by May Dawson
“Thanks,” I said as we closed up back-to-back. “I thought you told me not to start a game of payback with you. That looked like you paying me back.”
He snorted. “I thought maybe you could stick around long enough for me to find out if you’re really evil or not.”
“There’s a question?” I asked as the two of us parried with the shadows. “Well, that’s progress.”
At the edges of the forest, another monster loomed, an inhumanly tall assassin with a face made of nightmares. A chill swept over my skin. The Shadow Man.
“Go!” Duncan told me as Azrael reached the two of us, panting. The clearing was full of bodies that rippled, then disappeared, but we weren’t done fighting yet.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said.
“Get to the caves and then come back for us,” Azrael told me. His gaze briefly went to the dark mouth of the cave in the forest just beyond. The shadows had been lying in wait for us.
“Listen for once,” Duncan said. “We came here—we almost lost Tiron—for a reason. Your memories. Go.”
I stared at them for a long second, afraid I wouldn’t see them again.
Then Duncan and Azrael closed up back to back, fighting the monsters, protecting me.
I raced for the cave of dark curses that loomed beyond.
Chapter Fourteen
Tiron
Most of the night, I’d tossed and turned, burning up with fever from the poison. It was too hot in the castle, and my magic was too flimsy in the midst of my pain for me to cool the room to the icy levels that I would have found healing. The other courts never understood—or they didn’t care enough about the last winter survivors to learn.
And all that night, I woke from restless dreams of those silver cats and enormous white bears that Arlen had mentioned. I imagined them panting in misery, curling up in the wet, warm tangle of greenery that was so endless in spring. What was driving winter creatures up from their territory into summer and spring lands? Had Faer found some way to make even the animals themselves miserable?
When I woke, I kicked off the last of the sheets, which had wrapped around my legs as if they were trying to choke me. Maybe I’d been running in my dreams.
I remembered Dala’s cool hands caressing my face when I woke up from my childhood nightmares. “You’re safe,” she’d murmured. “No one will ever hurt you again, my prince. Not as long as I live.”
Perin would always shake her head at Dala. “Promise him revenge instead. That will help him sleep better.”
But I’d been afraid of losing them, as I’d lost my first family.
The door creaked open, just the briefest sound before a hand caught it; the figure was out of sight around the corner of the infirmary, but I knew whoever it was had frozen.
I took a gamble on who it might be. “Arlen?”
There was an answering sigh, then slow, lingering steps barely audible on the stone floor, until Arlen came into view. He was dressed in light mail over his dark tunic, his hands tucked behind his back.
I dragged myself up to my elbows, and the effort sent prickles of hot pain through my body. “Did my friends leave already?”
They’d said I was in no condition to join them, but I still hated the thought that one of them might be hurt because I wasn’t there to help.
“Yes,” he said. “Good luck to them. No one ever comes back happy from the cursed caves.”
Well, they probably didn’t call them the cursed caves for nothing.
“Going out on the hunt?” I asked.
He nodded. “Monsters.”
“Winter court or rift?”
“Does it matter?” he asked, and that was answer enough.
“There are no monsters in the winter court,” I warned him.
He scoffed. “There are monsters everywhere.”
I studied him curiously. “How’d you end up here?”
“I wanted to make sure you survived the night.” He tilted his head, studying me.
“How did you end up in the spring court?” I clarified.
He shrugged. “Herrick took me as tax. I was a servant for a while, didn’t care for it, ran away to Fenig’s keep.”
He said it all lightly, as if it were nothing.
“How old were you when you were taken?”
“Five. Why all the questions?” His tone was brusque.
“You came to see me.”
The words seemed to hang in the pre-dawn hush.
“I was curious,” he admitted. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen anyone from the winter court. Especially royalty.”
I shook my head, warning him off that subject. He looked at me as if he knew who I was—what I was—but I didn’t want him to dare speak those words out loud, not here. If Azrael or Duncan or Alisa learned who I was, they might resist the trap I had to spring on all of them.
“It must be hard,” I said, understanding now why he didn’t know better than to hunt our creatures. He’d had no one to teach him our ways, like Perin and Dala had taught me, sheltering me from Herrick’s guards and then from Faer, until no one knew my face, until I’d almost forgotten my true name. “Do you know anything about what became of your family? Have you had any contact?”
He shook his head, his face blank. I knew that kind of cold expression and what kind of real feeling it hid.
“Someday you’ll go back to the winter court,” I promised him, “where the snow glitters on the hills and peace reigns, and you’ll find them. The winter court will be restored.”
He gave me a long look. “Peace doesn’t reign anymore. Not anywhere.”
Someone called to him down the hallway outside, the voice distant and feminine.
He inclined his head, gripping the pommel of his sword lightly, and then melted out of the room silently.
I waited until the sisters had brought me breakfast and left me alone again to recover. My body felt tired through to my bones from fighting the poison, but the food restored a little of my energy.
And the thought of Arlen hunting our own winter creatures restored some of it, too. It was one thing to hunt them for food, as they did the other beasts; it was another to strike them down for no reason and leave them to rot under a hot sun, far from home.
When I was sure that the sisters would leave me alone for a while, I eased out of bed. When I stood, the room revolved for a few blinks, and I reached out for the bed to steady myself, grabbing the soft comforter. But after a moment, I was steady enough to get my sword and slippers, then climb into the windowsill.
I launched myself out over green trees, and when the breeze caught my face, it cooled some of the last of the fever.
I let my intuition guide me; that was never a strength of the other courts, but it was one of the few strengths that winter had left. When I crossed paths with Raura, Lake and Arlen as small figures riding horses through the trees, I knew I was headed in the right direction; by the time Lake looked up, I was swooping to the left, flying among the trees to land lightly on my feet.
I made my way ahead of them until I found the monster they sought, but it was no monster at all.
It was a great white lion, and it was nursing a cub.
She growled when she saw me, but that was all she could manage. When she tried to rise to her feet, she moved away from the cub, and the small body fell slack. With a start, I realized it was dead; she was mourning her young. Bright red marked her body all along one side, where she’d been torn open down to the glimmering white bone. The spring knights were coming here for no reason; the cub was dead and the lion would soon have followed anyway.
“We’ll get you both home,” I murmured. I was no good at healing magic; I could freeze the wound like I had Alisa’s, but there was no mercy in that.
The lion finally gave up on getting up and fell back down into the soft moss. I knelt next to her, moving slowly closer until she let me touch her head.
Funny that the other courts couldn’t recognize who I was, but every cr
eature of the winter court recognized my power. At least their ignorance had preserved me all these years.
I found myself absently stroking both her head and the dead cub’s head as I let winter unfurl for her, easing her pain until she nuzzled her cub one last time and settled her big head onto my lap. Her eyes slowly closed.
My eyes drifted shut too, sending her off to the greater world, where all things were restored.
Except for my parents, of course, and everyone else turned to marble by the summer court. There was no afterlife for them.
I hated the thought of betraying my friends, but could I turn my back on my own court for the sake of the friends who couldn’t even see me as I truly was?
Chapter Fifteen
Alisa
The cave of dark curses rose in front of me, a dark and foreboding passage into the mountain. It looked like a wound gouged into the earth.
According to Azrael’s books in the library, the magic of the rip had warped the cave into something rich with magic. Dangerous magic.
Once I stepped over the damp rocks that led into the cave, the noise of the men fighting in the distance faded, then disappeared as soon as I rushed further in. It felt as if the cave swallowed me, or maybe as if the world was swallowing them. It suddenly felt as if they might not be there when I got back.
I glanced back. They couldn’t get hurt. Not for me.
I needed them. Even if they didn’t want me because of what I’d done, I needed to know they were in the world, fighting Faer, fighting the monsters that came from the rip, trying to bring peace and life to the Fae world.
I wanted to do that by their side, if I was worthy. Azrael’s words about how I’d created these monsters that were trying to drag me under haunted me.
Shadows lined the walls, thrown by the stalactites, and there was a constant murmur of trickling water. The sunlight from the cave’s mouth was soon swallowed by darkness, and I palmed my magic, casting a ball of light to guide me.
The shimmering magic in my hand cast more shadows on the walls, and I could have sworn that some of them moved. But every time I whirled, my sword at the ready, there was nothing there.
I’d been a badass hunter a few weeks ago. Bring me into the Fae world, and I was leaping at my own shadow. I shook my head at myself as I threw the ball of light into the air and murmured, “Follow.”
I followed the caves down lower and lower, the air turning cold. The darkness seemed to press in on me, and the air was so damp it felt as if it were beading on my skin.
Then suddenly I heard a feminine whisper. “Extinguish.”
My ball of light flickered. My fingers tensed on the sword just as the light dimmed, then blinked out of existence. I raised my palm, murmuring the words to create a new orb of light.
Anxiety prickled up my spine while I tried to coax light into existence. If only I knew a spell that made it so that I could see in the dark. Why the hell hadn’t I thought to ask Azrael for that kind of spell before I found myself here?
As soon as the ball of light materialized in my hand, I flung it up into the air and whirled, moving away from the ball, knowing the enemy I hadn’t even seen yet would know my location. I whirled away from the blade that sliced through the air where I’d been mere seconds before.
The enemy that faced me wore an eerie mask. She—it must be a she, because she was lithe, small-boned and muscular and sure-footed as she danced over the slippery rock—pressed the attack, but I was already parrying her blade.
She wasn’t made of shadow. But was she another Fae, sent to kill me? Or was she what the Cursed Caves had promised—a physical embodiment of the curse that stole my memories? If I defeated her, I might be able to race back to Azrael and Duncan with the knowledge of how to defeat the Shadow Man…before he managed to kill them.
And yet. Killing her wasn’t easy.
The two of us fought back and forth. Once I stumbled on slick rock and she almost had me. Once we locked up blades, and I managed to get an elbow across her face. She hissed in pain.
“What do you want?” I demanded as the two of us circled each other, panting. “Why are you attacking me?”
“Why are you attacking me?” she asked. “You came into the cave of curses because you want something.”
“I want my memories back,” I said. “And I want to know who took them.”
The mask was expressionless, but I could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “I did.”
“You’re not real, are you?”
Her blade hissed faster than I could parry it, and pain—and blood—beaded along my arm before my blade knocked hers away.
“In here, I’m real,” she promised me.
The two of us fought on. We were well-matched, almost a perfectly even match. My footwork began to grow sloppy, exhaustion taking me over, despite the rise of adrenaline. She was limping too from her fall, the one where I had almost managed to take her down. My wound sent blood running down my arm, making the sword’s hilt slick in my hand.
The slippery hilt was the only reason why, when she parried my blow, she was able to send my sword flying across the cave.
The sword slammed into the wall with a distant thud as I ducked her next blow, rolling across the floor and coming up to my feet. My heart was in my throat. Now things were really desperate.
I grabbed the knife from my belt, knowing that it was a poor match for a sword.
“You don’t really want your memories back, do you, Alisa?” she mocked me. “If you do, come and get them. Otherwise, walk away. Leave the cave. Save yourself.”
I wiped the blood flowing down my arm on my tunic, staunching it briefly against my side. “I have to get them back.”
The two of us circled each other. She drew her knife from her belt and held it in her left hand. Blood was running down my arm faster now, and I felt light-headed, but I wasn’t sure if blood loss or magic was making me sick.
“Why?” she asked me. “What are you going to do with all your memories, Alisa?”
“Put things right.”
She laughed. “You’ll never be able to fix what you’ve done.”
Fear clutched my chest, but it was familiar by now. She was voicing what I was most afraid of; that must be the magic of the cave. “You’re right, I can’t. Not as long as I don’t understand what I did.”
As she stared at me, I could see myself reflected in the metallic glow of her mask, but my reflection was distorted and elongated. The effect was eerie.
“There’s a reason your memories were taken, and believe me, it’s far more merciful this way,” she warned me.
“Maybe I don’t want mercy,” I said. “Maybe I just want a chance to fight for my people.”
I wanted to help those men out there, who were fighting for me even though perhaps the old Alisa wasn’t worthy of them.
But whatever I’d done in the past, I could be worthy of them now.
She lunged at me, and I slipped past her blade, whirling around her, striking out with the dagger for her kidney. But she was fast just as I was, and the two of us whirled together, trying to get the upper hand, until suddenly her sword’s blade was at my throat and my dagger was at her side.
The two of us paused, both of us a blade’s edge away from death. She was breathing hard behind the mask.
“Who are you?” I murmured. Despite the summer court’s many restrictions on what females should and shouldn’t do, Faer had a handful of female magicians and female Fae warriors. Which one had stolen my memories, then pushed me through the portal?
“Are you willing to die to find out?” she asked.
“No, but I’m willing to kill,” I promised.
I ducked backwards as I drove the blade into her side.
Her own answering strike barely missed my throat. I felt the sword strike true, hitting her side, and felt a familiar thrill of victory. But the point of my blade jammed against something, slipped off to one side. I stumbled close to her, fighting to regain my balance
.
I was already whirling away as she slammed the hilt of her sword into my temple. I fell backwards, my head slamming into the cold hard stones.
She looked down at me, then at the dagger buried hilt-deep in her side.
As she looked back at me, she pulled the dagger out of her shirt, and I glimpsed metal beneath it. Chain mail.
Dread settled in my chest as I stumbled to my knees, then up to my feet. I was so light-headed now that I was almost giddy. This all felt surreal.
I was unarmed, facing an armored opponent who had her sword in one hand and my dagger in the other.
But she didn’t make a move to kill me, not yet, even though she’d won.
“Wrong answer,” she said. “You’re always willing to fight and to kill, Alisa. No one has ever truly accused you of cowardice, at least. But what are you willing to die for?”
She stuck my dagger into her belt with her own, then reached up and pulled her mask off her face.
Lavender hair spilled across her shoulders as I came face-to-face with a second Alisa.
I stared at her, confused. “I… took my own memories?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I shook my head. “You can’t be real.”
“You didn’t beat me.” She stepped backward. “You’ll have to figure that why yourself.”
“I’m not done,” I said desperately, stepping forward, my hands forming into fists. “I need answers.”
“If you really wanted your memories, Alisa, you would’ve beaten me.” She tilted her head to one side. “Deep down, you know you tried to erase your past—tried to erase yourself—from this world for a reason.”
“No,” I shook my head. “They need me. Faer is evil. He has to be stopped.”
“Then stop him,” she said. “You don’t need the old Alisa for that.”
“Everyone says I do.”
“You erased your memories because you lost.” She smiled. “You tried to outsmart Herrick, you gambled, and for once, smug, unstoppable Princess Alisa lost. What are you going to lose this time?”
