Will’s gaze stole straight into her soul as he bent his face to hers. “I want you.”
The kiss Will placed on Memory’s lips then was one that burned with the truth of what he just said. And as her lips parted to meet his again, they burned with love in return.
“I love you,” Will gasped between kisses. “I have loved you so long. Since the day you saved me until this day. I’ve fallen in love with you over and over. I loved who you were. I loved who I remembered you were. Then I loved who you became.”
“I love you too,” Memory whispered, tangling her fingers into the dark twists of Will’s hair. Will clutched at Memory, pulling her tight against his body.
Tears came to Memory and she let them run, tasting the salt of them between her mouth and Will’s.
Gently, he let her go. “What’s wrong?”
Memory brushed her hand down Will’s cheek, wiping away a tear there. Mine or his? “You’re free. That’s the good news.”
“I’m free,” Will murmured, smile wide on his face and eyes closed. He opened them again and looked around and up the stairwell behind them.
His dark brows dropped low. “Where are your friends? Did you come alone?”
Memory sighed. “That’s the bad news…”
Chapter Twenty
As Memory explained to Will her journey through the fairy realm so far, and what had happened to the others, she pulled Will’s iron awl from a loop in her belt and handed it over to him. His hand wrapped around hers as he took it, and he lingered there, feeling the fragile coolness of Memory’s slim fingers in his. There was also a tremble there that made Will want to pull Memory into his arms and hold her again.
Memory had lost her friends because of him. She’d risked everything to save him, they all had. And he couldn’t be upset because he knew he would have done the same if the situation was reversed. And he knew that together they would risk everything again to save Eloryn, Roen, and Erec.
Will dabbed the healing well water across Memory’s face and his jaw grew tight. He knew Memory planned to save her friends at the Unseelie Court. And he knew he would go with her, anywhere. But he still wished that they could simply go home, be safe, where nothing more could hurt the girl he loved. He wished it with every aching nerve in his body.
But he knew a quiet, safe life was never the destiny of this girl. Maybe he’d always known it. She always had the fire of a hero burning within her. He could see her great and terrible fate on her as clearly as the scratches that marred her skin. He couldn’t stop whatever was to come, but he would do everything in his power to protect the body and the heart of the young woman before him.
Will bent to collect some more well water and Memory held him back.
“That’s enough,” she said. “As nice as it feels right now, we’re only going to get scratched up again. Plus we’re on the clock.”
Will nodded, and they strode up the deep stairwell and out of the Seelie Court.
A light breeze seemed to chase them from the court, out through the tinkling metal trees and over the tiled ground, so polished it reflected like a mirror. They found the briar pathway quickly, and a petite white creature emerged shyly from where she had been crouched in the shadows.
“Got him back, then?” she bleated, one long ear twitching.
Memory nodded. “Will, this is our guide, Shonae. She’s… well… She’s been helpful.”
Shonae grunted, spat, and turned her back, taking the lead into the briar tunnel.
“Mostly,” Memory muttered.
A giant spider skittered past along the twigs overhead, its shadow sending chills down Will’s spine. Although he knew of the spiders and the briar path, this was all new to him. He’d never been through here before, because he’d never travelled outside of the Seelie Court. He’d never been free.
The concept still staggered him. For sixteen years he had been a pet to Mina. Neglected, toyed with, put on display, or put in a cage. He’d felt free, at times, when Mina had left him alone in Avall’s forests for long stretches, but the choke of an invisible collar had always remained.
The girl he loved had freed him, and if he didn’t think he could love her any more, maybe he could, for that.
They continued down the twisting briar tunnel until the entrance disappeared behind them. Just as Will took a deep, free, breath of relief, a familiar twinkle caught his eye.
“Stop!”
In a sparking explosion of fairy dust, Mina appeared before them, blocking their way down the narrow path. Fury lit her eyes like a fire within.
“I won’t. I won’t let you go.” Mina stomped a foot on the ground. Her wings sent sparkling drops of red light into the air and Will had to squint to protect his eyes from the brightness.
“Mina, let us pass.” Will’s voice was firm and strong. “Go home. Don’t make this difficult.”
Mina came towards them.
Will saw Memory’s fingers tightening on the handle of her blade. “You don’t own him anymore, Mina. No one does.”
Will put a hand on her slim shoulder, wanting her to back off—to let him handle this. She seemed to receive the silent message and stilled.
Mina flew right in front of Will, clutching at the tattered remains of his shirt with both hands. There was desperation in her eyes as they stared deep into his. “You love me. I know you do. Say it and stay with me. Stay here. Be mine.”
Will kept his gaze steady, locking eyes with Mina. “You saved my life. I will always thank you for that. But I am free now. I choose to leave.”
Her eyes filled with tears. The glitter falling from her wings turned to dust, black and heavy. “Are you really leaving me? I love you, I need you. Please don’t go.”
“Mina, you don’t love me. You don’t know what that even means. You just know you want me, you want your pet. Love is not the same thing as thinking you should have what you want just because you want it. It’s not keeping someone with you when they want to go. It’s not spells or tricks or keeping someone in a cage. That is not love, Mina, and until you know that you are never going to know love in return.”
“You don’t know how I feel!” Mina’s face twisted, anger tightening her lips until they spread, baring thin teeth. “I will not let you just walk away from me. You’re mine!”
“He was released by your queen,” Shonae said. She shook her head at the sprite, a small warning, fae to fae.
Memory had a look on her face Will did not like. She was testing the edge of the blade with one finger and eyeballing Mina as though she was trying to get a bead on where to stick that sharp weapon. “Stop being the bad ex and just go home.”
The light in the tunnel grew as Mina hissed, her firelight glow raging under her skin. “You. Everything was fine before you stumbled out of the Veil. Stealing my boy.” Mina’s snarl became a wicked grin. “Well, you have won Will, but you lost all your other friends to the Unseelie Court, haven’t you? They won’t be so easy to get back.”
Memory said nothing. Her shoulders were rigid and her mouth pressed down into a thin line that told Will exactly how afraid she was that what Mina had just said was true. Will pushed Mina’s hands off his shirt and walked back to stand beside Memory, his love for her like a magnet, drawing him in. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get everyone home safe. Come on, let’s go.”
Will brushed the back of one finger lightly across Memory’s cheek.
“No! You can’t choose her over me,” Mina shrieked. “I don’t care what the queen said. You might be free, but that doesn’t mean you’re protected. If I can’t have you, no one can.”
Mina ran at him, screaming. A bright gold light flashed in her hand, her inner light reflecting off the wide fairy gold dagger she held there. It took a moment for Will to believe it was real, that Mina would really try to kill him. She was many things, but he didn’t believe her truly capable of such violence. That moment of confusion brought the dagger to his chest, the razor edge of it cutting through the remains of his once fine shirt. Dist
antly he heard Memory cry out as though far away, despite being right beside him.
Will sidestepped, sliding with the thrust of the weapon, rolling away from it before it broke his skin. Will grabbed Mina as she passed him, his fingers slipping over her arm and her hair smacking him in the face as they spun together.
He grabbed her small wrist, applying pressure. The fae were strong but brittle, much like their gold.
Mina screamed again. “You are hurting me!”
“I’ll break you if you don’t drop the blade.”
The dagger clattered to the ground.
Will let go of Mina and picked it up, holding it defensively against her.
Mina backed away, her face glowing with rage.
“Do you honestly think you are going to get away from here without a fight? I have more friends here than you do!”
A hum built in the air, and the light brightened until the glare made Will wince. Memory raised her arm to shade her eyes. “What’s happening?”
Shonae nickered a gasping high pitched sound. “We’re for it now.”
Will’s breath caught in his throat. “We have to run.”
Sprites flew up the tunnel behind them, like swarms of fireflies. In their smaller form, they seemed no more threatening than a tangle of Christmas lights, but Will knew better.
He grabbed Memory’s hand and dragged her along the briar path. Shonae ran beside them squealing as the flying creatures harried and tormented her.
Sharp stabs of pain marked Will’s arms, his neck, and cheeks. The sprites buzzed about him, their tiny faces puckered with unholy mischief, their hands holding needle-like blades that sliced like paper cuts.
Laughter rang out from every corner. The buzzing of wings beat all the way inside his head. Memory fell, pulled to her feet by a mass of the tiny beasts in her hair. She shrieked in anger and pain.
Will hauled her to her feet, swatting at the fairies with his iron hook that Memory had returned to him. He kept a tight grip of her hand.
They ran, beating their way blindly through the cloud of sprites. The sting of the fae’s attacks blended with the scratching of stick and thorn as they crashed against the walls of the briar path.
“Don’t stray,” Shonae cried out. “Don’t stray!”
Her warning came too late. In a burst of dry and broken twigs, Memory and Will stumbled out and clear of the briar pathway, with Shonae falling behind them.
Will blinked in the sudden darkness, trying to adjust. The sprites were gone, the attack was over. He closed his eyes to fight away the trails of light burned into his retinas. Opening them again he saw black trees hanging over their heads and dead grass below his feet. Behind them there was no sight of the briar pathway, no entrance, no thorny walls, nothing. “Where are we?”
“Lost.” Shonae grunted. Her shoulders were hunched and she licked at a bleeding cut on her forearm. “We strayed from the path, and now we’re lost far from where we should be and I’ll never be rid of you.”
Memory sat on the ground, catching her breath. “Mina and her buzz-buddies are gone at least. They forced us out here but didn’t follow us. This looks like the unseelie lands. Is that why they didn’t keep chasing us? How far could we be from the court?”
Shonae huffed. “How far could it be from one side of your world to the other?”
Memory scrambled to her feet. “No, don’t be with your riddles now. Are you saying we’re not going to make it in time?”
“We got shoved out of the briars mid pathway. We could have come out anywhere.” Shonae slouched and turned away.
Memory looked to Will with crushing fear in her eyes.
Will moved to stand in front of Shonae. “Please, can you try and tell where we are? Is there anything you can see?”
Shonae sighed, and turned her face up to the empty gray sky. She tilted her head side to side, her goat-like ears angling around independently.
“There’s nothing up there. What do you see?” Memory asked, looking at the sky herself.
“Our sun is dim, nearly dead, but she is there.”
Memory turned back to Will. “We’re not going to make it in time.”
Will didn’t answer. He just wrapped his arms around Memory and drew her close.
She murmured into his chest, “I don’t know how long I’ve been here, how long since Eloryn, Roen, and Erec were Branded. I have no clock to know when their Brands will kill them. Nyneve said a turn of the sun and the moon but I can’t even see them in this awful world!”
Shonae sniffed, then leaped up onto an outcrop of rocks that formed a small peak, hopping up them like a mountain goat.
When she reached the top, she looked all the way around, and then extended one arm. “That’s the way we need to go.” She pointed with her long white finger. “But it will take at least three days to walk there without the briar path.”
“Three days.” Memory’s voice was a harsh breath.
“Let’s go then,” Will said. He knew it was hopeless, but what else could they do?
“We could Veil door there. Maybe. I don’t know if I can do it in Tearnan Ogh or where we are going but I can try.” Memory was babbling. Her face was pale and tired, and Will wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten or slept.
“You made an unbreakable oath not to use your magic. We only just escaped the Seelie Court. Let’s not provoke them again.” Will tried to smile, to win a smile from Memory, but it was a lost attempt.
“I have to do something.”
“You will. I don’t know how, but you will save them. You’ll save everyone. You’ve always been my hero, and heroes always win.”
He was rewarded with a small smile then. “We must have at least twelve hours left, right? So let’s walk. We can walk for eleven hours, and then you can try your magic.”
Memory nodded, and her whole body swayed. If it had been anyone else, Will wouldn’t believe she’d last that long. But he knew Memory could.
“Deal,” she said. “No backsies.”
With a deadly serious shared look, they both spat in their hands and shook on it. And then they started walking.
Every step on the crackling, dead ground counted like a second ticking on a clock in Memory’s mind. When they started out she’d tried to count in her head, count the seconds, minutes, to get some idea of how long they had walked, of how much time they had left. But there were too many seconds, and minutes, and her thoughts were too addled with panic and exhaustion.
We’ll make it there in time, somehow. That became the new mantra Memory repeated over and over instead of counting as the three of them walked in silence. Maybe Nyneve could do something for her, extend the deadline. Something. Memory kept hope alive within the burning magic in her chest. The walking was easy enough, great flat plains of hard-packed, shimmering dirt with just a few twisted trees reaching high into the air like giant beanstalks. Memory cast concerned glances at Will as they went, seeking support. The determination and courage on his face when he looked back at her hurt almost as much as it helped.
Shonae told Memory to relax. This was daytime apparently, and there would be a night. They had at least until then.
Memory stared skeptically at the dull gray sky and wondered how they would tell the difference. She couldn’t see the sun Shonae spoke of at all, only a slowly churning mass of monochrome clouds. There wasn’t even enough light to cast shadows, but Memory supposed it could get darker. Things can always get worse, she reminded herself.
Something in the sky moved on the horizon, and Memory swallowed hard. Say the famous last words? Of course I did.
The wind picked up and there was a low whomping sound, ominous and drawing nearer. They all looked up, the small shreds of hope that had begun to settle on them shattering like thin ice on a lake.
There it was. The dragon.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Just what we need,” Memory sighed, reaching for her knife.
In the dim light his black scales had no sh
ine, making the dragon look like a shadow or silhouette in the sky rather than a real creature. He was flying low, a loping, tumbling flight that lacked the grace Memory had once seen him possess.
Even still, he flew fast and would reach them in seconds. Memory’s stomach clenched with fear at the thought of being bitten in half by those huge teeth, or set on fire by dragon breath. How badly would that hurt?
Memory knew they could not run or hide. She doubted they could fight. All they could do was wait. Will put his shoulder beside hers and they watched the dragon come to them. Shonae crumbled to the ground, her face down in the dirt in a deep kneeling bow.
The dragon landed in front of them. His feet hit the earth hard and skidded, sending puffs of dust flying up into their faces. Memory covered her eyes with her sleeve and Will coughed.
The dragon came to a stop lying on his side. Memory could see his wings were tattered. When the creature raised his head to look at the small group, it seemed to be with great effort.
Without moving his tooth-filled mouth, the dragon’s words rattled into Memory’s mind. “Hello human.”
The massive serpentine beast made no threatening move or sign that it would hurt them. He just waited.
“Hello dragon,” Memory replied, eyeing him with a confused frown. “Been a while.”
The dragon blinked huge verdant eyes. “I have been watching you since you came to our realm.”
Memory winced, both for the power of the dragon’s voice in her head, and for her failures the dragon must have observed.
Will spoke, obviously hearing everything Memory heard. “Why? What do you want?”
“I am trying to decide what it is you are doing. If you mean to harm or help the fae as we draw to our end.”
“I’m just here to save my friends. Standard search and rescue then we’re going home. I wasn’t even thinking about…” I wasn’t even thinking about anyone else. Memory let out a breath like she’d taken a baseball bat to the chest. My friends are in trouble, and I wasn’t even thinking about anyone else.
Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series Page 69
