20
Braithe ran until her legs threatened to give out at such a pace.
Then, breathing hard, she walked. She concentrated on getting away from the city, finding a place to hide that would be beyond Faolin’s reach.
It horrified her to think of Gwen bearing the brunt of Faolin’s fury, but there had been no time for trying to persuade her to leave.
Braithe swore to herself she would enlist the help of Morgana and the councillor to free Gwen from Faolin’s prison.
For now, she had to keep herself safe. She couldn’t help Gwen if she didn’t make good her own escape.
She reached the eastern outskirts of the city just as the floating lights began to glimmer along the streets.
It was easy to keep to the shadows. A few servants moved in the distance, carrying trays to and from the communal kitchen, but she saw no one else.
The road grew narrower, then rougher, finally diminishing until it was no more than a packed dirt lane, and she began to relax.
She didn’t know where she was, or even where she might be going, but she was out of the White City, and that was what mattered. Her instinct drew her on.
Dusk gathered under the trees and beneath the shrubs crowding the lane, but in the distance a glow peeked through the woods, a faint but steady light.
Could that be a house, out here in the countryside?
It was too far off for her to tell. As she walked, the light often disappeared behind the stands of trees, making her wonder if she was imagining it.
Real or not, it gave her a goal. She pushed on toward it, or where she thought it was, as the night pressed down around her.
She had never been alone in the midnight woods, and her nerves jumped at unfamiliar noises coming from the darkness.
She kept moving, scanning the shadowed forest for places she could hide if she needed to.
She could duck behind one of the trees, she supposed, or crouch down in the brush.
Taking comfort in the thought, she drove herself forward, watching the woods for a glimpse of the elusive light.
She found a brook running alongside the lane and paused to dip up water and sip it from her hands.
She remembered with longing the food she had not touched, but her mind veered away.
There would be no food this night, so there was no point in thinking about it.
The air remained warm, which was an advantage.
She didn’t relish the idea of a night in the open, but she wouldn’t freeze.
It was infinitely better to contemplate sleeping rough than suffering further torment in Faolin’s nightmare house.
The lane narrowed and shrank even more, until it was nothing but an untended path.
She knew she was still in fae country, but the contrast with the overmanicured boulevards and lanes of the city was dramatic.
As the darkness thickened, she stumbled often on rocks and ruts.
The more tired she got, the more uncertain her steps were.
Her legs began to shake, and her feet burned from trying to find purchase on the uneven ground.
She stopped once to crouch down until her legs recovered.
In the stillness, the familiar twitter of night birds comforted her.
A fox barked in the distance, and that was also reassuring.
She was Morgana’s handmaid, connected to all nature’s creatures.
Perhaps she would rather not encounter a wolf or a boar, but she had nothing to fear from a fox.
She was beginning to wonder if she should find a place to lie down to wait for dawn when the path took a sharp and unexpected turn.
In the dark, she nearly ran into a tree before she realized the change of direction.
Only the gentle brush of the tree’s leaves on her face stopped her from colliding with its trunk, and she had the distinct impression it had reached out to warn her.
She murmured, “Thank you, brother,” not feeling in the least foolish.
It seemed the tree rustled its leaves in response, and on this strange night, that made perfect sense.
She had to grope about in the dark for a moment until she found the path again.
She walked gingerly after that, her feet searching for the smoothest places to step, her hands out to detect obstacles.
When the path finally, abruptly, broke out of the woods, she stopped in wonder.
She had reached the source of the light, and she clasped her hands to her breast as she realized what it was and why it had called to her.
It was a pavilion, built here for some unknown purpose by the priests of old, now protecting a single precious occupant.
Slabs of granite made up the floor. Menhirs, like those in the sanctuary of the Lady’s Temple, but smaller, held up the wooden roof.
The pavilion glowed with the same faerie lights as those in the streets of the White City, but these were fixed, descending from the roof in graceful arcs to illuminate the bier in the center.
A faint glimmer of magic surrounded the bier, the protection Councillor Emerlyn had promised four years before.
No ordinary person could pass through that veil of magic, for good or ill.
Emerlyn, or someone, had seen to the construction of a simple but elegant coffin of bogwood, its top carved with flowers and vines, with a simple crown at its head.
Braithe reached the pavilion, stepped up the single stair, and sank to her knees, overcome by fatigue and gratitude and the tender grip of memory. Beyond the glowing veil, inside that beautiful coffin, lay the body of her one and only love. King Arthur Dragoun of Lloegyr.
She curled on her side, facing the bier, pillowing her head on her hands.
She was hungry but too weary for that to keep her awake.
She sensed Arthur’s spirit surround her, the protective, heroic, selfless energy that had made him so beloved of his people.
Comforted, she sighed and fell into a sweet, easy sleep.
The sun was dropping swiftly into the west as Morgana, resisting the enervating fatigue that invariably followed shapeshifting, quickened her pace.
She saw several council delegates wending their way home, which meant the day’s gathering had ended.
She had tested seven walled houses without results.
Fortunately, high summer meant long evenings.
She would keep moving as long as there was light enough to see, but she knew whoever had taken Braithe would be returning home from the Royal Council Hall, and that would complicate things.
The red disk of the sun was balancing on the western horizon, just where the tree line met the sky, when she found the house at last.
“That is the one,” she said to Idhri. She hurried up a wide street that branched off from the boulevard.
There were no other houses, only a large one perched at the top of a gentle slope.
The gate in the wall around it was painted a very dark gray, nearly black, just as the vision from Braithe had shown.
The roofline rose above the wall, and beneath it the setting sun flashed on two glazed windows.
A third window appeared to be broken, with jagged shards of glass reflecting the light.
“How can you be sure this is it?” Idhri panted, trotting alongside her.
Morgana slowed her steps to let him catch his breath. It was not wise to tire him too much. She might need Idhri’s strength as well as her own. “Deep sight,” she said shortly. “It surprises me sometimes. In this case, I simply know.”
They reached the wall, and Morgana put her hand on it as she bent her head. She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, but she had not taken more than three breaths before she understood. She lifted her head to glare at the closed gate. “She was here,” she said bitterly. “But she is no longer.”
“Oh, no,” Idhri breathed. “How do we—what can we do?”
“We go in.” Morgana put her hand on one of the gate’s iron bars and shook it. It didn’t open. She tried the old cantrip from the guesthouse, and then the new one, but still nothing. She was scanning the wall, searching for some way to get past it, when screams sounded from within the house.
“That’s not Braithe!” Idhri cried.
“It is not.” Morgana turned aside, looking for a place she might climb the wall.
She didn’t dare shapeshift again and find herself at the door of the house with nothing on.
She was about to ask Idhri to boost her over when she realized he was already at the top, ready to drop down on the other side. “Idhri! How did you—”
“Long legs and rowing muscles.” Another scream, the sort that came from someone in pain, rang out from inside the house. “Shall I bang on the door?”
“Yes! Pound on it, and shout! I will try to find a way in.”
Idhri leaped nimbly to the ground and ran to the door, which was dark gray, like the gate. As Morgana watched through the bars, gripping them as if she could tear the thing open with her bare hands, Idhri lifted his fist, but it never fell.
The door opened, and a tall fae man strode out, muttering a cantrip as he went. Obediently, the gate swung open, too, allowing Morgana to stride in. The man jolted to a halt and stared at Idhri. “What are you doing here?”
Morgana, halfway up the walk, demanded, “Where is my handmaid?”
The fae whirled. When he saw Morgana, his tilted eyes narrowed to slits. Nearly spitting the words, he said, “You’re the priestess!”
“Where is Braithe?”
“What are you talking about?” The man’s brutish features attempted an expression of bewilderment, but it looked utterly false. He appeared to be too angry to dissemble.
“Where is she?” Morgana demanded again, her voice thundering off the garden wall and resounding through the open door of the house.
The screams from within had subsided into sobs, and a human woman, tears streaking her thin cheeks, appeared in the doorway. She wailed, “She ran away. She’s gone!”
Morgana stared at the woman, stunned for a moment into silence. When she breathed, “Gwenvere?” the fae man abruptly laughed. It was the ugliest sound she had ever heard.
Idhri blinked in confusion. How could it be that the priestess recognized the weeping woman? He had no doubt this was the man who had abducted Braithe, though he had not seen his face before, but the woman—who was Gwenvere? Why did the priestess know her?
Morgana had recovered herself. “What is your name, Sero?” she said. “I gather you are the one who sent a changeling to become the king’s bride. Councillor Emerlyn will be fascinated to learn that.”
The fae sneered at the priestess. His features were particularly suited to the disdainful expression. “You know nothing,” he snarled. “Nor does Emerlyn.”
“On the contrary,” Priestess Morgana said in an icy tone. “I know far more than I did only a short while ago. I can guess how you used this poor woman.” She gestured to the sobbing woman in the doorway. “And I have no doubt you are the one I seek. All I do not know yet is who your accomplices are.”
“Accomplices! What nonsense!” But the man’s voice betrayed his lack of confidence. He hid it by turning to snap at the woman cowering in the doorway, her face mottled with weeping. “Go inside, Gwen! I’ll deal with you later.”
“No, Sero, you will not. Your victim is coming with me. Perhaps you should be thinking of your own safety instead of abusing her further.”
“You can’t hurt me,” the man snapped.
“I have no need to hurt you,” she answered. “I leave that to the judgment of the Royal Council.” She pushed past him to go up the short steps to the door, where she held out her hand to the woman inside. “Come, Gwenvere,” she said. “You will be safe with us.”
The man had stepped back, out of the priestess’s way, but now he roared, “No! Gwen, if you do this, you will know pain you haven’t dreamed of!”
The woman he called Gwen doubled over, holding her middle, crying out as if he had kicked her, though he was at least ten steps away.
The priestess whirled and threw up a hand, palm facing the fae man. “Stop!” she commanded. The word echoed down the lane like the striking of a bronze bell. It was such a powerful sound Idhri thought they might hear it at the Council Hall.
The fae grunted as if Priestess Morgana had struck him. He bent at the waist, his hands on his knees, evidently having difficulty drawing a breath.
Gwen, moaning, sagged to the floor. Idhri leaped past the fae man and up the walk to reach her. As he helped her to stand, he heard the priestess say, “You see, Sero, I can hurt you if I choose. It seems you have a taste for pain, although perhaps your own is not so satisfying.”
The fae man pushed himself upright with a little wheezing groan. He looked as if he felt sick. “You will pay for this,” he growled, but without conviction. The priestess made no answer.
Idhri led Gwen down the steps and out into the waning sunshine.
She seemed to be nothing but bones and skin, and she trembled as if she might collapse.
Idhri kept a hand under her arm, but carefully.
It felt fragile, as if it might break under the pressure of his fingers.
Priestess Morgana took her other arm, and the three of them, linked in that clumsy way, made a stumbling progress down the walk, past the glowering fae and out through the gate.
They heard the cantrip muttered behind them, and the gate swung closed as their awkward trio reached the lane.
Idhri asked, as they assisted Gwen toward the boulevard, “Priestess, what did you do?”
She glanced at him above Gwen’s head. “I lost my temper, Idhri.”
“And that—that hurt him?”
Her eyes glinted gold in the waning light. “I hope it did. By the hand of the Lady, I certainly hope it did.”