The Gossamer Gate (8 page)

“So you’re saying I didn’t cover all those miles for nothing?” Khiara confirmed, suddenly feeling giddy with relief.

“Correct. You chose the right direction. That direction may look all sweetness and light, but don’t kid yourself. Things only get trickier from here on out. You would probably be safer with someone to accompany you.”

“Oh? Such as whom?” she asked
, putting her hand on her hip and looking him up and down. “Someone like you, I suppose?”

“Well, I’m not one to brag, but I do know my way around the Otherworld,” Liam said, brushing his fingernails across his tunic. “And you’ve already fallen for one of the classic passive-aggressive faerie tactics by wondering whether or not you had chosen the right road.”

Khiara nodded and tightened her grip on the strap of her messenger bag. “So that first day was really just to give me a chance to doubt myself?”

“More or less,” Liam said. “And even though you didn’t exactly face any trials or ordeals, the first day totally counts toward your nine.
Everything counts here, after all. So you are down by one.”

“Great.” Khiara could not bite back the sarcasm. “I
t sounds like if I want out of here, I have to keep going until I can’t go anymore.”

“Ah, but
there’s also that tricky clause about you not being able to leave without your true love coming to find you.”

She glared at Liam. “I d
on’t remember saying ‘true love’.”

“Well, that’s generally what the whole idea of someone who loves you coming to your rescue means.
All that faery tale nonsense you mortals eat up.” He opened and closed his fingers like a mouth, “Once upon a time, blah blah blah, happily ever after.”

“Don’t get all bardic on me.” Khiara
smacked his hand, then turned and walked down the lighter, greener path, into the warm sunshine.

“Hey, I didn’t make the rules. I’m just telling you about them.” Liam fell into step next to her.
He tossed the apple aside and said, “The person who comes for you has to be more than a good friend or blood relation. It has to be a soul mate.”

“A what?” Khiara
slanted a narrow-eyed glare at him.

“A soul mate. You know. That term used by
mortals to over-romanticize the relationship they have with their partners?”

She turned away and shook her head.

“What?”

“I only know one person that I think of in that way, and I know for a fact he doesn’t feel the s
ame way about me,” she muttered, as she continued to walk.

“Maybe he does feel the same way about you, but he doesn’t realize it.
Have you tried telling him about your feelings?”

With that reminder of the perfect mess she had created between herself and Sean, Khiara felt her annoyance hit its breaking point.
“Are all bards as annoying as you?” she snapped.

“What’s so annoying about me?” Liam’s tone of voice rose with disbelief and he looked at her with wide
eyes.

“This talk about soul mate
s and love bullshit, for one thing.”

“Ouch.” Liam
pressed his hands to his chest. “You don’t believe in it?”

“I believe in it about as much as I believe I’ll ever
let Ronan have what he wants.” Khiara kept walking, her focus on the path. “And I believe you’re just doing this to tick me the hell off.”

“A lack of faith in love hardly makes for a fulfilling life.”

“Oh, really? Who are you to judge?” Khiara whirled to glower at him. “You’re a faerie and you deceive people into being attracted to you. Meanwhile, your kind don’t have the leisure to think about love, because you’re race is dying. Instead, it’s their mission to get laid as much as they can, in hopes of getting knocked up, or getting mortal women knocked up, and then taking their babies away to strengthen the faerie race. All you people want are brood mares, so who are you to scold me about love when you’ve forgotten how it even feels?”

Liam
faced her and said, “You’re right; we do have to procreate for survival. But you’re wrong about us forgetting what love is. Just because it isn’t a priority for us, that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be able to find love too. We wish we had the leisure to make a priority of something that you, and many other mortals, take for granted. It must be nice to be able to be so cavalier about something like love.”

Hearing the pain in his voice, Khiara turned to apologize.

But he had already disappeared.

Chapter 8

The path led into a small village, which Khiara had not expected. She had envisioned the Faerielands as a place of flowery fields and crystal palaces, not gray skies and withered forests. Nor did she think faeries lived in large enough groups to form a village of simple homes made from bark and thatched with straw, but there they were. She saw several houses, faerie men and women at work in the fields and around the homes, and a few children playing outdoors.

Reminding herself of Liam’s words that some of the faeries would like to see her punished
for her actions almost a decade ago, she gripped the strap of her bag and set off with grim determination into the village. She knew faeries were capable of deceit; she did not know if they were capable of outright hostility. It seemed that encountering faeries on her journey was inevitable, though, and it was a chance that she would have to take.

The faeries watched in silence as she approached, and Khiara bowed her head in an effort to appear deferential. They would want her to fail, to
serve out the punishment they felt she deserved by living among them and giving up the life she enjoyed in the mortal world. Her penalty would be to help them add to their numbers, until she no longer served Ronan’s purposes. It was not a thought she relished.

Even though this area was greener than the forest, it still had the gray pall over it that made it so very different from the mortal wor
ld to which she was accustomed. Other than that, the Otherworld seemed more or less normal based on her human standards. There was far less wildlife, however the earth, trees, and sky were all fairly similar to what one would see in the mortal realm.

Khiara made her way
swiftly through the village, trying to ignore the discomfort she felt as a result of the attention she was receiving from the faeries. They had paused in their work to watch her travel by and she could feel their earthy magick tingling around her. It was life encouraging and nurturing. They were using it to sustain and increase their crops. The sensation was very different from the dark magick that Ronan exuded, and the sensual energy that Liam radiated. She realized that Liam’s was a fire magick, akin to her own.
Maybe that’s why I was immune to his glamour
, she thought.
Our energies must be attuned to one another's.

As she pondered this, she also realized she was feeling back to normal. That sense of
everyone staring at her faded with each step. She glanced back to see that she was just outside the village and the unfriendly faeries had returned to their work. Silently, she offered a prayer to whatever deity might be listening – her own or any other – for their good health and an abundant harvest.

Sighing with relief at surviving
yet another unnerving ordeal, Khiara continued to walk until she came to a crossroads. The statue of a fae woman stood there, with four faces that looked in each of the cardinal directions. The gray stone looked as if someone had carved it recently, yet the moss that crept up the base told her the statue had been there for a long time; possibly for eons, with only the barest sign of aging thanks to the faerie magick of the Otherworld. She could feel the vibration of earthy energy around it, possibly emanating from the very stone itself.

“It looks in the different directions, almost like Hecate,” she
murmured as she reached out to touch the statue.

“I would ask you to keep your hands to yourself,” came an indignant-sounding voice.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Khiara withdrew her hand as if she had been scalded, then looked up at the statue. “Did you just say something?”

“Of course I did.” The
brow of the matronly face that looked down at her creased with disapproval. “What sort of manners do they teach you mortals?” the statue asked.

Khiara felt as though she should curtsy, and so she did. “They don’t teach us any manners whatsoever,” she responded, feeling absurd, yet contrite at the same time.

“That’s very clear young lady, especially when you go around trying to kill faeries.”

“Now really,” said a gentler voice on the left side of the statue. “You know that no faerie should ever force himself on a woman, no matter how dire the need for children.
There is no excuse for Ronan’s actions.”

“Don’t you start,” responded the face that was
still looking at Khiara reproachfully.

Khiara took a step to the left to see that the speaker was another face of the statue, one that looked younger and a bit friendlier. “I beg your pardon,” Khiara said, curtsying to that face. “But is that one of the laws of the faerie? That they don’
t force themselves on humans?”

“Not exactly,” said the younger face. “But it just isn’t
done
, if you know what I mean. To glamour a human is one thing. Physical violation is another and unacceptable. No man, faerie or mortal, should do such a thing to another person, and some of us are quite glad you stood up for yourself. You have a right to personal and physical dignity.”

“I quite agree,” chimed in a third voice. Khiara moved to
look at the third side of the statue, which appeared much older than the other two visages. “A female has every right to defend herself, though she shouldn’t have to. A man should know better.”

Khiara curtsied and said, “I agree, ma’am.”

“Like humans, faeries are all very different,” the older face told her. “Some are quite gentle and others are more forceful.”

“Tru
e,” said the first face – the face of the mother, Khiara realized. “Faerie men are as likely as mortal men to be turned on by the chase, or to be aggressive with women. Faeries aren’t all sweetness and glitter, young lady. The things they teach mortals about faeries are simply ridiculous. You as a Witch should certainly know better.”

Khiara held her tongue. She had never underestimated Ronan; if anything, she knew his faerie powers made him far more formidable than any human
man. “Excuse me, but could you tell me if one of these roads will lead me to Ronan’s palace?”

“Indeed, one of them will,” responded the
face of the crone.

“Will it get me home?”

“That will depend,” said the crone. “Do you want it to?”

“I certainly do,” Khiara answered
and, once again, her eyes filled with tears.

“Then it might. But as the outcome is not entirely dependent upon your actions, I cannot say.”

“Perhaps the enchantress can say,” the maiden side suggested in her sweet, encouraging tones.

“Perhaps she ought to take care of herself,” the mother side answered, sounding far huffier than the other sides of the statue. “Let her learn her own lesson.
Not that knocking the prince down a few pegs is necessarily a bad thing,” the stone grumbled.

“Don’t mind her,” the crone said, giving Khiara a wink. “She’s just angry on principle. E
nchantress?” she called out. “Will you awaken?”

Khiara
wiped away her tears and walked around to the fourth side of the statue. On this side, a veil covered the face, but she curtsied out of respect nonetheless.

“I do not see your liberation from the Otherwo
rld,” the voice, muffled by its covering, intoned.

“Is it that there is no love for her in
the mortal realm, or that the one who loves her does not know that she is here?” the crone asked.

“The one who loves her knows that she is here, but is not capable of liberating her from the Otherworld.”

Khiara had been holding her breath, hoping to hear that someone was seeking her. There was the wildest, most illogical hope in her heart that the enchantress would describe a vision of Sean.

“All of my friends
must know that I’m here by now,” she said. “But I hardly expect them to be able to help me in any way. Thank you for looking into it.” She glanced at the road and realized she had a long journey ahead, if she decided to continue walking.

“I can offer you this,” the enchantress said. “Your strength has brought you this far. Let it continue to guide you.”

Khiara pressed her lips together and said nothing as she scuffed the toe of her shoe in the dirt of the path.

“
Poor child, do not give up hope,” said the crone. “Keep in mind that time in your world and in this world passes very differently.”

Khiara walked back to look up at her
. “What do you mean?”

“A day here is but a moment in your world. To them, you only just disappeared.
It may take time before they realize the extent of what has happened.”

“You… you mean that my nine days here could pass without anyone back home even having a chance to
try
to find me?”

“That is quite possible.”

At the crone’s words, Khiara felt wearier than she had the evening before. “Your help has been invaluable,” she told the statue, bowing her head and looking at the path.

“If it helps,” said the maiden, “my path leads to the fields and orchards. Perhaps you would rather occupy yourself pleasantly there.”

“Mine leads to the cemeteries and groves,” said the crone. “That is where you will find the mysteries of life and death.”

“Mine leads back the way you came,” said the
mother.

“Mine leads to Prince Ronan’s kingdom. Travel it if you dare,” challenged the
enchantress.

With a nod, Khiara answered, “I am grateful to all of you for your assistance.” She shouldered her bag and turned down the middle path, to continue toward a destiny that one person had chosen for her; a destiny she intended to continue to fight.

****

“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Sean asked as he held the phone to his ear and stared in horror at Cate.

“We have no idea,” Felisa said into the receiver.

“Well, we have something that we have tried,” Cate told
Sean. “It didn’t work for us, but now that you’re here, maybe you could try it.”

****

For the second night in a row, Khiara slept on the hard ground. This time she realized how lonely she felt. Liam had kept her company during that first night, but he had not returned after her harsh words to him. Even though she hardly trusted the faerie, his presence had made her feel at least somewhat safe. Despite the fact that he was probably just as troublesome as any other magickal creature, at least she had not been completely alone in this alien world last night. The stillness of the Otherworld was unnatural and disconcerting. She was accustomed to the sound of traffic passing by her house, of the breeze whispering past her bedroom window, of the occasional conversation drifting up through the screen as people walked down Main Street.

She stared up at the sky, wondering if the half-moon glowing down from the inky darkness was the same moon she saw in her world. The stars in the Otherworld were incredibly bright without city lights to obscure their crystalline glow. The silvery, diamond-like winking of each one lent the entire sky a luminosity that was far warmer than the desolate landscape she saw during the day. It had been a while since Khiara had been able to appreciate
the beauty of the cosmos.

At that moment, she thought she heard the sound of faerie
song pulsing gently through the trees. The flute-like music was beautiful, and somehow wholly soothing to her tired body, mind, and spirit.

As her eyes closed, she wondered how she could have accused anybody capable of making such hauntingly lovely music of being heartless.

****

The morning dawned bright and gloriously warm. Khiara stretched, feeling surprisingly well
rested. Despite the hard ground, she had slept deeply and dreamlessly. She stood, her body betraying none of the aches she had expected after two nights of sleeping on the ground, and picked up her bag. The memory of last night’s melody brought a smile to her face. Although the path before her seemed long, she faced it with a new resolve, undeterred from her quest.

“The enchantress said to let my strength be my guide,” she muttered. “So that’s what I’ll do.”

She dug into her bag and found her MP3 player and earbuds.

“The wonders of modern mortal technology,” she said, finally smiling for the first time in two Faerie days. She turned on the music and t
he hard rock pinging from the earbuds lifted her spirits even more. She felt like it was possible to beat anything in her way, including the terms of her imprisonment.

Sticking the MP3 player in her pocket,
Khiara lifted her chin and quickened her pace along the winding path.

****

“So I just say these words and I’ll be able to find her?” Sean asked Cate, looking dubiously at the paper she had handed him.

“I have no idea,” she answered
with a shrug. “A guy I dated a few weeks ago gave it to me just out of the blue. He said I would need it. Felisa and I both tried using the ritual, but it didn’t bring us to wherever Khiara has gone.”

“Well, what are the rules?” Sean asked. “I mean, shouldn’t the person who does this be blood or family, or one of you
witches?”