Chapter 3 #2
A cold breeze, colder than a mountain winter, crept through me.
The smell of a cave, wet minerals and stagnant grime, clung to the air and coated my tongue.
Every hair on my body stood up as I pulled out an axe.
Turning my head all around me, I heard nothing.
Saw nothing. But I felt it, whatever it was.
“Deliciousss,” a moist breath purred in my ear. I whipped my head around only to be met with empty clearing.
“Who’s there?” I demanded.
“It bites.” The voice laughed—it was not a happy sound. “But ssso do I.”
I spun on my heels. There it was, a distance away in the trees.
The air around it was dark and thick. A figure in a tattered robe with the hood drawn over its brow.
The skin was whiter than the fresh snows.
Even from where I stood, I could see black veins snaking under the skin.
It had the body and voice of a woman, but the teeth between its red lips were narrow and sharp, like those of a fish.
“What do you want?” I gripped my axe. A tremor slipped into my voice this time, but I stuck out my chin and told myself I wasn’t afraid of this thing. Disregarding the fact that I’m a terrible liar, of course.
“It hasss been a long time sssince I have tasssted your kind,” it whispered. “A long time indeed.”
I backed up, but I stayed in the clearing where I could move easily. The creature crept closer, its cold presence pushing in on my breath, burning my lungs. That feeling of wrongness threatened to strangle me.
“No need to run, little one.” It grinned, wider than a jawbone should have allowed.
I wondered how quick a death this creature could provide.
It glided toward me, even as I dug my heels into the dirt and moved my grip on the handle of my axe.
I would like to say it was bravery that kept me there, but I was more afraid to show it my back than to face it.
I wasn’t going to give it the pleasure of an unguarded meal.
“Don’t be shy, ssstay there like a good girl. Yesss, that’sss it.”
I swallowed as the thing drew close. My nose filled with its deep-cave stench, stale and cold.
Its bony hands reached toward me, skin stretched tight over tendons and sinew.
Fingers moved forward, a hair’s breadth from running wet, sharp claws down my cheek, and I was frozen in place.
The horrid thing before me, forever seared into my mind, smiled.
One lone sound broke through the deathly still and sparked the life back into me.
“Run!” The fae, the very thing I had been running from up the mountainside, now thundered into the clearing and barreled toward me and the creature.
Snapping out of my stupor, I hefted the axe and swung it toward the creature; it was far too close for a natural attack position, but I tried anyway. As it shifted back from my clumsy swing, its eerie black eyes darting between me and the fast-approaching fae, a small opportunity presented itself.
Swinging again, not even righting the sharpened edge toward my target, I pulled the axe back and slammed the dull end against the creature’s shoulder.
I ran just as a blur of deep blue collided with the thing now behind me.
Tearing through the trees, low branches and tall grasses scratching at my skin and clothes, I put as much distance between me and that clearing as I could.
My mind raced, recalling every story Mila had ever told me and trying to reconcile them with the predator that had nearly had me in its claws.
My legs ached by the time I finally slowed down. Stumbling to a stop against a large tree, I leaned against it as I slid to the ground and dragged as much air into my lungs as I could with each breath.
I dropped my axe next to me. It was a miracle I’d held on to it. That thing—that monster—was the stuff of nightmares. The shaking began as I replayed what had happened in my mind.
Running from the fae was one thing; I had thought I needed to be afraid of him.
There was no understanding him or what he wanted.
His nature was foreign to me, his ties to the Wyldes alarming.
But this creature, the not-woman with those long, thin teeth who carried mist around her, that was truly something to fear.
The strain to hear what had become of their battle gained me nothing. The insects were buzzing again, my biggest sign that I had managed to get far enough away. But if the fae didn’t win and that monster came after me again, I didn’t think I’d make it out unscathed a second time.
My head pounded, my legs ached, my hands and face were scratched from pushing through the forest, draining all the strength I had left.
Back to the tree, head leaning against the rough trunk trying to put pressure against the pounding ache, I closed my eyes.
Insects, birds, rustling leaves, they had all returned.
The music of the mountains lulled me enough that when footsteps disturbed crunching leaves, I jolted.
The fae.
Something wet and black and smelling foul as rotten fish covered his hands—likely the blood of that creature—but the fae seemed otherwise the same as the day he’d killed the raiders.
Another thing I did not understand about him.
The clearing around me spun in a moment of vertigo as I shot to my feet, not wanting to be at any sort of disadvantage. My fingers curled around the handle of my axe, the steadfast tool now turned weapon. My stomach churned as he took slow, deliberate steps toward me.
What should I do? What does he want? What would my father do? Bryn would have asked already, and that realization, along with the terror of the last hour, amounted to one sob escaping me as I pressed my back against the tree.
He stopped in front of me, one hand moving overhead as he leaned against the same tree I had my back against. His expression was even, but his unblinking attention chilled me.
Eyes on me were never good. It meant stares, whispers, and sometimes much worse.
My mind was caught somewhere between Mila’s advice to be open to the fae and a life among people who feared them.
And then he spoke, and my swirling concerns came to a halt as my attention was solely on him.
“You are frustratingly difficult to track down.”
My mouth popped open, as though if I gave them the opportunity words would form and make a sensible response.
Difficult to track down? He’d looked nothing but angry when I’d spoken to him at Silver Lake.
He had clearly been agitated at the farm.
Once I’d realized he might be behind me in the forest, I’d had every reason to be fearful.
People did not chase me down with innocent intent.
“I shouldn’t have pushed you,” I finally said. Maybe that was what this was about.
His brows knit together, and he tilted his head before he seemed to remember. “And I should not have touched your hair.”
If not for my transgressions against him, then what?
“A favor, then. You’re afraid if you cannot find me, I cannot repay the debt I owe you.” My chin rose, defying any lingering fears I still had. “I repay my debts, whatever you may think of humans.”
Closing his eyes, he let out a heavy breath. “I do not care about that; I simply gave the formal response to your thanks.”
“But the rules. I was taught—”
“An archaic practice.” He waved the notion away. “From a time when humans were far less separated from the Wyldes.”
Then what did he want? This maddening conversation was turning the feeling in my chest from concern to irritation.
My body ached, my head pounded, I smelled foul, and all I wanted to do was make some sort of camp where I could clean the scratches on my skin and eat something.
That thing, though. That thing was going to be fuel for my nightmares for a long time to come.
“Is that thing dead?” I asked.
“The wraith is dead,” he answered.
Wraith. A shiver ran down my skin, crawling with the memory of how that monster made the very air feel like death.
Well, at least that takes care of that. One worry was gone, but I still needed to get to the bottom of this situation between us.
“Why is it you’ve followed me, then?” It was all I could think to ask.
“You smell familiar, and I needed to know why,” he said gravely.
He could not be serious.
“If you are one of us—” he continued.
“I am not one of you.” Biting, cold anger rose in me. I’d spent my whole life being punished for what might be in my blood. If I was truly one of them, they had abandoned me just as surely as the people of Silver Lake had shunned me. I couldn’t be one of them, because if I was then . . . then . . .
Then neither side of my flesh and blood had found me worth keeping.
Two fat tears forged the path for streams to begin down my cheeks. Everything was too much; it was all too much at once.
Pushing off the tree, the fae stepped back and thankfully gave me some room to breathe. I moved to the side, putting a few more steps between us. Wiping furiously at the tears with one hand, I pulled Bryn’s coat tighter around me. “Why are you here?”
He ran his hands through his hair, not minding the mess he had just made of it as my stomach flipped at the sight. He killed so easily, was so capable of ending the life of something that threatened his. Or others, I suppose. Some might consider it a good thing; I wasn’t so sure yet.
“You are clearly of the Wyldes,” he tried to explain with slow, calculated words. “The entire population of the courts is accounted for. No one slips through the cracks. No one. Everything of the Wyldes stays within its borders, and everyone else stays outside.”
He had every chance to elaborate, but when he didn’t, I realized I was going to have to prod every word of this conversation out of him. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t exist?”
“No.” He frowned. “I’m saying that you should not be unaccounted for. Why were you in that human settlement?”