Catching Pathways

by Danielle Berggren

  He shook his head, the movement slow. “No,” he said, drawing out the word. “Maeve, aside from you and Sebastian—and now Rodan, I suppose—I’ve never met another spell crafter. They’re around. Some sets up shop in cities, selling their talents, but it’s a rare gift.”

  Don’t get too full of yourself, Sebastian had said, even a child could do what you’re doing.

  Why did he lie about this?

  Back then, she had needed to believe there was something special about her. She found other things, later, when she returned to her world. She found her writing—her ability to weave a story out of the truth. It remained the closest thing to when she worked with ingredients here in the Realms.

  She thought about what Rodan kept saying—Sebastian was a manipulator. A liar and a fraud. A large part of her wanted to rail against that reality, to deny her old friend would be such a callous creature, but the more she looked back—

  “Maeve?”

  She snapped out of her reverie and glanced at Pike. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking.”

  “About him?” he asked, nodding toward the grand pavilion.

  She pursed her lips. “I know you don’t approve.”

  He studied her with his one green eye. “I don’t mind,” he said, his voice soft, “so long as he cares for you as you care for him. You’re not the type of woman to be someone’s mistress.” He glanced at the tent and back to her. “What are his intentions?”

  She blinked, caught off guard. “Intentions?” She sputtered. “Why do there have to be intentions?”

  I would place a crown of silver and moonstones upon your brow. I would have you, forever, if that is your wish.

  Her cheeks grow hot, remembering those words. “I haven’t wanted to assume.”

  He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll ask him next time I see him.”

  “No!” She startled herself with how loud her voice grew, and lowered it, “Please don’t. I know you worry about me—”

  “Of course, I worry about you,” Pike said. “It didn’t take a genius to see what you felt for Sebastian, all those years ago. I worry you’re falling down the same path.” His voice was soft but dark as he continued, “And I won’t have another man break your heart the way Sebastian broke yours.”

  Something in her chest seized and eased. “I didn’t realize you knew,” she murmured.

  “We all knew,” he said, his voice still gentle but gruff. “Troy and I thought he would summon you back, after the coronation. Leaving you never sat well with either of us. It was one of the few things we agreed on, at times.”

  Maeve remembered those first couple of years, remembered having a suitcase on hand at all time, tucked into the trunk of her car and schlepped all the way up to her fourth story studio apartment at the end of each day. She carried her things with her, never losing faith Sebastian would come for her. Not until, one day without warning, she realized he never would.

  The thought made her chest hurt.

  How stupid she had been.

  She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers. Was she being stupid now?

  What would happen after they finished the quests, and Rodan gained the throne? Would she stay here? Would she try to go back home? Would she let her friends and her agent think she had gone missing, or would she try to ease them into a life without her around, so that she might return here?

  Would Rodan even want her?

  Not as a lover. He proved he desired her body. But when he said he cared, was he speaking the truth or was he trying to win her trust, so he might have his way? He was two thousand years old. Was she just another conquest?

  “You don’t know,” Pike said, his voice snapping her out of her thoughts. “You really don’t. By gods, girl, you can’t do this to yourself again.”

  Maeve twitched, the need to run stealing over her. She wanted to disappear into the grass and keep going until she hit land she’d never laid eyes on before, with people to whom she was a stranger. Take Leona and just go.

  What did she owe to any of them, anyway?

  She rose, rubbing at her arms, her eyes going between the two summoned tents and imagining Rodan within one of them, thinking about their enemy and what to do. She did not want to be here when he emerged.

  “Maeve, what are you—”

  “I need to go for a walk,” she said, her voice quiet. “Tell Rodan I’ll be back.”

  She did not wait for Pike to respond but took off past the pavilions and toward the tall grass, disappearing into the long strands. The grass rustled and hissed around her, the tufts and fronds at the top bending down to tickle the top of her head.

  Maeve walked on, careful of where she stepped. The land crisscrossed with little pitfalls that were almost impossible to see until you were on top of them.

  The silence comforted her. She continued on, hands out to push the grass aside. She followed the scent of fresh water which she knew lay not far beyond.

  Pike asked her what Sebastian did, all those years ago, to win against Rodan. Pike was right—there was no way the three of them were Rodan’s match back then. Not without Maeve’s magic.

  She swallowed hard, remembering that night on the eve of the duel. She stopped, the sound of the river closer now, and looked down at her shaking hands. Hands once covered in an innocent woman’s blood.

  Maeve clenched those hands into fists and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She scented the water and the wet earth not far from here, and the dust she kicked up on her wanderings.

  Then she smelled smoke.

  A rustling sounded from behind her and Maeve’s ears pricked, her eyes opening. “Rodan, I want to be alone now,” she said.

  But what responded to her wasn’t his sonorous voice, but a soft hissing, like a large snake. She whirled around, mouth open to cry out, but the shadow covered her in darkness, and her scream sounded hollow even to her own ears.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Maeve

  RODAN EMERGED FROM THE PAVILION and cast his gaze around, landing on Pike not far away, sitting on a bench near his own tent.

  Rodan approached, his steps stalling when Pike’s single eye narrowed at him. “Where’s Maeve?”

  “She went for a walk,” Pike said. “We should talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Maeve,” the man growled. “What else?”

  Rodan thought of a number of things. The years when Pike was on the run, and the years since Sebastian took the throne. There were a number of questions Rodan needed answers for, and Pike seemed the most likely candidate to answer them, but—” Of course,” Rodan said with a tilt of his head. “Let us talk of Maeve.”

  The cutthroat stood, rising to his full height yet his head only came a smidgen higher than Rodan’s shoulder. “I need to know something.” At Rodan’s glare, the man scowled back. “I need a direct answer.”

  “What is it?” he bristled, ready to rise to his own defense.

  “I need to know if you’re going to do to her what Sebastian did. If you are, I’m going to need you to step away from her.” Pike’s hand fell to one of the twin daggers at his hip. “Now.”

  Rodan’s eyes fell to the dagger and lifted to the man’s face. “You’re protecting her.”

  “Damn right,” Pike said, in a voice soft enough not to carry to any of the surrounding tents or to Maeve, if she happened to approach from behind them. “I will go down for her if I have to. She’s my closest friend. My only remaining friend.”

  Rodan relaxed by degrees. There she goes again, inspiring intense loyalty in those around her, even after all these years. “If you’re asking if my intentions are honorable—” He paused, then continued, “they are not. Not entirely.” Pike opened his mouth but Rodan cut him off. “If you’re asking if I’ll abandon her like Sebastian did, I will not. Not ever.” He slashed the air with his hand, causing the man to take a step back, the dagger coming out a few inches from the scabbard.

  “What are your
intentions?” Pike demanded, sliding the blade back into its home but keeping his hand on it.

  Rodan chewed on the question. What were his intentions? The personal challenge from Sebastian to win her heart and her body existed, yes, but he did not view her as a mere path to the throne. Maeve had become more than just a useful companion and a welcome distraction in the bedroom. Then there was the question of the queenship.

  He offered it to her once, true. At that moment he had been sincere, and if pressed to name the person he imagined beside him on the throne, he would say it was Maeve. She inspired his people, gathered them to her like moths to a flame. None he met in his two thousand years of living could say the same thing.

  When Captain Fisher did what he did, Rodan offered to bond with her, to use its powers to help rid her of the memories of that night. It remained the first time in his life he had offered to bond with anyone. Discussions were had, in the past, with other likely candidates, but never had Rodan known that spark of belonging like he did with Maeve.

  What was that feeling?

  Rodan blinked, and a weight seemed to shift on his shoulders, pushing him down into the earth. Something he was missing. Something enormous.

  He licked his lips and put his hands on his hips, staring down at Pike. The man waited, silent and probably just as deadly as he had been thirty years ago on the streets of Realmsgate. More cunning, most like. What could he tell this man when he did not know the answer? “I will tell you my truth,” he said, his words slow and careful. “Did Maeve ever tell you of our conversation in the woods outside Realmsgate, the night before the duel?”

  Pike shook his head, his eyes widening. “You met with her?”

  “I met with an enemy. One I quickly recognized as the true power behind the threat. Yet—yet, when I found her, I did not lay eyes on someone trying to strip away everything I held dear. Instead, I beheld a young woman trying to find her place in the world. Someone lost. Someone whose intentions were pure, though misguided.” He swallowed. “And so, I offered her a deal. The queenship. I told her I would crown her, if she would just walk away from Sebastian that night and never return to his side. I offered her a home, Pike. A place in the world.” He smiled a little at the memory. “She was tempted.”

  “She declined.”

  Rodan nodded. “She declined.”

  The hand fell away from Pike’s dagger. “You—you would still offer her the same thing? The crown?”

  “A crown, not the crown, but yes. Yes, I would have her beside me.”

  Pike’s eye narrowed once again. “You love her, then?”

  Rodan opened his mouth to say no, but his heart skipped a beat, and he resisted the urge to step back. Love? What did he know of love? His own mother turned her back on him. His father was gone. The Fae court a place of intrigue and danger, not of love or happiness. No. What happiness he had, he carved out for himself. He loved the Realms. Loved its people. Loved ruling.

  His hesitation seemed to be answer in itself, for Pike nodded. “I see.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you hurt her, I will do everything in my power to bring you down.”

  Rodan remembered those long conversations aboard The Lady of Light, his discovery that Maeve had been in a deep, abiding pain most of her life. A pain she grew trust, and happiness outside of which was an undependable state. She said, so many times, that he could not promise her she would not hurt anymore. That he should not promise he would protect her.

  The thought made his chest ache.

  Rodan held out a gloved hand to Pike. “I would never hurt her. I wish only for her happiness.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  Pike studied him with his one eye. “She deserves some happiness.”

  Rodan nodded. “She does.”

  Pike took his forearm, and they griped each other for a few moments before Pike released him and their arms dropped to their sides.

  “Now,” Rodan said, “I wish to discuss with you a few things. You have remained here, in the Realms, while I have been in exile. You can tell me things about Sebastian’s reign I did not surmise from my brief forays back here. So, tell me. What, specifically, has he been doing in the time I have been away?”

  Pike took a seat at the bench, and Rodan summoned up a chair for his own use, so they sat across from each other.

  “You know about the purges, then? The people he went after who used to support you?”

  Rodan nodded, the familiar heat of rage flaming inside of him at mention of those atrocities. “I am aware.”

  “Well now,” Pike leaned back, his ankle coming up to rest on his other knee. He gestured as he spoke, his hands always moving, “Sebastian has been working to expand the empire in the last five, six years. He’s made a real push to increase the value of the royal coin, especially since losing the support of the established Realms. All of them ceased paying tribute to him, as I’m sure you know. But instead of sending his army in to retake control, he’s been sending colonizers, miners, and timber smiths to Attica.

  “They found some kind of deposit of gems or gold or some such out there, and he’s working to unearth it all and ship it back to Realmsgate. He’s importing the timber they cut, too. Realmsgate has grown in size, and its own forests have been near depleted of lumber. I heard some rumors Sebastian has been sending some of his forces into the other Realms to capture citizens and force them to colonize and mine Attica, but—”

  “Wait,” Rodan lifted a hand to silence the man. A high-pitched whine sounded in his ears, and his head swam, his heart speeding up. Surely, he heard wrong, but he’d just said it twice, hadn’t he? “What did you say? Attica? He’s sending colonizers there?”

  Pike nodded. “Been doing so for years. Six, seven years now. Maybe more.”

  Rodan wished the usurper was standing in front of him now, so he could throttle the man. “It was forbidden to go to Attica. To even sail close to its shores.”

  “By you,” Pike agreed, “but Sebastian does what he wants. Whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”

  “He’s a fool. How many have been lost to the continent?”

  Pike seemed taken aback. “A-about thirty or forty thousand, I think. The numbers vary by the telling. How did you know?”

  Rodan swore. “I forbade Attica for a reason, a very good one,” he said in a rush. “When I first discovered this land, I explored every inch of it. I know this planet better than I know most of my own memories. Along my travels, I came to Attica. It is a dark place. Woods so thick you can’t feel the breeze on your skin. Air so oppressive and dark it feels like you’re breathing in soup. The creatures I found living there? Monsters. Chimeras and dragons, sphinxes and basilisks, yet they all ran from one thing. The foulest things I ever came across.

  “We struck a bargain,” he continued. “I would ensure no one traveled to their land—disturbed them in any way—and they would not attempt to enter ours. They valued their solitude above anything else, for which I was thankful. Without their ongoing peace, this land would have been overrun generations ago.”

  Pike leaned forward. “And you think that’s what’s terrorizing Karst?”

  He nodded. “I can think of nothing else which fits the description of what we fight. Pike,” he took a deep, shuddering breath, “You said he’s bringing things back from the continent?”

  “Timber,” he said. “Lots of it. He’s been using the influx to expand Realmsgate. Gold. Jewels. That’s what all the people have been for. To cut the forest and dig the mines.”

  “The fool,” Rodan said again, and stood, pacing. “Maeve mustn’t help me with this one, Pike. It’s too dangerous. Those creatures would kill her in an instant. That one—the one in our tent—it touched her ankle earlier. It could just as well have plunged a blade through her heart.”

  “A great many things are capable of that,” Pike argued.

  “This is serious,” Rodan pressed. “These things mercilessly slaughtered anything which got too close to
them for thousands upon thousands of years. It is only by pure luck we managed to escape their notice and their wrath for now. Luck I was able to strike a bargain with them. Nothing else.”

  “You’re Fae,” Pike pointed out. “Couldn’t you have fought them off?”

  “You don’t understand. There are too many of them. They’re a horde, as unrelenting as the tide. What I saw—I can barely describe it. If they’re taking the children—” he stopped, looking around, and his heart took up a gallop in his chest. “Where’s Maeve? You said she took a walk. She should have been back by now.”

  “Maybe it was a long walk,” Pike said, though he, too, rose to his feet, his hand once again on one of his daggers. “It’s not nightfall yet,” he murmured.

  Yet, the light of Rizor and Tegal slanted. Creating shadows. A shadow was all these creatures needed. “Which way did she go?” he demanded.

  Pike gestured, and Rodan took off, the other man close behind.

  It was not hard to find her trail. She did nothing to disguise her movements, and even though the dirt was hard-packed and dusty, multitudes of grass stalks were bowed and bent by her passing.

  Then it ended.

  Rodan whirled, scanning the sea of grass for any other sign of her. Of something. Nothing showed but the beaten-down stalks on which he now stood, and a wall of unbent, unbroken blades where no one had passed.

  Pike huffed out a hard breath, “She’s gone.”

  “I know,” Rodan growled, and his heart surged to a higher rhythm. She did not lie dead on the ground, true, but that did not mean she remained alive and well. She might be far from it. He stepped toward the other man and took him by the shoulders. “You said there are caves near here. Show me.”

  Pike’s eyes widened. “It’s almost night. If we go toward their hiding places while they can move with impunity, we might as well slit our own throats.”

  He didn’t care. He just wanted to find Maeve. The thought of her flashed through his mind. Her smiling, teasing eyes, her hesitant touches which turned feverish. The way her skin trembled beneath him. The honeysuckle and peach sensation of her. The way she moved. It all flashed behind his eyes in an instant. He shook Pike once, hard. “Show me.”