“If there’s any chance that they know how to get into the stone circle, Olen, then we have to take it,” she was saying.
“I have my orders, Heldra.”
“Psssh!” She sounded agitated. “Your orders! I’m talking about our son!”
“I won’t violate them. Sir Eckelmeyer has put his trust in me.”
And now she sounded desperate. “Olen Chanter! Fae take you if you don’t use what little power you have to bring our boy back!”
I’d never heard Heldra so upset. I shivered at her words. Mostly, because I’d be feeling the exact same way as she was if that was my little boy in the Faewald. If there was one person I never expected to agree with, it was Heldra Thatcher.
“If I’d wanted to marry a crazy woman, Heldra, I would have married Allie Hunter. Now, leave me be. I have a letter to write to Sir Eckelmeyer.” His voice was cold.
“You jest with me, Olen. And I am in no mood for jesting.” There were tears on the edges of her words.
“Neither am I. Which of us is the Knight here, Heldra?”
I rolled my eyes. If he’d talked like that to me, he’d be quickly finding a new place to sleep. Maybe he had made the right decision on who to marry.
Married! And to a tangled Fae! I needed to figure out what to do about that ... but not now. I shook my head to clear it. I hadn’t been wrong to bargain his service away. I really hadn’t. It was his own fault for marrying me without telling me.
Focus, Allie! Focus!
“I hate you, Olen!” Heldra spat. “I hate you for not caring. But I won’t leave you, because I have two other babies who need me and fool that I was, you’re their father. But if you lose just one more of them, I will pry that sword from your hand and take that knighthood from you so fast you’ll wonder how you lived as long as you did.”
Olen sighed and then the door slammed, and I ran from the pool of shadows under the window to the pool surrounding the door of the barracks. I fumbled at the door latch in the darkness, trying to slip in before Heldra came out in the yard. It was locked. I drew my knife to see if I could ease the latch, but Heldra ran down the steps to her house, the moonlight shining off her hood.
I ducked back into the shadows, pressed against the edge of the door and hoping she wouldn’t see me.
Her head shot up, looking right at my shadowy hiding place.
Uh oh.
She stalked to the barracks door. Something shone in her hand.
The key.
Did I have the guts to knock Heldra on the head and take it? I’d never liked Heldra. And yet I wasn’t sure I could be violent to her. Especially not now. Not with her living the life I only narrowly escaped – a life I was now realizing would have been stifling and painfully disappointing.
She reached the door, slotting the key into the lock. The moment of truth.
Before I could raise a hand, she noticed me in the shadows. Her eyes went wide and then she held up a hand as if to stop me and looked furtively over my shoulder.
“Are you going to open the circle and get my boy back?” she hissed, eyebrows drawing together.
Wait. She wasn’t going to scream? Wasn’t going to attack me?
“I’m trying to,” I whispered.
“Try harder.” Her whisper was desperate. “And take the key with you or it will look bad for me.”
She spun on her heel and strode toward the little gate that led out to the street.
I let out a long breath and turned the key in the lock, slipping it free and opening the door. Who would have ever thought that Heldra Thatcher would help me rescue a family of Travelers? The world really had turned upside down.
I found them huddled sadly around a tiny fire in the barracks grate. Dozens of orderly beds lay in long rows on either side of the fireplace, but the Traveler family was on none of them, choosing instead to sleep on shoulders and laps as they cried softly together around the fire.
A jagged splinter of sympathy stabbed my heart.
Curses on Olen and his stupid Sir Eckelmeyer!
And curses on the whole town of Skundton.
They were no better than Werex or Cavariel. No better than my dear husband Scouvrel and his horrible tricks. They were just way worse at what they did. They were like a toddler smashing flowers for the fun of destruction. And this poor family was the flowers.
“Shhh,” I whispered when the woman looked up at me. “We need to slip out before anyone notices that I’m here.”
“The cart,” she began but I cut her off with a gesture.
“Is gone. Take only what you can carry. I have blankets stashed in a tree if we can get that far.”
She nodded, the man nodding, too. Carefully, they shook small sleepy-eyed children awake. They were three boys – none older than seven or younger than three and their owlish brown eyes melted my heart.
“Come on, little hunters,” I whispered. “We need to sneak together. Can you stay quiet?”
Three big-eyed nods.
“Who are you?” the littlest one asked.
“I’m a Nightmare to your enemies,” I whispered back with a wink. “And a friend to you.”
His smile was quicksilver.
I grinned, trying to look confident for them. “Now, follow me, little hunters, and keep your footstep quiet!”
I slipped out the door, leading the little ones through the night, their parents slipping into line behind me. Olen had not set a guard on their barracks. He’d trusted the key and he’d trusted his wife and the town. He’d probably even trusted me. But I didn’t feel guilty about that. Not when he’d imprisoned innocents.
As we reached the edge of the west road a horse whickered nearby and the littlest boy called out, “Meadow!”
His mother fell to her knees, wrapping her hand around his mouth, her eyes brimming with fear. At the same moment, one of the guards at the village edge spoke.
“What was that?”
He lifted up a torch, walking toward us.
“Head west past the treeline and wait for me there,” I whispered before I tugged down my blindfold and walked through the shadows toward the guard. It was easier to see at night with only my spirit vision.
“It’s only me,” I said loudly, drawing attention to where I was so that the Travelers could slip out into the forest.
“Hunter?” one of the guards asked, holding his torch higher.
I took a bold step into the light of his torch and froze. With my spirit sight, he flickered slightly. That was normal.
But what wasn’t normal was how the very edges of him seemed to be unraveling and tangling back together again.
Just like the Fae.
Chapter Twelve
My heart leapt in my throat as he drew his sword. The other guard stepped out from behind him with a crossbow raised, aimed at me.
Well, you have their attention, Allie. What now? Could I really harm ... or kill? ... people from Skundton? But I didn’t recognize these two. They weren’t men I grew up with. Did that make a difference? They’re still men, Allie. They have mothers and fathers, maybe even wives and children. Could you hurt them? Does that make you any better than Hulanna?
I swallowed.
The other guard was fraying at the edges, too. What did that mean? Did it mean that they weren’t really human anymore? I could hurt or kill someone who wasn’t really human. I could do that.
I paused.
What was I thinking? Was I really making someone seem inhuman to myself so I could hurt him? I was no better than the Fae. None of us were. What were we going to do?
I shook myself and stepped forward.
“Of course, it’s me,” I said scornfully. “Who did you think it was?”
“Who’s to say?” the guard with the crossbow said warily. “Sir Chanter ordered us to enforce curfew. And you are not in your home. Maybe you aren’t even you. They say the creatures from on top of the mountain can change their faces.”
“The Fae?” I asked, and he flinched. Interesting
. That wasn’t a legend I’d heard, unless he meant glamor. I let a little scorn into my tone. “They can make themselves appear gloriously beautiful. Would you say that I look gloriously beautiful?”
“No,” the guard with the sword said, flushing a little. “Sorry, miss, but no.”
“I didn’t think so.” I took another two steps, pretending that I wasn’t worried about the crossbow bolt making wobbling circles in the trembling hands of its owner.
At the edge of the treeline, I heard a stick snap. The guard with the crossbow started to turn and I stepped smartly forward and plucked the crossbow from his hand. His finger slipped on the trigger and the bolt shot wildly into the night, pinging when it hit the weathervane on a nearby house.
“If you want to guard against Fae, you’ll need to be a lot sharper than this,” I said firmly. “You don’t even know how to hold your crossbow straight, much less hit a target. I was a single pace from you, and you missed me!”
Forceful and confident, Allie. Make them think you’re in charge. That’s how Scouvrel did it.
“But I – ” the guard began and I heard another snap in the forest so I raised my voice to cut him off.
“And you! The one with the sword. You just stood there like a fool! What do you two think you’re playing at? When the Fae pour through the stone circle and ride down the hills on unicorns, hacking and slashing with their bronze swords or fluttering down from the sky on wings of smoke will you be hitting weathercocks with your crossbow bolts and holding up torches gaping, or will you be able to actually raise an alarm and alert this town of danger?”
“I – ”
I rode right over his protest. “What’s your signal? Is it the bell over there on the post? Why did neither of you ring it?”
“We’re the guards here, not you,” the guard with the sword said, finally recovering himself. There were sounds of arguing in the nearby house as the residents debated whether to go out and check on their weathercock.
“Yes,” I said, moving in close the way I knew Scouvrel would if he were here and smiling his very same cruel smile. “And because I’m not here guarding this town, you’d better do it right. Because whether people admit it or not, I’m still Hunter here and if you don’t keep my people safe, I’ll hunt you down and make you pay for your negligence.”
“No, you won’t,” a calm voice said from behind me. I spun to see Olen standing there, a grim look on his face and his lantern held high. He was a full head taller than I was. But in my spirit vision, he was still the hunched, nervous boy he’d been when I’d known him before. He wavered a little as he spoke. “There is no Hunter here, Allie.”
“Then train your guards to actually defend this town,” I said, shoving the crossbow at his chest. “And I won’t need to be Hunter.”
Fear made my knees tremble. There was a whole town of them here and only one of me. And yet, I just kept seeing those innocent brown eyes in my mind – the eyes of the little children my former friend had imprisoned. The little hunters waiting for me in the woods. I needed to buy them time.
Olen grabbed my wrist, taking the crossbow and tossing it to the guard who had lost it. The guard guttered like a dying flame in my vision, his edges tangling up even more as the moments passed. Olen’s eyes never left mine and in my spirit vision, they seemed to be filled with flame.
“They’re doing their jobs. They’re not the ones here making a disturbance. You are. Go home, Allie.”
I knew when to keep my mouth shut – and that was right now when he was giving me exactly what I needed – permission to go down that road and back into the woods to help the Travelers. I kept my lips pressed tightly together.
Olen dragged me in close, his grip still painfully tight on my wrist.
“And Allie, I hope for your sake that you had nothing to do with what I just found in the barracks.”
“What did you find?” I asked innocently and his eyes narrowed.
“Nothing. I found nothing.”
I tried to feign confusion and defiance – like how I would be if I hadn’t made those barracks empty and didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Then I guess you have no reason to be upset with me.”
He pressed his lips together angrily, his spirit flaring brightly for a moment before dulling again, and then he shoved me away. “Just go. And if I or my guards find you breaking curfew again, it will be you locked up in the barracks.”
It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut but I did it. I kept it shut while my mind fed me one smart response after another after another. If only Scouvrel was here. He would say them all and then wipe that smarmy look right off Olen’s face. But I didn’t dare do it.
And I needed to stop wishing that my Faerie husband were here. I was making my own heart too complicated with all these emotions. Emotions were like fish coated in lard. They slipped from your hands and took off down the stream before you could gasp for breath.
Not safe, Allie. Feed it to your inner fire and be done with it.
I strode confidently out of town, forcing myself not to look back until the shadows hid me completely. Even then, when I finally stole a glance over my shoulder, Olen was still there in the pool of firelight staring after me up the dark road. I swallowed hard, pulled my blindfold back up, and hoped I could be quiet enough as I searched for the Travelers and hoped even harder that he didn’t really believe I’d rescued them – at least not until I got them to safety.
Chapter Thirteen
When I returned home, I was really going to be in trouble. Olen would know by then that it was me who had stolen the Travelers – wouldn’t he? And I couldn’t seem to care. Not when my legs and arms were so tired that they felt like they were going to drop off – and I was only carrying the littlest of the children, his sweet dark curly-haired head resting on my shoulder and his little back bowed out as if he were actually comfortable with his legs wrapped around my waist and my arms wrapped around his back.
I had never seen myself as a possible mother for children, but holding this little boy made something melt inside me. It also brought up questions. What would a real marriage to Scouvrel mean? Beyond just the fact that I’d be married to a citizen of hell – a terrible twisted creature I’d learned to call friend, well, it would mean no children. Ever.
I held the axe handle torch up with one of the hands gripping him – its spiritual flame harmless to him. It lit my path enough that I could lead them all over the rocky ground as silently as we could manage in the dark of night.
Behind me, the two Traveler adults huffed and grunted in near silence. We hadn’t said a word since I found them huddling in the woods together. Not even when I drew out the blankets and food and we wrapped up the children in the warmth of the blankets and bound the supplies into bundles the parents could carry.
There had been murmured whispers when the first of the children stumbled, so overcome by exhaustion that he’d tripped and begun to cry. Once his mother calmed him, we’d returned to silence, but now with the children in our arms.
Luckily, the spirit torch seemed to keep the ghouls back, and while I could hear their longing howls in the night, they didn’t come near the bright glow.
Someone needed to do something about them. In all my time as a child, they’d never been so out of control. If Knights had replaced Hunters, then the Knights had better get on that. A community couldn’t survive with wild ghouls flooding its borders. They might not hurt full-grown people, but they’d snatch children given half a chance. And they sometimes lured the elderly to their deaths, too.
The thought sent a stab of real fear through my heart. Because if tonight had taught me anything it was that Olen couldn’t be trusted to protect my town. And neither could his men. Which meant there was only me. And while I’d been plotting to trap my sister, I hadn’t made a good enough arrangement for the innocents of Skundton. Or for my parents.
And I hadn’t found a way to rescue the mortal children from the Fae realm. Frustration
and fire filled my steps. There wasn’t enough time. And there wasn’t enough Allie. But neither of those things was a good enough excuse. I’d spent days running all over the countryside looking for weapons when I should have been planning and organizing. I’d gone about this all wrong.
I’d been thinking like a teenage girl and a stalker of prey instead of like one of the Fae or like my sister and if I couldn’t learn to think like them, if I couldn’t learn to be smarter and deeper than I was right now, then everyone was going to suffer. Maybe the adults of Skundton deserved that after what they’d almost done to these Travelers. But the children didn’t deserve it.
Each time I looked back at the Traveler parents, I saw the fear and desperation in their eyes. I didn’t dare stop to tell them I had a plan, that if we could just get to the wagon, they would be completely safe. Mostly because I didn’t dare stop long enough to be caught. Who knew when Olen would realize it really had been me who freed them? Who knew when he’d send men not burdened with exhausted children to chase after us? Or even chase us himself on horseback? Though a horse would not get far on this narrow path.
And what kind of fool named his horse Blossom? Seriously? Not Charger, or Sparkhoof, or Lightning, or something fitting to your first warhorse but ... Blossom? Olen was the worst knight.
Unless he’d let me go because he wanted me to help the Travelers.
But that didn’t make sense, did it?
I glanced back again and tried to give the Traveler’s a hopeful look, but their anxious eyes only spurred me forward. This part of the climb was the hardest. Especially now, in the dark. And I didn’t dare light anything on fire to help us find the way. If anyone saw the light and followed it here, then they might find the ruined wagon. And if they found that wagon none of these Travelers would be safe.
My mind was wandering. I needed to focus. I needed to think of a way to save all the children – the Traveler children like the sweet boy sleeping in my arms, the stolen children, the town children. They didn’t deserve what was coming for them. None of them did. And while I might be giving up on that town, I wasn’t going to give up on them. I just couldn’t. I had to fight. I had to win.
Fae Nightmare Page 6
