Twig of Thorn (The Blackthorn Cycle Book 1)

by L. M. Hawke

  “Ailill!” Una nearly shouted his name. “What are you doing here? How did you know what was—”

  Ailill brushed Una’s cheek with his fingers. He gazed deeply into her eyes for a long moment, and Una’s longing for the Sidhe’s promised home faded a little. Maybe this was where she was meant to be, after all—here in Kylebeg, with Kathleen. With Ailill.

  “Don’t go,” Ailill said again, gently this time.

  Then, before Una could answer, he turned to face the Sidhe. Una blinked as if emerging from a reverie. She looked at Ailill more sharply. There was no hint of surprise about him as he confronted one of the Fair Folk. He was a believer, too, Una saw.

  “You can’t take her,” Ailill said. “I won’t allow it.”

  The Sidhe tipped his fine head back slightly and laughed. It was a languid, arrogant laugh, dismissing all Ailill’s bravery like a hand brushing away a buzzing, bothersome gnat.

  “Who are you to stop me?” the Sidhe said, amused. “Stand aside, human. I’ve only come here at Una’s insistence. She called for us; she wants us to take her.”

  Once more, the Sidhe looked at Una. Those vibrant green eyes locked with her own, and her draw toward the Sidhe increased to an irresistible intensity. She took a few steps more toward him, hardly aware of Kathleen’s shouts to stop, to resist the Sidhe’s magic. Nor was she aware of her friend’s weight, dragging along behind her as Kathleen clung to her arm and pulled with all her might.

  Ailill stepped in front of Una. He laid a hand on her chest, gently but with a desperate and insistent touch. Una’s heart fluttered at the feeling, yet even Ailill couldn’t hold her back. She pushed his hand away and moved beyond him, drawing ever closer to the proud, unmoving Sidhe.

  “You can’t, Una,” Kathleen begged. Her voice brimmed over with tears. “Not without knowing the Otherworld. If you go with him, you’ll be lost forever!”

  Ailill moved again to stand in front of Una. He blocked her path to the Sidhe, but this time he wasn’t facing Una. He stared a fierce challenge at the Sidhe intruder.

  “Take me instead,” Ailill said calmly. “Let me go in Una’s place. Whatever you want her for—whatever you need her for—take me, and let Una go in peace.”

  “You don’t know the Otherworld any better, Ailill,” Kathleen murmured.

  Ailill cast her a brief, wry smile. “Don’t be so sure about that. I’ve had dealings with the Otherworld before. There’s someone who waits for me in the Otherworld.” He didn’t sound pleased about it. “So you see, I would have ended up there sooner or later, anyhow. Better to go on my own terms, rather than being dragged there against my will.”

  The Sidhe’s eyes narrowed, an expression of pure annoyance. He seemed about to dismiss Ailill, but then he tilted his head so his silvery hair rippled down across one shoulder. He looked more closely at Ailill’s face, then considered his tall, lean form.

  The Sidhe gestured; Ailill stepped closer. The fairy bent and sifted through the blackthorn petals at his feet. He came up again holding a small twig in his fingers. The bit of twig bore a long, wickedly sharp thorn.

  “Come,” the Sidhe said.

  Ailill stretched out his hand, offering it to the Sidhe. With a quick, indifferent motion, the Sidhe jabbed the thorn into one of Ailill’s fingers. Ailill bit back a cry of pain, but the Sidhe paid the human’s discomfort no mind. He lifted Ailill’s hand up to examine it, watching the blood gather slowly on the pale fingertip. Then he pulled Ailill’s finger to his mouth and licked up the bead of blood.

  Una’s eyes widened. She watched as the Sidhe deliberated, seeming to roll the flavor of Ailill’s blood along his palate

  “Not as strong,” the Sidhe said at last, “but I can taste it—the familiar flavor. Like calls to like. Perhaps you will do just as well. If Una is unwilling after all, then I will consent to take you in her stead.”

  Ailill bowed his head in acceptance. Then he turned to fix Una with a last, lingering, unutterably tragic gaze. In that moment, Una knew all at once, with a terrible certainty, that she would lose Ailill forever. And whatever he’d done in the past, however he had deceived her, the knowledge that he would soon be irrevocably gone from her life seared with a fiery pain.

  Una reached toward Ailill, but he was beyond her grasp. “Wait! Don’t take him, please. Let him go.”

  But the Sidhe steadfastly ignored her. The creature lifted one edge of his strange, flowing garment. He swept it around Ailill’s shoulders like a cape, and in a gust of wind that set the blackthorn blossoms swirling madly across the floor, both men vanished into the dark square of the hearth.

  17

  Una stared, eyes popping and body quaking, into the pitch-black mouth of the hearth. How was it possible that two men could disappear into that darkness, with no more than a swirl of air currents? Even after experiencing all she had—seeing all she had since coming to Kylebeg—it was far beyond her ability to comprehend. There was more to her world—her realm—than she had ever known. She had taken reality for granted all this time, but she couldn’t deny the truth any longer. Magic was real.

  “Ailill…” she called weakly.

  There was no answer, of course. Ailill was gone—carried off into the fairy Otherworld with the swirl of a strange intruder’s cloak. Vanished into blackness by a gust of wind.

  …Carried away in place of Una. Una, whose foolish, silly, bloody stupid mouth had gotten them both into this mess.

  Now that the Sidhe was gone, taking his magic with him, the wind had disappeared. Kathleen slammed the door shut; Una jumped at the sudden noise and spun to face her friend.

  “What the bloody hell just happened?” Una demanded, forcing herself to snap out of the hazy trance.

  “One of the Fair Folk came to spirit someone away to the Otherworld,” Kathleen said with exaggerated patience, as if explaining a very simple concept to a remarkably dim-witted child. “Because you called for him, Una, and told him to take you away. Brilliant work.”

  “But I didn’t know!” Una pleaded. “I thought it as all make-believe—an old belief that didn’t have a speck of reality in it.”

  “I tried to tell you it’s not make-believe. I tried to tell you just how real it all is. Now I hope you’ll listen to me.”

  Una covered her face with her hands. Even with her eyes shut, all she could see was the pained stare Ailill had given her, right before the Sidhe had spirited him away. She heaved a ragged sob. Weeping openly, and never caring what Kathleen thought of her because of it, Una moaned and rocked back and forth on her feet.

  “God, what a mess!” she wailed. “I know it’s real now, Kathleen. I know; I believe you. Just tell me how to get Ailill back.”

  “Get him back?” Kathleen said quietly. “You can’t get him back. There’s no way to do it. He’s gone into the Otherworld; if he comes back at all, it won’t be for years and years.”

  “What do you mean?” Una asked, mastering her fear as best she could. She lowered her hands and looked to Kathleen with what she hoped was an expression of steady, calm acceptance. “Tell me what you mean; I’m ready to listen now.”

  “Well,” Kathleen began uncertainly, shoving her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans and shuffling her feet in the mess of blackthorn petals, “we humans don’t know much about the Otherworld, to be honest. I suppose the only thing we can say with certainty is that it’s a… well, you might call it a parallel world. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to call it another dimension of our own world. We know it exists alongside our reality—unseen, but no less present, for we can interact with the Sidhe, and they with us.”

  “So I noticed,” Una muttered ruefully.

  “No one is sure how near we are to the Otherworld at any given point or any given time. Crossroads—and certain other locations that concentrate magic within them, like the old stone circles our ancestors built—seem to be the points where the barrier between the two worlds is the most permeable. And specific times of the year bring our world closer t
o the Sidhe realm, too. Nature’s cycle rolls through these points of contact; on the old holidays—the days the original inhabitants of Ireland held most sacred—the barrier is more permeable, too. Some points of the year bring us closer than others, though, with Samhain drawing us so close to the Otherworld that our two realities nearly merge.”

  “Samhain?”

  “Halloween, more or less,” Kathleen said.

  “What else do I need to know about the Otherworld.” Now Una didn’t have to fake her calm. With acceptance had come a grim sort of peace. She sorted through all Kathleen had told her carefully, searching for any information she thought she might be able to use.

  “There’s not much else I can tell you—not with any degree of certainty. Everything we know about the Otherworld, we know from the few people who have been there and returned. It’s not much to go by. They all report that it’s beautiful, sort of intoxicating—that they didn’t really want to leave. They tell of an atmosphere and a reality that make even the most wonderful parts of our realm seem dull by comparison. Sometimes they talk of visiting a palace, a royal court—the Seelie Court. Sometimes they wander alone, and experience the Otherworld by themselves without meeting any of the Fair Folk. The only thing the Otherworld accounts have in common is the passage of time.”

  “Tell me,” Una said levelly.

  Kathleen paused, as if she didn’t relish sharing the information with Una—not after they’d both watched Ailill disappear into the hearth. “Well… those who do manage to come back from the Otherworld always return thinking only hours have passed—or days. Weeks, at the most. But when they’re in our world again, they find that years or decades have advanced while they were away. The only thing we know for certain about the Otherworld is that time moves differently there.” Kathleen heaved a deep sigh. “And so you see, Una, I don’t know what we can do for Ailill… if we can do anything for him at all. I’m so sorry.”

  Una bit her lip. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Now that Ailill was in the other realm, their timelines were already diverging. It would make it all the harder to… to do whatever needed doing. Una still didn’t know what that might be.

  She blinked the impending tears away. Crying would help no one, least of all Ailill. When Una was certain she could trust her voice to remain steady, she said, “There must be a way to help him. There must be some hope… something we can cling to until we figure out how to get him back.”

  “Ailill said he’s had dealings with the Otherworld before. I don’t know if he’s actually been there, though. If he has, perhaps he already knows some way to get back.”

  Kathleen didn’t sound very optimistic about that possibility, though. Una sighed.

  Kathleen tried another tack. “You saw what the Sidhe did.” She lifted her own finger to her lips, miming the way the Sidhe had tasted Ailill’s blood. “I don’t quite know what the Fair One meant by it, but I suspect he found Seelie blood in Ailill’s veins, too. If that’s the case, then it may be that someone with the Seelie blood won’t be as strongly affected by the differences between the Otherworld and our realm…”

  Kathleen trailed off into silence. She looked Una up and down, silently considering. “If that is the case,” she murmured thoughtfully, “then perhaps you could…”

  Una drew herself up, bravely if not eagerly. “I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you think is best, Kathleen. I’ll go after Ailill. He came to rescue me—came to stand in my place. I owe it to him, don’t I?”

  But the next moment, Kathleen shook her head in dismissal. “No; it’s too dangerous. We can’t be sure how you’d fare in the Otherworld. Besides, we don’t know how to get you there, unless you shout for one of the Fair Folk to come and take you again. And I have a feeling that wouldn’t work a second time.”

  Una lowered her eyes to the blackthorn flowers strewn around the floor. She recalled—could all but hear—the Sidhe’s voice whispering, the voice murmuring among the trees at the crossroads. Wear the thorn, my blood. Don the crown and see.

  “I think I know how,” Una said slowly.

  She bent and found one of the slender, pliant blackthorn branches that had blown in on the magical gale.

  “I have some idea of how I might get there,” she muttered as she continued searching through the flowers. “Here; bring me more of these branches.”

  She and Kathleen sifted through the petals for another twig, and another. Soon they had enough small branches between them for Una to be getting on with.

  She bent the bundle of twigs into a circle, carefully weaving them together so they would hold their shape. She held up the circlet for Kathleen to see.

  “A crown?” Kathleen asked. “What good will that do?”

  “Maybe none,” Una said. “But I’ve a hunch that it just might work. And we’ve got to try anything, haven’t we?”

  “But are you sure you want to try this?” Kathleen sounded fearful. “You don’t know the Otherworld at all, Una. It could be dangerous there. And what if you can’t find any way back?”

  Una wrapped Kathleen in a spontaneous hug. “I don’t have a choice. Ailill went in my place. He had no cause to do it, except to save me. Now I must save him, if I can. It’s only fair, Kathleen.”

  “All right,” Kathleen murmured. “I’ll… I’ll try to find you there. I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try to find out, and guide you back home.”

  “Right,” Una said briskly. “But not until I’ve found Ailill. Ready?” She raised the blackthorn crown up above her head, but didn’t lower it to her brow.

  “No,” Kathleen admitted, her voice and body trembling.

  Una smiled at her. “Neither am I.”

  She lowered the blackthorn crown to her head. The moment it touched her dark hair, a flash of many-colored popped and flared before her eyes. Una blinked, squinted, raised her arm to shield her eyes.

  But when the flare abated a bit and she felt she could stand to look at the light’s source, Una peered cautiously over her arm.

  The interior of her cottage had… changed. The scattered petals were lifting slowly from the floor, floating upward, swirling on gentle eddies of air. The walls of the cottage—the furniture, the windows, everything in the place—were all where they ought to be, and yet they looked undeniably different. Everything was more angular, sharply delineated, almost cartoonish in color and form. Kathleen was nowhere to be seen, but where the front door of the cottage should be, a new and unfamiliar portal stood. The beams and lintel of the new door’s frame were made of some ornate, intricately carved stone—white in color, and shot through with veins of purple. The door itself was of dark wood, and living vines twined up its surface, their leaves stirring gently in the same unseen currents that moved the blackthorn petals.

  Violet light emanated from the doorway, bright and forceful, shining around the cracks of the door with a rhythmless flicker like the pulse of a great, purple bonfire.

  Una stared at the door for a few moments, counting her heartbeats until they slowed. I’ll find you, Ailill, she silently promised.

  Then she seized the door’s wooden handle, pulled it open to admit a flood of intense light… and stepped across the threshold.

  * * *

  The Blackthorn Cycle continues in Cage of Thorn… available now from your favorite ebook retailer!

  Read on for a preview chapter of Cage of Thorn.

  Preview Chapter: Cage of Thorn

  Book Two of The Blackthorn Cycle, available now from select ebook retailers.

  * * *

  As Una stepped through the door that had materialized in her parlor, a blinding, violet light enveloped her, blotting out her vision and leaving an echo of golden light-spots dancing behind her closed eyelids. All sense of her cottage’s existence vanished as she moved through the doorway—the feel of her home, its smell, its familiar atmosphere, all snuffed like a candle flame smothered between finger and thumb.

  Beyond the doorway, Una opened her eyes ti
midly, blinking to clear the dancing golden lights from her vision. A new world spread out around her. Everything looked vague familiar, yet at the same time disturbingly alien. Una’s garden was still there, encircling her… she noted beds of flowers and stone paths, all arranged in more-or-less the same configurations she knew so well by now. But it was also not the same garden… it couldn’t be. Everything was far lusher, more vibrantly green. The beds spilled over with growth; cascades of leaves and blossoms tumbled over borders and sprawled across the garden paths. Ferns and flowers reached their vibrant foliage out as if to caress one another, as if seeking to climb and twine their way up to the very vaults of the sky. The air was damper than usual, with the fresh, rain-soaked feel of a dew-laden morning; it smelled of the rich spice of growing things, a green-brown perfume that compelled Una to breathe more deeply and slowly.

  She walked up the path toward the garden gate. The gate she had known was formed of vertical planks of old, weather-beaten wood, but now she saw that the gate was fashioned from twisted, thickly intertwined grape vines. The woody stems curved and bent in graceful shapes; a few broad, green leaves sprouted among the vines and hung from the gate’s arch overhead. The stone wall was bearded in moss, so heavily that the stones themselves were barely visible beneath that carpet of green.

  The sky was a deep blue, reminiscent of twilight. It seemed somehow nearer than it had been in the human realm, as if it leaned precariously downward, seeking to be closer to the earth. The sky could not be ignored. Its felt almost invasive; a cool, misty atmosphere hung thickly over the garden, brushing Una’s cheeks and eyelids with moisture as she walked. It seemed to Una as if she walked through layers of clouds.

  She paused beyond the garden wall and glanced back at her cottage. The structure was still there, but it looked as if it had stood untended for a thousand years. Moss and ivy blanketed its sides; the two brick chimneys were crumbled stumps of their former selves. The roofline sagged in places, sprouting grass and flowers that had long since seeded themselves among the thatch.