I thought my plan was simple: I’d travel north from Hrundel, through the forest, then go west along the foothills of the Dregan Mountains, which divided the Marsh and Wind Courts. Typically, travelers followed the edge of the mountains the opposite way, toward the ocean and then through the Eastern Gap. I hoped to find the Western Gap and travel through the ravine rather than having to scale a mountain or travel for days in the wrong direction. From there, I’d keep going until I hit The Mists, and then I wasn’t sure. I’d wing it and see what happened.
No one had ever come back from The Mists, so there were no tales of what they really were or how to navigate them. It was said that when a fae lost their mate, they would travel to The Mists and forfeit their own life, so their shared soul could be together again. They said that losing your mate was like losing yourself, and you could never recover from that.
The concept of sharing a soul was absolutely ludicrous to me. The only thing I really knew about mates was that the bond sometimes took a long time to emerge. When it did, your choice was to either accept it and live in saccharine bliss or deny it, and sever your soul in two pieces again and try to find a way to recover alone. I’d never known if my parents were truly mated, but if they weren’t, they were still happy beyond measure.
The thought of my parents stopped me short. They were everything to me, all I had ever known, and now if I was to believe the prince, they weren’t even my real parents. I reached my hand to the necklace I wore and closed my eyes, rubbing my thumb over the jagged edge of the simple stone that lay inside.
“Maybe I was never yours, but you were always mine,” I told my mother, hoping she could hear me from the Ether.
I shifted the pack I carried, and the weight of the book reminded me of Nealla. I was more determined than ever to find her. I needed the truth, the whole truth, from the beginning all the way through. I knew there was more to my twisted story. I couldn’t trust the prince and his tale, even if that meant admitting that I also couldn’t trust Aibell. It was difficult and confusing because my mother had sent me to her, though she’d sent me to Mikal first and the final message she had left with him was to trust no one. Maybe my mother was telling me not to trust Aibell? But I knew her well enough to know she would never send me into the arms of someone I couldn’t rely on. I’d never been more confused in my life as I tried to work through every emotion raging through my body.
The prince thought he knew more about me than I knew about myself, and that was probably the worst of it. I was a whole person. I was more than my birth story, more than a prophecy. But he thought me to be weak. He had captured me with ease, and I hated him for it. For his words, his cocky attitude. All of it. He could have been nice. He could have found a better way to tell me anything he needed to. Send a fucking messenger for all I cared. Instead, he chose to be an asshole, and if he thought I was going to play nice after that, he was wrong. I might have been a bit of a pain, but I’d backed down from him every single time at the castle, as my mother had taught me when dealing with royals, but there were no rules anymore and somewhere along my journey I’d lost all the fucks I had to give.
By midafternoon, the density of the trees had grown so thick I could no longer tell which direction I was going. Several times I had to climb a tree to look above the forest canopy, and twice found I was going in the wrong direction. I stayed alert and kept my fae ears perked, fully aware that danger lurked in every forest, and the closer I got to nightfall, the more wicked the woods became. I had heard the snapping of twigs and branches many times, but whatever it was that followed me kept their distance. I still carried a knife in my hands, just in case.
I didn’t risk a fire the first night and probably wouldn’t the second either. I thought of the knovern and shuddered. There would be no peace here. Certainly no security.
It was day two of being turned around in every direction. Once scarce and intriguing, the symbols I had discovered etched into scattered trees became more frequent until I was surrounded by them. I’d passed the same symbols and the same pattern of symbols over and over again until my mind was numb and all my sense of direction had left me once more. Someone was definitely following me, and while I wanted to focus on that little gem, it hadn’t felt like a threat. Now though? I felt the eyes of something far more terrifying much closer. I slowed my pace and perked my ears until I heard the distant clinking of iron chains. I paused, and so did whatever it was that tracked me. I closed my eyes and listened for breathing. Silence answered. I searched my memory for clues to the symbols.
What did I just walk into?
I spun in a circle, and at the same time whipped the blade from my back. My cloak trailed behind me, and the sounds of the forest went deadly silent. My own heartbeat thundered through the clustered trees like the beat of a hollow drum, and I knew it had betrayed me, as the glowing red eyes of the largest fae horse I had ever seen stepped out between two trees in the distance.
Atop him sat an ethereal beheaded rider linked to the beast with chains. In one hand, he carried the rotted remains of his own head, and in the other, he carried a long barbed-wire chain whip that he cracked through the musty air.
It snapped inches from my face and broke the spell.
I swung my sword and rolled to the side, wracking my brain for any knowledge I might have to slay an undead. If not for the glowing red eyes of the beast, I likely wouldn’t have known where he was in the dark forest with the trees effectively blocking out any light I might need.
Run.
It sounded great in theory, but this was his territory that I had encroached on. Also, he was on a horse and I was, well ...not. It had to be the symbols. It’s the only thing that made sense. I couldn’t kill the horse. From what I remembered, the only way to kill an undead beast was to either make a deal with a dark demon or to restrike it with the same weapon that had killed it in the first place. Neither of which were options, but if I remembered right, the dullahan was not as tricky. The symbols on the trees were part of the charm that held him here.
I wasn’t sure what would happen to the beast once he was free of his rider, but I had to worry about that later. The whip cracked again. The sound of the chains was more disturbing than the putrid stench of the rotten skull he carried like a trophy. I kept my face to him as I backed into a tree and felt for the symbol blindly. He stalked forward, and as I slid the blade across the deep marking, I said a silent prayer that I was destroying a charm and not a ward. The last thing I wanted to do was unleash a dead horseman on Alewyn.
I bolted for the next tree, but I couldn’t find a symbol. Then again to the third. This time, when I damaged the bark, the horse reared up on its two hind legs, screamed into the darkness and charged at me full speed. The horseman pulled his own sword, balancing the chain in his other hand, and I barely moved fast enough to block him from taking my own head.
As he turned the beast around, I quickly scratched the next symbol and then crouched low to the ground. He couldn’t hit me with his sword at this level unless he leaned way over on his horse, and though I was sure he was a skilled rider, I could easily tumble to the side if that were his tactic. A small tingling tapped on the shield in my mind, and I realized he was trying to break it. I reinforced the wall as I moved to the next tree. Again I sliced, and again the horse screamed with fury as they charged. I leaped behind the welcomed trunk of a broad tree, and he had to turn sharply to avoid crashing into it.
Shit.
I couldn’t remember how many symbols I had to remove, and to be completely honest, I wasn’t entirely sure I was doing it right. Still, I moved to the next one, and to my surprise, this one was already scratched out, but it wasn’t from my own blade. Perhaps the last victim of the dullahan hadn’t been as lucky as I hoped to be.
He charged for me once more, and this time I held my sword firm as he came, spinning out of the way at the last minute. While I thought I’d nearly had him, the sound of his blade whooshing by my ear made my heart stop. I had been hoping his lack of mobility on the horse, in a forest no less, would be to my advantage, but I had forgotten this was his game. Several long minutes passed with him charging me and me doing my best just to block him or avoid the following crash of his whip through the air.
Finally, I thought I had him. He came barreling forward, and rather than moving from one side to the other, I stayed on his left. Changing the pattern did just enough that my sword sliced through his thigh, though he didn’t bleed. He grabbed his wound though, which gave me reason to think I had hurt him. I tried it for a second time, but he anticipated it and turned far too soon, snapping the barbed whip.
It ensnared my wrist.
I screamed in pain, the first sound I had made. Instead of trying to pull my arm out of the whip, which I was sure is what most fae would have instinctively done. I punched my arm forward, loosening the chains just enough to twist and jerk my hand out of his hold. I crawled backward. There was no fucking way I was going to escape this certain death. I looked to the forest floor and saw the scattered trail of blood I’d left behind. I didn’t even care that it could be used to bespell me. None of that mattered when I was going to die anyway.
Still, I lifted my sword again. I had to use my left hand, which was now the stronger one, and regain my footing. A bit wobbly, I stood. I held my sword straight toward him, and the glow of the fae horse’s eyes brightened. Perhaps even he knew they had me now. But one moment my hand held the sword before me, and the next minute it vanished.
I tried to gasp, but a smooth hand covered my mouth.
A feminine voice whispered so lightly I could barely understand, even with my sensitive hearing. “There are three more of those symbols behind him. We need to circle around to get them. If you even breathe, he will hear you.”
That voice—it was familiar. I’d thought of that voice for ages, full of questions. She’d been the one to free me from Morwena’s guards the day my parents died. She was his.It was one of mine,he had said. Prince Fenlas. He’d been playing his hand in this faerie game for longer than I’d known.
