The Danger of Destiny

by Leigh Evans

  Not fast enough.

  My mate was thoroughly capable of disengaging from me and grabbing Mouse’s collar before the kid managed to scuttle out of striking range. Trowbridge hauled the kid and gave him a ruthless shake.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you what a dumbass move it is to spy on an Alpha?” shouted Trowbridge.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I wasn’t spying!” squeaked Mouse.

  Trowbridge had hauled him out of the cave. Mouse stood with his clawed hands bunched at his waist, his shoulders hunched under our glares.

  My tone was flint. “What I want to know is how he got past us. He was by Seabiscuit not ten minutes ago.”

  “It’s what I do.” The kid’s fingers spasmed. “I slip in and out. Quiet as a mouse.”

  “Open your hands very slowly,” Trowbridge told him, “and show us what you have.”

  With a wince, Mouse obeyed, opening his cupped fists and tipping the contents of his palms. Gray ash plumed as the small charcoal remnant of Lexi’s evening fire bounced along the stone floor.

  “What were you planning to do with that?” Trowbridge asked too softly.

  “Hedi of Creemore never got to eat her crumbs.” Mouse blew at the blister forming on his palm. “I thought I could make a fire. Then if I could find some game … a squirrel or other creature. Her belly’s been grumbling all morning. She needs feeding.”

  Trowbridge cocked his head. “Do you know how to use a bow?”

  The teen’s cheeks reddened. “No.”

  Mouse’s tattered dignity clawed at me. “I haven’t eaten for over thirty hours,” I said. “Does that qualify as being a long time between meals in Merenwyn?”

  “Yes,” said my Trowbridge. “That’s a long time between meals.”

  Thank heavens, because it was twenty-six hours longer than my previous starvation record. “I could eat a squirrel,” I said. “If it was skinned and cooked over a fire.” Another bad thought occurred to me. “I don’t have to skin my own squirrel yet, do I?”

  “No,” said my mate softly.

  Had it come to this so quickly? I was actually looking forward to tearing into a meal of charred rodent on a stick? I scowled at the streak of ash marring Varens’s moccasin. “How long will it take to get to the castle from here?”

  Lexi spoke up. “It’s two hours south.”

  Is that all? A quarter had been flipped, but it had not fallen and now it spun, caught in a loop of an endless rotation. I needed that sucker to land. To read the verdict, be it heads or tails.

  I could wait to eat.

  * * *

  I turned to Mouse. “You said that the Gatekeeper took you through a tunnel that brought you out of the castle.”

  Trowbridge stiffened with interest.

  “Aye,” said Mouse. “And you want me to tell you where to find it.”

  “Yup.”

  “Make me one of you. I heard every word you spoke in the cave. And I know that the Son of Lukynae and the Brave Hedi of Creemore have come to lead the Raha’ells to a better world or die trying to do so. I want to fight with you.”

  You see? This is precisely how myths are made. A wisp of truth is taken, gilded with gold leaf, threaded through a silver needle, and sewn into a cloth fabricated by half-truths and complete fantasy. Mouse had listened, and processed incorrectly. And now—poof—I’d gone from a girl caught in a trap to “the Brave Hedi of Creemore,” the most unlikely addendum to a prophecy you’d ever meet.

  His gaze burned mine. “Make me a Raha’ell.”

  Right. Like I had the power to do that.

  Mouse continued his pitch. “Don’t trust my mistress to show you the right way into the castle. She’d rather die at the hands of the Son of Lukynae than face what the Royal Court will do to her for her treachery. But I know where it is—she showed me. I’ll take you right to it. And once inside the castle, I can get you food,” he bargained. “Meat for the Alpha and all the sweetlings you could wish for, Hedi of Creemore. Clothing too. Whatever else you need. Let me be there to see the walls come down. And after that the Fae can kiss my backside. I’ll be one of you.”

  One of you.

  My gaze went to Trowbridge’s. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes asked me silently, Can we trust him?

  Mouse waited for my verdict. Thumbs up. Thumb down.

  Would it be kinder to leave him? To let him carry on until he drank the last drop of his stash of sun potion? For if we brought Mouse into our epic quest, his blood would be almost certainly staining my hands.

  These were the sort of decisions an Alpha makes.

  You asked for equal partnership.

  You got it.

  My nod to Trowbridge was slight and far more reluctant than sage. The Son of Lukynae considered the teenager, then said, “I only take men who are willing to fight.”

  “I am willing to fight.”

  “And willing to die.”

  Mouse didn’t so much as blink. “That too.”

  “Say it.”

  “I’m willing to die.”

  My stomach twisted again.

  “You’ll have to find your rank among them,” said Trowbridge. “You’ll be at the bottom until you prove yourself deserving to be higher. Now, do you want to be known as Mouse or by another name?”

  “Can I think on it?”

  “For a bit. Tell me about the Gatekeeper’s tunnel.”

  The tension in Mouse’s body visibly drained. “You get to it through the room of riches. There’s a—”

  “Traitor!” shouted the Gatekeeper.

  Mouse gleefully shouted back, “You’re longer my mistress! I’m one of them now! I’ll tell them what I want!” And so, with flushed cheeks and the promise of a pack behind him, he did. “There’s a secret tunnel under the lake! I know where to find the entrance and how to open it!”

  There’s a tunnel under the lake: I really, really wanted to do a fist pump and scream, “Bingo!”

  Trowbridge did not seem to share my joy. “What side of the lake?”

  It took me a second to understand the importance of the answer to that question. According to Trowbridge, all the lands to the south of the castle were cultivated and teeming with Fae farms and towns.

  Please don’t say “in the village square.”

  The teen walked over to the tiny map etched in the dirt and studied it, head tilted. Then he bent forward to drill his finger into the loamy sand. “There,” he said, straightening.

  “Am I looking at that right?” I whispered to Trowbridge.

  “When you come out of the tunnel,” Trowbridge asked Mouse, “you’re on the mainland, looking at the back of the Spectacle?”

  “Aye,” answered Mouse. “You can see it plain as day. It’s straight across the water.”

  Karma freakin’ loves me.

  * * *

  My brother, the perpetual killjoy, spoke up. “Do you have any idea how many armed men there are within the castle? Or how much magic any member of the royal house has? Have you considered that Trowbridge’s face is known? Or that he’s the most wanted man in the realm?”

  “Your face is twice as recognizable as mine,” said Trowbridge.

  Lexi’s eyes flickered. “If your mate comes with us to Wryal’s, we’ll never get close enough to the book to destroy it. That’s what brought you here, isn’t it, twin? Or have you forgotten that?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” I replied. “Putting a match to it comes first.”

  “So let me see if I understand the sequence of events. After you’ve slipped into the castle, unobserved, and gained access to the Black Mage’s rooms, unobserved, and destroyed the book … you and Trowbridge plan to stroll through the castle to the Spectacle, where you intend to free his wolves?”

  Put like that, it did sound insane. And he hadn’t even mentioned the part about going to Threall to save his soul.

  I gave him an abrupt nod.

  My twin sucked in his cheek. With barely held patience, he said, “I
won’t help you commit suicide. The Raha’ells are more animal than human. Do you think they’ll welcome you? They will kill you based solely on the fact that you’re my sister.”

  Trowbridge’s scent spiked. “They will revere her as my mate.”

  Mouse cleared his voice. “I don’t want to anger the Son of Lukynae for speaking out of turn, but I know how we can distract the court so your consort won’t be needing her brother’s help.”

  * * *

  “I can set fire to the Great Hall,” Mouse said gleefully. “It would be a rare pleasure to set the place alight.”

  Trowbridge cocked his head. Lexi narrowed his eyes.

  And I said, “What’s the Great Hall?”

  “The most important room in the castle,” Lexi said with a flicker of real interest. “It’s where the court gathers to feast, it’s where they toast, and it’s where your social status is known. Fortunes have been lost and won depending on the seat assigned to you at the long table.”

  “Go on, Mouse,” said Trowbridge.

  “When you and Hedi of Creemore are finished in the Black Mage’s tower, you give me a nod across the way. I’ll be watching for it. Then I’ll set my torch to the hall. The place is full of wood and fine table linens; it will burn easy. The gold will melt off the ceilings, and the magical tapestries…” His brow crinkled. “I don’t know exactly what will happen to them, but it can’t be good.”

  Lexi cut in, “How will you get in?”

  “The same way any servant enters any fine room in the castle. Quietly, so as not to be a distraction. Carrying what needs to be carried.” Mouse’s grin was wide, and his teeth shone. “A noble can’t be walking into the hall before it’s time for the evening’s feast without someone remarking on it. But someone like me could enter, hours before I was needed, and it wouldn’t be noticed.”

  “Except by your quartermaster,” I pointed out. “You stole sun potion. I heard you tell the Gatekeeper that you couldn’t return to the castle.”

  “He has no business there. And as long as I stay true to my name, he won’t find me. At least not for the hour or two it will take to destroy the castle, the grounds, and, I expect, the whole court too.” Mouse’s gaze flitted from me to Trowbridge, then very briefly to Lexi, and back to me. “You’re worried that someone will come upon me while I set the fire. Don’t. The Spectacle is not until tomorrow night. Today’s a quiet day for those royal born—they’ll be up all night tomorrow. All of us below stairs will be expected to work our knuckles to the bone. The kitchens will be busy for two days straight. No one expects a meal in the Great Hall tonight.”

  “That’s true,” murmured my twin.

  Mouse showed his teeth to the Gatekeeper. “Once the fire’s lit, they’ll send every servant, every man or woman wearing a uniform, and every person with the magic to quell the fire to the hall. As for the rest, they’ll stand and gawk, and while they do you and your lady can be opening the gates to the pens.”

  “Where’s the room of riches in relation to the Great Hall?” Trowbridge asked.

  “It’s on the opposite side of the courtyard,” Mouse replied. “Their backs will be to you.”

  Lexi said to Trowbridge, “There’s still the postern gates—the sentries won’t leave their posts. Not even for a fire in the Great Hall.”

  “What are postern gates?” I asked.

  Trowbridge said, “An exit at the back of the castle. That’s how you get to the Spectacle grounds. Through the alley between the castle and the palisade.”

  “More guards,” Lexi objected.

  Trowbridge lifted his chin in irritation. “We’re outnumbered, but we have surprise, and everything we need to do is in a straight line. The Gatekeeper’s secret passage is on the east wall. The mage’s tower in on the southeast corner, and the postern gate on the south wall.”

  Through which were the Spectacle grounds.

  I stared at the rough sketch he’d drawn of Wryal’s, quelling an inexplicable bout of nausea.

  Lexi offered one final objection. “Once we leave the protection of the ward, Trowbridge’s presence is vulnerable to detection by a jinx. It hunts wolves. Your mud is not going to last long as a shield. You’re already sweating it off, Son of Lukynae. I can smell the stench of your wolf.”

  “You know what I find interesting?” Trowbridge turned to me, his eyes slits. “For a guy who’s been in deep rehab, your brother knows a shitload about jinxes. I spent nine winters sitting around a campfire listening to wolves trade more war stories than I can remember. And no one ever mentioned clouds that hunted wolves. Or used the word ‘jinx.’”

  Lexi smiled. “My mage and I saw one as we traveled here. He recognized it as the embodiment of a spell he conceived but never put to use.”

  “Why didn’t he put it to use?”

  My twin replied, “I do not know.”

  “The old goat’s almost as helpful a bastard as you, isn’t he?” Trowbridge mused, rubbing his neck. “We’ve got to get through a shitload of things over the next couple hours, and it starts with someone collapsing this ward. So, can you do it or do I need to go knock-knock on your skull to call the guy who can?”

  * * *

  When it came time to bring down the ward, Lexi limped to the place where Trowbridge had drawn his map. My twin used the heel of his boot to scuff away the etchings, claiming he needed to do his conjuring on a patch of bare earth. I’m not sure if that was true or not. If communing with the soil were an integral part of the process, wouldn’t he have taken off his boots?

  How much did he need to lie now? I wondered about that as I watched him raise his hands shoulder high, then spread them as if he were prepping to tell the story about the one who got away.

  My brother’s a striking man. Even when he’s pale, sweating, and dirty. Even when his “bad” side is presented to me—the right side—with the dark shadow of a paw print definitely visible beneath the three-week stubble of his hair. Yes, he’s handsome and likely always will be. That being said, every jewel has the right setting, and Lexi found his when he began to conjure.

  Gilded by the mid-day sun, his hair glowed brighter, and his green eyes—so pale, so translucent—seemed to intensify in color, borrowing from the nature surrounding him. He tipped his jaw slightly toward the sky, and I watched the arrogance that he habitually wore as defense fade and be replaced by the type of confidence borne by a man who knew himself to be great.

  I moved closer to Trowbridge, my heart hurting, and his heavy arm carved around me to tuck me tightly to his body.

  Lexi rolled his wrists, so that his palms were turned upward and his fingers were loosely curled. Then my brother let loose a long, lyrical stream of words that were neither Merenwynian nor English.

  Pressure spiked in my ears.

  I flinched against it, and Trowbridge drew me closer until my cheek rested against his warm chest, then cupped my ear with his palm. The trees outside the parameters of the ward blurred and magic unseen moved to my brother’s call.

  There was no pop, no explosion of glitter bits.

  I knew the ward was gone, because as swiftly as blowing out a candle the throbbing pressure in my ears died and the scents of magic, and pony, and sun potion and blood dissipated, caught on Merenwyn’s ever-present soft breeze.

  But mostly I knew it was done because my brother’s loosely clawed hands turned into tight fists and an expression of glorious bliss lit my brother’s beautiful face and I saw what he could have been, and what he wanted to be, and what he could never be.

  Chapter Eighteen

  APPROXIMATELY TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER

  We found the creek before a jinx found us, which was a minor miracle, since much of the crusted mud that had turned Trowbridge’s back into a crocodile hide had long flaked away and what was left had turned to a slick film of taupe.

  Murphy’s Law: the day had turned stinking hot and muggy. My One True Love’s scent disguise kept sliding off him.

  Trowbridge took a step
off the bank into the lower edge of the stream where the ground was covered with a layer of last year’s leaves. He kicked aside a heavy mat of rotting mulch, then sank to one knee to dig into the foul-smelling mud. With an expression of acute distaste, he slapped a handful of goo on his chest.

  I grimaced in sympathy. Then, biting down on a wince, I cupped my hands and leaned forward to slurp up a mouthful of creek water. It was sweet and cold and left an aftertaste of freshness. I splashed some on my face, then tipped my head back, letting the icy water sheet down my throat and cheeks.

  “So. Much. Better,” I informed Merry.

  My amulet-friend, intent on feeding on tender shoots of elder, commented with a tiny blip of primrose light. Merenwyn’s sun was still strong and its powerful rays shone right through the heart of her, turning an amber belly into a gleaming golden one.

  Ralph was in the shade, quietly supping on a nearby branch.

  Seabiscuit let out a soft whicker.

  “Keep the pony quiet,” Lexi told Mouse. After taking his fill, he’d pulled off his boots and now cooled his ankle in the icy current, a few yards downstream of Seabiscuit and the teen. My sibling’s gait had de-evolved over the last few miles from a smooth glide to a hitched limp. He hadn’t complained, but then again, he hadn’t spoken much since we left Daniel’s Rock.

  “’Tain’t my fault if she’s talkative,” muttered Mouse, stroking Seabiscuit’s neck.

  I stood, gritting my teeth. My butt was on fire and my thighs one spasm away from a full-blown muscle cramp. I’d covered the ground astride my trusty Seabiscuit. Certain private parts of me that were supposed to stay tender and plump felt puffy and bruised from the saddle burn.

  Still, I’d take those muscle aches over walking. The over-hill, over-dale potion of our journey had flattened the Gatekeeper’s mouth into a seam of fatigue. She sat on a rock, a squat toad, impatiently waiting for me to release her from her restraints so that she could drink from the stream. Lexi had volunteered his belt, which I’d used to secure her hands behind her. “I’m thirsty,” she complained again as I sloshed past her.