Spirit (13 page)

I
stayed with the Hunt because we were constantly moving, so staying with them
let me cover ground in the safety of a crowd. Some of the monsters they hunted
would have ripped me to shreds had I come upon them alone. I also stayed
because I was hoping that water sprite would let me look at my friends in her
magic caldron. But every night, no matter how much I pestered her, she told me
no, or ignored me completely. But I just couldn’t give up.

The
relentless rides started to get to my body though, here in this world where I
felt the aches and pains of a body pushed too far and too long. My thighs were
one constant cramp, and my arms shook when we broke for camp. Clinging to my
horse’s mane when the chase was on and he would suddenly burst forward in an
all-out gallop, his hooves carving half-moons into the ground, took more effort
than I expected. My back ached most of all, through the small of my back and
all the way up through my shoulder blades, the pain tugging on my neck. The
points on my back where my muscles and bones used to form the hinges of my wings
throbbed, red and angry. Whenever I tried to stretch my back, those points
would spasm, reminding me of what was ripped violently away.

“Everything
all right?” Jacob asked from behind me while I tried to stretch out my back and
winced.

“Hmm?”
I turned around to face him as my hands reached as high as possible before
releasing the stretch. “Just not used to riding horses.”

“Huh,”
he said, furrowing his brow as he dropped his eyes. As if trying to remember
something, his eyes darted back and forth.

“What?”
I asked.

“Just,”
he started, “well, I never really rode horses either, and I’m not sore.”

“Oh.”
I wasn’t really surprised. Jacob had been caught by the Slaugh; he was a part
of it. Of course he didn’t feel pain, not now.

“Why
do you suppose that is?” he asked, lifting his eyes to mine.

“No
idea,” I said quickly, too quickly.

“Shay,”
he said, making my heart ache at the sound of the familiar nickname.

“Jacob…”
I sighed, shaking my head at him. “We had this conversation; you don’t want to
believe me, so let it go.”

“Ah,”
he said with a nod, rocking forward on his toes. “Because you weren’t caught by
the Slaugh; you’re just here out of coincidence. Right.”

I
snapped. Taking a few steps to close the distance between us, I poked his chest
hard. “You know what? Just shove it, all right? I could give a rat’s ass that
you don’t believe me, but you will not smirk and act like I’m crazy just
because you want to rot here and I don’t. So just stay out of my face.” Before
he could say anything else, I turned on my heel and stormed off, leaving him
behind and refusing to look back.

I
was so angry and so intent on putting distance between me and the only other
human here, I didn’t even see Gwyn until I ran, face first, into him. Gwyn’s
arms were around me in an instant to keep me from falling. I felt my face flush
as I put my hands up, pushing against the hard planes of his chest, taking a
step back, and putting a little distance between us.

“What’s
got the pixie girl’s knickers in a twist?” Gwyn asked with a smirk.

“My
knickers aren’t in a twist,” I shot back, running my hands through my hair,
pushing it back away from my face. I fiercely wished for a hair tie when my
fingers caught on a knot.

“Oh,
ho?” He chuckled before stepping back as well, seeing the anger on my face.

“Just
shut up,” I said, but the fight had gone out of me and I just waved a hand at
him. I didn’t have it in me to deal with his teasing or snark. It reminded me
so much of Steven that it made my chest ache.

“Now,
now,” he said a little gentler. “You weren’t even this upset when Balor had you
pinned.”

“I’m
fine,” I said. After a moment, I added, “I appreciate your concern,” careful
not to say “thank you,” as was my natural inclination. I turned to walk away,
but Gwyn’s hand caught my wrist, and he pulled me in the other direction. I
tried to fight against his hold, pulling with all my weight and using my free
hand to pry his fingers off of my wrist, but nothing made a difference; he just
kept walking as if I was happily following him.

He
pulled me into his own tent and the canvas flaps closed behind us. It was
fairly large, definitely the largest tent in the entire camp, unsurprisingly.
The roof was high enough to compensate for his height, and the floor was
covered in soft rugs and furs. Balor was curled up at the foot of the bed. When
he picked up his head and saw me, he barked once before bounding over. Gwyn
released my wrist as Balor reached me, skidding to a stop just in time to keep
from knocking me over.

“Hey,
boy,” I said softly, rubbing his ears and hugging him around his neck. He was
tall enough to rest his head on my shoulder when I hugged him. Balor was my
only real friend there, but Gwyn had been keeping him away from me.

“Come
over here,” Gwyn said, making both Balor and me pick up our heads to see who he
was talking to. “You,” he said, pointing at me as if he had read the question
on my face.

“I’m
not Balor,” I said. I stood up straight and kept one hand on Balor’s high back.
“You can’t just beckon me and think I’ll jump for you.”

“I
didn’t tell you to jump,” he said. Before I could rise to the bait, he said,
“Please, come over here.” I wanted to argue, but I was just too tired and my
body ached too much. Gwyn stood at the end of the bed, and when I walked over
to him, he placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. With a gentle
nudge, he guided me to sit on the floor as he sat on the edge of the bed behind
me. Just as I was about to look over my shoulder and ask him what the hell he
was doing, I felt a brush in my hair.

“Oh,”
I said quietly. I was more than a little surprised, but I had always enjoyed
having my hair brushed, so I didn’t even think about pulling away. He worked
out the worst of the knots carefully, holding my hair with one hand while he
brushed them out with the other until he could finally run the brush through
the length of my hair with little resistance. Eventually my hair was smooth,
and he brushed the length out down my back, his fingers following the brush. My
eyes became heavy and some of the tension in my shoulders started to recede as
I finally, for the first time since I came here, began to relax.

When
he stopped, I almost asked him not to. Then his fingers were in my hair again,
and I realized he was braiding my hair. Strand by strand, lock by lock he
gently pulled my hair back away from my face. Balor curled up on the floor in
front of me, resting his huge head in my lap. I scratched his snout as Gwyn
worked my hair, and Balor’s red eyes drifted closed as he fell asleep in my
lap, totally content. I had never been so jealous of a dog before.

I’m
not sure how much time passed before I realized Gwyn was finished and was just
sitting behind me, his knees to either side of my shoulders. When I realized he
had been done for at least a little while, I felt very awkward for not noticing
it. Luckily, he couldn’t see my face and Balor was holding me where I was
anyway.

“Thank–,”
I started to say, closing my mouth quickly before the full phrase was out of my
mouth.

“Would
you like to see?” Gwyn asked, relieving me of having to recover.

I
waved at the sleeping dog. “Yes, but I’m kind of stuck.” Gwyn slid out from
behind me. He came around and bent over Balor, lifting his head just enough for
me to slip out from under him before Gwyn laid Balor’s head gently on the
floor. Gwyn pulled two mirrors out of a trunk and handed them to me. It was a
little difficult to see, but I held one mirror up in front of me and the other
behind me to examine the braid. It was more complicated than anything I had
ever seen before. My hair twisted this way and that, forming a beautiful and
intricate design, holding my hair away from my face securely.

“It’s
beautiful,” I said, wishing I had a bigger mirror to look at, but it wasn’t
like he could hang a large mirror on a canvas wall of his tent. The braid
seemed to change the shape of my face, the shape of my eyes; even my ears
looked a little different. The way my hair twisted away from my face at the top
of my head, the thickness of the braid at the back, I looked very much like the
way I had always imagined elves looked. I had a hard time keeping the corners
of my mouth down.

“Yes,
your hair is lovely,” Gwyn agreed. Both of us were so damn careful not to
actually thank the other. “You kept tugging at it and pulling it back just to
have it fall forward again. I was afraid you would soon steal a sword and chop
it all off.”

“The
thought had occurred to me,” I agreed, handing him back the mirrors, dismissing
thoughts of looking like Fae creatures. I had never been more human and mundane
that I was right here, right now.

“You’ve
been able to avoid the Hunt much longer than I thought you would,” he said,
getting right to the chase. His blunt words dispelled the relaxed environment
we had created. My shoulders inched up.

“That
first ride,” I said, looking away from him, “it almost had me, but so many
things here bother me, so much it helps me ignore the draw of the ride.”

“I
see,” he said, but I didn’t think he really did.

“I’m
not used to riding so much. Horse-riding is more painful than I ever realized,”
I explained. He made a noise of agreement and nodded. “How do you get used to
the moon never moving? I mean, how does that not just drive you crazy?”

“It
is how it has always been,” Gwyn said, placing the mirrors back in the trunk.

“So
you’ve always been here?”

“Not
quite always.” He shook his head and made his silvery locks wave behind him.
“But quite long enough.”

“How
long?” I asked, unable to help myself.

He
lifted his dark eyes to my face; there was a pinched look to his face. “There
is no time in the Outlands.”

“So
that’s why the moon doesn’t move?” I asked, and he nodded. “Then why do we break
for camp, go to sleep? If time doesn’t exist here, why do we get tired and
hungry?”

“The
body still craves sustenance. If we rode on and on with no end in sight, we
would wither and suffer.”

“But
not die,” I added.

“For
those who already died, how could they die again?”

“So
not everyone here is dead?” Now I was very confused.

“Take
that man Jacob.” Gwyn nodded his head toward the flaps of the tent. “Did you
see him die? Did you see anyone actually loose on arrow? Stab with a spear?”

“No,”
I said slowly.

“No,”
he agreed, “we are not meant to kill, but to hunt and to capture. To keep
forever.”

“To
never age, never grow old, never die,” I said, and again he nodded. I sat on
the edge of the bed, my legs suddenly very weak. “What about the ones who did
die before they came here?”

“They
were kinslayers, oathbreakers, and kinbetrayers. Their fate, their path, still
led to the Outlands,” Gwyn said.

After
a few moments of quiet, I said, “Gwyn, if I ask you something, will you answer
me truthfully?”

“The
Fae cannot lie,” he said, the same line every Fae ever said when asked that
question. It was well practiced.

“Right,”
I said, very tired all of a sudden.

“Ask
your question, Shayna.” He made my name sound as lovely as Liam used to. I
tried to push thoughts of my vampire out of my head, but my stomach still
knotted.

“Is
there an edge to the Outlands?”

Gwyn
didn’t answer me at first. For a few moments, he just stared at me,
expressionless. The black of his eyes seemed like some abyss I could fall into
if I’d let myself. When I wouldn’t look away or break the silence, Gwyn turned
away from me. I watched him, my eyes trailing down the near endless length of
his hair, just waiting. I thought maybe he wouldn’t answer me, that maybe he
was waiting for me to just give up and leave, but I had nowhere to go, so I was
willing to play this waiting game.

“I
don’t know,” he finally said, his voice a rough whisper in the quiet. “I was
told there was one, a long time ago; I was told the same fable I told you.” He
turned and looked at me, fixing me with those obsidian eyes. Anger and loss
showed plainly on his face. “I have been looking for it ever since.”

I
sat there, dumbstruck, staring at him, waiting for him to tell me this was some
stupid joke. Gwyn just stared back at me, letting his words sink in.

“How…”
I stumbled over my words. “I don’t understand. You’re the Hunt Master; how can
you look for the edge of the Outlands? You said yourself once the Hunt has you,
there is no escape.”

“I
did say that,” he agreed, “and that is true, but the Hunt does not have me; I
am not the Hunt Master.”

“What?”
I demanded. I felt a headache start to form between my eyes.

“I
was banished here, just the same as you.”

“But
all of these, these, whatever,” I waved toward the entrance to the tent just as
he had done, “they follow you. You led the charge on Jacob.”