Had it been her fault?
No, it couldn’t have been, her rational mind countered. She had done nothing to provoke such violence. There was obviously something wrong with this man.
But he was yelling and the words… she couldn’t remember the words, but they shrank her nonetheless. Lies, every last one, the kind of lies that flew like arrows into the heart until you could do nothing but curl up and become so, so small. These words broke the power of her mind. The rising flood beneath it broke through to freeze her blood and burn her heart.
I am…
I am…
Someone was shaking her. She opened her eyes. An unfamiliar room. A familiar face.
“Adren!”
Nadin didn’t wake slowly—open bleary eyes, stare around a bit, yawn, take your time sitting up. That kind of waking is reserved for those who have had enough sleep and are ready to continue the day, and Nadin had slept nowhere near enough for that. He woke because of the screaming.
Stumbling out of bed, thwacking his arm on the doorframe, he rushed into the room Adren was sleeping in. There she lay, face screwed up and skin covered in sweat as she screamed at the top of her lungs. Denyeh and Loram ran in behind him.
“I thought you got rid of the spell!” Denyeh said as she reached for Adren, only to be pushed aside by her thrashing.
“Aye, I did! The spell has not caused this.”
“Then what has?”
Nadin ignored them. “Not again,” he said, face pale. Kneeling by the bed, he took Adren by the shoulders and shook. Her eyes opened, but they were unfocused. “Adren!”
“Nadin?” Clear now, she glanced down at Nadin’s hands. “You can let go now, you know. Nadin. I’m fine. It was just a dream.”
“No, you’re not fine. It was the man with the sword again, wasn’t it?”
“It’ll go away in time. It always does. Now let go.”
“Adren, I’m not going to let go. You need help.”
“No, no!” Adren pulled herself from Nadin’s grasp. “I don’t need help here. When I get home. That’s when I get help.”
At this, Nadin gave the other two a pleading look.
Loram backed away. “I have no aid I may offer.” She slipped out of the room.
With a roll of her eyes at both Loram and Nadin, Denyeh addressed Adren. “How long has this been happening?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Nadin just ran in here, woken from a dead sleep from you screaming, said ‘not again’ and woke you up without another thought. That tells me it’s been going on for far too long.”
Adren glared.
“It’s been three weeks,” Nadin offered.
“No, I want to hear it from Adren.” After Adren had remained silent enough for it to be awkward, Denyeh continued. “You may think you don’t need to be well to deal with this gods-damned mess you and Nadin blundered through when you arrived here, but if you continue this way, you won’t only hurt yourself. You’ll get him hurt, the unicorn, and everyone in this town. If this was only your problem, I would let you go, send you on your merry way until you either destroyed yourself with your foolishness or woke up to what you’re doing to yourself and changed how you dealt with this. But this isn’t just you. This is me. This is my town, the people that I care about, and I will not let your selfishness give the fairies an opening or a reason to destroy what I love any more than they already have. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”
Nadin cleared his throat. “I’ll… be with Loram. If you need me.” Before either of them could answer, he escaped to the main room.
Yelling erupted behind him, followed by a slammed door. The main room was empty, but he found Loram when he wandered into the yard. She sat, watching the unicorn try to unlatch the gate.
“It won’t get out, will it?” asked Nadin.
“I put an enchantment on the latch to keep it closed,” said Loram. “It won’t be getting out.”
“Oh. Good.” Nadin sat down next to her.
Together they watched the unicorn in silence as it stopped nibbling at the gate latch and stuck its horn under it instead.
“I wonder how it tasted,” Nadin commented.
Loram shrugged.
The unicorn wiggled its horn under the latch for a bit.
“Probably like metal,” Loram said.
It was back to nibbling again. The unicorn got a firm grip on the latch with its mouth and pulled it up. That done, it nosed open the gate. Nadin stood.
“I thought you said it couldn’t move it.”
“Well, it did now!”
“Should we go after it?” They watched as, gate open, the unicorn trotted out of the yard.
“That might be a good idea.”
The two of them went after the unicorn but, as it had gone past the barrier, only Nadin could follow.
“Tell Adren the unicorn got out!” he yelled back at Loram, who nodded and went back into the house. Nadin, on the other hand, had to run to catch up with the unicorn, who was going at a good pace by now.
“Why am I always running everywhere?” he complained.
He followed the unicorn to the forest. Unlike its usual wanderings, this time it headed in a straight path, as if it had a destination in mind, somewhere northwest. They crossed the main road, Nadin checking it despite the fact that it was empty. Some distance west of the fairy mound, the unicorn turned, its movement still purposeful, and headed northeast. It slowed, too, and Nadin was able to walk most of the time, with the occasional jog when he fell behind.
They continued this way for a bit longer until it was as if the unicorn had hit a wall. It backed up, tossing its head. Then it lowered its horn and charged, only to be thrown to the side. With a snort, it got up and tried again, to the same result. Before it could try a third time, Nadin put a hand on its shoulder. It flinched and pulled away.
“Let me try,” he said.
The simple fact was that the unicorn had come up against a barrier. Its origin point wasn’t clear, but the magic that made it had come from fairies. Nadin went up to the barrier and held out a hand. It slid through the barrier with ease. The same thing happened when he tried to walk through.
“Must be meant just to keep non-fairies out.” He chuckled. And stopped, eyes wide and shoulders turned as if he was about to run.
Magic rushed towards him. Not fairy magic. The kind of magic that had been in the fake hand. He backed out of the barrier, but it was only meant to keep humans out. The bright river poured its way towards Nadin. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Chapter Twelve
“I don’t care about your town,” said Adren. “And I’ll get help as soon as I’m back home. Which will be soon. I have this under control.” Denyeh’s accusations of foolishness and selfishness burned in Adren’s heart.
“Really? It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen much to begin with.”
“Adren.” Denyeh sat on the end of the bed. Adren pulled her feet close to her, knowing she was acting like a child, hating every moment of this intrusion on her privacy. “Adren, I don’t need to see everything to know that you’re hurting. Let me help. Healing is my trade.”
“Says the woman who runs a market stall and puts up barriers for prisons.”
“The market stall is where I sell produce from my cousin’s farm. As for the barriers, I’m the only one in the town who does magic, and they’d caught a fairy.” She shrugged. “It was a necessity.”
“Loram.” After Iraem had made her vulnerable somehow.
“Yes”
“So that’s it?” Adren sneered. “You humans see a fairy and think, ‘Yes, let’s capture it and lock it up’? You have no conscience.”
“What about when we see it breaking into our yard, with the White Changeling and a unicorn following along with it?”
Saints. Adren had thought the rumours of her had only spread out in certain circles. “Nadin’s not a fairy.”
“But you
don’t deny that you’re the White Changeling?”
There wasn’t anything to deny. And, it seemed, there wasn’t anything to say. Nothing came to mind, at any rate. If it weren’t for the fairies outside the barrier, Adren would have made a run for it.
“If I tell you why they locked up Loram, would that help you trust me?”
“That depends on what you say.” Or course, Denyeh might lie. She could get through her whole sad story and Adren wouldn’t sense a whit of truth from her. Supposing that happened (she hoped that happened), how would she and the unicorn get away from Denyeh? Nadin, she could shout at. Loram could get the barrier down, or trap Denyeh in an illusion. But they would still have to leave somehow and get the hand to the fairies or else Adren would never get back home.
“The fairies sometimes sell enchantments and spells in the market. Some are silly, some are useful. Several are a necessity for treating certain illnesses. There are people here with sicknesses none of us can cure, but they can continue to live comfortably because of the spells the fairies sell. Or, at least, they could until the fairies thought it would be entertaining to raise their prices beyond what most could afford. They freely admitted to doing this, too. I couldn’t stand it, and learned everything I could about those spells so I could recreate them. My versions weren’t quite as good as the fairies’ ones, but people could afford them. And the fairies got angry.”
“Fairies aren’t like that!” Adren cried when she couldn’t stand it anymore, swallowing down the honeysuckle. “Magical creatures aren’t like that. The only kind of being that does anything like that is the human one.”
“We’re not the only kind of being that does that,” Denyeh said softly. “When the soldiers came and started posting announcements about the draft, my husband took the morning off from managing the prison to help them and never returned. We don’t know what the fairies did with him after they took him, but the soldiers who witnessed his capture recognized Loram when she came by the town later, and they returned the favour.”
No matter how much she tried, Adren couldn’t get rid of the sweetness in her mouth. She swallowed, over and over. She wanted to get a knife and scrape it all out.
“Listen, Adren: you need help. And if you don’t get it soon, you’ll go face the fairies again and this will happen and you might not make it out. Think whatever you want of me, but you know I’m right.”
Saints. Saints, saints, saints. Adren took a deep, shuddering breath. And another. And another. Concern through the connection. Breathe. Breathe. Speak.
“I don’t think you can help me.”
“Do you think anyone here can help you?”
“The fairies, but”—Adren grimaced—“they don’t seem to be inclined to do that.” Not in the way she wanted, that is.
“If I can’t heal this, is there anything else I can do for you?”
Smash down the boundary of the dark place in Adren’s mind, perhaps? The potion maker in Watorej had almost managed that by accident. Except Adren wasn’t sure she wanted that. Whatever else that place hid, she was sure it would overwhelm her. If Denyeh could stuff everything back inside and repair the crack the potion maker’s spell had left, Adren would accept that in a moment.
Even if she lost her magic? It crowded against her skin, all light and heat. Broken, Loram had said. But Loram had also taught her how to use it a little, so it couldn’t be too terrible.
“I don’t trust you, Denyeh. I don’t want to believe you. But I also didn’t come here to cause problems. I only want peace.” She’d thought she would find it once she found the cure for the unicorn. She’d thought she had it with magical creatures. And now, the fairies had tried to kidnap her and Loram had told her never to heal the unicorn. So what was she supposed to do? The only person in all of this who’d acted decently was Nadin. Possibly also Denyeh, but Nadin for sure.
How could everything have gotten so backwards in less than two days?
Adren almost didn’t notice that the unicorn was leaving through all this, but the way its location changed was unusual enough to call attention to itself. Direct, purposeful movement happened before it got hurt. But the hurt never lasted long. It would run back to Adren, and she would treat any wounds it had except for the one she wanted most to heal.
“What do I do?” Adren asked.
“You choose,” said Denyeh. “You choose the life you want to live instead. It’s the most powerful magic we have.”
Loram opened the door.
“Saints’ names!” cried Denyeh. “Don’t fairies know how to knock?”
“Can’t humans tell when something’s important?” Loram retorted. To Adren: “The unicorn escaped. Nadin pursues it for its safety.”
“He didn’t need to do that. The unicorn will be fine.”
“Did the fairies outside follow them?” asked Denyeh.
“Oh no.”
“What?” said Adren.
“Neither of us thought to look.”
Saints and all the gods besides, Nadin had done it this time.
Nothing in particular had happened to Nadin while his eyes were shut, so he opened them. Only a hand’s span away, the magic funnelled down into his jacket pocket, where it was filling the fake hand. The massive stream burned bright enough that, even though only those with the right eyes could see it, the forest around it seemed thrown into shadow.
“Whoa,” he breathed. But his awe stopped the moment the unicorn reared and ran off. “Oh no,” Nadin said, his expression changing to horror. “What if the fairies…?”
Without another word, he turned and ran. The connection between wherever the river of magic had come from and the wooden hand broke almost at once as he fled. At first, he tried to follow the unicorn, but it headed away from the town so fast that Nadin couldn’t keep up. He took a moment to stop and pant for a bit, then turned back and cut across town to Denyeh’s house. Inside, everyone had gathered in the main room.
“Where’s the unicorn?” asked Loram, but her eyes were on Nadin’s pocket.
“Not here, obviously,” said Adren, taking a piece of paper from Denyeh and putting it into her own pocket.
“We might have something bigger to worry about,” said Nadin. He pulled out the fake hand. “I accidentally filled it partway with magic, and I’m very sure the fairies noticed, so they’ll probably be here soon.”
“You had that on you the whole time?” Loram peered at Nadin. “What did you do with the magic after you took it from me?”
“He emptied it on me to try and get rid of the spell,” said Adren.
“Well, I accidentally made it leak and then tried to stop it. But it worked?” He rubbed the back of his head.
“Mostly,” confirmed Adren.
“You seem to do a lot of things by accident,” Loram noted. Nadin shrugged.
“How did you fill it with magic, exactly?” asked Denyeh.
“Does it matter? We’re going to be surrounded by fairies soon! And the unicorn’s still out there somewhere, and we have this hand thing, and Adren’s still getting those attacks—unless you fixed that—and… and…”
“Breathe, Nadin,” Adren advised as Denyeh directed him to a cushion. He missed the cushion and sat on the floor instead, but he did breathe.
“I never want to run again,” he said. The women laughed.
Adren pressed a fist to her chin. The fairies would be stupid not to be coming after Nadin and that hand full of magic. He’d filled it after chasing after the unicorn. How did…? Irrelevant. If the fairies got their Demonic Vessel, they would go back to their mound. Adren, Nadin, and the unicorn could leave without further issues. Loram? Yes, Loram would be the one to give the hand back. They would give her status in return, and all would be well.
What about Denyeh? Her husband? The fairies still had him, and if she was to be believed, the fairies would only continue to harm the people here after they got the hand back.
The hand. The Demonic Vessel. The Saint’s Gauntlet. It wasn’t a
gauntlet, exactly, but neither was it demonic. It may have always belonged to the fairies, too. The saints had forbidden any records made of their lives, after all, and a story told in one small town over who knows how many generations didn’t history make. Still, these people had taken the idea of the Saint’s Gauntlet from something, and that something must have been the wooden hand.
Adren could find a way to give the hand to the humans instead, let Denyeh use it to help her town. That might not end well for Loram, but she could always come with Adren and Nadin to Adren’s home. The fairies there would welcome her, Adren was sure of it.
The only problem with that plan was the soldiers. They knew about the possibility of the Saint’s Gauntlet, and they would want it for their war. Denyeh might not be able to keep it from them if someone high enough up heard about it. Adren may not have been in Breim for as long as she could remember, but she still didn’t like the idea of bringing it trouble.
“Do you bathe in milk to get your skin that colour?” the girl with the beautiful hair had asked not long after giving Adren her nickname. “Is that something they do in Breim?”
“No! That’s just how it is.” The accent she’d already been trying to get rid of because of the fairy children’s teasing coloured her words even more than usual.
With a firm shake of the head, Adren brought her thoughts back into order. Giving the hand to the humans wouldn’t do them much good. They didn’t know how to fill it. Plus, the fairies wouldn’t leave it with them for long. Even if the humans retaliated…
Adren had an idea. It wasn’t much, and she still didn’t know what to do about the hand, but she had an idea. At last. Just in time for someone to knock on the door. Denyeh opened it to reveal a group of soldiers.
One of the soldiers spotted Nadin and pointed him out to the others. Nadin shrank back against the wall.
“Why are you here?” Denyeh crossed her arms. “I didn’t ask for you to come.”
“We’re here to make an arrest of the young man who should be in a cell, but who we have discovered was found running through town today,” said the one whose insignia indicated he was a captain.
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