“Who, goblin?” I insist. I must understand who I will owe.
“Very well, over there.” The goblin motions vaguely to the trees behind him.
I turn to look, seeing only a cluster of birch trees. Several ravens perch in the branches. “Where—?”
“Yes or no?” the goblin says. “Will you trade your freedom for a taker’s life? His human kin are cruel and depraved. Which he must surely be.” It tips its head and looks me over with its large black eyes. “You’ve just slipped from human grasp, their walls no longer bind you. You wish to find yourself behind another? If you follow this boy, that is where you will be.”
My pulse skips a little. “No,” I breathe. “That is not my wish.” But I know I’ve very little choice at this point. I’m such a fool. Such thorny terms will have me trapped once more, perhaps not today, but eventually I’ll be tied to this mystery master. I’ve been caught up in their fae web.
In my hesitation a terrible grin slinks across the goblin’s ghastly face, revealing its jagged stone teeth. “Then we shall nibble on his bones.” It motions behind it to the young hunter. “His flesh is ours.”
Before I can protest, the vines cinch around the human’s body once more with a sudden tug and the nixies dive down, landing on his chest. In a blur of thorny limbs and teeth, they rip at his tunic, his strangled cries ringing through the trees.
“No!” I gasp, desperation filling me as his screams scratch through my head, as the vines tighten and tighten around him, I feel my chest tighten. The taste of earth fills my mouth as the moss crawls over him once more. “No, stop this!” I cry louder.
“Then choose,” the goblin grinds out. “Choose, My Queen. His freedom or yours?”
The nixies reach flesh, turning red as they’re coated in the young man’s blood. And I can’t. I can’t let them kill him.
“Fine,” I choke out. “I take the bargain, I choose him—just stop this! Let him go.”
The goblin sneers. “Your blood on it.”
Tears fill my throat, defeat weighing heavy in my bones. What am I doing? No—I can’t think about it. Because I can’t be responsible for this human’s death. I must trust my mother to save me from their lowly power, from this strange mystery. Please, Mother.
I hold out my hand to the goblin in offering, dread heating my skin.
It strikes quick with its claw, slicing across my palm. And then it chuckles, “First made in blood, and then fire. A bargain made, a bargain kept.” The goblin lifts the blood-tipped talon to its mouth, licking up the life with a long tongue.
The birds burst from the trees in a cacophony of screeches. The vines holding their prisoner snap, and the human scrambles from his mossy grave.
In a breath, the fae vanish into the green of the wood, as if they’d never been.
I can only stare at the shocked young man, the stranger I saved—with my own freedom? As his features blur. As the earth tips. And I collapse into the moss.
FOUR
Secrets
The cold is deep in my bones. I wonder if I’m dying. I wonder if it will be a buck, of all things, that ends my life before it’s even begun.
My power swirls like an icy fire, urgent as it licks at my insides, wanting to be free, to heal me faster. To feed. But, as always, all is held tight by the torque. The world blurs, the turmoil of pain and need too much for my body. I’m being lifted, carried. Pulled up onto a saddle and soon find myself moving.
I should insist on being left alone. I should speak out and tell him not to touch me, not to take me anywhere. But I’m too spent, my energy sapped entirely now, my voice lost.
I’m held tight, settled into the saddle sideways, my shoulder against the hunter’s chest, my forehead tucked in the crook of his neck. I have no notion of where we are, where we’re going, as we ride through thick trees, along thin, unfamiliar paths, the hound trailing behind us like a watchful shadow. Until we break from the dim of the wood, into the settling twilight.
I blink through the blur my vision has become, trying to see. We seem to be heading west. The sun sits low on the horizon now, casting an orange-violet glow over the surrounding hills. Long grass waves with a soft breeze, catching the fading light in shades of silver. A dark, misty lake stretches out before us. And just beyond, on an island at the center of the lake, rests a tower clouded in mist.
Guarded by a monstrous wall.
“Please,” I mutter, my weighty eyelids sinking. I plead with my mind to stay focused. “I must go home.” No more walls.
“Still yourself.” His voice vibrates in my side. “We’re nearly there. You’ll be well seen to.”
We move closer, the horse stepping into the lake, into the mist, approaching the grey island of stone. My eyes seem to deceive me as we walk across the water, the horse moving easily over it, and we’re soon passing through an archway, thick gates moaning as they close behind us with a weighty clatter.
Other voices begin to rise, coming nearer.
“What’ave you found, boy? I thought it was a stag you was out for.”
“Is that’a girl?”
“Grand shame, what how the females keep fallin’ into your arms.”
“Looks like she put up a fight—scratched ya good, aye!”
There’s hardy male laughter. My captor shifts, leaning back. “Just help me, Podric,” he says, obviously exasperated.
“Your da won’t be likin’ this. Not with the Dane troubles in the North. Look at her hair, this girl’s as red as a sunspyre.”
“She needs help,” the young man says. “Are you going to take her, or shall I drop her to the hay like a left carcass—” I slide, nearly falling. “Balls! Get her by the waist, you ass.”
More male laughter, and I slip into awkward meaty hands.
“She’s bleedin’,” the large man holding me says, dismay in his rumbling voice.
“As I said,” the hunter says over the sound of shifting leather. His boots scuff as they hit the ground. “Lucius, go fetch Breanne. Tell her to bring Lady Gwyndolin. We’ll be in the upper rooms.”
“Your sister’s not in the best of sorts. It seems her time came. She’s not with child as she’d hoped.”
The young man sighs audibly, and I feel him move closer. “Just fetch her, Lucius.”
“Yes, my prince.”
Prince. He’s a prince. The bird wanted me to hunt a prince . . .
“Quickly,” the apparent prince says, then to the large man holding me, “Bring the girl this way, Podric.”
Footsteps strike stone, echoing as we enter what sounds like a large hall. I try to open my eyes, to see who’s holding me, where I’m being taken. The wool of a tunic scratches against my cheek; it smells of oil and wood smoke. We pass by colorful banners hanging on dark grey stone. We pass a window and an archway that leads into a larger room. Then we’re entering a smaller anteroom and I’m being lowered onto a wooden bench.
“Not there,” the prince says. “The couch, Podric.”
“But the blood’ll stain the cushions. Won’t the queen be in a fit?”
“She’ll recover. I doubt she wishes for a girl to die uncomfortably in her favorite sitting room either.”
“Right,” Podric answers, nodding. I’m pulled up again and shifted to a softer seat beside the bench. The large man lays me down and backs up. His face is a blur, but I can make out worry marking his wide brow. He’s quite large. “She sure is the reddest thing I ever did see—look’a those locks.”
“Go hurry my sister along. And be sure she fetches some healing herbs and linens.”
Podric nods again and backs away, leaving the room.
The prince kneels beside the couch, studying me. My vision clears a bit more, revealing the youthfulness of his features, his sun-kissed skin. He’s a bit younger than I’d first thought, only a little older than me, maybe. He’s smudged with soil and blood and he smells of earth and curiosity.
He leans close, touching a finger to my temple gently as he whispers, �
�Who are you?” His eyes search my face intently, then shift to the heavy torque around my neck. “What are you?”
I’m only Lily, I want to say. Please, let me go. But my throat is swollen, my lips too dry. I can’t work up the energy to speak.
His touch moves to my hair. He picks up a strand and plays with it between his fingers. “You glowed with a golden light when that strange beast appeared out of nowhere,” he marvels. “What sort of creature was it? It called you queen. Did you draw it to you?” He seems more intrigued than afraid. He should be afraid.
I manage to shift my head enough to signal a no. But my heart beats a prayer, Please, Mother, help me. I only wish to return home. Help me.
The prince lets my hair slip through his fingers as he stands. “Whatever you are, it appears you’re made of mortal flesh, rather than spirit.” He walks over to a table along the farther wall, picking up a square of cloth, then a large bowl and pitcher. “Forgive my impropriety but we can’t wait forever for my sister, that wound needs tending.” He sets the things down on the floor beside me and then leans over to lift my right shoulder off the cushion, helping me turn onto my side so he can get a better look at my back. He hisses air through his teeth as he studies the wound, then helps me settle more comfortably once he gets a good look.
He rises to his feet again. “That is no simple wound, my lady.”
He shakes his head and moves to the pitcher, pouring water into the bowl. He picks up the linen and dips it in the bowl before pressing it to the upper right of my back.
Pain radiates across my shoulders and I gasp. My lungs ache. My head throbs. Gods below, what has happened to me? Why am I not healing?
“Madness,” he says, his voice shaking a little now. “I don’t know how you’re still conscious—how you’re not screaming—” He gives me a marveling look, then explains, “There’s a sizable piece of antler embedded in the wound. It will need to be pulled out and your torn flesh stitched up.”
Embedded? That must be what’s keeping the wound open. It’ll need to be dug out. But I’m so tired. So tired of pain.
“Your bleeding has slowed, but not by much,” he says. He pulls a knife from his belt. “I’m going to lay you onto your stomach.” I allow him to manipulate my body once more, too depleted to care what the blade is for, what he means to do. He adds, “Now, hold still; I must cut your dress away from the wound.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” comes a female’s voice from the doorway. “Put that blade away, Julius.”
The prince turns as two females enter the room. “Don’t be a prude, woman. Come see this mess and then tell me you can stitch it up while still keeping to propriety.”
“You’ll not soil this poor girl’s virtue if I have anything to say about it,” the shorter, squarer of the two women says. Through the haze of my vision I see long dark hair, plated on either side of her head. Round pink cheeks. A thinner, taller, stoic girl stands just behind her.
“Is that all you ever think about, Breanne?” the prince asks. “Staining the soul?”
“Someone must be watchful. It’s no wonder our luck is what it is with you and father tossing honor and righteousness out the window at every turn. Where, by all that’s holy, did you find this poor waif?”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“What’ve you done to her?” she asks quickly, accusation like a dagger in her voice.
“Please, do be serious. I’ve done nothing, simply stumbled upon her while on my hunt. Don’t you think—”
“Near the abbey?” she interrupts once more.
“Breanne, there’s no time for—”
“You fool, she’s come from the sisters. You should have taken her straight back to the safety of the church. Look at her frock, she must be a novice. And now you’ve tainted her.”
“How in God’s name have I—?”
“Even now you look at her nakedness!” She comes closer and waves at him with her hands. “Out! Now!” When he doesn’t obey instantly she smacks him on the head. “Shoo!”
He grunts and rubs his temple where a red splotch is rising. “Spiteful woman. You’re going to need help. She won’t sit still for that needle. Someone will have to hold her down.”
“Out!” Breanne shouts again.
He tosses his hands in the air with a groan, then walks away, leaving the room.
Breanne pats my shoulder with her meaty hand, making me flinch. “Poor thing,” she says before starting to pluck at the piles of herbs she brought in, whispering under her breath, “Onion for swelling. An infusion of sage for cleansing. Chamomile—no, that’s digestion. It’s comphrey for quick healing? Oh goodness, perhaps I should have brought Bernard’s scroll.”
After a few agonizing moments of her muttering to herself in confusion and sifting through a basket of herbs, she calls the other young woman over. “I’ve got it settled now. I am ready to begin the healing.”
“Yes, my lady,” the girl says. She is a silent aid, nodding and following orders without question or comment. She helps crush the herbs and begins a poultice as her mistress delicately cuts away my dress, laying my back bare, clucking her tongue the whole time.
“What a mess,” Breanne says. Then she reaches over to my torque, attempting to unlatch it without success. Only the soul who places it can remove it. “What a strange brace you’re wearing. Is it for penance? You must be a very pious soul.”
When I stay silent she sighs as if she understands—which she clearly does not.
Once the bowl of water is laid beside me, along with more linens and the poultice, she leans back and taps a finger to her lips, thinking. “We must pull the piece of antler out, Cousin. But delicately, as not to cause more damage. How would you suggest going about it?”
The other girl shifts her eyes, uncomfortable. “A . . . weaving needle?”
Breanne scoffs, but then tilts her head as if she were considering it. Fear rises in me again, concerned at the lack of awareness in the heads of the two females.
“Perhaps we should call your brother back?” the younger girl says, hopefully. “He’s much more stalwart around these sorts of things. And he’s dressed many wounds after a battle.”
“As have I!” Breanne snaps. “And I have no intention of letting that cretin win the day. I will prove to him that God provides in the moment—we’ll figure this mess out without a man.”
Her features set in determination. She picks up a wooden spoon and holds it in front of my face, telling me to bite down on it. Then she goes over to a basket sitting at the foot of the couch and pulls out a weaving needle, holding it up. “We’ll dig it out with this.”
I can only grit my teeth against the wood of the spoon, trying desperately not to whimper, as I squeeze my eyes shut and pray I’m not about to be sacrificed in this battle of siblings.
*
“And look there, brother,” Breanne says, proudly, “I told you she’d be set a’right.”
Princess Breanne hovers as the prince inspects her needlework now marking the back of my shoulder. She’s placed a woolen shawl discreetly over the rest of my bare skin and claims to have cleaned up every speck of blood.
She gives her brother a smug tilt of her head and one of her smaller braids comes loose from its ties, flopping to her shoulder. Her cheeks and nose are shiny pink, her brow glistening from the exertion of nursing me. She dabs her sleeve to the pearls of sweat above her lip. “And to think you doubted me.” She dramatically places a hand to the center of her well-endowed chest.
“Very well done, Sister,” he offers, but he’s still giving me a worried look. I’m likely pale as a ghost after everything.
It was agony, there truly is no other way of putting it. I lost consciousness in the torment of the women’s clumsy ministrations but woke once the piece of antler was pulled loose, only to be aware of every tug of thread through my skin. I was grateful for the spoon I’d been given to bite on as I held to the wood frame beneath me and released my screams into the cush
ion. The whole process felt like an eternity.
My pain has faded to a dull throb now. I’m lying on my side and I can breathe without feeling as if arrows are piercing my ribcage, but the trial has taken every last drop of energy I had left in me. I wouldn’t get far from here if I tried to slip away.
I’ll need to bide my time before deciding what to do. They know I’m from the abbey, they might send word of where I am. Or they’ll attempt to return me once I’m rested. A traitorous part of me whispers that I should simply give in—my escape has become a series of tortures I didn’t expect—but those doubts only surface because I’m so weak. So tired. And hungry. I refuse to give them room to grow.
The sun was setting as the prince and I rode into the keep. It would have been vespers; Mother Catherine and the sisters should be sitting down for supper by now.
They’d have realized that I’ve gone missing.
What must they be thinking?
My stomach growls, my rising hunger fighting for first place in my thoughts. Breanne refused to give me food or water last night, saying I should refrain, that I should fast and remain pure, so that God would heal me faster. Instead it did the opposite. My powers are healing me that much slower, and it took that much more out of me; I’ve had to do far too much mending with very little power.
Because I’ve been kept from feeding properly in my years residing at the abbey I’ve needed extra human food, just to sustain myself. And I haven’t had a bite to eat since my nibble of bread and mead this morning before Prime.
“Impressive stitching,” Julius mumbles to his sister, a surprised furrow to his brow.
Breanne gives him a satisfied grin. “Just so.”
“Must be all the incessant needlework you do.”
She narrows her eyes at him, like she thinks he’s secretly insulting her.
“And since you’ve done so well taking on this girl’s care, I suppose it’s only right that you be the one to tell Father of her presence.”
Breanne’s eyes go wide. “Heaven save me, what a cruel thing you are, Julius. You’re the one who drug the poor novice into our keep, undoubtedly ruining her.” She steps back from my side a little.
Spark and Sorrow Page 4
