Steeled

by Liam Reese

  There was a long pause in the hot little room, and Lully turned just enough to catch sight of Irae’s face. Her skin was ashen, and she was sweating and shaking. The skin of Lully’s palm itched; she longed to reach out and touch her arm, to comfort her if she could.

  But she couldn’t, not without drawing more attention to her.

  All she could do was say, “The room is too hot. Step out with me, will you, Micera?”

  She led the way out. Irae followed her back down the corridor, and together they slipped outside into the frigid night air. Irae leaned back against the closed door of the house and took in deep gulps of air.

  “Won’t they notice that you’re gone, and suspect something?”

  “No, I don’t believe anyone minds,” said Lully. “They weren’t paying attention to me anyway.” She kicked at the step beneath her. “It doesn’t matter. They’re just a small faction, you know.”

  “Is that so? It doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Not everyone agrees with them.” Lully bit her lip — why was she now trying to make Irae feel better? Didn’t she believe that Leden was right?

  She did, she did believe him — but she still didn’t want Irae to be hurt.

  Irae looked down at her feet and shook her head. “It’s true. If I can’t bring peace to my people, then what I am I doing pretending to be a good queen?” Her voice dropped lower, as though she were speaking only to herself. “Why am I pretending to be a queen at all?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I — I need to think. I need to sleep on it.” Irae turned away from her just as Lully reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. She faltered and let her hand fall before Irae turned back. “I thank you for your help,” she said. “I have always been grateful. For your help.”

  Lully bowed her head.

  When she looked up, the queen was gone.

  9

  Once More Into The Woods

  Thorn —

  I don’t know if you received my first message. Please know that if I needed you then, I need you more than ever now. I am sorry to be dragging you away from Elseth; I’m sure that there is much to concern you in your village. But please, please, come home to me.

  Yours,

  Jelen

  She came to him in the shape of a tree in the woods, before he had got much more than a few hours away from the village. At first, he thought it was a trick of the light; then he thought must be something wrong with his eyes; finally, getting ever closer to her as she drew closer to him in turn, he thought, Well, this is it. After all these years of false alarms, I’ve completely lost it at last.

  She was close to twenty feet tall, at a guess, and carried her arms up and out at her side like slim boughs; her fingers were branches, and leaves and flower petals drifted to the ground in her wake, and with every step she took with her split trunk, roots were sent shooting off in every direction, disturbing the earth with hollows like molehills. She was wrapped around with vines and lianas, and she spread pieces of herself like seeds as she came in his direction.

  “Woodman,” she said, in an old, slow voice like an empty house, “do you like me like this?”

  Thorn stopped and tried to keep his nervous horse still beneath him.

  “It’s — an interesting choice, to be sure,” he said, scrabbling for diplomacy and hoping that he wasn’t erring on the side of obvious dissembling. “May I ask why you’re like that?”

  “Because,” said the tree woman, “I thought it would make you feel more comfortable.” She shrank, suddenly, drifted down towards him, scattering a shower of leaves all over him, and then he blinked, and she was Irae, except not Irae — she was Jelen, her eyes were black, she was someone just a little bit different, and the little bit different was enough to give him nightmares. He swallowed hard and felt the telltale dusty dryness begin to spread in his throat, like a scab. “Or maybe this would make you feel more comfortable.”

  “No, not really,” he managed. She stood still for a moment or two and changed again. A smallish woman, vaguely familiar in the way that all of her forms were vaguely familiar, but her chin was rounded, and firm and she winked at him.

  “All right, then,” she said, cheerfully. “Hello, strange little woodman.”

  “Hello, Braeve. I thank you for coming to me — I suppose Lisca — the fox — was able to get to you faster than I thought.”

  As a matter of fact, there was no possible way that the fox would have been able to get to her that quickly, any more than there was any possible way that Braeve had made the journey to him that quickly. Neither of these things made sense, and yet, things were what they were. He decided not to think about it for fear of going mad.

  Besides, she blinked innocently at him and said, “What fox?”

  “Aha,” said Thorn. “Well. Ahem.” He patted at his horse’s sweaty neck. “Well, you’re

  here, anyway, aren’t you.” He squinted at her. “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said Braeve. She came up to him and stretched a little, so she was at eye level with him as he sat on the horse and scrutinized him. “Ahh. What are you doing here?”

  “Exploring my own history,” said Thorn, more or less honestly. “And I’ve run into some serious trouble.”

  “Oh, yes, I can smell that.” She leaned forward and pressed her nose against his shoulder. Thorn sat as still as he possibly could. “Fresh air, a little hint of pine, and a great deal of trouble. Illusion trouble.” She smiled a contented cat-like smile. “My sort of trouble. But I don’t understand, Thorn.”

  “No more do I,” he said before he could help himself. “What don’t you understand?”

  “The intensity of your delusion. Why is it,” said the strange woman, “that you believe I would help you?” She raised her hands, and her fingernails grew and stretched and curved and curled and pointed like talons, wicked and sharp.

  Thorn swallowed what felt like his tonsils.

  “Because,” he managed, slowly, “you like me.” He tried a helpless grin, though he knew quite well that he wasn’t good at it. “Remember?”

  “Mm, not really,” she said, doubtfully. “But I have come all this way. What do you need from me?”

  “A girl — my friend — is under an illusion. It’s all in her mind, but we can’t seem to heal her. It’s been more than a day now, and she isn’t responding to anything that we do. Please, set her to rights. Remind her of who she really is.”

  “A girl. Your friend. Are there any girls who are not your friends, Thorn?”

  He laughed before he could stop himself. “Many. Most.”

  “Mm, so you say.” She shimmied her shoulders a little and laughed. “And what will you promise me, if I do you this favor?”

  He shook his head. “Anything you like. Anything that I can give you.”

  “Aha.” She touched a finger to her lips, thoughtfully. “Anything?”

  “Anything that belongs to me to give,” said Thorn, and coughed. His throat ached something fierce. “Which is precious little, I must warn you, in the interests of being completely honest.”

  “Honesty? Indeed, how refreshingly archaic.”

  “I thought you would probably like it.”

  “And indeed, I do. Oh yes. Well. Your offer is temptingly vague, and I will have to think about it.” She turned away from him and he had time only to let out a sob of distress before she whipped around to face him again. “And I have thought about it. I accept your terms. Lead me to the girl.”

  “Will you — do you — the horse?”

  “Oh, no. Come down off of there and walk like a normal person.”

  He got down from the horse, warily, since she was standing close enough still to brush up against him as he went. Once he stood on the ground, she shrank down once more till she was at his level again. She wore a tucked-edged little smile of pleasurable anticipation and put an arm through his as he began to walk.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, “I wish I co
uld sing.”

  He accompanied her through the woods, leading the horse behind him, looking around him for any sight of the fox. She was nowhere to be found. Indeed, there was nothing to be found at all — much like in Braeve’s woods, all the wildlife seemed to have ceased to exist.

  “Are you doing this?” he said. “Are you making it like this?”

  “What a silly question,” she said. At first, she matched him, pace for pace and stride for stride, but gradually outstripped him so that he had to hurry to keep up with her, and then they were taking enormous strides, far too long to be actually happening. “You know,” she said conversationally, “I understand that strange things are afoot in Castle Balfour. Have you kept up with your friend the Princess at all?”

  “She’s the queen, now.”

  “She’s a wretched little girl, is what she is. But she has spunk. A little spunk goes a long way, don’t you find?” She tugged at his arm. “Ooh, look, are we here already?”

  They were there already. There was no possible way that it could be true, but they were there already. Thorn looked about himself at the little village, more than a little dazed.

  “Erm,” he said, “it would appear so.”

  Braeve laughed and slapped at his arm as though he were unforgivably witty.

  “It would appear so,” she mocked him, and rolled her eyes. “Come now. So, this is the village where you grew up, is it? The village where you were born? The village from which you were ostracized.” She gave him a stern glance. “Do they know what manner of man they ran off into the woods?”

  “Yes,” said Thorn, gritting his teeth, “I’m afraid that they do. That’s why they ran me off into the woods.”

  “Shocking,” murmured Braeve, with a giddy sort of glee and mock disapproval, and she tugged at his sleeve again. “Where are we going next?”

  He led her through the village to Berren’s house. Berren himself was outside, tending to his sheep, and the expression of surprise on his face when he looked up to see Thorn was rather comical. But it was nothing compared to the expression on his face when he saw Braeve.

  She practically pounced on him.

  “A bearded one!” she said. “He must have on his winter coat. You look kind and sweet and easily taken advantage of. Do you have a sweetheart? Do the girls all like you the way they all like Thorn?”

  Berren turned to Thorn for help.

  “Elseth is inside,” said Thorn briefly. He opened the door and tugged in his turn at Braeve’s arm, but she was as heavy and solid as a rock now and didn’t move until she was good and ready. Which meant another moment of plucking experimentally at Berren’s beard; Berren didn’t appear to be able to move at all, or defend himself, but his eyes rolled wildly in Thorn’s direction and Thorn would read the expression behind them perfectly well.

  What have you done?

  “She is the only one who can help us,” Thorn whispered, to remind him and to remind himself. “We need her. Elseth needs her.”

  “That’s right,” said Braeve, “and don’t you forget it.” She condescended to enter Berren’s shed, now, and went unerringly to the back corner where the cot was, with Elseth on it. Braeve’s flippant attitude dissipated as quickly as fog in the sunlight; her features grew serious, if still keenly interested, and she straightened up a little, becoming her more usual height.

  “Forged and returned,” she said. “After seven years. Your handiwork, I suppose?”

  He swallowed. “She was sick. Dying. It was all I could think of to try and save her.”

  “Ah. And what is she, this girl? What does she mean to you?”

  Thorn licked his lips and reached up to tug reflexively at the ends of his hair, before dropping his hands abruptly.

  “Something bright,” he said. “Something good. When I had nothing.”

  “Something worth getting thrown out of your own village for,” said Braeve, calculatingly. “You know, had you not Forged her, perhaps you would have been able to re-enter society, be treated as a human again. Everyone would have believed that you were just as useless and normal as the rest of them.”

  “Please,” he whispered, hands clenched tightly in front of him. “Please, just set her loose. Set her free.”

  Braeve shot him a sharp glance, a glance as sharp as a knife, then turned her attention to the girl on the bed. She bent over her, lifting her hands to smooth just over the surface of her skin, then lifting her up, somehow, in her wake — her hands drifted over Elseth’s arms, down to her hands, and in response Elseth lifted her arm, portion by portion, as though called simply by her proximity to Braeve. It was as though Elseth was a puppet, and Braeve held all the strings, to make her move, to make her breathe. To make her free.

  “And you,” crooned Braeve, growing a little shorter, a little slighter, so she wasn’t looming so far over the slight form on the bed, “you deserve another chance — don’t you? He’s given you a second one already, so why not have a third, hmm?” She turned her head to look back at Thorn over her shoulder, and she wore Elseth’s face, now, but it wasn’t as Thorn remembered — her eyes were half closed and calculating, and her lips turned up at the corners in a lazy little smile.

  “Why not give her all the chances in the world, hmm?”

  “Just one more,” said Thorn, his throat so dry that his voice was just barely at the edge of hearing. “That’s all I ask.”

  And now she had turned back to Elseth, again, and though he didn’t like the sound of her low, slow chuckle, there was no debating the fact that Elseth was changing; she was lit from within, almost as when he had Forged her to begin with, but this was the glow of health. She shuddered under the drifting hands of Braeve, and as Thorn watched, he could see that her eyes were moving wildly to and fro beneath the frozen lids. All at once both of her arms came up, out stiff but gracefully, like the limbs of a tree, and her toes curled into the bed beneath her.

  The chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” said Braeve gleefully. “You don’t go back to sleep that easily. Wake up, child!”

  Elseth’s eyes were open, suddenly, without Thorn even having seen them open, and she was staring, and blinking, and breathing deeply in fits and gasps and coughs, and he rushed forward to help her as she struggled to sit up. She let him take her hand and lift her, then looked up at him and snatched her hands away.

  “Please,” she said, “no. Thank — thank you. I’m fine.” She looked to Braeve, who was sitting at her bedside and appearing to all intents and purposes absolutely harmless. “I’m fine,” murmured Elseth again, and though she didn’t look at all as though she believed her own voice, she sounded stronger even now, and there were the beginnings of steel in her shoulders.

  Thorn fell back, hardly able to even control himself. His own breathing wasn’t entirely steady, either, and he thought wildly that if he should have a heart attack and die at this very moment, that it would serve his heart right for getting so excited. He was aware of a dull pressure on his arm and looked down to the left to see Braeve’s fingers holding him in a firm grip.

  “Mustn’t frighten her,” she reminded him quietly. “She’s been asleep for a very long time, you know.”

  He nodded, only halfway aware of what he was even doing. “Should I leave her?” he asked. It sounded like the worst idea in the world.

  “She will want something to drink. Bring the girl some water, and then meet me outside.”

  He stood and went trembling to the pitcher on the table in the corner. Berren had two cups, both of earthen clay — Thorn dropped one of them and filled the other. He brought it back to the girl on the cot, who took it, bowing her head in thanks, and drank from it. Her hair fell forward over her face, and he reached out to touch it, to move it back so he could see her; but she moved away from him, not rudely, but cautiously.

  She drank down the water cleanly, and he refilled it for her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. Her voice was rough. “You ha
ve been — you’re very kind. May I see my mother, please?”

  Thorn froze, looking down at her, and she looked back up at him, eyes wide, absolutely absent of any recognition. After a long moment of trying vainly to find his tongue, he managed to blurt out, “I’ll see if I can find her,” and darted for the door.

  He stood outside for a long time, trying to recover his breath. Elseth! Elseth was alive, and back to herself, and he — he was nothing to her. She didn’t remember anything of him. She only wanted her mother, whom he could not give to her. And she would ask for her father, and he wouldn’t be able to give her that, either. He pounded at his forehead with his fist for a moment, thump, thump, then shook himself abruptly like a dog coming out of the water and stumbled sideways into Braeve as though someone had turned the world on end.

  She took hold of his arm and smiled at him as though nothing could possibly be wrong, ever.

  “Well?” she said.

  Thorn was panting, trying to get his heartbeat back into its normal rhythm. “She doesn’t

  remember me.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake.” Braeve rolled her eyes. “The girl has spent seven years as a tree and is only just now trying to put the pieces together of being a human again. Give her some time.”

  “No, it’s — perhaps it’s better, this way.”

  “And spare me your martyrdom. Her memory will come back to her when it is good and ready. In the meantime, I’ve done what I said I would do. She is no longer under any illusion.”

  Thorn nodded, heart still thumping, and head beginning to hurt.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

  “You promised me anything that it was in your power to give,” she reminded him. He nodded.

  “I know. And I meant it, truly.”

  She smiled at him, a wicked smile, and he felt his stomach drop down to the vicinity of his shoes. He didn’t like that smile at all.