The Castle of Wind and Whispers

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Hm.” Blake wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I leaned in, letting his bright, spicy scent strengthen me for what was about to happen. “You and I feel much the same, only I don’t want to know anything. I never had loving adoptive parents like you did, Princess. If I go digging into my real parents’ pasts and start finding out how kind and wonderful and amazing they were, then I might go postal.”

  I snorted at his terminology. Blake grinned. “I heard that on Flynn’s video game. And you said those things rot your brain.”

  “They do.”

  Blake ran his fingers through my hair, messing it up. He kissed my cheek, his lips so deliciously soft and warm. “You keep being suspicious and asking your questions, Princess. That’s who you are. But don’t expect me to keep focusing on the past. I’m just trying to enjoy my time at Briarwood while I have it. I don’t want to think about the past or I might end up hating you because of what you had that I didn’t. No bloody way do I want that to happen, okay?” He kicked a loose stone on the path. “Can we just forget about Aline and focus on Daigh and that pox-ridden dream?”

  I remembered Blake’s face from a few days ago, when Corbin took us to visit the home where his parents lived. Or where that home had been, since Daigh compelled Blake’s dad to burn it down after he killed her mother and before he killed himself. I thought Corbin was nuts taking Blake to a place tainted by such vicious, insidious crimes, but Blake seemed to appreciate it. Now I wondered… maybe that house was all Blake needed to know about his past. Maybe it was too much.

  On our right, Corbin shushed the other guys as they fanned out through the forest, moving into their hiding places around the sidhe. Blake pushed open the orchard gate and we jogged down the hill to the stone wall that marked the barrier of Briarwood with the field and sidhe beyond.

  My head darted down the length of the wall. We hadn’t bothered with a flashlight since the moon shone cold and clear, uninhibited by cloud. It cast a blue haze over the dry grass covering the sidhe, highlighting the charred patches where Arthur’s fireballs had wasted the fae. Was that only a week ago? It felt like another lifetime.

  My cell phone beeped. Corbin. “The forest and meadow are clear. Good luck. We’re all watching out for you.”

  Blake took my hand. Together, we clambered over the low wall – passing through the protective wards and charms that surrounded Briarwood – and made our way down to the sidhe.

  At least now we can use our magic freely to defend ourselves, if we need it.

  Please, Athena, don’t let us need it.

  The entrance to the largest mound loomed like a black mouth into the earth. Blake squeezed my hand. Tendrils of black smoke curled through the grass, lifting into the still air and forming narrow smoky shapes.

  From the smoke emerged four figures, their bodies wrapped in a black film that melted from their skin like hot wax. Daigh’s face appeared – his pale skin luminescent in the moonlight, his mouth set in that characteristic carefree smirk that Blake emulated too well. However, the glittering eyes that set their sights on me were a mirror image of my own.

  Three stony faces materialized behind him, each one with the glassy eyes and smooth, alabaster skin that marked the high-born fae. They regarded us warily, scanning the hills, their hands darting to their weapons.

  “I sense other witches nearby,” one said, raising his bone blade and pointing it at my chest. “We’ve been betrayed.”

  “She was hardly going to come here unprotected,” Daigh said. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from my daughter. They will not hear our conversation from here. Or do you not wish to proceed?”

  He delivered the words casually, as if it mattered not to him whatever happened. But the fae’s skin got even more pale and he stepped back, shaking his head. He didn’t take his hand off the hilt of his sword.

  Daigh beamed at Blake. “We meet again, my Prince. You’re looking well-fed.”

  Blake’s smirk twitched a little at the edges. “The curry is good here.”

  “I’m glad.” Daigh swiveled his gaze back to me. “You have the potion?”

  I dug my hand into my jeans pocket and pulled out a small vial of the same sleeping draught Rowan had made for our journey to the underworld. “Here’s how this will work. I will pull you into the dream, and Blake’s magic will amplify mine and ensure we’re all able to come back again. In order to do this, I’ll need a lock of your hair. Each of you.”

  The fae grumbled. Daigh glowered at them until the first fae raised his knife to his hair and sawed off a lock. He handed it to Blake, who braided it into a strand that he wound around my wrist. I followed with braids from the others, holding my wrist up to the light to admire the gossamer threads of fae hair that glimmered in the moonlight.

  “We don’t have much time,” Daigh said.

  I uncapped the vial, tilted my head back and swallowed the draught in one go. I leaned back into Blake’s arms. “Maybe this time I’ll see who’s on the sixth stake,” I murmured.

  He kissed my cheek. Spirit magic fluttered from his lips, piercing my skin. “Sleep well, Princess.”

  My eyes fluttered shut and the world faded into darkness.

  24

  MAEVE

  I woke up face down on the parched earth. Heat and steam rose through the cracks, scalding my skin. I gasped for breath, but the air in my lungs tasted foul. My stomach heaved, burning up my oesophagus as acidic bile rose through my throat.

  I looked up with stinging eyes. Orange flames streaked across the sky. A towering wall of impenetrable briar rose up, blocking me from the blackened castle beyond.

  I’m here.

  I scrambled to my feet and tugged at the bracelets on my wrist, unraveling them one by one as fast as I could. I wanted to get this over with so I could go back where I could breathe. A hand fell on my shoulder.

  “Welcome to hell, Princess,” Blake’s voice reverberated against my ear. He might’ve sounded sexy if he hadn’t broken down into a coughing fit of his own.

  “Where are we?” Daigh demanded, peeling his lanky body from the ground. His fae scrambled to their feet and brushed the dust from his clothes.

  “This is it,” I whispered. My words fell away as I choked on the acrid air. I pointed up at the wall of briar, to the castle beyond. Orange fire streaked across the dead sky. The only sound was the crunch of our boots on the parched ground and my gasping, hawking breath in my ears.

  I was so used to Daigh’s indifference that I wasn’t prepared for the strangled sob that escaped his throat. His facade crumpled with horror, and for the first time I glimpsed what it was to be a fae connected to the earth and the seasons. His grief flowed out of him, sizzling in the air around me – a raw and vengeful magic.

  One of his fae raised her hand to her mouth, but her thin fingers did nothing to hold in her dry scream. Another dragged a bow from his back and pointed it into the sky, as though he might slay the demon we now breathed into our lungs.

  “This… this is torture,” Daigh cried.

  “It’s what will become of the earth if the Slaugh ride,” Blake said.

  “Take us to the stakes,” Daigh ordered.

  My whole body trembled. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to see my boys strung up like that again. Daigh’s hard gaze bore into my back. I stepped forward, moving along the briar hedge, crawling through the pain in my body and the tears stinging my eyes until I came to the entrance to the maze. I turned into the briar, relishing the cooler temperature inside the briar, although it could provide no relief from the poison air.

  The others followed behind me, coughing and hacking as we made our way deeper into the briar. We emerged into the clearing. The six stakes rose from the earth, circles of charred dirt beneath them. A sob escaped my lips as the bodies came into focus – twisted forms that had once been human but had been brought to ruin by the cruelty of the fae. Flynn’s clear blue eyes bulged from the charred skull of the first, Corbin with his face cut and mutilated, and some
kind of weird cross-symbol at his feet, Arthur wearing his severed hands around his neck like a grisly necklace, Rowan with his ears cut off and his black hair matted against his burned skin, Blake’s white teeth leering from his ruined face. The sixth figure, too far away and not at an angle for me to recognize.

  The sixth… I’ve got to see the sixth…

  I tried to lift my leg, but it was rooted in place. I flung my arms out, trying to propel myself forward, but I barely managed to slide an inch. Panic rose in my chest as I fought against the invisible barrier. Why wouldn’t the dream let me see? Why did it never let me see?

  “The dream’s breaking up,” Blake choked out from behind me.

  He was right. The dream cracked at the edges. Black tendrils curled through the vivid orange sky. The stakes wobbled in front of me. Arthur’s collapsed beneath him, sending up a cloud of dust as his body crashed to the ground. Blake grabbed my arm. “We have to go back,” he yelled. Spirit magic leaked out of his skin as his whole body trembled. Pain arced through his voice. He couldn’t hold much longer.

  I need to know.

  My own magic hummed and crackled, protesting my defiance. I collected the well of spirit magic inside me, sucking it from the dream and balling it up. The sky cracked and shattered like glass, shards of the broken heavens plunging into the earth around me like porcupine quills.

  “Maeve, no!”

  I ignored Blake and threw the magic in front of me, tearing through the invisible wall. My legs broke from the vise that held them and I toppled forward, my hands slamming into the earth. I leapt to my feet and ran toward the sixth stake. Just as I glimpsed the corner of the face, the entire dream collapsed and I ran into a giant black void.

  My body slammed into hard earth. My fingers clutched at blades of grass. I lifted my head and pain surged along my neck. I gasped for breath, and the air tasted deliciously cool and fresh and sweet. Beside me, Blake moaned and rolled over.

  “Did you see?” I gasped at Blake. “Did you see the figure on the sixth stake?”

  Blake dug his hands under my shoulders and hauled me to my feet. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me upright. Warm spirit magic flowed from him into me, easing the pain in my shoulders and back, calming over the horrors in my mind. “I didn’t see, Princess,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Daigh watched us, his mouth twisted into a strange expression that might have been half terror, half satisfaction. His fae clutched each other, sobbing and keening for the broken earth.

  “So you’ll do it, then?” I demanded. “You will accept our deal?”

  The fae exchanged glances with Daigh. Their pale skin was even lighter than usual. Their eyes flickered with unease. What they’d seen had horrified them.

  Good. It had bloody near broken me.

  “We will take this dream back to the fae realm with us,” Daigh said. “We will spread word amongst the fae of the consequences of the Slaugh. As soon as the fae are in my control again, I will send word that we accept the deal. Wait for us at your castle, if it still exists.”

  I started at his words. “What do you mean, if it still exists?”

  Daigh tilted his gaze up toward Briarwood. I followed his eyes, and my heart leapt in my throat.

  A glowing, flickering light moved across the meadow toward the castle. I could just make out the snatches of chanting and shouting on the still air. Angry voices. The light draw closer and I made out the shapes of individual torches held aloft.

  Torches. The kind peasants burned witches with.

  The villagers. They’d worked themselves into a frenzy over Flynn’s statue and Aline’s presence, and now they were approaching the castle to do what? It couldn’t be good.

  But why hadn’t Aline warned us?

  Corbin and Arthur burst through the trees and raced toward the castle. Corbin yelled something, but I didn’t catch it. Blake’s face twisted.

  “Come on,” he yelled as he bolted toward the house. “The bastards are coming for us!”

  25

  CORBIN

  I raced up the hill after Arthur, blood pounding in my ears. As we pounded across the garden, voices drifted up from the meadow. Angry voices, shouting at the top of their lungs. I caught snatches of the words – “witches… necromancers… cast out the devils…”

  We’ve been so busy worrying about the fae, it never occurred to us that we’d have to fight other humans. But it should have. History had shown us this exact situation time and time again. I should have predicted this the moment we started talking about belief magic. Yet another way I’d failed the coven.

  Arthur was the fittest, so he reached the kitchen garden first, slamming the gate back against the stone wall so hard I heard it splinter. He held it open for me. I skidded into the heavy kitchen door and flung it open.

  “Come on!” I yelled, holding the door back as the others raced across the garden. “We’ve got to get inside!”

  Flynn was next, slowing his speed as he came through the gate so he could give a Ministry of Silly Walks performance on the way to the kitchen door. “Get in,” I growled, shoving him through so Rowan could slip in behind him. This was no time for Flynn’s nonsense.

  Blake dragged Maeve along by the arm. Even in the gloom of night I could see how they both staggered with exhaustion, their eyes ringed with red from the huge amount of magic they exerted to pull Daigh and his fae cronies into the dream.

  I flicked my eyes toward the meadow. The tall hedge and kitchen garden wall hid it from view, but I could make out the flicker of the torches through the leaves. Loud, angry voices met my ears, still too far away to understand more than a few words, but I could gather the gist of it. No one brought pitchforks along to a peaceful sit-in.

  They’re not hurting my coven. I’ll die before I let them into this castle.

  Maeve and Blake staggered through the kitchen gate. Arthur moved to bolt it when another voice cried, “Wait, don’t shut the door!”

  I turned back to the garden. A figure in white raced from the orchard. Aline. Her skirts flapped around her and her face was drawn with fright. She crashed through the open doors and we slammed and locked them behind her.

  “Right,” I hissed, leaning my bulk against the door, and faced the room. “We have a problem.”

  “Mary Mother of God, never in my life did I think I’d see a lynch mob,” Flynn whistled, gripping the edge of the counter. “What are the chances they’re here just for you protestant infidels?”

  “Not the time, Flynn,” I yelled. My mind reeled, compiling all the things we’d need to do to secure the castle. The protective charms we set out earlier today will hold them back for a while, but not even they will stop a fire, and we can’t use our magic against them until they’re inside the walls, which means we’ve got no way out—

  “Why weren’t you in the house?” Maeve yelled at Aline. “You were supposed to watch for something like this and warn us.”

  “I’m sorry!” Aline sobbed, throwing herself against the island. “I wanted to see Daigh again. I wanted to help.”

  “And because of you trying to help, they got a jump on us. If we hadn’t have seen them when we did, we might not’ve made it back in time.” Aline shrunk away from Maeve’s anger.

  “This isn’t important right now,” I growled, pulling myself off the door and racing into the hall. We couldn’t just sit here and argue while the villagers approached.

  “Corbin, where are you going?” Maeve called after me.

  “Rowan, bolt the kitchen gate,” I called back as I hit the hallway and kept on running. Behind me, wood scraped against wood as Rowan slid the heavy bolts into place.

  “Corbin, hold up, mate.” Arthur grabbed my shoulder, yanking me back so hard he wrenched my arm and we bumped against a heavy medieval dresser.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “You can’t just run off like that. Remember, you’re not the leader anymore.”

  “Our enemy approaches. We’ve g
ot to prepare ourselves for a siege – bar the gates and strengthen our defenses.” Arthur looked confused. “Come on, Aragorn, you know this stuff. Unless they’ve brought equipment for scaling the walls, the only two ways into the inner courtyard and the keep is through the main portcullis and Rowan’s kitchen garden.”

  Understanding dawned on Arthur’s face. “Right. I’ll help you.”

  The portcullis was operated from a locked gatehouse near the gift shop. I grabbed the key from the rack beside the door and raced across the courtyard, Arthur at my heels. Inside the gatehouse was an old-fashioned crank, installed during the Victorian period to replace the medieval one that had finally given up the ghost. We’d often talked about getting something modern we could operate from a switch in the house, but we lowered the portcullis so infrequently it wasn’t worth the expense.

  Arthur and I leaned on the enormous winch, and after a bit of grunting and sweating, we managed to unlock it and lower the portcullis. We shut the wooden inner doors and slid the bolts true.

  Once we were back inside, I slid the heavy bolts over the keep doors. “They can’t get in that way.”

  “They’ve got flaming torches,” Maeve whimpered, knocking her knuckles against the wooden door.

  “And we’ve got a human power hose who can work magic as soon as they’re inside the grounds,” I grinned, jabbing my finger at Flynn, who took a deep bow. Maeve didn’t look convinced.

  “Don’t forget, the majority of the castle is made of stone. It’s not as easy to burn,” Arthur added.