Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After (11 page)

“I got lost again,” Tolven said softly. “I knew I had to find the seeds, but I could not recall why, through the wilting and the crumbling all around. I am weary of being lost—that is not your concern. We have made a bargain, and I will keep it. Come, this way.”

My throat hurt. I wanted to say it was my concern, though I had little enough reason to trust Tolven beyond the promises we’d exchanged. His shadow moved silently across the room, and I followed, leading Allie behind me. Maybe the seed would be enough to save him. But it hadn’t been enough for Karin.

Light flooded the room as a tunnel opened before us. “Even mad, I knew I could not be seen,” Tolven said matter-of-factly. There were new tears along his sleeves, stained with dried blood. He took the purple stone that lay in the tunnel in his hand. “I hid the light in one passage, then came for you through another.”

By the light, I saw the wine skin Nys had given us lying on the floor. I ran back to sling it over my shoulder, and then Allie and I followed Tolven into the tunnel. We swiftly reached a stone wall, but the stone parted
at Tolven’s approach, revealing a longer passage with rougher walls. As we entered that tunnel, I heard the groan of shifting rock. I looked back to see the stone closing in behind us, leaving us only a few free paces ahead and behind.
A trap
, I thought, but Tolven kept walking, and the stone kept opening ahead of him, as quickly as it closed behind. I pushed Allie in front of me; if one of us got caught by the swift-flowing stone, I didn’t want it to be her. Allie gave me a long look and dropped back to my side, though there was barely room for the two of us to walk abreast. Our steps echoed against the tunnel floor.

“Not so loud.” Tolven scowled as he glanced back at us. “Do you wish to be found?”

I knew how to walk more quietly, but not without slowing down. With the stone flowing behind us, I chose speed over stealth. We climbed uphill, gently at first, then more steeply, until I heard my and Allie’s breaths as well as our steps.

Without warning, Tolven stopped, one hand halfway to the stone ahead of us. “The Summoner’s Grove—what remains of the Grove—is just beyond this spot. You will give me the seed so I can see that humans keep their word, and then I will step forward and the stone will open to that place. When it does, you will be free to leave.” He extended his hand to me.

I reached into my pocket and took out a seed. The life in all the seeds flared stronger, as if they were reluctant to be parted from one another. I pressed the seed into Tolven’s palm. His fingers closed around it, and I felt … peace, flowing like a contented sigh from the green he held. Or maybe it came from Tolven himself, who set his glowing stone aside to cradle the seed in both hands like a precious child. “Yes. It is well done.”

Cold tickled the back of my neck. I turned to see the way behind us filling with a darkness the light could not touch. Dust trickled to the floor a couple arms’ lengths away, no more. The purple light gave way to gray.

“Tolven,” I said.

Tolven looked up from the seed, as if waking from a dream, to focus on the gray all around us. He moved swiftly forward. Stone flowed aside, letting in hot yellow sun. Allie and I stepped past him into a world of blue sky, glittering ash, black tree snags. My eyes ached at the sudden brightness. In the distance, I saw a circle of stumps, bench and standing stone within them.

“You should go,” Tolven said as the darkness drew closer behind him.

I hesitated, then held out my hand. “Come with us,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake. For the first time, I wondered what it had been like for Karin and Caleb, offering help to an unknown town, not certain
how far its humans could be trusted. “The trees aren’t dying in our world.”

“A worthy offer.” Tolven took the purple stone in one hand. The other closed around the seed. “And a tempting one.” He looked at me with his open gaze. “Yet while my thoughts remain my own, I think I might do my people some good below. Do humans accept bonds of friendship with my people?”

“Some of us do.” A breath of ice blew from the tunnel. The dark was only a foot or so from Tolven. “I do.”

“Me too,” Allie said. Her town had accepted faerie folk and their magic long before mine.

“In that case, should there come a time when I can be of no further use to my world, I will seek you in yours. Until then, travel well.” Tolven bowed, more deeply than before, and turned to the tunnel wall. A new passage opened off of it, and he disappeared into it.

“He shouldn’t go back!” Allie cried as the stone closed behind him. “They don’t deserve him, not after they held him here when they
knew
they could set him free.”

They didn’t deserve him, but I was beginning to think that wasn’t the point. “Did the people you healed deserve it?”

“That’s different! They were sick, and no one can help that!”

Maybe none of us were worthy enough to deserve the good things that happened to us. I inhaled hot wind and open sky like a gift. Together Allie and I left the tunnels behind, walking swiftly through a world of color and light.

Chapter 9

A
sh burned the soles of my bare feet as we walked. Sun shone on the snags of dead trees, and I kept blinking the dryness from my eyes.

“Do you think Toby will be okay?” Hot wind blew strands of Allie’s red hair into her face.

I glanced back. How long did we have before Nys found us gone? “I don’t know.” As we neared the more ordered circle of snags surrounding the standing stone, I saw the one stump among them that wasn’t dead. Wider around than my arms could reach, that tree stretched shadow branches like gnarled fingers toward the sky. Karin crouched before it. Allie tightened her grip as I let out a breath. Karin was alive. It was almost more than I’d hoped for. Elin hovered protectively beside her. Karin
made soft crooning sounds as she rocked back and forth. She lived, but her mind was still not her own.

“I hear you well enough, Liza.” Elin did not turn from her mother. Beside them, a bowl held a few pale tubers. “Allie, too. There is no sense trying to sneak up on me. My people do not need rest so often as yours do, with every fleeting cycle of the sun.”

I hadn’t been trying to sneak up on her. It was Elin who’d snuck into my house, stealing me away. “Let us take Karin out of here, Elin. You must know she can’t stay in Faerie.”

Elin laughed, a sound jagged as broken glass. “You think it an easy thing, to lead my mother away? You are welcome to do so, then.” She stepped aside. Beneath her green cloak, a short knife and several small pouches hung from her belted brown dress.

I released Allie to approach Karin, fearing some trap. Karin gave a small cry and cupped her hands around something. A thin brown stem, sprouting from the stump. A tiny round leaf unfurled from it. The leaf nuzzled her palm, wilted, and fell to the ashes at her feet. The plant speaker let out a high, animal wail.

“Karin.” I reached for her.

She whirled around, her fist striking my side so hard and fast it knocked the breath from me. I fell to the ground, one ankle twisting with a sickening lurch. Karin
squinted, as if puzzled she could not see me, then turned back to the tree and began crooning once more.

“Do you think me a fool?” Elin’s voice came through a haze of pain as Allie pressed hands to my foot. “Of course I would take her out of here if I could. As one of the first line, I can cross between our worlds as easily as any seer. But lost though my mother’s mind may be, gone though her sight may be, her warrior’s skills have not abandoned her. I have been no more able to get near her than you.”

“Your ankle’s not broken,” Allie said. “Just sprained. Here.” A flash of cold silver light took the pain away. Allie sat back, breathing hard. “That was … harder than I expected. I really did push hard, down below. I’d tell you not to walk on it, but we don’t have a choice, do we?”

I stood, watching as Karin called another brown shoot.
“Karinna!”
I called with my magic.
“Come here!”

Karin gave no sign she heard. She just kept singing wordlessly to the new stem, until it, too, wilted away. Karin was the one person who had always been there whenever I’d called.

“She’s lost her name, hasn’t she?” Elin’s voice was flat. “It’s worse for her than for Toby. I should have expected that. She’s the land’s own heir now. She doesn’t just hear the plants. She hears
everything
.”

“Lost names can be found,” I said. Karin’s shadow
remained solid within her. Something of her was yet there, if only we could reach it. I saw the shadow of the seed in her pocket as well. Was it because she heard more than Tolven did that the seed couldn’t help her?

Allie moved to Elin’s side and brushed fingers along storm-dark bruises at her wrist. “Karin hurt you, too.” Light flowed from Allie’s fingers.

Elin jerked away. “It is not broken, and it aches only lightly. Do not waste your power on me. Others need it. Nys isn’t wrong about that.” Elin laughed again. “I told him you would escape, one way or another, when he refused to tell me where he’d hidden you. He does not have my experience underestimating you, Liza.” The laughter died. “I made my bargain with him poorly. I made him vow not to harm my mother but did not think to protect her student as well—and you, Allie, were entirely unexpected. You must know that. I was willing enough to sacrifice you both to bring my mother home, but not to turn you over to Nys.” Elin’s cloak rippled, though there was no wind. “As it is, my mother’s presence has done little to set anything right.”

Karin kept calling stems to grow and die, grow and die, while somewhere outside Matthew and Caleb moved ever closer to the Arch. I stepped toward Karin, and she stiffened. Maybe, if I kept trying, I could reach her at last.

And maybe Matthew and Caleb would die while I did. As far as I could tell, Karin had more time than they did. “You’ll continue keeping watch over her?” I asked Elin.

The weaver turned to me, her silver eyes sharp. “You intend to depart the Realm without my leave? With my grandmother gone and my mother unable to speak for herself, it is me you must answer to. I’ll not have you forget that, Liza.”

None of this would have happened if not for Elin. “Caleb heads this way, Matthew with him.” I fought to keep the anger from my voice. “Toward the Arch. As the Lady’s heir, perhaps you know what that means?”

“Kaylen is coming here?” Elin’s hands twisted in the fabric of her cloak. Did she blame him, as so many did, for starting the War? “Yes, of course he is.” She looked to her mother. “Is there no end to the sacrifices you will both make for humans?”

“Is it true?” Allie asked. “Will coming here really kill him?”

“Oh yes.” Elin turned abruptly from her mother and strode to the standing stone. Allie and I looked at each other.

“Well, come on, then,” Elin said. “Someone needs to see to it that you do not die, as humans tend to do.”

We stared at her, wary of some new trap. Elin sighed.
“When my people make a mistake, we try to set things right. It may be different among humans, but even so, I will accompany you on this journey. As far as I can tell, even with her mind gone, Karinna the Fierce remains quite capable of protecting herself and no more requires my presence than she ever did. A few short days without food or drink will not hurt her, any more than a few days without sleep will hurt me.”

I doubted Ethan, who’d lost his town to her, would think Elin had set anything right, but I couldn’t stop her from leaving. I glanced back. Karin wept as she called another stem to grow, and another. What use was I as her student if I could not help her? I joined Elin at the standing stone. As far as I could tell, Karin would be in no greater danger if I left than if I stayed, and that wasn’t true for Matthew and Caleb. Allie put one hand to my arm and reached for Elin with the other. Elin ignored her to put her own hands to the stone. “I can find my own way to the Arch, without any seer’s visions to delay me.” The stone turned liquid at her touch. She stepped into it and was gone.

Yellow sunlight reflected off the bright rock.
The Arch. Show me the Arch
. The light grew brighter, filling my sight, and I saw—