim over me here,” he says.
“I just want to go home,” I whisper.
“I will take you back to your pathetic world as soon as I have the magic within you.” He grabs my chin, tugs my face upward to make me look him in the eye. “Until then, you are under my command. You listen to me and I might just get you out of this alive.”
I try to think of everything I’ve ever learned about the fae.
Monsters? Confirmed. Can’t tell lies? I’m pretty sure that’s true, since I’ve never smelled a lie on any of them.
Have to uphold their vows? It seems so, since he’s so eager to find a way out of the vow he made upon marrying me.
How can I use any of that to survive? Think, Katria, think!
“So if I go with you to this Vena and give you whatever magic is in me, you’ll take me back to the manor?”
“I swear it.”
I swallow. That sounded like a vow. And I didn’t smell smoke. “Fine. Then lead on.”
He releases me and turns away briskly. As he passes by his companions, I hear the woman, Shaye, murmur to him: “Next thing you know, she’ll be trying to say that she’s still your wife.
As if human laws apply here.” She looks back at me with a snide grin.
She knows I can hear her. I get the sense she wants me to.
Even though, with her dark red hair and butterfly wings, she looks nothing like Helen or Joyce, she reminds me more and more of them by the minute.
I gather my muddy, soiled robe around me and, trying to walk with a dignity that I know I don’t possess right now, trudge forward barefoot into the woods.
It’s a miracle that my feet didn’t get cut up last night—at least the forest floor here is covered in plush, comfortable moss.
The thought gives me pause. I stare down at my feet, wiggling my toes.
“What is it?” Oren asks.
“Tell her to hurry up,” Hol shouts back at us. “We’re giving her four days max before she dies here. No time to dally.”
“It’s nothing.” I shake my head and press onward, breezing past Oren and the ugly sense of betrayal his mere presence fills me with.
Last night, I twisted my ankle on a root badly. I heard the bones crunch and the tendons snap. I shouldn’t be able to walk. But the joint feels fine. In fact, now that the initial haze has cleared, I feel like I could dance, run, jump, and sing.
If only I had a reason to do any of those things. All that lies before me is a long march through enemy territory.
But at least my ankle is a quiet suggestion of one thing—maybe I do have magic. Otherwise, how would I be walking right now?