by K. C. Julius
In the sudden stillness, two lovers lay entwined in passion’s embrace. It was the same knight, now living, and his previously mourning lady. Her dark eyes followed the knight, like a helianthus to the sun, and Whit felt a tremor of longing such as he had never known before.
At that moment, time righted itself. The knight drew the maid to her feet, and she spun away with a smile. Her lover gave chase, their laughter ringing in their wake as they disappeared into the woods.
Whit turned to see tears tracing the contours of Cressida’s face. Only then did he recognize her as the lady in the knight’s embrace, lifetimes ago. His arms fell to his sides.
“You were… you were human once.”
“All sylths were once humans,” Cressida replied, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “And now we are no more. Since the end of the Before, there have been none to join me as a spirit kin of the trees. I am the last of my kind.”
Whit felt a terrible sadness. “How… how did you become a sylth?”
When she didn’t answer, he feared he’d given offense, until he saw she was only striving to compose herself.
“The babe I was carrying died soon after she was born. I didn’t wish to live anymore, not without her and her father. We conceived her here in this glade, in the same place that my Darmian fell in battle. And so it was here that I offered my life to the forest.”
Whit felt a thrill of horror. “You mean… you killed yourself?”
“Grief killed me,” Cressida said bitterly. “Grief was all I had left, and I would not be parted from it.”
Whit couldn’t even imagine the pain that could have driven her to such an act. “Why did you show me this?”
The sylth stepped out of the tree’s hollow and ran her hands over the dying poplar’s pale bark. Her long sigh could have been a final breath. “Because my time as a sylth is drawing to a close. Soon I’ll enter into the heart of this tree and walk the earth no more.”
She looked toward the place where she had once lain, in another life, in her lover’s arms. “And after I am gone,” she whispered, “I want someone to know, and to remember, all that came to pass here.”
Chapter 6
Halla
Despite having urged Whit to go on without her, Halla was surprised to discover that he and their guide had done just that. At least he’d left the stone markers she’d requested.
Confident that she’d soon catch up with them, Halla started down the trail. The morning was glorious, the forest in full leaf and scented with new moss. She reminded herself of Master Morgan’s parting words, and decided she wasn’t going to let Whit mar this opportunity to see more of Mithralyn. Perhaps she’d even find plant lore more interesting than it sounded.
But as the morning progressed, her confidence began to wear thin. Although she was finding the trail marking easily enough, Whit and their guide had set quite a pace. When the sun reached its zenith in the sky, she was still chasing them. Still, as each bend in the trail offered up a sparkling waterfall or verdant glade, she was content to continue on her way. She was in Elvinor’s realm, where no harm could come to her.
Still, she would feel better if she found another trail marker. It had been some time since she’d passed the last one.
The trail descended, and a shimmering light sparkled between the trees ahead—a turquoise lake, its surface refulgent with sun diamonds. She walked out onto a pier jutting into the calm water, pulled off her boots to dangle her feet, and lay back against the sun-warmed wood. She had no idea how far she would have to travel this day, and so as the gentle waves lapped at the pilings, she allowed herself a brief rest.
She didn’t mean to doze off, but she did—and when she awoke some time later, she was slightly groggy and decidedly hot. She stripped off her clothes and dove off the pier, letting the cool water wash away the last cobwebs of her day-sleep. She sank beneath the surface and glided through a bed of waving fronds, then surfaced and floated under the azure sky, watching the clouds scud past like great white whales.
She was reminded of idle summer days spent in Lords Wood with Bria and Florian. Her time in the elven kingdom had been as carefree. But sooner or later, this idyll in the elven kingdom would end—and then her future would be determined, at least in part, by the oath she’d taken to aid and succor the heir to the Einhorn Throne. There was no turning back from that commitment.
At least her vow should be enough to override her mother’s intention to marry her off—to Whit of Cardenstowe or anyone else.
Back on the pier, she reveled in the sun’s warmth against her naked body, feeling free and rebellious at the same time. She wasn’t the least bit worried about someone chancing upon her, for it could only be an elf, and they had no inhibitions about nudity. If I were a man, she thought bitterly, it would be perfectly acceptable anywhere in Drinnglennin.
Aware that she might have lingered too long to catch up with Whit and the guide—and that perhaps she’d even taken a wrong turn—she briefly considered returning to the palace, until she hit upon the idea of spending a few days exploring the forest. No one would miss her, since she was assumed to be with Whit. True, Elvinor had asked her to go to Egydd, but she was fairly certain that learning plant lore would not advance her readiness to defend the next High King or Queen of Drinnglennin. Besides, a few days on her own would give her time to ponder her future after Mithralyn.
She pulled on her clothes and boots, then ran her fingers through her tangled hair before abandoning the effort as futile. As she shouldered her pack and bow, a great flock of white birds streamed in from the nearby trees, undulating in perfect accord and mirrored in the water like bright echoes of themselves, before wending their way east. She took it as a sign to follow.
* * *
She continued east for the rest of that day and all of the next, despite seeing no more markers. She feasted on berries, cheese, and bread, and at night slept beneath the star-studded sky. The forest thickened as she traveled, the trees rising close together from tangles of undergrowth, and the ground underfoot grew spongy and damp. A tangy, unpleasant odor hung in the air.
On the second night, she bedded down in an outcrop of rocks on higher ground where she would remain concealed in the unlikely event that someone passed. Under a full white moon that flooded the woods with its silvery light, she drifted into dreams filled with odd snippets of conversation with her father about Lorendale’s livestock, and a fierce argument with Whit about dragons. At one point she woke with a start, certain she’d heard a lavuta—the å Livåri lute, to whose haunting music she had once danced—but quickly fell back into fitful slumber.
The pale light of dawn found her stiff and far from rested, and her grumbling stomach reminded her she needed to augment her provisions. She silenced it temporarily by plucking plump berries from the brambles she passed. She kept her bow in hand, but when she spied a doe trotting through the shadows, she decided to let it pass unmolested. At this time of year it was likely to have at least one fawn hidden nearby. Instead she spent a focused hour wading through the shallows of the brook alongside the trail, from which she managed to flip two fat fish to gut and string for her dinner.
Her path onward ran straight and flat, and she let her thoughts drift. As they had so many times in recent days, they turned to the speculation Morgan claimed existed in some quarters about her parentage. It was unthinkable that she could be Urlion’s bastard. Her mother had been deeply in love with her father, and would never have lain with another man. Unless…
Would her mother have gone to such lengths to produce an heir for her husband? The idea turned Halla’s stomach, but her parents had been married four years before she was born.
It was equally inconceivable that Aunt Rhea had betrayed her marriage vows. The saintly woman spent most of her life on her knees! But then, perhaps she had need of forgiveness for some dark and terrible sin?
The p
ossibility that Whit could be named the next High King made Halla’s skin crawl. She had taken a binding oath to serve the High King, no matter who it was. What if it was Whit? Or someone equally odious? At the time, it had seemed an honorable decision to make the vow, but now she wondered if she’d acted rashly.
She also wondered what she was to do with her life until she was called upon to honor her promise.
As much as she might wish to be, she wasn’t dragonfast like Maura and Leif. She had neither the inclination nor the desire to possess magic like Whit. And although it made her heart ache, she knew she would never return to Lorendale. By packing Halla off to Cardenstowe, her mother had made it clear that she was no longer welcome there.
Halla supposed she should be grateful, for now that she’d made the cut from her home and family, the door to consider her true calling had swung open. With all her heart, she knew she was meant to be a warrior, even if being a woman would make it doubly hard to achieve respect and renown. In the street fight in Stonehoven, she’d already proven capable of defending herself. The death of one of the assailants under Rowan’s hooves had shaken her, perhaps more than it should have, but she’d quickly recovered. She decided it made good sense to join a military company of some sort. Then, when and if war ever did break out, she would honor her vow and win glory for king and country.
Or queen and country.
It might be Maura who was destined to rule Drinnglennin, if she was truly the daughter—albeit baseborn—of Prince Storn. But Maura was half å Livåri, which surely ruled her out. Besides which, Maura’s mother was clearly deceptive. A woman who had allowed her husband to believe their only son was dead was capable of lying about anything. Including who had fathered Maura.
Lost in her thoughts, Halla was startled by a quail and her chicks scuttling out of the bush into her path. The sight of the little family bobbling ahead of her made her laugh aloud.
A titter sounded in response.
Halla froze, but it was no use trying to conceal her presence now. “Who’s there?” she called out.
Only the soft rustling of the trees answered her.
Drawing an arrow from her quiver, she crept forward, alert to every trembling leaf. She had the eerie sense of being observed, but no one revealed themselves, and she decided what she’d heard must have merely been an echo of her own voice. She continued onward, promising herself to stay more alert. Though there was no reason to expect to encounter anyone in the deep wood, it would be prudent to keep up her guard.
The shadows lengthened and the sun sank beneath the trees. When she came upon an inviting pool beside a grove of hawthorn trees, bright with red berries, it seemed the perfect place to spend the night. She took a refreshing bath before making a fire, sparing a scornful thought for Whit, who would have made an ostentatious show of using magic to conjure one up. The fish she’d caught earlier were succulent and sweet, and Halla devoured both of them down to the bones.
Sated, she watched the stars wink on in the deep blue sky. The forest was uncommonly still, the trickling of water the only sound, and she soon slipped into sleep’s embrace.
She dreamt she was floating through the air, borne by a gentle breeze. The stars wheeled above between the dark branches of black-shadowed trees. A familiar tittering rose up from below, and she tried to turn her head to see who it was.
It was at that moment that she came fully awake, only to realize—this was no dream.
She was floating on air. And try as she might, she couldn’t move a muscle.
“She’s waking!” cautioned a high, childlike voice beneath her. “I told you we should leave her alone. She would have been gone in the morning!”
“It’s long past time we took a stand!” another voice proclaimed. “Tarna would have us languish here in servitude forever. We’ll make an example of this human intruder! If we don’t, we’re sure to be overrun by others!”
Still facing the sky, Halla couldn’t see who was talking. Could it be some elven children playing a prank on her?
Before she could consider other possibilities, she fell unceremoniously to the ground, the breath knocked from her lungs. She found herself staring up at the angelic face of a small child. If Halla were standing, the girl would come only to her knees.
The child leaned forward and pinched her—hard—on the nose.
“Ow!” cried Halla. At least she still had her power of speech. “Why did you do that?”
“I’ll do it again,” retorted the girl, narrowing her emerald eyes, “if you don’t hush!”
An equally beautiful boy leaned over Halla from the other side, a furrow in his perfect brow. “You’d best be careful, Cliodhna! The human is surely protected by the elves—otherwise she wouldn’t be wandering around Mithralyn. You don’t want to cross Elvinor’s people.”
“Pooh!” scoffed Cliodhna, though she cast a furtive look around. “She trespassed on our home and lit a fire in our glade!”
“I… I beg your pardon,” said Halla, with as much politeness as she could muster under the circumstances. “I didn’t know. If you’ll just release me, I’ll be on—”
“Release you?” hissed Cliodhna. “So that you can go running back to the elves and tattle on us? Not likely!”
“You can’t keep her forever,” reasoned the boy.
Halla decided she liked him much more than his angry friend. “Yes, I’m sure to be missed,” she said. “Why, I imagine Elvinor is already searching for me.”
The boy looked aghast at this suggestion; Halla’s words had clearly had the intended effect. “We must set her free,” he pleaded to the girl, “else we bring down the wrath of the king on all the woodland faeries! What do you think Tarna will have in store for you if that happens? She’s already threatened to send you to the Unseelie Court for challenging her, and there you’ll be doomed to consorting with bogles and luberkins!”
A look of horror crossed Cliodhna’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a stubborn frown, and she stamped her little slippered foot. “Oh, do be quiet, Oren, and let me think!” The cherubic child paced back and forth, the train of her dainty dress trailing her, and it was then that Halla saw the delicate wings between her shoulders.
Faeries? Blearc’s blood!
She supposed she shouldn’t be that surprised. After all, it was not all that long ago that she hadn’t believed in elves, either.
The faerie planted herself before Halla, her arms folded across her chest, and stared at her intently. A faint buzzing began in Halla’s ears, and then a slow smile spread across the little creature’s face, displaying her sharp little teeth. Halla didn’t much like the look of that smile, for it was cunning and sly.
“No one is looking for you,” Cliodhna pronounced triumphantly, “because no one knows where you are!”
Halla opened her mouth to protest, but Cliodhna held up a silencing hand and turned to the boy. “We’ll just have to hide her, and then after she dies, we can bury her bones.”
“What?” Halla didn’t want to believe what she’d just heard.
Fortunately, Oren looked equally appalled. “You can’t be serious! You don’t mean to kill her?”
“Of course not, you eedle-doodle! But if she doesn’t eat…” Cliodhna’s indifferent shrug spoke volumes.
Halla would not have thought a creature so beautiful could be capable of making such a brutal proposal—but she saw now that she’d have to consider Cliodhna as a real threat. She frantically reviewed everything she remembered about faerie tales, which wasn’t much, for she’d never really enjoyed them. She knew the fey were mischievous folk, and she seemed to recall that they bit. And they liked milk. Or was it disliked? She couldn’t remember. In any case, she hadn’t any with her.
What she knew for certain was that getting Oren on her side would be essential if she was to find her way out of this predicament. In addition to being more me
rciful, the boy clearly feared Elvinor’s wrath.
Halla let her chin drop to her chest and her head loll. “I feel… faint.” She fluttered her eyelids, and noted an encouraging deepening of Oren’s frown. “I must drink something… please!”
“We haven’t got anything for you to drink,” snapped Cliodhna, unmoved by Halla’s performance. “And you’re too heavy to keep lugging around!”
Too heavy? Just a moment ago they had lifted her into the air. Apparently the faeries’ magic had its limits. That was good to know.
“If you unbind my feet,” she suggested, “I can walk to the water. I shan’t be able to go anywhere else. I’m too… weak…” She let her voice trail off in what she hoped was a convincing show of frailty.
“Let her drink, Cliodhna!” Oren pleaded. “Humans aren’t hardy souls. And if she should die because we deny her…” He shivered at the thought.
Cliodhna glowered at both of them for a long moment before conceding. “Oh, all right!” She made a swift sign, then rested her little fingertips on Halla’s hip. Halla felt nothing, but her legs were once again hers to command.
“Thank you,” she said.
But her politeness seemed to offend the faerie, who scowled. “Your kind think words are enough to reward a service! What good are words? Prove your gratitude with a gift!”
Halla felt absurdly amused. She was supposed to make a present to this minx who held her captive? Nevertheless, she considered the options tucked into the inner pocket of her tunic: a little pouch with her flint, a piece of waybread, and her knife. Surely none of these would be of interest to this covetous sprite.
“If you’ve nothing to offer, then get moving!” Cliodhna gave her a sharp poke in the back with a stick.
Suppressing the urge to kick the little monster, Halla struggled to her feet. Without the use of her hands, it proved trickier than she’d thought, but she managed it without falling over.
