My chest constricts, imagining the horror of it.
Is the prince too much of a forgiving sentimental fool, or is he mad? Surely anyone with a good soul, as he claims Podrick has, would’ve stopped a young boy’s beating. They wouldn’t have lifted a finger in violence for another man unless they were beasts.
“You disagree,” he says, as if reading my thoughts.
“I don’t understand. Why have you not chosen to seek revenge for such cruelty and violence? If not from Podrick, then from your father.”
“When my father is determined, he chooses the punishment he sees fit to give. And it’s given, one way or another. I stand in his path, so others don’t have to feel the brunt. At least I have the strength to endure the pain, unlike my sister.” He shrugs, looking a bit distracted. “In any case, the world is cruel. It’s the way of things. Nothing I could do to my father would make these scars go away. And the trials I endure at his hand carve away any weakness in me, they make me strong, battle-worn and ready for the fight. I don’t fear the fray as other men do. A king must be strong as iron. If nothing else, my father has shaped me into the sharpest metal.”
My teeth clench. What a barbaric idea.
“You disagree, but you’ve never lived the life of a man.”
What a thing to say. “And being a woman is so easy?”
“Sitting around in stone rooms, fiddling with useless needlepoint and gossiping about the stable hands all the day long? Sounds like a dream.”
Anger lights in my chest, pushing my power forward. “This is what you think women do all day?” I shake my head. “I don’t even have the words to reprimand you, I’m so infuriated. And baffled.”
He raises his brow and smirks, “It’s all I’ve seen them do,” and I realize he’s poking fun.
I breathe out an annoyed puff of air. “What a fool you are.”
“A handsome fool, though, yes?”
My gaze rolls to the sky. He was likely just trying to distract me from the dark subject of the past.
It’s quiet for a long while as we walk, and the memories of my own childhood pains seem to rise again. I don’t have such an easy time playing off the torment from another’s hand as a usual occurrence of a life. Not my life. And as much as he might turn up a smile at me, I know it must be heavy on his shoulders, such violence. Something so vile marks the soul. It carves out pieces. It twists the deepest places inside.
“I know you must have pain of your own,” he says, quietly, surprising me. “I’m sorry for that.”
I remain silent, unsure how to respond.
He takes me by the hand and stops to face me. “Tell me something about yourself.” He tugs me closer to him, his palms resting at my sides, his eyes searching my face. “I want to know you. To understand every part of you.”
His urgent tone makes my heartbeat quicken. “We need to keep walking.”
“Are you afraid? You know things about my life; let me see something of yours.”
“Julius,” I take in a stuttering breath. “I can’t tell you anything.”
“I’ve seen your skin alight with fire. I’ve seen the beasts. I’ve held you and loved you—”
“Julius, please.” I start to pull away, but he only holds me tighter to him.
“I want to know what sort of woman I’m falling in love with.” A slight smile tips his lips. “Angel or demon?”
I go still. His declaration settles over me. “Love?”
“How could I not be falling in love with you?” He leans down and gives my nose a feather-soft kiss.
“Love?” I ask again, stunned and confused by his admission. “Truly?” Could it be real? Or is it the spell linking him to me? He knows nothing of me, nor I of him, really. And yet . . . when I’m near him, as I am now, when he looks at me with such intensity, such need in his eyes . . .
I want to wrap him in my arms and feel him holding me like he did last night in the clover, his scent surrounding me, his mouth on mine. It was like a spell of its own.
Is that love?
His closeness settles me, it eases my fears. It must be.
It must be love.
He kisses my furrowed brow. “So much pondering. Is my declaration so horrible to you?”
“No! It’s only . . .”
“What?”
“No one’s ever loved me before.”
The mischief in his eyes fades and his own brow furrows now. He seems at a loss for words.
He reaches up, his thumb sliding over my jaw, tipping my head so our eyes meet. He waits a moment, the silence between us stretching out. But my body is eager to speak. My heart thunders in my chest, my skin warms, the cool energy of the earth at my feet coiling around us, as if in encouragement.
His lips touch mine, then, a whisper of skin. And he kisses me. Over and over. On and on. His fingers tangling in my hair, sliding down my back, gripping my hips. And years seem to pass. Our arms clinging to each other. As if to block out the memories of pain that rose only moments ago, until we’re caught in some strange world where only he and I exist.
He gently lowers me to the moss, our breath, our bodies, mingling, the slow dance of our lips and hands turning more frantic, my skirts tugged aside, his face buried in my neck, I stare up at the trees in wonder, completely captive to the moment.
He’s so gentle, so kind. So unlike any soul I’ve ever met. An unwilling prince. A protector.
I must truly love him. How could I not?
“You are mine,” I whisper, kissing him, wanting it to be true for the first time since we met. “My love. Forever.” Even as I speak the oath, I know it’s foolish. I know his father would keep me from him, my own mother would never allow me to commit to a human man, even a prince, and this curse he’s under makes everything he says like wispy fog, impossible to separate truth from a lie.
But none of that matters in this moment. Because my body wants these feelings for him to be true. My spirit wants to love someone forever. Even a stranger.
So, I allow the moment to stretch into hours, pleading with the silent world around us to hold time still, as we touch, exploring each other once more, his heartbeat clear in my skin. And each time his grip tightens around me. Each time he whispers my name. Each time our eyes meet.
I choose him.
*
I stand in a snow-covered courtyard. A white blanket tops the grey stone walls, flakes of ice drifting around me. My breath curls out in misty puffs, the sharp bite of winter in my lungs.
“Awaken, awaken, Daughter of Fire,” says a voice behind me, like the cry of a raven. It seems to echo in the courtyard, growing as it moves around me. “Mustn’t linger. Time is short.”
I turn to see a silhouette in the archway. Tall and broad. Foreboding.
Commanding.
It steps forward, urgent. The face remains in shadow. “The darkness comes for you,” it says.
I marvel at the feel of the figure, the rich scent of the energy. The power. Curiosity overwhelming me. “What are you?” I ask, straining to see its face.
A whisper hums through my bones in answer, I am Death.
Death. And yet, I am unafraid. My skin warms, as if recognizing the voice.
“Why have you come to me?” I ask, stepping forward, trying to get closer.
A raven calls once more in the distance.
I take another step. And another. But all I see is the silver of its eyes.
“Awaken,” the figure says, more urgently. “Before she finds you.”
And then a burst of darkness flies out from the figure. Chaos erupting. A cacophony of beating wings and grasping talons. Coming right for me.
*
I reach out as I open my eyes.
“No!” I cry out on a sob. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Lily!” Julius is beside me. He’s shaking me by the shoulder. “Gods’ bones, you’re terrifying me woman. I’m not letting you close your eyes from here on out, unless you’re tied to a tree.”
My lungs burn with the winter cold I just left. I try to catch my breath, feeling as if I’ve run for days. “We have to go,” I say.
“Yes, I know, you’ve been screaming it since you rose and ran blindly into the trees. You scared the wits outta me.”
“Ran?” I look around us. I’m not laying down, I’m standing. Awareness sinks in. I was dreaming. But I’m not sleeping.
I’m on a winding path, rimmed in bright mushrooms that grow in swirling patterns, pinks, blues, and oranges. Dim lights float among the trees around us, peeking in and out of the shadows. Soft mist swirls through the ferns and branches creak up above. The leaves rustle, whispering something I can’t quite make out.
We’re on a fae pathway.
“How did we get here?” I ask, breathless. I never would have let led the prince this far into the Otherworld intentionally.
“Damned if I know. I had to chase you over a hill and through a gorge—you run bloody fast when you get the will to.” He wipes his hand over his forehead, brushing away sweat. “I left my shoes back in the thicket.” He looks me over. “And your overdress, I might add. You’re in quite the state to be traveling. We should probably go back and—”
“No,” I say. “We can’t.”
He raises his brow.
“We’re close,” I say, pointing to the patterns of mushrooms. “The doorway is here, likely only yards away. We can’t go back now, or we could be lost—we could wander forever here.” This is bad. Very, very bad. The fae have a way of forcing a human soul to wander when they’re too near an underling path, trapping them in a mirror world. I imagine Julius turning old, aging down to bones as we try to return to the thicket. An eternity passing with each step.
It wouldn’t be easy for me to escape it, either. Not without help.
Whatever has brought us here has trapped us, in a way. What had the frog said? Forward and never back when the road becomes twisty . . . Up becomes down. North becomes south.
I take the prince’s hand. “Listen to me, Julius, we cannot go back. We have to keep going, keeping to the path.” I never should have let him follow me into these woods at all . . . I’ve been a single-minded fool. If I’m being lured as I sleep, things have become so much more treacherous.
His eyes search mine. “Very well.”
I release a tense breath, trying to settle my surfacing fear, looking around again, searching for fae. He keeps hold of my hand, still watching me. There must be a way to mend this and allow for the prince to find his way out of here. I need Lailoken. As soon as can be, though now for a whole other reason.
“The tree could be around this very bend,” I say, hoping. If I can get through and bring Lailoken back with me, he could create one of his heart-lights to lead us from here. That seems far too simple, though.
And, first I need to find this doorway. I see no willow, no mother oak tree, like the frog mentioned. But we must be close. We must be. I’ve obviously been drawn here.
By whom? That’s the most dangerous question.
The shadow figure in my dream . . . it was the same spirit I felt before.
Death. A symbol? Some sort of warning? Was I being sent a message by my mother? Or some other being?
It certainly felt otherworldly.
There’s nothing else to do but move forward if I’m to find answers.
I begin to walk along the fae path, hand in hand with the prince, hesitant at first, but then faster. The pulse of something hums in the air around us. Stronger and stronger with each step. It pushes me forward. With each bend the hum grows. Louder, more insistent.
Until the trail opens into a small glade. The heartbeat of deep fae magic fills the air.
The doorway.
It’s there, right in front of us. Old as the gods themselves by the look of it.
Stone edifices stand like sentinels in two rows, three on each side. At the end of the path grows the largest oak tree I’ve ever seen, split down the middle. Thick knotted limbs arch towards each other, as if seeking to embrace. Roots run like fat snakes in and out of the dark earth, spring water bubbling up around them, creating a small mirror pool right where the passage is.
I step forward, mesmerized for a moment, and something cracks underfoot. The sound jars through me, and I look down, spotting a white stick beneath me. Several of them. They pave the earth like a stone road—
Wait.
Those aren’t sticks. They’re bones.
Leg bones, arm bones. A skull, a hip. They’re clustered together like morose cobblestone, in a collection of bleached death. Roots grow through eye sockets, out of jaws, over joints—a bone and earth pathway through the sacred glade, leading to the door.
The prince steps back, voice shaking. “What in the name of the saints is all of this?” His hand grips mine harder as he tries to pull me back, his fear the scent of charred wood.
“The way home,” I say, breathless. I’m shaking as well, though for a whole other reason.
I’m here. After three years of seclusion and separation, I’m actually here. Only paces away from my heart’s home. Right on the other side of those ancient trees, so close I can nearly hear the call of the owl nesting in the rafters, nearly smell the daffodils of my childhood glade.
Freedom, my guardian Lailoken, it’s all only breath away.
A lightness fills my chest, my power stirring in awareness, and I turn my glowing face to Julius, ready to tell him of the relief filling my heart—
The fear in his eyes cuts into me, dragging me back to the horrible reality we’re truly in. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong to my world.
Or to me.
But . . . I want him to. I want my heart to be bound to his.
If only there was a way.
“It’s a passage,” I say. I squeeze his hand in mine, hoping to comfort him a little.
“It’s a tomb,” he says, stepping back further. “This place is damned. We shouldn’t be here. How many dead are here? Why create such wickedness?”
A human would feel the magic of this glade like a warning. And it is, I suppose, something to keep the unwanted far away from the fae realms. But it shouldn’t create such a sudden panic, putting that wide look in his eyes, as if he sees the truth of the place. It should only tickle at the edges of his senses. The fact that he’s seeing the bones is, in itself, odd.
“Only death can create a doorway,” I say, hoping I can do what must be done quickly, that I can explain so he’ll understand. Things will be all right. They have to be. “It’s safe for me, but not for you.”
“How could it be safe for anything?” he asks.
I ignore his question and try to formulate the best way to tell him of the plan forming in my head. “We need to find a way home. Together, Julius.” Even as I speak the words, I feel how right they are. I want him to be mine. I want to be his. Wherever I go. “But first you must wait here,” I continue. “You’ll sit under the willow over there and keep focused on that oak tree there, keep your eyes on me as I cross to the other side. Then you’ll know I’ll come back. I’ll only be out of reach for a minute, perhaps two—I’ll hurry as quick as can be, I promise. We’ll find a way to be together. I won’t leave you.”
“What?” He squints at me, as if not hearing any of it. His eyes are darting from the bones to the mirror pool at the base of the doorway, then back to the path behind us.
I brace his arms and turn him to face me, trying to be sure he snaps out of his fear and hears me. “You need to focus, Julius. I’m going to go through those trees and bring back my guardian. He’ll help us find our way down this path to safety. When I cross, we’ll stay within eyesight of each other. I promise. But you mustn’t follow me, do you understand? It’s not safe for you.” I turn back to the stones. “There’s something that could be one its way—”
Julius shrugs me off. “No. There is no way in hell I’m letting you go in there.” He shakes his head and then grabs me by the wrist as if he could stop me. “I won’t, I can’t�
�”
“Yes, you can,” I insist, tired of this struggle. This fool protective nature of his, curse or otherwise, is going to send me running mad. He needs to stop telling me what to do. “This is my world, Julius. You need to trust me for once.”
“Then you’re taking me.”
I release a frustrated breath. “For Danu’s sake, don’t you hear a word I’m saying?” I jerk from his grip. “I told you, it’s not safe. You could die, you fool!” The magic of that doorway would rip his ignorant mind to shreds. “You can not follow me. This is no place for you. No place for any humans.”
“Then neither of us are going.”
I grit my teeth, tired of trying to explain without being able to truly explain because of the godslaw. “I must go if we’re to find our way out of here and be together—”
He shakes his head, anger lighting in his eyes.
A crackle of underbrush sounds in the distance, and leaves rustle nearby. The scent of something damp and sour fills the air.
The hair prickles at the back of my neck and I turn to look.
But he grabs me again, yanking me several yards away from the stones, heading back the way we came. “No. I won’t let you walk into such danger. Not after everything. We’ll find another way.”
I dig my heels in, trying to stop his retreat, my nerves sparking as we head back toward the denser wood. “No, Julius, let me go! We can’t go back!” I tug at his iron grip, my wrist aching. “Stop trying to control me! You’re going to get us stuck here!” I struggle harder, but he only squeezes tighter.
“Stop!” I scream, all of my will forming behind the word.
A raven’s cry fills the trees, drowning out my command with a thunderous screech.
Julius stops dead in his tracks, flinching. Then he smacks something on his neck. He stands for several seconds simply staring ahead, scratching at the spot, before he turns back to me, the strangest look filling his features.
He continues to scratch absently, muttering, “Something bit me. . .”
A shiver courses through him and into me as he lets go of my wrist. A nixie. Or perhaps a dreadbeetle. Something just attacked him, likely in its desire to defend me.
Spark and Sorrow Page 11
