Faerie Winter (13 page)

Why ask me? I was no plant mage. “The adults in my town believe it.” They believed in spite of the gray trees and the gray skies, the failed crops and the too-long winter.

“So it is with the human adults in my town as well.” Karin held a hand out to the falling snow as we walked on. Snowflakes melted against her skin. “Yet I have never heard the trees so quiet. They yearn for darkness, and some have given way to it. Others slip into sleep, accepting that they may never wake. I am told this is the way of your world. It is not the way of mine. I have never known a forest that was not green. What do you believe?”

On the far side of the river, the bare trees were shadows through the snow.
Nothing more can grow out of such death. And so the worlds wind down, and tragedy runs its course
. “Does it matter what I believe?” If the
world was winding down, it would do so no matter what I believed. A scrap of cloth lay on the ground ahead of me. Kyle’s bloodstained bandage. I picked it up. Did I dare believe he might be all right? If I couldn’t believe in spring, could I believe that much?

“Even if you had not called me, Liza, I’d have sought you out soon enough. What thin hope I have for spring is bound up as much in your magic as in my own.” Karin took the bandage in her hands and ran her fingers over the torn weaving, as if she could mend it. “And so I am reminded once more that those things that are going to happen will happen, though we cannot always see the path.” She laughed softly to herself; at what, I didn’t know. “But there will be time to discuss this later.”

I wrapped the bandage around my staff as we moved closer to the bluffs, picking our way among rocks to find a narrow track near the base of those cliffs. The snow was letting up. I saw a faint streak of blood against the white limestone, and another, higher up. Kyle had climbed these stones.

A winged shadow flew over us. I crouched, staff in hand, tensed to fight.

The hawk didn’t attack. She landed on an outcrop above us and glared down at Karin and me. I backed away, eyes on her sharp talons, gauging whether it’d be better to fight or to run.

Karin stepped forward, though. “Elianna.” She pronounced the name as strangely as she had Kaylen’s. “It has been many years, but surely you know me.” Karin held out her arm.

The hawk screeched and lifted her wings. There was blood on her talons—Kyle’s blood. Anger chased my fear away. I moved to Karin’s side as the hawk tilted her head.

I was suddenly aware of what a very pretty bird she was. I reached for her sharp beak.

“No!” Karin stepped between us. “Liza is my student and under my protection.”

The hawk’s yellow eyes flashed silver in the light. All at once she wasn’t pretty—she was deadly. She screamed and flew at Karin, talons outstretched.

I had her name now.
“Elianna!”
I didn’t call her to me. I called her to herself, as once I’d called Matthew from wolf back to boy.

The bird shimmered with light, feathers melting, talons drawing back into skin—it was a faerie girl who knocked Karin to the ground. Karin grabbed Elin’s shoulders, pulling the girl to her feet as she stood. Snow landed on Elin’s bare skin and in her tangled hair. She lashed out at Karin’s face, as if expecting talons at the ends of her hands.

Karin grabbed those hands in her own. “Elianna.”

“I do not know you.” So fierce, Elin’s voice. Karin
flinched. I clutched my staff, alert for any movement, any attempt by Elin to do either of us harm. Karin released Elin’s hands, removed her pack, and drew a wool blanket from within. The girl pulled it around her shoulders, but the anger didn’t leave her eyes. Silver light flowed over gray wool, and the blanket shaped itself into a rough dress, frayed at the hem and the sleeves.

Elin hardly seemed to notice. Her gaze was entirely on Karin. “I do not know who you are, or how you have come to wear my mother’s face. I know only this: Karinna the Fierce would never consent to teach any human. My mother died fighting the human Uprising. She died bravely and well, and I’ll not have you insulting her memory.”

Mother? Karin was Elin’s
mother
? Elin was the Lady’s granddaughter; it only made sense—but Elin looked too young to have lived Before.

Faerie folk lived longer than humans. I
knew
that.

“I did not think to see you again, either.” How did Karin hold her voice so steady? “I do not blame you for being angry with me. We have much to discuss.”

“No. I don’t believe we do.” Elin stalked past us toward the river, head held high, feet bare. I thought Karin would run after her, but she only watched her go.

Snow blew into my face. “I could call her back.”

Karin shook her head. “She makes her choices freely
as well. I’ll not decide them for her.” She closed her eyes and rested her head on her hands, and I felt as if I were witnessing something terribly private.

I silently kept guard as Elin followed the river upstream, away from us. At last Karin looked up once more. “Come. Let us find Kyle.” She tied her pack closed and pulled it onto her shoulders. “I fear there will be some climbing involved.”

I set my staff down, put my gloves back in my pockets, and started to climb. Karin scanned the cliffs, then began climbing beside me. The icy stone was slippery beneath my fingers, and snow stung my face. Kyle’s blood streaked the most obvious handholds. How long ago had he climbed? He’d have climbed more slowly than Karin and I. It should have been easy for Elin to knock him from these cliffs.

She should have caught up with him well before the cliffs. How had Kyle gotten so far?

From above, I heard a faint singsong voice. “The ants go marching seventy hundred by seventy hundred …”

I climbed faster. Karin and I were higher than the trees now. Karin made her way onto a narrow ledge, and I followed, inching sideways, listening. “The ants go marching seventy-one hundred by seventy-one hundred …”

A foot or so above the ledge, there was a narrow hole
in the rock, too small for an adult to fit through. Karin stopped and peered into the dark. “Kyle?”

The singing stopped.
“Go away!”
Kyle cried.

Of course he wouldn’t trust a stranger, not now. Karin must have realized that, too, because she moved farther along the ledge, and I moved to the opening. “Kyle?”

Silence. My fingers felt numb against the rock. Then, “Liza?”

“It’s all right, Kyle. You can come out now.”

I heard cloth scraping stone. Kyle’s boots emerged from the hole, and his legs scrambled down to the ledge as he grasped the rocks. Talons had torn the back of his coat, and blood seeped through. He clung to the stone as he turned to look at me, eyes wide, quia leaf still hanging from his neck. “Scared,” he whispered.

“I know,” I said. “Ready to climb down?”

Kyle nodded solemnly. He followed me along the ledge, and then we descended together. His scabbed-over hand began bleeding again, but he seemed to have full use of it. We jumped the last few inches to the ground. Kyle looked up at me, lower lip quivering. He was going to be all right.

He burst into sobs and threw himself at me.

My arms stiffened around him. For a wild moment I didn’t know what to do. I stroked his tangled hair, as
Mom had mine when I was little. Such a small thing—it hadn’t seemed small when Mom had done it.

Karin jumped to the ground beside us. Kyle’s sobs turned to shivers as he drew away from me. Karin nodded solemnly. “It is good to see you well, Kyle.”

“Kyle, this is Karin. She—”

Kyle turned his back on her. His small body trembled. “I’m hungry,” he said.

I offered him some dried meat, but he shook his head. Tears streaked his face. “Not hungry for
that.
” He sat down in the snow.

I put the jerky back into my pocket; I had nothing else to offer him. This was no time to be a picky eater.

The snow fell harder. “We need to get him somewhere warm,” I told Karin. “Maybe we can find shelter among the cliffs.” A larger cave, nearer to the ground.

Karin nodded. The clouds were thick and dark, the day more than half done. I put my gloves back on. “Ready to walk?” I asked Kyle. His bleeding hand was already scabbing over again.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “No.”

“We have to walk, Kyle. There’s no other way. I’m sorry.”

Kyle looked up defiantly. “Carry me.”

Carrying him would slow us down. I was tired and my ankle hurt and I didn’t feel much like walking
myself—I drew a deep breath. “Would piggyback do?”

Kyle sniffed and nodded. I bent down, and he climbed onto my back, wrapping his arms and legs around me so tightly they hurt. I grabbed my stick from the ground for balance as I stood and started walking, Karin by my side.

I glanced back just in time to see Kyle stick his tongue out at her.

“Kyle!” I gave Karin an apologetic look as he buried his head against my shoulder.

“It is all right. He has little reason to trust me, and reason enough for fear, given what he’s seen of my people.” Karin smiled sadly. “Fear can be a sort of protection, too. Allow him to trust his instincts. He’ll work this out for himself, given time. As, I believe, did you.”

I looked away, ashamed of how little I’d trusted her and Caleb when we’d first met.

“She’s mean,” Kyle whispered into my hair.

Karin laughed at that, a lighter sound. “I am a teacher. I’m accustomed to being told I am mean.”

The wind picked up. I rubbed Kyle’s bare hands with my gloved ones. He sniffled, and snot dripped down into my scarf. The snow took on an icy edge. I saw gaps among the stones, but none were large enough to shelter us.

Karin pointed ahead. I squinted—there. A dull sheen of metal in the distance. As we drew closer, I saw that it
was an old truck from Before. The truck’s nose was half-buried in the dirt, past the front wheels, as if the earth had tried to swallow it whole during the War. The trailer was still good, though, the rust beneath the faded orange and white paint only beginning to break through the metal.

Kyle clung to me as Karin and I pushed the trailer door up. It creaked, and the oily old-car smell that made me think of Before wafted out. There were no wild animals living inside, just an empty metal shell about as tall as I was. A torn-up couch stood against one wall, its cushions gone. A few small, rusted cans were piled in one corner, and the words on them were from Before, too:
Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Red Bull
. A hole in one corner of the ceiling let the cold in, and bird droppings streaked the wall beneath it.

I carried Kyle inside, and Karin closed the door behind us. “When you can, Liza, we need to look at his back.”

I nodded. Like all raptors since the War, hawks had poison in their talons. At least, real hawks did; I didn’t know about a hawk that had started as a girl. I got Kyle onto the couch. He crawled into my lap, clinging still. Karin drew a pair of stones from her pack, the smaller of which glowed with orange light. She tapped the small stone against the larger one, and the larger one began to glow as well. Kyle’s eyes widened. He reached for the
light, then pulled away and gave Karin a suspicious look. Karin set the larger stone down on the arm of the couch. Its light was warm, taking the edge off the cold around us. We wouldn’t have to waste time coaxing a fire from wet wood. Karin lit a second stone the same way. I remembered that there was a child in her town who could bring light to stones, too.

I unbuttoned Kyle’s coat. “Let’s take this off.”

“No.”

“Please, Kyle.”

Kyle bit his lip and looked up at me. “Will it hurt?”

“It might.” I couldn’t lie to him. I didn’t want to—I’d always hated when adults said that things wouldn’t hurt when they would. I searched for words that would help him, thought of the time Mom had pulled a dozen dandelion thorns from my arm, one by one. “You’ll have to be very brave,” I told Kyle, remembering what Mom had said then. Her words had surprised me; more often Mom told me it was okay not to be brave, but the thorns had had to come out. “Can you do that, Kyle?”

He gave me a suspicious look, then nodded. Mom had given me some of Jayce’s whisky before she’d begun work, but I didn’t tell Kyle that. He winced as I eased off his jacket and the clotted blood beneath it tore away. “You
are
brave,” I said.

There was more blood on his sweater—Kyle screamed
when I pulled it and his undershirt off. He fled my arms to huddle in a corner.

I followed him. “I’m sorry. But you have to let me look at your back. It will hurt worse later if you don’t.”

“Hurts worse now,” Kyle whimpered.

“I know.” I reached out my hand, and he took it. Somehow I got him back to the couch and lying on his stomach. His back was a mess of puffy red gashes and dried blood. Even if there was no poison, the wounds were clearly infected.

“Cold,” he muttered as I stroked his hair.

His skin didn’t feel cold. It felt fever hot. Karin moved, frowning, to my side. “Kaylen would make quick work of such injuries.” She handed me a water skin from her pack. “Clean it as best you can. I’m no healer, but I know something of the healing that plants can do. I’ll see what I can find.”

Karin raised the door and slid outside, taking her pack with her. The world beyond the trailer had become a blur of blowing white. Was Matthew out in that storm, or had he found shelter, too? I wished he were here. We were supposed to be together for all the hard things. The door creaked as Karin pulled it shut behind her. I hoped Matthew had run far, far from Clayburn and the Lady’s reach. Maybe he’d gone to get Caleb and help for Ethan after all.

Kyle sat up. Caleb’s quia leaf dangled against his bare chest. I took the frog from my pocket and handed it to him. Kyle grabbed the toy and lifted his head proudly. “I left it on purpose, so you and Johnny could find me.” His face scrunched into a frown. “Where’s Johnny?”

I swallowed hard.

“Find him.” Kyle stumbled to his feet.

I grabbed his arm. “Later. First you have to get well, then we have to wait for the snow to stop. Then we’ll look for Johnny.”

Kyle clutched the frog close. “Promise?”

“Promise. But you have to let me get you cleaned up so you can heal, all right?”