Katy looked back down at the plate and realized she was starving. After weeks of bread and water in the dungeon, the first taste of eggs and cheese was divine. She closed her eyes with pleasure as the salty warmth slid down her throat. Unfortunately, with the feeling of satisfaction came the violent return of her memories from the night before.
She’d frightened Lady Muirin.
Antony had chased her from the castle.
She’d blown the whistle.
Antony had followed her into the forest, refusing to give up on the chase, but just when she’d been nearly unable to control her defensive instincts any longer, a figure clad in a gray cloak had leapt between them. The last thing she recalled was falling asleep in his arms as he’d swept her down from her horse and run deeper into the wood with her. Katy groaned as she rested her head in the hand that wasn’t holding the fork.
“I’m sorry to have put you to sleep,” he said, not looking at her again, his shoulders hunched over like a boy being scolded. “But your power was too strong. I was afraid you might let it loose while the knight was around.” He peeked up at her through a stray lock of hair. “I could tell you’d worked hard not to kill him, though he probably deserved it.”
“I…Thank you.” Katy tried to summon a smile and drew a deep breath in. “You were right.” She glanced around again. “I hope I don’t seem ungrateful, but where am I?”
“Oh, of course!” He gave a little start and ran over to the other side of the room, where he pulled back a curtain that Katy hadn’t noticed was there. Katy gasped as it revealed a window much wider than any she’d seen even at the castle. Her room appeared to be on an upper floor of whatever building they were in, and it looked down over a wide balcony on miles and miles of trees.
“This is my home. Again, I hope you don’t mind. This used to be a fort before the Olc War. At least, I think it was. But the crown abandoned it after.” He affectionately patted the crumbling wall. “It’s certainly seen better days, but it does a decent job of keeping us warm.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“My parents brought the family here when we were small. It’s been my home for almost my entire life.”
Katy leaned in toward the window. Her body ached, but she ignored it. “Are we in the middle of the forest?” I can’t even see the end of the trees!” She studied them for a moment. “Why are so many of them dying?” Indeed, while the trees directly surrounding the fort’s walls were green, those just outside the walls were mostly brown, as if in a drought.
“That is a long story for another day, and it has much to do with my brother. For now, however,” he said, hopping down from the window sill and going to stand beside her, “this window faces the inner part of the isle. If you looked out of my window, you’d see the ocean. This building is located right on the outermost bluff of the southeastern corner of the isle.”
“Oh.” Katy ran through her memories, trying to drag up the maps that Sir Christopher had once taught her. “So the castle is north...”
“Northwest of here. About a six-hour ride, closer to the center of the isle.” His forehead puckered a little. “Are you wishing to return already?”
The suggestion alone was absurd. Antony would be no less keen on killing her today than he had the night before. But still, she had promised to wait for Peter...Katy thought for a moment before answering slowly. “Not now. But I promised my friend that I would wait for him. He’s been out, trying to find a way to help me.”
The small frown slipped from the young man’s face. “Rogue knights aside, what do you need help with?”
Katy looked down at her hands. Talking to this man about her struggles seemed so strange. She had only ever discussed such things with Peter and Firin Reaghan.
But the man had wings. Surely, if anyone understood her magic, he would.
“You heard the waterfall. I’m an olc. My manifestation will be taking place in just weeks. And the closer I get, all I seem to do is bring more and more pain to those around me.” She sighed again. “Peter was going out to search for a way to save me from it. So I could stop hurting people.” Her voice cracked at the end.
To her surprise, the young man took her hands. His skin was cool against the heat in her palms. “You don’t need to be afraid. I told you, I know what you are. I’ve always known.”
Katy gently withdrew her hands and sat up straighter in the bed. “How long have you been watching me? Truly.”
“In earnest?” He bit his bottom lip. “Since the day you were born.”
Katy blinked at him. Had she heard that right?
“I’ve known who you were since the day you were born, when your parents were summoned by the High Chancel. Everybody knew. Autumn fairies are rare, and you were no exception. But for some reason, instead of meeting with the Chancel, your parents ran. And they came here.”
“Sir Christopher said he saved me from olcs who were trying to take me.” Katy frowned.
“You were a month old when my parents caught up to yours. But they weren’t trying to hurt you. They just couldn’t understand your parents’ reason for bringing you here. Unfortunately, I believe your parents were too afraid to listen and thought they were under attack.”
Katy thought about this for a long moment. Then she stiffened. “Were you the one who chased Peter—”
“Oh no!” He knelt at her side again, his green eyes pleading. “That was my brother, Tearlach!” He ran a hand through his messy black hair. “He means well, of course, but he can be a bit...brutish in his methods. I fear he never got over the death of our parents. And once they were gone, he believed it his duty to continue their mission and bring you back.”
“And you didn’t?”
“I wanted you with us, of course. You belong with your own kind. But the older you got...and the older I got, the more I realized that you cared for the humans. It would have been cruel to drag you from everything you knew. That’s why I helped you find your way back in the storm on the mountain. My brother was angry when he realized what I’d done.” He drew circles with his fingers on the side of the bed, tracing the seams in the cloth, “But I knew it had to be your decision to come to us. Not the other way around.”
“I see.”
The room was silent for a few minutes as Katy tried to sort all his words out in her head. Part of her wanted to believe him. Part of her wanted to jump up as fast as she could and find Peter, wherever he was. But before she could make any kind of rational decision, there was something she needed to know.
“Did you kill Sir Christopher?”
The young man grimaced and his shoulders slumped. “No. But my brother did. And I’m very sorry for it.”
Katy closed her eyes. Relief and pain flooded her at the same time.
“So,” she began, eyes still closed, “you’re an olc then, like me?” When she opened her eyes this time, however, she found a smile like sunshine upon his face, and his green eyes were suddenly flecked with metallic silver.
“Yes. But no one calls us olcs on any of the other isles.”
Katy’s heart stuttered a little. “What are we called then?”
He leaned forward, his face so bright it nearly glowed. “Fairies.”
42
Brilliance
Two days passed before Katy felt well enough to leave the room. She hadn’t realized how little Antony was feeding her until Aedan had brought her several meals and her strength began to return. She might have stayed in her new room even longer had it not been for her host’s promise to teach her more about fairies.
“You cannot teach me here?” she had asked wistfully.
“I could,” he’d paused, “but you would learn far more if you were to see it for yourself.”
Katy had stared for a long moment at the spark in his warm green eyes, and had finally agreed. If showing her what a fairy was was really that important to him, she could certainly wait a few days. It wasn’t as though she had anything better to do with her tim
e.
On the third day of her rescue, however, after being told again and again that she needed her rest and that discussion could wait, Katy decided she was strong enough to walk about. And though her legs protested, she pushed herself out of bed. She realized as she stood, however, that the fine dress Lady Muirin had brought to her in the dungeon was no longer fine at all, or even fit to be seen in public. But what was she to wear?
Tentatively, she reached out and dared to touch one of the gowns draped over the chair by the fire. There were at least five, each more exotic and delicate than the last. Their wispy, airy material shimmered when it touched the sun. And the colors! Looking at them was like gazing at a rainbow. Budding green, rose pink, sky blue, daffodil pink, and purple the shade of lilacs, they were all breathtaking. Surely they weren’t meant for her. But then, why would he have placed them in her room? After fifteen minutes of deliberation, Katy finally chose the simplest of the gowns, the pale green, and dared to put it on.
The dress was far more fitted than anything Katy had ever worn, and looking at herself in the mirror, she felt her cheeks flush. Instead of squeezing her bodice and then spilling down her hips and over her legs like a bell, as the gowns back at the castle had, this dress elegantly hugged her entire frame, draping over her gentle curves like a waterfall down a mountainside. The skirt was several inches too long, but Katy would have no trouble fixing that. Just as she prepared to step out of her room, however, an unfamiliar alteration to the back of the gown caught her eye.
Two slits had been cut and hemmed into the fabric, running all the way down from her shoulder blades to the middle of her back. Katy frowned at them for a moment before the realization struck her that these dresses had been made for a fairy.
They had been made for her.
Katy stared in awe at the bare skin that peeked out from the holes. Would she truly have wings to fill these one day? What would wings feel like? Would they be heavy? Aedan’s transparent green-and-black wings were certainly beautiful to behold, but they were on Aedan. They fit him. Though she’d only seen them a few times, as he often kept them covered with a cloak, Katy couldn’t imagine him without them now.
But on her?
She was suddenly rather sure she didn’t want to know.
After much deliberation, she decided to let her hair down so it flowed freely to cover up the holes, and only then did she feel comfortable enough to leave the room.
Finding Aeden wasn’t difficult. She followed the sound of whistling down several flights of crumbling stone steps, past a towering entrance or what looked like one, to a neat kitchen with a ridiculously large fireplace, to where he was hauling a basket of vegetables through a little garden just outside the window. She found a side door and peeked through it, but despite her attempt at moving stealthily, the moment the door opened, he turned. When he saw her, his face broke into a grin.
“You’re feeling better!”
She dared a small smile and nodded. “I hope you didn’t mind me borrowing a gown. But mine was dirty and—”
“Katrin,” he brushed the dirt off his hands and stood, “everything in that room is yours. You have no need to apologize for anything.”
Katy looked back down at the gown. “What do you mean, mine?”
“I mean, Tearlach and I brought them back from the other isles for you.”
“But...why?”
“Come, I need to fix these for our breakfast. We can talk as I work.” He bent and grabbed the basket with one hand while he reached to take the door from her with the other. Once they were inside, he set the basket down and began to clean the vegetables in a bucket of water.
“I told you that Tearlach and I are twins, didn’t I?”
“You said he was your brother.”
“Ah. Well then, yes, we are twins. Unfortunately, he was always the more ambitious, and I was happy to resign myself to, well,” he gestured at the food with his knife, “this. But even as boys, and especially after our parents died, we knew you were meant to live with your own kind. We decided to finish the work they began by making sure you knew one day what you were and where you belonged. My parents believed you were special. It’s why they sought your family out in the first place.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew what their initial reason was. I’m older than you, but I was still only seven when they died.” He paused for a moment then shook his head. “But the more Tearlach and I watched you grow, the more we could see that they were right.”
“You watched me in the forest.” The vague memory of green eyes flashed in her mind once again. Rain. The dark of night. Sir Christopher on his horse, galloping with her back toward home. She gasped. “You were there the night of the strawberry patch incident!”
He nodded cautiously. “I found you wandering the forest, crying. But then your Sir Christopher showed up and threatened me. I think he thought I was going to take you.”
“Were you?”
“My brother and I both wanted you with us. But it was I who cautioned him to wait and allow you time to make the decision to leave the humans on your own.” He sighed and stopped his chopping. “Unfortunately, when he had a second run-in with your Sir Christopher years later, the already strained hold I had on him slipped, and he nearly killed your Prince Peter as well when he fled back to the castle a day later.”
Katy’s throat grew too tight to talk, and her hands burned, so she simply listened.
“It was a miracle when we eventually discovered that we weren’t the only ones on the isle like us, as we had previously thought.”
“There are more?”
“Well, not that live here. But I think you might be interested to know that the fairies from the other isles have kept a special eye on you. Well, on all of us, actually. And when we found out about them, we followed them. It’s how we found our way to the other isles.” Suddenly, Aedan’s eyes gleamed, and he put the knife down. Grabbing two of the peaches from a basket on the table, he handed one to Katy. “How about we have a light breakfast this morning? I have something I think you’ll enjoy much more.”
He led them outside to an ancient courtyard. Strangely, however, it was completely bare. None of the weeds, ivy, or wildflowers that grew all around the little walls even touched it.
“What do you know of your power?” he asked, rolling up his sleeves.
Katy looked down at her hands. “I can kill living creatures, destroy crops, even make certain objects disintegrate.” A shiver went down her spine as she recalled the way she’d destroyed the crop outside Peter’s old home.
Instead of looking repulsed, however, Aeden only nodded, his eyes thoughtful. Then he smiled. “Watch this.” Reaching his hands up to the sky, he closed his eyes and made a quick turning motion with his wrists. Eyes still closed, he called out, “Do you prefer sunshine or rain?”
“In truth?” Katy allowed herself a smile. “I like rainbows.”
His grin grew. “Even better.” With his right hand, he continued to make turning motions with his wrist, and with his left, he gently moved back and forth as though drawing an invisible arc in the air. For a moment, nothing happened. And then Katy gasped.
The day had been clear and blue, but as he moved his hands, a cloud began to gather above their heads. Parts of it were as black as ash, but scattered throughout the stormy spots were holes that allowed the sky to peek through from above. A gentle misty rain began to fall.
And so did the rainbows. Dozens and dozens of rainbows layered themselves proudly above the forest before descending into the courtyard where they stood.
“What...” Katy tried to speak, but could only laugh as a little rainbow came to rest on her hand. “How?”
“How do you break things? It’s my cumhaght. All fairies have one.” He dropped his hands and the clouds began to clear just as quickly as they’d gathered.
Katy thought back to the books in the castle annals. “That’s why the humans fear olc—fairies, isn’t it? Because of our...abi
lities?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid most of their fears are baseless. My brother and I can affect the weather, but we can’t make ice. Ice fairies can’t make flowers bloom, and flower fairies can’t change the flow of lava, at least not very well.”
“Lava?”
“Something on another isle. My point is that we all have one, but most of us aren’t able to control more than one thing at a time. We’re not that different from humans, really. Some are skilled with pottery, and others can write or fish. We all have our calling.”
Katy sat on one of the little stone walls and changed the subject. “My gift certainly doesn’t seem as harmless or as helpful as those others you named.”
“It’s interesting.” He came to stand beside her. “I’ve met spring fairies, summer fairies, and winter fairies, but in the years we spent away from this place, I never met another autumn fairy like you.”
“Of course,” Katy let out a tight laugh. “Because that would mean I wasn’t a complete aberrance.”
Rather than answering, however, he simply studied her once more. Finally, he excused himself and darted around a corner. When he returned, he had a handful of long-stemmed rosebuds. He handed her a yellow one. “Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“Show me what you can do.”
Katy gave him a doubtful look but took the rose. Staring miserably at it, she couldn’t help wondering if this would be when he would take off running. Apparently, not even the other fairies had the awful cumhaght that she’d been given. She closed her eyes for a moment as she imagined pulling off the invisible gloves she kept around her hands, the gloves of willpower that she wore in her mind all the time, that prevented her from hurting others. When she opened her eyes again, the rose had not only opened and wilted, but its petals were ashen, all hint of yellow gone.
“There.” She threw it on the ground. “That is my gift. I bring death to all that delights.” She grimaced down at it. “On a really bad day, it will even catch fire.”
The Autumn Fairy Page 30
