Faerie Winter (20 page)

He snarled and stalked toward me. I looked into his gray eyes and saw no one I knew there.

“Matthew.”
My throat was dry. He’d known his name in Clayburn.

He didn’t know it now. I backed uphill, clutching my knife, bracing myself to use it if he leaped again. My shoulder throbbed, but I couldn’t let that distract me.

“Go ’way, stupid wolf!”
Kyle barreled out from behind the quia tree, fists raised.

Matthew whined as he stopped stalking.
“Go away go away go away!”
Kyle didn’t use his name. He didn’t have to. Matthew whirled from him and fled into the forest. Mom retrieved Father’s knife with her good hand. I gripped my own knife tightly. The Lady watched us all, silent and frowning, fireflies glimmering in her hair.

Tears streaked Kyle’s cheeks. “Matthew’s never mean.”

There was no time to offer comfort—or receive it. “Get out of here, Kyle.”

Kyle shook his head. “Help you.” He ran at the Lady, grabbing something from his pocket and throwing it at her. Ants—I caught the scent of burning fabric an instant before I saw them crawling over the skirt of her dress. Not carpenter ants, but small red fire ants, glowing with the heat they held. Kyle raced back toward the quia tree.

The Lady brushed at her dress as if the ants were but a passing annoyance, though I smelled burning skin. “Kyle,” she said. He froze just an arm’s length from the tree. “Come here, Kyle, and I shall tell you just how much I despise animal speakers.”

“Okay.” Kyle’s voice was very small. He turned and walked back toward her.

Something tapped the Lady’s shoulder. A shadow. She flinched and turned, but the shadow disappeared into the earth as she reached for it.

Johnny. Stupid, silent Johnny—even the Lady couldn’t see him coming. I grabbed Kyle with my free arm. My shoulder screamed with pain. Kyle’s eyes focused on mine. “Liza?” He sounded uncertain.

I wanted to give Kyle the leaf again—but I’d have no
chance against the Lady if I did that. “Kyle, you need to run away now. You need to hide.”

“Help Johnny now.” Kyle fought my hold. “Run later.”

“Kyle.”
I set my hand firmly on his shoulder.
“Run away. Hide. Don’t come back until the Lady is gone. Run!”

“Don’t want to—” Kyle flashed me a betrayed look. Then he wrenched free and ran, past the quia and the oak with Elin huddled on its branch. His feet pounded as he disappeared down the far side of the hill.

I turned back to the Lady, my knife still in hand. Johnny was gone—I hoped he’d followed Kyle. I hoped he could protect him, because I couldn’t, not anymore.

The Lady brushed at her smoldering skirt, and dozens of tiny gray moths flew away from where the ants had been. Mom moved to her side, holding her knife as well.

“Arianna! Go away!”
I put all the power I could into those words. The Lady laughed, as if I were a fool to imagine that my magic could touch her, but again she stepped back. I felt the thread of my magic between us. Was that thread strong enough that I could send her farther away, so far she’d never draw breath again? I’d held back with Father, with Elin. I’d been right to hold back with them—I didn’t dare hold back now. I drew a breath,
knowing I didn’t act from anger, only need.
“Go away, Arianna. Go away, go away, go away.”

She took a second step back, and a third—and then she stopped. She didn’t look anywhere near to dying.
Harder to hurt, harder to heal
. Faerie folk were not as easy to kill as humans.

“I am sure you have found this quite entertaining,” the Lady said in her icy voice. “But the game is about to get more interesting. For I begin to find you tedious, Liza, and so I offer you a choice: either let Tara cut out your heart, as I have commanded, or I shall order her to turn the knife on herself instead. I will allow you to decide.”

“Go away, Arianna.”
My voice sounded small and strained. My shoulder hurt so much.

The Lady took one more step away. “Do that again and I shall decide for you—and your mother will die more slowly for your disobedience. Don’t you believe you deserve a slow death, Tara, for bringing the humans against us?”

Mom turned her cloudy gaze to Arianna. She nodded and clutched her knife more tightly.

“So you see,” the Lady said, “your mother is eager for death, and I am eager to give it to her. Yet still I offer you a choice. Still I allow you to play this game. What say you?”

I didn’t know how to play games. I knew only that this
was deadly serious, and that the Lady would have both our lives if she could. I gauged the distance between Mom and me. If I could somehow render Mom unconscious, she wouldn’t be able to carry out the Lady’s commands. The Lady followed my gaze and raised an eyebrow, and I knew she’d stop me before I could get there—and my injured shoulder would slow me down. I couldn’t get at the Lady with my knife, and I couldn’t get at her with my magic. I had no other weapons.

I couldn’t let her kill Mom the way she’d killed Johnny. If it came down to that, I knew I’d let Mom take my life instead—and what then? What would happen when Mom woke from this nightmare and saw what she’d done?

Before then, the Lady would have the leaf I wore and, with it, Caleb’s life. She’d no doubt find Caleb and Karin’s town, too, and other towns I didn’t know after that. I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to play this game after all.

I thought of the offer the Lady had made to Karin. I didn’t want to trade away anyone’s life—I wasn’t sure I had a choice.

“Your decision, Liza.”

I sheathed my knife. “I will give up the leaf I wear, if you will give me your word that you will leave the human towns that remain in this world alone.”

The Lady lifted her head. A breeze blew, and the fireflies in her hair glowed more brightly. “You
are
an interesting child. Yet you ask much for Kaylen’s life. I will leave this town alone, nothing more.”

My town’s people might die yet if spring didn’t come, and Karin hadn’t stopped at saving only my town. I fought not to look away from the Lady’s bright eyes. Who was I to negotiate with such power?

I was the only one left to do so. I forced my thoughts away from the pain in my shoulder and focused on choosing my words. “You will leave all the human towns, or I will keep the leaf.”

Arianna crushed her wineglass into the mud with her boot. “You try my patience, Liza. I will not harm any human who remains within this world’s few surviving towns. You will give up the leaf and never seek to hold it again. Are we agreed?”

I looked at my mother. She gave me a bright, empty smile as she twirled the knife in her hand. She’d left me, she’d chosen others over me—but she hadn’t wanted to choose, any more than Karin had, any more than I did. She was only human. She was only my mother. The thought filled me with a strange, aching sorrow.

I drew my knife again and flung it away, into the brambles. “We are agreed.” Whatever happened next,
the human towns would be safe. I reached between my jacket and my sweater to clutch the silver chain.

“You have given your word.” The Lady’s voice was velvet soft. She held out a pale hand.

The stars glittered, cold and distant, above me. I would protect those
I
could. I would do exactly as I had promised and give up the leaf I wore.

In a single motion I drew the chain from around my neck and draped it over my mother’s head.

“Mom,” I said, my voice steady, sure now of what I needed to do. “Wake up.”

M
om drew me close, and I knew, in that embrace, that she was my mother once more. I fought the longing to stay there, to believe that she could protect me.

I knew better. I pulled free and ran, sure of what must happen next. I’d kept my word—but that wouldn’t save me. I could only hope the Lady was truly bound to keep her word as well, to leave my people alone.

“Liza!”
There was nothing soft in the Lady’s voice now. I fell to my knees at the power there. She was before me in an instant, lifting my chin, forcing me to look into her bright eyes. Fear trembled beneath my skin. That fear was already fading. I knew I would do whatever the Lady asked of me.

Mom circled around behind her, holding her knife.

The Lady held up a hand, not turning. “One more
step, Tara, and I shall order your daughter to pluck out her own eyes. Would you like that, Liza?”

“Yes.” My fingers moved toward my face. I wondered what it would be like to feel my nails pierce that soft flesh. Would my blood please the Lady?

Had Johnny’s blood pleased her? I felt a ripple of fear at that thought, but it was a distant thing, as distant as the ache in my shoulder.

Mom went very still. “It’s me you want. Let Liza go. She is no part of this.” I saw fear in her eyes, and anger, and understood neither of them.

“Oh, but she is. The moment you seduced my son into withdrawing his glamour from you and betraying his people, you and all that is yours became very much my concern.” Arianna reached for my hands and drew me to my feet. “You are a clever girl, aren’t you, Liza?” I frowned, not sure whether being clever was good or not, as the Lady went on. “Yet I can be clever, too. I note that neither you nor your mother are within the borders of your town, and so my promises do not apply to you. All humans leave their towns, for one purpose or another.” She glanced at the oak branch from which Elin watched us, utterly silent. “And my granddaughter has made no promises. It will be a small matter for us to destroy your people. The terms of your trade are not as well thought out as you believed.”

Her words should have troubled me, but they didn’t. Mom looked near to tears, though. I’d always hated to see her cry. “It’s okay.” I leaned back against the Lady. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Not anymore
.

The look that crossed Mom’s face was a terrible thing. “To think I wanted to bring our children back to your world when they came into their magic,” she said. “I thought they’d be safer in your world than mine. I thought surely you had perished in the War, and I imagined that with you gone I might find teachers there.”

Arianna stroked my hair. “I think you’d better give me the knife, Tara.”

Mom stepped back. “Not unless I have your word you won’t give it to Liza.”

Arianna laughed at that, laughed and laughed. I wasn’t sure what was so funny, but I laughed, too. “I do not need your feeble human weapon to hurt Liza.” She smiled down at me. “What shall I turn you into, child? A wolf, perhaps, to replace the one taken from me? Or a cat. I could use a good hunting cat, and Tara tells me you are quite the hunter.”

“A cat,” I agreed. I’d had a cat once, hadn’t I? I liked cats.

The sun touched the horizon, and gold light flashed into my eyes. The Lady gripped my shoulder, hurting me—I didn’t mind. I’d never feared pain.

Mom clutched her knife. “Surely there is no need—”

My skin melted beneath the Lady’s grasp. Something caught fire within my bones—I screamed as they melted like iron in Jayce’s forge, melted into the mold the Lady pressed on them. I fell to all fours, and my scream turned into a cat’s growl. Not a small cat, like the cats I’d known. A hunting cat, bigger than a wolf. I paced, tail thrashing, strength coursing through me. The night around me seemed sharper than before, the moon brighter.

I flexed my claws. I needed to sharpen them. The Lady drew her hand away. I stalked toward a tall oak, snarling, and raked my claws against the tree. My shoulder screamed in protest. Some shadow within the wood shifted. A hawk cried and threw itself at me, but the creature’s wing failed it, and it sank to the ground.

The Lady sighed, reached down, and brushed her fingers over the hawk’s feathers. Silver light washed over the bird, and then Elin huddled, naked, on the ground, one arm drawn to her side. Arianna put her hand to my back, drawing me away from the oak. “There is no need for you to punish Karinna, my cat. As a tree she will die, as all trees must in this dying land, and it will not be without pain.”

Elin looked up at the Lady, her eyes wide. Arianna reached out and stroked my fur. I purred at the Lady’s touch. Power coursed beneath my skin, but I held it
back—I could hold back for her. I wasn’t afraid, in this powerful body.

Mom stood just a few steps away, clutching her knife. “Liza. Give me some sign you’re still in there.”

Of course I was still in here. I was better now, stronger—surely Mom could see that. I opened my jaws in a toothy cat smile.

Elin struggled to her feet and took her grandmother’s hand. Wind blew her fine hair over her bare skin.

The Lady smiled. “Kill Tara, Liza.” Her whisper scraped the inside of my skin. “Kill her now, my powerful cat.”

I leaped, releasing taut muscles, knocking Mom onto her back. The knife fell from her grasp. Pain flared through my shoulder as something tore inside it, but that didn’t matter. Only doing as the Lady demanded mattered.

“Liza. You’re Liza.” Mom’s voice was hoarse as she fixed her gaze on me, as if she were trying to call me out of the cat, the same way I’d once called a boy out of a wolf, a girl out of a bird. But my mother was no summoner. I would stay a cat, filled with a cat’s power. I snarled and lunged at her throat. She threw her arm up, and my teeth dug through her coat sleeve to pierce flesh. The taste of her blood mingled with the taste of goose down and nylon.