by Lucy Tempest
“Rob, are you talking to the horse?” The man in the red coat approached, his wind-swept crown of dark curls brushing his square jaw, impatience sharpening his otherwise rounded, youthful features. He wore a long, deep-blue shirt, black pants, and had blades in sheaths over his boots, thighs, belt, and sleeves.
“Yes, Will. I’ve gone completely mad since you last saw me a couple of hours ago.” Robin paused to look down at me. “Or I might have, but instead of hearing talking animals, I’m seeing half-dead people.”
“You’re making no sense,” Will muttered.
“Any less sense than that castle and the unicorn?”
At her mention, I noticed that Amabel had approached and was sniffing in my direction.
Could she see me? Or at least, sense me?
“Hello, pretty girl,” I greeted her, choking up as I floated towards her, and stroked her long face. I did feel her in a way I didn’t feel anything else, not exactly like the old sense of touch, but soothing sparks of sensation. “Can you see me? Is this part of your magic, you glorious creature?”
Amabel shook her head up and down, making Agnë cling to her reins with a yelp. I was taking that as a Yes.
“Good girl! You’re the best, my Mabily,” I sobbed, hugging her head, wondering if she could feel me. From the way she snuggled into my arms, it seemed she did.
“I take it this is the ‘horse’ you fell off?” Robin asked me. “Her name is Mabily?”
Agnë gasped, and Meira jumped at him, grabbing him by his cloak. “Where did you hear that name?”
Will pulled her away from his friend, and Meira launched into a frenzied struggle, giving equal time to insulting her captor and demanding answers from Robin.
Will set her on her feet. “Would you shut up for a second? Are you even capable of doing that?”
Meira shoved him hard. “I have had enough of you thwarting me. Bother me one more time, ruffian, and I’ll stick all those knives where not even the coroner will find them!”
“Meira!” I chided, but it fell on deaf ears. Literally.
Surprisingly, the men only cracked up, their laughter infecting Agnë who covered her mouth, shoulders shaking with silent giggles, her fair face flushing pink.
The final member of the group arrived, and my jaw fell open. He’d looked huge from afar, but close up, he dwarfed even Robin. Well over seven-feet tall, with equally large features, and dark hair in a haircut similar to Will’s, his shirt and open grey vest must have been made out of bedclothes, his pants from a tent, and his leather boots from a wyrm.
“Is that a giant?” I breathed, staring up in awe.
“This is Little Jon.” Robin’s introduction interrupted his chuckles.
“Little? Oh, he is positively tiny. Miniscule. A true speck of a man.”
Robin’s chuckles picked up again when everyone else’s had died down, making them aim matching looks of concern his way. “Would you look at that! You have the makings of a sense of humor, after all.”
“Who are you talking to?” Will said, starting to look spooked. “Are you really seeing dead people?”
“I said half-dead.” Robin gestured up at Agnë. “Someone our guests appear to know.”
“We don’t have time for your elaborate jokes, Rob, not when we can finally go after Marian!” Will ground out, sounding as wound up and impatient as Meira did. “Who knows how much time has already passed for her in Faerie.”
“It’s probably the other way around, with time passing faster for us here,” Little Jon rumbled, his voice as big as he was. He stopped by Amabel, leaning on a large spear, petting her head, her ears disappearing under his massive palm. “Did you find anything useful in there?”
Robin tossed the heavy brown bag at him. Little Jon caught it effortlessly with one hand and slipped it on, addressing Agnë, “What was your friend yelling about?”
“He said ‘Mabily,’ ” Meira burst out instead. “That’s what the pri…the girl we’re looking for called her unicorn as a child, when she couldn’t say Amabel.”
How did she know that? She and Agnë hadn’t come into my service until I was around ten, and had long been whipped into perfect diction.
Robin tilted his head at me. “So where did you get a unicorn? Are they breeding them at court now?”
“Mabi—Amabel was a gift from a foreign dignitary. He’d caught her as a filly, but couldn’t train her, so he gave her to…the court.” I paused for a second before completing the half-truth. “She ended up as mine.”
“For the last time, who are you talking to?” Will gritted.
“The sleeping girl in King Herla’s fortress, that’s who.” Robin presented the empty air they saw where I stood. “She’s right here, and for some reason I’m the only one who can see her, except for the horse.”
Amabel whinnied trotting around me in a circle, as if to agree.
Meira was skeptical. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t, but how else would I know about Mabily? Not that I owe you any answers, anyway. Who are you two?”
Will rounded back on Meira. “Exactly. We didn’t get more from you than your names.”
“More importantly, who is she?” Jon asked Agnë, pointing at my general direction.
Robin’s head lowered to my level expectantly. “I actually don’t believe I caught your name.”
I balked, caught between introducing myself as Princess Fairuza of Arbore, or as the alias I’d used at the masked ball.
Then I opened my mouth only to say, “Briar.” His eyebrows shot up and I quickly amended my response. “Rose! Briar Rose!”
“Briar Rose.” Robin nodded, seemingly satisfied with that name. “Is there such a thing as a briar rose?”
“According to my father, it’s a flower that blooms in extremely rare instances.” Almost as rare as the birth of an Arborean princess. “And smells sweeter than any other rose.”
“And your father is what at the court?” Robin probed.
Panicking, I groped for a response that would fit the half-truths I’d listed earlier. “He’s involved in the, uh, upkeep and the, um, flourishing of the land, overseeing it and the people who lived on—off it.”
I almost wanted to scream at how lame that had come out.
“So, the Minister of Agriculture?”
I latched onto his suggestion, too eagerly. “Yes! Exactly!”
“Hmm, if you say so.” I had no idea if he believed me, his voice going as unreadable as his hidden face. Then he turned to my handmaidens. “The ghost-like girl from the castle says her name is Briar Rose, that she’s the daughter of a minister at court, and that she’s under some ambiguous fairy curse that can only be solved by finding fairy royalty. Any of that rings a bell, or am I well and truly hallucinating?”
As a testament to either their confusion or cleverness, Agnë and Meira didn’t respond outright, possibly processing the hints I’d hidden in my responses.
Then Agnë joyously exclaimed, “It is her!”
“Yes, it is our dear Briar Rose,” Meira agreed, not nearly as enthusiastic. “Where is she?”
Robin pointed where my head was, and Meira aimed her gaze in my direction. All her grouchiness melted into agitation, her dark eyes shimmering with wetness. “I’m so sorry, we should have tried harder to help you.”
In all her years in my service, Meira had been filled to the brim with impatience and snappy comments, all softness and sweetness coming from Agnë. Seeing her on the verge of crying was a shock. Not just because of the stark shift in behavior, but because it was out of worry for me.
I’d actually figured they’d forget about me like everyone else seemed to have done. That, like other handmaidens, once they’d been released from my service, they’d be relieved to be rid of all my demands forever.
Instead, they’d come to find me.
Trying to wrap my mind around that fact, I whispered, “Tell her none of it is her fault.”
Robin relayed my r
esponse and Meira’s tears spilled down her frustrated face, revealing themselves to be born out of anger rather than misery. That was more like the Meira I knew.
“Why would finding fairy royalty undo her curse?” Robin asked her.
Wiping her eyes, Meira sniffled. “It may be because she was cursed by a fairy queen.”
The men all gaped at her.
Robin broke the silence first. “This seems like a very long story, and as much as I’d like to hear it, we really need to get going.”
“You’re really going into Faerie?” Agnë squeaked. “For F—Briar, or for your rescue mission?”
Robin shrugged. “She and I have already discussed combining our causes.”
“Could you have discussed it with me?” Will grumbled. “Before you invited a new problem for you to solve?”
“It’s not going to affect finding Marian,” Robin promised as he headed for the chestnut mare. It was only then I noticed the quiver full of arrows and the large bow strapped to her saddle. Robin Hood’s signature weapon.
“It better not!” Will snapped as he climbed on his mottled-grey stallion and Meira remounted her black mare. “I know you can’t turn a blind eye to random people in need, but this is my sister we’re talking about. Who knows what these hunters have been doing to her!”
“You underestimate her,” Robin said as he hopped on his mare in one impossible move. “I keep thinking she has probably long escaped, and is trying to find her way home.” Will looked about to explode, and Robin rushed to add, “But we’re operating under the assumption that they still have her. Briar Rose’s need to meet fairy royals will actually work in our favor. They might tell us where the Wild Hunt roam, or find us people who might have seen Marian.”
“Faerie is a vast place,” Agnë pointed out, “and the people are very protective of their borders. We don’t want to risk what happened to Prince Leander—”
It was too late to take back that slip-up as Robin asked curiously, “You know the prince?”
I rushed to answer before Agnë made it worse. “Of course, we lived at court.”
Agnë had said something in answer as Robin started to ride up the hill, but thankfully his attention was back with me. “He told courtiers about what happened to him?”
He made it sound like he himself knew about Leander’s ordeal, which made me question just how far gossip went in this land.
“It’s not like he had a choice,” I reasoned, floating beside his trotting mare. “He is marrying a half-fairy girl. That alone needed a good explanation to get all those around him to approve of a future fairy queen ruling Arbore alongside him.”
Robin cocked his head down at me. “Speaking of fairy queens, why did one curse you again?”
“I thought you said we had no time for stories.”
“We do, now we’re on our way. By all means, talk while we ride.”
Though I didn’t tire anymore, I so wanted to ride Amabel again. Not even knowing if I could, I swung up, maneuvered myself behind Agnë, feeling only Amabel beneath me, and thankfully not slipping through the saddle. To my delight, Amabel made that little shimmy she always greeted me with whenever I mounted her.
After we cleared the hill, we rode towards a daisy-dotted clearing that spread to the woods in the distance, the only one on foot but easily keeping pace with us was Little Jon. A man of his size would probably crush any horse he attempted to ride.
Robin brought his horse next to Amabel, cocking his head at me. “So?”
“How about we wait until we do manage to get an audience with a fairy royal?” I diverted, something I’d practiced for years when being sucked into unpleasant conversations with difficult people—like my mother. “I’d rather tell this story only once.”
Thankfully, this made him give up. For now.
Soon, we entered the woods, and it was like we’d stepped into deep autumn, only then making me realize it had been spring outside.
Thick mist curled at our horses’ legs, and the rays of light straggling through the thick canopy of branches and leaves bore no illumination or heat.
I soon looked back, and couldn’t even see the light where we’d entered. All our surroundings were unnervingly dark, with the rows of gnarled trunks seeming to go on forever, with the path ahead the only clear direction.
Little Jon led the way, the easiest to follow even with us on horseback.
“Is he a giant?” I asked out loud, knowing only Robin could hear me.
Robin slowed down so he rode beside us. “He has giant blood in him.” Agnë started at his seemingly out-of-the-blue comment, and he pointed behind her. “Answering Briar, who’s clinging to you like a limpet.” Agnë choked, and he laughed. “No danger of her possessing you, though, since it seems she’s isn’t a malevolent spirit. Yet.”
“So nice of you to be so reassuring,” I snapped. “Now tell her it was another one of your delightful jokes.”
Before he could say anything, Agnë blurted out, almost tearfully, “Tell her I’m not afraid of her, and how sorry I am she is in this state.”
Robin waved. “Oh, I don’t need to play messenger here. She can see and hear you fine. So you better watch what you do and say.” I almost heard the wiggling brows in his voice, before he turned back to me. “About Jon, his ancestors came from the Northland Kingdoms.”
This reminded me of Björn, the Northlander who’d found me skinny. He’d been the largest man I’d seen until now. Little Jon made him look average-sized.
“When did you meet him?” I asked.
“While guarding the border during the war. He’s had a bit of a growth spurt since.”
“A bit?”
“Believe it or not, he was your height, and much smaller than the average lad; therefore, the nickname. He kept shooting up, but Little Jon had stuck, and the bigger he got the funnier it became.”
“It’s so strange,” Agnë said. “Feeling like you’re talking to me, when I can’t hear her responses…” She swung around, eyes unseeingly searching for me. “I didn’t mean to talk about you as if you’re not here… Oh, why can’t we see you?”
Meira came up beside Robin. “Yes, how come you, of all people, can see her, and we can’t?”
Robin shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe the fairies will give us an answer.”
“If there was one, we’d know it,” Agnë blurted, and Meira leaned over past Robin and thumped her hard on the head.
“Ow! What was that for?” Agnë complained, swatting back.
“You know what that was for!” Meira smacked at her hand. “And you hit me all the time, it’s only fair.”
“I hit you because you say awful things.”
“Well, I’m hitting you because you’re saying stupid things.”
I squinted between them. What were these two even fighting about now?
“Ladies, if you’re going to be this loud and difficult, we’re going to have to lose you,” Little Jon warned, his deep voice reverberating between the surrounding trees. “And you don’t want to get lost where we’re going.”
“Where exactly are you taking us?” Meira demanded. “You can’t reach the isle of Nexia through Briarfell.”
“That’s because we’re not going to Nexia,” Will snapped at her. “Last time we tried reaching Faerie through that place, it did its best to kick us out. It even broke Rob’s arm.”
The story Leander and Bonnie had told me came back to me at once. How the isle of Nexia had all but literally thrown out anyone who’d registered even as partly human like her, due to the inhabitants’ alliance with Avongart in the war. The war that had erupted in the first place over Arbore’s rejection of magical people.
“And that’s why I’ve been searching ever since for an alternative route, and discovered this fairy path in these woods.” Robin rotated his arm, as if in remembered pain of its prior injury, before pointing ahead as a wider path appeared among the trees. It was a yellow dirt road lined by huge, glass-like, blue mushrooms that emit
ted an ethereal glow. “This should lead us directly into the Summer Court.”
Chapter Twelve
The path looked exactly like the one from the dream I’d had before waking up in Briarfell.
And if that wasn’t enough, I remembered another incident Bonnie had mentioned in passing about crossing one like it. She’d been attacked by vicious fairy creatures, and Leander had almost died saving her from them.
“Is crossing one of these fairy paths safe?” I asked Robin. “Don’t bloodthirsty gnomes live around here?”
Robin snorted. “Redcaps, you mean.”
Will pulled his horse into an abrupt halt, forcing us all to stop behind him. “Redcaps live here? You didn’t tell us that!”
“Those things are vicious!” Meira mirrored his alarm.
“I know all about them,” Robin assured us. “I’ve killed quite a few in Rosemead, in a wood just like this one. Besides, I found us a guide. He’ll lead us through the Faerie courts with minimal attacks.”
Will groaned. “It’s not that wacky bard with the stag, is it?”
“It’s an elk, I believe,” Robin said, eliciting a louder groan from Will. “You want to find Marian without any of us dying, right?”
“Yes, but that Allen of the Dale nutter?” Will muttered, still looking appalled.
“He’s our best option of making it through Faerie in one piece—and he’s not that weird,” Robin argued, sounding almost fond. “Fine, he is, but I quite enjoy his company. He gave us some much-needed relief in the war camps, playing the strangest music, and recounting the craziest things he’d seen across Faerie.”
Will palmed his face. “He’s a bard, Rob. He’s living in another century, wandering around singing and laughing like a demented loon. First time I saw him, I thought he was hallucinating from severe blood loss.”
“How does he travel across Faerie?” Meira asked, sounding as worried and suspicious as Will. “Is–is he from there?”
Robin nodded. “He does appear to be part fey. Centuries might have passed in his wanderings, which could explain the anachronistic behavior our dear, intolerant Willoughby takes such issue with.”
