by Amy Wilson
‘I know I will.’ He sighs. ‘Even though technically I’m banished . . .’
‘That isn’t going to stop you now, my warrior Peg.’
He bristles and then starts digging around in the cupboard by the back door, finally dragging out an old, dusty lantern with glass sides and stiff metal shutters.
‘Behold, the oldest fae lamp in all the world, with a crack that surely shall lead to our downfall,’ he says miserably, blowing at it and coughing on the dust.
‘We’ll be fine,’ I say, grabbing it from him and giving it a wipe with a tea towel.
It begins to glow, and so I take a deep breath, straighten my spine, grab my coat from the brass hook and march out of the back door without a backward look – straight into Zara.
‘Hey!’ She staggers back. ‘Steady, with your swinging lantern and all! What are you doing?’
‘Zara!’ I clatter her into an awkward hug, not sure I’ve ever been so glad to see anyone. ‘You came back!’
‘Well, I wasn’t about to let you have an adventure on your own,’ she says. ‘I mean . . . if I can come, that is. I’m sorry I dashed off like that . . .’ She draws back, and for the first time, I can see the doubt in her. She’s been so invested in everything, and it must be hard. Being in a new town after her parents’ separation, making friends with people who turn out to not be people at all.
‘Please come,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, and this lantern is a bit broken, and Peg’s supposed to be coming, but he’s still HIDING in the house, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that we got into a row like that. I didn’t mean to keep secrets from you. The whole Lost Prince legend is so messed up.’
‘You are the Lost Prince, though,’ she says.
‘I’m the Shadow King’s daughter,’ I say. ‘So, whatever the legends say, I guess that must mean something. Yanny was right. It is me. I was panicking – I didn’t know what to do. Peg said it would all look different in the morning.’ I look around at the slowly brightening sky. ‘I suppose it does. Are you OK?’
‘I am.’ She smiles. ‘And it’s OK. I’ve got my own secrets.’
‘You have? What are they?’
‘Ha! As if I’d tell you so easily. You’ll have to wait and see!’
‘OK. But whatever they are, it won’t change anything. I already think you’re awesome, you know.’ I grin.
‘Of course I know,’ she says, tucking her arm through mine. ‘The feeling is mutual, Stella. Whoever you are.’
‘PEG!’ I shout, as we go through the gate and out on to the moors. ‘Come on!’
He joins us a moment later, scuttling over scrubby grass beneath a shift of fog, which hangs below a star-bright, lightening sky. Teacake bounds out of Winterspell towards us and gives a little yowl of approval.
My breath steams, and my nerves start to kick in, like little shocks under my skin. The shadows instantly gather, thick at the edge of the forest, and we form a little chain: Teacake at the front, her fur on end; then me, with imp Peg on my shoulder; and Zara at the back, clutching my hand.
Her skin is warm, and the heels of our hands fit together like I never knew could happen. All those times I wanted a real, solid hand to hold, now I have one, and I’m leading its owner straight into danger. She tightens her fingers in mine, stronger than they look, and when I look back, she’s bright with the adventure of it all, her eyes gleaming.
And then the horn sounds. A golden ripple that takes our breath away and bursts through the shadows, just for an instant, as Rory calls the new day, and the trees shift, the birds lifting in flight.
We venture in, through the narrow path that twitches at every corner with creatures awakening. As the horn fades, the shadows creep back in, and they come thick and fast, unfurling in the winter air. I’m turned around so quick, that before I know it, Zara is leading the way, Peg barking out instructions I can barely hear through the growl of the wolves and the screech of the shadow birds that loom down from outstretched, blackened branches, their forms twisted and elongated.
‘Focus!’ Peg snaps at me. ‘Can’t leave your friend to do this alone. Now is the time, Stella.’
I take a long, deep breath, put my fingers on the silver-and-gold acorn, and keep my eyes trained on Zara. The shadows retreat to the corners of my eyes, and I watch as Teacake darts back and forth before us as if she’s testing out the ground – perhaps she is.
Peg digs his claws into my shoulder, and we keep going until the path widens, and daylight streams into the clearing around the wildest part of the river, where the shadows are afraid to roam. They still flick and whisper through the branches of the trees, but in this space, there is clear air, and the rush of silver water sounds like hope.
Teacake halts here and stares up at me, as if waiting for me to act.
‘Where’s the palace, Peg?’ I whisper.
‘I don’t know where it is,’ he says. ‘That’s the whole point, Stella. Nobody does. Nobody has been able to find it, all this time. I did try, before I was banished . . .’
‘You never did say why – perhaps now is the time? Who banished you? The shadows?’
He huffs, letting out a sulphurous cloud. ‘Not them. No. The head of the council, Rory.’
‘The centauride,’ whispers Zara, her eyes round. ‘She banished you? Oh dear.’
‘Why oh dear?’ I ask. ‘I know she’s fierce, but . . .’
‘I read about her in one of your books. She’s the head of the fae.’
‘But the king and queen—’
‘No. Well. Yes, they ruled. But after the shadows came, the council was formed to fight them and to rule Winterspell . . . They’re the ones with the real power now. They protect the fae people against the shadows, as much as they can.’
‘What book did you find that in?’ I ask.
‘Well,’ says Zara, ‘I also talked to someone who knows about it all—’
‘Anyway,’ says Peg. ‘Yes, it was Rory who banished me, but she was angry at the time. Perhaps she’s forgotten—’
Laughter rings through the clearing, and the flowers that nestle in between the roots of the ancient trees bloom blue and yellow and violet. And Rory is there. She moves towards us, and the air gets thin, and her dark eyes spark.
‘Forgotten?’ she chimes. ‘When I make a rule, it is not forgotten, Peg. It is not broken! You were told never to come back! That spell you used last time nearly destroyed a whole cluster!’
‘A cluster?’ I frown from Rory to Peg. ‘A cluster of what?’
‘Spiders,’ Peg says, winding his tail through his fingers, looking at the ground. ‘I was searching for the truth, deep in the forest, looking for the palace, and they attacked . . .’
‘Peg! You were searching for chestnuts, and the spiders spooked you. We do not harm nature’s creatures in here, even if we don’t like them. What you did was unforgivable.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ he says, looking up at her with a nervous, toothy imp smile. ‘I acted wrongly in a moment of panic, and I have repented ever since. I swear, I’ll never do it again. Now I bring these children to you, for they are determined to find the palace.’
Rory snorts and paws at the ground. ‘Pretty words, little imp – that’s all those are.’ She turns her steely gaze to me. ‘I told these girls, this creature, not to return. I told you not to return!’
‘She isn’t a creature,’ says Peg quickly, leaping up on to my shoulder. ‘Don’t you see who she is, Rory? Have you been blinded by all these years among the shadows?’
‘I have been too busy fighting to listen to dusty old legends,’ she whispers, and her face is changed; it is a wild, cruel place where hope no longer lives. ‘If what you say is true, then they will find their way, Peg. But you may not go with them.’
She is suddenly still, just inches from us. The air smells of metal, it’s cold as a knife in my throat.
‘You were banished by my word, and my word shall have power here, whatever else may happen. Send your girls to do
their little hunt, if you dare. That one –’ she indicates me with a cool nod of her head – ‘brings the shadows close. There is no doubting that. They have grown worse than ever since I first saw her in here. If she really has something to do with it all, she may as well do it now, for we are heading for the fight of our lives.’
She casts a glance towards Zara and me. ‘I see they have one of the old lanterns. Perhaps that will help. Perhaps not. In either case, I have other things to attend to, for today we mourn, for the thousandth time.’ The knife sharpens as her voice breaks, and she is grief, and wilderness, all trapped in sharp angles.
Peg crouches still as stone upon my shoulder, and I sense something passing between Rory and him. The moment stretches, and I can almost hear it, but every time I try to tune in, something snaps, tight as elastic. I close my eyes to focus better, but the air turns still . . . and when I open them, she’s gone.
‘What was that, Peg?’
‘A warning,’ he says, sounding tired. ‘I cannot go with you. And if you don’t do this now, you may never get in here again. Rory will see to that.’
He gives me a long, level look, and then starts barking out instructions, about silent mushrooms and the creep of the wilder-vine, and there’s something about the shadows, and the yew . . . but I can’t concentrate. All my reason is unravelling in here.
Zara looks how I feel. She stares at Peg while he explains everything, and when he’s done, she nods, but I don’t think she knows any better than I do quite what he was saying. He lifts from my shoulder with one last, sharp warning to keep the lantern fully lit, and takes to the air on red-gold wings. Teacake sticks close beside us and chirrups, and on we go, through the tangle of wood, past the silent ranks of golden ash and the sharp, winter shadows that make our breath bloom like smoke.
For a moment, all things seem possible. The air is clear and quiet; the shadows hardly more than mist—
And then they are among us – a choking, fighting whirl of darkness, which takes my spirit and drives me to my knees, while Zara screams.
I can’t see.
I can’t breathe.
All I can hear is the silence that rings hollow after Zara’s scream. I get to my feet slowly, and all my chest is cramped and tight, and the shadows swarm around me.
‘Zara?’ My voice is a whisper. ‘Zara!’
‘I’m here,’ she says. ‘Is that the shadows, Stella? I can’t see them, but I think I can feel them – it’s horrible. I feel so hopeless, like my heart is breaking . . . I thought I knew what that felt like, but maybe I didn’t . . .’
I move towards her voice, but the shadows are stronger. They form into their wolf selves, and their teeth glint against the darkness.
‘Get away from me,’ I hiss, stretching my hands out to feel for her, silver sparks breaking the air.
They hiss back, snakes in the frozen grass between the trees.
‘Zara, keep talking!’
‘I thought when we moved here, and Dad stayed behind, and I cried so much that my throat hurt . . . I thought that was what it felt like. But here, it feels like something’s got its hand around my heart. And I keep seeing his face as we drove off. And I wanted Mum to turn around, but she just kept driving, and her knuckles were all tight on the steering wheel. I knew she was just as torn apart as he was, and we’d done all the talking and all the packing, so I knew we weren’t just going to turn around, but I was so angry, I didn’t care.’
She’s silent for a moment, and then her voice comes again, softer now.
‘I didn’t want to come here,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want a new start. I didn’t want to be away from him. I didn’t want to see my Mamani crying. And people said they were wrong to separate, because they’d made a promise . . . but they rowed so much. And even when they weren’t rowing, they were sad. And now they’re not. Or they are, but not so much. Dad laughed, when we went bowling, because we were so rubbish at it, and I realized I hadn’t seen him laugh for so long. And Mum . . . I mean, it’s not easy, but she doesn’t look so . . . pinched. She has new friends. That has to be a good thing. Doesn’t it?’
I keep going, towards her voice.
‘It sounds like a good thing,’ I manage through gritted teeth, using the lantern to batter at the flanks of the wolves; steeling my shoulders against the wings of the shadow owls. ‘New friends are a good thing.’
Finally I see her, head down, eyes closed, her back against a broad oak tree, and I reach out through the shadows to grab her arm. She turns to me, wild-eyed, and gives me a great big wobbly smile, as I pull her in and hold her close.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, and she laughs, because we’re about as far from OK as we could be, lost in this cursed forest. ‘We just need to keep going.’
‘You know you’re glowing,’ she says, pulling back after a moment.
‘Like moonshine?’
‘Yes!’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘That’s got to count for something.’
‘What are you doing?’ says a familiar voice, as a thin faelight cuts a new path through the shadows.
Yanny, his hair standing on end, smoke licking at the ground by his feet, eyes on fire. His fiery whip curls from his wrist and flickers with amber flames. Yanny in warrior mode. Utterly wild and looking very cross.
‘I’m going to the palace,’ I tell him.
‘Good . . .’ He hesitates. ‘Have you thought about what you’ll do? What he’ll be like?’
‘Not too much,’ I say. ‘I know what he’s like. I know what he was before my mother died. And I know what he is now.’ I don’t know how to explain what I’m going to do; I don’t even understand it myself. But I know there is power here, inside me, and in the acorn that pulls me onward. ‘You’ll just have to trust me.’
He looks so conflicted, but there’s no time for more talk – the shadows are coming thicker and faster, and it’s all we can do to keep parrying them with his whip and my lantern. If we don’t do something now, they’re going to consume us all.
‘Go, then,’ he says, his eyes flicking up at Teacake. ‘You’ve got your army with you – I’ll stay here and watch your back.’
I nod. ‘Where are all the others?’
‘They’re on their way,’ he says. ‘We’ve done this before. You go – break the curse, and all this will be over. Don’t worry about me.’ He gives a wicked, glittering smile, and my heart pounds as I return it.
‘Be careful, Yanny,’ says Zara, and she sounds as afraid for him as I feel. He’s just a slight, bright thing against so much darkness.
He winks, and the shadows come between us, and I put my fingers on to the acorn at my neck, just to check, and there it is, shining at me through a sudden opening in the trees – a swathe of ice as barren as my father’s heart.
I stumble on the wiry roots and slam my way through the bracken, fighting as much as running, fending off the brittle twigs that claw at my clothes, Zara by my side.
How could we leave him on his own?
I keep twisting through the trees, knowing that if I stop for even an instant, I’m going to turn back around and tell him we were wrong, there’s nothing we can do better than fight by his side. But the way gets colder as we go, and I know we’re getting closer to what Nan and I sought, so many times, except we never got this far. We didn’t fight through the clinging, fractal ice spider webs that splinter now against my cheeks and snap against the outthrust palms of my hands. We didn’t see them.
Zara is quiet as I pull her behind me. Teacake shifts on my shoulder as I turn back, and her breath is coming in great plumes of steam, her eyes wide, lashes coated in fine feathers of ice.
‘You’re sure about this?’ I ask, because Zara is brave, and she’s far more than I ever imagined a friend could be, but she cannot feel the thrum of the acorn on the copper chain beneath my shirt; she does not fight for a family she only barely remembers. For a forest full of magical creatures.
She fights for me, and for Yanny.
She
digs the heel of her hand into mine, and she doesn’t speak, but she sets her chin and nods, and we forge onward together, and it gets colder still as we go, and then there’s a row of tall, slender silver birches before us, gathered tight, branches interwoven. We tread around the outside, but there’s no break between them. Their roots are glinting arcs of ice, with limbs tightly laced, and their shadows already alive, boiling across the frozen ground. Tiny creatures nestle up high in the glittering canopy, looking down with large, unblinking eyes. Bats, and squirrels, and stoats – all dark-eyed and white-furred.
His creatures.
He will know we’re coming.
The shadows are waiting.
‘So much for stealth,’ I whisper.
Zara shrugs. ‘Stealth is overrated. What we need to do is burst through roaring.’
‘Really?’ I shiver at the thought, but Teacake yowls on my shoulder with a furry, feline sort of a nod.
Zara shrugs. ‘What’ve we got to lose?’
I stare at her. ‘Ourselves!’
‘We’re already lost.’ She grins. ‘You’ve been lost for a lifetime, Stella. You’re famous for it, remember!’
I stare up at the twisted branches of the trees, willing for a parting, for the slightest gap. We don’t have time to linger, while Yanny fights alone. One step down into the packed snow, four inches deep and creaking like old wood. Teacake drops from my shoulder and prowls ahead, and the trees stand like white-bearded silver sentries, shoulder to shoulder.
‘I’m coming,’ I warn them, my heart catching at the thought of hacking through those gathered branches. The acorn grows warm at my neck, and a tiny flash breaks through the winter air. ‘I need to get into the palace, so I’m going to run, and we’re going to fight you until we’re through . . . unless you get out of my way.’
One more step.
The trees do not part – if anything, they seem to bunch tighter, lowering their crowned heads. The white-furred weasels scramble into their hiding places, and there’s a deep, resounding boom, a great rumble deep down below us. We stagger, my knees are shaking, my head is full of shadow and fear, and then a great tide of snow and ice breaks from the tangle before us, rising up before plummeting down to the ground in a mist of cold so deep and thick that it rushes into our eyes and our mouths and throws us down.
