The Castle of Wind and Whispers

by Steffanie Holmes

  “There are no side passages,” Arthur growled. “It’s like we’ve been deliberately led into a trap!”

  “I swear I didn’t know—” Aline whimpered.

  “Meorwww!” Obelix cried. A clawed hand swiped across my arm, raising three stinging cuts. Great. Thanks, cat.

  Arthur kicked the brick wall. Fire flared from his hand, bouncing against the brick and flying toward us. Maeve screamed and dropped to her knees. I grabbed Rowan and yanked him down. Flynn bent over Maeve and slammed a jet of water into the fireball. Cold water splashed over my face as the water hit the wall and sprayed us. The fireball sizzled and went out.

  “Bloody hell, Arthur!” I cried. “Do that again and you’ll burn up all the oxygen in here, and then we’re all goners.”

  “We’re goners any way you bloody look at it,” Blake muttered from in front of Aline. “We never should have trusted her.”

  “Guys, let’s not fight,” Rowan said. His voice sounded calm, steady. But the hand that gripped mine trembled. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’ve only got one choice,” I said, with more bravado than I felt. “We’ve got to go back out there.”

  “That’s a stupid idea,” Flynn said. “The pitchfork mafia are out there, remember? Why don’t we just hide in here? It’s cozy and unless you count Arthur, no one is trying to kill us.”

  As much as I wanted to agree with him, I shook my head. “Arthur has a very good point – I’m not liking being trapped in here. I think we stand a better chance if we get out of this tunnel and hide in the castle. We’re just dealing with the villagers, so we may be able to scare them off with our magic.”

  “I agree,” Maeve said. Even in the dark I could see her skin was pale, her expression shocked and terrified. I wanted to hold her and calm her, but no way could I push past the other guys in the narrow tunnel. Flynn had his good arm around her, steadying her, and she took strength from his touch, drawing herself up to her full height. “I never liked the idea of leaving Briarwood, anyway. This is our castle. We can’t let them hurt it.”

  “I want to fight. Get me the fuck out of here,” Arthur growled.

  I raised my fireball so I could see the others’ faces clearly. Rowan gave a small nod, his eyes wide. In his arm, Obelix let out a “meorrw,” as if agreeing. Blake was already turning to head back.

  We all shuffled around, and Arthur made Maeve another fireball. Blake passed me his and I led the way back to the tunnel entrance. The tiny ball burned bright against my skin, its heat doing nothing to thaw the chill that had settled in my bones.

  As soon as my hands pressed against the secret door, I dropped the fireball, snuffing it out from my boot as I reached for the dagger in my sock. Rowan’s breath fluttered across my shoulder, giving me the strength to face the unknown. I held the dagger to my cheek and shoved the door open, half expecting Daigh’s grinning face to greet me on the other side.

  Instead, I stepped into a dark room. The noise overhead suggested they haven't broken through the portcullis. I beckoned the others out of the tunnel, and Maeve shut the door. She moved beside me, her hand searching for mine. On the other side of me Rowan whimpered, probably because Obelix clawed him. Bloody cat. My arm still stung.

  Arthur climbed the stairs, a fireball swirling in his hand. He lifted the lid of the cellar a crack and peered out. I held my breath. A few moments later, he set the lid back down and leaned toward Maeve and I.

  “There’s no one out there, and I can’t hear anything from inside the castle,” he said. “They haven’t made it inside yet, but it can’t be long now.”

  “How do we know for sure?” I whispered.

  “We go up there and see.” Arthur tapped my shoulder. “You and Blake will go first. If there’s anyone hiding out there to ambush us, you take them down. Don’t kill them – just take them out of the fight.”

  I nodded. That made sense. Blake and I had the most control over our powers. I could remove just enough air to make someone unconscious without killing them, and Blake could do that creepy showing them their nightmares thing that had once left Flynn in a bit of a state.

  “Everyone else, once Corbin and Blake give us the signal, make a run for the secret staircase,” Arthur growled. “Get up to the second story. Move onto the walkway, but stay low, so they can’t see you. We’ll launch our attack down on the courtyard. If at all possible, we need to stop them from entering the castle.”

  “I’m going first, too,” Maeve said, trying to push her way toward us.

  “No.” Arthur and I said in unison.

  “This is no time for your chivalry. Blake and I can do more damage with the ‘creepy dream’ thing if we work together.” Maeve held up her hand, which was entwined with Blake’s. “I’m not letting go, and that’s final.”

  No, no, no, no, no. I hated it. Maeve shouldn’t be putting herself in the line of danger like that. But that fiery look in her eyes told me she’d just follow us anyway. Impossible woman.

  Incredible woman, more like.

  I sighed. “Let’s go.”

  I shoved past Arthur and grabbed the handle for the cellar door, lifting it up a crack so I could see into the kitchen. We’d turned all the lights off when we secured the castle, but the moon – less than a week until full – shone bright through the window, casting a pale glow over the space. I couldn’t see anything move.

  Fear rose through my chest, but I pushed it back. I threw open the cellar door and leapt forward, holding my palm out in front of me like a weapon, the dagger in my other hand. The cellar door clattered on the flagstones, the sound like the CRACK of a rifle shot. Maeve yelped.

  No one rushed at us. The banging and shouting continued outside, but the house was as still and silent as the night.

  “Come on.” I hissed, beckoning the others forward. Maeve and Blake guarded the door to the kitchen as I yanked open the secret door and ushered Rowan upstairs. From outside the window, torches flickered over the top of the garden wall. They were out there, trying to break down the kitchen gate. Wood splintered with a sickening crack.

  “Hurry!” Aline ducked through the door. At the rear, Rowan struggled up the steps with a yowling Obelix in his arms. He was a bloody fool – his arms had be cut to ribbons, but he wouldn’t put that cat down. I dropped the cellar door in place, and pulled and locked the secret passage behind me just as the kitchen gate crashed open and villagers poured into the kitchen garden.

  At the top of the passage, I slid the door back into place. Bending low, I crept through to the covered walkway, where the others all huddled at the base of the parapet, their backs against the stone crenelations. Arthur had his sword in his hand, pointing the blade to the roof, as if drawing power from the sky.

  I slid down beside Rowan. Voices rose from the courtyard below, yelling horrible things, jeering about what they would do to our bodies once they caught us. They screeched in high pitched crackles and warbled incoherent nonsense. Someone screamed, joined by another. Something heavy pounded against wood, again and again and again.

  I leaned close to the edge of the crenelation and dared a peek over the edge.

  I couldn’t believe what I saw.

  The tractor lay in pieces beneath the mangled portcullis, completely useless now. But that hadn’t dissuaded the villages. People threw themselves at the inner door, using their bodies as battering rams. Halfway through their flight, their bodies wrenched around as they tore themselves away and slammed into the pavement without touching the door at all. They’d drag themselves to their feet and do it again, and again.

  They moaned, they screamed, they howled. A woman clutched her bleeding head. Another man raked at his eyes. What was going on? Why were they acting like this? As if they would sacrifice themselves one minute, and wanted no part of it the next?

  Compulsion, I realized. Terror welled inside me. A battle of wills was going on below us. In all the scenarios I’d imagined for tonight, I’d never considered this. The fae were in the underw
orld. They couldn’t compel shit.

  This can’t be happening.

  I crawled over to where Blake was sitting. He too was watching the scene below with horror. “It’s compulsion, isn’t it?” I whispered.

  He touched his temple and nodded. “It’s Liah. I can touch her mind, but I can’t stop it. This was their plan all along. They all think we’re in that tunnel. They knew we’d be trapped. All they had to do was go in and drag us out.”

  “But how would Liah know we’d be in the tunnel? She couldn’t know it exists. We didn’t even know until tonight when—” My blood ran cold.

  Aline.

  She was the one who told us about the tunnel. And she was the one who kept trying to get us to trust Daigh. Maeve was suspicious of her but I didn’t listen because I thought it was all about her coming to terms with her mother being alive, but all this time…

  I glanced around the porch for Aline, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember seeing her in the staircase. Where is she? What has she done?

  “Shit,” I whispered.

  Blake nodded. “You came to the same conclusion I did. But there’s something else – I read two minds out there. I can’t tell who it is, but someone else is compelling the villagers, telling them that they don’t want to be here, that they want to go back to bed and forget tonight even happened.”

  “What?” This is insane.

  “That’s what making them so violent. Their minds are being tugged two different ways. What I don’t know is who that other mind is and why they’re trying to help us.” He rubbed his temple. “It’s hard to tell anything, there’s so much horror in there.”

  Warm fingers brushed mine. I whirled around. Rowan had crawled beside me, his eyes wide. “What do we do?” he mouthed.

  Good question. This compulsion changed everything. We weren’t just fighting humans anymore. Did we reveal ourselves and hit them with the full force of our magic? Or did we let them think we were in the tunnel for a bit longer?

  “Can we break compulsion spells?”

  Blake nodded. “With two spirit users, probably.”

  “We need to try it.”

  Blake crawled behind me to where Maeve cowered with Flynn. As quietly as I could, I explained what we thought was happening. Maeve’s face grew even more pale when I told her about the compulsion. “Where’s my mother?”

  “She’s gone, Maeve. My guess is she had some way of sneaking out and meeting the fae. I’m sorry. But she was the one who led us to that tunnel which turned out to be a trap.”

  Maeve shook her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “No. That’s not it. She didn’t betray us. There’s something else. She—”

  “She was carrying around a compact mirror with her the other day,” Flynn piped up. “And she was the one who knew how to communicate with Daigh through mirrors.”

  Maeve blanched. “I saw her talking to herself in a mirror,” she whispered.

  So it was Aline. But why?

  I wiped a strand of pink hair out of her eyes. “We can’t worry about her now. I need you and Blake to break the compulsion spells that are holding them. Blake knows how to do it. Just lend him your power.”

  Maeve nodded. Blake leaned in, entwining Maeve’s fingers in his. She whimpered as he pressed his mouth to hers.

  I’d never paid much attention when Blake and Maeve worked their spirit magic before. I was usually too busy fighting the fae or burying my cock into Maeve. But this time, I was right up close and personal. The wave of magic slammed into me, knocking me backwards. Strange thoughts swirled in my head – flickers of memories that didn’t belong to me. Warmth spread up my arms and through my limbs, carrying with it a sense of serenity, of finality. Whatever will be, will be.

  “It’s working!” Rowan whispered.

  I crawled beside him and peered down. Sure enough, one by one people picked themselves off the ground and shook their heads, like dogs shaking off water. Eyes rolled, fingers twitched, and the inhuman cries turned into moans and sobs as the foreign powers were forced from their minds.

  “What was that?” someone cried.

  “There were voices inside my head!”

  “I’m bleeding,” sobbed another.

  “It’s the witches!” The vicar screamed. He sat near the inner doors, clutching his bleeding temple. “They sent demons to terrorize us, but the Lord has banished them. God will protect us as we perform his righteous works.”

  “Get them!”

  “Burn them all!”

  “And we’re back to square one,” Flynn groaned.

  “Stop moaning and get to your battle stations,” Arthur growled.

  Maeve elbowed him in the ribs. “You always wanted to say that, haven’t you?”

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  We spread out around the covered walkway and along the ramparts. Someone shoved a ladder up against the wall. Arthur threw it back down. “We don’t want to hurt anyone,” he shouted down.

  “Then why did you plant evil demons inside our heads?” a woman with dried blood down her face called up.

  “That wasn’t us!”

  “Their tongues are red with lies,” the vicar cried. “Come down and face your judgement. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”

  Flynn groaned as he shoved another ladder off the wall. “They’re setting fire to the garage,” Blake yelled from further down the ramparts.

  I ran across to the other side where I had a clear view. My heart sank as flames leapt across the buildings. The garage and workshop was a Victorian wooden addition, and it connected to the house via a small wing of servants’ quarters. Flynn had both hands trained on the blaze, jets of water battling back the tallest flames, but if he couldn’t hold it back…

  Even if the fire doesn’t do much to the stone, it’ll tear through the interior and gut Briarwood.

  Panic rose in my throat. I bit it back. Oxygen. The fire needed oxygen to breathe. I stood beside Flynn and pointed my own palm toward the castle, calling up the air around me to shift and mutate. The flames petered out as I sucked the oxygen from around them.

  “They’re using their foul magic against us!”

  “The Lord is on our side. We will triumph!”

  “Look what I found!” Three men ran up, carrying one of Flynn’s sculptures on its side – a large metal plate he used as a stand.

  “Stand clear!” People flattened themselves against the walls of the courtyard. The men lined up the statue with the door of the keep, and at the count of three they rushed forward, ramming the doors so they groaned on their hinges.

  “Think about what you’re doing!” I yelled down at them. “No one in this house has hurt you. If you came here to do violence, then are you any better than the demons you say we are?”

  “Silence, witch!” The vicar called up. “We answer to a higher power. I saw you at the church. I saw you call up those beasts from beneath the ground to steal away twenty-two innocent souls.”

  “We didn’t do that! It was—”

  Maeve grabbed my collar and yanked me back. “It’s no good, Corbin. You won’t change their minds. Flynn did too good a job on the belief magic. It’s rolling off them in waves. It’s like talking to Flat-Earthers. Even if we gave them a reasoned argument, they wouldn’t listen.”

  The full horror of what we’d done clung to my skin like a rash. We’d fed the superstition in the village, building their distrust and belief for our own purpose. We did it to save them from a foe they could not see, a foe they believed was a harmless fairy tale. Their belief in our hands could have saved them. Instead, it would doom us all.

  Briarwood will fall tonight, and it’s all our fault.

  It’s all my fault.

  Unless... I can save them all first.

  “No!” Rowan cried. The men slammed the statue into the door. With a sickening crack, the wood gave way, and the villagers poured inside the castle.

  30

  MAEVE

&nb
sp; My heart broke as the wooden doors splintered and the villagers pushed their way inside Briarwood. Our castle wasn’t ours any longer. We’d lost. I watched in horror as people shoved each other in their haste to be first through the doors to attack us.

  Not for long. There was a loud thump, followed by a scream, and the crowd surged back as those inside struggled to get out again.

  “Got ‘em,” Flynn grinned.

  I glared at him. “What did you do?”

  “You remember there’s a hole just above the door where the castle’s inhabitants could throw burning pitch down on any marauding forces who made it inside?”

  “You didn't! We swore we wouldn’t hurt anyone—”

  Flynn’s grin spread wider. “How little you think of me, Einstein. I rigged up a huge pot of Rowan’s scone mix. They’re covered in sticky, gloopy dough and the floor will be pretty slippery. That will slow them down.”

  I slapped his shoulder. “I love you, you mad Irish bastard.”

  “Don’t say I never listen to Corbin’s boring history lectures.”

  “Why are you standing here gabbing?” Corbin shoved us toward the door. “Flynn, get downstairs. Hit them with whatever you can. Don’t let them start another fire. We can’t lose the castle. Maeve, you’re with me.”

  “Where are we going?” Corbin dragged Rowan and I down the steps from the roof and into the library. He scrambled for the bookshelf, releasing the secret panel that hid the priest-hole.

  “Hurry, get inside!” Corbin’s eyes blazed with fire.

  “Corbin, no. I’m not hiding while the rest of you fight.”

  “Maeve, we don’t have time to argue. We need to keep you safe so you can use your spirit magic. Rowan’s here to protect you. Both of you, get in.”

  Corbin shoved me inside. My back hit the back panel. Pain shot down my spine. Rowan crammed in after me, wrapping his arms around me and planting his legs against the opposite wall.

  “What about you?” There was barely enough room for Rowan and I inside, let alone his bulk as well.