However, the prospect of days versus hours did give her a sense of hope. Whether that feeling was false or justified, she would not know unless she made an effort to escape.
No, it must be a false hope. He’s just playing with me, she reasoned with herself, since the third term of her liberation could not be met, and since there was far more opportunity for temptation over the course of a little longer than a week.
“This is ridiculous. I can’t keep walking if I don’t know how to get where I’m going.” She tossed her bag to the ground and sat down against a tree that looked exactly like the one she had been resting against a few hours ago. Not only did she feel like she was walking in circles, but she knew that her mind was certainly thinking in circles. “Please, mother Goddess, let me wake up and find that this was all just a dream. Let this just be a dream. Like The Wizard of Oz,” she muttered, dropping her head against her hands.
“I hardly think that sort of whining will get you out of here.”
She looked up at the sound of the voice. “Excuse me?” she asked, when she realized another person stood in the ghostly forest, looking down at her.
The man standing before her smiled wryly. “The Goddess forsook the land and the people of Faerie long ago.”
“That’s so sad,” Khiara said, not sure how else to respond.
“Isn’t it? We’re supposed to have the magick to survive on our own. There are all sorts of hopeful prophecies about it, but we seem to wither away a little more each thirteen-moon, dying slowly and painfully.”
“Prophecies?” Khiara’s curiosity was piqued, and she asked, “By whom?”
“Don’t worry. You’re not in any of them. It certainly isn’t up to Ronan to repopulate this world.” The stranger chortled and Khiara realized he was laughing at her.
She felt nonsensically indignant that a stranger would stop just to converse with her, and then mock her. “I see.” Grabbing her bag, she rose to her feet quickly.
“I didn’t mean to offend you.” He reached out to forestall her. “You’re a very pretty mortal. It’s just that your fate has very little to do with ours. Mortals seem to think they matter more than they do, you know. But whether you stay or go won’t really affect the fate of the Otherworld.”
“Ah.” Khiara nodded and turned away from him.
Before she could take a step, he spoke again. “My name is Liam. I am what you might call a bard.” She turned back and he bowed slightly from the waist. Since she had a moment to look at him, Khiara took that time to appreciate his handsomeness. He was about five inches taller than her, with short dark hair cut close to his head. His eyes were a chestnut shade of brown, and Khiara noticed a tattoo on his chest partially concealed by his forest green tunic. Liam had the typical traits and energy of the fae.
Watch your ass with this one, she told herself. “I had no idea that bards still existed,” she said, trying not to stare at him. For some reason she found him compellingly attractive, which gave her all the more reason to be on her guard. She was not one to focus on looks, so she wondered if he was working some type of spell or glamour to draw her interest.
“Then you should have probably paid more attention growing up, since that knowledge might have saved you now.” Liam looked rather amused at her expense, and Khiara remembered her initial urge to hit him, rather than hit on him. “Of course, they do say ignorance is bliss,” the bard continued. “But you really should have seen the signs. The convergence of your Saturn return and the ninth anniversary of the night you tried to kill Ronan? By the way, not good, Khiara. Not good at all. You know how decimated our numbers are.”
“So, what? Now you’re going to scold me for being a cold-blooded faerie murderer?” Khiara asked in disbelief. “He tried to force himself on me. In the mortal realm, a person has a right to defend herself from unwanted physical contact.”
He put his hands up defensively. “I’m not judging. I’m just saying that you haven’t exactly ingratiated yourself with the realm of Faerie.” Liam shrugged. “Far too many of our people would love to see you stay here and repay that debt, especially in the form of a life for a life.”
“And I suppose you’re one of them.” Khiara realized that every conversation she had been involved in today seemed to come down to a fight, first with Ronan and now with this guy.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind helping to repopulate Faerie with you,” he answered with a wickedly seductive grin, leaning close to her, his arm resting just above her head against the tree. “Didn’t you realize you were going to meet me? I made it all too obvious, you know. Your friend must have told you all about me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” She looked at him in confusion and thought back over the past two weeks. Finally, her conversation with Cate came back to her. “Bard… Barden.” Khiara slapped her forehead and rolled her eyes.
“Too bad your friend was so smitten with me,” he said. “I put on the form that would be most appealing to her. As you can see, I do have hair. Well, a little.” He rubbed the dark, close cut hair on his head. “Faerie glamour works every time, you know. Well, almost every time. You saw through it a little too well with poor Ronan, and then you not only tried to kill him – you broke his heart. That was probably the worst part.”
“Broke Ronan’s heart?” Khiara barked out a laugh. “He has no heart.”
“Every faerie has a heart, as much as you do.” There was a reprimand in his voice.
“Then they really ought to stop deceiving humans and playing with mortal hearts!” Khiara yelled, and ducked under his arm to walk away as quickly as she could. “From what I understand, you toyed with Cate’s emotions, and that certainly doesn’t make you a person I would trust or take advice from.”
She heard him running to catch up to her after a moment, and then he grasped her arm and swung her around to face him.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” she yelled, pulling away from him.
“You are a jumpy one, aren’t you?” he asked. “I have no intention of harming you, or even offering you faerie food and drink.”
“Then what do you want?” She glared at him, her eyes narrowed and her hands clutching the strap of her bag.
“I want to assist you in your quest.”
“Ha! Please tell me how disappointing Cate is going to help me.”
“Ouch.” He placed his hands over his chest. “You wound me, milady. I am but a chivalrous gentleman who wishes to help rescue a damsel in distress.”
“Very well, I’ll ask another question. What do you stand to gain by helping me?” Khiara demanded to know.
“Why would I do it for personal gain?” Liam blinked at her and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Oh, stop playing innocent with me. Faeries don’t do something for nothing,” Khiara hissed. “I know that much from personal experience. You have too much to gain by demanding a high price for your so-called assistance.”
“That is very true, milady.” Liam winked at her. “It’s simple. I help you get out of here, and you give me a faerie child.”
Khiara shook her head vigorously. “I can’t do that for two reasons.”
“And they would be?”
“First of all, I can’t just have a baby and let you take it from me. That’s not the way human women work. At least, I couldn’t do that,” she amended, aware of the unfortunate number of indifferent mothers in her world. “And, secondly, you know full well that I can’t leave here even if I find the gate in Ronan’s palace. He decreed that someone who loves me has to come and retrieve me. So I can journey until my feet are bloody, and I will if that’s what it takes. But finding that gate is no guarantee that I can get through it. I need that connection to the mortal world.”
Liam rubbed his chin and then said, “Suppose I can bring that connection to you?”
“I might take you up on an offer like that,” Khiara answered, “if such a love existed. But your price is far too high and, like you, I’m not foolish enough to give
you something for nothing.”
With that, Khiara turned and continued her journey.
As she walked, even a half-hour later – according to her watch, anyway – Khiara realized that Liam was still traveling alongside her. He was not in her sight, nor did he make a sound, but she felt his presence as he walked silently among the trees, pacing her every step. She rolled her eyes up at the sky. He was one faerie who would not give up, which could be even more troublesome to her than Ronan had ever been. She was not sure what he wanted, but she was fairly certain he was not trying to help her out of the kindness of his heart. Faeries were notoriously deceitful, greedy, and selfish, as she had seen in Ronan’s behavior, past and present.
With a sigh of frustration, she sank to the ground. It was getting dark, and she was exhausted and wondering where she would sleep. She was grateful that she felt neither hungry nor thirsty, but she did not know if that was just because she was so focused on escaping, or if that was normal for the Otherworld.
She rifled through her messenger bag and sighed again. She had no provisions; certainly nothing that would make sleeping on the ground more tolerable. With no other choice, Khiara laid her head on the bag, closed her eyes, and drifted into a fitful slumber.
****
Although the afternoon and evening had been completely indiscernible from one another, the sound of birdsong heralded the Otherworld morning.
Khiara pushed herself upright and rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she felt the sun warming her body. She rose to her feet to stretch and look around the forest. The path she had traveled the previous day looked substantially darker in the morning light, the path ahead of her a bit greener and less wild.
Even though she felt that she was alone, she found two shrubs that formed a tight little circle, and took advantage of the privacy to deal with her bathroom needs. Without food or drink, she realized this would not be a frequent problem. Thankful for small favors, she zipped her jeans and stepped out into the open.
Picking up her bag, she looked up and down the path. Part of her was concerned that the darker path was actually the one she was supposed to follow; that the green, bright path might end up being the easy road further into faerie, and away from her goal, while the harder road was really the one that would bring her to Ronan’s palace and to the gate that could send her home.
Wishing she possessed a natural sense of direction, she looked up at the sun to try to gauge. Did it rise in the east and set in the west in this realm, or travel in a completely different direction?
“Oh, it goes the same way here as it does in your world.”
“Crap!” Khiara jumped at Liam’s voice.
“Sorry. I forgot how skittish you could be. How did you sleep?” He looked well-rested and a little too seductively roguish for Khiara’s tastes as he leaned against one of the trees, a brilliant red apple in his hand. His chestnut gaze was much too direct for her comfort, and she felt a shudder of warmth flow through her. It was very different from the reaction she was accustomed to having around Ronan, but she focused on her goal for the day.
“How do you think I slept?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh, we’re going to play that game?” He grinned at her and then took a bite out of his apple.
She gritted her teeth and shook her head. She had a feeling he would powerfully outmatch her in a battle of wits.
“So, it seems you’re wondering which way to go.” He approached her to stand on the path beside her, and pressed his index finger to his lips. “Back the way you came, because, after all, the hard road might actually be the correct one. Or you wonder if you should take the friendly-looking green path, because it certainly seems nicer.”
“Very perceptive of you,” Khiara said as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
He glanced around, and then looked at her again. “In all honesty, the forest is probably the safest place for you to stay, but it isn’t the way home.”
“Oh?” Khiara glanced back down the darker side of the path. “How could that possibly be safer?”
“In this particular forest there are fewer faeries and fewer temptations, not counting me, of course.” He grinned again and made a finger-gun gesture at her, as if well aware of his attractiveness. Khiara made a “get-on with it” motion and he nodded. “Right. So, the whole point of being stuck in the Otherworld is to face the challenges of the realm, isn’t it? But you won’t make any progress toward home if you wander around, untested, through the forest. That would hardly be a quest worthy of a potential faery princess.”
“So you’re saying I didn’t cover all those miles for nothing?” Khiara confirmed, suddenly feeling giddy with relief.
“Correct. You chose the right direction. That direction may look all sweetness and light, but don’t kid yourself. Things only get trickier from here on out. You would probably be safer with someone to accompany you.”
“Oh? Such as whom?” she asked, putting her hand on her hip and looking him up and down. “Someone like you, I suppose?”
“Well, I’m not one to brag, but I do know my way around the Otherworld,” Liam said, brushing his fingernails across his tunic. “And you’ve already fallen for one of the classic passive-aggressive faerie tactics by wondering whether or not you had chosen the right road.”
Khiara nodded and tightened her grip on the strap of her messenger bag. “So that first day was really just to give me a chance to doubt myself?”
“More or less,” Liam said. “And even though you didn’t exactly face any trials or ordeals, the first day totally counts toward your nine. Everything counts here, after all. So you are down by one.”
“Great.” Khiara could not bite back the sarcasm. “It sounds like if I want out of here, I have to keep going until I can’t go anymore.”
“Ah, but there’s also that tricky clause about you not being able to leave without your true love coming to find you.”
She glared at Liam. “I don’t remember saying ‘true love’.”
“Well, that’s generally what the whole idea of someone who loves you coming to your rescue means. All that faery tale nonsense you mortals eat up.” He opened and closed his fingers like a mouth, “Once upon a time, blah blah blah, happily ever after.”
“Don’t get all bardic on me.” Khiara smacked his hand, then turned and walked down the lighter, greener path, into the warm sunshine.
“Hey, I didn’t make the rules. I’m just telling you about them.” Liam fell into step next to her. He tossed the apple aside and said, “The person who comes for you has to be more than a good friend or blood relation. It has to be a soul mate.”
“A what?” Khiara slanted a narrow-eyed glare at him.
“A soul mate. You know. That term used by mortals to over-romanticize the relationship they have with their partners?”
She turned away and shook her head.
“What?”
“I only know one person that I think of in that way, and I know for a fact he doesn’t feel the same way about me,” she muttered, as she continued to walk.
“Maybe he does feel the same way about you, but he doesn’t realize it. Have you tried telling him about your feelings?”
With that reminder of the perfect mess she had created between herself and Sean, Khiara felt her annoyance hit its breaking point. “Are all bards as annoying as you?” she snapped.
“What’s so annoying about me?” Liam’s tone of voice rose with disbelief and he looked at her with wide eyes.
“This talk about soul mates and love bullshit, for one thing.”
“Ouch.” Liam pressed his hands to his chest. “You don’t believe in it?”
“I believe in it about as much as I believe I’ll ever let Ronan have what he wants.” Khiara kept walking, her focus on the path. “And I believe you’re just doing this to tick me the hell off.”
“A lack of faith in love hardly makes for a fulfilling life.”
“Oh, really? Who are you to ju
dge?” Khiara whirled to glower at him. “You’re a faerie and you deceive people into being attracted to you. Meanwhile, your kind don’t have the leisure to think about love, because you’re race is dying. Instead, it’s their mission to get laid as much as they can, in hopes of getting knocked up, or getting mortal women knocked up, and then taking their babies away to strengthen the faerie race. All you people want are brood mares, so who are you to scold me about love when you’ve forgotten how it even feels?”
Liam faced her and said, “You’re right; we do have to procreate for survival. But you’re wrong about us forgetting what love is. Just because it isn’t a priority for us, that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be able to find love too. We wish we had the leisure to make a priority of something that you, and many other mortals, take for granted. It must be nice to be able to be so cavalier about something like love.”
Hearing the pain in his voice, Khiara turned to apologize.
But he had already disappeared.
Chapter 8
The path led into a small village, which Khiara had not expected. She had envisioned the Faerielands as a place of flowery fields and crystal palaces, not gray skies and withered forests. Nor did she think faeries lived in large enough groups to form a village of simple homes made from bark and thatched with straw, but there they were. She saw several houses, faerie men and women at work in the fields and around the homes, and a few children playing outdoors.
Reminding herself of Liam’s words that some of the faeries would like to see her punished for her actions almost a decade ago, she gripped the strap of her bag and set off with grim determination into the village. She knew faeries were capable of deceit; she did not know if they were capable of outright hostility. It seemed that encountering faeries on her journey was inevitable, though, and it was a chance that she would have to take.
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