“We did not see any Unseelie today,” Lindy informed me as I sat beside her, speaking like she was giving some sort of military report, “but we heard them.”
“And?” I asked, my eyes flickering with interest.
“There’s a reason Haldia has a wall,” said Lindy. “It’s to keep the things in Whynne out.” The way she spoke implied it was more than just the Unseelie.
“There are giants here, just like Haldia,” I tried to rationalize, as if that could make Whynne seem tamer when compared to Haldia, instead of devastatingly terrifying to all of the countries around us. Haldia might have been the one to build a wall, but that didn’t mean that the others didn’t try to keep us out in other ways.
“The giants here are from Haldia,” Lindy scowled, speaking with a dose of poison. “They are not products of this mountain.”
“That’s not possible,” I dismissed, settling against the wall beside her. Giants migrating over the wall? It was tall, far too tall to picture that. I’d never seen it, of course, but I’d heard of it. A massive thing made of white brick, built so tall that it almost seemed to fade into the clouds.
“Someone imported them,” she said. “And they brought them to this mountain.” An utterly insane thing to state. “There is something wrong with this mountain.”
“It’s the tallest one in Whynne,” I said. “Where the forest is thickest, and the magic flows.”
“No,” said Lindy softly, “it is more than that.” Something about the way she spoke was different, far more distant, like she was thinking of something else. I followed her gaze as she leaned back, lost in thought. She looked towards the trees.
Grey trunks stood in front of us, ones with low hanging leaves that still stubbornly clung to the branches despite it being deep into autumn. But there was more than trees there, something more terrifying when I saw what she did. Dense fur, flashes of yellow teeth, and a shift unaccounted for in the sparse bushes just beyond the edge of the trees— Predators.
“We should go inside,” I said hoarsely, not having realized just how bad it could be during daylight, that it could even begin to hold a candle to the nightfall.
But Lindy, who had never really seen the Unseelie or grown up hearing the stories about them, did not flinch. She did not stand or make any motion to leave. “No,” she said, “because I am not afraid of them, they should be afraid of me.”
My eyebrows lifted at her audacity. I’d never heard anyone speak like that about them before.
“You should have the same mentality if you plan to live,” Lindy informed me. “It might do you well. Though, I must admit, looking at them, I do not think them to be my biggest threat.” She frowned. “I do not trust that man.”
I wish she knew that I could not read thoughts.
“The King,” Lindy said after a moment, her voice strained. “I do not trust the King, nor his plaything, and I think I should not trust his companion if he is anything like them.”
Ah. “I do not trust the King either,” I said, still watching the life of the forest weave and bob, moving where the majority of their bodies were just out of view. I could only imagine what lived in there, what Unseelie had found home there in this mountain.
“But that woman in there,” Lindy said, “does. As does your large friend, the one with the big mouth and the fishy parts. They trust him, they love him. She sent me outside because of it. Because I called the King lazy.” She scoffed, “Now I am determined to befriend the Unseelie and have them eat her.”
I laughed at her seriousness, tearing my eyes away from the forest for just a moment to look at her. But in that motion, I saw a flash, one that stopped me in my tracks and immediately made me look back to the forest, my body tensing. There was nothing there, for the most part, save for the small hints I’d seen of life before, but I almost thought for a moment that I caught something—someone—looking at me.
My face dropped, my eyes narrowing as I struggled to look in the distance, to see if anything was there. There was nothing, save for a few rustles from the bushes and just a hint of that cold, awkward feeling again—the one of someone looking at you, but trying to keep it secret. Aside from that…
“I bet Luka is in his room,” I said, getting up from the ground. “He’s probably sitting with one of his books, looking up every little detail about what he saw on you guys’ hike. I should check to see if he’s made any progress, maybe a few reports would get the King off our backs for a while.”
“Maybe,” Lindy agreed, still watching the trees. “Though I doubt he would ever let you go,” she said. “You and that man are both important, the one with the stars on the back of his neck. I do not know why, it vexes me. But you are important, I guess.”
“Important,” I said, shaking my head to myself. Like Camden or Theo would ever admit that.
I threw the forest one last look over my shoulder as I opened the door, straining to see whether there was still something there. Nothing. All I heard was a low buzz and a pleasant hum as I looked at the forest, one that I’d thought I might have heard before. Nothing more.
Chapter Ten
The forest was unbearable, but it became quickly apparent that there were exactly two reasons why I was there:
First, I had been slacking off at the camps and Theo needed Adam to validate that I was actually a semi-useful person. And second, it was the cheapest and most efficient way to torture me.
Between not getting any sleep, living in a cabin with Mylene who most definitely hated me, waiting for Luka to engage me in more than the briefest conversation, and constantly having to fear for my life—I came up with this notion that I might actually have been being punished. Which made sense, all things considered, and further explained why a few days after I had arrived Adam had decided to wake me at the most unholy of hours; sunrise.
“And good morning to you, Wren,” Adam said, barely looking up from the newspaper he’d brought with as I stumbled out of my room. As if, just five minutes prior, he had not gone into my room and given me a heart attack via poking my cheek while I was deep in sleep. No, all was business as usual for Adam.
He didn’t even bother to acknowledge my borderline deadly stare as I stood at my door, wishing with every fiber of my being that he would simply disappear. Perhaps I would wake up again soon, finding it all to be a rather obnoxious dream.
“It’ll be quick,” he said, unable to hide his amusement. “Just a few quick moves and I’ll be on my way, I won’t even bother to teach you anything if you don’t want. Lindy is already on the lawn waiting for us.”
“Lindy will be training with us?”
Adam raised an eyebrow, “it’s not training, that’s what you were supposed to be doing these past few months.” He caught my sheepish expression, I was sure of that. “And really, Lindy probably won’t train at all. I just offered her a fight.”
“A fight?” I asked, finally leaving my door and wandering into the dining space. A part of me noted the fact that, near the door, almost every set of shoes but mine was missing. Apparently, I was the only person who wasn’t an early riser. “Who is Lindy going to fight?”
“You,” he said, raising his newspaper. I immediately tore it down, shooting him a glare.
“You’re going to have me fight her?”
“Probably,” he said, frowning at the strips of newsprint in his hands. “If you think about it, it is the far more preferable option. Lindy specializes in water, and she can pull the humidity from the air, so she’s all set to go and a little bit less threatening in the end. I do fire so, you know… I rather like the way you look; it would be a shame to burn you.”
“Why bother testing me at all?” I growled. “What use is electricity to the King if he has flames?”
Adam shook his head, almost laughing at me. “There’s a forest around Whynne, Wren. The Seelie also get their power from that forest. The Unseelie are afraid of light, or at least the lower ranking ones are.” Seeing that I still wasn’t getting it he leane
d forward, smacking the remains of his newspaper on the table, “we can light up parts of the forest, but the Seelie also derive their power from it, and it hurts them too when we burn it. Thankfully, however, marvelous inventions have come out in the past few years and we have these things called lightbulbs that don’t start on fire all that often.”
Oh. “He’s going to have me light up the whole forest?” I pulled a face. “I’m not a battery.”
“It’s just a theory of mine,” Adam soothed. Then, muttering under his breath, he added, “not like anyone tells me anything these days. Especially not Theo.”
“Bitter?” I asked.
“Oh no,” he said, changing the topic easily, “I actually prefer my coffee sweet.”
How the King managed to get such an overly confident, self-assured prick as his second was a mystery to me, but I suppose Theo’s awful personality helped in that. Whatever the case, Adam semi-succeeded in his goal, causing me to complain, “there is no coffee here, there’s barely anything.” I didn’t even bother checking the cupboards again.
Adam huffed, his head falling back over the edge of the chair in exasperation.
“She’s taken the tea canister from the kitchen and she’s trying to leave an offering to the Unseelie,” Nikolas explained to Adam in greeting once we’d exited the house after my pitiful breakfast. He’d probably heard us through the excessively drafty front door, seeing as how he was leaning on the wall beside it. He barely lifted his head up when greeting Adam, focusing on his task at hand momentarily before looking up at me. In his hand was a small bullet, one which he was currently working on engraving.
“Great,” Adam said through tight lips, sounding every bit like an older brother saddled with his youngest sister, “now she’s trying to befriend them.” He sped off in the direction of the forest, no doubt having to walk the perimeter to find her.
“Lindy’s interesting,” Nikolas said conversationally as I stood beside him. Evidently, he was going to try to talk to me again; great.
“She is trying to make friends with them,” I said.
“Why?” Nikolas asked, looking a bit miffed at the proposition of anyone making friends with them. Considering what he was doing, I guess he was, I knew every bullet he had was carved for the Unseelie and the Unseelie alone.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think she likes you,” I said, slightly humored as Adam rushed back, Lindy following him but also turning over the container of tea in her hand, not so subtly dumping it in a trail behind her as he looked away. “Not that I can blame her,” I said, still miffed about his comments the day after we first got there. I didn’t so much as allow him a response, instead charging up to Lindy and Adam, the latter wincing when he turned around to see Lindy give the container a final shake, emptying out the remaining leaves.
She held his gaze, holding out the canister boldly in front of herself for him to take, as if that would have solved anything.
“The blonde haired one you put in charge said that she would not go to the market since we had all that we need,” Lindy said pointedly, rolling her eyes at the thought. “Now we do not.”
“I could have brought you something,” Adam began.
“No,” said Lindy, “I want her to leave.” But that wasn’t her full answer, of course, because she looked back behind her with an expectant glance as well, frowning when she noticed that nothing had taken her bait. “Soon I will start finding other ways to make them come out,” she said.
I could see Adam do his best to ignore that statement, instead looking back to me with a sort of relief. I think he thought that I’d run back inside while he was away, which was a tempting proposition. All around us the grass was dying and the leaves were falling from the trees; there was nothing colder than an autumn morning. Especially in the forest of Whynne.
“I’m going to be blunt with you right now, Wren,” Adam said. “I’m an awful tutor and have no intention of teaching you anything, so I really hope you have something up your sleeve, because otherwise this could get messy.”
Pointedly, I raised my hand, sparks flickering around it as I gave him an unamused look. “Lucky you, Luka helped me.”
“Thank god,” Adam said in relief. “You really were just out to make me look bad.”
“She does not need help with that,” Lindy stated, raising her eyebrows. “Now, am I to go back to what I was doing, or will we get on with it? I do not mind fighting, but I hate wasting time,” she said, as if her time was far too valuable for him despite the fact that she had mentioned getting paid for it.
“Alright then,” Adam agreed. “The back of the cabin,” he gestured with a nod of his head in the direction. “Do you want to watch, Nikolas?” He called, looking towards the young man. Unbeknownst to him, I shot Nikolas a look that would surely clear the thought from his head.
And I was the first person he saw when he looked up.
“You know what? I think I’m actually just going to stay here,” Nikolas said, tilting his head slightly at my hostility. He was confused, but not completely dumb. “I’m fairly busy,” like carving bullets was a necessary action, “and someone has to keep an eye out for the Unseelie.”
“Suit yourself,” Adam shrugged, already leading us away, “I’m fairly certain we’ll have an audience anyway,” he said quietly to me, indicating with a pointed glance towards an open window on the other side of the cabin near the firewood pile; Luka’s room.
The look on Adam’s face indicated the action to be almost purposeful, like he was hoping the threat of Luka watching would be enough to get me to behave respectably. The worst thing was, he was right.
I would not go down easily if Luka were watching. That was something the guards never bothered to learn, when it came to Luka Kinsley, I did not lose. I did not let myself look weak in front of him of all people.
“Alright, rules,” Adam said as he gently grabbed Lindy’s shoulders and pushed her a respectful distance away from me. I was used to people standing in a circle around us when we dueled, so it was strange to look forward and see her without any distractions. It was also strange to know that, if I were to fall, there was even less of a chance of someone catching me and hauling me back to my feet.
“Low level on the powers, nothing dramatic,” Adam informed us. “No drowning people or filling their lungs with water—whatever your people do, Lindy. Projectiles aimed away from the body unless they’re soft and would cause minimal damage, no shocking her near the heart or face, Wren. No choking, no biting, no spitting.” What exactly did he think we would get up to? “I don’t care about stomping, just aim for something not as breakable, punches stay below the face, and nails do not come out,” Adam said, spreading his hands wide in front of us, ten crescent moons were pressed into his skin—and I was the one who made them. “And I hate that I even have to say this, do not send anyone flying. We don’t need any broken bones.”
“You make it boring then,” Lindy stated with a hint of disgust. “It’s not fighting.”
“It’s not fighting,” Adam reiterated, emphasizing his words, “it’s dueling. Big difference.”
“And so, what are we meant to do if we actually fight?” Lindy asked in a huff.
“You’ll hardly be fighting each other,” Adam dismissed with a wave of his hand, walking away from the two of us. As he spoke, I noticed movement in the distance, visible in the cabin window.
He was watching. Adam was right about that. Which meant I actually had to try for once.
Oh well, I tore my attention away from him, looking back to Lindy and cracking my neck to relieve the tension there. I easily had at least thirty pounds on her, if not more, not to mention my height, or the fact that I was notably older. It would be easy.
It was not, as it turns out, easy.
One whistle from Adam and an overly confident step forward from me, and I was already on the ground without even a moment’s hesitation.
“You walk like a lady,” Lindy informed me, slamming her foot d
own on my stomach and raising her fist to signal to Adam the round was done. “They teach you to walk like that so that you have no balance, it makes it harder for you to run,” she said.
“I am no lady,” I snarled at her.
“Then don’t stand like one,” she said. “You are not delicate, so don’t try to be.” Annoyed, she pulled her foot off of me when Adam confirmed the win, her hand grasping my forearm and yanking me to my feet.
Delicate? Me, even humoring the idea of being delicate? Ha. Perhaps I might have learned to stand like that when promoted, but… I frowned, spreading my feet apart and bracing myself on the ground while Adam looked on. Holding his fingers up in the air, he counted.
Two seconds, and I was down.
“They do not teach noble girls proper skills,” Lindy said, sitting on top of me. What was it this time, how had I failed? “Bend your knees more and relax your back.”
I grunted, shoving her off of me.
“See, when you act like that, you are powerful,” Lindy said, pushing herself off the ground and wiping away the dirt. “But this country teaches you to look pretty and act pretty.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” I informed her. “Believe it or not, it’s not a crime to stand nicely and hold yourself well.”
“No,” she said, “I think it is.” I scowled in response. Apparently Haldia was a land of brutes, if her actions said anything.
Fine, I’d show her what I could do. Starting with the magic. I could hear it crackle across my palms as I looked at her, gaining the slightest tinge of interest from her.
Realizing that we were now starting off with magic rather than continued brute force, Lindy summoned hers to the surface. Slow, rolling drops of water dripped across her palms. Adam was right, she could grab from the humidity.
We’d see how evenly matched we were this way. I was only marginally less confident in myself, never having truly immersed myself in training to fight, but getting by before from sheer willpower and determination. Perhaps it would go badly, but maybe if I were lucky, I could at least give her some kind of trouble.
Quill and Cobweb (The Chronicles of Whynne Book 2) Page 9
