The Danger of Destiny

by Leigh Evans

  The words were wrenched out of me. “Why do they take the teeth as trophies?”

  “To sell them.” His tone was flat, all emotion leached from it. “Most of the Fae shoot blanks. Owning a wolf’s canine is supposed to make them potent.”

  I wanted to touch him but didn’t because he was holding himself so rigidly, the thought came to me that he’d splinter apart on contact.

  Trowbridge said in a low voice, “It doesn’t add up. If they had to travel into the Faelands, why weren’t these women and children escorted? They’re the most vulnerable members of my pack. The most precious…”

  He lifted his shoulders, and his heated scent swirled around us.

  I’d never asked how many people he’d left behind. I hadn’t wanted to know because then we’d be talking about individuals, not a collective group known as the Raha’ells. And if I asked about his Merenwyn pack, Trowbridge might mention a special person—a friend who became a brother—and I would feel his grief and that would feed my guilt.

  That’s not all, is it, Hedi?

  Okay, here was the bigger fear: that there would be a name he might gloss over, a hole in the story that would pinprick my feminine intuition. I’m selfish and possessive, and I can’t bear the thought of him loving anyone else but me.

  I stared at the dead woman.

  Don’t be the girl who took my place.

  I’d sent Trowbridge to this realm to heal, and by my Creemore calendar it had taken him six months to get better and find a way home. What I hadn’t understood was how much faster time passes in the Fae world. A single Earth day is the rough equivalent to eighteen in Merenwyn. While I’d morosely witnessed the passage of three seasons in Ontario, Trowbridge had lived through nine winters in Merenwyn.

  That’s a long time to live with a cold bed.

  My mouth was dry. “How many Raha’ells did you leave behind?”

  “Fifty-four. Almost fifty-five. Johnet was pregnant.” He rubbed his hands over his scalp, shaking his head in a mixture of disbelief and anger. “Where were my warriors?”

  I thought of the redhead standing in the river, her bow primed. And of the dead woman by our knees who’d died clutching an arrow. “They were here,” I said quietly. “Every woman and child stood their ground.”

  He lifted his head to stare blankly at the riverbank.

  Don’t cry again, Trowbridge. I’ll break into pieces if you do.

  But when he turned to look at me, his eyes were dry and flat of light. “Yes, they were,” he said, reaching forward.

  He parted the woman’s dreads.

  “Who was she?” I asked, my heart thudding in my chest.

  “Saranna. She’s—she was—Gerrick’s mate.”

  Relief swept through me and then a well-deserved flush of shame.

  Killing Saranna was two for one for the Faes, I thought bitterly. If one mates goes, the other follows. It was a double heaping of sorrow for the Alpha of the Raha’ells.

  Trowbridge thumbed the deceased young woman’s eyes closed with exquisite tenderness, then brushed his thumb sideways across her forehead.

  A ritual?

  “May your soul find its way to the hunting ground.” Gently, he cupped her jaw, then rotated her head until it was more or less realigned. “That’s the best I can do for you, Saranna,” he whispered, his thumb stroking her cheek. “Happy hunting.”

  He sat back on his heels.

  “We can stop to bury them,” I offered quietly.

  Trowbridge inhaled, then shook his head. “Can’t.” He reached to slide the dead woman’s quiver off her shoulder.

  “Why?”

  His tone hardened. “Because Qae’s nearby.” Water sheeted as Trowbridge rose to his feet. He emptied the quiver of a quart of water, then slung it over his shoulder. He snagged a bow caught in the bulrushes and ran his hand along its dripping wooden curve.

  “Cracked,” he said viciously, dropping it back into the Penance.

  “Trowbridge, I’m sorry. It’s—”

  “Save it,” he bit out.

  “Don’t.” My tone matched his for hardness. “Don’t let the foulness of what happened here become a wedge between you and me. I know you’re sad and angry but—”

  “I’m not sad,” he ground out. “Maybe later I’ll be sad, but right now I have to find a bow that wasn’t made for a kid or a woman and a place to spend the night. And I don’t want to talk, okay? Not about the ambush, not about a fucking cloud that disappeared into that bastard’s fucking palm. Not. Right. Now.”

  The back of his corded neck was slick with sweat.

  Okay, I thought.

  But Trowbridge spun around to glare at me. “The cloud is new, okay? New! The Black Mage never had power like that before. My people were chased by hounds and hunters, not some Fae magic shit that ran them to the ground.”

  “He’s gained some power he didn’t have before.”

  “Before I left, he was a cruel bastard, but now he’s a magic-strong cruel bastard. He never had power like that! If he had, he would have used it. Which means—”

  “He’s picked up a few more spells,” I finished for him, “and the wards the Old Mage placed over the Book of Spells are degrading.”

  My mate’s tone turned stiff and accusing, “You told me that the wards would hold as long as the Old Mage’s soul lived.”

  “That’s what I understood,” I replied carefully.

  “Well, surprise, surprise, he—”

  “Lied.”

  “Will you stop finishing my sentences?” he asked in a savage voice.

  My chest tightened.

  Did he blame me? Did he think that I set this all in play? I swung away from him, the need to put some space between us urgent. I didn’t cause this. It’s not my fault the Old Mage lied. I spotted another bow farther downstream that had been snagged by the long spar of a felled cedar that jutted into the river. I picked my way toward it, my cloth-bound feet sliding on the algae-slick rocks.

  I could feel Trowbridge’s gaze on my back.

  “Be careful,” he finally called. “Don’t go out of sight.”

  Don’t talk to me.

  I slogged through the water, edging very slowly along the spine of the log to stretch for the bow. Were the people who stole teeth and got their jollies out of terrifying children my people?

  There had to be some good Fae. My mother had been a good Fae.

  I was thinking about Mom and her smile, and her kindness, and the way she’d made water dance when I saw the boy’s leg.

  For a second I didn’t recognize it for what it was. It gleamed, pale as the underbelly of a silvered fish, under the water’s rippling surface. Even as my mind was saying, Don’t look, my gaze traveled, slowly absorbing things not easily accepted—that the pale limb was attached to a body and the body had a terrible belly wound. Impossible not to add details that I knew would live in my memory forever. Varens’s small clawed fingers were dug into the splintered wood. Little fragments of wet cedar clung to the half-moons of his nails.

  And then, this—oh sweet heavens, the final horror—that Varens’s eyes are open and aware.

  “Trowbridge!”

  * * *

  Trowbridge started when he saw me, supporting the boy’s head, cradling it so that the water didn’t stream into Varens’s partially opened mouth.

  “He’s alive!” I cried as Trowbridge hurried to me.

  “Varens,” Trowbridge muttered, slipping an arm under the wounded Raha’ell. His gaze slid to the gaping gut wound, and the hope I’d seen briefly light up his face died.

  The boy’s eyes lifted heavily. He murmured a name—it sounded like Luke.

  “Shhh,” Trowbridge soothed, gathering up the boy. He lifted Varens tenderly and, with the strength of a grieving father, carried him to the bank. There Trowbridge sank awkwardly to the grass, the wounded youth cradled in his arms.

  Shivering, I followed.

  “What can we do?” I asked.

  Trowbridge g
rimly wagged his head.

  Nothing.

  I reached for the boy’s lax hand, barely suppressing a gasp when his fingers tightened around mine with a strength both weak and tenacious.

  Oh sweet heavens. Never had I felt so helpless.

  Merry lengthened her chain and slid down its links until she reached the swell of my breast. There she paused to delicately withdraw two vines from the complicated nest of gold that surrounded her amber stone.

  “Can he be healed?” I whispered to her.

  She used one vine to prop herself in order to better see the boy who lay so trustingly in Trowbridge’s arms. The other she thinned until all the bristling edges of her ivy leaves were flattened and the arm of gold was smooth. With the gravity of a doctor placing a stethoscope on a terminal patient’s chest, she rested the end of her vine on the boy’s pulse.

  After a moment or two, she gave her medical opinion. From her amber belly came a throb of light. Yellow-brown.

  No.

  Mournful and final.

  Varens’s nostrils flared and he murmured something—a string of upward notes that clearly finished with the name Lukynae.

  Trowbridge flinched.

  “What did he say?” I whispered.

  My mate’s jaw hardened. “That no Fae could hold the Son of Lukynae forever. That he knew that I’d find a way to escape. That I’d come to lead them again.” He stroked the kid’s cheek, then leaned to whisper something into the boy’s ears.

  Varens let out a mewl.

  Merry moved, letting gravity pull her pendant to the bottom curve of the chain I wore around my neck. Despondently she wove her arm back into the nest surrounding her amber, then she gave a shudder, and her setting tightened into an intricate, protective knot.

  Whatever Trowbridge had said had dismayed her greatly.

  “She’s upset,” I said.

  “I told Varens that I was going to bring him home as soon as he answers some questions.” The Son of Lukynae raised his eyes to meet mine. “I have to know what happened to the rest of the pack. Why this group left the camp without any escort.” His tone was flat. “Shit’s gone down. I need to know what.”

  Why was he staring at me so fixedly?

  “The Raha’ells believe that their souls cannot go to the hunting ground without my blessing.” His gaze never left mine. “If I had a heart, I’d let him go easily.”

  You have a heart. It’s breaking right now underneath all that stoicism.

  “We need to know,” I said, my voice low.

  What followed was a back-and-forth, a gentle interrogation conducted by a sorrowful Alpha and a dying boy. Trowbridge translated for me where he could.

  “Why did they leave base camp?” Trowbridge asked Valens.

  The boy started shivering and his scent turned musk tinged with fright. “Because of the terror of the sky,” he told Trowbridge. It had found the Raha’ells’ hidden home and chased them down to the lower lands.

  “When did it first appear?” Trowbridge prodded.

  Ten days ago.

  A comet spun in my mate’s eyes. “Where was the rest of the pack?” he probed.

  Varens wasn’t sure; they’d split into three groups the night before last.

  Trowbridge shook his head at that, clearly dismayed. “Why?” he asked.

  Because they’d soon realized that the cloud found them more easily when they were in a large group. The Raha’ells reasoned the best thing to do would be to split up. Hope that that three groups would be harder to find.

  “Why was Varens’s group traveling without any warriors to protect them?”

  Here the boy began crying again. Soundless tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes. They’d needed food, and their warriors had left them to hunt. But last night, they’d heard screams and howls south of their camp. And a woman in their party had died soon after.

  Trowbridge asked one last question. The young warrior’s strength was clearly ebbing, and my mate had to bend low, his ear hovering over the boy’s mouth, to listen to his reply. Trowbridge straightened very slowly, his tortured gaze moving to the sun.

  I would like to say that Varens died between one soft sigh and another.

  That didn’t happen.

  Even after Trowbridge said the blessing.

  Five agonizing minutes later—during which I wanted to cover my ears and close my eyes to his gasps—Varens died. With shaking fingers, Trowbridge closed the dead boy’s eyes. “May your soul find its way to the hunting ground,” he repeated, his voice a terrible benediction.

  * * *

  The Son of Lukynae carried Varens’s body to the base of a very old tree. He sank down onto his knees and removed the boy’s laced-up moccasins with efficiency tempered with respect. These he placed beside his hip; then, with stoic care, he arranged Varens’s hair so that the long dark dreads were neatly over the boy’s shoulders.

  Trowbridge remained kneeling, his head bowed.

  I gave him some privacy, going to the river to rinse my hands. I swished them and watched the current carry the traces of red downstream.

  When I turned back, Trowbridge was straightening, shoes in hand. I dried my hands on my jeans as I walked to him.

  Trowbridge held out the moccasins. “Put these on.”

  “No,” I said automatically. “I can’t wear those.”

  “They’re the only ones that will fit your feet.” He went down on one knee and tapped my calf. “The squeamish die fast in Merenwyn.”

  Averting my gaze from Varens’s body, I reached for the tree beside me to balance myself, then extended my sopping, jersey-swaddled foot. Swiftly Trowbridge rolled up my jean leg and began unpicking the sodden knot. He worked the two ends loose, exposing my foot.

  I hadn’t seen it in a couple of hours. It was dead white and wrinkled. Except for the crimson line where a stone had nicked me on my instep.

  Hurriedly Trowbridge slid Varens’s moccasin onto my foot. He pulled the laces taut, then crossed the ends of the leather over each other and made a quick knot. Though the shoe was wet and clammy, it fit as sweetly as Cinderella’s glass slipper. My toes curled into the indents left by the last owner.

  “Next one,” Trowbridge said.

  I shifted my balance so that he could attack my other makeshift shoe. It’s amazing how well he used his hands considering the damage to them. I watched in dull admiration as they nimbly worked the jersey’s knot loose.

  When he’d returned to me, after his sojourn in this realm, I’d thought him rendered down to bone and muscle. I was wrong on that. You can get thinner, given the right combination of ungodly stress, limited rations, and no sleep.

  I touched his neck.

  His back went absolutely rigid. Matter of fact, every muscle visible to my eyes—from biceps to that patch of skin above the sagging jeans—tensed.

  “You did what you had to,” I said.

  “I know.” He stripped away the wet rags and quickly slid the other moccasin over my foot. “You feeling brave?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Why?”

  “Because Qae’s going to come after us.”

  I twisted around to stare at the woods. “You said he didn’t know we were here.”

  “He knew something wasn’t right. Either he caught my scent—”

  “Is he a wolf?”

  “Half,” Trowbridge muttered. “Could have been just his instinct. That’s what makes him so hard to shake—he uses all his senses. The bastard dogged my trail for three solid days.”

  “How did you lose him?”

  “I didn’t. He was the tracker that led your brother’s hunting party to me.”

  Lexi, performing a portion of his employment duties as the Black Mage’s general dogsbody and all-round bad guy, had hunted my mate and brought him to the Spectacle. They’d hurt him along the way—either my brother or the tracker—because my mate had been dragged into the arena, his back flayed, his head lolling.

  I’d never asked Lexi who was responsibl
e for that, nor had I inquired of Trowbridge.

  I couldn’t.

  The truth could kill everything. It could render everything impossible to mend.

  “Trowbridge.” That’s all I could get out—his name. Two syllables, one soft, one broken. He didn’t look up, probably not wanting me to read the hate in his eyes. So, I sealed my mouth and watched his hands move. Saw the way his knuckle-less pinkie stood out as he tied the knot. Noted the white scars and the odd callus on his thumb. He made a final knot and it took that long to figure out what I should say.

  “I love you,” I said helplessly.

  “Hold on to that thought,” he said, “because I’m going to push you hard.” He rose and turned me to face to mountains in the northwest. “We’re leaving the river and going up.”

  Was that snow on K2’s peak?

  My feet. My fucking feet.

  “Horses can’t follow us up there. If you can get a Fae to dismount, you can level the playing ground,” he said. “You’re going to hate me, sweetheart. It’s a hard climb.”

  “Hard climb,” I said. “Check.”

  “But if we can get high enough, there are caves halfway up, and running water. We can rest.”

  There’s always water in Merenwyn. And hills. And mountains. And forests.

  And now, apparently, trackers.

  Chapter Four

  Legs like lead. Each ragged breath dragon fire scorching my windpipe. Trowbridge’s fist a bruising manacle, hauling me up every time I lost my footing.

  And trust me, I kept stumbling.

  Insights.

  There can be no worse plight than knowing that you’re being pursued by relentless trackers. No lousier realization than the fact that your escape would be determined by how quickly you could sprint.

  Bullshit.

  There’s worse. You don’t really hit the bottom of the emotional well until you have realized the aforementioned and had a chance to start reflecting on how well your natural abilities were going to meet the challenge. Yeah, that’s the bad part. When you start thinking that you’re not strong enough. You’re not fast enough. You’re not going to outrun a horse or two hunters determined to track a wolf and a woman who may or may not be a wolf.