The Gossamer Gate (7 page)

Chapter 7

Khiara did not know if she could trust her watch and she scowled down at it as questions ran through her mind.
Does time run differently in the Otherworld, or does it just seem that way because its inhabitants live so long?
She had been walking for hours, according to the timepiece, yet the landscape never changed. She knew that if she became frustrated in the first few hours, let alone the first out of nine days, she had no chance of finding her way home. For a brief moment, she reflected that she would have preferred to be given nine hours, rather than having Ronan toy with her and try to give her some hope.

However, the prospect of days versus hours did give her a sense of hope. Whether that feeling was false or justified, she would not know unless she made an effort to escape.

No, it must be a false hope. He’s just playing with me
, she reasoned with herself, since the third term of her liberation could not be met, and since there was far more opportunity for temptation over the course of a little longer than a week.

“
This is ridiculous. I can’t keep walking if I don’t know how to get where I’m going.” She tossed her bag to the ground and sat down against a tree that looked exactly like the one she had been resting against a few hours ago. Not only did she feel like she was walking in circles, but she knew that her mind was certainly thinking in circles. “Please, mother Goddess, let me wake up and find that this was all just a dream. Let this just be a dream. Like
The Wizard of Oz
,” she muttered, dropping her head against her hands.

“I hardly think that
sort of whining will get you out of here.”

She looked up at the sound of the
voice. “Excuse me?” she asked, when she realized another person stood in the ghostly forest, looking down at her.

The man standing before her smiled
wryly. “The Goddess forsook the land and the people of Faerie long ago.”

“That’s so sad,” Khiara said, not sure how else to respond.

“Isn’t it? We’re supposed to have the magick to survive on our own. There are all sorts of hopeful prophecies about it, but we seem to wither away a little more each thirteen-moon, dying slowly and painfully.”

“Prophecies?” Khiara
’s curiosity was piqued, and she asked, “By whom?”

“Don’t worry. You’re not in any of them. It certainly isn’t up to Ronan to repopulate this world
.” The stranger chortled and Khiara realized he was laughing at her.

She felt nonsensically indignant
that a stranger would stop just to converse with her, and then mock her. “I see.” Grabbing her bag, she rose to her feet quickly.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.” He reached out to forestall her. “You’re a very pretty mortal. It’s just that your fate has very little to do with ours.
Mortals seem to think they matter more than they do, you know. But whether you stay or go won’t really affect the fate of the Otherworld.”

“Ah.” Khiara nodded
and turned away from him.

Before she could take a step, he spoke again.
“My name is Liam. I am what you might call a bard.” She turned back and he bowed slightly from the waist. Since she had a moment to look at him, Khiara took that time to appreciate his handsomeness. He was about five inches taller than her, with short dark hair cut close to his head. His eyes were a chestnut shade of brown, and Khiara noticed a tattoo on his chest partially concealed by his forest green tunic. Liam had the typical traits and energy of the fae.

Watch your ass with this one
, she told herself. “I had no idea that bards still existed,” she said, trying not to stare at him. For some reason she found him compellingly attractive, which gave her all the more reason to be on her guard. She was not one to focus on looks, so she wondered if he was working some type of spell or glamour to draw her interest.

“Then you should have probably paid more attention growing up, since that knowledge might have saved you now.” Liam looked rather amused at her expense, and Khiara
remembered her initial urge to hit him, rather than hit
on
him. “Of course, they do say ignorance is bliss,” the bard continued. “But you really should have seen the signs. The convergence of your Saturn return
and
the ninth anniversary of the night you tried to kill Ronan? By the way, not good, Khiara. Not good at all. You know how decimated our numbers are.”

“So, what? Now you’re going to scold me for being a cold-blooded faerie murderer?” Khiara asked in disbelief. “He tried to force himself on me. In the mortal realm, a person has a right to defend herself from unwanted physical contact.”

He put his hands up defensively. “I’m not judging. I’m just saying that you haven’t exactly ingratiated yourself with the realm of Faerie.” Liam shrugged. “Far too many of our people would love to see you stay here and repay that debt, especially in the form of a life for a life.”

“And I suppose you’re one of them.” Khiara realized that every conversation she had been involved in today seemed to come down to a fight, first with Ronan and now with this guy.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind helping to repopulate Faerie with you,” he answered with a wickedly seductive grin, leaning close to her, his arm resting just above her head against the tree. “Didn’t you realize you were going to meet me? I made it all too obvious, you know. Your friend must have told you all about me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She looked at him in confusion and thought back over the past two weeks.
Finally, her conversation with Cate came back to her. “Bard… Barden.” Khiara slapped her forehead and rolled her eyes.

“Too bad your friend was so smitten with me,” he said. “I put on the form that would be most appealing to her. As you can see, I do have hair. Well, a little.” He rubbed the dark, close cut hair on his head. “Faerie glamour works every time, you know. Well, almost every time. You saw through it a little too well with poor Ronan, and then you not only tried to kill him – you broke his heart. That was probably the worst part.”

“Broke Ronan’s heart?” Khiara barked out a laugh. “He has no heart.”

“Every faerie has a heart, as much as you do.” There was a reprimand in his voice.

“Then they really ought to stop deceiving humans and playing with mortal hearts!” Khiara yelled, and ducked under his arm to walk away as quickly as she could. “From what I understand, you toyed with Cate’s emotions, and that certainly doesn’t make you a person I would trust or take advice from.”

She heard him running to catch up to her after a moment, and then he grasped her arm and swung her around to face him.

“Don’t you dare touch me!” she yelled, pulling away from him.

“You are a jumpy one, aren’t you?” he asked. “I have no intention of harming you, or even offering you faerie food and drink.”

“Then what do you want?” She glared at him, her eyes narrowed and her hands clutching the strap of her bag.

“I want to assist you in your quest.”

“Ha! Please tell me how disappointing Cate is going to help me.”

“Ouch.” He placed his hands over his chest. “You wound me, milady. I am but a chivalrous gentleman who wishes to help rescue a damsel in distress.”

“Very well, I’ll ask another question. What do you stand to gain by helping me?” Khiara demanded to know.

“Why would I do it for personal gain?” Liam
blinked at her and clasped his hands behind his back.

“
Oh, stop playing innocent with me. Faeries don’t do something for nothing,” Khiara hissed. “I know that much from personal experience. You have too much to gain by demanding a high price for your so-called assistance.”

“That is very true, milady.” Liam winked at her. “It’s simple. I help you get out of here, and you give me a faerie child.”

Khiara shook her head vigorously. “I can’t do that for two reasons.”

“And they would be?”

“First of all, I can’t just have a baby and let you take it from me. That’s not the way human women work. At least, I couldn’t do that,” she amended, aware of the unfortunate number of indifferent mothers in her world. “And, secondly, you know full well that I can’t leave here even if I find the gate in Ronan’s palace. He decreed that someone who loves me has to come and retrieve me. So I can journey until my feet are bloody, and I will if that’s what it takes. But finding that gate is no guarantee that I can get through it. I need that connection to the mortal world.”

Liam
rubbed his chin and then said, “Suppose I can bring that connection to you?”

“I might take you up on an offer like that,” Khiara
answered, “if such a love existed. But your price is far too high and, like you, I’m not foolish enough to give you something for nothing.”

With that, Khiara turned and continued her journey.

As she walked, even a half-hour later – according to her watch, anyway – Khiara realized that Liam was still traveling alongside her. He was not in her sight, nor did he make a sound, but she felt his presence as he walked silently among the trees, pacing her every step. She rolled her eyes up at the sky. He was one faerie who would not give up, which could be even more troublesome to her than Ronan had ever been. She was not sure what he wanted, but she was fairly certain he was not trying to help her out of the kindness of his heart. Faeries were notoriously deceitful, greedy, and selfish, as she had seen in Ronan’s behavior, past and present.

With a sigh of frustration, she sank to the ground. It was getting dark, and she was exhausted and wonder
ing where she would sleep. She was grateful that she felt neither hungry nor thirsty, but she did not know if that was just because she was so focused on escaping, or if that was normal for the Otherworld.

She rifled through her messenger bag and sighed again. She had no provisions; certainly nothing that would make sleeping on the ground more tolerable. With no other choice, Khiara laid her head on the bag, closed her eyes, and drifted into a
fitful slumber.

****

Although the afternoon and evening had been completely indiscernible from one another, the sound of birdsong heralded the Otherworld morning.

Khiara
pushed herself upright and rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she felt the sun warming her body. She rose to her feet to stretch and look around the forest. The path she had traveled the previous day looked substantially darker in the morning light, the path ahead of her a bit greener and less wild.

Even though she felt that she was alone, she found two shrubs that formed a tight little circle, and took advantage of the privacy to deal with her
bathroom needs. Without food or drink, she realized this would not be a frequent problem. Thankful for small favors, she zipped her jeans and stepped out into the open.

Picking up her bag, she looked up and down the path. Part of her was concerned that the darker path was actually the one she was supposed to follow; that the green, bright path might end up being the easy road further into faerie, and away from her goal, while the harder road was really the one that would bring her to Ronan’s palace and to the gate that could send her home.

Wishing she possessed a natural sense of direction, she looked up at the sun to try to gauge. Did it rise in the east and set in the west in this realm, or travel in a completely different direction?

“Oh, it goes the same way here as it does in your world.”

“Crap!” Khiara jumped at Liam’s voice.

“Sorry. I forgot how skittish you
could be. How did you sleep?” He looked well-rested and a little too seductively roguish for Khiara’s tastes as he leaned against one of the trees, a brilliant red apple in his hand. His chestnut gaze was much too direct for her comfort, and she felt a shudder of warmth flow through her. It was very different from the reaction she was accustomed to having around Ronan, but she focused on her goal for the day.

“How
do you think I slept?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Oh, we’re going to play that game?” He grinned at her
and then took a bite out of his apple.

She gritted her teeth and shook h
er head. She had a feeling he would powerfully outmatch her in a battle of wits.

“So, it seems you’re wondering which way to go.” He approached her to stand on the path beside her
, and pressed his index finger to his lips. “Back the way you came, because, after all, the hard road might actually be the correct one. Or you wonder if you should take the friendly-looking green path, because it certainly seems nicer.”

“Very perceptive of you
,” Khiara said as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

He glanced around, and then looked at her again. “In all honesty, the forest is probably
the safest place for you to stay, but it isn’t the way home.”

“Oh?” Khiara glanced back down the darker side of the path. “How could that possibly be safer?”

“In this particular forest there are fewer faeries and fewer temptations, not counting me, of course.” He grinned again and made a finger-gun gesture at her, as if well aware of his attractiveness. Khiara made a “get-on with it” motion and he nodded. “Right. So, the whole point of being stuck in the Otherworld is to face the challenges of the realm, isn’t it? But you won’t make any progress toward home if you wander around, untested, through the forest. That would hardly be a quest worthy of a potential faery princess.”