The Tattered Lands

by Barbara Ann Wright

  “What is she saying?” Vandra asked, her voice rough.

  “What about the injured?” Lilani asked.

  Camilla shrugged. “They’ll stay here.”

  “She’s going to leave everyone else and take us to the pylons,” Lilani said in the human tongue.

  Vandra snarled and twisted. “No, Fieta! Pietyr! They’ll die!”

  Lilani barely detected a flex in Camilla’s arm before Vandra’s voice cut off. She gaped, mouth and eyes wide.

  “Stop it!” Lilani shouted. Vandra’s face began to redden. “She can’t breathe!”

  “If she wants to breathe,” Camilla said sweetly. “She’ll obey.”

  “Vandra, please,” Lilani said. “Faelyn and Lucian will stay with your siblings. Camilla won’t hesitate to kill them to get what she wants.”

  Vandra managed a nod. She sucked in a gulp of air as Camilla let her breathe again.

  “As long as you both comply, I’ll give the rest of you a chance,” Camilla said. “Otherwise, I’ll send someone back to kill them quickly.” She tilted her head. “Compared to the death they’ll find out here, that seems more of a mercy. Shall I do it?” She glanced between Vandra and Lilani. “No? Suit yourself.” She nodded ahead of them. “March.”

  Faelyn and the others had Vandra’s stones; they had the pylon piece. They’d be all right. Lilani wished she could say so, but she didn’t want to give Camilla any ideas about taking the stones or the piece away. It seemed the sort of game Camilla would like.

  In fact, why would Camilla leave enemies alive at her back? As if she’d seen it written, Lilani knew Faelyn and the others would be murdered as soon as she and Vandra were out of sight. Camilla would use the idea of them to keep Lilani and Vandra in line, but they’d be long dead. They were all dead; they just hadn’t realized it yet.

  Lilani planted her feet. Better to die here together, fighting. As much as the idea hurt her, it made so much sense. She had to make Camilla kill her, too, so she could go with them into whatever waited after death. She didn’t want to live with the sight of their lifeless corpses.

  “Move,” Camilla said.

  “No.” Lilani faced the mist. She couldn’t watch Vandra die and see a world of possibilities end forever. Would that have shamed a hero in a storybook? Did she care anymore?

  Camilla pulled Vandra to Lilani’s side. She frowned and seemed genuinely confused as she shook Vandra so hard, Lilani heard the rattle of teeth. “What are you waiting for?”

  Vandra gasped as she stilled, and her eyes met Lilani’s. Lilani smiled softly, trying to put everything she felt into that one look. Ignoring Camilla, Lilani said, “Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with you.”

  Vandra smiled back. “Probably a hormonal and psychological reaction to everything we’ve been through together.” She blushed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I love you, too.”

  Lilani chuckled and felt the tears start. They barely knew each other, and now they’d never get to find out all the little things that meant love could be real and not a passing passion.

  Camilla was still frowning. “Last chance, Lilani. Move!”

  One of the other seelie grabbed Lilani’s arm. She kicked him, and though it felt as if she’d struck a fence post, she kicked again, hitting and slapping. Something primitive rose up in her; if she was going to die, she would do all the damage she could before that final breath.

  When her captor cried out, she thought she’d scored a hit. She redoubled her efforts, and he tottered to the side. It was only then that she spotted the arrow in his back. Purple fletching: the color of royalty. Her mother had come.

  * * *

  Vandra twisted in Camilla’s grip, but she stood there staring at Lilani as if she couldn’t believe anyone would defy her.

  Vandra tried to move her left hand, but it flared with fiery pain at every twitch, probably broken. She jammed her right hand in her pocket and felt around for her fourth and last stone. Before Camilla could regain her senses. Vandra smashed the stone over her left shoulder, hitting Camilla in the face.

  With a cry, Camilla released her and staggered away. Blood poured from her nose, and the rest of her face gleamed red as if the stone had burned her. She snarled like a mad dog and drew a thin, cruel looking knife from her belt, something that might be used to strip away delicate flesh.

  Before she could advance, another stone struck her hard in the chest. Her cry sounded more like a roar as she backed away. Lucian staggered closer, another stone at the ready. Vandra risked a look around. Faelyn held the pylon piece, shielding the twins. Lilani had bested her attacker and turned, her eyes meeting Vandra’s in joyous relief. They could do this; they could win. She didn’t know how, but—

  Camilla disappeared. Vandra swore. There had to be a way to prevent them from doing that! Cries sounded around them, and Vandra heard the clash of weapons coming from the fog.

  Lilani hurried over, clasping one arm around Vandra’s shoulders. “My mother is here. Stay close.”

  Vandra let out a sob of relief and let herself lean into Lilani, even with the muck and the blood spattered over them both. They loved each other, and if they could all stand together, they might live through this.

  Lucian fell to the side as if pushed. Vandra reached for him, but her ribs howled in pain as something smashed into her. She fell onto Lucian, catching her damaged wrist and making her scream as the two points of pain met somewhere in her middle and compounded each other. Someone called her name, and she tried to roll, to see. Lilani was reaching out, fading by degrees as if shrouded by someone else.

  Camilla. Vandra felt the dread, smelled that same perfume. Lilani’s cry cut off as she vanished, and Vandra felt a rush of wind as Camilla carried her away.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Vandra struggled to her feet, searching for footprints on the spongy ground, for eddies in the mist, anything that might tell her where Lilani had gone. Before she could take more than a few steps, a seelie appeared before her. Vandra stumbled back, the stone she’d used to get free from Camilla in her grasp. She held it up, but this seelie didn’t shrink, her glare turning slightly confused as she barred Vandra’s path.

  She had dark hair, and her skin was nearly the same dark brown as Vandra’s instead of the corpse pallor of the enemy seelie. What was it Lilani had said? Her mother had come.

  Vandra pointed away. “We have to follow Lilani! They have her; do you understand?”

  This seelie only frowned harder. Vandra turned, looking for Faelyn. “Tell them we have to—”

  Seelie appeared everywhere, surrounding Vandra and her friends along with a few dead, pale seelie. Several newcomers helped Lucian stand, and more knelt beside Faelyn. He was gesturing to the twins and talking rapidly with a woman who had blue hair.

  Like Lilani.

  Vandra hurried over. “Faelyn, they took Lilani. We have to go after them.”

  “They’re being pursued as we speak,” Faelyn said. He took Vandra’s hand. “Dyrana, Empress of the Seelie Court, may I present Professor Vandra Singh of Citran.”

  Vandra wanted to gawk and bow and stammer about how it was nice but also very awkward to meet the mother of the woman she loved, but none of that mattered at the moment. “Empress, please, I want to follow your daughter, to save her.”

  The empress tilted her head. She wore intricate leather armor and held a sword that seemed like a long needle. Her hair was pinned up behind her head, but the ends twitched as if it was desperate to be free. She stared at Vandra with eyes as hard as amethysts, and there was something immeasurable in her gaze, as if she had a well of time behind her eyes.

  Vandra fought the urge to look away, to be made smaller by that stare. She’d come this far. She’d face whatever stood between her and Lilani, even the accusation in the eyes of someone who seemed more goddess than woman.

  The empress’s look softened as if she saw something in Vandra she liked. Vandra didn’t know if it signaled acquiescence or not,
but she’d take whatever she could get. She looked to her siblings again. She hated to leave them, but…

  “I’ll look after them,” Faelyn said. “Go, bring her back.”

  She squeezed his hand again, wishing she could take Fieta and Pietyr, but the seelie seemed to be treating them well. Her eyes met Pietyr’s, and he nodded. Fieta would spit and swear when she woke up, but Pietyr could keep her calm.

  Vandra retrieved her stones and tucked them away. She put her wounded hand in her jacket pocket and tried not to jostle it as she moved. A host of seelie gathered around her, the empress with them. Two of them put their hands on her shoulders before they disappeared. Then Vandra felt their gentle push. She kept her eyes pinned on the mist before her and ran.

  * * *

  Lilani remembered struggling, reaching for help. Vandra had reached back, but Lilani drifted farther away. No! She and Vandra had finally found each other, kissed each other. Lilani had admitted the love that had been growing inside her like the light of the rising sun, and Vandra had said she’d loved Lilani, too. This couldn’t be the end of them.

  But Camilla’s perfume and dread wrapped around her like tar, suffocating her. She’d pulled Lilani and Vandra apart and struck Lilani in the head. Now the wind rushed over Lilani’s skin. But it was never really windy in the tattered lands. It somehow managed to be cold and humid, the foul air barely moving. Was she falling? No, her body jolted up and down, and something hard dug into her ribs.

  Shoulders. She lay across someone’s shoulders. For a moment, she dared hope that someone she loved was carrying her. Vandra. Faelyn. Lucian. Her mother. The purple fletching meant her mother had come.

  No. The perfume. The taint. Camilla. Her arms curled around Lilani’s arms and legs, and she moved swiftly, though her breath rattled. She’d been wounded. If Lilani could stop her, maybe by falling, Lilani’s mother and Vandra could catch up. They had to be chasing her. She’d never believe otherwise.

  She jerked, and Camilla sucked in a breath, but her grip only tightened. She didn’t even bother to speak.

  “We have to slow down,” someone else said in gasps.

  Lilani opened her eyes but saw nothing but the mist rushing by. A wave of vertigo swept over her, and she closed her eyes again. She hadn’t seen Camilla or the speaker, but she knew his voice. Maruk.

  “Keep running,” Camilla said, and she sounded tired, too, but she didn’t slow.

  If Maruk was here, they were no doubt trying to complete their plan for the pylon. Lilani tried to fight Camilla’s grip, but all she could do was shudder. When Camilla’s fingers threatened to break her flesh instead of bruise it, Lilani ceased moving. Camilla wasn’t going to stop, and if she did speak, it would only be a reminder that Lilani didn’t have to stay in one piece or something equally gruesome.

  Lilani stilled, waiting, terror and dread clogging her throat with bile. She tried to will it away. As soon as Camilla set her down, she would run, fight, anything she could do to slow them down.

  When she felt a bit of heat upon her shoulders, she risked opening her eyes again. They’d emerged from the fog into the sunlight at last. Lilani drew a deep breath, tamped down her fear, and braced herself, looking for the pylon, for the Seelie Forest. Her mother would have stationed someone at the pylon, someone waiting for those who’d gone into the tattered lands to emerge.

  But as Camilla flipped Lilani over her shoulders, Lilani gasped. When she hit the ground and the wave of dizziness passed, she glanced around. They weren’t at the pylon near the forest or even the next closest one she’d seen with Vandra. She had no idea which pylon this was, no idea where in the human lands she was.

  She jolted upward, trying to run. Anywhere in the human lands was better than here with the tattered seelie, but Camilla grabbed her collar, and her legs slipped out from under her. Movement caught her eye. A cadre of human soldiers milled around the pylon’s base.

  “Hey!” Lilani cried. “Here! Help!”

  When Camilla didn’t bother to quiet her, Lilani knew it was already too late. The humans turned toward her voice, but they would see nothing. Before Lilani could speak again, the humans began to fall, throats cut, faces slashed. They drew their weapons and shouted, turning in circles, but all of them fell soon after, a pile of dead where there had been life. Lilani fell to her knees and retched.

  Three tattered seelie appeared at the pylon’s base. Lilani groaned as Camilla jerked her upright and dragged her forward. Their shroud dropped, and Lilani saw Maruk by Camilla’s side. He carried a large pack and hurried toward the pylon, unpacking as he went.

  “Don’t do this,” Lilani said.

  Camilla didn’t bother to respond, all her compliments dried up now that her plan was coming to fruition. Or maybe she was just too tired. Lilani knew how that felt.

  “Please, Camilla,” Lilani said, willing to make friends with this monster if that was what it took. “You can stay in the tattered lands, and no one will bother you.”

  Camilla barked a laugh. “Is that what you think I want? To not be bothered?” She sighed. “I want the seelie to be whole again, with room to spread out, to grow, room to breed.”

  Lilani gawked. It was a speech her mother might have made. “You want…children?”

  “For all the seelie. We can’t live out here.” She squinted at the little sun left in the day. “But the rest of the seelie can adapt to the tattered lands. You’ll all be stronger.” She shrugged. “Well, maybe not you, Lilani. But soon, everyone will appreciate your sacrifice.”

  Lilani’s bile rose again, along with her fear and anger. So, this would be the death of her. “If you think our people will thank you, the tattered lands have twisted you more than I thought. Your shroud protected your body, but your mind is monstrous. How else could you think about sacrificing one of your own and dooming those of us who can’t shroud well? And that’s not to mention the humans who won’t blindly follow you, who won’t want to spend their lives cowering in old towers inside a world that wants to consume them!”

  Camilla reached the bottom of the pylon and stopped. “That was a pretty speech. I hope it gave you some comfort.” She looked to Maruk. “Ready?”

  He gestured at a sheet of metal he’d placed on the ground. It was connected to the pylon, and more wires led from the metal to a rod half buried in the ground.

  Lilani tensed. If Camilla put her on the metal and released her, she’d bolt. They’d catch her immediately, but she had to—

  Camilla shoved her to the ground, Lilani brought her hands up instinctively, right on top of the metal sheet. She tried to cry out, tried to tamp down her magic, but as soon as her hands touched the metal, her body went limp, her magic pouring out of her like a river.

  Pain flared, bright and hot, filling every corner of her body. She wanted to scream, but her mouth wouldn’t obey. She couldn’t stand this; she would burst under the pressure! Thought abandoned her, all except the wish for death, for anything to make the pain stop.

  It cut off like a switch, taking vision and hearing with it. In the depths of her mind, she said a thousand thanks to anyone or anything that was responsible for freeing her. Slowly, a blue glow suffused her vision, surrounding her, one with her. Her magic? The magic of the pylon? Awith must have felt something like this when she sacrificed herself, her magic joining with the pylons, with the syndrium, becoming one with it. But Lilani wasn’t joining with anything; she felt her own magic pulling power from the pylon and guiding it back into the ground, into veins of syndrium that crossed beneath the land. She flowed with that power, seeing the network of veins that ran from shore to shore.

  The light flared brightest beneath the Court and the forest, the syndrium in the land so vital it infused the people who walked over it, who were born among it. Wherever the humans went, the lines of syndrium darkened, interrupted by mining. When they pulled it from the ground, they gave up something precious, the difference between them and the seelie. Maybe they’d been one people sometime in the
distant past, and pulling the syndrium from the earth had turned the humans into something else. Maybe the seelie scholars were right, and the humans had even created the tattered lands by taking the natural magic from the ground and bending it to their will.

  So, Camilla was actually returning the magic to the land. If Lilani could have laughed, she would have.

  Putting the magic back underground wouldn’t stop the tattered lands. That took concentrated magic like the pylons, but now they were dwindling. Lilani’s power and Maruk’s alchemy pulled the magic from this pylon and the others, their power connected by the syndrium running through the ground and now the strength of Lilani’s magic, the blood of Awith.

  Lilani tried to stop it, to do whatever Awith had done to strengthen instead of drain, but she didn’t know what to do, felt as if she was trying to hold an armload of sand. She felt for the veins of syndrium, tried to will the pylon’s magic to stop flowing into them, but the magic ignored her as if it belonged to someone else. She cast about desperately, searching for a solution among the humans, among the seelie, anything!

  Here and there along the land, she saw sprouts of light, as if the syndrium pushed from the ground like trees. Not pylons, but the lights were hooked into the same magic all over the world, even among the mists of the tattered lands, little blooms of light that held against the darkness.

  The elders: those seelie who’d retreated from life, who never moved or spoke, who barely seemed alive, some of them shrouded for so long their locations had been forgotten. They’d tapped into the syndrium of the world, existing as she did now, their consciousness moving slowly along rivers of light.

  “Help me,” she whispered.

  She felt their attention turn to her. They weren’t used to thinking quickly, flowing as they did with the earth. They were the consequences of giving in to the magic, the polar opposite of the humans ripping it from the ground, and both options seemed less than ideal.