Ruby knelt beside the girl. “You understand that the magic is different.” Light elves had magic that excelled at making things grow, but that talent was not as well suited to the dark energy of the North. Isa was of Asher’s line, not Junnie’s. She would be good at other things.
Isa brushed the dirt off her palms. “I’m not a fool.” She gestured to the garden plots before them, a variety of vegetables that would more than sustain a settlement this size. “It’s not just me,” Isa said. “The others cannot grow here either, not as they did on our own lands. We are limited by the soil and limited by the sun and limited by whatever energy we can provide.”
“So why this, then? What’s so important about having more than what is clearly thriving?”
The girl placed the wilting plant onto Ruby’s palm. Her eyes were wide, their green unnaturally dark in the lantern light. “It’s not merely in this garden,” she explained. “We cannot grow here, not even in the potted soil inside my study. Not even from earth brought in from home.”
Ruby felt the strangeness of the plant she was holding, the hollowness of it, which was so faint that she might not have noticed without the girl’s explanation. So this earth, or whatever the humans brought to it, was turning the energy somehow, and it went beyond what lay beneath fey ground. “How far out have the scouts gone now?” She couldn’t help but wonder the distance to which the humans’ effect had spread.
The girl shook her head. “As far as any have gone, all is the same.”
“And the others, those who have stayed in the settlement long-term?” Ruby let the question hang, not wanting to voice her concern, not wanting to ask whether it had taken something from the energy inside the elves who were posted there, protecting Isa.
Isa glanced past Ruby into the darkness. “Not that I’ve seen,” she said, but her tone made it clear it was only a matter of time. She sighed. “The dampening feels broader than any of us expected. I fear the fey have not given us their full understanding of the matter.” She took the plant back from Ruby’s hand and laid it reverently in a pile with the others. “But you’re not here for any of that, are you?”
Ruby leaned her weight onto her heels, the posture putting the two at eye level as they knelt beside the garden. Isa had grown, she realized, again seeming older than her years. Ruby suspected that was all for the better, because they’d settled a responsibility upon her that would require a level head. “No,” she said. “I’m here for the changeling, Pitt.”
Isa nodded. “Junnie has set protections to deter him as well, though I doubt he will gain much from any of us.” With her chin up, the girl looked so much like Frey—not the lord Frey had become, but the girl she was before, broken and bound—that it was painful. “It’s not as if he’d destroy me here. Not until he’s got what he needs to survive.”
Ruby set her jaw. She’d been afraid of that, afraid they all knew he was still a threat and that he would return to destroy what was left the moment he had a way to live long-term without the base power. And they’d kept it from her, kept her hidden within the castle walls while they sorted out what to do. “The only thing keeping him alive now is that stone.” Her ruby, the one he’d stolen from her, the one that had belonged to Frey’s family. No one knew Asher had altered it.
Ruby’s gaze met the girl’s, full on. “Where do I find him?”
“I cannot tell you where, but once you do find him, I can tell you for certain that it is him.”
Ruby knew that because Isa could feel the minds of humans, she would be able to feel that Pitt was not human, even if he hid among them. She could not control the fey, and the changeling, above all else, was wholly fey.
17
Thea
Thea held the reins tightly as they sped through the shallow water bordering the fey lands. They’d gone in south of the usual crossing, as the ancient wolves, Finn and Keaton, had apparently given Junnie new access. Thea wasn’t certain the others had been aware of the new crossing, but Steed had held his reaction close to the vest, so she hadn’t the clues to properly decide.
Not that it mattered. Other things had been on her mind since their sprint from the village, like the fact that they were heading right back into fey lands—the very place where they’d nearly been killed such a short time ago. She forced a steadying breath, wondering if Barris and the others had made it back to the castle. It wasn’t likely. They were probably only just nearing Camber.
The horses darted into the forest, heedless of the low limbs and thick brush. They should have left the animals at the border, Thea knew, but there hadn’t seemed to be time. She ducked out of the way of a tangled vine, keeping her head low and trusting her horse to use his own head well. Thea remembered the forests from their last trip, and she knew the path was kept clear. She felt something akin to the tingle of a cast spell and could see more than simply foliage ahead. She’d no doubt that the path was used often by Junnie’s men but also sensed that the men had kept it clear for their use. She could only hope they’d protected it from fey attacks as well. She suddenly remembered the wound on Steed’s chest, the shredded meat of his side. Liana had healed him, but the cut from the poisoned blade had been meant to end him and nearly had.
Thea glanced at Steed as he rode, leaning forward with his hands pressed to rein and horse. Steed had never been a coward, but he had sense. He’d been cautious any time the situation called for it. This situation screamed for caution, though Thea understood why he’d none to give. Ruby was his sister, even if it was only by half. She was the only family he had left.
Steed’s father had left after Ruby was born. When the venom in Ruby had killed her fey mother, their father had been released from the woman’s thrall. He was still alive, but living did not make him a man. The elves were steady beings, not prone to fits and flights of fancy like the fey were. But when one fell too far into grief or rage, they did not always come back. That was where Steed’s father lived now, over that edge of sanity, from where there was no return. There was only Ruby to call Steed’s by name and by blood.
“Arms in,” a voice shouted from the front, and Thea jerked just in time to shave by sharpened pikes of glass.
The fey had laid traps, it seemed. Thea stayed down, glancing over her shoulder to the horses and riders behind her. Two sat straight, holding bow and blade, with the others hidden by the mass of leaves and brush on the curving path.
They rode through the night, having crossed just after dawn. By the time they reached the encroachment, the sun was midday high.
Junnie’s men met them at the border. The wolves who had led and followed during their run waited outside the tree line, just beyond fey land. The men wore cloaks of green and gold, their decorations simple, the material thin. All had light weapons and leathers, spears and knives, swords and bows. As a group, they charged toward the settlement, a small town of thatch-roofed houses and flat, dry ground. The soil was fair and dusty, not nearly rich enough to sustain the growth Thea had expected to see. At the edge of the makeshift town, they climbed from their horses, and Junnie’s men took the animals to wipe them down and give them rest and food and drink. Thea suddenly worried about whether the water was safe or that of the fey, but she supposed if Junnie had left the girl there, there would be no danger to a horse.
Junnie was striding away from the group, headed toward a low structure on the outskirts of the cluster of homes. Steed and the others followed. Thea rushed to catch up, aware of the eyes of the local Council sentries on her. She and Steed stood out, their dark hair and clothes a manifestation of everything the light elves hated. She remembered Steed’s attire when he’d been a trader, the brown of saddle leather and the common blades. He’d known how to fit in. He’d known how to keep from being a target. Steed’s easy manner had gotten him far, but his ability to blend in went deeper than a jest and a smile.
She’d never felt so watched, even in the closeness of those fey trees.
The group came to a sudden stop, and she bumped in
to Steed’s back, cursing silently for letting herself get caught in the stare of one of the sentries. Steed didn’t turn but held steady as she shuffled beside him, at attention like a proper guard of the North. From inside the low structure came the half-human girl, Isa. Thea gaped at her, in awe of the way she’d changed. She was still scrawny with a mess of black hair, but she’d grown so much, aging at the rate of a fey rather than an elf. The girl’s chin was stubborn, her shoulders straight. Her green eyes crossed over the rest of them before landing on Junnie, who was apparently her only real concern.
“My Isa,” Junnie said.
The girl’s smile transformed her face. She was suddenly a child again, not a strange, strong creature who seemed so in control of an entire population. Junnie moved forward to take Isa’s hand, her urgency returned. “We are in search of the Summit girl, Ruby.”
Steed did not react to the lack of her title, and Thea realized something else. Ruby had come not as one of the Seven—she’d come against the wishes of the Lord of the North. But Steed hadn’t. His retrieval of his sister would be at the command of that same lord, spoken or not.
“She’s gone,” Isa said.
Steed flinched, and Thea had to resist the urge to take his hand and offer comfort. It was an uncomfortable response, one she should not have had, but she needed it as much for herself as for him. Ruby being gone meant that they would have to keep looking.
They would be going deeper into fey lands. Her stomach tightened.
“Where?” Junnie snapped.
Isa’s expression was impassive, as if it did not matter to her, even though it clearly mattered much to the rest of them. “She’s gone after the changeling, to secure her home and the lives of those she cares about.”
Junnie said a very unpleasant word. “Does she have clues to where he might be?”
“No,” Isa answered. “But should she find him, she will bring him here.”
Why? Thea wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. It was not her place to ask questions, and she was trying her best to do right by her post and by Steed. Then she remembered what her post was, why she was there. She took a small step forward, not quite able to get her boots to stick a full stride with so many bright eyes on her.
The girl’s gaze turned to her.
“Where can we find thornsblood?” Thea asked.
Isa’s face split into a grin. “She’s a clever one, then.”
Thea understood she’d been speaking of Ruby and the fact that she’d left some sort of message or trail for them to follow. It did not make her feel better.
“Taryn,” Isa snapped, the command less like that of Junnie and more like the leads in the guard. “Take them to the grove.”
Junnie squeezed the girl’s shoulder in farewell, giving her a long look, and Isa added, “Make haste. She’s got a fair start on you. I will be waiting for your return so I might show you the gardens.”
The shift in her tone, suddenly conversational, threw Thea’s focus, but not for long. They were moving again, not on horseback but on foot, running straight for the trees across from the settlement as Isa’s sentry led the way. Soon, they might find Ruby and, with her, a dangerous changeling fey who had nearly bested the high fey lord. Thea could not spare the room in her thoughts to focus on it, but if they made it out alive, she would have words with Ruby about the list and its task.
18
Ruby
Ruby stood alone at the edge of a line of poplar trees, waiting for the coming darkness of the night. Her eyes scanned the trees, searching for any single thing out of place. She listened for sounds above the rustle of leaves in a gentle wind, wanting to acquaint herself with their whispers before the rise of the chittering nightbugs. That forest was new to her, the land occupied by an unfamiliar set of beasts and bugs. In the trees behind her waited Willa, the young sentry who would be guarding her back. It had been fortunate the fey had brought her along when they could just as easily have pushed her from the roof or dropped her along the way. Ruby was glad the plan had not yet cost her the lives of those she supported, and she hoped it would stay that way.
She would keep Willa secure from the changeling by distance. Ruby herself would be the only one she’d allow into the cursed being’s path.
She waited longer, until the night went still. Ruby knew what that stillness meant. This is it. It’s time.
She caught her gaze on the depthless eyes in the darkness, their shine like a bloodbeetle’s shell. She let the fear she felt inside of her free then, allowing it to show openly on her face. She turned from the changeling, her prey. And Ruby, made of fire and will, venom and spite, ran.
19
Thea
They did not find Ruby at the thicket of thornsblood trees. There had clearly been no one there at all. Junnie had let her trackers look anyway, let them scour the ground and the leaves and search for clues that Ruby might have left. They had gone farther into the forests and plains, searching for signs of her in all directions, but there was none.
When they finally rounded back near the settlement and Isa’s home, Junnie suggested that they meet again with Isa, rest, and regroup. That was how Thea found herself in the small wooden barracks, half hidden beneath the earth and creeping with the tingle of fresh spellcasting. She sat beside Steed, the narrow room pushing them too close together, and stared at her feet as he sharpened a knife he’d pulled from his belt. He was busy thinking—she knew he was—but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Why did she say thornsblood if she was not going to be there?”
Steed was silent so long that Thea thought he’d decided not to answer. When he finally spoke, she jumped in the quiet stillness. He laid the blade aside. “She knew I would come for her the moment I found out.” His eyes were dark in the dim light of the shelter, some of his concern hidden in their depths but some showing plainly. “The entire list was to occupy extra time so that I would still be gone when I received word.” He pressed his lips. “She must not have known exactly when they would take her.”
Thea felt her hand move toward him but stopped to roll her fingers over her palm. “Because she needed you with Junnie?”
He shook his head slowly. “Because if I were in reach of our commander, I would have been ordered not to go.”
Thea thought of another of the Seven, Grey, pulled from his duties after he’d been injured and put under watch. Steed had nearly died at the hand of a fey. Her chest went tight, her breath coming in measured beats. “And you would do it anyway. You would have defied an order.” Ruby had done the same, and Thea wondered what Ruby’s punishment would be, given that she’d gone to such trouble to save her brother from it. “This way, you are not at fault.”
He glanced down, running one palm over the other.
“But,” she started, hating that she couldn’t seem to let it be, “why me? Why not just send the list to Junnie and let you and the others figure it out?” Thea was only a new recruit, a guard with no stake in the strange game.
Steed’s painfully intense gaze came back to meet hers. “If I were to become injured, you would be there to heal me.”
Her eyes flicked to his side, where beneath layers of cloth and weapons waited that scar she’d stitched together time and again on their last ride into fey lands with Junnie. She wondered if he would be hurt again, if the fey would come after Steed because he was Ruby’s flesh and blood and one of the Seven. Steed had gone still. Thea realized she was touching him, her hand on his thigh. She wasn’t sure when she’d done it, but it was there, and she couldn’t seem to gather the wits to pull it free. A sort of tension built between them, unspoken words and warnings they’d likely both heard before. It was not a safe thing. It was not smart, not a jump-into-it-headfirst sort of decision.
Her throat went dry, but she was moving for him anyway, drawing closer as if that hand was an anchor, the only thing keeping her from drifting away. Steed shifted but not farther from her, only straighter, and anything he might have said did not make it past his
parted lips. She rose from the bench to meet his posture, the leather straps crossing her chest grazing his own. His hands came up to touch her arms, bare since she’d tossed her cloak at the door.
It might have been the wrong thing to do, but Thea wasn’t certain her punishment wouldn’t be worth it. She could see a hint of Steed’s thoughts running over his face, but he did not appear to be weighing discipline either. He was probably thinking of his duties, of how easy it would be to tighten his grip and press her back to her seat before she crossed the line. But it was too late for that.
She eased closer, their breaths mingling as she brushed her lips over his with only the barest touch. He melted beneath her, the grasp on her arms turning into a soft caress. His thumbs ran over the delicate skin on the inside of her elbow, slowly up her biceps. She sighed, closing her eyes and kissing him again, softly and tenderly, mirroring the careful touch of his hands. His fingers trailed over her shoulder, the side of her neck. If he tugged her into him, she would be lost, and maybe they both knew it.
She opened her eyes to find him watching her with something like reverence in his gaze. She drew back to see him better, to gauge whether she’d gone too far. His fingers tensed against her as if he wanted to bring her back for more. She bit her lip in a smile then leaned in to nip at his.
There was the scuffle of movement outside, and Thea froze. Steed let out a breath, barely perceptible but a sign that he would much prefer to continue with her as opposed to something—maybe anything—else. She started to move away from him, certain she should quickly straighten back to her seat before they were caught, but he pulled her close for one more long, sweet kiss. For a moment, he held her gaze, and it seemed like a promise that this wasn’t over.
The Frey Saga Book V Page 9
