Summerkin (5 page)

Seven

Rook was about to follow Fer and her people through the opening in the vine-wall when two of the nathe-wardens grabbed him, and from behind, the other one looped her arm across Rook's throat.

“Puck,” the warden hissed into his ear.

He struggled, but their arms were like supple willow branches—too strong.

“Get off,” he gasped.

The warden choking him increased the pressure. He twisted in their grip, then went limp, hoping to fool them into relaxing their hold, but they didn't let go. Curse it, were they going to kill him? He hadn't even done anything yet! Black spots swam in front of his eyes.

The warden behind him loosened her arm, and Rook caught a breath. He felt a sharp jab at his back through his shirt—a knife.

“We know you're no friend of that part-human girl, no matter what she says,” the warden hissed, her breath hot in Rook's ear. “Pucks are friends to none but their own. We know you're here to bring trouble. If we catch you, Puck, you're dead.”

The wardens let him go with a shove, and he went stumbling through the opening in the vine-wall. He whirled to glare at the nathe-wardens.

They stalked coolly past, one of them resheathing his knife.

These wardens knew their business. And they meant what they'd said about killing him. Tricky. He'd have to be extra careful.

Behind him, the vines twisted together, sealing them all inside. “The problem with a place like this,” Rook muttered to himself, “is that it might not be so easy to get back out again.”

It was in a puck's blood to not like being closed in anywhere. There had been too many times when a Lord or Lady had discovered what they called a “nest of pucks” in their land and had sent warriors to burn them out and hunt them down, if they could catch them. So pucks always found a way out—a way to escape—if they had to.

He eyed the wall. It was high, but it looked climbable.

He knew what he had to do, now that he'd gotten in. Nathe-wardens or not, it should be easy enough to slip away and get started on his brothers' puckish plan.

But things were already getting more complicated than he would like. He'd felt a strange pull in his chest when Fer had called him her friend, and it had gotten stronger when she'd stepped between him and the drawn bows of the nathe-wardens. It was as if a thread had spun itself out from her heart to tie him to her. Maybe his brother-pucks were right, and Fer did have some kind of binding magic.

He was a puck. He would not be bound to Fer, not by an oath, and not by anything else, either, including friendship. Concentrating, and growling in the back of his throat, he snapped the thread in his heart.

Fer and the rest had gone on ahead, but one of her bees bumbled against his ear. The buzz sounded loud, almost as if the bee was trying to tell him something. He brushed it away before it could sting him, and followed.

So far the nathe was forest, but not a clean, open forest like Fer's land. Here the trees were thick and gnarled, ancient and crowded together, and, as evening drew on, darkness gathered in their branches. The trees grew in an absolutely straight line, as if they'd just stepped back to make a path, and they'd close in again once Fer and her people had passed. Their branches met overhead so it was as if they were walking through a darkening green tunnel. The air was damp and smelled strange. He sniffed, knowing his dog-nose would make more sense of it. It smelled old, that was it. And stuffy.

It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The forest seemed to be closing in around him, and no puck liked to be stuck in a place he couldn't get out of, especially a place like this.

 

Fer set aside her worry about bringing Rook into the nathe. She'd keep an eye on him and ask Fray to watch him too, but she had other, more important things to deal with right now.

Even though it wasn't hers, she could feel this land. The grass on the path tickled her bare feet, and below that she felt the land's stillness. It was old, and it didn't like change. It didn't like her, either. The oak trees along the path seemed to lean over her, threatening and so ancient that she was like a firefly to them, a brief flash of life that would be gone soon enough. Still, they wanted her gone now; they could sense she was partly human, and that meant she was no kin of the ones who lived here.

Fer shivered and followed the wardens deeper into the nathe.

It was early evening, the same time that she'd left the Summerlands when the first stars were appearing. On down the path they went, the forest gloomy and silent all around them. Her bees, hovering just over her left shoulder, sounded very loud in the stillness. Then, up ahead, she spied what looked like a huge storm cloud massing above the thickly gathered trees.

No, it was gray and mossy—like a low mountain.

As they got closer, the path ended and the forest opened onto a wide lawn, and she saw that it wasn't a storm cloud or a mountain.

“The nathe,” said one of the nathe-guards, with a sweeping bow. “The home of the High Ones, and the place where all the Lords and Ladies are gathering to witness the contest that will decide the next Lord or Lady of the Summerlands.”

Hearing them talk about the competition like that made Fer's stomach clench. She didn't even know yet what kind of contest it would be. Well, she had come here to win, and that's what she would do. She took a steadying breath and looked where the guards were pointing.

In the gray light of evening, the nathe loomed dark over the lawn, steep-sided like a castle, with towers that reached into the night sky like piled clouds. But it wasn't made out of stone, Fer realized, as they circled the lawn on a narrow path paved with white pebbles. The nathe looked like it had grown up out of the ground, as if it had been there for thousands and thousands of years. As they got closer, she saw, by the light of torches set along a courtyard before it, that the nathe was covered with moss and rough, gray bark; gray, leafy vines pulsed across its walls in places, like veins. Like the outer wall they'd met at the edge of this land. Maybe it really
had
grown here, a castle-sized, mossy tree stump. Maybe it had roots that went way down into the ground.

She realized that she'd stopped, staring, and Rook waited beside her. Behind them stood Twig and Fray.

“I don't like the look of this place,” Rook muttered.

The nathe was strange, Fer thought, but it wasn't really scary. Many windows that reminded her of gleaming cats' eyes peered out of the bark walls; they weren't square, like regular windows, but oblong and gnarled, as if the walls had grown around them. The towers grew straight, like stubby tree trunks lopped off at the top, with no branches. Gnarled, rooty stairways led from many doorways down to the courtyard, which was bustling with people coming and going.

“Come,” said the warden, and waved her hand toward the nathe. “It grows late. I will show you and your people—and the puck—to your rooms.”

Fer started to follow, when she heard a sharp whinny. Turning, she saw that one of the wardens had started leading away Twig's curly-horned goat. Phouka was standing with all four hooves planted, refusing to go.

“Do not worry,” the warden said, gliding to Fer's side. “They will be well looked after in the High Ones' stables.”

Fer stepped closer to the horse. “Is that okay, Phouka?” she whispered, and rested her hand against his neck. “I don't think you can get in there.” She pointed at the looming nathe before them.

Phouka tossed his head, then pranced across the courtyard after the warden and the white goat. With a wave of her hand, Fer sent most of her bees after them, but kept one bee with her. It circled her head, then drifted down to cling to the collar of her patch-jacket. She heard it humming quietly to itself.

Tomorrow she'd have to find out where the stables were and check on Phouka and the bees. But now her feet were sore and she was more than ready for some dinner.

“All right,” Fer said, and she let the warden lead her and Fray and Twig, with Rook trailing behind, up a winding set of stairs in the side of the nathe. The door was like the windows she'd seen, oval-shaped and looking like the bark had grown around it. Rook stepped warily through, as if he thought it was going to snap closed behind him.

The warden led them along winding tunnels that looked like they'd been hollowed out and polished. The wood was smooth and cool under her bare feet. The tunnels were lit not by torches—fire wasn't a good idea in a castle made out of wood, Fer figured—but by glowing crystals set in niches in the walls. Now and then they passed an arched door or another hallway leading off, and they passed lots of important-looking people who stared as they went by, until they arrived at a door where two other wardens waited. A nod to them and the warden went on, leading them up a stairway that got narrower as it wound up and up, into one of the trunklike towers

At last they reached the top of the stairs. Fer caught her breath and surveyed the room the warden had shown her into. It was round and had been hollowed and smoothed out of the nathe wood, just like the tunnels. The walls, ceiling, and floor were the dark brown color of polished mahogany, and many crystals set in niches made the room bright, though the light cast sharp shadows. A low table was set before plump, green-covered pillows big enough to sit on, like chairs. Three doors led off from the main room.

“Dinner will be brought to you shortly,” the warden said from the doorway. “Do not leave these rooms, for the nathe has many winding ways, and it is easy to become lost.”

Hm. She wasn't going to let them keep her in these rooms like a prisoner. “I want to see the High Ones,” she said, trying to put some Ladylike snap into her words.

“You will be sent for later this evening. That will give you time”—the warden paused and looked down her nose at Fer—“to dress.” And with another graceful bow, she left, closing the door behind her.

This evening, then. Fer nodded. Good. The High Ones weren't wasting any time.

Twig carried in the saddlebags she'd taken from her mount, and Fray stood stolidly in the doorway with the rest of the packs. Rook pushed past them and circled the main room, then went prowling into one of the others.

Fray followed Rook into the room; then she shoved him out its door. “This one's mine,” the wolf-guard said. “There's a bed in here for you too,” she said to Twig, and went back in, carrying the packs. Twig followed her with the bags. Growling, Rook went to inspect the other rooms.

When he came back, Fer had flopped onto one of the pillows, feeling in her bones the tiredness from the ride and the long walk through the forest. The bee had settled on the top of her head, almost as if it was tired too. She lifted her bare foot; it was dirty and grass-stained. She'd need a bath if she was going to see the High Ones later. Her stomach rumbled. “I hope they bring dinner soon,” she said.

Rook paced around the edges of the room.

“What's the matter?” Fer asked him.

He gave her a quick, flame-eyed glance, then resumed his pacing.

“Well?” she prompted.

“There aren't any windows, did you notice?” he said, coming to stand before her.

She checked the smoothly polished walls. He was right; there weren't.

“No way out,” he said shortly. He wrapped his arms around his chest, as if trying to keep himself from pacing again.

She climbed off the pillow and pointed at the door. “There's the way out.”

“It's guarded,” he shot back.

“Does this look like a prison to you?” She waved her hand at the room.

“That door could grow over,” Rook said darkly, “and we'd be sealed in.”

“Oh, Rook,” she said, and smiled at him. He glowered back.

A knock at the door interrupted them, and then it opened, and a parade of short, sticklike people were ushered in by a warden. They had grayish skin and tufts of green leaves on their heads, and they carried platters almost as big as they were, covered with dishes and food, which they wordlessly set on the low table. Then, bowing, they left.

“There!” Fer said, kneeling by the table. “Dinner.”

She, Fray, and Twig ate while Rook prowled restlessly around the room.

Then she got ready to meet the High Ones.

Eight

After having a bath, Fer stepped out of her room. Twig had braided her hair, and she'd put on her usual plain shirt, jeans, sneakers, and patched jacket. She carried a pile of clothes, which she set on the low table, along with the small wooden box with the glamorie in it.

That will give you time to dress
, the warden had said in her snooty way. As if Fer's ordinary clothes weren't good enough.

“What do you think, Rook?” she asked. “I have these other clothes, and I could wear them instead.” She unfolded them, showing him her mother's fine green coat and vest and silk shirt and high leather boots.

Rook looked uneasy, standing by the only door leading out of the room. “You look well enough as you are,” he answered.

“No ‘stupid glamorie,' then,” she added, shaking the little box.

“Definitely not.” He shook his head.

She shot him a quick smile, and he gave her a twitchy grin in return.

“You should wear it, Fer-Lady,” Twig piped up from the doorway to Fer's room. “The High Ones are very fine.”

“No, Rook is right,” Fer said, setting the box back on the table. “The glamorie doesn't fit me very well.”

A knock on the door, and the same nathe-warden, the willow-woman with the greeny-blond hair, stepped inside. “Gwynnefar, you are summoned,” she said.

Fer gulped down a sudden surge of nervousness. With a flick of a finger, she called her bee to her, and it clung like a fat gold button to the front of her patch-jacket. She and Fray and Rook followed the warden out of their rooms and down the twisting staircase, then through the tunnel-like hallways. They cut through a long, echoing gallery full of shadows, went up more stairs, and finally arrived at a tall, ornately carved door. Fer put her hand into her patch-jacket pocket and gripped the cloth bag of spelled herbs her grandma had given her. For luck.

“You may enter,” the nathe-warden said, and stepped aside, opening the door wider. Fer went in, followed by Fray and Rook.

The room looked a lot like her own room in the nathe-palace, but bigger and grander and brimming with light.

And it had plenty of windows, she couldn't help but notice.

Sprawling on one of the cushions was a boy who looked about Rook's age, a couple of years older than she was. As Fer stepped into the room, he leaped to his feet, smiling. Fer blinked, dazzled. He was beautiful. The most beautiful person she'd ever seen. He was tall and graceful and golden, with warm brown skin, and tawny hair, and eyes as bright as bronze coins.

Glamorie
, she reminded herself. To be that glorious, he had to be wearing a glamorie to disguise his true self. She had another useful thing in her patch-jacket pocket, a flat, round gray stone with a hole in the middle of it, the seeing-stone her father had left her. If she peered through the hole, the stone showed things as they truly were. She gripped it, and it felt cool and smooth under her fingers. Just knowing it was there helped her look away from the beautiful-appearing boy.

“Greetings!” the boy said with a broad smile. “Gwynnefar! I've heard so much about you. So many interesting stories!”

She couldn't help but smile back. Then she reminded herself of her business here. She'd been summoned, after all. “Are you one of the High Ones?” she asked. Somehow she'd expected someone older.

“Ah, no, I am not.” The happy smile turned into an exaggerated frown. “I have been so longing to meet you that I could not wait. See, I have sweets for you, and tea.” He waved at the table, which was covered with neatly arranged, delicate-looking treats on silver plates.

“Oh.” For a second, Fer felt like the floor had been sucked away from under her feet. She'd been expecting to meet the High Ones and learn about the competition, and instead here was this beautiful boy offering her pastries and cream cakes. She shook her head. “Who are you, then?”

His golden eyes twinkled, and he was smiling again. “It is well to be prepared before meeting the High Ones. I want to help, you see! You must ask me any questions so you will be ready.”

Leaving Fray and Rook standing by the door, Fer followed the boy to the table, where he draped himself gracefully across a pillow.

He still hadn't answered her question. She stood looking down at him. “Who are you?” she asked again. Once more, and her asking it three times would mean he would have no choice but to answer.

The boy waved an airy hand. “My name is Arenthiel.” He smiled. “But you must call me Aren, because we are going to be good friends, you and I. May I call you Gwynnefar?”

Her real, true name was Fer. That's what Rook called her. She glanced over her shoulder at Rook, who looked like a scruffy, dark smudge in the bright room.

Fer opened her mouth to tell Arenthiel he could call her Fer too, but he interrupted.

“Oh, Gwynnefar!” He jumped to his feet again, and took Fer's hand, pulling her over to Rook. “I see you have brought your puck with you!”

“I'm not—” Rook started.

“Of course you're not!” Arenthiel said, laughing. “You're your own puck, I can see that very well.” He gave Fer a secret smile, as if they were sharing some joke, and then looked Rook up and down. “What's his name?” he asked.

Fer opened her mouth to answer.

“Robin,” Rook put in, scowling.

Fer closed her mouth. Robin. The name Rook gave to people he didn't trust.

Aren's golden eyes glittered. “Robin. Of course.” He turned to Fer. “He's just a puppy, isn't he, Gwynnefar?”

Fer blinked. “I don't know,” she said. “Is he?”

“Oh, yes, I should say so,” Aren said. “Very young, even for a puck.”

“I lost my puppy teeth a long time ago,” Rook growled. Fer saw his hand starting toward his pocket, where he kept his shifter-tooth.

Uh-oh. If he shifted into a dog, there would be trouble. “Rook—” she warned.

Then Fray's big hand came down on Rook's shoulder, and she jerked him back. “Don't even think about it, Puck,” the wolf-guard said.

Rook clenched his hands into fists.

“Oh, the little puppy is so fierce!” Aren said, still smiling. He spun on his heel and wafted back to the table. “Would you like tea, Gwynnefar?” he asked, and started pouring what looked like cool mint tea into a silver cup.

“Behave yourself,” Fer whispered to the still-scowling Rook, and followed Arenthiel back to the table. She still didn't really know who he was. Gingerly she sat on the edge of a cushion.

The glittering boy handed her the teacup with a graceful nod. “Now, ask me questions.” He smiled, and she felt his beauty catch her up, like a net.

Fer got hold of herself. This Arenthiel might not like this question, but if he really did want to be her friend she had to ask it. She pulled the seeing-stone out of her pocket and held it up so he could see it. “Is it okay if I look at you with this?” she asked.

His smile didn't falter. “Of course you may! Friends should not keep secrets from each other.” He nodded meaningfully toward Rook.

Fer frowned. Was Rook keeping secrets from her? Shaking her head to get rid of that thought, Fer held the seeing-stone up to her eye. It made the room look very bright. Carefully she examined Arenthiel. Aren.

Strange. He looked just the same. So he wasn't using a glamorie, he really was that compellingly, perfectly beautiful. She lowered the stone. “Thanks,” she said.

He raised his teacup to his lips and smiled as he took a sip.

Okay. Well, she did have questions. She opened her mouth to ask about the competition and the High Ones, when he interrupted. Again.

After a quick glance at the door where Rook was standing, he lowered his voice. “One of the things they say about you, Gwynnefar, is that you have bound this puck to you with a thrice-sworn oath. This is such a rare and unusual thing that I simply had to ask you about it.”

Rook again! Why was Arenthiel so interested in him? Fer shook her head. “No, that was the Mór, not me.”

“Oh!” Aren set down his teacup. “I must have been misinformed. Then he has been tamed, somehow?”

She
really
didn't want to talk about Rook right now. “No,” she answered. “He's my friend.” Then she went on quickly, “Will I see the High Ones tomorrow?”

“You will!” Aren said brightly. “So let me have a look at you,” he said, leaping from his pillow, coming around the table, and pulling Fer to her feet. “Hmmm,” he said, studying her.

“What?” Fer asked, starting to feel nervous again. What did he see?

“Oh yes, very nice.” He circled, looking her up and down. “Yes,” he went on musingly. “The patched coat is simple, yet, somehow, perfect. You must wear it in the competition.” He came to stand in front of her. “Now, do you have a glamorie?”

“Yes,” she answered. “But I don't like it.”

“Oh, that is well,” Aren said, smiling. He pulled her down onto a cushion, close beside him. “Trust me,” he whispered confidingly. “If you expect to win the competition to become the new Lady of the Summerlands, you must not wear the glamorie. The High Ones will think you are cheating if you do. You must appear as your true self. Come. Promise me you'll not wear your glamorie. Will you promise me that?”

That was an easy promise to make, and it sounded like good advice. “All right,” Fer said to her new friend. “I won't wear the glamorie.”

 

Rook frowned. Over by the table, Fer and the golden boy sat with their heads together, whispering. The boy wasn't wearing a glamorie, he could see that much with his keen puck vision. But there was something strange about him. Something not quite right.

The boy put his arm around Fer's shoulder and whispered something into her ear.
Aren
, she called him. As if they were friends.

Rook narrowed his eyes, studying the golden boy. The sense of wrongness grew even stronger. Something about him made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He concentrated, and then he saw it.

The boy looked like a boy, and he wanted Fer to think he was young like her—a friend. But Rook was a puck, and he knew another troublemaker when he saw one. The golden boy was not Fer's friend, even though she wanted him to be.

Time was strange in this place, and it hadn't touched Arenthiel. Behind his beautiful face, something else was looking out of those golden eyes—something rotten and twisted with long, long plotting and waiting. Arenthiel wasn't young. He was very, very old.

 

“What about the competition?” Fer asked Aren. She didn't want to talk anymore with him about clothes or glamorie; she wanted to know what tomorrow would bring.

Aren gave a graceful shrug. “All will be revealed, my dear Gwynnefar.” Then he dropped his voice, put his arm around her, and turned her away from the door, where Rook waited with Fray's hand gripping his shoulder. “Now, I have to warn you. That puck will want to make trouble between us for no other reason but that a puck's entire purpose in life is to make trouble.” The corners of Aren's mouth drooped with mock-sadness. “If I can venture to guess, as soon as you step out of this room, young Robin will say something awful about me.”

Knowing Rook, he probably would. But she kept quiet.

“If he does, will you just trust me that what he says is not true?” Aren asked.

She really, really needed a friend that she could trust. But she still wasn't sure about Aren. “I'll try,” she said after a moment of hesitation.

“Good girl,” Aren said, smiling his secretive smile. He pulled her to her feet and led her toward the door. “Now remember, do not wear the glamorie tomorrow.”

Fer promised again that she wouldn't, then found herself outside Aren's door with Rook beside her and Fray looming behind them.

“Be careful of that one,” Rook said in a low voice.

She glanced aside at him. Just as Aren had predicted. “You don't like him?”

He shook his shaggy head. “I don't, no. He's trouble, Fer.”

She started walking. “You're trouble too, Rook.”

He fell into step beside her. “I don't mean puck trouble.” When she didn't answer, he went on. “Look, we like to stir things up, it's true. But we're not . . .” He shook his head. “Not like him. Pretty on the outside but something else on the inside.”

“At least he's trying to be my friend,” she said.

Rook stepped in front of her, his yellow eyes suddenly fierce. “You're wrong,
Lady Gwynnefar
. That creature is not what you think he is.”

Fer studied Rook. For a second she saw him through Aren's eyes. Instead of a friend, she saw a surly, yellow-eyed puck, ragged and untrustworthy. Fray's words came back to her:

Pucks make trouble wherever they go.

And Grand-Jane's warning:

He is a puck, and that means it is his nature to be false, a liar and a trickster.