The Danger of Destiny

by Leigh Evans

  Holy crap.

  I sagged against him. He was hard as a rock.

  “You are one crazy Tinker Bell.” He sounded prouder than a guy who scored a Shelby off a vendor who didn’t know their Mustangs.

  My heart thudded against my ribs.

  The sun was a sphere of fire behind the tall spire in the west. Streaks of it, long slashes of pure gold, tried to reach for us. “There’s no holding back the night once it begins,” I said, knowing the cover of dark would be an asset once we were inside the castle.

  “No,” he said, and his arms grew tight, tight, tight.

  My mouth went dry as I realized a fairly big-assed complication. I rubbed my tongue against my teeth, then asked the question I feared to pose: “Will there be another full moon tonight?”

  He stopped nuzzling and half-turned us toward Danen. My mate tipped up his chin in a silent query.

  “Tonight’s the second night of it,” his second replied. “Tomorrow’s the last.”

  We’ll be wolves. All of us. Four-legged animals can’t strike a match to set a book on fire. Lupines are useless with longbows.

  Lily scowled at the longbow hooked on a bough high above her reach. “It’s poor hunting here. The Fae have taken all the good game.”

  “And we’ll have to be wearing the mud again,” said a brooding Brutus. “My wolf hates it. It’s not natural.”

  “We can’t—” I began.

  Trowbridge said quietly, “Time to talk Plan A.” He gave my neck one more nibble, then moved away. Planting his foot on a rock, he said, “We’re not going to answer the moon’s call tonight. Each of us will take the juice.”

  Brutus growled low in his throat.

  My mate didn’t even bat an eyelash. In a calm voice, he said, “Every Fae takes for granted that the Raha’ells will turn into their wolves during a full moon. We’re going to use that. The Fae won’t be prepared for Raha’ells who walk like men but kill like wolves.”

  Danen fingered an arrow, then shook his head. “We’ll be staggering, not walking. None of us have the head for the potion.”

  “Not if we time it right,” replied Trowbridge. “There’s a rush after you’ve taken a swallow, but it passes. Once inside the castle, Mouse will find us a good place to gather what we need for our attack. We’ll take the juice then. By nightfall, we’ll all have clear heads.”

  “They say it makes you stronger.” Brutus’s scent was growing pungent.

  “A little,” said Trowbridge.

  “I stole the juice,” said Mouse, seeking some praise. “Three full bottles. From the store master’s locked pantry. Had to get past two guards to do it.”

  “How about it, pack? Do we take the sun potion?”

  Brutus’s grin showed all his teeth. “Well, there’s no game here. I didn’t enjoy my meal last night; the rabbits in these woods are so stringy it’s hardly worth the effort.”

  “That was my rabbit,” said Lily. She turned in exasperation and glared at Lexi. “You put my bow up in this tree. I want it back. Use your magic to bring it back down.”

  My brother folded his arms behind his head.

  * * *

  After all the weapons had been retrieved, the Raha’ells hunkered down to watch Trowbridge play Picasso with a stick again. The tiny silence that fell after my mate finished his sketch of the island was broken by Lily’s audible inhale of anticipation.

  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. “How many Fae do you think I’ll bring down before I make it across the bridge? Ten? Twelve?”

  “We won’t be using the bridge,” Trowbridge said absently, intent on adding details to his rough diagram. “There’s a secret tunnel that goes right under the lake. No one will know we’re inside until we’re on our way out.”

  “There will be plenty of Fae inside the castle, Lily,” said Brutus. “Now, where’s this secret tunnel, then?”

  My gaze jerked upward to Trowbridge’s. The Gatekeeper. In all the fuss, and drama, and near-death experiences, I’d forgotten how essential she was.

  Mouse pushed between Lily and Brutus. “I know where it is.” Then he gave Lexi a shark’s grin and said, “And how to use it.”

  There was a pause; then Danen said, “And once we’re into the castle, what happens then?”

  I left them to it. I needed to get something from the Gatekeeper.

  * * *

  The Gatekeeper’s chin rested on the arrow piecing her throat. I forced my eyes away from that horror and focused on the gold chain around her neck.

  No coin, no safe passage home, I reminded myself. Swallowing hard, I reached forward. The chain was slick.

  “You haven’t done this much, have you?” said Mouse, coming up behind me. “You’ll have to break the arrow first, else you’ll never get the necklace over her neck.”

  Body-looting tips from a teenager. Sweet heavens.

  What followed next was done with shaking hands and a bout of dry heaves. Once my gut was more or less stable, I examined my bounty. The pendant bore no features I associated as amulet-ish. No stone, no articulated arms. It was just a decorative disc with a bit of etching. I held it out to Merry, brows lifted.

  The light within her amber heart issued a disgusted flash of yellow.

  So, not an amulet.

  “I’ll check her pockets,” Mouse said, proceeding to rifle through them. He passed me a golden spoon (“you’ll need to melt it down, as it has her mark on it”) and a small square of chamois, which he carefully unfolded (“she used that to polish the jewels, she did”).

  “Found anything of interest?” said Lexi.

  Mouse’s paw was burrowed deep inside the skirt pocket. He started at Lexi’s voice, then rose, wiping his mouth. “I’m going for a piss,” he mumbled.

  “Nothing of value in the pocket?” Lexi called after him.

  Mouse spun on his heels and spread his hands wide. “’Twas empty, Shadow.” Then Mouse cleared his throat and headed for the trees. His amble was deliberately innocent; he knew his departure was being watched with squint-eyed appraisal.

  “His feelings are hurt,” I said to Lexi.

  My twin lifted a shoulder. “Feelings are expendable.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Trowbridge was going through the diversion. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “The Safe Passage is sealed. I watched it close. I tried Open Sesame and it sure as hell didn’t work. We’re never getting back home.”

  He lifted his shoulders, very much the big brother. “I can open it. The portals are the mage’s creation. And remember, I know what he knows. I know the words to open the portal.”

  Home!

  This time I was leaving nothing to chance. “What are the words?”

  He spoke another long string of gibberish.

  “What freakin’ language is that?” I asked in frustration.

  “Mage speech. Impossible to teach or to lend.”

  Swell.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Sheep’s tits,” said Mouse in a stunned voice. Past the thin line of young trees that delineated forest from field, Dhesperal Lake shimmered.

  Trowbridge said, “Son of a bitch.”

  Lexi said, “That’s unexpected.”

  An appalled pause ensued during which I could have inserted my own comment. However, for the life of me I couldn’t have strung two words together as I stared at the complication across the lake. Granted, I was winded. We’d damn near sprinted the last mile because Brutus’s sweat was broadcasting his scent. But still …

  Seriously?

  My wild imagination had added far more acreage to Wyral’s than the island actually boasted. The Raha’ells’ Alcatraz was actually modestly sized and made visually smaller by the fortress that had been built to dominate it. The Royal Court’s castle was tall, large, and square; its presence was formidable. But it was beautiful too, what with the late afternoon sun bathing its smooth stone walls with gold. Tall, square towers—the type you expect to see flags fluttering from—anchored each
of its four corners.

  I’m sure anyone approaching the castle’s front gate would be suitably impressed by its grandeur. However, we were looking at the back end of the castle. The palisade enclosing the Spectacle grounds had not been built to delight the eye and was a harsh visual contrast to the elegant castle that rose behind it. Merenwyn’s sun had unevenly leached the color from its wood, and some Fae handy with an axe had taken the time to whittle each log’s top into a sharp point. But it looked like what it was—a brutal feudal prison.

  The prison’s grimness was further enhanced by the shadow of the mother jinx. She hovered high above the Raha’ells’ stockade, a voluminous storm cloud whose interior sparkled with hints of pink, and purple, and red.

  That was scary because every single one of the Raha’ells had a touch of l’eau de lupine about them, and yet it still wasn’t the thing that had rendered me nearly speechless.

  I sagged against a beech. “Why are there so many people? I thought the castle was supposed to be quiet today! What happened to everyone preparing for tomorrow’s Spectacle?”

  There had to be hundreds of Fae—the visible portion of the L-shaped span that linked the island to the mainland was completely clogged with a mob of people. Considering our twofold plan to destroy the status quo at Castle Fae was highly dependent on stealth, a big fiery diversion, and the willingness to take out anyone who got in our way, those numbers amounted to a hell of a stumbling block. Goddess, we’d need a machine gun to mow them down.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this many gathered before.” Mouse nervously knuckled his nose. “Every village for ten leagues must be on the bridge.”

  “More important, the entire Royal Court’s gathered on the postern,” said Lexi grimly.

  “What’s the postern?” I asked.

  “The middle tower.”

  Geez Louse. How’d I miss that?

  Part of the castle’s back wall boasted a square tower. A story higher than the top of the palisade, it loomed over the place where the Raha’ells were imprisoned, which made it a great observation lookout for the assemblage of brightly dressed Fae clustered there. I squinted, trying to pinpoint the Black Mage by his somber dress. It took nary an instant to find him. There. His back was turned to us and the mother jinx; he faced the members of his court.

  My gut clenched, and my wolf rumbled.

  How could anyone saunter into the Spectacle grounds unobserved? The tower overlooked the palisade; Trowbridge would be in full view of the gathered Fae when the rescue attempt was mounted.

  My fingers crept to my mouth.

  Just then, the bridge crowd issued a collective gasp. Arms were lifted, fingers pointed, to the jinx that scudded toward the castle. The wolf-hunting menace moved at breakneck speed, and its hue was a rosy creamy blush, not a stormy gray.

  I held my breath because I was sure that the terror would find us. It would catch wind of Brutus’s scent, or Trowbridge’s, or even my brother’s—for I could swear I could detect the faintest essence of wolf wafting from Lexi.

  One Mississippi, two Mississippi …

  The miniature jinx zipped cheerfully across the lake and never changed course or speed as it approached dear old Mom. It plowed straight into the heart of her, and then it was gone, egg whites folded into the cake mix with a twist of the spoon.

  The Fae erupted into a cheer.

  It went on and on, that rah-rah of happiness. It was wilder than the crowd’s roar as the glitter ball fell in Times Square and louder than any football celebration I’d ever witnessed. It was joy; it was relief; it was the end of bad times and the beginning of good ones.

  Trowbridge grabbed Mouse. “Where’s the tunnel’s entrance?”

  * * *

  The boy couldn’t find it. Mouse advanced the gap between a clump of birches again, arm held rigid, clearly expecting to push upon some invisible obstacle. Instead, he kept walking, step by hesitant step, all the way through the space between tree one and tree two, and nothing happened. No sparkles of fairy light, no trumpet of horns.

  Nothing.

  “The terror’s going to discover us!” said Lily. “Brutus, stop sweating! The mud’s come clean off the back of your neck!”

  Sweat dotted the tall dude’s upper lip. The rest of his face was red, and the skin on his throat glistened. “I sweat a lot,” he said. “I always do!”

  While Mouse blundered blindly, a jinx struggled to detach from the huge cloud hovering over the palisade. It was a presence, merely a bubble of gray. But if it detached—no, when it broke apart—it would find us within a heartbeat. Brutus was seven out of ten on the stink-o-meter. Lily a five. Danen only a two.

  But my mate … He wasn’t sweating, but his perfume was that of an Alpha. The more impossible the odds, the more dominant his personal signature became. His scent trail beckoned, a mixture of man, wolf, and leader. But to me? All Trowbridge. Woods. Wild. Sex.

  Mouse threw a frantic look at us over his shoulder. “I swear on my mother’s soul that it was here!” he cried. “I marked the tree. See the nick in the bark? This is it! It’s here!” He slapped the tree in frustration. “I know it is!”

  Danen pulled an arrow out of his quiver. “What’ll it be, Alpha? Retreat or forward?”

  “There’s no going back,” said Trowbridge. “We’re not running from their dogs.” My mate shot me a burning look and my gut roiled because it was pretty much the same look he gave me before he left me at the damn waterfall. “Just one thing,” he said, shaking his head. “Can’t one fucking thing work out for us?”

  “You and I did,” I said. “That’s a miracle I didn’t see coming.”

  “Hell,” said Lexi suddenly. “The coin you took from the Gatekeeper! Give it to me!”

  Frantically I dug into my jeans pocket and brought it out. When Lexi snatched for it, I jerked my hand back. I saw hurt flash in my brother’s eyes before he drowned it with anger.

  “Then you hold the coin out!” he said.

  I did, and immediately the space between the birches changed, as if there was gas in the air and it was evaporating into a wavering, heat-spawned shimmer. Wisps of myst began curling around the white bark-coated trunks, and then the gap in between them hazed over into dark gray film.

  Hey, presto: A doorway revealed itself. It led to a chasm of darkness.

  Gasps behind me and the definite sounds of three bows being strung with arrows again.

  “I’ll go first,” said Trowbridge.

  “She has to go first,” said Lexi. “She has the coin.”

  “Not on your life,” countered my mate. “She’s not walking into that.”

  Oh, screw this. My twin and mate were fully capable of bickering their way right up to the moment the prince of the underworld waved “Hell-o.” I sucked in a breath and held it, because Goddess knows what that milk white haze would do to my lungs, and then stepped through the veil.

  I’d feared water, expected earth, and was surprised to discover that the tunnel was more like a mine shaft than anything else. The ground beneath my feet was solid and the space dark. A hand came to rest on my hip and Trowbridge’s scent wrapped around my waist. He pushed me forward. Lexi came next, shoved through by Danen.

  On their hurried entrance, a long string of fireballs popped up, one after the other, as if someone with a torch ran ahead of us down the tunnel lighting each one.

  The tunnel was long and low. I could not see the end of it.

  “Do you hear singing?” Brutus asked.

  * * *

  Trowbridge’s back is large and his shoulders wide. I doubt the Raha’ells could see past them, and thus the first quick glimpse of the room of riches was initially mine, then his. It was a square room, filled with display cabinets. Some were glass fronted, some not. Behind the panes, jewels shone, silver sang, and gold hummed.

  Yes, hummed.

  We were rushed; we were hurried. Danger behind us and the unknown was in front of us. Still, my eyes went right for the source of tha
t strange music.

  It beckoned.

  Inside a large glass case set on the flagstone floor was a living pyramid of the raw precious metal. Fae gold’s alive: I’d known this since childhood. Put like that, it’s the sort of comment that has a “sky is blue” association. A fact, neither good nor bad.

  But when you witness it, when your wolf-sensitive ears are assaulted by the precious metal’s low and sorrowful dirge, when you see its magical spires restlessly trying to reshape itself to freedom, it’s not a neutral statement; it’s the preface to a crime.

  Ralph issued a burst of white light, and the articulated tips of Merry’s leaves flattened. Trowbridge moved past me, Lexi followed, and then as Lily and the others pushed their way into the room, I heard it over the low hum.

  A female’s gasp of horror.

  I spun on my heels. A servant girl cowered in the corner to the left of the door, her spine pressed so hard against the joint between one wall and the other that her shoulders were protectively hunched together. She’d pressed the back of her hand hard against her open mouth, likely in hopes of smothering another betraying sound. But as they say, the cat was out of the bag, whereupon Brutus proved himself to be remarkably fast for a very tall dude. He surged past me, diving for the girl.

  She had enough time to screech blue murder, but she didn’t. And in the end, her choice of silence saved her life. If she had cried out, she would have died instantly. If she’d put up a struggle, I think the same would have happened.

  I saw, you see. I saw Brutus spring at her like a wolf, not a man.

  Trowbridge barely paid them heed. He slid past them to place his ear to the hallway door. There he listened, his brows pulled together, before carefully easing it open a crack. Sound poured into the small room, many voices blurred into an indecipherable babble of goodwill. My mate studied the world outside the room, then very gently closed the door.

  He silently jerked his chin at Danen and Lily, then held up two fingers. They edged around a display shelf filled with silver daggers to join him by the door. Danen leaned his longbow against the wall. Lily followed suit.

  The captured girl breathed noisily through her nose.