by L. P. Dover
I surprised myself by being so slow. Of course, her sister would have been Aunt Fannie. For a flash, I felt sympathy for Fannie … but it passed. Just because life gave her sour grapes didn't mean she had to stomp them into wine and get drunk. Had Fannie known all along? I couldn’t answer that. But she had been bound, as I was.
The elders were a different story altogether. My father had given them orders to protect me and the child, and even though they followed through with them, they persisted in chattering about their concerns. The humans frightened them unreasonably. They constantly fretted, wanting to keep her, and me, from “contaminating” anyone else. I attempted to reason with them, but they turned on me. “You don’t understand, you never will! They will consume you. The humans will consume us all.” Their hands shook as they spoke in a horrid tone, almost spitting out the words. I didn’t argue after that. I wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the castle anyway. Besides, it kept her from being paraded in front of so many visitors.
I stopped again. I had been born in a castle. I sat above the journal for a long moment. There was no way to reconcile this information with my own thoughts, no way to fill in what the bonds had taken. It hurt to read this, but there was no not finishing it. I decided the only way to keep going was if I did it as before I knew this was my mother, as if I were an uninvolved reader.
My Freya has grown to a stubborn and willful child. She’s prone to fits of screaming or crying. The emotion frightens the elders. It comes from her father, yes, but I can’t see how it will harm her. The humans seemed to live their lives fine, controlling it well enough.
~
I received a visit from my mother’s sister today. News of the child had reached her and she felt she needed to call on me, now that my mother was not here to guide me. I was in my room when she arrived. I heard the two quick raps and one loud knock from her visits during my childhood and instantly knew it was her.
“Aunt Junnie!” I gushed as she came in. She wore a simple hooded cloak, seemingly unafraid as she passed the guards at my door. She walked as though she ruled the castle, not as if she were a light elf in the center of a dark lord’s rule.
She confessed to me a secret her family held, a power I had not known of my mother. They had kept it from my father, though he had stolen her after hearing a rumor of it. She passed to me many details of her sister, of the family … my family. She risked so much by coming here, to help me, to help my child. I would owe her.
I had to stop reading as betrayal ripped through me again. Junnie.
Ruby laid her hands on mine, which were trembling now, but I wouldn’t take the dust again.
Tears streamed silently as I drifted, the ache in my chest only dulled by exhaustion. I felt weak when I woke, but I was silent about the pain as we continued the journey. Yearning to avoid my thoughts altogether, I spent much of the day in the mind of my horse.
And the day passed.
It was evening again when we stopped. I barely noticed the group’s mood; though quiet, they seemed anxious and kept the perimeter close. Ruby brought me the book again and I took one long, deep breath before I started back.
Freya is growing and strong. She has amassed a following of sorts, though I suspect it is somehow connected to her frailties. There is something endearing about it, but some of it worries me. She doesn’t seem to be able to hear as well as she should through her rounded ears and her voice is oddly alto. She is a beauty, though, her unusual features earning her extra attention. The elders express their anxiety, again, that the humans will consume us, but my father is already discussing arranged marriages, even mentioning Rune’s son, of all people. Anything he can to gain from her.
It was hard to read, this diary. My mother’s dairy. Her writings went on, making all of it undeniable, until, eventually, they became more erratic, answering questions I didn’t want answered.
My father has taken Freya from me. He has assigned her with tasks, Rune watching over her, testing her. It was just as Junnie had feared, just what he'd done to my mother. I will find a way to stop him.
~
The elders are keeping Freya now. Guards have been assigned to me. Like a prison.
~
I killed three guards to get to her. We only had a moment before I was torn away from her, yet I feel I got the message through.
~
She came to see me last night. I don’t know how she got past the guards. But I begged her to keep our secret, for her protection …
And then several pages were torn from the diary before it continued.
It was an accident. A product of her temper, her human emotions. They were testing her, a servant told me. Anvil was holding her back, Rune with magic. She snapped and they saw her power. Some denied the possibility, but not my father. He has attained his prize, that which he has always coveted. I will stop him.
~
The plan is forming, but I am unsure whether it will work. I know I cannot defeat him, and his guard, alone. But I must protect my Freya. I must protect us all. It is the want of power that will consume us. The want.
The script was shaky, many of the words hard to decipher. Ominous.
I had no choice but to escape, I would need a distraction to have any chance. I went to the village to find my young Noble. I didn’t expect what was there. On my way in, I found the spot where we had met so many days. I almost didn’t recognize it, bare of growth, the dirt patted down from years of wear. And then I saw him, the man in tattered clothes, hunched with his face in his hands. He heard me approach and raised his head, the awe all that was recognizable.
“You’re back.” His voice was trembling, feeble. It was my Noble, young no more. He had been waiting here for my return. An outcast of the village; no one believed his tales of magic, the mysterious woman he claimed to meet here. He confessed to spending years trying to find me. He’d thought I was angry with him and that’s why I’d not returned. He was afraid to leave this spot, if I were to change my mind … forgive him for whatever he’d done.
I pushed the guilt aside when I recalled why I'd had to come here. For my Freya, to save her. What my father did to me, to my mother, I would not let him do to her. I knew what I must do, the only way. I approached the grieving man and reached out to him. As I held his hands, I closed my eyes. I could not watch as I snapped his neck, the way I had with the small boar as my first show of magic to him so long ago. I placated myself by remembering he would soon be gone, his life so short. I held him until he began to stiffen, and carried his lifeless body into the village. Proof they would be attacked and killed, proof they must fight the elves. It was not hard to incite a riot. They were fearful creatures. I convinced them to raid the castle, gave them direction.
And then I returned. I knew I would have time to prepare, they would be slow to gather and make the journey. I was thinking of Noble and I resolved to wear the dress meant for our wedding, its dramatic shape and deep meaning. I remembered when he'd given it to me, explaining the white stood for innocence. I had stifled a giggle then, I could find no humor now. Yes, it would be fitting.
I knew what was coming. But what I had read so far was much more horrifying than I’d expected. I didn’t want to continue. How could I have been so stupid, to forget it was my mother that destroyed the northern clans … that took the families from everyone I knew. As they stood, protecting me, the betrayal I’d felt before was gone. In its place was a new hurt, a heart-rending sorrow.
They heard my sobs, I was vaguely aware of their eyes on me before they uncomfortably turned away again. Chevelle approached me warily as I lay curled in a ball on my blankets, the book positioned plainly in front of me. He tossed it aside, but I no longer cared. He sat behind me and pulled me into his arms, holding me as I wept. It was more right than anything had been in a long, long time.
I woke with new resolve. I stood, prepared to make things right, but something was ... off. The group surrounded me, tense. I glanced around, but couldn't see why.
Before the next breath, a new sound—a closer sound—filled my ears. Shoosh, shoosh. It took longer than it should have to realize they were arrows. My mind couldn't seem to process the scene fast enough, before I could distinguish the threats, they were changing. The hands I'd splayed against the wall of stones for support were now in bonds. I forced myself to look away from Ruby's back, her arms stretched out defensively, to see what was holding me.
My breath came then, fierce and gasping. Panic. Long vines were wrapping tightly around my wrists, reaching out for my legs. I burned my right wrist free, fighting to reach my sword before they grew back. Large thorns burst from the vines on my legs and pierced my skin like knives. I barely had the capacity to hope they weren't poison. I sliced at them furiously, but I wasn't fast enough. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of lightning and it confused me for a moment; no storm was near.
I was trapped. I looked back to Ruby, but she could not help me now. Beyond her, a line of long, flowing robes were marching through the mist ... coming for us.
The sight gave me strength, or courage, or blinding stupidity. I didn't know, but I went with it with everything I had. I was trapped against the wall, unable to move, but there was one thing I could do.
The sun broke through the clouds and I saw precisely what I needed. A distinct shadow crossed the ground in front of us, a hawk flying overhead. I felt the corner of my mouth pull up in a smile as I closed my eyes to join him.
The scene from above was just as incomprehensible. I focused on one thing at a time. Directly below me, I saw Grey. He was caught, wrapped in vines as my own body was. But there were flames circling his feet. I followed his gaze to find his opponent, and then dove.
I hadn't put much planning into this, but I was still running on adrenaline. I decided the fastest course of action was pecking his eyes out. It worked. He threw his hands up, covering his face, screaming. But he did not attack me. As I rose back to find my next target, I saw the wolves. They were also not being attacked, fighting with no opposition. And then, I remembered what Chevelle had said. They would not kill the animals.
As I laughed, the hawk screeched, and Chevelle and Steed glanced up at the sound. They were fighting, almost back to back, the bodies of councilmen strewn around them. I surveyed the land, searching for a stronger animal to jump to, something more harmful. I ran through my options—Where was a quill pig when you needed it—but I wasn't able to find anything near, evidently the fight had cleared the mountain. Okay, so it was just the hawk. And the horses. I quickly passed through their minds, causing an impromptu stampede, and returned to the sky.
When I entered the bird again, something was wrong. It wasn't only the bird, someone was there ... Someone else. The shock of it threw me back to my own mind. My eyes shot open and I scanned the scene again.
I forgot what I was looking for when I recognized a face, hooded in a cloak, fighting against her own. Junnie. She stared back at me for one brief moment before she turned to fight some invisible foe. The stun took the last of the borrowed courage from me, and I felt myself drawing in, afraid, as my body remained encaged in vine and thorns. My legs were wet with blood, arms deadened to the pain and cold. I became aware of an unbroken chant, a voice I didn't recognize, and I turned, stunned again when I saw Asher. He wasn't in the battle, he stood back, seemingly a bystander as the words flowed from his barely moving lips. Then he ran.
Confusion again as I watched Junnie follow after him. Chase him.
Ruby's whip cracked in front of me and I knew the advance had gotten too far. And I was tied to a wall, immobile, numb. Why hadn't they killed me already? I waited for the flames. What came instead was far more excruciating.
I expected to collapse as my body disconnected from my mind, but the vines held me in place. I saw a few final flickers of the battle before my eyes looked toward the sky, rolling back into my head. I had no way of forming a coherent thought or I might have been afraid.
Chapter Seventeen
A Fitting End
I was surprised, in my dreams, that I wasn’t already dead. They came on gradually, they were vague. When they became clearer, they were shattered, put back together wrong. For a long time, there was no sound, only those disjointed images.
And then, when the sound came, there was something else wrong. It was like … like I wasn’t alone. Someone else was there, dreaming with me, and I could see their dreams. They mixed with mine, creating chaos.
There were faces I didn’t recognize … and those I did.
I dreamt of Steed, winking mischievously at me … mine.
A large, dark, frightening man in leather and armor … not mine.
My room in the old tree, mother’s pendant casting rainbows on the bed … mine.
A long, damp stone corridor lit with torches … not mine.
There was Junnie, her blond hair shining in the sun as she greeted me at her door on the west side of the village. And Junnie, mysterious under a hooded cloak, fighting with magic and weaponry, killing members of the council guard.
We sat around a fire, telling stories. Someone was ribbing Ruby. Her eyes narrowed when she replied to him, matter-of-factly, “Your mouth is very small … it’s unattractive.” Her head bobbed side to side as she smiled, pleased with herself.
And then Anvil laughed and his tongue wagged. He was holding someone by the arm, preventing them from running away. Suddenly, my vision changed and I was a hawk, attacking, tearing a piece from his tongue.
And Chevelle. He was in so many of my dreams. We were sparring sometimes, clashing swords. Sometimes he was pummeling me with rocks. Other times, the moments would have surely made me blush, if I could have felt my cheeks. He held my face in his hands, declaring his need for me. “I have wanted you since the moment I first saw you.” But the word burned. Wanted. He’d used the wrong word.
Occasionally, I watched as a third person. My vision would change and my perspective would be off. Like when I saw Fannie. She was razing the village, slowly tearing it apart. Fire and wind and destruction as she cackled and taunted the villagers. She dropped them as they ran, sometimes snapping their necks, sometimes breaking a leg so they would have to stay alive to watch their homes burn, their families die.
There was a large man who forced me to do magic, testing me until I was on the brink. He was fierce and wore a jagged scar across his brow that touched his cheek. He kept his hair cropped short, not wanting to hide any part of the damage.
And my mother, though my dreams gave her two names. Dark hair, blowing in the wind, arms outstretched, the pendant hanging at her neck glowing fiercely. Fire, flames, burning.
And then water. Drowning. Over and over and over. It almost made the cliff dreams more bearable, to be away from the repetitive drowning.
I swam around in these impressions for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, they became so familiar they all started to seem like my dreams, not someone else’s.
Then the dreams stopped. No images flickered behind my lids, yet my eyes did not open. The muffle in my ears from the drowning dreams was gone. I could hear clearly, clearer than I’d ever heard. I hadn’t found my body yet, but I heard conversations, voices I knew. They were whispers, but they were clear. I listened, hoping to gain clarity … but something was still wrong. Nothing fit. They discussed Junnie and Anvil and Fannie, but they were all two people now.
They were worried; I could hear the stress in their tones. How long had I been like this? It seemed so long, trapped here.
I remembered the vines. I tried to feel my arms, see if they were still there. Was that why I couldn’t move? Was I still tied to a wall? No, no, I wasn’t t
ied. Had the thorns been poisoned? Was I dying now? I worked to calm myself. No, I was getting better, not worse.
I felt a light pressure on my forehead and my eyes flew open instinctively, though I’d had no response from them all the hours I’d struggled to force them open.
It was Ruby. She sighed with relief. “Oh, Frey.”
I was suddenly surrounded and the sight made my head spin. I closed my eyes tight in an attempt to stop it. “Get her a drink,” I heard someone command. I felt a hand in mine then, as it was pulled away, replaced with a glass. I grimaced; I doubted I could hold a glass up, let alone myself.
“Don’t worry, it's only water,” someone reassured me.
At the word, I realized I was parched, bone dry. I forced myself up, keeping my eyes tight as I concentrated on getting the glass to my lips. They were rough, cracked; I could feel them against the rim of the glass. I wondered if it was dried blood or if I had been down so long they’d simply split. I drank the full glass and felt it exchanged for another.
