

BENEATH THE ROOTS

BOOK ONE OF THE AURE DUOLOGY

W.K. GREYLING
Copyright © 2018 W.K. Greyling

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9994748-1-2

Edited by Allister Thompson

First edition: November 2018

Get the Audiobook: https://www.audible.com/pd/Beneath-the-Roots-Audiobook/B07MHD8V4R

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Map

PART ONE: THE CURSED WOOD

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

PART TWO: THORSAULT

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

PART THREE: THE CINDER GIRL

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

Epilogue

About the Author

PART ONE   
THE CURSED WOOD
CHAPTER 1

There was nothing unusual about the day Merisande met the winged child. No creeping mist or sudden storm. The sky was a pale turquoise laced with meringue, the air soft and still. She had hiked several miles through dense forest to the edge of a gorge. The trek had become a weekly ritual—one she kept secret from her father. If he knew she went there, he said nothing about it. Her job was to bring him mushrooms and whatever else fell into her hands: berries, herbs, edible roots, a stray handful of earth sifted through the fine weave of her basket.

She was in her twelfth year but had already grown past his shoulders. Her slender limbs concealed a wiry strength that allowed her to scale rocky slopes with ease. She kept her brown hair tightly braided so leaves and twigs would not poke through and hemmed her skirt so it fell to her knees instead of her ankles.

Arriving at the gorge, she flopped down on the smooth cliff top and stared at the glittering objects below. That year, the spring rains had whipped the river into a white frenzy of foam and debris. The water had risen so high that it dislodged a boulder from the bank. In the space where the boulder had rested lay several pieces of untarnished plate armor. There were no bones. No skull inhabited the dented helm, no fingers tapped against the gauntlets—at least, none that she could see from her perch forty feet up. The river air was damp and cold. Perhaps it had moldered the bones like old wood.

More than a month had passed since she first spied the armor. Every week she had raced back, sure that the river had swept it all away. But it never budged. It never changed. It was her secret. No one came to this lonely place, and if they did they would not know where to look.

She lay on the cliff top until the river's dampness started leaching into her bones, then she inched cautiously back from the edge, snatched up her foraging basket, and began her trek back home.

No clear path stretched between her father's cottage and the cliff top, and the trails that snaked through the trees, forged by animals or her father's own booted feet as he set traps, disappeared after a hard rain. Some things, however, did not wash away. She passed a fallen oak, half-eaten by ants, and scrambled up the side of a rocky mound. From the top, she could almost see over the trees to the gorge.

As she paused, scenting moss and cedar, the cool, river-touched air, she thought she heard a muffled cry. She held her breath and went completely still.

There it was again, more a whimper than a cry, and so faint it might have been mistaken for wind whistling through cracked rock. Prickles danced down her back and arms. Should she fetch her father?

No. She was too close to the gorge. If he discovered she went there, he might prevent her from going back. Better to investigate it herself. Thrusting her basket into the crook of her arm, she picked her way down the north side of the mound toward a place she called the Devil's Playground. His toys lay in an untidy heap at the bottom: boulders the size of oxcarts. Some were stacked atop one another, while others leaned against a steep rise in the land, creating a line of tiny caves where animals nested and burrowed. The earth between the boulders was hard and bare, but every corner and crevice leached green, as if someone had painted it that way.

The crying paused again. Merisande drew breath to shout then released it in a hiss of expelled air. Whoever it was must have heard her climb down. If they wanted help they would have approached her. Instead they had kept quiet and hidden, like some small animal in a thicket.

She rubbed her damp palms on her jacket. There was really only one place to shelter, one space large enough to fit a human body. She had crouched there herself once while waiting out a storm. She stole toward it on tiptoe, her breath tight in her throat.

The cave was made up of two massive boulders, which leaned against one another to form a "V" shape. The open part faced the rise. Layers of moss and vine closed over the top like a thatched roof. In a few steps she came to a small gap between the boulder and the rise. Stooping down, she peered inside.

A startled shout burst from the darkness, making her flinch back from the hole. After a few breaths, she leaned in and risked another glance.

A child—probably a boy, given the length of his tunic—blinked at her in the dim light. He had wedged himself into a corner so that much of his body was in shadow. What she could see shocked her. He was alarmingly slender. Not like the hungry children she had spied near the city docks, whose knees and shoulders bulged like knotty wood, but it was as if the bones themselves were thinner. His hair was a pale spray around his head, like dandelion gone to seed. Scratches scored his dark hose, and as she inched sideways to let in more light, she spied a glitter of blood. She cleared her throat. "What happened to you?"

His mouth dropped open. "You can speak."

You can speak. The statement was so senseless that she decided to ignore it. "Are you lost?"

"Lost." He seemed to taste the word. "No."

She set down her basket. "Then—"

"I'm not lost." He wiped his face with a shirtsleeve and straightened his hunched back. Something pale shifted behind him as he did—a knapsack, she guessed. Or a bunched blanket. "I know where I am, but I can't get back home."

"How old are you?"

"Eleven."

Eleven. Was he lying? Ten would have been a stretch.

He sniffled. "And how old are you?"

"Twelve. My birthday was last month."

His face fell. "Mine was three days ago. I got a horse. But she's gone now."

Mer blinked. "Gone?"

"I lost her."

"I see. That's too bad." She leaned in farther, squinting through the darkness. He might be from the continent, she thought, but then how had he come so far north? He could not have been shipwrecked. The isle was surrounded by steep cliffs. Ships came in through an opening in the isle's southernmost tip. From there they traveled up the inlet to the sea port, which was still a good forty miles south of where she stood now. His cracked boots caught her eye. He had certainly walked a distance from somewhere.

"I live across the river," he said, as if he had been listening to her thoughts. "But I can't go back, not without stories to tell the trees."

Mer resisted rolling her eyes. "No one lives on the east side of the river," she informed him. "And trees don't need stories."

"You're wrong."

"Then how did you cross the gorge? There's no bridge, and no one comes here."

"I flew."

"Ah." Her mouth twitched, but she managed not to smile. She caught the dark tail of her braid and twisted it around her finger. Mad. He was very clearly mad.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Merisande. Or just Mer."

"I'm Gandel."

"Gandel," she mused. "The boy that flew."

"You don't believe me."

"I think—" She paused, sighting movement in the shadows. Suddenly she jerked back, almost overturning her basket. "There's something behind you. Some sort of creature."

The boy snickered. "There's nothing behind me but me."

Mer squinted into the hazy darkness. The pale object behind him stretched out until it filled the space and could move no farther. It was still a moment, and then it started shaking, churning up dust, and disturbing the tiny plants that grew out of cracks in the floor.

Mer stumbled back in fright.

"Wait! It's only me." There was a scraping sound, then the toe of Gandel's boot appeared in the gap. "Are you still there?"

Gathering up courage, Mer edged back to the hole and peered in. Light fell on the boy and the creature. Mer, unable to look away, felt a jolting change in perspective as the two things she had taken to be separate merged into one.

The boy was the creature.

"You have wings," she whispered. Now that he was closer, she could see them clearly. A bulge of muscle flexed behind his shoulder as he retracted a pinion. His feathers were as dirty as old rags; just looking at them made her want to recoil, though she could not have said why.

Gandel folded his wings back behind him; he glanced up as he did, seeming to gauge her reaction.

"I'm not afraid," she informed him stiffly, and wondered if that were true.

"Have you never seen a fae? That's what I am."

"Never." There were stories, of course. Sailors claimed to have seen winged men on the eastern shoreline, moving like ghosts in the mist. But sailors saw all kinds of things.

She cleared her throat. "So. You really live in the wood across the river?"

"In a land beyond the wood."

"Then why did you come here?"

"It was an accident."

She raised a brow, and he went on, leaning tiredly into a hollow in the rock.

"It happened yesterday evening. I was riding my horse near the tree line when a snake—or something—spooked her, and she bolted into the trees."

"Into the trees that need stories?"

He frowned and licked his parched-looking lips. "No. In my land there's an outer forest and an inner one. The outer one is safe, but the inner one is cursed; its trees are big and ugly, and it has no animals." He glared at her, as if waiting for another interruption. Mer gestured for him to go on. "Anyway. I tried to rein her in, but a branch knocked me off her onto the ground. When I got up, I thought I saw her grazing beside a far-off tree. I should have turned back then. It was getting dark, and my head hurt. But I couldn't let her go. I followed her for what seemed like miles. When she finally slowed long enough for me to get close, I saw that she wasn't a horse at all, but a huge white doe." A peculiar expression crossed his face, as if he had swallowed a bad mushroom. Mer fingered her chin. How could someone mistake a doe for a horse? "I stumbled on in the dark, and before I knew it, I was in the inner wood."

"How did you know, if it was dark?"

"Because I heard the wood wind."

"The what?"

"The wood wind. Some call it the wood's breath. But it doesn't sound like trees. If anything, it sounds animal."

Mer regarded him with slightly parted lips. "What happened then?"

"I ran. It was a stupid thing to do, but it was dark and I couldn't think of any stories."

"Why do the trees need stories?"

"Who knows? Anyway, they aren't really trees. Trees don't open their roots like mouths and try to pull you down."

"Down where?" she asked hollowly.

"Down below."

There was a meaningful silence. Mer inched farther into the cave.

"I spent the rest of the night running and tripping, telling every scrap of a tale I know."

"Why didn't you fly?"

He exhaled sharply. "The fae can't fly very high or very far. And it would have been foolish to try it in a forest." His wings twitched a little as he spoke, as if the idea rattled him. Mer tried not to look at them. "When morning came, the trees thinned to brush, and I heard a sound like rushing water. I couldn't go back. So I flew over the river. And that's how I came here." He closed his eyes, and his head rested on his bent knees.

After a moment's hesitation, Mer snatched up her basket and set it into his surprised hands. "You look thirsty too. I can bring water."

"You believe me?"

She shrugged a little, avoiding his eyes. "I've heard tales about the eastern wood. The harbor folk don't anchor on that side of the river. They say it's cursed. When did you last eat?"

"Before I—that is, yesterday afternoon." He gestured weakly with a finger. "I found a stream over the ridge. There were fish, but I didn't know how to catch them."

She rubbed a mushroom on her apron and held it out. "Eat this," she commanded.

"What I need is stories."

"Eat while I think of some." She bit her lip, watching him chew mechanically. A wisp of hair the color of moonlight slid down his face. Hair. "I remember one."

"A story?"

She waved to the basket, and he dug in.

"A long time ago in a country far away," she began, trying to recall the exact wording, "a rich lord was granted a portion of land worked by poor farmers. The lord moved himself and his men into a castle he had built. He loved fine, luxurious things, so he took those things from the farmers: their richest wine, their finest cheese. Then he noticed their women's hair and wanted that too. So he ordered his men to cut it. The women mourned the loss of their hair, for it was the one beautiful thing they owned. The lord used it in the mortar for his walls and ordered tapestries to be made from it, and great carpets.

"One day, a soldier who had turned to farming forbade the lord's men from taking his daughter's hair. Amused, the lord asked to be taken to the man's cottage.

"The farmer came out with his sword ready in his hands. 'I will not let you have her,' were his last words before an arrow caught him in the chest.

"As he fell down dead, his daughter ran out of the cottage and threw herself over his body. She looked up at the lord with hatred, but the lord didn't see her face, only her flaxen hair. He ordered his men to bind her and bring her to his castle at once.

"They took her to a room on the top floor. A single window shed light over the threads of a tapestry hanging on the wall. The girl trailed her fingers down it, marveling at the red hairs woven through. The lord's men entered.

"She turned to them and said, 'I swear if you touch even one of my hairs, that hair will turn to flame, and it will burn everything it touches.'

"They laughed at her, but one frowned and went to tell his lord what she had said. 'Do you think it's possible?' he asked.

"'Of course not,' the lord answered with amusement. 'The child has unmanned you.'

"Later that evening in his own chamber, the lord ran his hands over the freshly shorn hair and dreamed of a blanket made of starlight.

'"Make me starlight,' he commanded his weavers, offering them the maiden's hair. 'Something bright and glittering.'

"When the blanket was finished, the lord laid it out on his bed. He slept among the stars that night, but when dawn came, and the first golden tendrils of light fell on the blanket, it burst into flame, and in a short time the entire castle was engulfed.

"The farmers and their families watched the blaze. The flames seemed to dance in cords, following the morning breeze."

Mer chewed her lip. She glanced sideways at Gandel. "I told it badly," she confessed.

"You told it well. But I'll need more than just one." He poked at a mushroom. "These grow in the wood."

"Yes," she sighed, "but some are poisonous. You must learn the difference between them."

"I wasn't taught."

"You never learned to forage?"

He shrugged. "Starving people forage. I've always had enough to eat."

Mer let the rude comment pass. She wondered, as her eyes lingered on the round moons of his fingernails, if he might not have an excuse for such ignorance.

"Are you of the gentry?" she asked.

"Gentry? I'm not sure what that means. They call me prince in my land."

Mer did her best to hide her surprise. "If you're a prince, then you must have been missed. Your family would have sent a tracker."

He considered that a moment then shook his head. "Maybe, but he wouldn't know where to look. I went off on my own."

She hid a smile behind her hand. He obviously knew nothing about tracking, but then why would he? Princes hired men to do that.

"What's your country called?"

"Thorsault," he replied smoothly, though the word sounded strange to her ears, "is the name of the castle and town, and there's a village beyond..." His face soured then, and he peered into the basket, as if he had found something interesting there. "Tell me about your land. I haven't seen anyone but you."

"That's because everyone lives south of here." She paused, glancing at the sun. "I can't stay much longer."

A mushroom rolled out of his hand onto the floor. "But I must have—"

"Stories," she finished, nodding. "I know, but I can't give you them now. Tomorrow."

His mouth opened; a sound hovered there. Mer waited for it, half-smiling.

At last he seemed to master himself. "You'll return tomorrow?"

"I said so." She dumped the remaining mushrooms into his lap and rearranged the cloth. "At first light." She rose, bending to avoid the low rock. "Tomorrow," she promised again, glancing once more into the cave. His pale eyes watched her in the darkness; they did not look hopeful.

***

Mer barely remembered her trek back home. Her heart was full of the land across the gorge. She imagined the castle and the town, the sounds of wings filling the air like a sweet wind.

Her basket was brimming again when she opened the front door. Her father took it wordlessly from her. Rives was a lanky man with dusty blond hair and eyes the color of a fall sky. His wife, from whom Mer had inherited her dark eyes and hair, had died giving birth a decade before. The child who survived was Mer's halfwit brother, Jan.

"I fell asleep," she lied, sliding past him.

The three of them ate in silence that evening. Her father speared a mushroom and held it up to the light, as if he could read the truth on its shriveled rind. Mer waited until he had taken Jan to bed, then she scraped some leavings into a napkin and tucked it into her skirts.

She lay awake a long time, listening to Jan snore in his bed across the room. Nothing at home had changed while she had been with Gandel, and yet it seemed as if everything had. The river, the harbor, the ragged forest, the isle itself was stretching to contain the borders of an entire kingdom filled with fae.

And no one knew.

She sat up and crossed her arms over her knees. "No one knows," she whispered to the darkness. Somehow the secret was not as gratifying as the one at the bottom of the gorge. It felt...almost as if she had stolen something. But who would believe her? She could hardly believe it herself.

At last she rose, unable to wait for dawn. She lit a candle and snatched an old leather sack from a peg on the wall, heavy with her grandmother's handwritten stories, which she had scavenged from the back of her desk drawer. Lantern swinging in hand, she padded down the hallway to the front door. She carried her boots and jacket outside so she would not wake Rives putting them on.

A soft rain was falling. Mer found the trail with ease. Following it was not so easy. The lantern, swaying back and forth as she moved over the uneven ground, almost went out several times. The path seemed narrower in the dark, the trees wider and more encroaching. The rain eased to a light mist that did not let up until she reached the mound.

It was now dawn. From the top of the mound, the hunched, pale boulders of the Devil's Playground stood like an army of sleeping giants taking shelter from the rain. Gandel leaned sleepily against one. He must have heard her coming.

"You look better," she commented, noting the warmth in his cheeks. His legs were clean but swollen; he had torn off half his hose in an attempt to cleanse the wounds. She tilted her head at his wings, as if seeing them for the first time. Washed, they appeared fuller, brighter. Stronger. A low-backed tunic allowed them to drape freely. And they did, almost to his knees.

"I went to the stream again," he explained.

Mer wiped rain from her eyes, unslung the sack, and drew the strings for him. "Your stories."

"Scrolls." The word spluttered out at the end of a yawn.

"Can you read them?"

His slender fingers darted in and drew one out. The painted sheets were bound on two sides by ribbons. Their once-vibrant color had faded with age and humidity. She helped him untie them and unroll the paper. The script was small and uniform.

He held her lamp over the words. "The spelling is different, but I can still make it out." He peered at it more closely. "'The Story of the Three Blind Princesses.'"

Mer grinned tiredly. "My grandmother collected these. She wrote them in her own hand. There are at least ten in that bundle." She glanced up at his scrunched up eyes. "Will it be enough?"

"It will. Once I've read and memorized them."

"You can keep them."

"No. I'll leave them in the cave when I'm done."

Mer remembered the food and unbuttoned a pocket in her dress. Some of the juices had leaked through the cloth. She would have to launder her clothes as soon as she returned home.

She set the leavings into his hand. "This was all I could sneak out."

He opened the napkin a crack and set it on a nearby rock. Their eyes met again; his seemed uncertain, balancing one thing against another. At last, he reached behind his neck and untied a string that had been concealed under his clothing. Hanging on it were two stones shaped like wheels. As he pulled them apart, they emitted a sharp burst of light.

"Don't be scared," he said as she gasped in surprise.

"What are they?"

He slipped one off the string and gave it to her. "They come from a place deep in the earth, from a land that was lost to us."

"They came out of the earth looking that way?"

His brows puckered. "I don't know. Maybe." He retied the string around his neck. The single stone that hung from it seemed to blend into his skin. "It responds to my name. If you're ever in danger, just say it—my name, into the stone—and I'll come to you, wherever you are."

Mer tipped the stone into the light. It seemed improbable that a stone could respond to a name, that it could summon someone from a distance...

"Thank you," she managed. "This is more than my help was worth."

He shrugged and added nonchalantly, "You may never need me."

"True. But I do hope we'll meet again."

His smile slackened. "I sincerely hope we do not."

They eyed each other wordlessly. Mer opened her hand; for a moment she considered returning the stone, even throwing it at him. Her face warmed and cooled again.

She closed her fingers. "Then I hope for your sake that I'm never in danger. Farewell, Princeling."

He bowed deeply. "Farewell, Merisande."

She turned before he could straighten, snatched up her lamp, and staggered forward on tired legs. She did not look back, even as she reached the top of the mound and stood facing the carpet of trees. All that wonder lay behind her, secreted away over a gorge that no one crossed and beyond a wood that was not.

"Walk," she commanded herself sternly, and took a slow step into daylight.
CHAPTER 2

Nine Years Later

Mer thrust her shovel into the earth and jumped on it with both feet. It sank deep into the stony soil. While balancing on it, she leaned backward. The earth broke, a root snapped, another caught, snapped. Letting the shovel fall, she bent down and sifted through the dirt and stone. Two new potatoes, still slightly green, were tossed onto a pile at her side. She pawed at the ground a little more and then refilled the hole and began on another. She hummed as she worked, barely conscious that she was doing it.

The sun, arcing over the cloudless sky, warmed the dark hair that she had piled into a loose bun at the base of her neck. Her skin was damp with sweat and as pale as the white insides of the potatoes.

At last she set down her shovel and stretched her tired arms. The song in her head would not go away. Drums, flutes, and pipes wailed, begging for release. She looked hurriedly around her, found a space of earth not yet dug up, and positioned herself in the center of it. Bow. She bowed smoothly. Two steps to the right, two steps to the left, kick, turn, clap, turn, clap again. She moved faster and faster, her hands open at her sides, imagining the hands of another.

Finally, the song ended, though fragments of it still drifted in her mind, like notes that had broken out into the air.

Mer piled the potatoes into the pocket of her apron. Her father met her at the back door, holding a rabbit by its feet.

"Could you skin it for me?" he asked sweetly.

"Where is Jan?"

He stopped breathing a moment, thinking. Mer hated it when he had to think about where Jan was. "In the kitchen," he decided.

"Waiting for his supper, no doubt."

"No doubt."

She swapped her potatoes for the knife and rabbit and went to the white boulder at the side of the house. White, it used to be. Now it was almost brown with old blood. She made an incision around the base of the rabbit's feet, peeled back the skin toward the head with one sharp pull, then tidied it up with a few select cuts. She left the gutting to her father, who was particular about his treasures.

He eyed her thoughtfully while they ate that evening, his fingers picking small bits of meat from between the bones. Mer, catching his eyes, tapped her napkin lightly around her mouth. Her father chuckled. It was a private joke. Most of their jokes were silent, private ones. They infuriated her aunt, who had no idea that Mer had perfected the manners of the gentry because they amused her. The jokes became almost unendurable when, on the occasion they were invited to her aunt's excessively laid table, Mer would catch her father's eye as she daintily lifted a spoon or tear meat into portions so small that they were hard to pick up. Aunt Lisette would smile in approval at those times, and her father, looking from Mer to Lisette, would sometimes choke on his food.

"The quarterly dance is this Saturday," he said, breaking the lightness of the moment.

Across the table, Jan swayed, his eyes straying to the west wall.

The house Rives had built many years before was neither elegant nor grand. Constructed of hastily peeled cedar logs, it was only large enough to hold four tiny rooms. Two were bedrooms; the third was used for the preparing and storing of food, and the fourth, facing the front of the house, doubled as a dining and sitting area. Mer spent most of her time there. A fire blazed in the wall opposite the door; above it hung an ink drawing of her mother. A shelf stood against the west wall. Mer had read through the various scrolls and bound pages that leaned upon it. They were Rives', taken from a wing of the neighboring manor where he had lived as a boy. The small library was one of the few things his father had let him keep.

As the oldest son of a respectable family, Rives had been poised to inherit fifteen acres of arable land, but he threw it all away one night when he made love to the gardener's daughter on the back of a hay bale. Determined that the child would be legitimate, he had eloped before his parents could interfere. His father retaliated by transferring Rives' inheritance to his younger son, Barret. Rives was left with an acre of stone and brush, strapped to the forest's edge like a prison chain. The land title had allowed him to retain his honorific, but little more. It was, Mer thought, a lot like having a plate of food without a mouth to eat it.

The wretched quarterly. She looked sideways at the untidy hill of fabric piled on the stool beside the hearth. "I'll have the dress finished tonight."

"I wonder who you'll allow yourself to dance with."

She shrugged, popping a carrot into her mouth. "The usual rafter of turkeys."

"Do they include the neighbor's son?"

She swallowed tightly. Why did their conversations lately always creep back to the neighbor's son? At least Rives had not spoken the dreaded name. It would have tainted the air like a bad smell.

She tossed another glance at her brother, who had grown unnaturally still. She was about to follow his gaze when, hooting loudly, he leapt out of his chair and dove for a space to the right of the bookshelf, where a gap in the wood had made a door for the mice.

Her father, ignoring the incident, wiped his hands on his napkin and downed a mouthful of watered mead.

Mer rose. "It's gone," she told her brother, tugging gently on his arm.

"No. Nooo."

"Yes. Gone." She tugged until she realized it was useless, then she went to his side of the table, straightened his chair, seated herself on it and began eating loudly. "Come, Jan."

"Noooo."

"Your food is good. Mmm."

He ignored her and tightened himself against the wall, as if he could hear the tiny steps of the creature.

"Leave him," her father muttered. "We were having a conversation."

"About the turkeys?"

"About your future."

She set down the knife. "Must we?"

"You're twenty-one years old now. You can't spend your life minding your brother. That's not a life."

"Perhaps I should marry when you do," she retorted.

He fell silent at that.

Sighing, Mer took her plate to the hearth and scraped the leavings into a pot. "I'm sorry, that was out of line."

"Maybe," Rives said, dropping into one of the two chairs facing the fire. "Maybe not."

"It's just that I can't think of marriage without worrying about you. Jan's not as easy to care for as he once was, and he's not going to get any better."

"I can manage him. I'm stronger now."

"Strong enough to skin rabbits?" she asked dryly.

In the winter of her sixteenth year, Rives had contracted a deadly fever. His recovery had been slow. The sickness had lingered, making him weak, vulnerable to cold and dampness. Among other tasks, Mer had assumed his place at the butcher's stone, and he had not asked for it back.

He flashed her a small, wry smile. "I don't like skinning things. Your mother always did that; she was good at it."

She set the plate on her lap. "I wish I had known her."

He nodded, running a tentative finger over his cup. "Mer, you wouldn't have to skin rabbits if you married Sir—"

"Don't," she warned in a low voice, "say his name. I'd rather skin rabbits every day all day than—"

"Forget it." He leaned back into his chair and threw back the last of his mead. "Everything is grand and dramatic when we're young, but then we grow up and see people for what they really are: neither so evil, nor so good. Sir Avry is not a monster, Merisande."

***

Night beside the forest was full of activity in the isle's warm season. Mer, dragged awake by the sounds of animals gnawing on what the rats had left behind, flicked a doubtful eye at her brother's bed. The straw mattress, indented where his body usually lay, was bare, the sheets missing altogether. "Shocking," she muttered and padded down the short hallway to the sitting room.

Jan lay in an awkward knot beside the bookshelf, his closed, sleeping eyes not far from the mouse hole. Mer set down her candle and peered curiously into it. There did not seem enough space for a body to crawl, and yet the tiny creatures came and went without a sound. They might even crawl on Jan while he slept, find something to eat in his grubby pockets. He would not waken.

Grinning tiredly, she left him in peace and returned to her bed.

***

Sir Avry is not a monster.

The irksome words followed her like an unwanted companion into the brilliance of the new day.

The isle of Aure was at its peak of beauty in June. The new leaves shone; the sloping fields reeled with color. The land itself was overwhelmed by an immensity of sky, so deep an azure that Mer, lying on her back in the grass, thought she could picture the ocean.

"Buuuul," Jan cooed happily behind her, excited to see the neighbor's bull.

In her twelfth year, Mer, charged for the first time with taking care of her brother, had dragged him off to Lord Gille d'Avrance's farm.

Crossing the cart road, they had stepped into an open, treeless space thick with meadow flowers. Gradually, two fences came into view. On the east side ran the dry stone wall that separated Lord Gille's property from Lord Piercy d'Eleuthère's. On the south ran the sturdy wooden fence that held Gille's bull. Mer halted at the bull's fence and stood without moving. The world around her faded; even her brother's exclamations passed, like the sighs of the wind. The massive red-brown body approached her, filling her vision. It lifted a dusty hoof, scraped. Then it charged. Mer tripped over her feet trying to get away, but her brother remained fixed to the fence. He did not make a sound until the bull pulled up short in front of him.

"Nooooo," he cried to its angry eyes and enormous horns. "No, no, no, nooooo."

But the fence held fast, so they went back again, and again and again.

Merisande loved to lie on her back in the meadow grass, twining flowers into wreaths for her hair. It was an artifact from her childhood, but she still did it, and Jan remained as obsessed as ever with the bull.

Sir Avry is not a monster.

Groaning, she turned over. Finally, she rose and walked listlessly to the stone border. The fence, made to keep sheep from wandering too far, was little more than a few lines of dry stone painted by colorful lichen. She leaned her weight on it, feeling a stone shift under her. Her eyes drifted over the rolling green pasture. Lord Piercy's land thinned here like a bolt of fabric pinched at its center; on one side lay the stone border, on the other the steep drop of the gorge. Sheep grazed here and there in the pasture between the fence and the gorge, ewes braying to their young ones, the lambs responding with their own child-like cries. It was a peaceful scene, pastoral. It had not always been thus.

It was here, nine years earlier, that her brother had been savagely beaten.

She had been lying on the ground braiding wildflowers. After a time she grew sleepy, listening to the long grass moving beside her ear and to the wind shaking the branches in the old oak just over the border fence. The sun dipped under thick white clouds. Her wreath fell forward a little, shading her eyes. She drifted into some pleasant dream.

Screaming, loud and desperate, tore her awake.

Her gaze went first to the bull, but it was grazing some distance away.

"Noooo," her brother cried again, his voice drenched with pain.

Mer turned toward the sound and froze, astonished at the scene that met her eyes. Her brother was up the tree, and the d'Eleuthère boys were poking him with long, pointed sticks. Mer had only seen the boys once, at a supper hosted by her aunt. They had seemed well-mannered and quiet then, not at all capable of violence.

The d'Eleuthères were third in the line of houses, and they were immensely wealthy. But unlike other lords, Piercy used his wealth not to increase his comforts but to increase his fortunes. The man had become a merchant of sorts. But the unexpected death of his only daughter had put a damper on his plans. Lady Belle d'Eleuthère had taken to her bed and never come out of it. The boys were left to their own devices.

Blaise, in his sixteenth year, was already taller than most men; his brother, Avry, younger by three, looked tiny beside him.

By the time Mer reached the fence, Jan had been poked out of the tree and onto the ground. He lay curled in a ball with his arms around his head.

"Say your name!" Blaise shouted, kicking him savagely. "Say it, worm!"

"Say it!" echoed his brother, Avry.

Jan writhed and howled. The awful sounds should have made them feel sorry, but instead they only kicked him harder. Blood, thick and dark, broke from a wound on his head; a stain formed under the front of his tunic.

"Stupid worm!" Blaise cried, as if the blood had been an angry retort.

Mer, trying not to be seen, lowered herself to the ground and gripped a rock with trembling hands. The distance seemed far, perhaps more than twenty feet, but there were two targets. Surely, she reasoned as she pulled back her arm, she would hit one of them.

But the rock hit neither target; instead it skidded off Jan's temple, rendering him unconscious. A terrible silence fell. The older boy stared at the rock. His head rose, so slowly that it reminded Merisande of the bull pawing the ground.

"Idiot!" he shouted when his eyes found hers. "You're as stupid as your wormy brother!" He raised his foot, Mer imagined to kick Jan again, but instead he rolled him toward the stone fence, once, twice, three times. "He's so fat!" Blaise exclaimed gleefully to no one in particular. "A stupid, fat worm." He flicked a glance at Mer. "Come and get him if you can."

Heart crashing in her throat, Mer stepped over the fence. She did not look up once, even when Blaise exploded with raucous, jeering laughter, but all her attention was focused on dragging her bleeding, unconscious brother over the fence. Rocks shifted and began to slide. At last an entire section of the fence collapsed, making it possible for her to push and pull Jan over to the other side. She collapsed, her face wet with sweat and tears. The wreath lay in tatters on the ground.

Blaise barked at his brother to pick up the fallen rocks, and behind her came the sound of the fence being mended.

Cautiously, Mer rose. Her hair, loosed from its braid, fell in long dark strands around her face and shoulders. She turned. Avry, standing across the fence from her, paused. His hands leaned on the rock that he had just set down. They stood for a moment in silence. Expression flickered into his face, but Mer hardly noticed it. She had become fixed on the color of his eyes. They were so light a brown that they appeared yellow, a hateful color, like wolf's eyes. Her breathing quickened, and her lips drew back from her teeth. The fear was gone, stripped away to leave only the anger that lay beneath it. The emotion surged to a height she had never experienced before. It coursed through her veins like liquid fire.

And then Jan moaned.

Only that—the sudden, pitiful wakening of her brother—kept her from doing she knew not what.

The boys never apologized.

A year later, Blaise was sent to the city for schooling. Only then did Merisande feel it was safe to return to the field.
CHAPTER 3

Mer let the fabric rest for a moment on her lap. For the past hour she had been struggling to make yellow flowers appear on the hem of her gown. Her aunt, seated across from her, flashed a sympathetic smile. It was a familiar scene. The fire blazing beside them—always, even in summer—flicking light over their small bone needles, the drift of her father's voice as he spoke to his brother in the other room, Lisette's quiet, pleasant conversation. But for the sewing Mer would have been completely content.

"Let me look at it, dear," she offered.

Mer gratefully passed it to her and watched the plump, tapered fingers turn the fabric this way and that. Pulling the needle through a few times, she tied it off and handed it back to Mer.

"It was a small thing," her aunt assured her.

They were always small things, easily fixable. Mer raised a brow but chose not to remind Lisette of her poor sewing skills.

Though they were different in almost every way, there were few people Mer liked better than the short, slightly plump figure that sat across from her. She was to start with the only person of noble birth Mer knew who always managed to be entirely herself. Mer had reasoned this through many times: Lisette did not have strong opinions; she disliked controversy; she looked for the good in people, and in doing so she avoided the tendency that other ladies had toward harmful gossip. Though she enjoyed the pleasant small talk that fluttered around the tables of the gentry like prettily painted butterflies, she was never dull, but interesting, articulate. She woke this way, went to bed this way, and Mer was sure that had she been forced into a life of hardship, she would have clung onto the same tenaciously lighthearted spirit that characterized her as a lady.

She was always herself because she did not need to be anyone else.

Mer leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. "Tell me about the ocean," she said.

It was a small joke between them. Neither had ventured to the cliffs to see the open ocean, but because her aunt had spoken to someone who had, Lisette considered herself an expert on the subject.

Since the inhabitants of Aure lived inland, the ocean seemed a nebulous thing. Though surrounded by it, they rarely saw it. Yet it was always on the edge of their thoughts; it touched their dreams, and sometimes they imagined they could hear it, like a distant, sighing wind.

"The ocean is deep and dark," Lisette began, as if reciting a poem. "And it's always moving."

"How does it move?"

"Like a steady pulsing, the waves building and peaking, and when they reach the shore, breaking."

"How do they look when they're breaking?"

"Like someone who curls in as they dive, but instead of diving into water, they dive into land, and they smash themselves onto it in a fury of white foam."

"White like clouds?" Mer imagined. Or white like the water that rushed at the bottom of the gorge?

"A little," her aunt mused. "Except that clouds are not salty."

The word "Mer" meant ocean, Lisette had explained twelve years earlier, when like a gift she had called her niece by that name. You are like the ocean, she commented, and Merisande wondered, Is that because I'm always moving, breaking and furious? Her aunt laughed. No. You're like the ocean because you allow no one to see into you, they can only see your surface. It was the nearest thing to an insult her aunt had ever uttered. An anomalous comment. And Mer had defined herself by it forever after. It had helped her become the lady that her aunt wanted her to be.

This is my surface, thought Merisande as she learned to walk a different way, to reach for a thing she had dropped without bending too far. This is how I appear to be.

Her aunt rewarded her by clothing her in expensive fabrics and dainty shoes, by stocking Rives' house with cooking utensils, dishes, and cutlery, and fine feather pillows for both of them. Many of these things were worn from use, but twice a year a servant from Barret d'Ivry's estate always came with a package of fabric. The color was usually some variant of green. Your eyes are a very dark green, she explained once to Mer, who had not been aware of it.

Finished her sewing, Mer shed her kirtle and shrugged on the floor-length fine woolen gown. The neckline fell just under her collarbone. She had edged it with rabbit, an orangey-brown that contrasted well with the fabric's deep green. The embroidered sleeves fell nearly to the ends of her fingers.

She lifted her arms to allow her aunt to latch the wide, braided belt; it rested just under her breast.

"Just the right amount of flesh to cover the bones," Lisette said as she stepped back to view the gown. She smiled dotingly at Mer while her niece counted in her head: one, two, three, four... "Oh," Lisette sighed, exactly, as always, on five, "but I suppose you must."

Mer touched the ring-shaped stone that hung at her neck. It had become like a limb over the years, a piece of the past that had grown into her.

"At least you wear my silver chain." Lisette's small mouth twitched open and then closed with a firmness that indicated the subject was closed. "Have you practiced your steps?"

"Some. Enough to get by."

"Your 'getting by' is better than most people's best."

Mer shrugged. "Some say I move strangely."

"Style," her aunt muttered.

"And miss steps."

"The fault of a misplaced note."

"And am too choosy about my partners."

"You have the right to be choosy."

Mer, smiling impulsively, bent to kiss the plump cheek.

***

The sun was still a finger from the horizon when the first of the carriages began their creeping way up the hill. Rose Hall, named for the twelve roses entwining the twelve pillars that held up the great porch, rested like a brilliantly lit caterpillar on the crest of the hill. Like most buildings in Aure, it had been fashioned with white stone at its base, wood blackened with bitumen on top. The style had been introduced three centuries ago, shortly after the Annais settled on the isle. Before they could build, the settlers had to clear away the charred remains of a city that had once flourished there. Its inhabitants had left behind everything but their bones. The fire-blackened ruins, standing in contrast against the isle's plentiful white stone, had made a lasting impression, like an image burned into the eyes by light. Aure had been named for that contrast.

Merisande arrived late. She felt the moment when the carriage turned, then she opened the curtains to watch the sun drift like flame over the road that led up to the hall.

"Lady Merisande d'Ivry," the doorman announced as she swept through the hall's enormous door.

Upon entering, one received an impression of gold—golden threads winding through tapestries, golden light falling warmly from golden sconces, a golden hammer-beamed ceiling.

Fortunately, no one bothered to look her way. She scooped a glass of wine off a servant's tray and stood in a corner to observe.

Though attendance was restricted to those older than fifteen, there were still well over one hundred young men and women in the building. The youths of the upper houses were easy to recognize. The young women of Audemar and Corbet were ostentatious, with trains so long they were constantly being trampled on, and hair pieces so elaborate that some contained stuffed birds. They danced rarely, preferring instead to walk back and forth while swinging their heavily swathed arms. The men of these same houses, though not quite so showy, were just as easy to spot. They liked to collect in the corners like lint, chattering endlessly about old wars and news from the continent. Mer found them tiresome and predictable. At best amusing, at worst, offensive.

"Merisande!"

Her mouth was smiling even before she caught sight of her stocky cousin. She held out her hand and let him bring it to his lips in the courtly manner.

"I nearly hugged you," she admitted, laughing. "Imagine how that would have looked."

Thierry shrugged away the impropriety.

"So, how is life in the city?"

His nose wrinkled. "Terrible. The place stinks of fish and horse droppings, and it's so crowded that when you aren't stepping on someone's toes, you're stepping on stray cats. I wish I could've stayed home and had my father teach me, the way Rives taught you."

It was the custom in Aure for the oldest to be sent away for schooling. Thierry d'Ivry had spent his childhood dreading it. He loved hawking more than anything and felt the absence of his birds more acutely than the absence of his family. Merisande had spent countless hours by the cages watching him demonstrate the various methods of training. The tricks. She could almost smell the place now, so strong was the memory.

"My father is a good teacher," she admitted.

He made a noncommittal sound, his eyes straying to the door. "Lord Blaise and—"

"Sir Avry d'Eleuthère," finished the doorman.

The sounds of chatter broke for an instant. Merisande lifted her glass and sipped.

As brothers, Lord Blaise and Sir Avry made for an interesting contrast. The older was enormous, a giant without exaggeration. He towered over every head in the room. But his size made him awkward. He seemed to creak as he walked, his belly protruding from his tunic, his great arms struggling as they swayed not to knock anything over. His brother, while taller than most, appeared tiny beside him.

Sir Avry was as graceful as his brother was clumsy, long-boned, straight-backed; he moved with what his arms instructors had termed "a fortunate feline agility" (Or so his father had bragged to Rives). His dark, thickly waving hair was clasped in a warrior's tail at the back of his neck; even at its smoothest it somehow appeared untidy. That he wore the knight's leather instead of his formalwear conveyed a simple but clear message: he considered the knighthood more important than his noble birth. Mer thought the choice presumptuous. This was the quarterly dance. Had Thierry dressed in his school attire, he would not have been received with the same honor.

She said as much to her cousin, who only laughed at her.

"I'm hungry," he declared. "Do you want anything?"

She shook her head and watched him wend his way to the food stands. Mer set down her empty glass; her hand rested for a moment on the table, then, gathering breath, she turned reluctantly and met the amber eyes that regarded her from across the bustling, oblivious crowd.

He had lost his subtlety over the years, along with any normal social interest, not that she considered herself very sociable, but at least she allowed herself to dance; Sir Avry would only dance with her, which meant that he never danced at all, for she never gave him the opportunity.

A stranger, looking on from the outside, might have concluded that they were unacquainted. But this was far from the truth. Like a merciful patron, Lord Piercy d'Eleuthère had taken an interest in Rives almost from the time they became neighbors. Over the years, Merisande and Avry had often found themselves seated across from one another. He had always been polite at those times, gracious, polished.

In fact, he had only erred once, in her memory...

Lord Piercy's dining hall had been a cold and cavernous space. The walls were dark, damp stone, the ceiling so high that it was obscured by the haze of smoke that crept in from the black maw of a hearth in the far wall. Candlesticks stood in an untidy line down the length of the table. Whether it was by chance or design, Mer was seated across from Avry, who was then in his fifteenth year. He was habitually silent, even morose, his long fingers picking idly at his food. His eyes, hidden behind an untidy fall of hair, seemed to watch her even when his head was lowered.

As always, their fathers were engrossed in conversation, Lord Piercy's voice rising periodically to fill the hall like a peal of thunder. Mer was unsurprised when Avry spoke to her, but for a time she struggled to understand his words.

"If you don't mind me asking," he said, "how do you normally eat?"

She looked at him blankly a moment, and then her face flushed crimson. She lifted her water cup, hiding behind it while she searched for a suitable response. None came.

"I don't answer rude questions," she said through tight lips.

"I didn't mean to be rude," he retorted, his eyes pinning hers with their arrogant directness.

He was still hoping for an answer. She popped a piece of chicken in her mouth and chewed.

"I was merely being sincere," he went on. "I thought you'd appreciate sincerity."

"Sincere or not, the question was offensive."

"How so?"

"For what it implied."

They argued back and forth in low tones, their food going untouched, the argument turning so vague that no one listening could have discerned what it was really about. But she was left that evening with the dark suspicion that the point of his inquiry was not to find out how she "normally" ate, but who she normally was.

And that he would never discover.

The minstrel's gallery, arranged on a raised platform at the far end of the hall, had signaled with a single horn call that the first dance was approaching. Mer left her corner to join one of the four circles before it grew too large. The Branle des Chevaux was always first, and Mer liked it best. Though too rustic to attract those of the upper houses, its simplicity and speed encouraged those who did not dance well and made them feel safe.

Those in the circle clasped hands and bowed.

The music began with a slow beat, the stringed instruments playing their stately tune alone. The circle, like a turning wheel, moved first right and then left. Those who knew the skipping steps did them, and hands parted to clap; everyone turned and joined hands again. And now the flutes struck up, and the drums. The circle moved faster, first right and then left, and the dancers clapped faster before turning. Faster and faster the music sped. Mer's feet darted under her skirts, and her braid thumped rhythmically against her back. She laughed as she danced, her eyes on her cousin's. At last, just when some in the circle were beginning to look clumsy, the music wound down. The flutes twirled off a single, soft note. Everyone bowed.

"The gallery's merciless tonight," commented Thierry as she passed him on the way to the shield table.

The other women had arrived there first. Mer waited behind them, watching with amusement as they flipped through their stacks of names. Their faces betrayed an array of emotions, from ecstasy to absolute dejection.

The shield table represented everything that was cruel about the gentry. The twelve shields, representing the twelve houses of Aure, were arranged in a line down its length. Beneath the shields were long, shallow boxes; these contained still smaller boxes, each bearing the name of a young woman on its lid. When Mer first encountered the spread, she had imagined a row of tiny, cross-legged girls sitting in their boxes, crying out as loud as they could, "Pick me!" Sadly, some only ever received cards from their brothers and cousins.

She snatched her name out of the spacious Ivry box and flipped through the cards. Each held the name of a young man written by his own hand. Some made a point of dancing with a girl from each house, and that, Mer guessed, was the reason why she had so many cards.

The system worked like this: each card represented one dance with one person. At the beginning of each dance, the men would stand in file according to the rank of their houses. The women likewise walked down the line according to rank; those from the first house chose first, those from the second chose after, and so on down the long line of houses.

It should have been predictable; often it was not. Women from the lower houses scorned men from the upper ones, and since the women of Audamar and Corbet refused to dance at all, this left those men without a partner. And so the system collapsed on itself.

There were a few exceptions to the rules. One was the blue card.

If a man gave a woman his blue card, it meant that he had chosen to dance only with her. She could, as Mer had done for the past four years, decide not to dance with him, but that was discouraged. After all, the woman was not bound by his card to dance only with him. She could dance with as many in her stack as she wished.

But Sir Avry, Mer reasoned as she slipped his blue card back in her box, knew by now that she was not going to choose him.

Apparently he disliked dancing.

"My Lady."

Merisande raised her head. The voice, converging at that moment with a hammer of drum beats—the signal that the second dance was approaching—might have been a disembodied echo. She turned to look behind her and went still.

Sir Avry stood waiting with an upraised hand.

A silence fell. The drums continued their steady beat, but everyone near her had paused to stare at the rare scene.

It was another exception to the rule. A man, rejected by a woman of a house lower than his own, could request a dance by raising his outstretched palm. Though permissible, it was rarely done. After all, if the woman had rejected his card, why press the issue? Mer wondered that herself as she considered the knight's waiting eyes; they seemed expressionless, neither asking nor demanding.

What did he wish to gain from this? She hoped he was not planning something rash. Could he be rash? He seemed to her remote, calculating.

"It's only a dance," he reminded her, as if he had been privy to her thoughts.

Mer arranged her mouth into a smile and gave him her hand. They joined the formation of dancers, who watched them with undisguised curiosity.

He could not have chosen a better dance. It was lengthy, as far as dances went, and challenging enough to frighten most off the floor. After the first few movements, Mer felt the slow but indisputable reality creep over her: Sir Avry was an absurdly good dancer. Steady, confident, utterly exact; he danced like someone who had been born to it. This should have intimidated her. Somehow, it did not.

It was possible, she decided, as the steady, thudding drumbeat began to change in her and become something else—a heartbeat, a rhythmically crashing wave—to forget who it was she was dancing with. By now her partner would have distracted her either by speaking or misstepping. But Sir Avry remained silent, and as the dance progressed, she began to imagine that he was not a person at all but music that had changed itself into physical form. Something impersonal, intangible. A force that pulled her apart and shaped her to its rhythm. She did not see his face, only a blur of shadow and light, a brush of fabric, an arm moving to intercept hers.

When it ended, she almost forgot to bow.

Sir Avry bowed over her hand. "You dance well, Lady," he said simply and turned away.

Mer stared at his back, unable to formulate a single coherent thought. It seemed as if something bright and glittering had crested over her, only to disappear.

The men were arranging themselves once more along the wall. The musicians scattered notes around as they prepared for the next song.

Mer walked numbly to the shield table and rested her hands on it. Her eyes flicked to her card box; the blue sat inside it like a small, blinking light. She dragged her finger over the top of it. Three months until the next quarterly. Three months until she could dance like that again.

Groaning, she snatched his card from the box and walked to the line.

Sir Avry stood near the front; he did not look at her. She wondered if he had watched her pull his card from the stack. That would have made him smile, a private, gloating thing that he had probably wiped away as soon as he saw her approach him. It doesn't matter, she told herself firmly. She only wanted the music, the steady beat of the drum. Avry was inconsequential; an implement, a prop.

Halting in front of him, she raised her palm; his blue card rested on it. He pocketed it with a single, smooth motion of his hand.

"You dance well," she said as they joined the line of dancers, giving his words back to him.

He answered her with a gracious smile. She welcomed his silence. It changed him once more into something impersonal, the force that allowed her to dance like she had never done before.

In a short time she felt the wave cresting again: a mix of motion and sound, like air and water gathering, rising together, becoming something white and glittering. The drums thundered it, the flutes wailed it like wind. Mer, turning herself under Avry's arm, caught his eyes without meaning to; they were strangely raw. Was he weary? How could he be weary?

After eight more dances it became clear that he was not. If anything, his dancing had grown more vigorous, as if he had been cautious before. Mer, as absorbed as she was in the music, began to observe a host of small, unimportant details. His hands were callused, his right hand more than his left. His arms were sturdy; they did not move unless he allowed them to. He did not always follow the steps but changed them without notice, allowing her enough space to watch and follow. Everything he did was calculated, almost to an intuitive degree.

They had just begun the ninth dance, a slow, thudding, repetitive song with steps as dull as its beat, when he finally spoke.

"The moon is full tonight," he said to the enormous windows that stretched from the ceiling to the upper fringes of the tapestries.

Mer followed his gaze, saw the round, bright face, and nodded.

"Do you like the moon?"

She closed her mouth over a sudden hiccup of laughter.

He noticed it anyway and smiled—a quick, boyish thing that lit up his somber face. "It's not an unusual question," he said. "For instance, people say they like the sun."

"True. Perhaps I like both."

"Perhaps?"

"I'm not sure. I've never compared them."

"That's honest," he decided, and she shook her head.

"I am," she replied, "anything but honest."

He fell silent then, turning her behind him. Perhaps he did not believe her. Or perhaps he thought it amusing that she had been honest about being dishonest.

"I prefer the moon," he said, cutting into her confused thoughts. "It sees through darkness, and I think that's a greater challenge."

They broke away to the sound of clapping. They had been watched all night, a point that Mer had managed to ignore until Avry had distracted her with his meaningless chatter. She met his eyes as he bowed over her hand, and she offered him what was likely the first sincere smile she had ever flung in his direction. "Thank you, that was wonderful."

"Are you—?"

"I should. It's a long ride back home." Another little smile came and went on her lips. She wished to say something more, but it was more a feeling than something that could be put into words. She stretched her arms, trying to dispel the floating sensation in her limbs.

"My thanks then," he said briefly, "for the new experience."

Her brows lifted. "You've never danced?" She had never seen him dance.

"I have, but not like that."

Like what? "How do you normally dance?"

His lips twitched. Leaning over her shoulder, he murmured, "Should I answer such a rude question?"

Mer's jaw tightened, but as usual she could think of no fitting response.

His face had sobered again. He reached out and grazed her finger. "Let us be friends," he begged.

Friends. She inclined her head, not consenting, but not refusing either. Turning on her heel, she walked away.
CHAPTER 4

A shaft of sunlight fell across Mer's eyelids. She sighed and rolled over, glimpsed Jan's empty bed, and sat straight up in the sheets. The room was draped in silence, a stillness so deep that she felt like she was still dreaming.

How long had her father let her sleep? No matter. She dressed quickly, throwing a handful of water from the basin onto her face to wake her up. Her chin was still dripping when she closed the bedroom door and strode down the hall.

"Morning," she murmured as she entered the front room.

Her father was hunched over a smoking fire. He glanced at her, an unusually youthful smile tugging up the sides of his mouth. "Morning yourself. I thought I'd let you sleep a little longer."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "Why not? You seemed tired."

Her eyes moved uneasily over the room. He had not even bothered to open the shutters. "Where is Jan?"

"Somewhere out back. Crouched over a rabbit hole." The poker jangled as he plucked it from its holder and nudged the wood. "We ate last night's leftovers."

"And those were—?"

"A bird of some sort."

"Whatever it was has muddled your head. You can't leave Jan outside; he won't stay put."

Mer left him to his fire and went to search for Jan.

Outside, a gentle wind blew; it brushed against the sunlit grass, drying what was left of the dew. Mer felt oddly euphoric. She pushed her bare feet through the grass. Her arms lifted; movement, or a memory of movement, thrilled through her limbs. She wanted to linger there a while, in that place where memory was something only felt and not connected to reason.

Reason would remind her who she had danced with; reason would ask her why.

She halted, finding herself at the far side of the cottage, and called her brother's name. He could have gone anywhere: the forest, the meadow, Gille d'Avrance's farm. He was not where Rives had left him.

She went still, listening to the answering silence.

Her father met her at the front door. "He isn't there?"

"He isn't anywhere. How long since you last saw him?"

"Perhaps an hour."

"An hour!"

"He wasn't moving. It seemed like he wasn't going to move."

"He did move, or he would still be there." She drew a hand up over her face, down through her long straight hair.

"I'll get my boots on and track him."

As he spoke, her gaze wandered in the direction of Gille's farm. A line of bent grass and disturbed dew ran through the field between Rives' cottage and the cart road. "I think I know where he is," she said, and then added, "Wait here in case he comes back. I'm going off to look for him."

She followed Jan's trail past the road and into the meadow. The trail never altered but led her in a straight line toward the farm. Mer could not look up. Her heart was banging around in her chest, making her dizzy. Something was not right; she could sense it, like a thickness in the air. Why was it so quiet? Where were the birds? The sheep?

She began to run, wincing as the wiry weeds that hid in the grass cut across her ankles. At last the bull's fence came into view.

The gate was hanging open.

Mer halted, her hand at her mouth. A hired worker, rising over some form on the ground, bent his face toward her.

"He's alive. Are you his sister?"

Mer stumbled a little and caught herself. "Yes."

"Fortunate bastard. Nothing more than a few scratches and a bump on the head."

"What happened?" She stooped over Jan's limp body and ran a hand over his forehead, pushing aside disheveled brown hair. Her fingers stilled over a gooey lump. His right shoulder was also bleeding, the shirtsleeve torn several inches along its length. He would be in pain when he regained consciousness.

The worker strode to the gate and lifted the latch a few times. "It still works. Do you know why?"

She shook her head. Other voices were creeping into the silence, so distant that she could not make out the words.

"Because it never broke. Your brother opened the gate, you see. He loosed the bull."

Her head was still shaking. "He couldn't have."

"He did. There's no other explanation. None." He cut the air with his worn, lumpy hands.

Mer glanced from him to the puddle of blood accumulating under her brother's arm. Gathering his shirt into her hands, she tore off a strip and began binding the wound. The blood ran fast; she would need to tie it tighter. "Where is the bull?"

"Look up."

Mer followed the direction of his arm and went still. An entire section of the stone fence had caved in; the bull stood beyond it, well inside Lord Piercy's property. Two men held it by ropes; others wandered aimlessly over the field, their heads bent in the direction of the gorge. One turned and looked at her, or at least he seemed to; an instant later his attention shifted to a man racing across the field toward him, a grappling hook in hand.

The worker cleared his throat. "Those are Lord Piercy's men trying to salvage the sheep." He leaned a bony knee on the stone fence. "Some must have fallen onto the river bank. They'll be dead, of course. Long dead. They must've been in a huddle when the bull charged."

Mer unwrapped the bloodied cloth, tore off another strip, and began rewrapping the wound. She stared at it a long time when she had finished. The words "not tight enough" kept repeating in her mind, as if words alone could calm her raging thoughts. A tear tracked down her face; she swept it away with the back of her hand.

The man knelt beside her. "I can help you carry him back."

"How many?" she mumbled.

"How many died? Hard to say. Could be as many as two dozen."

Two dozen. She stopped sobbing and tried to stand. The man held her arms.

"Steady," he murmured, as if she were a frightened horse.

"I'm—"

"Just wait a moment or two. You look pale."

"I'm fine!" She loosed a shaking breath and caught the man's shirtsleeve. "Help me carry him back."

***

They hauled Jan past his stunned father, through the hallway to his rumpled bed. The bleeding seemed to have let up. Mer hurried to the kitchen to find some cloths. She met Rives on the way back. His eyes shot her a question.

"He'll be fine," she promised. "This is the least of it."

Jan woke shortly thereafter, his cries so terrible that the worker fled from the room. Mer thanked him as they passed each other in the hallway. "Speak to Rives," she called back.

Half the morning seemed to have passed before she heard her father's steps again in the hallway. She had unwrapped Jan's bandages, cleaned his wounds with cool water, and then rewrapped them while he swayed and moaned, his face as twisted as she imagined the bull's must have been when it had fled from its prison to charge across the field. At last he settled down and slept.

The floor creaked. Mer knew the board; it ran just under her door.

"It was my fault," she said, running a tired hand over her forehead. "I introduced him to the bull. I encouraged his obsession."

She waited for a response; none came. The board creaked again as the foot lifted off it. He would probably take himself to the hearth and drop into his favorite chair.

Sighing, she perched on her bed and watched sunlight creep in slanting lines over Jan's face. Thoughts of the past mingled with fears for the future. Who would be held accountable for the sheep? Jan was a force of nature: dumb and fearless, as innocent as rain. He could not be held responsible for his actions, no more than the bull could.

But the bull had been secured, and Jan had not.

She leaned her head on the window sill. Though she had slept through the night, the morning's stresses weighed down her eyes, and she slipped into a troubled sleep.

Dreaming, she found herself in a thick mist, walking along the rim of a murky pool. It seemed imperative that she keep to the rim, but a sound like the beating of her own heart made her tremble. She wavered a moment, not sure where her next step would land...

Pounding woke her. She opened the shutters wider; hoofbeats, low and distant, thudded into the soil. They merged after a while into the pattering of rain.

The house grew very still. Mer rose and went quietly to the sitting room. Her father was where she thought he would be. His face, though, was as she had never seen it. Barely suppressed anger flickered like dry lightning around its edges. Mer, feeling again the pounding of her heart, lowered herself carefully into the chair beside him. She looked from his face to the fire. A letter had been pitched into the iron grate; heat had darkened its fine corners. In another moment it would burst into flame. Mer reached for it.

Her father stopped her hand. "Leave it," he said harshly.

"What is it?"

"Just leave it. Let us have this moment together."

Ignoring him, Mer snatched up the letter and opened it over her leg. It was written in a beautiful hand, on very expensive paper.

"It's congenial," he muttered, "considering the content."

Mer read it through quickly. It seemed phrased to confuse, beginning with a flowery description of the morning's events and an exuberant ramble into philosophy; compassion was touched on next, and finally what was clearly the object. The words, written in the same script as the sentences before them, slid themselves unexpectedly into her middle like a well-sharpened blade: Your daughter's hand would be payment enough. I write this on behalf of my younger son, who holds a special regard for her in his heart.

The letter dropped from her fingers. Mer crouched, frozen, the heat from the fire doing nothing to warm the cold that had crept in and was poised to remain forever. She cleared her throat. "So then, I'm to be sold in exchange for twenty sheep." Her father's mouth twitched, but nothing came out. She rose and leaned her frozen self on the edge of the mantle. "This isn't the continent!"

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't want this for you, to be forced to marry someone you dislike. No one wants that for their daughter."

"Father..." She sank down on her knees before him.

He grasped her wrist. "Don't—"

"It's true that we don't have the coin, but if you could persuade your brother—"

"Impossible." The word came so fast that Mer knew he had already considered it. "My brother wants to see you married. He's been hounding me about it for years. He wouldn't call this letter lenient; he would call it a gift."

She slid a little from his hold. "But it was an accident."

"It doesn't matter. It happened."

"But could it have really hurt Lord Piercy any? The man has hundreds of sheep. He loses some every year."

Rives began to speak, then lifted his hands in a sour shrug. "That's true enough. And in other circumstances an apology would have sufficed—"

"Then—"

"Mer," he leaned forward until their faces were very close, "this isn't about twenty sheep; it's about a father wanting to please his son. Money wouldn't solve the problem, not in the long run."

"Then what would?"

The lines around his eyes stiffened, like deep cuts in stone. "You marrying his son. That would solve the problem."

"Of course it would. For everyone but me."

"Mer—"

"You know what Avry really needs?" she said, spitting the name like a spark. "He needs to learn that not everyone gets what they want."

"The Eleuthères do."

"But—"

"I know that family, Mer. They are some of the most stubborn people on the island. If that boy wants you, he won't stop until he gets his wish."

Behind her, the fire crackled and spurted back to life. Mer drew away from him, her hands tightening into fists.

"Stubbornness isn't bad in itself," he went on more calmly. "And there are other things, good things to be said of them."

"I think," she said grimly, rising to her feet, "that they have yet to learn what stubbornness is."

***

Mer returned to her bed. Without flicking a glance at her brother, she collapsed in a tearful mess on her pillow. She had put on a brave face for her father, but on the inside she felt as dry as ash.

She had never given much thought to her future. Life for her had resembled a field of fireflies, the tiny, random lights flashing and then dying, only to be replaced after a space of darkness by others. She had enjoyed the chaos; even Jan's occasional mishaps had added to the spell of her days. Marriage, she expected, would happen the same way it had to her father: she would meet someone—a field worker, or one of her uncle's servants—and they would instantly understand one another. Through time and hard work they would build their lives, and no one would wonder if they were happy, because no one would care. Foolish? Perhaps. But it had been done time and again throughout the centuries, and it had not always ended in tragedy.

Tragedy was being sold for twenty sheep, and to a man she despised.

As her thoughts returned to Avry, the events of the previous evening drifted back, wispy like some strange twilight, and she felt for an instant the incongruity of the letter placed next to his behavior that evening. Let us be friends.

The feeling quickly faded, and her father's words crowded in. If that boy wants you, he won't stop until he gets his wish.

What sort of man would act that way? Someone who did not care about others' feelings, a self-gratifying individual, a thief. She moaned, pushing her face deeper into the pillow. How could she be happy with such a man? She could already see herself changed. A depressed, lifeless creature, like the one she had met in the cave that day. Like Gandel.

At the memory, her hand went to her throat. She unlatched the chain and drew off the medallion, holding it like a bird between her palms. If you are ever in danger.

"Danger" was such a nebulous word. It held so many meanings. If you meant her life, then she was certainly in danger. A ruined life was no laughing matter.

She tapped her fingers against her mouth. Rives would not allow her to refuse Sir Avry. Doing so would insult Lord Piercy, both his generosity and his pride. Such an act would outrage her uncle, and all the helpful crumbs Lisette had thrown to them over the years would cease. They would be alone, truly alone.

But if Mer went away...

Rives would be free from blame, an object of pity rather than censure. Under such circumstances, Piercy would have no choice but to extend the compassion that he had expounded upon so elegantly in his letter.

Her fist clenched around the stone.

It responds to my name.

She had not uttered that name in nine years. Did the fae grow like humans did, in human time?

She had so many questions; they had not waned through the years that she had held her back to the east but waited. It was time to turn.

Simply say it into the stone, and I will come to you.

She spoke the name.

***

Light, as small as a shard of glass flecked by sunlight, bloomed inside the curve of the stone. The medallion changed from opaque to clear, as if it had shed an eyelid. Mer latched the shutters with trembling hands and dragged a blanket over her head. The light bloomed in her palm like an opening flower, then just as it grew too bright to look at, it started flashing.

She pressed the stone against her damp cheek. Real. In recent years she had begun to wonder if she had embellished her encounter with Gandel, swallowed some bad mushrooms and imagined his wings and fanciful stories. But the stone flashed, just as it had on that day long ago.

It had all been real.

Would Gandel keep his promise and meet her? The question set her heart racing, and she struggled to draw breath. The enormity of what she had done—of what she was about to do—settled like a weight in her belly. Accept it, she told herself coldly. It was the only way.

She threw off the covers, slipped the medallion back on its chain, and secured it around her neck. The silence told her that her father had not moved from his chair. He would hear her leave the room. The window then. But first...

She opened drawers until she found the stationary Lisette had given her. Paper was expensive, and Mer had reused it several times. Old fragments of poems, quotes from her father's scrolls, a sentence that had wakened her from sleep—all had been shuffled together into a thicket of words so small they were hardly legible. She turned the pages until she spotted a space large enough for a few sentences, affixed a nib to her quill, opened the ink and blotter...

Father, she wrote. And as if the word had been a spell to make tears, they instantly clouded her eyes. I am going away, and it grieves me to say that I may not see you again. Circumstances have forced me to make a decision I never thought I would have to make. She paused, leaning her wrists against her eyes. It seemed like she was walking along the rim of the dream pool, poised on its edge. Her pen hovered, the drip gathering at the nib; she let it fall into the inkpot. I hope that in time you will know in your heart that I am safe and well. Please do not look for me. I love you, always. She signed her name hastily and unfastened the nib; the plume she left sitting on the desk, its sharp end pointed toward the words she wanted him to see.

Mer moved quickly then, her hands like ice. She snatched her rucksack, threw in a few sticks of dried meat, a flask she could fill with water, a tinderbox, scarcely used, and a change of clothes. A soft sound made her remember Jan, who still lay curled up on his bed.

She touched his arm. "You'll be all right," she whispered, praying it were true. Rives had assured her that he could manage him. Perhaps he would improve in her absence.

I'll be back, she thought with desperate certainty. In a year or two, when all this has blown over and Avry has moved on to someone else.

The shutters creaked. A warm breeze smelling of rain and fresh earth touched her cheek. Mer followed it out the window and into the wood.
CHAPTER 5

Sir Avry d'Eleuthère turned off the cart road, dismounted his tired horse, and guided it up the cobbled path leading to his parents' estate. His squire strode silently beside him, horse in tow. Their conversation had been scant during the long trip back from the city, and Avry's mind, still numb from the evening before, had repeatedly drifted off topic.

He spent very little time with his family now but made a point of returning to take supper with them every Sunday. He stretched the visits for as long as the king would allow, which was never more than a day or two.

As they neared the pillared façade, Avry tugged lightly on the reins; his squire slowed too, throwing a glance behind him.

"What is it?" the boy asked.

Avry pointed at the low wooden building next to the stables. "Some strange commotion at the slaughterhouse." He counted under his breath the carcasses that had been strung up on the gutting line. Was his father readying a table for half the nobles on the island?

Turning absently, he handed over the reins to his squire. "I'll be back in a moment. Get yourself something to eat."

The boy nodded, and Avry, not bothering to take the paved route, walked in a straight line through the muddy grass to the wizened old servant who was hunched over a water bucket, cleaning his knife. A warm breeze blew, and the ropes that held the nine sheep—some, Avry noted, hardly more than a few weeks old—creaked a little.

"What happened here?"

The butcher glanced over his shoulder. "Sir?'"

Avry's mouth opened then closed again as a man carrying a wheelbarrow swept past and unloaded his burden—a damp, dirty ewe—onto the muddy space beside the butcher.

"This is the last of them," he announced and threw a tired glance at Avry. "Did you just arrive, sir?"

"Clearly," Avry said, his usual patience faltering.

The man bent his head slightly—a gesture servants made when they saw that they had offended. "Sorry, sir, but I'm not quite myself. Every part of me is aching." He stretched his arms behind his back. There came a crunching sound, followed by a satisfied sigh.

Avry repeated his question more slowly, looking the man in the eyes.

"It was Lord Gille's bull, sir," the worker replied. "He charged the herd just while they were in a huddle. More than two dozen fell off the cliff." He gestured to the swaying line. "These are all we recovered. It took some doing, though."

"Why," Avry asked, pushing a gloved hand over his untidy hair, "was the bull loose?"

"It wasn't. The Ivry boy loosed it. The half-wit."

The knight, hearing the name "Ivry," went very still. "Has my father acted?"

"I heard he sent a message to Lord Rives late this morning. Beyond that..." He shrugged. "Ask him."

"I will." He turned and said absently, out of habit, "Thank you."

The house was dark and still, or perhaps it only seemed that way in comparison to the commotion at the gutting line. Avry went straight to the great room, a long, cavernous chamber at the center of the house. Pale flagstones covered the floor, and atop the flagstones were pelts of various shapes and sizes, giving the floor the appearance of a giant puzzle. The room had been forbidding to Avry as a child; now it seemed small and tired.

He paused at the door, catching a whiff of his mother's perfume. Usually the scent made him smile, knowing that she was well enough to be out of bed; now it only served to heighten his anxiety. He went to his father, who was seated as usual in one of the four high-backed chairs that encircled the hearth. Something hot was nestled between his hands; warmed mead, Avry guessed. He mumbled a greeting as Avry touched his shoulder.

Avry regarded him for a time in silence and then leaned forward, catching and holding his gaze. Though different in every way a person could be from another, their eyes were startlingly similar. Perhaps it was that—the familiarity the son had with the father's expressions—that turned Avry's suspicion into a certainty. He straightened, swallowing.

His father caught his arm. "Let it be. Let her make the decision, and then be the hero if you like. She'll appreciate that."

Avry tore his arm away, so angry that he was shaking. "Never," he said fiercely, "meddle in my affairs again! You don't have the right!"

"I—"

"Never!" The word echoed a few times off the walls. A bird, perched in a corner of one of the enormous beams that held up the ceiling, opened its wings and flew away. Avry followed it quickly out of the room.

***

Mer, her feet drenched from her trek through the wet wood, lay on her back on the cliff top, listening to the wind. The rock was dry and warm; it gave her a sense of peace, as if the cliff was an arm that had raised her into the sky away from the chaos below.

It had taken her a while to relax. She had paced all afternoon, chewing her aunt's dried meat while her gaze slid constantly from the wood behind her to the wood across the gorge. It amazed her that her father had not caught up with her yet. She had tried not to leave a trail, but the loose soil, combined with her own wet boots, had made the task impossible. Finally giving up, she had relinquished all to fate and slogged on with no attempt at stealth.

She held the stone over one eye. Light flashed through it, reminding her again and again that the choice had been made; there was no turning back. And that was well, for she did not think she could have gone through with it otherwise.

She loosed a tired sigh.

A smile, as thin as thread, breezed across her lips.

She wished she could see Avry's face when he learned that she had fled. It gave her a special thrill to know that she had thwarted his plans, that her will had been stronger than his.

The sunlight dimmed. Cool air moistened by the river ran over her skin. On a whim, she wriggled to the edge and peered down at the armor that she had not seen in seven years.

Incredibly, it had not changed, but the smooth, shiny objects lay as if they had only just fallen. She regarded them idly for a time, until the first shadows of evening fell like a hand over the river. The armor would grow cold in that darkness. But cold did not matter to the changeless.

A sound like a sail unfurling broke through her thoughts. She peered expectantly across the gorge and saw footprints but not a person.

"Lady Merisande?"

The voice came from behind her. She turned quickly, her braid snapping against her face.

A winged man stood coolly watching her. He was dressed in rich colors, the clothes fitting to the contours of his slender frame. His once colorless hair had darkened to a rich gold; twigs and leaves sprouted from it. More had tangled in the otherwise flawless column of his folded wings. His face had lost its boyishness, but not its sullenness. If anything, the look had deepened.

"How did you get here so fast?" she asked Prince Gandel.

"The sun was bright enough to follow." He ducked down, snatched her stone off the ground, and brought it to his neck, where another pulsed out the same message; after a moment, both stones grew opaque. "And it wasn't fast. You called me at noon. It's now a scant hour or two before sunset." He untied his neck chain and slid the second stone over it. Mer, seeing it returned to its owner, felt an unexpected pang of loss. "I had thought," he went on, "to meet you at the cave."

"I knew you would come this way."

"The danger—?"

"Behind me," she said quickly, noting the impatience in his voice and imitating it. "I can't stay here long. I'll be tracked."

He turned as she spoke and peered behind him, as if the danger were a monster waiting with open jaws. "What's after you?"

My doom, she thought darkly. "I can only say that my life is in danger. I can't stay here."

"You can't stay here," he repeated.

She nodded. "I must ask you to take me across."

He followed her gaze to the trees across the gorge. The Cursed Wood lay beyond them like a shadowy wall. "What will you do there?" he asked warily.

"I'll follow you to Thorsault."

His mouth slackened then grew firm again. "That," he said flatly, "I would not suggest, not in any event."

"Why?"

"I don't need to tell you why. My word should be enough." As he spoke, his head jerked roughly to the side, an involuntary twitch that he appeared not to notice.

"Gandel, this is my only option."

"No, it isn't. I could stay here with you until the danger passes."

"This danger will not pass."

"There must be places in your world where you could hide until it passes."

"There are none."

He moved impatiently, hiding another twitch behind an upraised hand. "You refuse to tell me the nature of your problem?"

"I refuse. Just as you refuse to tell me why I shouldn't go to Thorsault." She swallowed tightly. "You promised to help me, Gandel."

A painful silence fell. They stared at each other mutely. Two strangers, she thought. They might truly have met in a dream.

At last, he dropped his hand and gave an exaggerated shrug. "Fine, then. I'll do as you wish. I've made my objection known."

Relief fought with nervousness. Mer loosed a long, shaky breath. "Thank you."

He would not look her in the eyes. "We should really wait until morning," he warned.

"I can't."

"Very well. Then let's get on with it." He got down on his knees and motioned her over. "You'll have to lock your arms around my neck and your legs around my middle."

Mer approached him hesitantly. Now that it was finally happening, she found that she was terrified. "Have you...done this before?"

"No. But I was trained to fly with heavy things."

She tugged at her neck. "How heavy?"

"That depends on the fae. I can carry your weight, but not very far. It'll be more a leap than a flight."

Awkwardly, Mer squatted over his thighs, wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She noticed his sword, sheathed in an unremarkable scabbard, and shifted to avoid it. "All right," she breathed.

The prince rose to his feet. Muscles flexed under Mer's arms, and she heard the snap of wings opening to the wind. He took a few steps back and lurched forward. Mer could not see the drop behind her; perversely, she wanted to. She did finally, when they had both become airborne, but the river was nothing more than a winding black ribbon.

***

Rives was not aware that he had drifted off until he was wakened by a rapping on the door.

He had spent the afternoon and a good part of the evening doing something he had not done for a long time: thinking. He had had good intentions when he started. The list went something like this: first, decide how he could persuade his daughter to speak with Sir Avry. Rives was suspicious that Lord Piercy had written the letter without his son's knowledge. He had not shared this suspicion with Merisande, not wanting to encourage her to hope, but it would not have surprised him. Not in the least. How to respond to the lord's letter was a second item on the list. A third was what he was going to do about Jan.

Good intentions had never won a war, and Rives had fallen instead into a dreamy pool of memories about his dead wife. He had not thought of her in years, or if he had, he had not allowed himself the pleasure of lingering on the memory. Mer had grown to resemble her over the years; she had inherited her long bones and raven-black hair, her forest-green eyes. But the resemblance did not seep below the skin.

Lysse had been a practical sort of person. She could take a problem that seemed insurmountable and make it appear insignificant, rarely impulsive, never anxious; even death in the end had not seemed to frighten her. How Mer could have used her guidance.

Rives wondered, as he had more than once over the years, how differently Mer might have been raised had her mother survived. Would Lysse have allowed her to enjoy the patronage of Lisette? The ease with which Mer had learned to straddle the twin worlds of poverty and affluence worried him; she seemed comfortable in neither, and in Aure, especially among the nobility, there existed no place in between.

Don't think about what you don't have, Lysse used to say when a memory of prosperity had turned his eyes wistful. I have you, Rives had usually countered. That should be enough.

But it never was. And Rives did not want his daughter to suffer his fate of for her to be unhappy. Unhappiness was a thing to be experienced later, when years, like roots, had stretched themselves into the soil of poor choices.

The rapping continued.

Stretching out his stiff limbs, he went to the door. "A moment," he muttered, throwing back the bolt.

Sir Avry stood on his doorstep. The youth looked harried. His dark hair had almost entirely come loose from its clasp. His horse stood a little behind him, sides damp with perspiration. Bemused, Rives leaned against the door frame and waited for Avry to catch his breath.

"Lord Rives," he managed, inclining his head a little. "I assume you've read my father's letter."

"I have."

He nodded with his mouth open, gathering air and dispelling it slowly. "Have you...shared its contents with Lady Merisande?"

Rives tried to read the expression on his face. He gave up finally, shrugging. "She read it herself."

"May I speak with her?"

"You may certainly try." He held out his hand, waving him inside. Avry hesitated. Rives felt the weight of his eyes as he hastily lit a few candles and threw another log on the fire.

"You don't have to do that," Avry sighed.

Rives straightened and looked at him.

He was a striking lad, not handsome in a traditional sense, but he possessed a well-balanced face with a touch of wildness about the jaw line. The eyes, combined with the jaw, gave Rives the impression of a wolf. But with the wear of a day's journey on him, he appeared almost normal, someone with whom Mer might learn to feel comfortable.

"Why?" Rives asked lightly.

"The darkness doesn't bother me."

"Nor does it Merisande, but she's been resting in it all day."

Avry pressed his lips together. His gaze drifted surreptitiously down the hallway. "Should I return another time?"

The reluctance in his voice was so thick that Rives almost laughed. He set down the poker. "I'll wake her now."

He knocked first, as was his custom when the door was closed. Silence greeted him. He thought of calling her and decided against it. He did not want to make Avry more uncomfortable than he already was. Cautiously, he lifted the latch and went in.

His hands dropped to his sides. For an endless moment he simply stood, stunned. Both beds were empty, and the shutters hung open like a couple of loose teeth. He went to the window. Sure enough, two sets of prints trailed off in the direction of the wood. When was the last time Mer ran away? Not since before he had turned sick.

Avry's step sounded in the hallway. "Is everything all right?"

"A moment," Rives muttered. His eyes had snagged on what appeared to be a note left for him on the writing desk. The quill pointed to some words she wanted him to read. He took it to the window, where the hazy June light streaked sideways from the west.

The opening line made his breath hiss between his teeth. Father, I am going away, and it grieves me to say that I may not see you again.

He read it through slowly; once, twice. By the third time, his heart was racing. She spoke only of herself, which meant that she had not planned on bringing Jan along. Do not look for me. Why the certainty? Where had she gone?

Rives swept through the door and past the waiting knight. He tried to pull on his boots with the note still in his hands. Giving up, he flung it at Avry. "Bottom left corner," he grunted, flicking a finger at the page. Leaving him standing on the doorstep, Rives darted around to the back of the house and bent down over the prints. His finger trailed over their edges. "Dry," he muttered, pushing a damp, cold hand across his forehead. This was very bad.

Back in the house again, he snatched up a lantern and flint; he thought of the horse and grabbed the wash basin too. "I'm going after her," he said briskly as he brought the basin to a sheltering area at the side of the cottage. The horse wandered over and he secured her with a rope that always hung there.

The candles, he remembered, and ran back inside to snuff them. At last, he closed the door firmly behind him.

He turned to the knight. "Sir Avry," he snapped, hoping his voice would carry through the untidy head.

Avry started, as if he had been asleep. He found Rives' eyes; his own looked dark, troubled. "Yes. Yes, I'm coming."

***

They had not traveled long when the unmistakable step of Rives' son thudded on the damp ground.

"Jan!" Rives shouted.

The boy answered, bursting out of the trees with a wordless moan. His bandage, stained dark with dried blood, had almost fallen off his arm. Rives tidied it for him awkwardly.

"Have you seen Mer?" he asked the boy.

"Mehhh," Jan sighed. His arms, bent at the elbows, rose and fell.

A strange gesture, Rives thought. "Where is Mer?"

Jan repeated the gesture then turned and loped away.

Rives threw a glance behind him. "He's going to show us," he explained to Avry.

"Is he all right?"

Rives shrugged. "If he were in pain, we'd know it. Come."

They walked on, following the slanting shadows through the trees. Shafts of light spilled between the trunks, snagging on water droplets. Rives increased his speed to a jog, calling out words of encouragement to the loping figure ahead of them.

"Where does this trail lead?" Avry asked.

"Nowhere. Mer and I have used it through the years. I suppose we created it, too. But that was years ago."

"Used it for what?"

"Trapping and foraging, mostly."

"Mostly," Avry repeated softly.

"Mer used to spend a lot of time out here. I suppose she liked the silence."

"You never asked her why?"

Rives chuckled. "She never gave me a straight answer, so I stopped asking." Avry fell silent, and Rives wondered, listening to Avry's quiet footsteps, how well the youth knew his daughter. Like Mer, some people formed opinions of others without knowing them at all, and those opinions were at times so far removed from reality that they were only imaginings, hopes, or fears that fluttered weakly around the unchangeable face of truth.

The light continued to dim. Rives wiped his arm across his forehead. The footpath was fading now, pulled through with vines and branches, old leaves from the previous autumn.

They came to a rocky mound and paused. The mist lay behind them in the lower elevation. Jan scrambled up the side, choosing the larger rocks over the smaller ones. Rives watched him bemusedly.

"He's quiet when he wants to be," Avry pointed out.

"Indeed."

They followed the boy over the hill and onto the other side. Only the gorge lay ahead of them now, just beyond the scraggly trees. Every step that brought Rives closer to that place made his heart heavier. He kept hoping his son would veer off and lead them anywhere but east. But he never did, and now Mer's object was clear.

Reaching the cliff, Rives and Avry fell to a stunned silence. Jan, impervious to their shock, danced around the two sets of prints with flapping arms. Mer's muddy prints had long dried, but the second set was still damp, dark against the pale stone.

Avry trailed his finger over a boot mark. "The stranger was large. At least six feet tall, if not higher."

He followed the prints to the cliff's outer edge then straightened. For a time he stood with his back to the sun, looking out over the gorge to the opposite side, which was no more than twenty feet away.

His expression when he turned was the one thing that enabled Rives to move.

"What is it?" Rives breathed.

"The footprints—they continue on the other side."
CHAPTER 6

Rives walked to the edge. Evening light threw shadow like a dark bridge over the gorge, but the prints on the other side were clearly visible, marching up the muddy rise of earth that climbed from the cliff stone into the trees.

He cupped his hand to his mouth and called his daughter's name. He called her again and again until sound was a thorn lodged in his throat, then he fell to his knees.

The river rumbled beneath him, charged and angry. Jan lumbered over, moaning. Rives grasped his dirty hands. "Did you see her?"

"See errr," Jan mimicked.

"How did she cross?"

He lifted his bent arms and beat them against his sides. "Fye!"

Rives groaned, dragging a hand roughly through his hair.

Avry was on the ground again, studying the prints. "Where did the man come from? His tracks don't stray beyond this circle of stone."

Rives stared at the area Avry pointed to. "Well, he didn't fall from the sky, did he? He must've come from the other side."

"Fye!" Jan interjected behind them.

"How did they cross?" Avry said. "I don't see a rope or any evidence that a hook was used."

"There's no place to tie a rope. They would've had to go into the forest and find a tree with a sturdy branch." He glanced around numbly, seeing only that Mer was not there. Not in the trees or crouched behind rocks. He dragged a cold hand over his jacket and squatted down next to Avry. "There are other questions to consider: if the man came from the other side, how did she know to meet him here? How did he know to meet her? Mer hasn't spent more than a scant hour in the wood for months, perhaps years. And," he added, "her decision to run off was an impulse; it had not been planned."

"Yet her note," Avry pointed out, "seemed to indicate that she knew exactly where she was going."

"Fye!" cried Jan, the sound jarring in the silence.

Rives grabbed his son's flailing arm and pulled it back from the edge. He paused suddenly, blinking. "Fly."

"Fye!" Jan repeated, hooting loudly.

Rives grasped his collar. "Jan, did the man have wings? Did he fly?"

"Fye!" In his eyes, the wings danced. Jan danced with them, leaping over the rocks while his arms pumped against his sides.

Rives went back to the edge, where Avry was standing once more.

"There have been sightings of winged men," the knight muttered. "Do you think...?"

"I don't know. It's odd that there's no rope."

"I should go after her. Now. Tonight. I only need a hook and—"

"Impossible," Rives countered firmly, though he shared the same desperate wish. "Night is falling. How would you see across to throw a hook? How would you cross if you did?" And, he added to himself grimly, how would you survive? No one that entered the Cursed Wood ever returned to tell the tale. He swallowed, feeling the thorn again in his throat. Taking his son's arm, he steered them back through the trees.

I hope that in time you will know in your heart that I am safe and well.

The words breathed over him, soft like a breeze and as enticing. Rives wanted to believe that his daughter was alive and well. If she believed in her own safety, then why should not he? The man she had run away with had come from the other side; somehow he had learned to survive there. So why, under the shadow of his protection, should not Mer?

The thought did not ease the pain in his heart, but it made it bearable.

***

It was dark when Rives and Jan reached the cottage. Rives assumed that Avry had been following behind them. He had given Avry his space, trying not to wonder what desperate thoughts he had been entertaining. A man's thoughts belonged only to himself, unless he volunteered them. And in Avry's case that did not seem likely.

He left the front door hanging open as he led Jan to bed, closed the shutters, and locked them.

Relighting the candles, he knelt by the hearth and worked a strip of bark off a log. He looked up after a while. Avry was leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Come in and close the door," Rives entreated.

Avry shook his head. Emotion rippled over his face like an unbroken storm.

"It's late," Rives added. "There's nothing we can do now." Avry, ignoring the comment, drew something from his satchel: Merisande's note. "Keep it," Rives said. "I have the words memorized."

"So have I."

"Keep it anyway. Come in and sit down."

Uncrossing his arms, Avry walked leadenly to a chair and collapsed into it. Rives seized the poker and nudged the logs a few times. Avry had taken something else from his satchel: a sack. He held it between his palms a moment, then placed it on the stool between them.

"What is it?" Rives asked.

"The amount for the lost sheep."

A silence fell. Rives looked at it, hardly breathing. "You came to give us that?" Avry did not answer. His face seemed carved from stone. Only his eyes glittered, like two glowing coals. "Please answer me."

"My father," Avry said harshly, "wrote that letter without my knowledge. I would never have demanded such a thing."

Rives drew a shaky breath. "Well, it hardly seems to matter now." A log snapped, spilling sparks onto the floor; Rives crushed them with his boot.

A sound like a stifled groan made him turn. Avry was hunched into his arms, his back shuddering with quiet sobs. Rives' heart turned over at the sight. It was not simply loss, he recognized, but the firmest, cruelest form of rejection. He searched for something to say, but his tongue seemed fixed to the roof of his mouth. Not knowing what else to do, he fled to the kitchen, pried open a wooden hatch in the floor, and retrieved a bottle of fortified wine and two goblets. They had been a gift from his brother on Mer's sixteenth birthday. He poured Avry a drink and waited, watching him throw it back in a few gulps. Rives refilled it for him, poured one for himself, and sat down again.

They regarded each other in silence.

"I had guessed that," Rives admitted, "about the letter."

"You didn't tell Merisande?"

"No." He twirled the wine sullenly. "It was only a guess, after all. And I wasn't sure that your ignorance would make a difference. By asking for Mer's hand, your father implied that you would follow through with the marriage, and happily."

"It was a bluff. My father is well aware that he has no power over me. I belong to the king."

Rives hung his head.

Some people had a fear of small spaces; they panicked. Mer was that way when she felt cornered. He should have remembered that. He should have been cautious. Instead, he had made her situation appear worse than it really was. But how could he have known that she would cross the gorge? How could anyone?

He stirred after a while, remembering something.

"What is it?" Avry mumbled.

Rives set down his wine and leaned forward. "I just remembered something. Years ago, Mer ran off into the wood in the middle of the night. She came back sodden with rain and sticky with food she'd taken with her. After that day, she wore a wheel-shaped stone around her neck. I tried to touch it once, just out of curiosity, but she grabbed my fingers and said, Don't! So I left it. I thought it wasn't worth the argument. But now I wonder. Did she meet someone in the wood that day? Did he give her that stone? Did she use it to summon him?"

"A fae," Avry named him, wiping his face on a sleeve. His eyes were clearing, the emotion giving way to cold reason.

"There are tales. Sightings, as you say."

"Tales often have truth at the bottom of them. We tracked those prints; it's the only explanation. And there's the evidence Jan gave you: he said she flew. He showed us how with his arms."

Rives retrieved his goblet and turned it thoughtfully. "You aren't going to leave this."

"No." The word had been no louder than a log settling in the grate, but Rives sensed the resolve behind it, as unbreakable as stone, and he silently thanked Lord Piercy for passing his stubborn nature on to his son. "I'll go to the king tomorrow," Avry added. "He owes me a debt." He threw back the last of the wine and rose.

Rives followed him to the door. He knew what that debt was, and he knew what it was worth. Hope rose again within him. "Don't give up," he urged before the door closed.

Avry shook his head. "I'll cross the gorge myself if I have to."

"I was speaking of something else." He smiled a little, wistfully. "I too have loved. I know what it is."

Avry took a slow step and turned. He said, surprising Rives, "That is one thing I can no longer hope for."
CHAPTER 7

Mer and Gandel walked into an ever-darkening night.

The wood along the gorge contained little life. Nothing stirred beneath the carpet of pine needles. A solitary bird chirped on a branch, its face turned westward. Mer watched it ruefully.

After a time, the fae slowed and unhooked a lamp from his belt. His thumb snapped over the catch. There was a sharp sound, then flame appeared inside the hollowed-out crystal sitting atop the lamp's base.

Mer ran a finger over the clear stone. "It's beautiful."

"It's merely functional," he assured her. "I only have this one, so follow me closely."

"Do we need the light now? It's not quite dark yet."

"No. But it will be soon. Watch the trees." He marched on, motioning the lamp at some place just ahead of them.

The wood had dwindled to a line of stunted trees. Something rose over it—a growing shadow, a living wall of night. Mer halted behind Gandel, who was watching her bemusedly. Then, all of a sudden, he extended an outstretched arm over the wonder before him and declared like a gleeman, "Behold, the Cursed Wood!"

It could only be described as a fortress. The fat, mossy trunks were the size of towers, rising into a thicket of leaves that, like a real ceiling, blotted out the sky. Mer stared at their knobby bodies. Even the smaller trees had trunks that if cut would have resembled clovers, so deep and wide were the fissures that ran into them.

"They don't seem frightening," she heard herself say.

"They didn't seem that way to me either when I was a boy. Beware of the roots," he warned, lowering his light so he and Mer could see where they walked.

The roots themselves were a wonder. They lay in sturdy lines on top of the soil, pushed together so firmly that no cracks peeked in between. Gandel tread cautiously on them. There was no path, Mer realized, nothing but the fragile, fading shadows to point them east.

"Nothing grows here but trees," she said.

"Nothing can. Look closely; you won't find a clean patch of earth anywhere, only the roots. And what lies beneath never sees light."

She flinched as a sticky drop landed on her shoulder. She grazed a trunk with her finger. "The trees are wet."

"I remember that," he said almost dreamily. "It came at night, the wood-rain. It made everything slick, every root, every leaf."

Mer, combing her hands through her hair, caught another drop, and slid it between her fingers. She brought it to her nose and sniffed. "Not like sap," she decided. She hesitated and then tasted it. "Bitter."

He shot her a dark look. "Don't do that again. It could be poisonous." He stalked on, setting a pace that was hard to follow.

Mer kept her eyes fixed on the ground. The roots were thickening. She glanced sideways at the shadowy trunks but could not tell if they were larger or if it was only her imagination. In the darkness they were simply monsters.

The last wisp of sunlight fled, and gradually, a mist rose, settling into the folds between roots. Mer pulled her shivering hands out from under her armpits and worked a braid into her hair.

Gandel's silence ate at her. She had hoped to gain his friendship, but that seemed uncertain now. His reluctance to take her to Thorsault was more than puzzling; it was disturbing. Was he ashamed to be near her? Would her presence in Thorsault remind others of the time he had gotten lost? Or did all this have to do with her being human?

With an effort, she closed her mind to the subject. There was no point in fretting over what she could not change. She had done her best to set her feet on a better track. She would have to make the best of it now.

A soft wind pulled on her fingers. Far above her, the branches shifted, and a sound like labored breathing sighed over the wood. Mer stopped to listen, her skin prickling.

"Don't," Gandel warned her.

"Don't what?"

"Don't stop walking."

They both went still then. "What—" she began. At the same moment, she felt her foot slide off a root and into a misty gap. She pulled it up sharply. Then her other foot slipped, and she fell straight down onto her side.

Gandel dove down and grabbed her. "Can you move your foot?"

She twisted her foot, trying to free it from the crack. Gandel held her arm so hard that it hurt. "No."

"Once upon a time," he said, startling her.

Mer did not catch the rest of his words. The wind had climbed to a terrible wail. There was a human quality to the sound that lifted the hair on her arms. "I think..." Something shifted in the earth, and pain shot across her foot, making her cry out. "I'm going deeper!"

He lowered his lamp into the crack. The light shook badly. "They don't like to hear the same story twice."

"How many have you told them?"

"I don't remember. Maybe a dozen."

She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, thinking. "I have one."

It was an obscure tale she had stumbled upon while leafing through some scrolls in her uncle's library. She did not recall all the details, but hopefully that did not matter.

"Once upon a time, in a distant land there was a valley full of trees." The roots loosened a little as she spoke. Mer wriggled again, trying to dislodge her foot. "Almost," she whispered.

He nodded in encouragement. "Go on with the tale."

"The king had a magnificent castle, constructed all of wood and painted yellow so that it shone like gold in the sunlight. But the king wasn't a nice person, and he'd made many senseless laws. One law stated that no man could marry the wise-woman's daughter.

"Now, the wise-woman lived deep in the forest. Her daughter led a solitary life. She loved the forest, but she also loved a young man who often came to the forest to cut wood for making toys. This youth was very poor. He lived with his widowed mother in a lonely cottage infested with termites. Despite the king's law, the toymaker returned the love of the wise-woman's daughter and asked her to marry him. After the ceremony, which was held in secret in another land, they returned to their forest and built a cottage deep in the trees.

"Now, the king had many spies, most of them magpies, so it didn't take long for him to become aware of the new couple. Soldiers were dispatched to arrest them. He sent the toymaker to the castle's dungeon, where he would have to remain until the king's death. The wise-woman's daughter was returned to the forest.

"The toymaker was allowed to bring one item with him. Since he had none on his person, he asked for a message to be delivered to his wife so that she could send him something. The wise-woman's daughter sent him an old wooden figurine of a fish, so rotted that its fins were beginning to bend. He held it in his hands in the prison, wondering what had possessed her to choose such an object.

"One morning he woke to find a clump of termites on its underside. He broke it open, and a host of them crawled out. Now he understood why she'd given it to him. He lifted the tiny creatures and set them in the oldest, softest places in the room.

"During that spring a lot of rain fell, and the valley filled with water. Day by day, the castle rotted, and the tiny creatures spread. The king tried to repair a few beams, but because the valley was always wet, he couldn't get the work done in time. Then came a terrible flood.

"All this time, the poor toymaker had been locked in the dungeon, listening to the creaking of rotting wood and to the chewing of tiny mouths. On the night of the flood he woke feeling cold and wet. His cell was filling with water. He went to the door and kicked it until the soft wood gave way from the hinges. The guards had long escaped, and water was rushing in. He found a staircase and climbed it. He climbed until he was on the parapet, watching his countrymen swim around on the ground like the tiny creatures in the wood. The water rose to the first floor, then to the second. By the third, the castle was beginning to break apart. He clung to a rotting beam until he glimpsed a light coming toward him. It was his wife rowing a boat through the wreckage. He climbed through a window and into her boat, and together they rowed far away, and no one has seen them since."

Mer frowned. "I'm sure there was more, something about the fish."

"Your foot," he reminded her.

The roots gaped like parted lips. Twisting her boot, she managed to slide out from between them. Her ankle was sore, but nothing seemed broken. "Anyway, it wasn't a story from Aure. Those usually end in fire."

"What was it called?"

"'A Gift Of Termites,'" she said. They both went still then, casting rueful glances at the trees. "Well, it worked."

"For the moment." He turned and walked on.

Mer followed his bobbing light. Other tales filled her mind as she walked; some were not tales at all, but fragments of history.

"Are the tales from your world true?" he asked.

"Some. Most, though, are written to teach people things. The termite story teaches us not to overlook the small things, because many small things can bring down a big thing."

"I thought it was about the tenacity of love."

"I don't think so."

He glanced back at her with an enigmatic smile. Mer pulled her eyes away.
CHAPTER 8

"I saw a ship sailing upon the sea

Deeply laden as ship could be;

But not so deep as in love I am,

For I care not whether I sink or swim."

–Old Ballad

Sir Avry rode down the main road that led to the city. The darkness lifted slowly, pushed up by a hazy finger of light. The king, he imagined, might now be breaking his fast, or he might still be asleep. The rest of the world seemed to be.

He paused at the crest of a hill and peered at the city, which sprawled beneath him like a rich tapestry.

From the main cart road, which rambled down from the north and turned east as it approached the city, other roads branched off. Some led to the fisheries and warehouses, while others led to the city's quarters. The markets, thick with foreign merchants and farmers hawking their wares, bordered on the fisheries. Tiny residential streets stretched north of the markets; these were tightly packed with townhomes where poor immigrants, having spent all they had on passage over the channel between Ann and Aure, huddled in poorly heated spaces while their children worked at the docks.

The docks themselves stretched for miles along the western shore, growing tidier as they neared the castle.

Built on the ridge of a hill, the king's home was a simple structure constructed entirely of white stone. Its shape was recognizable to the smallest child: four towers piercing the sky, connected by thick walls topped by battlements. The image appeared on the standard of Aure, on coins, and on the hilts of swords worn in service of the king.

But the castle was little more than a symbol. While protecting the king and his family, it did little to protect his people. It was simply not large enough to shelter even the immediate families of the twelve houses should disaster strike. Strangely, this did not bother either the king or his people. Apart from the smattering of guard towers that lined the mouth of the inlet, the defense of Aure fell to the powerful king across the water, whose vast fleet of ships patrolled the channel that separated the isle from the continent. If Aure was ever in need, no one doubted that the land of their ancestors—the country of Ann—would come to their aid.

But Ann was a two-sided coin: if protection marked one side, threat marked the other.

It was only by the grace of King Alaric that Aure continued to be independent, and so, being a cautious man, King Ghislain constantly sought ways to appease him. The traditional method seemed safest: to give his only daughter to the prince of that place. Avry, by a strange twist of fate, came to learn of her betrothal before it was publicly announced. Before, in fact, the prince himself received the letter.

The tale came sharply to Avry's mind, for in a roundabout way it affected Merisande.

It began with a visit to the city...

***

Never an early riser, Avry had resented being hauled out of bed and made to ride in the dark down the winding cart road. He gazed wistfully at the sleeping cottages. It seemed unfair that poor farmers were still in their beds while Avry, a youth of the third house, had to ride in the cold dark with his father.

Lord Piercy d'Eleuthère had an appointment to keep. Wealth, he made his son to understand, was like a basket of seed. It did not matter how big the basket; if you kept tossing seed into the wind, it would eventually empty. Instead, learn to plant, and in time your wealth would grow.

He left his son on the docks while he spoke to the merchant.

Avry tied his horse beside his father's and wandered south along the boardwalk. He listened to the sounds of nets being dragged over planks, to the flapping of sails. He was an observant youth. His eyes picked out details that others overlooked, such as a flash of color on the inside rim of a ship. Hastily painted, he thought. Stolen? Possibly. The masthead appeared new and of an inferior quality. He glanced surreptitiously at the crew. None of their jackets were fastened, despite the chill. If fastened, would they show the bulge of a weapon? Probably.

He passed the ship, looking south toward the widest part of the inlet. He could just spy in the distance a smattering of sailboats, sitting as lightly as butterflies on a window sill. The sun glimmered behind them, turning their rigging into an untidy black web.

While he gazed dreamily over the water, the princess, whose father was at that moment drawing up a letter to be sent to the prince of Ann, was rowing a skiff away from the castle. She did not get far before the current caught her and pulled her out into the open water. She must have watched in horror as the far shore crept closer and closer, and the shadowy trees loomed higher, until her boat brushed up against a rock and she capsized.

She waded to shore and stood on the water's edge, balancing on the fat roots the trees had slipped into the water.

Avry spotted her distant, waving arms.

He ran south along the boardwalk until he came to a small crowd that had formed. Who, how and why? they asked, for the princess was no more than a stick figure, and it was a journey that no one wanted to make. Avry grabbed the nearest skiff he thought he could manage and pushed off.

His arms burned as he rowed. The current seized him, trying to drag the boat off course. Every time he righted it, the current wrenched him off again, like the hand of some giant who played with boats for fun.

He was exhausted when he finally reached the shore. The girl, a slight creature wrapped in a brown cape, waded out to meet him. Avry helped her into the skiff and gave her his jacket to warm her legs.

"You look tired," she pointed out as he guided the boat around the rocks. "Rest a little."

Avry took her advice, and they drifted over the gentle waves.

"I'm Princess Modeste," she said, studying him intently. "You look—not like a fisherman. Are you of the houses?"

Avry blinked, stunned by the revelation that this elfin creature was the princess. "I'm Avry d'Eleuthère."

His name had the strangest effect on her. Sudden joy filled her pale watery eyes, and she smiled radiantly, exultantly, he thought, wondering.

"Then," she announced, "you must ask for my hand in marriage. When we reach the shore they'll be waiting for me—the guards—but they won't take me away before I speak. I'll offer you my hand, and you must say, 'I'm yours, Lady, if the king allows it.' Then the story will spread, and the king won't be able to refuse you."

Avry stared at her speechlessly. A word, finally, loosed itself. "Why?"

Gradually, she told him why. "Will you do it?" she asked as the boat bumped along the current.

"This isn't a simple task, My Lady."

"I know. I know what it is."

"Then let me think."

An older, wiser person might have considered the prospect from a practical standpoint. But the future still seemed remote to Avry, who only saw what was directly in front of him.

She was about his age, but not pretty. Her hair was too light, her eyes too small and dull, her chin too pointed. Her voice was almost shrill, more a child's than a woman's, and her gangly figure rivaled his own for awkwardness. He knew nothing about her personally.

And yet...

She was the princess. So why not marry her?

The question forced itself into him like an arrow notched deep and loosed with force; it found upon entering a very stiff resistance.

He began to row. By the time he reached the other side, his mind had cleared. He had reached a new conclusion: the princess was in fact pretty, but she did not look or sound or act like Merisande d'Ivry. Had Merisande been the princess, his answer would have been different.

The realization shocked him.

He helped the princess out of the boat. As she had warned, her guards were there to escort her away. Avry hardly saw them. His face was warm, his eyes gritty. He wanted to hide himself under one of the fishing nets that were piled up by the docks. Where was his father? Surely he had noticed the crowd.

Princess Modeste shook off her guards. She lifted her pointed chin to the crowd; her eyes, though, were trained on him. "Avry d'Eleuthère, God has granted me my life today. He has placed it in your hands."

The crowd fell silent.

Avry stepped forward. Beneath her haughty expression was a desperation that he understood and was sorry for. He lifted her slender hand and brought it to his lips. "With thanks," he said, folding her fingers and pressing them to her chest, "I return it to God, whose hold is wiser and stronger than mine is."

The princess's face fell; she could no longer keep her composure. The guards led her away. Hardly moving, Avry watched her. He felt very close to tears.

After what seemed a long time, a stocky man approached him and introduced himself as Sir Neville. "The king," he said meaningfully, "wishes to speak to you in the knight's chamber. Do you have a horse?"

"Not nearby," Avry replied.

The knight turned and issued a command to a young page, who promptly disappeared into the crowd. Moments later, a horse appeared. Avry took the proffered reins.

He and Sir Neville rode together up a steep, cobbled road that led to the castle. They dismounted at the doors, and another page led away their horses.

Avry cast a curious eye over the castle courtyard.

"It's not busy this time of day," Sir Neville remarked.

But it was not entirely devoid of sound. Voices, low and distant, thrust themselves into Avry's consciousness. Ship, he heard as he neared the keep, and stolen. He halted abruptly. "Was it yellow?" he called out. The men, who were standing under a tree near the keep doors, paused in mid conversation. "The ship," he clarified.

"It was," one answered warily. "Why do you ask? Do you know something about it?"

He shrugged. "I saw it while passing. It's a common enough vessel, easy to conceal—"

"Where?" the man demanded.

"Dock twenty-seven. Repainted a red color, with a different masthead. The crew looked armed, possibly with daggers. I counted nine men and a boy. I think," Avry added, "they were readying to set sail."

The men looked from him to each other and then hastened to the stables to fetch their horses.

"Just passing," Sir Neville repeated as he entered the keep. "I wonder if you were planning to tell anyone."

Avry reddened. "If I had," he said reasonably, "I wouldn't have been around to help the princess."

The knight actually laughed.

They strode down a hallway, through another set of doors, and into a spacious chamber. An imposing figure got up from a table and approached them.

Sir Neville bowed to the king. "My Lord, this is Avry d'Eleuthère."

King Ghislain, a muscular man dressed in rich but functional clothing, barely threw Avry a glance. Looking the knight in the eyes, he fired off a flurry of questions that were worded for quick response. Sir Neville seemed prepared for them, as if he had already considered what he might be asked.

What questions might Avry be asked?

Finally, the king dismissed his knight, and Avry was left alone in the room with him.

"Take a seat," the king offered, motioning to one of several chairs that lined the table.

The chamber was not larger than Lord Piercy's great room, but it was brighter. A row of steep windows fanned light like a sunny path over the floor. Fresh logs quickened in the hearth, but there were no servants, at least none in the chamber.

The king seated himself close to Avry, so close that their knees touched. His probing eyes were like hard chips of ice; their directness—a quality that Avry would later learn to imitate—discomfited him.

Though in his sixteenth year, Avry was still shaped like a boy, his arms and legs like twigs. Having had no one but his older brother to compare himself to, he felt hopelessly inadequate. But the king smiled, as if he saw something he liked.

He asked Avry mildly, "What were your thoughts when you went for the skiff?"

Avry hunched his back over his folded hands. "I don't remember having any, um, My Lord."

"You weren't bothered by the danger?"

He shook his head. "It was as though someone tripped, and I reached for their arm."

The comment summoned a wry smile to the king's face. "A reflex, then."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Amazing, isn't it, how few people have those nowadays?" The king rose without waiting for a reply.

In a dark corner of the room stood a wooden cabinet. The king strode over to it, fingering a key that he had taken from his belt. The cabinet doors whispered open. Avry could not see what lay inside. The king drew something out, relocked the doors, and returned to the table.

A sword lay across his open palms. He slid it out of its silver scabbard, let the light catch it, then turned it handle side out and passed it to Avry. "It's ceremonial, of course."

A gift, Avry imagined, for saving Modeste. He rolled the hilt under his palm, studying the markings; under light, read the small, fancy letters on the underside of the guard. He felt the king's eyes and looked up. Amusement tinged the craggy face.

"One can learn a great deal about someone," the king said, "from his first encounter with a sword."

"How did you know?"

"I used to train men at one time. Before my father died." Avry was not surprised by the information. Ghislain was not a slight man and seemed to have a soldier's fondness for practicality. "You found the inscription on the hilt," the king noted. "No one to my knowledge ever spotted it at first glance. Do you have an interest in inscriptions?"

"No, My Lord. But there are words on the rim of the scabbard, so I assumed there would be more on the hilt."

Ghislain fell silent at this. He turned the scabbard thoughtfully, his face unreadable. "Well," he breathed, almost to himself, "but you must agree to it first."

"Agree to what, My Lord?"

"The knighthood." The words, uttered softly, seemed to peal like thunder over the bright empty space.

Avry's tongue grew thick in his mouth. "Is this for bringing back your daughter?"

"No. The knighthood is merely payment for your courage. The act of saving my daughter's life is something far more precious. Someday, somehow, you'll ask me a favor, and I'll grant it, and then that debt will be paid. And now," he said, rising, "I'll give you time to think."

Avry stood abruptly. "No."

The king froze. "Your answer is no?"

"No, My Lord." He laughed a little, feeling light on his face. "I meant, no, I don't need time. I accept, of course. Thank you."

"Wonderful!" The sudden smile cut the king's face in two. "Tomorrow you'll be sworn in. And then," he warned, "the pain will begin."

***

Princess Modeste married the prince of Ann and was reportedly with child within a fortnight, which in many people's minds meant she was happy, the marriage successful.

Avry gained a strange friendship with the king.

He would visit Avry at odd times; one day, when he was in blades practice, the king took over from the trainer.

By then Avry had learned what the king meant when he spoke of pain. The training was relentless, a cruel form of torture. Status was flung aside; humiliated, a man of nobility either allowed himself to be trained only to a ceremonial degree or severed himself entirely from his name and became something stronger. Avry saw that strength in the king's eyes. He saw the question too, and answered it.

***

One morning, months after the rescue, the queen wandered into the royal library and paused by the window. The sun fell on her summery hair, braided and twisted into intricate knots. She turned after a while and looked at him. Her eyes were cool and contemplating, crinkled only lightly by lines.

"Did you know," she mused, "that if you had accepted my daughter's hand, the king would've allowed you to marry her?"

Avry lay down the scroll he was perusing. "Yes."

"The union of our daughter to Alaric's son has given him peace. But it hasn't pleased me."

Avry ran a finger over the scroll's clasp. "It's not possible to please everyone, My Lady."

"No," she agreed, "for everyone seems to want something different. As you know, I've provided no male heirs. Had you pleased Modeste, you might have been king one day." She paused, letting the words settle in, as if speaking them aloud gave them power. "Instead, you pleased the king. That's why he has befriended you. But you are not his son." Saying this, she wheeled and left the room.

Avry watched her go. His hand, open over the scroll, seemed to hold dreams like tiny moths inside it.
CHAPTER 9

"The king is breaking his fast, sir."

Avry nodded tiredly. "Then I'll wait in the library."

"I'll tell him, sir." The servant bowed and disappeared down a long corridor where other servants were snuffing out candles that had been left burning during the night.

Avry found the library in shadow. He took a candle from a box beside the library door and went back down the corridor to light it.

In the library once more, he wandered past the beehive of cubbyholes where scrolls lay in order according to topic and author. The king stored all the original writings on the island. Nobles came by permission to make copies of them for their libraries. Sadly, the copies were usually riddled with errors.

He set the candle into a sconce, opened his belt pouch, and retrieved the page Rives had allowed him to keep. Merisande's note inhabited a tiny space in the left-hand corner. The rest of the page was as densely filled with words as a forest floor was littered by leaves. Looking at it made him feel as if he had stumbled upon a chest of buried treasure. Half were quotes taken from works such as Ysopet and Histoire de Jason. These and other writings were usually given to the oldest son once he learned to read. Avry reckoned the number of women in Aure allowed access to such works to be a handful, and those from that handful with the ability to read them—much less write quotes from them—even fewer.

Did she know that?

Half the space contained quotes, while the rest held her own thoughts, written in short lines that when read made him feel as if he had been blown by a sudden wind from an unknown direction. It was, Avry thought with a faint smile, exactly how he felt when he saw her.

A sound at the door made him start.

"Sir, the king will see you in the knight's chamber."

Avry nodded. "Thank you."

He looked down again at the page. Making a sharp fold at the corner, he tore off the note, placing what remained back into his belt pouch. He watched the candle a moment, gathering his thoughts. This had to be approached the right way. The king appreciated truth. He would begin with that.

Leaving the candle burning, he walked resolutely through the door.

***

The chamber was empty. Avry, half-expecting the king to detach himself from a shadowy corner, crossed the room at once and took his seat at the table. He sat without moving, watching sunlight creep across the floor. The sound of the latch lifting brought him to his feet again.

King Ghislain entered alone. He was still a hale old man, his white hair bound back in a warrior's tail, his muscular chest draped in a belted blue tunic.

He smiled when he saw Avry. "My boy," he greeted him in a tone that was slightly ironic.

Why he persisted in calling Avry "boy" was a mystery to the knight. It was like the opening line of a joke, one that had no answer.

Avry bowed briskly. "My Lord."

The king moved to the hearth, threw a couple of logs in, and blew on the coals. "Cold as bones," he muttered. "Could you fetch me a candle?"

Avry unbolted the door and fetched his stub from the library. That it was still burning said something about the quality of the taper.

The king accepted it from him without a word and set about starting the fire. "Do you know," he said without turning, "that no one aside from yourself would've allowed me to perform this task without question?"

The knight's chamber was the one place in the castle consistently devoid of servants. When the knights met with His Lordship, they took it upon themselves to fill that role, whether the king asked them to or not.

"You're the king," Avry pointed out. "You can do as you wish."

Ghislain snorted. His embroidered sleeve strayed dangerously close to the coals. "Surely you don't mean that."

"My Lord, you could simply say 'from now on I'll quicken the fire myself.'"

"Ah." The king rose, wiped his hands on his hose, and lumbered to the table. "A remarkable suggestion. Let's try it and see what happens. If there's no argument, I'll send you a dozen tapers." Avry inclined his head, smiling faintly. The king sank into his chair and motioned for Avry to join him. "So, what's so important that it has deprived you of a full night's sleep?"

"It's a long story," Avry admitted. He launched into it then, giving the king everything he knew he would want to know, all the small details that in their absence would have stood out like open doors. "This is the note," he finished and let the king take it.

"She has a good hand," Ghislain remarked absently. He said nothing for a time. His hand lifted to his tidy beard then fell.

"My Lord—"

"A moment." The king set the note on the table and smoothed it idly with a finger. "This matter is sensitive. Who else knows about it, aside from yourself and Lord Rives d'Ivry?"

"No one, My Lord. And Rives would keep quiet if asked to."

"Good." The king gave a slow nod, then his eyes cleared and he looked directly at the knight. "I'm sorry for you, boy. This must be a terrible blow to your pride."

Avry blinked and then inclined his head. "Thank you, My Lord. I appreciate the sentiment."

The king offered him a tight smile. "Well, then. What would you like me to do for you?"

Avry had not expected the question to be phrased so bluntly. He drew an uneven breath. "To put it plainly, I want your permission to go into the Cursed Wood. Alone, if necessary. I want to know at whose mercy the lady has thrown herself, and if these creatures pose a threat to Aure. The information I'd gather would be invaluable..." He halted, his confidence failing at the frown on Ghislain's face.

The king made a tent with his fingers. "It's commendable that you came to me with this, instead of just going off on your own." There was a lengthy pause, then he bent forward and touched Avry's shoulder. "I can't. I won't let my most valuable knight sacrifice himself for so trifling a cause."

"Most valuable," Avry repeated dryly.

"If not in name, then certainly in truth."

Avry loosed a sigh. He might have felt gratified if Merisande's life had not been at stake. He wished instead that he were the least valuable knight, so that the king would release him.

"You regret the title," Ghislain recognized. "Incredible."

"The men," Avry pressed him. "Couldn't you send others?"

"I can't, boy. It would be like chopping them up and throwing them down as chicken feed."

You would do it, Avry thought, to save your daughter. You would do anything. He pushed a hand through his hair. Words gathered in his throat and hung there like dust motes suspended in a moment of uncertainty. He dropped his arm. "Then I call in the debt."

Ghislain leaned back abruptly. The chair, which had never creaked before, made a long, low sound of protest. "That debt is worth the life of a princess."

"I know that, My Lord."

"Then you must see that it's not a proper exchange."

"Forgive me, My Lord, but if the debt is to be viewed as an exchange, it's of no use to me. I wouldn't set a price on your daughter's life."

Ghislain actually smiled at that. "How eloquent you are. You'd make a minstrel weep. Unhappily, though, it's a lot of nonsense. Everyone has a price. Myself included."

Avry had no answer to that. He was no good at playing king's chess, where the game pieces were people instead of crystal, each with a value attached.

The king rose and paced once across the long, cold flagstones. He found the poker and prodded a log. "Say you survive long enough to find her. After all that she might refuse to go back with you. Would you force her?"

"No. But I must know that she is safe."

The king set the poker gently into its stand, walked back to the table, and leaned his hands on it. "This matter is complicated. It may seem clear to you now, while your emotions are high, but a lot of assumptions have been made.

"Let us consider what we do know. Yesterday afternoon your lady climbed through her window and traveled east through the wood. She came to the gorge and waited there until evening. At that time, a man came and helped her to cross. This man—winged or not—was no stranger to the lady. She knew she would find him on the east side of the river, and she expected to be taken there. What is more, she trusted he would get her there alive. And since her tracks continue on the other side, it appears that her trust was well-founded. Do you agree with me thus far?"

Avry nodded tightly.

"Beyond these deductions," Ghislain went on, "all is conjecture. Does this person—and let's put aside the notion that there's more than one—does he live in the Cursed Wood or at its fringes? He may be a raider with a boat tied in some shelter downstream."

"Rives' son said he flew," Avry muttered.

"Said?"

"Well, he implied it by his words and gestures."

"The boy is a half-wit. He probably saw a bird and wanted to fly after it."

"But the absence of a rope—"

"Just because you didn't see it, doesn't mean it was never there. It may have been untied by someone who arrived there before you did, someone whose tracks went unnoticed."

"Jan," Avry guessed, following his line of reasoning, though he could not agree with it.

"Exactly. And if it wasn't a fae..." The king raised an eyebrow suggestively. "I must think on this. Stay here, I'll return shortly."

***

He was away for a very short time. Avry, his thoughts having traveled far from the confines of the palace, jumped when the door opened.

Ghislain came to stand at the table once more. His eyes were neither warm nor cold as they fixed on Avry's. They were the eyes of a king playing chess. "Do you still hold to your request?"

"Yes."

"You requested men."

Avry's eyes closed. "Yes, My Lord."

Grunting, the king fell back into his chair. "Time is slipping away. So, briefly, my boy..." He leaned in and lowered his voice as if someone might overhear them. "For such a mission to be acceptable, the narrative must be changed. This is an acceptable narrative: the lady didn't summon the fae but was herself summoned. Against her will, she climbed out of her bedroom window and walked in a daze to the gorge, where her captor waited to take her away. The footprint evidence will be enough to support this. My response will be thus: I'll send a team of soldiers—soldiers, not knights—into the wood to follow her tracks, not to bring her back, but to find out more about the presence in the wood and whether or not it poses a real threat to Aure. After a day and a night, one of the soldiers will return to report on what his comrades have found. If after two days and nights no soldier returns, then we'll assume the men to be lost, the mission a failure. No more men will be sent, and people will be told to be cautious if they live near the gorge."

Avry dropped a relieved hand on his forehead. "Thank you, My Lord. That's all I had hoped for."

"Now, my boy." The king rose tiredly, as if the matter had sapped all his strength. "You must go straight away to her father. Explain to him the situation and the silence he must keep."

"And you—?"

"I must choose which of my men to sacrifice."

***

Avry did as the king asked, then he went home, where he had left his squire with barely a word of explanation. He told the boy the official story, then, while they were dueling, he told him what had truly happened.

Édouard had listened to both stories with equal fascination. He was a sturdy youth, not tall, but at fifteen he still had time to grow. His copper hair, which usually fell to his chin in a neat bowl shape, clung to his face now in grimy wet strands. Avry had pressed him hard that day, and the boy knew it. His hands were beginning to lose their grip on the hilt.

Finally, Avry sheathed his sword and held it out to him. "You did well," he said, answering the question in the boy's eyes.

Édouard inclined his head. A breeze caught his hair, lifting the damp strands. He looked up curiously, the farmer in him peeking out like a third eye to gaze over the fields. "Looks like a storm," he remarked to the dark smudge gathering in the west.

Avry gave a slow nod.

"It's been long enough, hasn't it, sir?"

"Yes. It has." It had been more than long enough. Surely the men would have found something by now. There had been no rain to spoil the tracks.

"There it is," said Édouard to the low peal of thunder.

They went still, watching the storm.

Avry tensed, sensing an echoing darkness inside him, a rustle of black wings, pushing out. He shrugged off his leather doublet and dropped it into the boy's hands. "Fetch my horse."

***

Avry galloped across the fields, letting Dancer choose a direction. The first raindrops fell sideways in a wind gust, flicking his face with sudden sharpness. The rain, the wind, the speed, the body of his horse moving with him, blended into one thing that tore all feeling away. Avry became the wind, the horse, the lightning that brightened the sky.

He pulled up as he neared a patch of trees. Tossing the reins over a low branch, he fell against a trunk and slipped Merisande's torn page out of his satchel. He read one of her poems again and tried to understand it.

Broken blades

Smeared with blood

Can only cut

When shamed

Was it a riddle?

The rain fell hard now. He folded the paper and tucked it away then leaned back against the trunk. The deep rumble in the earth made Dancer prance in fear. He sensed the trembling again in himself. Like thunder. He could weep here, and no one would know. Was he already?

Water slid down his face, dripping from the new June leaves.

He had told Rives that he could no longer hope. Intellectually, he understood that. Merisande had made it clear that she did not want him. When a woman left behind everything she knew and fled to an unknown land, all to avoid being bound to a man, then she must truly despise him. Nothing could be clearer. If he found Merisande alive and well, he would be the very last person she would want to see.

He understood that.

Then why was he reading her lines, feeding this painful warmth in his chest?

He did not, he realized grimly, want to lose the feeling. It had coincided with every good thing that had happened in his life. She was tied to it all, her name woven through everything. Pull her out, and everything would fall. Like one of those bead dolls that had strings for bones.

Despair edged blackly through him. He wanted with sudden fierceness for the mission to fail. He would go after her then. Alone. And if death claimed him, at least he would not have to face a future where she did not exist.

***

The messenger came on the fourth morning.

Avry stood at the dining room window, sipping watered mead and looking out at an iron-gray sky. His mother, having drifted down the stairs, sat at the table picking through her food. Her head lifted at the sound of hoofbeats.

Avry's parents knew little more about Merisande's disappearance than what already circulated among the gentry. That the king had acted was enough to convince Avry's father that the story, as fantastic as it sounded, was true. His mother said nothing, but her eyes spoke, filling with tears at odd moments, gazing at her son with regret.

They glanced at each other from across the room. Avry paused then took three steps to the table and stooped to kiss her cheek. "I'll be back," he promised.

Breaking the king's seal, he unfolded the letter with steady hands.

The chickens have been fed, Ghislain wrote succinctly. Return to me at once.

The messenger waited. Avry refolded the letter with care and handed it back to him. "No reply," he said and turned away.

He met his squire at the door. "I'm going after her. I'll need my leather, a length of rope, and a grappling hook, foodstuffs for three days." He paused, waiting for a response, but the boy's eyes were on the floor. "Édouard." The eyes rose and fell; they were wet, blinking furiously. "I will return," Avry assured him. "Don't you believe me?"

"Do you?"

"Yes."

But his word for once was not enough. A tear leaked through and was brushed hastily away. "What do I tell the king, sir, if he wonders where you are?"

"He won't wonder."
CHAPTER 10

The wood was shadowy and still under a cloudy sky. Avry moved at a brisk pace toward the gorge, his eyes fixed on the ground. The previous day's rain had washed away the soldiers' footprints, but other signs marked their passage: crushed leaves, broken branches, a torn-off bootlace.

He had made a brief stop at Merisande's home before taking off. "I'll find her," he had assured Rives. "I won't fail." The promise had not cheered the man as Avry had hoped. Rives was neither a warm nor likable person, but he had done his best with the crumbs life had thrown him, and Avry was sad to see him so dispirited.

He slowed after a time, wondering at the silence that clung to the wood, heavy as cloud.

It was broken by a soft thud. Listening briefly, he heard it again: two thuds this time, spaced apart like footfalls. He turned, scanning the trees. "Jan?" he guessed, hoping he was wrong.

An arm shot out from behind a fat trunk. "Woooo," the boy howled and took off at a loping run.

Avry tossed a curse into the damp air. He thought of shouting for Rives but decided it would be useless. The man was probably at home, sprawled in his armchair, drowning himself in drink, completely unaware that his son wandered in the wood.

"Jan!" he called.

Groaning, he took off after him.

The half-wit veered wildly off the trail, moving at what seemed an impossible pace. His bulky form charged through the brush like a bull, narrowly missing trees.

At last, he slowed. His lumpy fingers found a pine branch and clung to it. He swayed, his eyes on the knight. Avry approached him cautiously. The forest was dense; it could swallow him in an instant. "Jan, I have something for you." He pulled the strings of his satchel. "A treat."

"Fooo."

"Food," Avry agreed, nodding in encouragement.

"Mehhh."

Avry crept forward, trying to hold the boy's gaze. He was only a few steps away when a squirrel darted across a branch, scattering pine needles onto Jan's head. With a sudden whoop, the half-wit bounded after the squirrel, which had already flung itself into a nearby tree.

All at once the wood was full of squirrels. Jan leapt at them as he ran, hurtling through the wood in a chaotic frenzy. Avry, astonished by the scene, was late catching up and lost him several times in the dense undergrowth.

Avry finally gave up, surrendering to a wall of thorns that seemed arrayed to keep out trespassers. Jan was no where. Avry lingered by the thorns, half-expecting the boy to burst through them, clothes bloodied and torn, clutching a squirrel triumphantly in a doughy fist. But all was silent and still.

He leaned back against a tree and shut his eyes.

Through his closed lids he felt the forest brighten, sunlight trying to push its way through the clouds. Then a sound breezed through the stillness like a false note: the squeal of rusty hinges. Opening his eyes, he stiffened.

A stone cottage stood just beyond a cluster of cedar trees.

It blended well with its surroundings. The forest had breathed on it over the years, painting its walls with moss and grime. Its roof was thatched with mud and twigs and fur, he noticed, wondering. Or were those feathers?

His heart jumped as the door opened.

"Come in," a sturdy voice called from inside.

"Who—?"

"Was that an owl?" said the voice. "Or a rude word? The owl, I think."

Avry chuckled, despite himself. He threw one last glance at the wood, but the boy was nowhere, and he could not spend the day searching for him.

"Are you coming in?"

He followed the voice through the trees and across a clearing. He halted a few paces from the doorstep.

A woman stood in the entryway, regarding him from curious green eyes. She wore a rugged brown smock tied with a leather band. Her skirt was short enough to reveal her bare, callused feet, blackened by soot. Her fingers, stained with berry juice, lifted unconsciously to her tangled auburn hair and streaked it an even deeper red. "Nice," she commented vaguely.

"And you are—?"

"Thirsty. Something hot?" She turned before he could answer and poured water from a pitcher into a pot hanging over a fire.

Avry stepped inside the quant, one-room cottage. A fire-pit blazed at its center, leaking smoke through an aperture in the roof. The woman slept in the loft, a protrusion of old boards that had been thrown over the capstones, accessible only by ladder. Herbs hung everywhere. She snapped off some leaves and ordered him to sit at the table, which huddled in one corner like a remorseful shadow.

The water steamed. She lifted a ladle off a hook and scooped some into his cup. Avry took it, mumbling his thanks.

She pulled out a chair and waited until he sat down. "My name is Esperance," she said as she lowered herself across from him, placing her cup beside her empty berry bowl. "I live here because my husband is dead and my daughter ran away. I wait for her at the gorge. Every morning I go there and wait."

"The gorge," he repeated, the hairs on his arms rising.

"That's what I said. I'll tell you the story if you don't fly away."

He shook his head. "Tell me."

She slipped her tapered fingers around the cup. "After my husband died, I was left on my own to care for Astrid. We lived at the edge of the wood then, to the south and west of here. Astrid was in her fourteenth year then—a beautiful girl, pale-haired and blue-eyed like her father—when she fell for a farm lad who worked for Avrance.

"One day I went to see the boy's father. He wasn't at home, so I drifted around the outbuildings looking for someone who might know where he was. And that's when I saw the boy. I hid behind the wall and watched him, and I listened to the poor, savage cries of the creature he was beating. I should've intervened, but I wanted to see how far he would go. He went very far. His poor dog looked dead by the time he left it, tossing his stick casually over a fence so that no one would know. Imagine," she remarked, catching his eyes and holding them, "beating such an innocent thing."

Avry's mouth twitched. He looked down at his cup. "Indeed."

"The next day, Astrid wanted to go out and meet him, but I wouldn't let her. I didn't have the heart to say why. I knew how love could blind someone, make them trust nothing but their own feelings.

"She went to bed without eating. Later I brought up her chamber pot, set it down beside her door. As I rose, I felt something cold through the space around the latch. Her window is open, I thought and went in. Sure enough, she was gone.

"I followed her footprints through the snow and finally found her, huddled over the body of her lover. A wolf had got him, she said. And all because he'd waited too long, because I wouldn't let her go to him." She paused, running her hand over her eyes. "I studied the tracks around the body. 'These don't belong to a wolf,' I told her, but she wouldn't believe me, and I couldn't tell her that his own dog, having been tortured for so long, had finally taken its revenge.

"The winter moved on into spring, but my daughter never spoke and hardly ate. And then one day she disappeared. I followed her muddy prints through the wood to the very edge of the gorge; there a rope hung with a hook attached. Her prints continued on the other side." She stood and went to a chest in the corner of the room. "I still have her things. A few dresses. A doll."

Seeing that she waited for him, Avry set down his cup and went to stand by the chest. He waited uncomfortably while she unfolded a frock. The color was badly faded. Avry caught hints of it in the creases where light and air had not reached: a deep green. "It's old," he remarked.

"Yes," she agreed. "It was long ago."

"But you aren't. Aren't old."

She looked at him sideways, smiling a little. "That's kind of you to say." She folded the dress and set it lovingly back it its place, closing the lid with a sound that reminded Avry of a casket lid falling. He shook his head. The clothes were probably heirlooms, passed from mother to daughter for generations.

"Where did you say the cottage was?"

She shrugged. "It's gone now."

Avry glanced at the door. "I have to go."

"There's a hole out back."

He loosed a chuckle. "You know what I mean."

"Where are you off to?"

"I think you know where." The woman must have guessed he was journeying to the other side of the gorge. Why else would she have given him her daughter's story? He eyed her steadily until a faint smile tugged on her lips.

"The soldiers left their rope. I cut it."

"Then it's a good thing I brought another." He nodded to the chest across the room. "Do you have a likeness of her?"

"No."

His brows pinched together. "Then—?"

"You wouldn't recognize her if you saw her." She went to the door and opened it. Sunlight filtered through; it touched her hair, still streaked with berry juice. "If the trees misbehave, tell them my story. They like a good story. They listen."

Avry was still a moment longer, trying to decide whether the comment, which she had tossed out as carelessly as old leaves, contained something vital. "Thanks for the tea."

She laughed, touching his arm; her fingers bit into it ever so slightly. "Farewell, Knight Errant."
CHAPTER 11

Avry stood at the edge of the gorge.

He lifted the severed end of the rope, which had been tossed onto the cliff stone like an angry remark. What had possessed her to do it? Was she worried that other girls would see the rope and feel inspired to cross? Or was it an urge like the one that compelled her to march to the cliff every morning and watch for a girl who had been gone for so long that her clothes were rotting away? You wouldn't recognize her if you saw her.

Suppressing a shudder, he unshouldered his pack and fished out the rope and the hook, then he stood back, measuring the gap with his eyes. The soldiers had taken their hook with them, but Avry could make out the scratch where one of its claws had bitten into the stone. It was a likely place. He aimed for it, and after four tries the hook caught and held. He paid out the rope backward until he came to a low branch where a length of rope was still tied.

He looped his rope above the soldiers' and bound it fast in a sailor's knot. Satisfied, he stood and regarded the line from its starting point to its finish. Édouard had examined the rope for defects, something Avry had not even thought to ask him to do.

He threw on his pack, wiped the cold sweat off his palms, and seized the rope. The water rumbled softly beneath him. Fifteen yards down with nothing to break his fall.

Drawing a steadying breath, he swung his legs up, crossed his ankles over the rope, and began to crawl, hand over hand, foot over foot, feeling the empty space yawn under his back. The hook was holding; if it came loose he would tumble backward against the sheer stone wall.

The hook held. Reaching the opposite side, he dropped his legs and hauled himself over. He sat back on his heels, panting, his heart thundering in his ears. It was not the most strenuous crossing he had ever done, but fear had its own effect on the body, and Avry did not fare well with heights.

He cast a curious glance at the rushing water.

The clouds parted, and sunlight peeked through, spraying the bank with an unexpected glitter of light. He was still for a time, his eyes going from light to dark as that brightness faded, leaving shapes that burned like memory behind his eyes.

He rose thoughtfully, turned, and followed the soldiers' washed-out trail up the ridge into the trees.

***

Farther to the south, where the water turned salty and the banks sloped down, the ribbon of scraggly trees thinned until it finally disappeared; the Cursed Wood stepped out from behind it, its trunks like sturdy towers. Avry had glimpsed it from his boat on the day he had rescued the princess.

"So you're what everyone fears," he said, neck crooked as he stared up at the trees.

In fact, they did not seem threatening. The ground was as bare of undergrowth as the floor in the knight's chamber. Sunlight shone warmly on the bright leaves, scattering flecks of light, like gold coins, on the ground.

Avry strode in, feeling like an unannounced guest. He could find no trace of the soldiers, but that did not surprise him. There was simply nothing to record their passage. Not even a weed had managed to poke its head through the tightly piled roots. The absence of a trail reminded him that he would need to mark his own. He slid a small vial from his belt; it contained sheep's blood, which would stain better than berries. He smeared a small amount of it on every rock he found. The soldiers' trail had led him east, so it seemed logical to continue in that direction.

He was careful where he stepped. The roots were not level but rose and fell, following the elevation of the earth. When they came to a rock, they swerved around it, exactly like ripples in a pond. The wood was eerily silent. It was not the silence of a room at night, but rather of an empty cathedral.

He paused to take water from his pack. He drank sparingly, worried he would not find a stream or that it would be buried under roots. A breeze brushed his face, cooling the moisture on his chin. He stoppered the bottle and peered up at the swaying branches. A deep sense of peace pushed into him. Its source was no mystery to the knight. He had a purpose now, and it was simple: to close the distance between himself and Merisande. Nothing mattered but that.

The breeze had strengthened. Avry went still, amazed by how it sighed through the branches. It was like breath, he thought. The breath of trees.

He tossed his bottle into the pack. As he hefted it onto his shoulders, a branch grazed the side of his head. He did not realize his hair was snagged until he was almost pulled off his feet. While his fingers worked to untangle the strands, a tremor shook the ground. A root shifted, and then another; the two parted like lips under his feet.

Avry's hair came loose. He swung up onto a low branch and crouched there, panting against the trunk. The roots had closed again, but the wood was anything but still. The wind sighed, shivering through the trunks, quivering their leaves. It was not a true wind, but a deep stirring that began within the trees and shook its way out.

Something wet dripped on his hand. Glancing up, he noticed that the branch above him had darkened with moisture. Was the tree excreting something poisonous to remove him?

Fighting back panic, he slid to the ground, catching himself before he slipped on the wetness that had begun to coat everything.

For a moment he felt safe, then the earth shook again.

"All right!" he shouted, feeling trapped in a maelstrom of angry, shuddering giants. The woman's advice seemed preposterous, but he could think of nothing else to do. He launched into her story, his voice cutting through the chaos of wind and branches. It came out haltingly at first; he had forgotten the name of her daughter. "Astrid," he remembered.

He paused, noticing the hush that had fallen over the trees. They listen.

Finishing the tale without flourish, he hefted his pack and strode on.

They like a good story.

What kind of story? Did it matter if it were true? Would they even know the difference? He imagined the royal library, scrolls arranged in their tidy holes, candles burning haphazardly. He chose a scroll at random and opened it.

"The Ballad of Lin Terne" appeared in fancy letters across the page, and underneath it, "A Tale of Two Lovers Who Conspired to Murder a King." Avry pieced the poem together, humming the tune under his breath. The activity calmed his mind, and he was able to stop his hands from trembling.

The sun sank behind him, taking back the coins of light that flecked the ground. It was well past the supper hour, but all he had to eat were the few things Édouard had scrounged from the kitchen: a loaf of bread and some crumbly cheese, a few sticks of dried meat, raisins from Ann. He wondered what the fae ate. Nothing grew in the Cursed Wood.

A sound broke through the silence, making him falter midstep. After a time it came again, sharp as a horn call in the fog: a bird's cry.

Avry went still, hardly breathing. Then he began to run. The light brightened. The damp roots under his feet dwindled in size until they disappeared entirely. He stumbled past a weedy stripe of bare earth and entered a pine forest. With a relieved cry he collapsed on the ground beside a tree. All around him came the soft sounds of animals, rabbits, squirrels, young birds trying their new wings.

He made a feast out of bread and cheese then closed his eyes and slept through the night.

***

Avry woke to the sound of running feet. He rose quickly, thought of drawing his short sword, and decided against it.

It was early morning, not far from full dawn. He flattened himself against a fat tree and peered around it.

Two men were hunched together behind a thicket. They were darkly complexioned, like the olive-skinned merchants that traveled up from the south of Ann. Their faces were clean-shaven, and they carried nothing but the clothes on their backs, which consisted of plain brown tunics and hose. Their hair had been shorn so close to the scalp that skin showed through it.

While he observed them, the younger one leaned forward and coughed up a small amount of blood. He caught it with his arm, leaving a red smudge on his cheek.

Avry moved abruptly. "Hello," he said, drawing their startled gaze. Before they could decide what to do, he slid in behind the thicket with them. "I mean you no harm," he assured them. "But it seems that someone does. Who are you running from?"

There was a silence, then the coughing resumed. Avry tore a strip from his tunic and offered it to the young man. "Are you hurt?" he asked, feeling a growing unease. They did not look like servants, but rather slaves. Dark shadows lurked like bruises under their eyes, and they appeared malnourished.

The elder one took the cloth from his companion and wiped the youth's bloodied mouth, then he turned to Avry. "Where you come from?" he whispered in an accent reminiscent of merchants from Ann.

Avry told him and waited.

The man sighed deeply then shook his head. "A mistake. A mistake to come here."

"I'm looking for a woman," Avry explained. "She's pale like me, with dark, braided hair and green eyes. Have you seen her?"

"No. Haven't." As the man spoke, his companion made a series of gestures with his hands. The elder replied with a cutting motion.

"Is he mute?" Avry asked.

The men, caught up in their strange, silent conversation, ignored the knight. At last, the elder turned and whispered, "This is dangerous place. You should go, now, while you can." He lifted the stained bit of cloth. "Plague."

Avry eyed the sick man more closely. There was blood on his shirt now, bright against the pale linen. He asked again, "Who are you running from?"

Just then a new sound dropped into the quiet of the wood: the fall of hoofbeats. Hearing it, the escaped slaves stiffened with terror. They signed to each other hurriedly, then the youth began coughing again. Blood dribbled down his chin. "Leave me," he hissed, pushing away his friend's efforts to blot it.

The elder folded the cloth with shaking hands and flicked a glance at Avry. "They're coming."

Avry sought to control his accelerated breathing. "Fae?" he guessed, listening to the horses pick their unhurried way through the wood. They were approaching from the east.

The elder made an exasperated gesture. "You should run."

"I will not."

"Then—"

"I ought to fight for you."

"No. You can't. Not alone. If you won't run, let them take you, but make no sound. Only whisper." He said something more, but his quiet words were drowned out by the approaching hooves.

Avry thought quickly. There would be a city, walled perhaps, with guards to keep the slaves in order. If he killed the fae who were after these men, he would be free to make his own way to the stronghold, perhaps under the cover of darkness. But could he get inside it?

Fear stabbed him as he thought of Merisande. What might they have done to her?

The horses broke into the clearing. For the sake of the men, Avry remained where he was.

He peered at the riders through the tangle of leaves.

They were not unlike humans, thinner perhaps, but not so thin that they would arouse suspicion. Their folded wings might have been mistaken for some mysterious part of their gear.

They dismounted and studied the ground. Trackers, Avry thought. And armed. They carried bows in their hands.

Inevitably, they worked their way to the thicket. They paused, then one stepped forward and notched an arrow. "Come out," he barked. "Now!"

Avry unbent himself awkwardly. A moment later, the older slave rose and stood alongside him.

The tracker's mouth opened and then closed again. His startled eyes moved over Avry. "Who are you?"

Avry, deciding to follow the old man's council, touched his lips and shook his head. Mute.

"You're not mute," the fae retorted. "Speak!"

All of a sudden, the second fae raised his bow and let an arrow fly. Avry's eyes closed. He heard the thud of an arrow hitting its target then a ragged hiss of breath from the man who had just lost his friend.

No explanation was provided. The man was a sick animal that needed putting down. It was as simple and appalling as that. Avry clenched his fists at his sides; it took all his strength to keep them steady, to stop himself from acting as he wanted to. Though he had seen men slain before—had himself slain a man in self-defense—he had never witnessed such pitiless slaughter.

"Bind their hands," ordered the fae whose arrow was still pointed at Avry's heart.

Binding the slave's hands seemed a needless precaution. The man had been rendered insensible with fear and grief. He would have gone with them willingly.

Avry remained silent as they stripped him of his short sword and pack. They unbuckled his belt and shook out a small knife and spearhead. Avry kept his face averted. He was not surprised when he felt the sudden bite of his own blade on the back of his hand. The tracker kicked him forcefully in the leg, meaning to trip him. Avry let himself fall. He lay still, sensing the thoughtful weight of their eyes.

"He hasn't made a sound," the fae remarked.

"Try him again."

The fae wrenched on his arm, twisting it hard behind his back. Pain shot through the strained joint. It took everything Avry had not to roll away, to end the terrible hold. Breath hissed through his clenched teeth.

Finally, the fae released him.

After a brief silence, gloved hands tugged on his midriff, pulling him to his feet. Another strip of cloth was torn from his tunic.

"Can you ride?" the fae asked, fingers working to bandage Avry's hand.

Avry nodded.

"Good. It's a short journey to Thorsault. Be cooperative, and you'll live." He motioned to a saddleless horse. Avry mounted obediently, and the fae settled in behind him. The slave was thrust onto the second horse, and then they were off, moving at a fast trot toward the place they called Thorsault.

Trees swept by, streaks of green speckled with early light; they thinned after a while, and the horses broke out into a space of meadow grass and wildflowers.

Avry raised his eyes and swallowed.
PART TWO   
THORSAULT
CHAPTER 12

Mer, hands and face washed in water that smelled of roses, in a basin made of polished silver, strolled to the iron balustrade of her casement window and peered down at Thorsault city. From her height the people looked like ants, some with wings, others—the ones dressed in plain brown linen—wingless. Human. All the servants were human.

Or to put it another way, all the humans were servants.

She turned with a sigh and let her gaze wander over the cavernous chamber.

Gandel had taken her there directly. Dawn had barely brushed the sky when they had emerged from the wood and trudged up the road toward the city. Guards had met them halfway to the gate on unsaddled horses. Mer, who had never ridden bareback, chose to ride double with the prince on his white gelding.

Once through the gate, they rode swiftly down a straight road that led to a winding, terraced hill; the castle stood atop it, a structure of wood and stone with a steep roof clawing the sky.

They dismounted at the castle grounds, and a servant took the horse, then Gandel guided her up a short staircase and through the castle's double doors.

Mer, free to walk again, could do nothing but stare at the cathedral-like space. Everything was old, from the crumbling animals that chased each other up pillars and around doorways to the faded wall tapestries that fell from a ceiling so high, it disappeared in shadow.

Gandel led her wordlessly up a spiral stairway to a hallway interrupted by eight gaping doors. Sconces hewn from the bare stone ran in a straight line down the walls; small lamps sat inside them, shedding light through tiny, jagged crystals. "This is the guest floor," he informed her in a cool voice.

"There aren't many guests."

He smiled faintly. "Oh, you'll know it when they arrive. The sound is enough to make bones sit up and protest. Most of these house my cousins when the king calls for a feast." He motioned her into the first room on the right. "There are always fresh sheets and cloths for washing. And all the rooms come with a small library and a writing desk."

"Who would I write to?"

To her surprise, he answered without hesitation, "It's our custom to keep a log of the day's events."

"A diary."

"Of sorts. If you want to send me a message, simply pull the maid's cord, and she'll take your note to a flier."

"A flier?"

"The fliers are messengers," he explained briskly. "I may not return for some time. But we'll meet again five days from now, at the king's feast. I'll see that you're invited."

"Thank you," she said to his already retreating form. A sudden thought made her lurch forward and snatch his arm. "Gandel, how will you explain my presence to your father?"

His mouth opened, then his chin jerked into his collarbone so hard that his teeth rattled. "I'll take care of it," he said once the twitching had ceased.

"Does he know you gave me a summoning stone?"

"No."

"Then—"

"I'll take care of it!" Taking back his arm, he marched down the hallway and out the door.

"Thank you," she called.

He did not bother to reply.

She received her first visit from the maid that evening. A brush of displaced air made Mer turn, and there she was, somewhat rumpled, as if she had crawled out from under the bed. Their eyes met briefly, then the maid walked to a low table and set down a shiny silver tray. She signed something with her hands and waited, it seemed, for a response.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Mer admitted. "Are you mute?"

The girl exhaled sharply. She was perhaps in her nineteenth year, short and slender, with tightly braided hair and skin the color of raw almonds.

After a silence, she inclined her head—a bow, perhaps, or a nod—turned, and Mer watched with amazement as she slid behind a tapestry that hung on the east wall of the chamber.

Mer went to the wall. The tapestry was made of some thick stuff, heavier than wool or linen, but flexible and strong. Its edge was discolored where many hands had touched it, over how many years she was afraid to surmise. She found the hidden door and slid her hand over it. The crack that divided the plaster from the wood was no thicker than a knife blade. She felt along it with her nails but could find no hidden latch, not even a subtle change in the surface of the wood that might indicate a trigger. Disappointed, she dropped the tapestry and returned to her tray.

The days passed in silence. Mer, trying desperately to keep her thoughts from veering west, spent hours poring over the strange books on the fossil of a shelf Gandel called "the library." Most were legends, written as though they had been translated from some other language. One, entitled "The Chambers at World's End" lifted her out of the lonely room into a mystical land where mountains were hollow and the earth gave off smoke that made men dream.

Tucked behind them all was a tightly bound scroll.

Mer unwound the string holding it together. The paper, damaged by time and the dampness of the keep, crumbled as she opened it.

She lifted the fragments to the lamplight.

Whorls and deep, curling tails filled the space in tidy lines, just like words on a page. She studied it for a time, a faint line forming between her brows. Her gaze shifted from the scroll to the tapestry's shadowy border. Skin tingling, she snatched up a candle and went down on her knees by the secret door. "There you are," she breathed. What she had assumed to be an abstract design was actually a row of tidy letters faded to a pale gray. It was a language. And not just any language; it had to be fae. Which meant that the language they spoke now was not theirs, not originally, but it had been adopted from their human servants. Why was a question she would have to ask Gandel.

On the fourth day, the guests arrived, bursting into the hallway with a sound like cattle charging. Doors slammed, came open again; words were tossed back and forth between rooms. The maids scurried within the walls like mice, dropping things in their haste to please the prince's cousins.

Mer woke late on the morning of the fifth day, the hours of inactivity making her feel as if she had overcome some grievous sickness, and found herself eyeing a bright square of fabric the maid had left for her beside the towels. A dress?

Dresses, she corrected herself as the fabric parted in her hands. She eyed the bolts appraisingly; even in the thin morning light the cloth glowed with color. Never had she seen so rich a red, so deep a purple. Her aunt would have wept.

She lifted one to her chest and went to the mirror that leaned on the wall by the door. She scarcely recognized the person that looked back at her. The purple shade made her lips bright, her eyes black, her skin so pale that it seemed to emit rays.

She turned the dress around and viewed the open back. In place of wings there would be a moon of smooth skin, as vivid as a brand that marked her "human."

"But I am," she said aloud to her image in the mirror. "Human." So why did that seem like such a bad thing?

She posed the question to herself again as she watched the tiny, wingless figures move below her window.

***

Avry rode with his captors toward Thorsault.

The fringe of meadow grass ended, and crops took over in orderly strips. A row of outbuildings came into view, warmly limned by the sun. All the doors were open, and men trickled out carrying baskets over their heads. Their masters followed at a distance on horseback.

Avry peered over the miles of misty farmland. The lines that separated the various crops were amazingly straight. When viewed from a distance, they transformed the land into a patchwork quilt.

The crops surrounded, like a comforting blanket, the object they apparently existed to serve: the stronghold of Thorsault.

Thorsault was both like and unlike what Avry had imagined. The city itself crept up to the feet of an enormous tor that stood at its center. The tor was pyramid-shaped. Four defensive terraces had been hewn into the rising stone; these were connected by switchbacks, or ramps, depending on how one viewed them. The castle rested on the tor's peak like a tapered finger.

His eyes wandered over the city walls, which had to be at least thirty feet high. They had not been built to repel enemy fae, who could fly over them as easily as birds. No, it seemed their sole purpose was to keep humans in and invading armies out. The slaves had revolted once, he guessed, and the walls had been built as a consequence of that event.

The riders slowed at the city gate. The guards had eyed Avry from a distance, but if they had questions, they found a way to swallow them as they waved the company through.

A broad, straight road stretched ahead. Cedars marched along the sides; Avry could not see past them, but the streets that branched off offered a glimpse of steeply roofed houses encircled by groomed hedges. He saw no live animals, and the absence of the usual smells made him conclude that the ruder parts of the city, the markets, blacksmiths, and butchers, were far away from this quiet place.

The horses slowed with very little guidance as they turned and mounted the first rocky terrace of the tor. They stayed within the inner half of the road. The outer half was a mess of crumbled rock and bird droppings, and—oddly enough—small, blackened grates that seemed to serve as chimney screens for whatever fire burned beneath them. Some were still spewing smoke; caught by the wind, it shredded apart and dispersed over the sides of the tor.

Shortly, they came to the final gate that stood between the city and the castle. Here, the slave was unloaded and escorted away, to what punishment Avry could not imagine. The knight watched his retreating form until the horses began to move again, and his own fate loomed over him in the shape of an enormous claw.

So the castle had appeared from a distance. Up close, it looked more like an oversized sentinel tower, all white stone and age-darkened wood, lifting its four walls until they merged together in a point that grazed the clouds. The banners hanging from it displayed a white griffin in flight, talons open as if it were about to grasp its prey.

They dismounted at the foot of a staircase. The fae leading the company spoke softly to a guard, who cast a curious glance at Avry, then they continued up the stairs, through the castle's iron doors, and into a spacious hallway. Their steps echoed off walls that stretched up to a fantastically high ceiling. Lamps, still smoking from being recently snuffed, leaned out of narrow recesses in the stone. Avry studied the crystals enclosing them. Though they were not lit, he imagined how the light would appear, fragmented into tiny pieces that would scatter like moths over the hall. Between the lines of sconces were tapestry panels, their images faded almost to shadow. Everything spoke of a great age, of craftsmanship that had been lost or neglected from disinterest.

They entered a windowless chamber, and Avry was shoved into a chair. Their footsteps faded, and the door closed.

He did not know how long he waited—hours, a whole day. There was no way to know. The single lamp hanging on the wall never stopped burning; the fuel, if it existed, gave no indication that it would ever run dry. Avry sat in silence, his stomach oscillating between hunger and nausea. A stone griffin leered at him from the molding. He shook his head at it, wanting to laugh like a madman for no reason except that it existed.

Avry squeezed his eyes closed.

The island formed in his mind. One side of it was bright and familiar. Sheep grazed on rolling hills; fishing boats, freed from their night moorings, drifted out into the open water; merchants bartered with shopkeepers over bolts of fabric. The king, troubled by the absence of one of his knights, set aside the scraps of his breakfast and went to stand by the window.

Then the island shifted like a coin turning; it bared its shadowy side.

Avry leaned back and pushed a cold hand through his hair. The griffin watched him with narrowed eyes. "You're a human creation," he said to the crouching beast. Not fae.

For some reason, that fact struck fear in him like nothing else had.

The bolt slid back with a metal clang, and Avry jumped out of the chair, heart crashing in his chest.

He was escorted to a chamber the size of Rose Hall. Pillars marched down its sides. Extending from floor to ceiling, they appeared slender, fragile, like cords that could bend at a touch. He smelled incense: sagebrush and lavender.

A guard nudged him forward. "Stop at the sign on the floor."

Avry spotted the gold-leafed flourish and went to it. The trackers from the wood were already there, backs bent in half so they stared at the floor. Avry imitated their low bow. After a silence, heavy footsteps approached, the sound softened by a length of red carpet spilling down from a dais. The stranger halted, and Avry sensed eyes on him, searching with a cold intensity.

"Where?" asked a deep dry voice, nearer than Avry expected.

"My King," replied one of the trackers, "he was found in the west wood near the riltrad crops."

"He offered no struggle?"

"No, My King."

"And no speech?"

"No, My King."

"You tested him?"

"Yes, My King."

There was a lengthy pause. The exchange seemed rehearsed somehow, as if the questions had been posed before. Avry stiffened, waiting for a sudden blow. None came.

"Assign him to laundry," the king said, surprising the knight. "Treat him like one newly arrived."

"Yes, My King." The tracker paused, and made an odd gesture with his hand.

"No," the king said immediately. Then he added in a quieter tone, which seemed directed at Avry, "If he regains his voice, notify me."

"Yes, My King."

"You may go, then. You may all go."

The company walked backward out of the room, pausing only to wait for the opening door. As it closed, Avry caught a fleeting glimpse of the king, a tall, bulky figure dressed in a robe the color of the carpet. His wide, lipless mouth was turned up in a smile; it held, even as his eyes met Avry's.

The door closed.
CHAPTER 13

Mer was not finished dressing when a firm knock sounded on the door. "A moment," she called, fumbling with the slippery fabric. Smoothing stray hairs behind her ears, she pulled the latch and threw open the door.

A fae dressed in uniform gave her an expressionless nod. "Merisande?"

"Yes?"

"I'm here to escort you to the dining hall."

"Yes. I'm ready now."

He guided her without a word up the worn spiral stairway. The curved stone walls were punctuated by arrow slit windows, which offered a glimpse of the setting sun sinking toward the distant treetops. The sight made Mer's feet slow on the steps. From this height she thought she might see as far as the Cursed Wood.

They passed a second window, and then a third. Each new glimpse of the wood made it vaster, a dense carpet that had no end. There is no other kingdom than Thorsault, she imagined, and felt for an instant as if the stairs had vanished under her feet and she climbed the empty air.

The fae stepped onto a landing. Mer followed him through a doorway and down a high-ceilinged hallway. Their footsteps tapped against the polished wood floor then softened as the floor vanished under a sheath of carpet. After a few yards the walls curved to form a circular space. Mer's brows puckered as she entered it.

A stone carving of an upraised arm stood in the center of the circle. The sculpture was over a yard high and so detailed that it looked as though it might come to life at any moment. A large, hollow orb rested on its open palm. Mer approached it curiously.

The orb was as clear as Gandel's lamp shade, but instead of fire it contained a milky substance. Dozens of shadowy balls floated—or rather swam, if such a word could be used to describe such a mindless movement—inside the orb. Mer watched them rise up from the bottom, contort almost flat as they smacked the orb's side, then regain their shape as they bounded back into the cloudy water. They did this over and over again, sometimes a dozen at a time, each taking a different route, but always rising, flattening, reentering the center.

She loosed a tight breath and leaned away from the statue. Her dazed eyes met the guard's. They both seemed in darkness, though the area was well lit by sconces.

"Myrlis," he muttered.

"Are they alive?"

"They were. Now they're changeless."

"How does a thing become changeless?"

He shrugged and motioned her forward. "Come."

They paused in front of a closed door. Mer did not have to ask what lay on the other side of it. Voices drifted through. Probably the king and his extended family. She tugged at the neck of her dress, wishing it were as loose as the back.

"It would be best," the fae warned her softly, "not to speak of the myrlis."

The door opened. Mer walked through.

***

"There you are!" came a booming voice.

Mer forced herself to walk to the grand table. Table hardly began to describe the structure that stretched the length of the room. Made of wide, age-blackened beams, it seemed too crude an object for the elaborately dressed party. Mer managed another step and halted, her unthinking gaze fixed on the fae occupying the head seat. He was impossibly fat. No less than three rolls spilled down from his greasy chin. His arms were so thick that only the wrists seemed to move, like those of a poorly made puppet. She remembered to bow. Rising, she caught his small, amused eyes.

"Be seated," he commanded, motioning her to an empty chair only a couple of seats down from his own. A servant pulled it out for her, waited until she had seated herself comfortably, and helped push it back in. "Take what you like," the king offered, managing to stretch his forearm in a gesture that encompassed the platters scattered across the table. "We serve ourselves here."

"Thank you, My Lord."

Her comment excited a smattering of rude laughter. She felt a touch and glanced to her right. Gandel was beside her, his slender form wrapped in a scarlet robe. She wondered how she could have missed him.

They regarded each other silently, then he said, "Say 'My King.' Lord isn't used here. To us it's a nonsense word."

"Don't educate her," the king snapped. "Her ignorance can't be counted against her. And it provides us with needed entertainment." He smiled indulgently at her.

Mer forced herself to return his smile but flinched at the cold pressure of Gandel's hand on her wrist. A warning?

"Merisande."

"Yes, My King?"

"You've been here for some days now. How are you finding it?"

"Pleasant," she lied, and then added more truthfully, "The castle is breathtaking, full of wonders."

The king lifted his heavy knife and snagged a chicken thigh. Mer followed his example, though she had little desire to eat. "It is that," he agreed before taking a bite.

Low conversation resumed at the end of the table. Mer shifted awkwardly, unaccustomed to the chair's low back. She sensed eyes on her and caught the glance of a red-haired woman—if one could call a female fae a woman—seated next to the king. Mer returned the guest's shy smile.

The king dabbed his oily mouth. "Merisande," he repeated, hushing the conversation once more.

"Yes, My L-King?"

"I've never thanked you for saving my son's life. Had you not been there that day, I'm sure he would have perished in a fit of helpless tears."

Mer well remembered that weeping child, but the king's words, uttered so baldly to all of Gandel's relatives, made her feel compelled to defend him. "I'm honored, My King, but I'm sure he would have survived without my help. He made it across the Cursed Wood on his own, and at night. He—"

"I already know the details," the king interrupted with a frown.

"My King—" She paused, searching for a polite way to phrase her question. "How long have you known?"

"Why, since the milkling stumbled out of the cursed trees and into the arms of my trackers. He'd concocted some story about an underground cave, but I saw through it. He was never a good liar."

The prince lifted his head. Mer could not see his eyes. They were turned from her, but his father's held such malice that she gave an involuntary shudder.

There was a lengthy pause. Mer lifted the food she had forgotten between her fingers and chewed mechanically. She looked past the table to a tapestry hanging on the far wall. The colors had faded, but she could still make out the shadowy lines. She followed the path of a wing, found a talon, the arrow-shaped tip of a tail.

"The griffin," the king said, making her heart jump. "Is our emblem. Your people also have an emblem, do they not?"

Her attention returned with reluctance to the table. "We have many, My King."

"Indeed? I'd be interested to know what they are. My people know so little about yours."

"What do you know, My King?"

"Only what has been spied from across the river."

She gave a slow nod, trying not to contemplate the idea that fae soldiers spied on her people without their knowledge. "There are twelve emblems, representing the twelve houses of Aure. The country's emblem is a castle."

"The king's castle."

"Yes—"

"A great castle, no doubt."

She jerked away from the prince's frantic fingers. "Not greater than yours, My King."

He chuckled. "You won't hurt my vanity by way of comparisons. Please be as accurate as you can."

She popped an onion into her mouth; they seemed to like them whole here, drowned in chicken fat. She pondered while she chewed. The prince was motionless beside her. She could almost feel his displeasure, as if he emitted waves. "The castle of King Alaric of Ann is grander and more interesting. I read that it has at least five gardens, complete with enclosed walls and peacocks—"

"Ann isn't your country."

"No, My King."

"Your country is smaller than Ann. A smaller castle, a smaller country. Am I right?"

"Smaller," she agreed, her brows pinched in confusion.

"Try to be accurate. You see, I have a vicious curiosity, and if you don't satisfy it I may not sleep tonight."

Laughter spilled delicately along the length of the hall. It was interrupted by a sudden movement at her side. Gandel had risen to his feet. Tossing his napkin onto his plate like a bold remark, he turned and left the room.

His absence left her feeling cold. She leaned away from the table, setting her napkin to the side.

"Don't be offended," the king said quickly.

She shook her head and tossed back water to clear her dry throat. She could not fathom the prince's impulse to leave at that moment. Why not earlier, when his father was spearing him with insults? "I'm not, My King."

Hands appeared, lifting away the prince's empty plate. Mer glimpsed the side of a face, the smooth length of a wingless back.

"Do the servants disturb you?"

"A little, My—"

"Their skin is a strange shade, is it not?"

"Yes, My King."

"And they can't speak, not at all. One might conclude that they aren't of your kind."

He waited, watching Mer's face until she was forced to answer. "Yes, My King."

More servants entered, stacking plates over their arms.

"Excuse me," a small voice said. Looking up, Mer met the gleaming eyes of the red-haired woman across the table. "Do you have dancing in your country?"

"Of course," Mer replied, feeling a twinge of pride for her people—the first she had experienced all evening.

"Then you must see ours. She's invited, is she not, Uncle?"

The king patted her tiny hand. "Yes, my beauty."

***

"This is the best part of the evening," the woman assured her as they exited the dining hall. "You haven't seen dancing, not real dancing, until you've seen ours."

Mer's lip twitched in an amused smile. "Do you dance?"

"Of course not! I'd be terrified. Terrified," the woman repeated, shuddering—a little twitch that reminded Mer of Gandel.

"Why?" Mer asked as they were ushered through a door and into a spacious chamber. The room was taller than it was wide. The walls, rising like the arms of some sky god, narrowed to a shadowy point far above her.

"Watch," the woman said and pointed a tapered finger to a pair of fae who knelt at the center of the room.

The conversation trickled to silence as the musicians entered and arranged themselves on a raised platform at the far side of the room, shifting chairs, cushions, and clothing as they positioned their odd-looking instruments. Mer studied the instruments with slightly parted lips. The first resembled a crumhorn, the second a flute, the third was puzzling, a muddle of silvery stems that spiraled like ferns out of a curved center. A drum finished the ensemble, looking ordinary enough.

The king's guests dropped into chairs around the dancers and waited while the musicians made their bleats and buzzes.

"Open the curtain," the king bellowed to no one in particular.

There was movement behind the gallery, then sudden, brilliant light—the falling sun shooting a spear through the heart of the castle. It touched the backs of the kneeling dancers.

A silence fell.

The pair rose gracefully and bowed to the king, then they turned and bowed to each other. A drumbeat began, soft at first, imitating the movements of the couple. Wings spread, the dancers swayed toward each other; one leaned forward and to the left, the other leaned forward and to the right so that they appeared to be kissing cheeks. They repeated the motion several times, swaying faster and faster, the momentum from their wings gently dragging them back until they were leaning away rather than toward each other.

Gradually, they slowed. Keeping their feet still, they lurched back once more, then, with a suddenness that left Mer gasping, they were in the air, hovering somewhere between the ceiling and the floor.

In that space of flame-colored light they performed what seemed to Mer a perilous dance of death. Time itself seemed to bend under their power, follow like a streamer in their wake. They grasped the tips of each other's fingers, fell backward, slid sideways, turned upside down, and caught one another, their bodies colliding so snugly that their limbs appeared entwined. Their wings beat fast under them, churning the audience's hair and clothing.

All the while, the gallery was alive with sound, a music so knit with the dance that it faded to invisibility beneath it.

Mer hardly knew when they had finished. Her eyes were damp, and she was trembling. Dimly, she watched the dancers glide to the floor. They bowed to each other and to the king. Then they collapsed and were still.
CHAPTER 14

Avry, his leather stripped from him, his hair shorn to an inch from his skull, sat on one of two beds in a poorly lit chamber and scratched repeatedly at the bandage still tied around his hand. He wanted to curse and shout, to pull the bed apart, rip a strip of wood from the frame and use it on as many fae as he could find.

But he could not do that.

Unclenching his fingers, he forced himself to focus on his breathing.

A thunderstorm entered his mind, lightning flashing across a dark sky. Every breath was a crack of thunder that followed on the heels of lightning. To calm the storm, his breathing had to slow.

The lightning flashed. He took a steady breath and heard the answering rumble, a little fainter this time. Another flash of lightning, another slow breath.

Gradually, the thunder softened. The seconds between the lightning and thunder stretched until the storm faded to distant flashes of light.

He lay without moving on the bed, breathing calmly in the silence.

I am where I should be, he reminded himself. Lady Merisande was somewhere in the city; he would locate her eventually. Then he would find a way for them both to escape. Remaining calm was key. He remembered the techniques one of his arms instructors had taught him. Emotion is the greatest enemy, the man used to say. Fear and anger can destroy even the best-laid plans.

Avry unwrapped his damp bandage, grimacing as it pulled from his tender skin. The cut was not deep, but it had bled profusely. He dabbed at the edges while his eyes took in his surroundings.

A fireplace yawned out of the wall opposite the door; next to it burned the room's only lamp. He lifted the poker and nudged the dead coals, then he stood and regarded the contents of the room. They consisted of a stool, a jug of water, a single chamber pot stained from use, two baskets of toiletries, and two changes of clothing.

The mattresses had been placed in box beds. Avry hated box beds, which were no better than lidless coffins turned on their sides. But they served a practical purpose: to screen the sleeper from the smoke of a dirty fire.

He wondered if the second bed was being used or if it was only stocked for use. As he bent to study the pillow, searching for a telltale dip, something new caught his eye.

A knot had popped out of an old board at the back of the box bed. Someone had placed a beribboned tuft of hair in the hole. Avry climbed onto the mattress and fingered it thoughtfully. Years of dust had dulled the color of the ribbon, but someone had stroked the hair clean. He wondered whose hair it was, whose bed.

In the stillness, the walls seemed to draw their shadows around him. The wooden boards smelled of smoke and old sweat. He clasped his chest, feeling an unexpected wave of nausea.

At that moment, the chamber door creaked open. There came a sudden hiss of breath, then strong hands grabbed Avry's legs and wrenched him off the mattress and onto the floor. Avry squashed his desire to defend himself, letting it splutter in a whispered curse between his teeth.

He lay without moving until the stranger's bed creaked, then he climbed stiffly into his own.

They were both quiet for a time, breathing cautiously in the awkward silence.

Avry peered at him from under his arm. His attacker was a young man, thin, but not to the point of being unhealthy. His skin was a shade lighter than that of the field workers. His callused hands were curled around his legs, just above the dusty cuffs of his hose.

The gap in the wood, Avry noted, was empty. Sighing, he turned onto his side and let the slave have his privacy.

Sleep had almost claimed him when a hand dropped on his shoulder.

"You awake?"

"No," Avry replied in the same voiceless whisper.

"Sorry for the—for the—"

"Don't worry about it."

"Will you talk to me?"

Avry ground a fist into his heavy eyes. He needed information, and the sooner he got it, the better. He rose and went to the fireplace. "What's your name?" he asked as the youth squatted on the floor next to him.

"Carles." His eyes narrowed as he studied Avry. "You're not from here."

Avry flicked a glance at the door window, but no one was there.

"They don't care," Carles said, speaking of the guards.

"No. I'm not from here." He drew a careful breath. He did not trust the slave. The king might have employed him as a spy, or would yet employ him. "I suppose," he said with calculated indifference, "I'm the only foreigner in Thorsault."

"Far as I know."

Not a hint of deception lurked in the youth's guileless face. Avry's shoulders slumped. Finding Merisande might prove harder than he had imagined. "Do you work in the stables?"

Carles sniffed a cuff. "Is it that bad?"

"Not as bad as other smells in this place. Do you like the work?"

"Yes." He seemed to want to say something more but chose not to.

Avry hung his arms over his knees. He wished the hearth was lit; it would have given him something to look at. "I have been called knight errant," he said.

"Your name—?"

"Avry."

Carles leaned back with a wistful smile. "Knight. I've heard that word before. Spoken in tales." He paused, his brown eyes growing vague with thought; they came abruptly back to Avry. "You shouldn't have come here. How did you? Why did you?"

Avry pursed his lips; he would have to give him something, he realized, even if it were only a half-truth. "I crossed the gorge and came through the wood."

"The inner wood—?"

"It allows you through when you tell it stories."

"Only possible," Carles remarked, "when you have a voice to tell them. Now you're done in. You can't speak over the wood wind, so you can't go back." He kicked the grate. "Where did you think you were going?"

"I was exploring. I didn't know what I'd find."

"Unlucky."

"Perhaps. But I made it through the wood. I could be under the earth now, being slowly consumed by a plant."

Carles sniffed. "Instead you're under the earth being slowly consumed by a king."

Avry regarded him in silence a moment then said, "Why do they take our voices?" It was as close to asking "how" as he was likely to get.

He shrugged. "It's a ritual. They've been doing it for years."

"I see," Avry said, not seeing at all.

The slave shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. He lifted the flimsy poker and pretended to examine the handle. "Tell me—tell me about the world outside."

Avry told him about Ann. He spoke of the poor and the rich, the wars that had brought the country to its knees and then gradually expanded its borders. He quoted poetry, pulled soot out of the grate, and used it to shape the heraldic horses of the sea and the shield that surrounded them. Carles listened with a bent head, hardly breathing. At last, he loosed a shuddering sigh and looked at Avry.

"You could fight them," Avry said, meeting his dry, troubled eyes.

"Fight them," he repeated flatly.

"It may be possible."

The slave snorted. He rose, crossed the room to the knobby stool by the door, and returned with a jug of water and two cups. "The fae have an army," he explained, passing a cup to Avry. "A hidden army. Stationed at Trabac."

"Trabac?"

"The slave village. South of here."

Avry leaned back, trying to recall what he had seen during his escort to Thorsault.

Fields surrounded the city on at least three sides. A paved road ran south from the city gate, and another, longer road intersected it. Both seemed to end at a tree line. "Is Trabac in the wood?" he ventured.

"It's in the regular wood. The inner wood is nowhere near the village." Carles set his cup on the floor, shifting it until it found an even surface. "The soldiers supervise Trabac—the mothers and children, and older ones living there—while the rest of us stay here and pay our twenty-year tribute. If we attacked, they'd use our families against us. They have that kind of power." He pulled his knees up to his chin and tipped back a little, balancing himself on the floor. "Not that it matters. Trabac is emptying. Out of my family, only my sister is alive, and she works as a maid in the upper chambers."

"The plague?" Avry guessed, and the youth nodded. "Then most of the slaves are here in Thorsault."

"And in the fields. And some work in the lead mines, east of Trabac."

"Who had my bed?"

"I did. My father slept in the other. I switched beds after he—after he went." Carles' face inched into his arms until only his eyes appeared, gazing remotely at the grate. "He died the day after I came to the tor. I didn't even know he was sick." He turned and gestured to the swatch of hair, which lay like a small bird on his pillow. "My mother's."

"I see." Avry clenched and unclenched his hands. The slaves' situation made him deeply uneasy, and he knew that if he let himself dwell on it, the helpless anger he had taken pains to banish would return, worse than before. He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It wasn't your fault."

"I'm sorry about your family," he clarified.

Carles shrugged and buried his head back into his arms.

Avry stared mindlessly at a chip in the hearthstones. It looked like a ship, charting a course through a black sea.

After a long silence, the slave lifted his head again. "I was supposed to teach you signs."

Avry managed a tight smile. "We still have time."

***

Mer, still dressed in her dinner gown, sat in a disarray of sheets and scrolls on her bed, watching the lidless eye of the moon rise through the window. She had retreated as fast as she could without appearing rude. Alone in the darkening room, she had felt sleep drift toward her, slide past, then bolt away like a skittish cat.

While she had waited for its return, the dinner guests returned from their party. She had listened to their clumsy footsteps and raucous laughter, the banging of doors, and then like an answering echo, there had come the pattering of feet within the wall behind the tapestry. It had seemed an eternity before the castle grew still again.

She bowed her head over her hands; her dark hair hung over them like a familiar cave. In the silence a strange unreality crept over her, as if she had wakened from a long dream. She imagined herself rising and opening the door; the corridor would not lead to the stairs but to the sitting room, where her father would be waiting in his worn chair by the fire, something hot nestled between his hands. The shutters would be hanging open a crack, allowing the sounds of crickets to drift through, mingle with the snapping of wood, the creaking chair.

The scene wrenched her back to the present. It made her think of the letter and everything that had happened after. Though only days had passed, they felt like years. And the coming months might feel like decades.

But I'm still free, she thought fiercely. I can come and go as I please. And, she promised herself firmly, I will go back someday. Avry would forget her and marry someone else. She would give him that time to forget, and then she would return to Aure.

She would return.

A faint rapping sound jerked her upright.

She stood unsteadily, wincing at the gurgling in her overstuffed belly. Snatching up a lamp she had not bothered to extinguish, she went to the door.

Gandel waited impatiently on the other side of it.

"How long have you been here?" Mer asked softly, then added, "You should have knocked louder."

He shook his head. "Never mind. We need to speak, but not here. Not here."

"Then where?"

"I need to get away for a while. Could you meet me tomorrow at daybreak?"

Mer gave a wordless nod. They definitely needed to talk. Among other things, she wanted an explanation for his puzzling behavior that evening. Her wrist still tingled from being squeezed.

"Do you ride?" he asked.

"I used too, with my cousin. But I prefer not to ride bareback."

"Then the horses will be saddled. I'll wait for you in that room," he said, gesturing to the gaping door behind him. "Don't bother knocking."

***

They left before the sun had fully risen over the tree line.

Mer, having slept only intermittently, rose with the first glimmer of dawn. She shook the dried mud off the hem of her old dress, pulled on her boots, and, opening the door, nearly walked into the prince.

"You didn't wait in the guest room," she pointed out in a low voice.

He turned mutely and motioned her with a gloved hand to follow.

He all but flew down the stairs. Mer trailed along behind, gripping the wall as she descended the shadowy steps.

"Gandel," she called in exasperation, "wait!"

He slowed his pace, but only a little. Mer kept quiet until they rode down the winding tor to the city. "Are you all right?" she asked when they were away from the guards.

"Perfectly," he replied and nudged his horse to a canter.

Mer could not bring herself to follow his pace. She peered over the wobbling edge and hoped a stray bird would not swoop down and frighten her mount. When she looked up at the road again, she found it empty.

The prince waited for her at the bottom, his eyes bright with impatience. "Come along."

The city was asleep; only the servants were awake, moving sluggishly about their various tasks. Mer was surprised that even the smaller houses retained servants, and she was reminded of what the king had implied about "kinds."

She called to Gandel after they passed through the gate, but he was already vanishing into the mist that crept over the road from the distant fields.

Mer galloped after him. The wind whipped her like spears of ice. But no matter how hard she pressed her horse, Gandel remained far ahead of her, his wings like a pale cape behind him. He did not slow until they reached the outer edge of the western wood, then he threw himself off his white horse and collapsed against a tree.

Mer wound her reins around a low branch and leaned beside him. Neither spoke. She doubted that he could speak. His chest heaved like a bellows as he fought to catch his breath.

At last, he straightened and walked stiffly past her to his horse. He drew a bow and several arrows from his saddle pack and strode off without a single glance behind him.

Mer watched him hunt.

He moved almost mechanically, unearthing the various dens and thickets that rabbits and foxes frequented and shooting them with perfect accuracy. Mer was as visible to him as a tree, something alive, but not prey.

Wind tugged at the leaves; Mer looked up and then beyond to something taller than the scraggly branches. They stood at the threshold of the Cursed Wood.

The prince paused at her side. His mouth opened, then snapped shut as a soft thud broke through the silence. He wheeled toward the sound, his bow raised.

The leafy branches shuddered, and a white doe stepped out. She was like a making of the mist, her sleek body gliding between branches, positioning itself like a sentinel before the doors of a fortress. Her wide eyes regarded him without fear.

Mer, heart beating fast in her throat, reached for the arrow pointed at the doe's heart. "Gandel, don't..."

The bow dropped under the pressure of her hand. The doe's eyes trapped Mer's for an instant before it bounded away.

Gandel took a step as if to follow then caught himself. "I would not—would not have shot her."

"Your bow was raised."

He had no answer to that.

They retraced their steps back a ways, then Gandel ducked under the sheltering arms of a pine and sat cross-legged on the needles.

Mer crouched at his side. "On the day we met, you talked about a doe you mistook for—"

"A white doe."

"Do you think it's the same one?"

"I don't know. And I don't want to talk about it now."

He tugged open his bag and handed her something wrapped in cloth. Peeling it open, Mer discovered last night's leavings: a peppered drumstick, bread, half a carrot. It reminded her of the soiled bundle of leftovers she had scrounged for him nine years earlier.

They ate without speaking and washed the food down with the contents of a skin; watered mead, she guessed, sniffing the stopper while she waited for him to finish his pull.

He talked while she drank.

"I'm not going to ask what foolish information you gave my father after I left."

She capped the skin and threw it in his lap. "Being your father's son doesn't excuse rudeness."

"When you're invited to dine with him again," he went on, ignoring her completely, "you must either say that you're sick or excuse yourself after a few bites. If he asks about your country, tell him that because you lived at its fringes, you know little about it. And what you do know is hearsay. Give him vague generalities. Nothing definite." He plucked a mushroom out of the pine needles. "How would you describe this without naming it?"

Mer tugged on her hair, trying to hide her agitation. She did not want to be involved in the prince's vendetta against his father, but he was not about to give her a choice. "It's a finger-sized plant," she sighed. "With a thick stem and a wide cap. The color is ivory."

"Good. Now how would you describe it to my father?"

"It's small and white."

"How small?"

"Like a pine cone."

"Pine cones come in different sizes."

"A big one then."

"And how is it shaped?"

"Like a flower."

"That's not good enough. You must be more specific. How like a flower? Does it have petals? A thin stalk?" His voice had changed. It had been the prince's, but now it was the king's, slightly menacing and laced with urgency.

She dropped her hand. "I don't know, My King. I don't quite remember. I only saw it once, and from a distance."

His face relaxed in a smile. "Exactly right," he said, flicking the mushroom aside.

"But why? Why is it right? Why shouldn't I tell him about my country?"

He considered that briefly and then began folding the cloth. "I'll tell you why," he said, pushing the cloth into his sack, "when you tell me what danger you were in when you summoned me."

Mer groaned. "That isn't fair."

"Few things are." He tightened the sack and looked at her in anticipation.

"I'll do as you say," she promised, wondering as she did just how hard it would be to keep that promise.

He gave her a satisfied nod, leaned against the tree, and shut his eyes.

"Is that all?" she demanded. "Then I should head back, since you're as likely to speak to me as that mushroom is."

The prince chuckled. "I know I'm poor company."

"At least you're consistent."

"How did you enjoy the evening?" he attempted.

Mer thought about the terrifying, beautiful dance. She tried to explain what she felt to Gandel, but her words fell wretchedly short. "Usually," she pointed out, "a people like yours aren't content to remain in isolation. They want to learn new instruments, new dances, and to share their talents with others."

He shrugged, eyes still closed as he rested against the tree. "We have nowhere else to go."

The comment reminded her of what he had said about the summoning stone. It came from a land that was lost to us. She touched her empty neck. "What land was lost to you?"

A few moments passed before he replied. "A land to the west."

"An island?"

"No. A continent. Larger than you could imagine. My ancestors were exiled from it."

Mer eyed him incredulously. She almost retorted that there was no land west of Ann. But then she caught herself, remembering the last time she had doubted him.

"You don't believe me?"

"No. I do. So they traveled here by ship?"

"Yes. They brought what they could. Seeds, tools, machinery. Some things wouldn't grow here. Others did. That dress you wore last night was made from lorisen fibers."

"And the trees of the Cursed Wood—did your people grow those, too?"

"No, of course not. The big trees appeared later. No one knows exactly when or how. It's a mystery."

Mer regarded him curiously. "What did your ancestors do? Why were they exiled?"

He smiled wryly. "I could tell you, but the answer wouldn't mean anything to you."

"Does it involve the myrlis?"

His eyes flashed open. "What do you know about the myrlis?"

"Nothing, really. I passed them on my way to the dining hall."

"The guard spoke to you," he guessed.

"Yes. He gave me their name."

"Never," he warned her, "speak of them in my father's presence."

"So the guard said before I entered the hall."

"And you've followed his advice. That's good."

"Why? Is there something I should know about them?"

His jaw tightened, then he relaxed and gave a disinterested shrug. "No. There's nothing." Shaking needles off his bow, he rose and resumed his trek back home.

Mer hurried to catch up.

"If you have other questions," he called back, "now would be the time to ask them."

She pondered as she walked. The king's voice intruded in her thoughts, thrusting a word into her side. Kind. Kinds. The implications were troubling. But would Gandel talk to her about the problem? Anything having to do with his father seemed to reduce him to an angry, quivering mess. "Why," she asked instead, "did you stop speaking your language?"

He paused midstep, his hand dragging on a branch. "How did you know that?"

"I found a scroll tucked behind the books in the library. It contained a script that reminded me of..." She paused, gaping at his sudden violent twitching.

It passed after a few moments, and he muttered, "We stopped speaking our language because the king ordered us to do so. I say 'us,' though it happened many years before I was born."

Mer licked her dry lips. "Why?"

"Because it was tied too closely to everything we lost. Its words filled my ancestors with longing. The king was wise to destroy it."

He said nothing more.

They moved swiftly up the trail, the prince stopping only to scoop up the animals he had shot with his bow.

The guards nodded to him as he rode through the gate, Mer trailing closely behind.

He slowed as they turned onto the first terrace encircling the tor. Wings beat overhead. Mer looked up, squinting at the sun, and glimpsed the tip of a wing before it disappeared behind the terrace above them.

"A flier," Gandel called back, guessing at her curiosity.

"Why did he land on the second terrace?"

"Because he can't fly any higher. The fliers excel at distance, not height. They're chosen for their stamina, which allows them to travel farther than other fae."

"How far?"

"No more than a mile. Certainly not two."

She nodded idly, looking down over the bustling city, and then at the walls enclosing it like sheltering arms. A wind tore up from the distant ocean. Mer smelled the salt, touched by sunlight. It tugged on her dress, pulled at the fabric under her hair. She closed her eyes and breathed it in. Sounds faded around her: the thudding, bustling city, the voices of the guards. The wind blew on the tor and the long sweep of land beneath it.

"Merisande."

Her eyes opened reluctantly. "I'm coming."
CHAPTER 15

A sharp rap on the door made Avry sit straight up in bed. He grimaced, feeling the ceiling of the box bed skim the ends of his shorn hair.

"This is a more comfortable mattress," Carles said in his dry whisper, guessing at the reason for Avry's expression.

"I had a nightmare."

Carles drew a circle around his head and tapped his fingers through it. "Nightmare."

Nodding wearily, Avry lay back down. He had dreamed that Merisande was dying, and he could only watch her from a crack in the wall. She was lying uncovered on a bed, her green gown stained black with blood. As she coughed, blood dribbled down her chin and into a dip in her neck. Finally, she ceased coughing and went still. The crack in the wall opened. Avry pushed through it. He fingered the limp hair on her pillow and remembered how it had come loose at the dance, sweeping his hand as he turned her.

"You must get dressed," Carles warned him. "They only give us a short time to eat."

Avry snatched up the clothes he had left beside the bed and shook them out.

Carles, already dressed and smelling once more of horses, peered up the chimney hole. His gangly figure, twisted to glimpse the morning light, seemed even younger than it had appeared the night before. "Sunlight," the slave observed cheerfully.

Another sharp knock had Carles dashing to the door. He returned with a wooden tray weighed down by steaming bowls of unidentifiable food. Avry removed the jug from the stool so Carles could set it down.

"It smells like eggs," Avry said as he dug in. His stomach gurgled. He was so hungry, he could have chewed the bowl.

Across from him, Carles rasped out a chuckle. "They're in there somewhere." He signed as he ate, pointing to various items around the room. Bowl. Table. Eggs. Fireplace.

"Cold?" Avry inquired.

He held a shaking hand. "Cold."

Avry repeated the gesture. His hands were cold. In fact, he could almost see his breath.

"They give the older ones the firewood," Carles explained, using a finger to scoop the last of the egg gruel out of the bowl. "It was better when we ate in the long room."

"Long room—?"

Carles nodded, sucking on a finger. "A room under the third terrace. King's slaves used to eat there."

The king's slaves, Avry had learned, were the humans who worked to sustain the castle and its inhabitants. If they no longer assembled together, gossip would be slower to spread. And that, Avry reasoned, could explain why Carles was unaware of Merisande's presence. He signed, Plague.

Carles signed back: Correct. "The fae try to keep it from spreading. You learn fast, but you still have a long way to go. It took me three months to learn them all."

"Is that how long you've been here?"

Correct. Slaves come when twenty-five. I fifteen.

Fifteen?

He made a sign that Avry did not know. "Years?" Avry guessed.

Correct.

"I thought so." Then Carles was the age of his squire.

Avry wiped his hands on his tunic. Somewhere on the west side of the isle, Édouard was rising. He would eat his breakfast as he did every morning, dressed in Avry's colors, completely unaware of the world across the gorge.

"How young are the fae taking them now?"

"Don't know. Doesn't matter anyway."

His speech had reverted to the choppy style Avry remembered from the slaves in the wood. Like the sign language, it was economical.

A third knock sounded, and Carles lurched to his feet. He took a quick swig from the jug then yanked open the door. Obey, he signed emphatically, and bowing to a fae guard, he disappeared down the corridor.

The guard led Avry up the rising, twisting tunnel that had been dug out of the tor, until they reached the slaves' corridor on the first floor of the castle. The guard's step softened then, and his eyes flashed a warning to Avry. Quiet.

They drifted on as silently as wraiths, their clothes flecked here and there by light escaping through cracks in the plaster of the inner wall.

The castle's outer wall was solid stone, blackened by dirt and age. Avry caught snatches of sound as he walked: distant voices, the trill of a flute. The hidden doors used by the slaves were numbered according to chamber and floor. Avry grazed a finger over each one as he passed them. He longed to throw open the doors and shout Merisande's name. He imagined the castle empty, the air hazy with sunlight. Sound would carry through the cavernous rooms; her name would fly until it found her, whether she wanted it to or not. Would you force her? Ghislain had asked. Avry winced. In his present state of mind, he could not imagine leaving Thorsault without her, but that was exactly what he said he would do if she refused him.

At last, the guard opened a door, and Avry, squinting at the sudden wash of light, was ushered through an empty room and down a hallway that led to an outer courtyard. Others were there already. Avry counted eight women, panting under the weight of the enormous bundles they were piling onto a wagon. The driver watched them absently, a whip hanging loosely at his side. Avry's guard shouted a name, and a woman old enough to be Avry's mother waddled over. Her eyes widened as they settled on Avry.

"Train him," the fae ordered her.

Giving a brisk nod, the woman latched on to Avry's arm and pulled him to the bundles by the wagon. He did not need her signs to know what she wanted him to do.

When the last of the bundles were loaded, the slaves piled into a second wagon, and the unwieldy train began its hulking way down the tor.

Avry sensed motion at his side and glanced at the woman. Her worn hands flapped out a flurry of signs. She paused after a while and threw him a questioning glance.

I new, Avry signed, hoping the message would convey the obvious meaning: that he had not had time to learn the language.

Her mouth pinched into a frown. Then, without warning she grabbed Avry's ear and whispered, "I can teach without signs. But you must be good watcher. And never whisper. Never. They whip you for that." Name?

Avry signed the letters that he had repeated to himself under the blanket as he drifted to sleep. Yours?

A - I - L - S - E. She touched his hand briefly and turned away.

The wagon lurched off the final terrace and turned onto a road that veered from the residential streets toward what sounded like a market.

Thorsault resembled a spider's web. Its streets spun inward, circling up to its rising center. The side streets were long and winding. Houses clung to them in stately chains. They looked to Avry more like towers than homes, their height many times longer than their width. There were no grounds, nothing green but some encircling hedge and the weedy vines coiling around the old stone griffins, which stood at the doors of nearly every home. Were the statues mandatory?

Ailse eyed every slave in sight of the wagon. She seemed to know where to find them, and Avry was struck by the thought that she probably knew every slave in Thorsault. Touching her shoulder, he signed, You know everyone?

Everyone know everyone, but you. You new.

She made other signs he did not know, but he did not ask for clarification.

The wagon lurched as it rounded a bend, leaving the houses behind. Avry, confident now that he would not find Merisande in the streets, quit following the woman's gaze. She saw the slaves that worked. Avry saw the ones that did not, the slaves that hid behind barrels and old storage crates, in the shadows of forgotten doorways and abandoned market stands, hunched or lying on their sides. Those that still lived coughed desperately into their hands. The others—the ones who had hidden too well—were only detectable by an odor of decay that wafted like a soft voice in the air. Avry swallowed repeatedly. His breakfast kept threatening to reappear, and it was only with a great force of will that he managed to keep it down.

The silvery line of the river was a welcome sight.

The train wobbled to an awkward stop, and the slaves dismounted. Avry jumped onto the lead wagon and tossed down bags of laundry until only the machinery remained—a huddle of paddles, buckets, and rods, a cauldron for holding soapy water. And, strangely enough, firewood. After lowering these items down, he joined Ailse at the water's edge.

The stream was wide but shallow. Rocks stood up along its sides, streaked by a wavering brown water line, which was more stain than plant slime. Slaves gathered along the banks with laundry baskets beside them. No one hauled water away—wells, he guessed, had been dug for that purpose.

The king's laundry turned out to be a complicated affair. The slaves stacked wood for a fire. Once they had a steady blaze going, they hoisted the cauldron onto the flames and filled it with water. Large bars of lye were thrown in and stirred until they dissolved. The clothes and bedding were sorted; the ones most heavily soiled went into the pot while the others were collected into tidy piles along the river's edge.

The old woman knelt in a mashed space of grass. Watch. She grabbed a shirt from the top of the pile, soaked it in river water, and draped it over a rock. She rubbed soap under the arms and along the front then scrubbed it using a combination of the rock and a wide flat paddle. After rinsing it a few times in a deep section of the river, she used the paddle to wring out the excess moisture. Her knees crackled as she got up and passed it to a slave in charge of drying.

When she returned, he nodded to the pile. I do.

Rock first.

She followed at Avry's side like a shadow as he searched for a second rock, her hands moving absently in small, half-formed signs. She carried his soap and paddle in her cavernous pockets.

The river was quiet. Gulls wheeled overhead. The markets rang with the sounds of blacksmiths and farm animals. There was no friendly chatter. Only the fabric spoke as it was scraped, and beaten, and struck by the wind. Gradually the banks thickened with workers. Some were clearly suffering from the first signs of the plague, leaning into their laundry to cough. The guards watched them closely. Red was the color of death in Thorsault. If they bled, they were escorted away.

The sun crept across the sky.

Avry ignored the growing pain in his back. He did not even notice that the cut on his hand had opened until Ailse slapped his arm and made him look. She tore a line of cloth from her sleeve and bandaged it snugly.

Watch it, she signed, pointing two fingers at his eyes, bringing them down to his hand.

They were given bread at midday.

Avry, rinsing his hands again, watched the old woman wade into the stream and drink. She waved for him to join her. No good, he signed, eying the filthy suds that floated past her legs. The others were wading upstream, holding their skirts as they pushed into the deeper, cleaner water. He trailed after them reluctantly.

Why laundry? he wondered.

It was a job, like any other. But one traditionally done by women. Surely the king was aware of that. He might have assigned it to Avry out of spite, hoping to shame him. But Avry did not believe it. He had seen the king's eyes, and they had not been shining with vindictive humor. Perhaps he was simply running low on slaves.

The thought was disturbing.

He dipped his head into the water and drank.

***

At supper hour, the train of exhausted launderers made their way back up the tor to the courtyard. They piled the laundry onto handcarts and wheeled them to a spacious room in the first floor of the castle. A fire was quickened in the grate, and tables were positioned. The heavy garments were prepared for ironing.

Help, the old woman signed twice, her bony frame swaying with exhaustion.

Avry took the sack from her and upended it over a table. Together they sorted through the various linens, separating the heavy top sheets from the smaller head sheets and pillowcases. He helped her fold them, his mouth tightening at her red, callused fingers that, trembling with age and weariness, could barely hold two sides together.

When they had just about finished, the door swung open and a maid entered with an empty handcart. She signed to the guard who stood in the corner. Avry caught the sign for "sick" among a flurry of other gestures.

"Where is she now?" the guard asked her brusquely.

Floor six, corridor space one.

The floor signs were among the first Carles had taught Avry.

The guard nodded. "It'll be taken care of. Get on with your work."

The maid signed again, her eyes blinking in the dusty air.

"Then," the guard replied, "take one of these to help you."

The girl blinked again, her gaze landing this time on the bedraggled group of launderers. It fixed on Avry. You. She signed, snaring him with a finger. Name.

Avry.

Marie, she signed hurriedly in response.

Avry helped her fill the cart then carried what was left over his arms. His hands, not quite buried under the sheets, remembered to thank the Ailse before he followed the maid out the door and into the slaves' corridor.

***

Mer woke slowly, her face buried in an overstuffed pillow. Her candle had gone out. A single lamp burned on the desk. She stared with bleary eyes at a stain on her pillowcase, then she remembered what she had eaten for dinner. Having slept so little the previous night, she had fallen asleep before she had finished eating.

It was almost nightfall. A breeze lifted the curtains, flowing down from the darkness that lay like a smudge on the wood. She nudged the cold remains of her food. The maid had not returned, not even to refill her pitcher. She tipped the last of the water into her cup and drank, eyed the small crust of bread she had left on the plate, and snatched that up too.

A sound in the wall made her freeze, bread halfway to her mouth. After a pause she heard it again: a scraping followed by what might have been muffled coughing. She set aside her food and tiptoed to the hidden door, peeled back the tapestry, and pushed her ear into the crack.

Silence.

"All you all right?" Mer asked loudly. "Do you need help?"

No one answered. She pulled the maid's cord and went back to the tapestry. The coughing resumed, voiceless and desperate. Mer pounded on the wall and then looked frantically about the room. She could use the chair to force the door open, but not if the girl was lying on the other side of it.

She stood uncertainly for a moment then strode to the chamber door and flung it open. Silence hung over the guest floor, like an eerie echo of the absent guests. She plucked a lamp out of a sconce and wandered down the corridor, pushing open unlatched doors. If she could find another way into the wall, she would take it.

She was startled by the size of some of the chambers; her father's cottage would have fit into most of them, with room to spare.

She paused at the last door, her hand hovering beside the crack.

In her cupped fingers a linen sheet rose and fell.
CHAPTER 16

Mer pushed open the door.

The chamber overlooked the northwest horizon, which was ablaze now in fiery light. The windows occupied the upper half of the wall; the lower half bulged out, perhaps to make room for a servants' corridor.

The servant, bent over his task, straightened a little and looked at her.

A silence fell. Mer, meeting his eyes, felt her body turn to ice. She could not move. The door between them swung faintly, as if caught by an undetectable breeze.

He recognized her, and so she knew him; but for that—and the color of his eyes—she doubted she would have known him at all. Stripped of his regalia and warrior's tail, he had become younger-looking, innocuous. His eyes seemed larger, his jaw wider and less angular.

He looked at her as though she had stepped out of her own grave to place a flower on the tombstone.

She took a slow step back.

"Wait," he said quickly, his voice cracking on the word. Mer caught the edge of the door and clung to it. He lifted a bandaged hand as if to show her he was unarmed. "Please. I only want to talk. Nothing more."

"Talk...?"

He motioned her away from the door. "Speech is worth something in this place. Are you well?"

She cleared her throat. Her heart felt as if it might leap out of her throat like a frog. He is harmless here, she reminded herself. He could not force her to go back with him. "Yes," she managed then remembered why she was there. "But my maid is not. Not well."

"I see."

"How did you get here?"

"I was arrested near the edge of the wood. Armed guards escorted me to the king, who—assigned me to laundry."

Mer shook her head in amazement. How, among other things, had he survived the Cursed Wood? "So they made you a servant. Why?"

"Because that's what they do with humans here. It's pure chance that I made it this far into the castle." He threw a glance behind him at the half-made bed. "I suppose they sent me up here to replace your sick maid. No one wants blood on their clean sheets."

"Blood?"

"There's a plague, Lady. The city is overrun with it."

"But I've been here for days," she protested. "I haven't seen anyone ill."

"The slaves hide it well. And if they can't, they sneak away to—to some corner to die. I've spied them crouching behind rain barrels and old crates."

He was actually stammering. Some intense emotion was making him stammer. Mer glanced behind her and found the wall instead of the door. "Slaves?" she breathed.

"Slaves, Lady. They're taken by force from their village and made to give twenty years labor to the fae. They aren't born without voices. They are made that way."

There is a village, Gandel had once said before he had trapped the word and swallowed it down like poison. As horrible as it was, the information fell into place for Mer, reshaping the city in her mind. She began to understand Gandel's reticence and the king's lies.

Avry was regarding her with silent scrutiny. Mer jerked away from his eyes. She wanted desperately to be alone now, to think over what all this meant, but her feet felt fixed in place, as if they had cast down roots.

She fumbled with the lamp then set it down sharply on the floor. "You didn't come here to free slaves."

"No."

She looked askance at his swollen, red hands, his worn, stained clothing.

He leaned his arm on the wall beside her. "You're in great danger here, Lady."

"The plague—"

"I'm not talking about the plague, though that's certainly something to fear."

"Then I don't know what you mean. I'm under the protection of the king's son. Long ago I saved his life. The king remembers that; the king honors that."

"The king has no honor."

The words, spoken quietly, seemed deadly in the listening silence. Mer peered out at the empty hallway. Gandel, she recalled, would not even speak of the king until they were outside of town.

"Aside from the danger... a danger," she added ruthlessly, "that you were unaware of until you came here—"

"I needed to know you were alive and well."

"I left a note—"

"I know. I read it. It meant nothing. Nothing to your father, and nothing to me." He leaned away from the wall, letting his arm drop to his side. "Lady, everyone thinks you're dead. You must have known they would reach that conclusion."

She shook her head, wanting to swallow down a sudden thickness in her throat. "That's not true. My father knows I'm alive. He believes it in his heart, no matter what you say."

"He did believe it. He placed all his hope in the men that the king sent after you. But they didn't come back."

Her eyes widened. "The king sent men to look for me—why?"

"I called in a debt."

Mer was speechless, gazing at his still, determined face. A vein in her neck was beginning to throb against her hair. The terrible words played over and over in her head: King. Debt. Men. Didn't come back. "You shouldn't have done that," she whispered.

"It was my choice."

"Yes, but..." She drew a cold hand over her face. "The king let you go, after losing all those men...?"

"He didn't let me go. I went on my own." He added cautiously, after a meaningful silence, "Do the fae treat you well? Would you be allowed to go back if you asked?"

"Yes. But—I won't ask."

His face fell. His lips softened and then tightened again, as if he wanted to say more but would not.

"I'll speak to Gandel," she said to the floor, "about your release."

"Gandel?"

"The one who brought me here. The prince."

"Ah. The prince whose life you saved."

If there was sarcasm in his voice, she did not detect it.

They were motionless for a time, trapped in the arm of the falling sun. The cheerful light seemed something terrible to Mer, like mocking laughter, or truth, splaying out consequences like the arms of winter-worn trees. She moved finally, as if freed from some sort of spell. Swallowing back tears, she snatched up the lamp and wheeled out the door.

"Meet me," he called to her. "Please. Tomorrow, at sunset."

Her hand slid on the wall.

"Where's your chamber?" When she did not answer, he added in a gentler tone, "I only want to talk."

"The first after the stairs," she said reluctantly. "On the right."

"Tomorrow then, at sunset."

***

Mer leaned heavily against her chamber door. She stared at the tapestry a long time, tracing the faded images: flowers and fountains, a rabbit lifting its head to scent the wind, a moon made of silver thread. The moon sees through darkness.

She pushed her hands against her eyes. Guilty tears spilled down her fingers. All she could think of were the men who had died searching for her, whose bodies were likely being consumed by the trees. What a stupid waste. A needless, terrible loss of life.

She could not even bring herself to blame Avry. He was predictable. Stubborn, her father had called him. She had been wrong to think that he would simply have given up. Like the bull, he charged through whatever barrier stood in his way. She had known that, she had known and ignored the warning.

The memory of the bull brought the dead sheep to her mind, their bodies piled up at the bottom of the gorge. Only now they were not sheep, but men. Men who had left families behind, women who loved them. Their deaths would be connected to her name. Always.

How could she go back now?

She could not. Brave men were supposed to die honorably. Mer could not simply wander back to Aure like a cat that had disappeared for a season, only to return unexpectedly. It would render their deaths worthless. Worse than worthless. Surely Avry recognized that. He must see that it was impossible for her to return, whatever the danger.

She went still inside, feeling the certainty of it, the cold reality that she could never go back.

Stretching her stiff limbs, she went to the window.

The tor was a flickering line of torches. The city rushed away beneath it like a smudge of light on the ground. She drew a shuddering breath. Plague stalked the city. Avry had seen people dying. He had glimpsed the dead behind crates and rain barrels, hiding like her maid.

How long before the same happened to him?

The thought made her scurry to the desk and pull out a sheet of paper. Avry must go back soon, before his absence prompted King Ghislain to send more men.

She wrote a quick message to Gandel, asking for a meeting at his earliest convenience, then she yanked the maid's cord and waited by the tapestry. At last, footsteps sounded in the servants' corridor. The tapestry sucked inward before bulging out to admit a body.

Mer did not let her get past the doorway. "Take this to the prince," she ordered, holding out the folded page.

The girl took it and nodded. She tried to close the door, but Mer held it open, her eyes raking over the dim, slender space. It smelled old and close, like a cellar without the earth to cool it.

"How do you open the door?" Mer asked.

To her surprise, the maid responded in a low whisper, "Bolt's on the corridor side, just above the door."

Mer felt around until she discovered the heavy iron latch. Once lifted, the door would remain open, enabling the servant—slave, Mer corrected grimly—to come and go with heavy trays. She peered into the corridor. A shiny number "2" hung beside her door. Feigning disinterest, she said, "I heard coughing earlier. Is my maid ill?"

"She's gone, miss. They took her away." She lingered a moment longer, her eyes like shiny stones, then she pushed Mer's fingers back and shut the door.

***

Avry sat next to their weekly ration of wood, feeding strips of bark to the fire, blowing softly as they caught. Carles was already asleep; he had only stayed awake long enough to finish his food, then he had collapsed, still dressed in his horse-clothes.

Avry was beyond tired, but his body would not let him sleep. His heart raced, his limbs wanted to tear something up and spread its pieces around the room. He distracted himself by practicing the signs. City: a circle with a finger through it; rock: a tap against a closed fist; soap: three fingers rubbed over an open palm. His hand stilled. He brought it up to his face, wanting to make a sound—any sound. He watched the fire until his breathing slowed. The fire spoke for him, snapping, crackling and fizzing, spitting sparks.

He saw her eyes in the fire. Usually cool and restful, they burned now with fear and pain.

He tore another strip off the log.

Merisande was a spell that turned all his words backward. She made him say things that were foolish and sometimes wrong. She turned his caution into brashness, his control into chaos.

He only wanted to convince her to return home. But the words he needed to say—the ones that involved him and her, an unwanted marriage, a debt she did not have to pay—had stuck like pitch to the roof of his mouth. What had come out instead had sounded a lot like an accusation. Your father has lost hope, so come home, had not been enough, but he had thrown the soldiers in too, as if she were responsible for their loss. Was he trying to punish her?

His cheeks burned, and he leaned away from the fire's heat. Tomorrow, he thought. He would explain everything to her then.
CHAPTER 17

A deep rumble woke Mer from a short, restless sleep. She sat up quickly, throwing off the covers, and stared at the square of her window. Light speared across it, making her shudder. Only a storm, she told herself, pulling hair out of her eyes and twisting it behind her. The thunder sounded again, a crack that slammed across the long space between the tower and the wood. Mer, listening for the familiar pattering of rain, heard nothing but the wind battering the tower. She thought she could feel the structure moving, like a tree in a storm.

She thought she heard a voice.

Rising, she went to the tapestry and listened.

A knock behind her made her realize her mistake. She crossed the room and threw open the door. "Gandel," she exclaimed, looking from his dark-rimmed eyes to the candle stub that was almost at its end. She wondered why he had not brought a lamp. "It's late—or early."

"Early. It's actually dawn, though you wouldn't know it. Why haven't you closed the shutters?"

Mer glanced at the window. Light slashed across it once more, bathing the room in a sickly yellow glare. "I don't know."

He shifted with impatience. "You wanted to see me."

"Yes." She studied him again, feeling an odd sort of recklessness—a gift from the storm. "There's a man here from Aure. A knight of King Ghislain. He came here to—to give me an important message. But he was arrested and made a slave. I saw him yesterday when he came in with the bedding—" She stopped as he gesticulated sharply, his hand cutting through the air as if to ward off a fly.

"He should not have come. Should. Not."

"Perhaps not. But he's here now, and he must be released." She chewed her lip, gazing at his flickering candle. A wind lifted the curtains, carrying something cold and wet with it. "Your father tried to convince me that the servants aren't human. But they are. You know they are." She paused, hoping he would give her a crumb of information, but his lips remained tightly folded. She sighed. "Can you talk to him about releasing the knight?"

"I don't know." He grasped the door to keep it from shifting in the wind. "I don't think that's possible now."

"Not possible?"

"I tried to warn you when you wanted to come here. You didn't listen."

"But—" She pushed a troubled hand through her hair. "I'm not a slave, Gandel. And neither is Sir Avry—"

"It makes no difference!" His candle guttered. He glanced at it with a distracted frown then flung it across the room. "I'll speak to my father. But don't expect anything. This is very bad."

The words followed him out the door, which he left hanging open. Mer touched the place where his hand had rested. It was damp with sweat and candle wax.

***

She paced the dark room, glancing through the window from time to time as the sky brightened to a faint gray. In the city below, the slaves scurried in the rain, carrying water or firewood, or simply walking somewhere, maybe to the market or maybe to their dead. She ate breakfast while standing, kicking the candle stub across the floor. She did not make her bed.

The sky darkened again, and she lit a lamp. The flame seemed small in the cavernous chamber, like a tiny voice in the wind. The cold, briny air prompted her to kindle a fire in the hearth. She dragged blankets over to it, ignoring the bits of ash that got caught in the sheets. She rubbed soot between her fingers, then, on a whim, smudged her name on the floor.

Words clambered into her head, some that she had read as a child and forgotten, others that she had discovered in Thorsault. She flicked an old stub of coal out of the hearth with a stick, blew on it to be sure it was cool, then crouched on the floor and scratched down the words. They spread out from the hearth, web-like, until the flames grew too faint to light the boards. She paused, running the back of her hand across her eyes.

The ocean is deep and dark, a voice said, so clear that she trembled. And it's always moving. Like a steady pulsing, the waves building and peaking, and when they reach the shore, breaking. She wrote the words furiously, her eyes blurring with tears as she thought of her aunt. The fire brightened intermittently, spraying her hands with light.

Sudden movement made her turn.

A small girl knelt in the mirror by the door. She smiled darkly at Mer. Her hair was twisted into knots, her face streaked with soot as if she were trapped in a net of shadows. Mer's lips trembled, but no sound came out. With a hiss of breath, she hurled the coal.

The girl caught it, half laughing, half crying. "You forgot me," she scolded. "Don't do it again."

Mer made a soft, anguished sound. She pushed her face into the blankets, winding them around her until she was unable to move.

Outside, the storm raged on.

***

She woke slowly. The room was shadowy and still. The fire had been reduced to a few glowing embers. Mer peeled off the blankets and kicked them across the floor to her bed. She almost tripped over the plate of food her maid had left at her bedside. She thought about dumping it over the railing outside, but some poor wretch would have to clean it up. She scooped up a drumstick and forced herself to bite, chew, and swallow. Seared cabbage and onions came next, followed by button potatoes and a heel of bread. The napkin was black when she set it down.

She stared at it a long time.

Heaving a sigh, she gathered the blankets together and piled them onto the mattress. Then she took a cloth from the stack of towels and washed her face and hands. Her feet came last; they had left a shadowy trail across the floor. Satisfied that she was clean enough not to leave tracks, she fetched another cloth and went to work rubbing away the prints.

She shook her head as she came to the words. They were barely legible, a haphazard scrawl that might have come from the hands of a child.

You forgot me.

She dropped the cloth and shuffled to the mirror. The cinder girl was gone. She fingered the mark where the coal had hit the glass. "I'm losing my mind," she whispered.

Her reflection looked back at her, hair tangled, clothes rumpled, smudged black around the knees. A shame that she had not ruined one of the fae gowns instead. This was hers. It had been cut in the light of her father's hearth and finished by her aunt's tapered fingers. She would wear it anyway, she decided. It was no more ruined than she was.

A muffled knock made her flinch. Sir Avry, she remembered, grimacing. As if the evening could not get any worse.

Smoothing her rumpled frock, she strode to the maid's door and knocked back.

Sir Avry emerged with a gust of stale air.

"Lady," he mumbled, tipping his head.

Mer was struck again by how strange he looked. His unbelted tunic hung over his hose as loosely as a nightshirt. He seemed unfinished and oddly vulnerable without his knight's accoutrements, his carapace of leather. She took a nervous step back then retreated to the bed and tossed him a pillow. "You may sit on the floor, Sir Avry. Use the pillow as a seat."

He fumbled with the pillow, as if it scalded his hands. Mer pulled another off the bed and lowered herself across from him. She waited for him to join her, but he remained standing, his prying eyes burning a hole in her head.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded tersely.

"You don't have to be afraid of me."

"I'm not. Afraid."

"Your eyes say you are."

"You must be confusing fear with anger," she retorted, feeling it flare despite herself.

"Anger—"

"When you push someone into a corner, they get defensive."

"Which corner?"

"The letter," she reminded him. "You gave us no choice."

"I had nothing to do with it."

Mer's breath stilled, half-drawn in her throat. "What?"

He lowered himself across from her. "I know how it must've seemed, how you must've felt. But I didn't write that letter. I didn't ask for it to be written. I came home and found out what had happened, but my father had already written you, so I rode to your house to speak with you. I wanted you to know that you didn't have to marry me, that I would pay the amount—"

"You would pay..."

"What else was I to do? I'm a knight, not a ruffian who waits in the road to steal women. Isn't that what it amounted to?"

Mer ran a trembling hand over her face. Her mouth opened, but for the first time in her life she could not speak.

"My father has hundreds of sheep," he went on, attempting, it seemed, to read her thoughts. "So many that he can't possibly keep track of them. The incident was a bargaining tool. I wasn't there, or I would've stopped him."

"But why—" She cleared her throat. Her fingers told her she was not crying, but she felt on the verge of it. If she could only convince herself that he was lying, but something in his manner spoke of a sincerity that could not be feigned.

"Why...?" he prodded her.

She let her hair spill over her burning face. "Why would your father want me to marry you?"

"My father doesn't care who I marry. It was my mother's doing. My mother's request. Of course, that doesn't absolve him of—"

"But I've never met your mother. Why would she—?"

"Because..." He threw a desperate glance at the ceiling. "My mother and I have always been close. She knows me better than anyone—my dreams, my desires. She wanted—" He checked himself then, and flushed deeply. Mer could do nothing but stare. "You probably don't believe me—believe that I'm sorry. But I am. Really."

"I believe you."

"I'm not the ogre you seem to think I am."

Her lips twisted. "It really doesn't matter what I think."

The remains of her fire crackled. Coal settled between bars in the grate. Mer ran a finger over the blackened hem of her dress. "You're not an ogre," she agreed softly, wanting to tear the fabric, shred it into bits, and fling them around the room. "I fit that description better now."

His jaw tightened. "What happened to the soldiers is not your fault."

She shook her head, swallowing.

"Good will come of this," he added with a confidence that seemed at odds with their situation. "You'll see."

"What good?" she demanded. "You're still a prisoner here. Unless Gandel convinces the king to let you go. But he doesn't seem optimistic." Avry frowned, and she added, before he could respond, "I'll talk to him again tomorrow."

"Do you trust him?"

"I don't know. More, I suppose, than the others. There's tension between him and his father."

"Tension?"

"More than tension. The king despises him. He calls him 'milkling,' as if he's still a child. And Gandel doesn't contradict him. In fact, he seems afraid of him."

He flashed her a wry smile. "Have you met the king? That creature would inspire fear in a thunderhead."

She shrugged, unwilling to prolong the conversation by describing the king's feast. Avry had fallen silent. Mer watched him numbly as he glanced out the window, his mouth softening as he chased some thought.

He stirred finally. Rising, he said, "I'll try to be here tomorrow."

"Tomorrow—?"

"Late, or—maybe the day after. I convinced the maid to let me help her, but it's a risk she may not take again."

"I see."

He crossed to the hidden door. "The slaves use signs. I've learned a few, not enough to get by, but..." He shrugged.

"You whisper," she guessed, remembering her exchange with the new maid.

"They whisper, too. In secret."

They regarded each other silently across the room. Another question hovered on her tongue, but she was embarrassed to ask it. "How are you doing?" she said at last.

His hand stilled on the tapestry. "I'm fine. I'm sorry I told you about the soldiers."

She nodded, though he did not see her; his face was turned to the door. "I'm glad. Glad that you're all right."

"Sleep well, Lady," he said, and sliding through the door, he was gone.

Mer stood and listened to his footsteps until they faded to silence.
CHAPTER 18

The prince appeared again at her door before sun-up.

Mer, clothed in her coal-blackened dress, uttered a soft exclamation when she saw his face. His nervous tension had reached a new height. It had become a sort of mania. His eyes shifted constantly, and the thin line of his mouth twitched like a hooked fish.

"Gandel—"

"No time," he muttered. "Come. Now."

"Where?"

"Just come."

Once more she followed him down the curving stairs, her hand grazing the wall. He said a few words to the castle guards, and then they were flying on horseback like owls down the tor. Mer, eying the damp paving stones, shiny in the torchlight, felt her heart leap into her throat.

"Keep up," he shouted back to her. "The horses know the way. They won't fall."

"But I might. Why are we in such a hurry?"

He did not answer.

They sped down the wide southern road and were at the city gate before dawn.

"Making an early start?" a guard asked, eying the prince's hunting bag.

"It's going to be a busy day," Gandel replied as they passed under the yawning arch.

The sky brightened slowly. Crickets sang uninterrupted in the fields. Hearing them, Mer felt a sudden pang in her chest. It sounded a lot like home.

Home.

Her hands squeezed hard on the reins. She should not have run off to Thorsault. Had she been patient, her problem would have worked itself out. Instead, she had acted like a coward and dragged others down in her wake.

Not your fault, Avry had said.

He seemed to think it was nobody's fault. Certainly not his.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead.

Avry was a riddle. A mystifying, infuriating riddle. How many times had they sat across from one another at his father's table? Enough that she should have acquired a feel for his personality. She thought she had. Now she wondered if she knew him at all.

He could have used the king's debt to advance his career. Instead he had tossed it away like a handful of leaves. Stranger still was his offer to pay for the lost sheep. With that debt cleared, Mer would no longer be bound to him. Yet he had paid it anyway. And then risked his own life to find her. Why? What hope had lain at the end of that journey? He said he needed to know she was alive. Once he had confirmed that, what then? Had he even thought that far?

He must have. Unlike her, he did not act on impulse. Perhaps he had hoped she would return with him, and life would go on as if nothing had happened. He would tuck the dead soldiers away like he had tucked away her brother. They would dance at the next quarterly. All would be well.

Except that it would not. Not for her.

You are not an ogre, she had told him. Not a monster, her father had said. Perhaps not. But he was a reckless, stubborn man whose common sense was about as flimsy as his conscience.

She huffed out another sigh.

Easy to pin words on someone. She had words for herself too, and they were not any kinder.

They turned off the south road and traveled west until they neared the tree line. Then Gandel veered north and slowed his horse to a walk. The land scooped up away from the tree line to form a grassy hill. The outbuildings gradually disappeared behind it until she saw nothing but wet grass, the muddy path, the trees bathed in sunlight. The leaves were so calm, they seemed to float in the air.

She followed Gandel into the wood.

He picked his way around trees and brush, holding his hand up to ward off low branches.

"You'll scare the game this way," she remarked. He did not answer.

The sun showed them to her first: the steep trunks of the Cursed Wood, rising sleeplessly in front of the sun. Gandel dismounted in front of them, unbuckled his bag, and drew out a heavy-looking sack.

Unease coiled inside her as she glanced from the sack to Gandel's waiting eyes. What did he intend? "What's in there?"

"Come down," he said gruffly. "We need to talk."

She dismounted reluctantly, and he dropped the heavy sack into her hands.

"There's rope and a hook, and some small provisions. You must ride straight to the gorge, without turning."

Her fingers loosened. "But—"

"I'm giving you your freedom."

"But the knight—"

"You must forget him." He looked straight into her eyes; for once, his own were calm and clear. "Go back to your wood and stay there."

Mer looked past him to the Cursed Wood. It was like a deep pool, or a gate standing open, waiting for her to pass through it. A soft sound escaped her throat. Much as she wanted to, she could not take another step. Even if there were no dead soldiers holding her back.

The sudden weight of Gandel's hand on her shoulder made her start.

"I want to say something first," he said. "Before you go." He looked down, chewing his lip. "I've often wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn't met you. If I hadn't got lost and followed that doe..." His gaze flicked up, met Mer's, and fell. "I want you to know that I don't regret any of it. I don't regret meeting you, though you've destroyed my happiness, made me hate my family, my own country..."

Her brows knotted together. "I don't understand."

"No. But perhaps you will someday. Now go back to your wood."

She thrust the sack into his chest. "I can't."

"Why? You were happy there before. Have you forgotten that?"

"No, but I can't leave—"

"You can. This is your one chance. Take it."

"Gandel—" She let out a sigh that changed to a sob. "I can't leave Avry!"

The softness drained out of his face. His mouth opened then slammed shut as a fit of twitches contorted his features. When the attack had passed, he clutched the sack to his chest and walked stiffly back to his horse. "Farewell, Merisande. I'll not come to you again." He paused, face bent over the gelding's neck, then he mounted and rode off without looking back.

Wind brushed the branches together, ruffling her horse's feathery mane. Mer closed her eyes briefly. "No," she whispered and felt the cold hand of desperation lift from her. Throwing herself onto the saddle, she followed Gandel's muddy tracks out of the wood.

She came to the tree line and stared at the ground. Rather than return to the road, the prince had ascended the hill toward the fields. After a moment's hesitation, she dismounted and climbed the hill until she glimpsed the tops of swaying green plants. Mounted guards walked up and down the paths that sliced through the crops, monitoring the hunched workers.

There were no signs of Gandel.

Throwing up her hands, she slogged back down the hill, mounted her horse, and cantered up the path to the east road.

You've destroyed my happiness, made me hate my family, my own country...

She snatched at flyaway hairs and shoved them back into her braid. Not fair, she thought. To say something so cruel and not explain why. But that was Gandel. He had been rude from the first moment of their acquaintance.

As she neared the road, something tugged on her peripheral vision.

A line of silver was emerging from the southern fringe of trees. Soldiers. More had gathered in the distant fields, lines of silver, slashing like blades across the green. Their pale wings hung over their backs like a fine mist. A busy day, Gandel had said.

Heart pounding, she turned her horse toward the gate.

***

All day the clamor of armor rang across the plain like a warning bell. Mer watched the soldiers from her window. Their glittering lines, once formed, remained remarkably still. She wondered if anyone could hear them in the city or if the high, enclosing walls drowned out the sound.

She paced the length of the chamber, dragging a black trail through her words. Avry had said that the slaves were taken from a village. Was that where the soldiers were usually stationed? Their return might be a regular event then, something they did a few times a year.

She riffled through the books and scrolls but could find nothing about the city and its defense, not even a footnote.

The sky was dim before she realized the maid had not brought her supper. Mer drained what was left in the pitcher then stood abruptly at a sharp knock on the door. Gandel, she hoped. Her heart dropped when she saw it was only a guard.

"The king wishes to dine with you tonight," he said then added without waiting for her answer, "I'll wait in the corridor while you prepare."

Nodding dazedly, she closed the door.

Her hands shook as she dressed herself. She fought with her slippery hair then gave up, falling backward across the bed. He'll ask me questions, she thought, remembering the prince's warning. She would try to be vague. But what if the king wanted a yes-or-no answer? "Is it a mushroom?" instead of, "Describe one to me." Would it be too much to hope that Gandel would be there?

Finally, she returned to the door.

The stairs seemed to go on forever. Mer felt heavier with every step, as if she carried the staircase with her, a pile of old rocks on her back. The landing came before she expected it, and she tripped at the guard's feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"No." She tried to stand and slipped again, her stomach lurching as he caught her arm. "I'm not well," she said, only half-lying. "I don't think I'm fit to dine tonight. I'm sorry."

Nodding coolly, he turned her back down the stairs. "I'll let the king know," he promised as they reached her door.

"Yes, thank you."

She closed the door softly and turned, half-expecting Avry to be there or the maid with a fresh pitcher of water. But the room was as empty as she had left it.

I'm sorry to have caused you trouble, she wrote to Gandel after sitting a long time at the desk, twisting her unbound hair and gazing sightlessly at the little white rabbit that ran through the tapestry. We need to speak again. Meet me as soon as you can.

She pulled the maid's cord and waited, pacing with the letter in her hand.

No one came.

***

The sky was black as pitch when she heard a knock again. Mer moved away from the window where she had been watching the tiny, blinking stars, and slipped a lamp off the wall.

The guard stood half in shadow, half in torchlight. His free hand held a rose. "The king is sorry that you couldn't join him for dinner. He wants to know if you're better."

She moved to take it but then stopped, wary for no reason she could think of except that it had come from the king. "I am, thank you."

"Then he wishes to see you at once."

Her eyes widened. "Now? But it's late. Couldn't he see me tomorrow?"

"I'm afraid not."

She leaned a shaky hand on the door frame. "Is this an order, or do I still have a choice?"

"At the moment you do. I suggest that you don't put that privilege in jeopardy."

The words, uttered coolly, held a sinister meaning. The king has no honor, Avry had said. The prince, meeting her eyes over a mushroom, had given her a similar warning.

The guard waited. Mer forced herself to straighten, to push fear out of her eyes. "Tell him that I respectfully decline."

"You decline?" he repeated.

"Yes," she said and added boldly, "The prince told me to do so. It was his recommendation."

"To avoid speaking to the king."

Contempt flashed in his eyes. Mer wondered if it was directed at her or at Gandel. At the moment she did not care. Let the guard take her words back to the king. If Gandel refused to stand up to his father, she would provide him with an opportunity. "Are you asking me to question the prince's judgment?"

He shook his head. "I'm asking you to use your own. The king has asked to see you. Will you go?"

"I will not."

"Very well." He pulled the rose back into the shadows. "Good night, then."

"Good night."

***

Avry, exhausted from a full day of washing, leaned against the back of his box bed and gazed idly at the familiar, empty knot in the bed across from his. Carles had not returned yet. Avry was disappointed not to have seen Merisande, but someone else had been sent up to help the maid. He might still have slipped away—the guards were not as alert as they should be—but he had chosen to err on the side of caution. He would not risk his life unless there was a compelling reason for doing so.

His eyes drifted closed then opened again. The hollow eye of the knot winked at him oddly.

There was something peculiar about it, or maybe about the space behind it. He crawled onto Carles' bed, turning to the side so that his shadow would not darken the hole. In the dim light he could just make out the curve of a line. He pushed his pinky through the hole, wiped at the line, and studied the smudge on his finger. Charcoal.

The mattress creaked as he climbed off it. He was still for a moment, then he bent down and lifted one end of the bed, turning it away from the wall. The movement sent a cloud of dust and old ash into the air. He fetched the lamp and waited until the dust settled, then he wedged the light into the space between the bed and the wall and peered in.

It took him a while to understand what he was seeing.

Scratched directly onto the smooth surface of the stone was a drawing in four parts, depicting some sort of ritual. At the top corner was a staircase on which two figures descended, the first a fae, the second a man. Following that was a large circle outlined so thickly in coal that the center looked pale. In the next image, the fae held a goblet to the man's mouth. The last showed a frontal view of the man. His face was contorted, his mouth open and dark. He held a shadowy ball in one hand; the other gripped his neck as though his throat had been cut.

Avry stumbled back toward the hearth. Pain, the man's eyes said. Pain and fear.

Grabbing the two sides of the bed, he thrust it against the wall.

He lay a long time without sleeping. Thoughts kept drifting through his mind like persistent, unwanted guests.

He pictured the castle, its corridors and chambers and all its secret doors. Everything hinted at age, at a civilization in its sunset hours. Thorsault had been built to house slaves. Its hollow walls were not new. If the fae had ever lived alone in the city, there was no evidence of it now. That begged an important question: had the fae arrived on the isle with slaves, or had they harvested what was already there?

The morning knock seemed to come sooner than usual. Avry forced himself awake. Carles, who was usually out of bed the instant the alarm sounded, still slept soundly.

Avry reached between the beds and nudged the youth's shoulder. "Carles," he hissed, almost forgetting to whisper.

The figure in the blanket hardly seemed to breathe. Then it lifted an arm and coughed.

Horror thrilled through Avry. He threw off the covers and went to Carles' bed, hovering there uncertainly.

The youth peeked at him from under the blanket. "I held it off...a long time."

"Are you sure it—"

"I'm sure."

"But it might be something else."

"Doesn't matter what it is. Guards will see. They won't let me live past sundown."

Avry's hands tightened at his sides. The weight of the evil pressed into him like the heavy stone walls. He could not bear it any longer.

Carles touched his arm. "Leave it be. Please."

"How can you be so calm?"

"I'm tired." The blanket slid off his face.

Avry brushed Carles' damp hair aside, flinching at the heated skin. "You're so young," he said wistfully. "I have a squire your age. He was still in training when I left him."

"Squire. Why did you leave him?"

"Because the journey I was making was perilous."

"Knight errant," Carles said, throwing the lie back at him.

Avry fetched the cloth he had left near the hearth and dipped it in the pitcher. His hand paused over the water, shaking slightly. Folding the cloth twice, he placed it on Carles' forehead.

"Stop—stop this." He pushed weakly at Avry's fingers.

"I thought you might be a spy," Avry said baldly.

"Why?"

"For reasons of my own."

"Well, I'm not." He turned again and coughed while Avry held his shoulder. "Was everything you said a lie then?"

Avry considered that. "I didn't lie, but I didn't tell you the truth either." The last word seemed to stick in his throat. He bent his head and continued speaking, very softly near Carles' ear. "Beyond the Cursed Wood is a river that cuts the isle nearly in half. My people live on the western half. They are the Annais, and their country is called Aure. Aure is a soft place, filled with rolling pastures and tiny streams. Its city is larger than Thorsault. The king I serve knows nothing about this place. I didn't either, until I followed someone here."

"Did you find them?"

"Yes. She lives in the castle, under the protection of the prince. If you know anything that might help us..."

"I don't."

"Do you know where your people came from before they were slaves?"

Carles' damp brows pinched together. "From here. I thought."

Avry paused, going still inside. "From Trabac?"

"From the isle."

"That's helpful," Avry breathed.

"Another thing might help. The prince and the king are enemies. If Gandel ever became king, he'd free us."

"But you don't believe that will happen."

"No."

Avry turned the cloth over. The heavy lids fluttered under his hand. "Carles—" He leaned down and repeated the name in more than a whisper. "I'm going to leave this place. My king will know what has happened here. If he fails to act, I'll bring the tale to the continent. I won't stop until ships swarm like flies up the river." The youth listened, his body tense, his teeth clenched tightly together. "Do you believe me?"

"Yes."
CHAPTER 19

In a clear, barren landscape ash rose and fell. The wind lifted it like a many-fingered hand and gave it to the moon. The moon shed it like a cat shaking off water. Mer coughed on ash and made it turn red; red ash rose and fell. She ran, leaving a wet trail of ash behind her, wet like rain, wet like blood...

Mer woke with her hand on her throat. She swallowed tentatively, her heart pounding, but there was no pain, only thirst.

Rising, she found that a maid had come in while she slept. She drank straight from the refilled pitcher then tipped it over her head and drenched her face and hair. The wind brushed her like a cold tongue. She followed it to the window and gazed for a time at the sky.

Thin clouds covered the sun, seeping gray light on the soldiers riding through the city gates. Her skin prickled as she watched them, but she could not decide whether to be afraid of them or indifferent. They meant her no harm. But if she could not convince Gandel to free Avry, their presence might make his escape difficult, if not impossible.

She leaned over the balustrade and let her damp hair dangle into the open space.

The sound of a latch sliding shut made her straighten abruptly. She flung her gaze back at the empty room. Her eyes fell first on the tapestry, but the sound had been too loud, too close to have come from within the wall. She walked slowly to the door. Her hand fell on the latch. It rested there a moment, trembling.

The door was locked.

***

When the maid returned with supper, she found a letter to Gandel on the empty breakfast tray.

"Please," Mer said simply.

The maid shot her a troubled glance, then she slipped behind the tapestry, and was gone. Mer tried to catch the servants' door before it closed. She fought with the cumbersome weight of the tapestry, tossing it behind her as she slid her hand into the narrowing crack. She barely got her fingers through when the door abruptly swung open. Startled, she stumbled back, lost her balance, and fell hard on the floor.

A shadow leaned over her. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were there. Are you hurt?"

Mer's eyes closed. Her relief was so strong, she thought she might cry. "I'm fine."

"Were you trying to open the door?"

She swallowed, tasting tears at the back of her throat, but she would not weep in front of the knight. "It was the only door that was open. They've locked me in," she added as he helped her up.

His hand tightened on her arm. "What? Do you mean they've latched your door from the outside?"

She looked at her arm, and he loosed her. "I suppose. I haven't noticed latches on the outside of the doors, but they must be there."

He glared at the locked door.

Anxiety weltered through her as she observed him. He was both tense and fluid, if both things were possible at the same time. His arms were stiff as poles, yet they seemed poised to strike. His shadowy eyes flicked here and there, as if searching the room for assailants. In short, he looked dangerous again, but not in any way she had glimpsed before.

On impulse, she scooped up Gandel's candle stub and used it to light every lamp in the room. Though the sun was still up, the warm light was comforting somehow.

"Has something happened?" she asked, setting a lamp on the desk between them.

"I'll tell you in a moment. Right now I need to understand something. You told me you saved the prince's life. How did that happen?"

She blinked at the question then dropped heavily into the desk chair. "I'm not sure I'd call what I did saving his life," she said, "but others think so."

He leaned on the desk beside her. "Doesn't matter."

"Very well," she sighed and launched into the tale. He interrupted her only once, with a question she had once posed to Gandel.

"Why did he need stories? He had wings; he could have flown over the wood."

"You would think so, but Gandel said no. Fae can't fly very high or very far, which is why they have fliers."

"Fliers?"

"Ones that can fly farther than others. The king uses them as messengers."

He was silent at that, and after a pause she went on until she had nothing more to say.

He touched the lamp idly and then drifted to the window. "I assume you've seen the soldiers."

"Only from afar." She leaned her arms on the balustrade. The field beyond the gates had almost emptied, but some clumps of silver still lingered here and there outside the walls.

Avry's voice, close to her ear, almost made her jump. "Do you know why they're gathering there?"

"No. Unless—it might have something to do with the plague?"

"I think it has everything to do with the plague. The village has been obliterated. The fae have always had a pool of workers to draw from. That pool is now gone." His eyes darted to hers and then away. "The slaves are dying off, Lady, and there's no one to replace them. At least, no one on this side of the island..."

His voice trailed off. Mer went still and then jerked back with a horrified gasp. "You think they mean to attack Aure, and...?"

"Yes. That's what I think."

Her throat went dry, and she leaned hard against the window frame. Prickles raced down her neck and back. "Are you sure? Maybe this is something they do every year, and we're jumping to conclusions. Maybe—"

He touched her hand. "The soldiers were permanently stationed at the village."

"How do you know that?"

"A slave told me. Lady..." He halted as she jerked away from him.

Gandel's harried face had entered her mind like a cold wind. He must have known the king was planning something. Perhaps that was why he had tried to free her.

"Merisande..."

She froze, the sound of her name jolting something inside her.

"Listen to me for a moment."

She swallowed tightly. "I'm listening."

"Think back to Aure's history. When the Annais landed on the isle, they found the charred remains of a city. Stone foundations. Pottery. But no human remains. No one knew why. Until now.

"I asked a slave today where his people came from. He said from here. From the isle. So you see they didn't die, and they didn't just walk away either. They were stolen. Carried off as plunder. The fae settled them in a village called Trabac, and they've been there ever since." He looked past her to the glittering field. "What's to stop them from doing it again?"

Mer moistened her dry lips. Things she had learned from Gandel, or discerned on her own, crept back and settled into the weave of Avry's tale. The fae's journey to the isle. The stolen language. Kinds. A sudden thought made her stiffen. "The fae king questioned me about the Annais."

"What did you tell him?"

"Just small things. Nothing important."

"You may not realize the things that are important."

She chewed her lip, trying to remember exactly what she had said to the king. "He knows the number of the houses, and our emblem. And he knows that the castle in Ann is larger than Aure's." Avry nodded expressionlessly. "If he wanted information," she went on, "why didn't he interrogate you?"

"I think he still plans to. But he's been waiting, and watching. I think—" He paused and drew a shuddering breath. "I think he wanted me down there, in amongst the slaves."

"Why?"

"To see if I'd get sick. But I didn't. I didn't. And now he wants us more than ever."

"But he could've experimented with me, sent a sick maid, or—"

"Yes. He could have. But remember, Gandel has been protecting you."

Gandel had been protecting her. She felt the ghostly weight of the sack in her hands. Her one chance, he had called it, as if her life lay inside like a small shell.

"What will they do?"

"I don't know, not exactly." He fingered the balustrade; the movement seemed tentative, unsure, like someone reaching through darkness for a handhold. "Gandel knew how to calm the wood wind?"

"They all know."

His hand tensed on the railing. "Then I think they'll fall on Aure like a war hammer, burn down the city, and carry folk off into the wood. Some might escape by ship and spread the news, and I'm sure Alaric of Ann would send men to aid us, but without knowing how to calm the wood wind, how many would reach Thorsault alive?"

"He could burn the wood down."

"I doubt it. The trees secrete some sort of coating to protect themselves. Makes them slick as a frog's back." He sucked in a breath. "We need to warn Ghislain. Would the prince help us escape?"

She dropped her eyes. "He tried. He brought me to the wood."

"And—"

"I wouldn't go."

He made an exasperated sound. "Why?"

"Because. I couldn't leave you alone here."

A stunned expression entered his face. Mer steeled herself for his quick retort, but he said nothing at all.

She looked away from him to the purple horizon. Night was falling. The wind whistled through cracks in the stone and lifted the griffins on their poles. Avry's hands had loosened on the bar, and she could make out the red, puckered sore that still marked the side of his thumb.

"I read your poems," he said quietly, surprising her. "The ones on the page you left Rives. One of them was like a riddle."

She threw him a sideways glance. What poem could have distracted his thoughts from their country's impending doom? "Which?"

"Broken blades, smeared with blood, can only cut when shamed."

"Ah." She smiled faintly, pleased that she had stumped him. "What army won the war though every soldier died?"

"Derne's army, at Semine," he guessed.

"That's right."

"How did you learn about that?"

"I found the account of it in my uncle's library." The slaughter at Semine had happened centuries ago. Two kingdoms that bordered Ann—Derne and Tressil—had a dispute that was settled by war. The armies battled until Tressil, their numbers too low to go on fighting, surrendered. But Derne fought on until they had killed every last man. That sort of violence was common in times past. But the men of Derne went even further. In a fit of anger, they mutilated the bodies of the dead soldiers, leaving them for the birds. Time passed, and the story spread. Ann got to know it, and its king became enraged. Together with the army of a nearby kingdom, he stormed Derne, taking the castle at sunrise. Its king was imprisoned in a tower, and his land was divided up. The blades of Tressil—though broken—cut still, for they had been shamed in a way no one would forget.

"Some injustices can't be forgiven," Avry murmured, no doubt thinking of the slaves. "I know where Gandel's room is. I should go there now, try to convince him to help us escape."

Mer bit her lip. She knew the answer the prince would give him if he allowed Avry to speak at all. "Let me go," she urged.

"You don't know where his room is."

"You could tell me. Then you could go through another guest room, into the hallway, and unlock my door."

An amused smile came and went on his face. "No. It's still too dangerous. The prince's room is many floors down. You'd be restrained by guards." He paused, scratching his chin. "I could take him a note from you, if you think it would help."

"It wouldn't," she sighed. "You know, it would be easier if you found a way to escape on your own."

"It would be easier, but not better. I don't want to leave you alone here."

Her words, she thought. He had given her own words back to her.

"Is Gandel aware that I'm a knight?"

"I told him," she admitted. "But he doesn't know that you suspect his father's plan."

"I have eyes. He must know that I'll report what I've seen to my king. The question is: would he care? Gandel and his father are enemies. I doubt that he had the king's blessing when he tried to free you." As he spoke, he slid something out of his belt. A knife.

"Where did you get that?" she asked, watching him sharpen it on the underside of the railing.

"I slipped it off your tray." The knife disappeared inside his cuff. He crossed the room in a few smooth strides. "I'll return before moonrise," he promised as she trailed behind him. "If something happens in that time, try to leave me a message."

"And what if you don't?"

"Return?" His hand dragged on the tapestry. The moon watched him from the top corner, reminding him, perhaps, that he could not see everything. "Then you must be brave, Lady. There are worse things to fear than death." He looked down and quickly grasped her hand.

A moment later, he was gone.
CHAPTER 20

Avry sped down the slaves' corridors, thinking of Gandel and wondering what he could say to convince the prince to help them. Flecks of light sprayed him through tiny cracks in the plaster. He heard low voices, laughter, the faint stirring of wings. He trailed his fingers along the opposite wall, feeling stone as smooth as a skull. The prince had known this war was coming; that was why he had tried to free Merisande. But arranging for her safety was not the same as freeing the knight. Gandel would never be king if Avry roused an army against Thorsault. Avry could not even guarantee the prince's safety.

Gandel's debt to Merisande was Avry's greatest weapon. Even if Gandel refused to help Avry, he might still agree to help the lady. Avry would return to her room then and pen a letter to Ghislain using her stationary. Merisande would place it in the hands of his squire, who would in turn pass it to the king. She would do that for him. He had only to convince her that he could escape on his own.

He hurried down the winding slaves' stair and slowed as he neared the third floor. There were voices again, but he could not be sure of their origin. Sound scattered like birds in the castle. One never knew how close or how far away a thing was.

Stepping off the landing, he found himself in an unlit space. He flattened himself against the wall, breathing softly. Unless he had made a mistake, floor three, corridor space one led to the royal chambers; it was always lit.

The voices sounded again, and this time Avry was sure they originated from the slaves' corridor. But from which direction? He turned right and crept forward, touching doors as he passed them, counting them silently.

The corridor bent around a corner. Light, as faint as breath, glimmered on the opposite wall. Avry edged forward.

Suddenly, a switch turned. Lamplight spilled into the cramped space. A guard reached for his arm, but Avry slid away and slammed an elbow into his throat. Avry felt, more than heard, a second fae behind him. He wrenched the short sword out of the first guard's belt and made a stiff backward thrust. The blade struck true, wringing a strangled cry from the fae behind him. The first guard's fist swung out. Avry ducked, and using the fae's forward momentum as leverage, ran him through with the dinner knife.

A sound echoed down the corridor, like metal clanging on stone. Avry, fighting to disentangle himself from the bodies wedging him against the wall, felt a sudden rush of air. Then all went dark.

***

He woke slowly, feeling cold stone at his back. Pain flooded in. He lifted his cuffed arms and clasped his head, moaning. Blood trickled down a finger; more had gathered on his shoulder where his head had been resting. Had they cracked his skull?

Stand, he ordered himself.

His arms and legs were shackled together with a short chain between them. He peered cautiously around him. He was in a dark cell of unknown size. A metal device hung from the shadowy wall across from him. The back wall was shrouded in darkness. He made a sound with his chain and listened to the echo.

Light flashed through a row of window bars. Avry, catching sight of the prison door, forced himself to approach it.

"Stay back," warned a sharp voice.

A fae guard stood behind the door, his hand resting on his short sword as though he was worried Avry would assault him through the bars.

"I mean no harm," Avry assured him, not bothering to whisper. "I only have a request to make."

The lamp steadied as the guard set it in the corner between the wall and the door. He was slightly hunched, with ratty, yellowed wings and skin so pale it appeared translucent. "Go on," he said warily.

"I'd like to be escorted to the king. I have an urgent message for him."

His lips pinched in a suspicious frown. "Tell me what it is, and I'll decide whether or not to disturb him."

Avry thought for a moment. "My information is sensitive, for the king's ears alone. I can only say that it involves the prince." Interest flickered in the fae's face. Gandel, Avry guessed, was a favorite topic among the guards. "Please, time is slipping away."

The fae sniffed. "You don't care what the king knows. He's your enemy."

"True," Avry agreed. "But I do care what happens to me. This secret is worth something. Perhaps a life." He waited for a reply, but the guard was already turning away, taking the lamp with him.

Panic flooded through Avry, and with it the pain. His head throbbed with every dizzying heartbeat. He needed a task, something that would allow him to think.

He tore a strip off the hem of his tunic. The cloth was filthy, but it would help stem the bleeding. He winced as he prodded the back of his head, searching the sticky, tender flesh for the injury. At last he found the gash and wrapped it tightly, securing the cloth with a knot.

He closed his eyes and tried to understand what had happened to him. He retraced his steps down the stairs, through the doorway, and down the shadowy corridor. He counted the doors. Four from the stairs, he thought. The fifth was certainly Gandel's. That meant the guards had been standing at the prince's chamber. They had not been waiting for Avry. Either the prince had fled or he had been suspected of something serious enough to warrant a watch on his chamber. Either way, returning to Gandel's chamber would be useless. The prince could not help them.

Cold sweat dribbled down his forehead. He wiped it away with a sticky hand.

The guard's lamp swung by the door again, stretching the shadows of the bars into an angry row of trees. A plan took shape in Avry's mind as he watched the pattern. It was simple, but simple plans were often the best ones.

Dragging in a breath, he charged at the wall by the door, slamming into it so hard that his chains clanged like bells on the bare rock. A terrified whimper crawled out of his throat.

"What is it?" the guard demanded, approaching the bars.

Avry stared blindly through the darkness to the back wall of the cell, pushing himself as far from it as possible, closer to the bars. "There's something there, in the shadows. Quick, the lamp!"

Avry knew the lamp would not cast enough light to illuminate the back wall. The cell, longer than it was wide, was meant to hold more than one prisoner.

The lamp rattled against bars. "I can't see anything."

"Please," Avry pleaded. "Can't you hear it? It's there, in the corner!"

"What's there?"

"I don't know, I can't see it!" There was a silence, then Avry scratched the rock with his fingernail—a subtle, sinister sound that might have come from anywhere.

The guard slid his sword out of its scabbard. "Keep back," he warned, his voice wobbling badly.

Avry waited until the key turned in the lock and the latch was drawn across, then he slammed the door open with all his strength. The iron bars knocked against the guard's bent head. While he stumbled, dazed, Avry used the weight of his wrist irons to knock the sword out of his grasp. He caught it awkwardly between chain links. Tipping it out a little, he seized the hilt and skewered the guard against the wall.

It had happened so fast that the lamp, tipped sideways on the floor, was still burning. Avry stood it upright then pulled the key out of the door and unlocked his leg and wrist irons, placing them on the wrists and ankles of the guard, who might still be alive. He opened the cell door and dragged the fae in feet first so the wings did not trip him. He closed the door and locked it, keeping the key with him in case they did not have an extra at hand. After a moment's thought, he kept the sword too, though he doubted he would need it.

He took a step and halted. It would be some time before his absence was noted. He listened to the silence then closed his eyes and felt it. The fae had taken him deep into the earth. He could smell it, feel it in the cold, damp air. Down, he decided, was the best place to be. He could not escape through the castle, where fae swarmed like cockroaches on a wall. But the tor held caves, and caves had openings. The river passed through it, so there must be a hole in the rock, perhaps barred by a grate.

His throat closed. If he left now, without Merisande, he might never see her again. She would be left to the king's mercy, with no prince to protect her, no friends, no hope.

He set the lamp down and leaned hard against the wall.

She had refused to leave without him. How could he go without her? But they could not escape together, not without aid. Avry could not fight guards in close quarters with her at his side. A guard might use her against him, or a stray blade might catch her in the throat. It was even more dangerous than leaving her at the mercy of the fae king.

But without her every step would be painful. The path back would tear a long, jagged hole in his heart.

But he had to do it. He had to warn Ghislain. He could not crouch in some dark corner while silver streamed into the wood toward Aure. If Aure fell, then Merisande was doomed anyway, but if Ghislain prepared Aure to fight, she might still have a chance in the chaos to escape.

He had to believe it was so.

Straightening, he forced his legs to move, his ears to listen for water.

***

Mer swallowed her dinner without tasting it and paced the length of the chamber. The guest floor bustled again with visitors, but these clinked as they walked and shouted to one another as if issuing commands. Soldiers, she guessed. Ones of higher rank.

The hours passed slowly. She drifted to the window and watched the full moon rise over the tree line. Thin clouds danced over it, pushed by a wind she could not feel. She touched the balustrade, finding the place where Avry had sharpened the knife.

A step behind her made her turn. But it was only the maid taking back the tray.

"Wait," Mer called and moved to intercept the girl before she could reach the servants' door. "Do you know—have you worked with a servant named Avry?"

The girl's fingers linked and unlinked under the tray. It took her so long to answer that Mer suspected she did know Avry and chose to keep that knowledge secret. "I haven't," she said at last in her rasping whisper and turned to leave.

Mer seized the dinner tray. "Stay a moment. Please."

"A moment," the maid agreed reluctantly.

Mer dropped into the desk chair, uncapped the ink jar, and attached a nib to one of the pens. She paused as she looked up at the maid, whose brows had drawn together in a puzzled frown. "Can you use a pen?"

The maid shook her head.

Of course not, Mer thought, running a hand over her brow. Where was Avry? Her gaze settled on the faded yellow moon at the corner of the tapestry. You must be brave, Lady.

Her breath slowed then sped up again. She dipped the pen and drew a square. "The stairway is here," Mer said, marking it with a circle. "It spirals down at the front end of the building." She drew a horizontal line down the middle of the square. "The corridor. And the rooms," she added, scratching them in.

"What are you looking for?"

The pen slowed. Mer dropped it into the ink jar and looked at her. "The prince's chamber."

An odd expression flitted across the girl's face, but once again Mer could not decipher it. "Why?"

She decided to be honest. "He hasn't responded to the message I sent him. And now I'm unable to leave this room. My door is barred from the outside."

"I can't—"

"I know. I'm not asking you to open it for me. If I can, I'd like to go on my own to see the prince. He was kind to me."

The maid frowned. Mer thought she would turn around and leave. Instead she set the tray on the floor, snatched the pen out of the jar, and scraped it along the rim, just as she had seen Mer do. She made three uneven lines at the bottom of the page, just below the square. "Three floors down," she explained. The pen traveled to the side of the square that represented the back wall of the castle. "Servants' stairs," she revealed, marking them with a circle. Then she added the servants' corridors, which ran along the sides and back of the building. "You make a right turn. Follow the wall as it bends. Count five doors; the fifth, at the corner, is Prince Gandel's."

Mer fingered the edge of the paper, her breath unsteady. "Are there ever guards in the servants' halls?"

"Sometimes. On the first floor, especially." She retrieved the tray. Her feet slowed as she neared the tapestry. "Miss."

Mer looked up; their eyes met for an instant, then the maid swallowed and looked away.

"What is it?" Mer demanded.

"Nothing. Just a rumor."

"A rumor?" Mer prompted.

After a moment's hesitation, she swooped down close to Mer's ear. "They say the prince has fled."

The maid fled soon after, leaving the pen resting on the page.

Mer remained at the desk, motionless, watching the tapestry sway until it finally stilled. Even then she did not move. She gazed at the familiar trail of flowers along the border until they seemed to change into something other. An eye opened and a wing; faces watched her, frightened, angry. Then they trembled as if touched by a breeze. Mer stood and pulled back the tapestry.

The servants' door came open under her hands.
CHAPTER 21

Avry followed the narrowing corridor, ducking as the ceiling sloped down. He passed numerous doors, most belonging to empty cells. At last he came to the deadest of dead ends: a hewn stone wall. He swept the lamp over it. Filthy layers of cobweb trembled under his breath. He tapped it with the butt of the sword. Solid.

Turning with a sigh, he retraced his steps back to the cell he had occupied. There was no sound apart from his own echoing footsteps and occasional dripping from cracks in the stone. He stepped over the guard's blood on the floor and walked on, his heartbeat accelerating.

The ceiling ascended until it swooped up and became the walls of a spiral staircase, the only one on the floor. Avry ignored the fierce pull that drew him up toward Merisande and stared down instead. The stairs twisted on into darkness, to another floor of cells, he wondered, or to some place that never saw light?

Turning his lamp to a low setting, he descended cautiously. The steps were crumbling. Long cracks ran along their edges, like fissures in dry mudflats. The air was turning stale. He drew in deep mouthfuls, but they did not satisfy. Even the spiders had wisely stayed away.

He came to the last step and lifted his lamp.

The light illuminated a short corridor with a low ceiling. Its roughly hewn walls held no holes for sconces. There were only two doors, one on the left, and one on the right. Neither had windows or a place to insert a key. Not locked, then. On impulse, he veered to the right.

His hand froze as it brushed the door.

Libera nos a malo, he muttered, his voice hollow in the tomb-like space. He did not fear the living. Living things could be killed, could feel pain. Evil was not so easily conquered.

He swayed, dragged in another parched breath, and found the strength to push open the door.

Rotting, stale air propelled him back into the corridor. He almost kicked the door closed, sure that the hole he sought would not be found in such an airless space, but curiosity had overcome his fear. Holding out the lamp, he went in.

He stood in the silence of the dead.

It was an ossuary, hewn out of the earth to house the bones of the fae. The room was wider than it was long, separated by thick stone fingers that had been hollowed to make beds for the bodies. The dead fae looked a lot like birds, their fleshless limbs curled in so that their wings, untouched by decay, lay lightly over them. Some had not been fully reduced to bones. The stale air had settled like dust over the space, freezing it in a moment of time.

Avry closed the door softly, turned, and opened the door on the opposite side of the corridor.

He jerked back as his foot met with empty space. He clung to the sides of the doorway, breathing hard. Gradually, his mouth relaxed in a smile. Cold, fresh air wafted up from somewhere in that darkness. He swung the lamp out. The light fell on the top steps of another stone staircase, perhaps the last in the tor. He descended cautiously, unsure of the condition of the steps. But the treads were not worn; they were simply uneven.

At the last step, he lifted the light. His brows arched in wonder. It was a natural cave. Stalactites dripped down from a low ceiling. Rising to meet them were their knobby cousins, the stalagmites. While those around the edges of the cave were still whole, most had been severed so that they resembled an army of broken statues. Avry recognized them from his father's collection of minerals, which had trickled in from the merchant ships.

The cave branched off in two directions. The knight, listening for water, took the straight path.

The ceiling continued to drop. Avry, trying to keep his bandaged head from bumping the ceiling, bent down as low as he could without crawling. When the ceiling lowered even farther, he was forced to give up his short sword. He tossed it between a couple of broken stalagmites and continued on hands and knees, holding the lamp between his teeth. The minerals under his knees shattered without much force. They felt like waterlogged old bones, or his own bones, crumbling.

A breeze brushed his face, soft as breath. He paused, hefting the lamp above his shoulder. The ceiling had risen again. Ahead of him, the floor brightened. Lamplight reflected back like a watery eye. "Finally," he whispered, leaning back on his heels.

The stream was small, no more than a yard in width, probably one of many sources that fed into the river. Moving the lamp to the left, he found the trail again; it ran along the edge of the stream, creeping like some skulking animal into the darkness of the cave. Avry rose carefully and followed it.

The cave wall leapt into his path sooner than he had expected. The stream ran straight into it. Shivering with cold, he crouched down and held the lamp up to the stone above the water.

The light trembled as he muttered a curse. The hole, which was barely wide enough to crawl through, was secured by a steel grate. A padlock held it fast—also steel. Together they formed a formidable barrier, as strong as any prison door. He eyed the grate a moment longer then remembered the loop of keys still hanging from his wrist and tugged them off. Might one of the keys open the door? He bent over the rushing water and tried them. The first would not go in, the second and third went in, but would not turn. Cursing again, he tossed them into the water.

He sank down on the edge of the bank with the lamp between his knees. The sword, he thought desperately. If he aimed it right, it might break through the thinnest point in the metal, which appeared to be the hasp. He fingered the lock, twisting it to the side to determine if it would stay in position while he aimed the weapon.

Then something strange happened. His thumb, which had been resting on the inside of the shackle, felt a sharp pinch. He jerked his hand back, but the steel would not let go. Leaning precariously over the water, he reached for the lamp between his feet and managed to bring it up to the lock.

A surprised breath burst out of him. The lock had never been properly closed. He raised the hasp and managed to free his thumb. The lock came away. He let it fall into the stream. The current tugged at the grate, opening it inch by inch.

It was as cold as ice.

He doused the lamp. Darkness plunged in. Tentatively, he touched the water inside the hole, felt rocks, and pulled them out. Muscles tensing against the chill, he climbed in.

***

Mer stood uneasily in the servants' corridor, squinting through the shadows. A lamp flickered nearby from a recess in the stone. Cobwebs clung to its sides like a sticky net. She pulled the door closed behind her and latched it softly. The space was quiet, the only sounds so distorted that she could not decide where they came from. She padded quickly down the narrow space toward the north wall of the castle, where the maid had indicated a stairway. Mer had committed the map to memory and burned it. The only thing she lacked now was camouflage. In a maid's uniform she would not have been quite so conspicuous.

She came to the back wall and turned. Immediately she found the stairway. It opened like a dark maw in the floor. A bit of light—probably from a recessed lamp—fanned up the twisting wall like a dirty mist, illuminating a worn metal rail. Mer grabbed hold of it and sped down the stairs. Her heart was hammering now, making her feel lightheaded. Though she tried to walk softly, her steps sounded loud in her ears. Every sound echoed like a stone flung into an empty space.

Her thoughts raced. If Gandel had indeed fled, and she was unable to find Avry, then the task would fall to her to warn King Ghislain. But she would have to escape first. And if she managed that, she would still have the Cursed Wood to deal with, and perhaps worse, the task of convincing the king that her story was true and not simply the fabrication of a fickle young woman who had run away from home. Would he believe her enough to prepare the kingdom for attack? To send for aid from Ann?

She should have asked Avry to write a letter. The king would have believed his knight.

The stairs twisted on in the hazy light. Mer squinted as she approached the third landing, wondering why it looked so dark. Was it customary to douse lamps on the royal floor, even those in the servants' corridors? After a moment's hesitation, she pulled a lamp out of its holder, unbending the small handle that was tucked against its side.

The floor was dark and silent. She turned right down the corridor, moving quickly now, counting doors under her breath. At the fifth she pulled back the latch.

Her hand went still. Something weighed against the door, perhaps a mirror or a desk. A thought made her pause. If Gandel had truly disappeared, the king might have rigged the door. Even a chair falling back would be loud enough to alert a guard stationed in the hallway. She slipped her hand through the crack; her fingers touched something smooth and cold. A mirror. She held it steady as she opened the door wide enough to allow her to peek in.

Her eyes widened in surprise. If a starving bear had ripped through the space, it would not have done as much damage. The bed was barely discernable under a thick layer of feathers that had flown out of the torn mattress. The desk was upside down, its drawers broken. Clothes littered the floor. An empty chest gaped at the end of the bed. The wardrobe was open too, the back torn out—a violence that had splintered the wood around the nails. A familiar robe lay like a puddle of blood where it had landed over a broken drawer. Her eyes scoured the room for the gray tunic Gandel had worn when they had last gone riding, his shiny black boots. The door creaked softly under her hand. Sighing, she pushed the door closed and latched it. Gandel was gone. The scene in the room confirmed it. If he had been found, there would have been no reason to search his room.

She turned breathlessly, not knowing what to do. What had become of Avry? Had he been captured here? Taken down to some dungeon, where he would receive the treatment he had assured her was coming to him? She made a small sound in her throat and quickly covered it with her hand.

What would they do to him? He had kept his voice by convincing them he was mute. But could he maintain that pretense now, perhaps under torture? There are worse things to fear than death.

Her fingers spasmed on the lamp handle. She could do nothing now but wait. Avry might not have been taken, or if he had, he might still find a way to escape. She needed to be where he expected to find her.

She padded down the corridor and remembered to drop the lamp back in its sconce as she climbed the winding stairs to her floor. A maid flitted by her like a frightened shadow and disappeared through a landing.

Mer came to her room, lifted the latch, and went in.

For several moments she stood without moving, feeling the displaced air from the tapestry brush the nape of her neck. The chamber was empty, and nothing seemed out of place, yet something felt wrong.

She turned slowly and then froze as she caught sight of her shadow. A second shadow stepped aside from it. Folded wings peeled out like twin swords. Holding back a scream, Mer dove for the tapestry, but the guard was swifter. He caught her arm and twisted it behind her. "Silence," he commanded. He wrenched her other arm back and held them together. Something cold grazed her wrist. A knife, she thought, her heart thrashing in her chest.

"Do something wrong," he warned, "and I will cut."

She nodded, and he pulled back the tapestry. The servants' door still hung open. He pushed her through it, allowing one of her arms to go free.

"Walk toward the stairs."

Mer descended first, her free hand trembling on the railing. Her eyes wandered blindly over the twisting stone wall. It seemed to change after a while; its texture grew gritty, damp with moisture. She trailed a finger over the spreading web of minerals that had leaked through cracks in the stone.

"Here," the guard snapped, making her jump. How many floors did we pass? she thought with sudden panic. Why didn't I count them?

He propelled her through the landing and down a poorly lit corridor. They had passed only one door when he pulled her to a stop.

"This is the room. Go on in."

She lifted the latch. The door swung open, revealing the rear of a tapestry. They entered a windowless chamber. The disturbed air unsettled a candlestick, which was perched on a messy desk.

A shadowy figure rose from a chair on the far side of the room and approached them.

Mer was instantly wary. He was unusually tall, his long limbs draped by a uniform unlike any she had seen before. She tried not to meet his eyes, gazing instead on the row of silver buttons spilling down the front of his jacket. Someone had kept them well polished.

The guard who held her bowed stiffly.

"Where was she?" asked the stranger, his voice laced with impatience.

"Wandering the servants' corridors, Commander."

"On which floor?"

"The sixth, Commander. I caught her when she returned to her chamber."

Mer kept her eyes lowered, wondering why the official did not simply ask her where she had gone.

After a meaningful silence, the stranger walked away from them, his boots tapping on the polished wood floor. The chamber door creaked open. "Hold her here."

"Yes, Commander."

The guard was motionless until the door closed, then he shoved Mer in the direction of the chair.

She caught the back of it. "You didn't have to push me."

"Sit."

Mer dropped into the hard, wooden seat and stared at the unlit hearth in front of her. The guard paced at her back, blocking her path to the servants' door, which still hung open.

Time dragged. The candle burned slowly; Mer watched it from the corner of her eye, wondering how dark the room would become without it. Dark enough, she decided, to slip past the guard. She waited, listening to his footsteps. Back and forth he went; tap tap tap tap, halt, tap tap tap, halt, tap tap tap tap, halt. The light spluttered. She shot a longing glance at the servants' door. He would surely catch her. She would never be fast enough. But if—if she made it into the corridor, she could slip through any door she chose. It would only take a moment to lift a latch.

Tap tap tap, halt. Tap tap tap tap, halt. Mer gripped the sides of the chair. At the last tap she leaped up and raced across the room to the hanging tapestry.

A hand caught her from behind. She tried to twist away, but it only held her tighter.

"There's nowhere to go," came a stern voice from the chamber door.

Mer's breath froze in her lungs.

The guard forced her to turn and bow.

The king stood in the doorway, shadowed by his tall official. "You wouldn't see me," he said. "That was unwise."

"My King," she said hurriedly, "I will—"

"You will not. I don't need you now." He waved to the guard then made a gesture Mer did not recognize: a sharp lift of his hand to his face, fingers together, thumb out.

The guard gave a swift nod. "It'll be done, My King."

The robed figure turned a little and then stopped. Mer watched him anxiously through the fall of her hair.

"You went riding with the prince yesterday," he said.

"My King." She swallowed, trying to force moisture into her throat. "We rode to the Cursed Wood. He tried to free me, but I wouldn't go. So he mounted his horse and rode off. Later I sent him a letter, but—"

"A letter?" the official inquired in a low voice.

The king made a cutting motion. "We have it. Be silent." His glaring eyes fell on hers again. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know. He didn't say."

"Did you follow him?"

"I followed his trail, but I lost it at the outbuildings."

He regarded her under heavy red brows. "If you're lying..."

"I'm not!" But the door was already closing, a beringed finger pulling the latch. She watched it fall with gathered breath.

The guard's hand tightened on her arm. "Come."

She tried to stand, but her body had weakened, as if her muscles had changed into water.

"Where—where are we going?"

"Down," he said simply.
CHAPTER 22

Down was farther than Mer had expected. The guard descended first, his fingers digging into her wrist. He did not seem in a hurry now.

Gradually, the steps lost their worn edges. They were worn in a different way. The dampness ate into the stone, spreading cracks over the treads. Mer ran her free hand over her arm, trying to warm it. She gazed enviously at the guard's lamp, wishing she could carry it herself, hold that heat close to her. It would be useless soon, she imagined. He was taking her down. Down this far there would be nothing but prison cells. Dungeons.

Was Avry lying in a dungeon, hoping Mer would do what he could not? Part of her hoped not to find him. Better to let him think she had succeeded, that help was on its way. At least he would die hopeful.

The wall continued to bend. Peering down into the darkness, Mer felt as if she were not moving anymore, but the stairs themselves were moving, turning like the gear of some enormous machine that burrowed deep into the underworld. She swayed, dizzy, grasping at the stone.

"I can't breathe," she said abruptly.

The guard pulled her along. "It's only a little farther."

"But if I can't breathe now, how will I breathe down there?"

"You won't be there long."

Mer stopped struggling, frozen by his words. What was he going do to her? Where were they going? Her heart sped up. She reeled against his stiff back, seeing bright specks floating like small flies all around her.

They came to another landing, and the guard halted. "Be still," he said, setting down the lamp. After a moment of silence his free hand rose to his chest. He traced a circle over his heart, held the circle with his splayed fingers for the space of a breath, then opened his palm and released it.

The gesture was both strange and disturbing. When it was over, the fae turned without a word and opened a door. He held the lamp out in front of them, showing her a staircase that dropped down into what could only be called a cave. Mer followed him down. She could breathe again. The air, though slightly bitter, was fresh and cool. It cleared her head.

At the bottom of the staircase he turned right, drawing her down a tunnel. The ceiling was low and irregular; odd shapes hung from it, stretching long shadows over the walls. The tunnel pinched in and then widened. Something pale shone at the end of it, like a floating spirit. Mer's breathing accelerated. Her limbs shook uncontrollably; her teeth rattled like bones. Did the pale thing move toward them, or were they nearing it?

The guard raised the light, and Mer saw instantly that it was not a spirit but milky water in a natural stone basin. Pale fingers of stone rose out of it like tree roots peeking through swamp water. All was eerie and still.

Still holding her arm, the guard set the lamp on the floor, lifted a silver cup out of the darkness, and dipped it into the pool. The heavy liquid rippled slowly. Mer stared at it, filled with dread.

He raised the cup to her lips. "Milk of the earth," he intoned in a deep voice.

"What is it?" she mumbled, smelling something bitter.

A frown gathered on his forehead. "Drink."

"You drink first," she said weakly.

His cruel fingers released her arm for an instant. He made a quick movement, and something cold grazed her throat. She glanced at his short sword, but it was still in its scabbard. The knife, then. He held its bare blade to her neck.

"Drink," he hissed and used the cup's metal rim to pry open her jaw.

Her teeth rattled against the cup, and then the liquid went down.

Fire blazed in her throat. She gagged and screamed—or thought she screamed. The horrid sound that flew out of her was terrifying, sending jarring echoes off the rock.

The knife came away. Mer moved jerkily, slapping the cup from his hand. It clattered on the floor. She dove for it, not thinking, only feeling her pain, mixing now with rage. She found the cup and flung it at him, but his arm diverted it away. She felt something behind her heel—a rock, she thought, and pretended to trip. He followed her down, but she seized it before he could stop her and slammed it with all her strength against his head. He stumbled and fell backward; the lip of the pool caught him, and he slumped across its edge. Mer, not knowing if he were alive or dead, yanked the knife out of his hand and ran it across his throat, just as she would have done to a rabbit she had found alive in a snare.

He jerked once and went still.

Mer dropped the knife. His blood was streaming into the pool, bright red mingling with white. She wiped her hands on his tunic and snatched up his lamp. A fire raged in her throat, and she had nothing to quench it. Clutching her neck, she raced back up the tunnel. She halted at the foot of the stairs, fighting back panic.

She could not go back.

The king would have her killed for what she had done. Better to crawl under a rock and die. The thought made her fingers tighten on her throat. The pain was too terrible to bear. She had to find a way out. Caves had holes, passageways. Underground streams. But how far would she have to wander to find one? How many tunnels twisted off into the deep darkness of the tor? She heard water, but the sound was elusive; it could come from anywhere.

Be calm, she told herself sternly. After a few steadying breaths, she turned, sensing something cool on the back of her neck.

Her light revealed a dark, retreating space. Another tunnel, she thought, feeling hope touch her with light, tentative fingers. She followed it, ducking her head as the ceiling dropped down.

Water found her. It twisted around her ankles, cold and clear and bright under the flame. She touched it, then smelled her hand. Not bitter. She sank down on her knees and drank straight from the stream. The relief was instantaneous, like ice on a burn. When she could drink no more, she leaned back and swallowed tentatively. The swelling was still there, but it felt different now, as if something in her throat had loosened or was coming detached.

She swallowed again. The thickness shifted. It was rising, making her gag. Bending forward, she retched over the water.

A shadowy ball dropped from her mouth into the stream. It sank a little, rose to the surface, and was instantly dragged away by the flow.

It looked a lot like a myrlis.

Mer shut her eyes and swallowed. The pain was gone. She passed a trembling hand over her mouth and stood. A path of broken stones ran along the bank. It probably ended where the stream ended, at a gap in the rock or at a larger body of water.

Keep moving.

The ceiling climbed again, its thorny teeth dancing crazily in the light. Mer hefted the lamp above her shoulder. Another wall rose ahead of her. Something bright glimmered at its base, like a row of shining threads.

It was an open grate.

She set the lamp down with chilled fingers and perched at the edge of the hole. She watched the stream flow into it, into the deep darkness of the tor.

Suddenly the air around her seemed to shiver and close in like a hand. Mer clenched her stomach and rocked on her heels. She would die in there, trapped in stone. She would die, and no one would know.

Move.

On impulse, she kicked the lamp into the water. Now she had no choice but to climb in; there was nowhere else to go. She felt along the edges of the hole, yanked the grate out as far as it would go, and wriggled in.
CHAPTER 23

The tunnel was smooth at first, as if it had been excavated, but after few yards it grew as rough as the inside of an old bone. Mer took measured breaths as she struggled to find the best way to move. She kept her head low to avoid scraping the ceiling. Better to imagine there was no ceiling at all than be reminded of how tight the tunnel probably was. If she got stuck, no one would come rescue her. She would be wedged in inky blackness, lying in three inches of cold water. Her heart raced, and she fought to control her breathing. Move.

She dragged herself along using her elbows and toes, wincing as she scraped her skin on sharp rocks. The water inched higher until it covered half her body. As she struggled to keep her head above water, she began hearing a rushing sound, like wind pounding against rock. The tunnel sloped down, and soon she was floating, gravity tugging her inexorably forward. She dug the toes of her shoes into the rock, trying to slow her pace.

Then she struck a wall. Stunned, she did not have time to draw breath before she was thrust by a fist of rushing water down a widening space. She clenched her chattering teeth, fighting the urge to breathe. Her head bumped and scraped along the ceiling. She feared a low rock would knock her unconscious, but she was unable to slow down. Her lungs screamed for air. Every sensation had vanished except for that one urgent need, feeding into a panic that made her disoriented.

Suddenly, light poured over her. She broke through the surface, gasping, arms beating the water as she wheezed and spluttered. She forced herself to calmness and looked around.

She was outside, floating down a river. But for the moon, the night was dark and still. The river banks were steep, tufted with long, sagging grass. Beyond, light glimmered, distant and hazy. She let herself drift, kicking when she felt herself sinking. The water had warmed, making her skin prickle. She closed her eyes in relief.

How many rivers were there in Thorsault? She had glimpsed one while riding back to the castle. From a distance it had looked like a shimmering snake extending from the wall into the field. There would be an opening somewhere, she decided, secured perhaps by a drain grate. She hoped this was the same river.

She passed what she took to be a market shuttered for the night. Scents lingered in the air: the gritty smoke of an ironsmith's shop, tanning glue, laundry soap. The scent of lye grew stronger as she neared the shadow of the city wall. The river bank had lost its steepness. Peering over it, she thought she spied the glowing remains of a coal fire someone had built near the river's edge.

The current quickened as the river charged toward the wall. Mer, keeping low in the water, pulled herself along the bank toward an inky smudge at the wall's base. She did not know what she was hoping for—that the grate might be rusted, or bent, or open at the bottom.

It turned out to be none of those things. Clinging to a bar, she felt along the riverbed with her mangled shoe. The grate went straight down into something solid, stone or brick.

It was hopeless.

She sank against the bars, strength draining out of her like water. The panic she had left in the tor threatened to return. It would make her dazed, unable to go on.

Be brave, Lady.

Easy for the knight, who had been trained for just these sorts of challenges. She twisted around so she faced the hazy city.

What would Avry do? How would he think?

He would view the situation coolly, look for options that were not obvious or were so obvious that his enemy would not consider them.

Like walking through the front door.

She eyed the long stretch of wall. The ground sloped up from its base, creating a shallow ditch just wide enough to allow one person to jog inside it. Cloaked in the walls' shadow, Mer could approach the gate without being seen.

It was what Avry would do.

She waded to the bank and wriggled out of the water onto the muddy grass. She was shocked by what she could see of herself in the glow of distant torchlight. Her clothes were torn, the hem of her frock rent right off. Blood streaked her skin where rocks had scraped her. She fingered the holes at her elbows and knees. Her skin was candle-bright against the dark, wet fabric.

She caught a drop of blood and rubbed it on her ankle. Soot would be useful, she thought. Soot would hide her. She found another drop and caught it. Without the cold numbing water, she began to feel every pain in her body, all the small cuts and bruises. The wind blowing against them made her wince.

Her throat felt odd.

She swallowed and then ran a finger over it. "Strange," she said tentatively.

Nothing came out, only a whisper.

Mer mashed her face into her hands and choked out a voiceless moan. She had not wanted to believe it. The pain had disappeared. The poison that had ravaged her throat was gone. She swallowed hard and tried to push out a sound. Any sound.

Nothing.

Warm tears rolled down her cheeks. She brushed them roughly aside with the back of her hand. I'm still alive, she reminded herself fiercely. She might have died in the cave, but she had come through it with only a few scratches. It could have been worse. It could still get worse.

Move.

Keeping low to the ground, she jogged along the riverbank until she reached the coal fire she had spotted from the river. It was much larger than she had anticipated. And permanent. The earth around it had hardened like callused skin. She crept as close to it as she dared, feeling the warmth heat her chill limbs. She patted the cool outer edges. Her fingers sank into layers of soot and ash, old fragments of charred wood.

She started with her arms, finding that slow circles worked better than long wipes. The soot tried to climb out of her wounds, but she forced it in, wincing at the pain. She did her neck and face by feel, wringing water out of her hair before plaiting it in a tight braid. Her eyes were tricky; she tapped the soot around them carefully, then gathered her skirt up and began on her legs.

At last she stood by the glowing coals and examined herself. Her skin still showed here and there through the holes in her dress, but overall she was well hidden, like the brown mushrooms that disappeared in the fall, buried in leaves.

It would soon be put to the test.

She hurried back to the wall and slid down into the shallow ditch. Her shoes filled with warm, stagnant water. She thought of removing them and decided against it. She would be faster with them than without.

Speed was everything now. The moon had shifted, pushing back the wall's shadow to a strip no wider than the ditch. She hoped it would last until she reached the gate.

She flicked a glance at the tor as she ran. Lamplight glimmered at its base, where houses clung like stately barnacles. Too bright, she thought. The fae were not sleeping. Perhaps they celebrated the return of the soldiers.

Gradually, the wall bent, bringing the gate into view. A glittering line of torches spilled through it, moving with the steady pace of mounted troops. The scent of horse droppings wafted toward her, sharp and pungent. She increased her pace to a sprint, eyes fixed on the hazy figure of a guard who stood by the gateway on the rim of the ditch. His wings lay across the backs of his thighs; if he opened them they would graze the wall. A second guard stood on the opposite side of the road. Mer glimpsed him through the legs of moving horses.

The sounds had grown deafening: hooves pounded the wet stone, armor clattered. Voices rose sporadically, like bullfrogs calling across a pond. She was only steps from the guard now. Happily, his face was tilted toward the riders. She forced herself to slow. Even a brush of air on his wings might alert him to movement. Holding her breath, she crept behind his back.

And then she was through.

The ditch ended abruptly, pulling up as it met the road. She would be in full sight of the soldiers now, and the guard, if he thought to look behind him instead of in front. The shadow of the wall was gone, buried under all the bright torches. Trembling, she climbed up out of the ditch, edged around the corner of the gateway, and into the arched opening.

She paused there, hunched forward like someone kneeling to pray. The soldiers rode obliviously past her, their shadows climbing over her in endlessly moving lines. They kept to the center of the road where the curved ceiling peaked. Their torches flickered wildly in the shadowy space.

The gateway was perhaps four yards thick. It had not seemed so when she had breezed through it on horseback. Now it felt tunnel-like. Gritting her teeth, she began to crawl along the bottom edge. Her hands and knees slid in horse droppings; the scent was overpowering, biting into her nostrils.

One soldier was all it would take. One that looked down instead of forward; a single curious glance.

She was nearing the opposite side when she spotted another guard standing a few feet from the ditch. He appeared to be speaking with a soldier. Turn away, Mer urged him. A breeze blew past, ruffling his pale feathers. But still he remained motionless, as if his legs were fixed to the ground. Heart in her throat, Mer reached the gateway's outer edge. She could not linger there.

A soldier shouted a greeting to the guard. Mer did not wait to see what would happen. She slid down into the ditch beside the outer wall, and then she was running, her waterlogged shoes sloshing with every step.

She barely saw the river before plunging into it again. She scrambled up onto the far bank and ran on. The lights of the outbuildings peeled out from behind the curve of the wall; they were distant, hazy. The space of land between them and the city wall was like a black pool. Mer charged into it, her legs crashing against the rows of stiff plants the slaves cultivated during the day.

A horn call pierced the air. She turned and saw light floating over the field behind her.

The horn sounded again, sharp and relentless. She quickened her pace, veering to the right as she neared the outbuildings. Her sight blurred. She thought she heard footsteps behind her and wheeled, but there was no one, nothing but the glowworm of distant torches moving through the gate. She ran on, clutching at the wiry stems to keep from falling.

The outbuildings folded away behind her, and she descended a sloping hill. Grass sprang up around her legs, wet with dew. Mer could not stop running. Her legs seemed to be moving on their own now, like carriage wheels spinning.

The trees stopped her. Moonlight shone on their crooked trunks, their soft, trembling leaves. Mer wandered into them, stumbling with weariness.

The forest darkened as she left the tree line behind her. She walked with her arms out in front of her, snapping and bending branches that jumped into her path. Roots bulged out of the ground like tripwires. In the moonlight they looked like the backs of small animals.

Finally, she came to an exhausted halt. Leaning against a tree, she gazed up at the moon. It blurred, and cleared, then blurred again.

"Where am I going?" she asked it in her harsh whisper.

Wind touched the leaves like a quiet reply.

Mer slipped into a dark unreality. She tripped over roots, crashed into branches that seemed to appear out of nowhere. She thought she heard the horn again, a note trailing low in the wind. The moon, staring down at her from the apex of the sky, refused to help her find her way. "Find where?" she asked it sourly. It occurred to her that without a voice, she could not survive the Cursed Wood. Could not speak above the sound of the wood wind.

"Where is where?" a soft voice replied.

Mer caught a branch between her fingers and turned. "Where is where?" she repeated to the darkness.

Of course, no answer came. There had never been a voice. I'm going mad, she thought idly. "Mad, mad, mad," she chanted. A frog chirped somewhere nearby, making her jump.

She picked her way around a thicket and paused. A warm space of light lay like a puddle on the ground. The sky opened above it, as if a giant hand had knocked aside branches to view the flickering stars. She leaned her back against a tree and caught her breath. The wood was quiet. Seed pods fell intermittently, tapping the ground as gently as raindrops.

That was how the footfalls sounded at first, like seeds dropping onto damp earth. Then they formed a rhythm, a slow drumming that seemed to echo the beat of her own heart. She lifted her eyes.

The white doe stepped into the clearing. Her slender body glowed as if it had been shaped by starlight. She seemed unnaturally still, like the stillness of a winter morning under a blanket of snow. Mer could not see her eyes well in the darkness, but the doe did not seem afraid. It was as though she was weighing Mer, asking her what she was worth.

Not much, Mer thought.

For an endless moment, their shadowed gazes locked and held. Then the doe turned and walked into the trees.

Mer took a step and then stopped. The bright form in the trees stopped too, as if it waited.

"You want me to follow," Mer whispered.

If the doe understood her, she gave no indication.

Mer followed her until her legs burned. The doe moved faster and faster, her body gleaming against the dark undergrowth. She led Mer through openings in the trees, around rocks Mer would have tripped over. She led her into a shadow even the moon could not penetrate.

The Cursed Wood loomed over them like the black arm of a storm cloud; the smaller trees had pulled away from it, allowing a thin strip of moonlight to shine down on its bizarre procession of roots. The doe stood fearlessly atop them. Her eyes held the confidence of a woman who stood inside her own front door.

Mer followed her in, balancing her feet on the lumpy roots. "All right," she breathed, looking up.

But the trees were empty.
CHAPTER 24

Mer walked on alone.

She trod slowly, carefully over the dangerous roots. The wood was silent. No seeds fell, no wind blew through the shadowy leaves. She felt as if she walked down the corridor of a ruined castle. The tree trunks were marble stands on which rested the busts of men—the dead, she imagined. Those who had died in the trees.

The soldiers were there too, their eyes as still as marsh water. They neither accused her nor asked her for remorse. We are witnesses, they said. That is all. That is all we need to be. Mer acknowledged them, muttering in the dark until the last shred of moonlight vanished.

Then, out of nowhere, an arm fastened around her neck, gripping her in a chokehold. She screamed. Or she would have, had she a voice.

The arm pulled back sharply, and she heard the sound of a lamp switch turning. Then light blazed, blinding her for an instant.

Through the cracks between her fingers, she glimpsed a dark face.

"Lady?"

Mer dropped to her knees. Tension fell from her in a rush, like a breath she did not know she had been holding. Avry knelt in front of her, his face covered in soot. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, as if he were not sure she was really there.

"You escaped," he said incredulously.

She nodded, blinking back tears.

Avry nudged the lamp closer to her. His gaze raked over her, finding the holes and slashes that the rocks had inflicted on her clothing. "Are you in pain?"

She shook her head.

"Then you aren't hurt?" he pressed her.

She swallowed, tasting salt at the back of her throat. She did not want to lie, but she could not find the words to tell him what had happened.

He fingered the lamp idly, shifting it an inch so it was not leaning on an angle. "That sound you made when I grabbed you... It was like the sounds the slaves make when they're scared." His eyes slid to hers and away. Mer saw the suspicion in them, the look of someone who needed to know something but was afraid of the answer.

"I'm fine."

"Then why are you whispering?" His own voice had shrunk to a whisper.

Mer spotted a tear in his shirt and poked it with a finger. The fabric was so grimy, it stuck to his skin. "You know why."

There was a silence, then he twisted away from her fiercely, leaving her staring at his scratched and muddied tunic.

"And you still managed to escape," he said harshly. "Even after that."

"I had to."

"How—how did you?"

How. Her eyes closed. She felt the knife in her hand again, the slickness of the guard's blood on her wrist. She tasted the bitterness of the poison and the pain that came afterward; she swallowed it back, her throat tightening. The stuff had gone into her and would never come out. Never.

Avry had moved again. She looked up as he knelt in front of her. Then his hands were behind her shoulders, and he was pulling her toward him like a small child.

An awkward silence fell. Mer's hands were clasped tightly in front of her; they had not stopped shaking since she left the tor. She was about to pull away when he began rubbing her back, his hand turning in slow circles. The unexpected tenderness made her eyes burn, and something inside her finally broke free. Gripping the front of his shirt, she wept into his chest. She had not wept so hard since she had knelt at her father's bedside, believing he was dead.

She told herself it did not matter who held her, only that she felt at ease enough to cry. But the lie crumbled as soon as it formed. She could not pretend that he was just a body, that she could weep on just anyone's shoulder. Some part of her trusted him now. She had to admit that.

At last her voiceless sobbing quieted, and she lifted her cheek from his shoulder. Her face was burning; every moment seemed to be making it worse. They both smelled terrible—a rancid mixture of horse droppings, soot, and sweat.

His hand trembled as he brushed her hair away from her eyes. "I wouldn't have left you if I thought I had any other choice."

"The prince had fled," she reminded him, drawing gently but firmly away. "You had no other choice."

"I'd imagined all sorts of things. That they'd lock you in a cell and torture you, or use you as a hostage."

"I didn't let them." She gestured to the lamp. "How did you get that?"

"I took it from one of the outbuildings."

"I didn't notice it until after you grabbed me."

"Well...it was on until I heard your step in the wood."

"And decided to sneak up on me from behind?" Suddenly she frowned and looked away. She was being needlessly sharp with him.

"I didn't know it was you," he explained weakly. He reached for it then, as if remembering where he was and where they were going. "We should keep moving."

***

They walked for hours, but it seemed like days.

The thinner, sparser trees she had spied at the wood's fringes were gone; giants leaned over her now, impossibly wide, taller, it seemed, than the castle on the tor. Avry was quiet. Mer trailed close behind him, her gaze moving from the treacherous roots to the lamp swinging at his side. He slowed to glance at her often. In the faint light, she glimpsed a firmly set mouth and hard, watchful eyes. She wondered how her own face looked, smeared and tear-streaked, scored by branches.

He paused whenever he came to a large rock. Stooping down, he passed his light over it as though he could read something on its bright, mossy face. Whatever he saw seemed to please him.

The night wore on. Mer kept blinking. Her eyes felt heavy; her limbs ached. Thoughts darted through her mind like half-formed dreams or birds she could not catch. At times she was not sure what had really happened that night. She suspected that the milky poison had transformed her voice into that shadowy creature that was neither alive nor dead. What the fae called a "myrlis." She swallowed, shaking her head. To think that the king harvested slaves' voices to use as decorations for his hall. How was that any different from the lord who plastered his walls with women's hair? It was worse, she thought, because hair grew back. She fingered her throat, waiting for tears to mist her eyes. But none came.

Little by little, the darkness softened. The leaves were creeping out of the shadows, opening to the dawn light. As if the wood sensed it and awakened, there came a deep, restful sigh.

Avry paused and looked at her.

"Don't stop walking," she warned him in her harsh whisper.

"Are you—?"

"I'm fine." She threw him a forced smile. He turned reluctantly, took a step, and went straight down.

For an instant Mer was so shocked, she could not move. Then the ground buckled. The lamp, lying on its side, slid into an opening crack and vanished. Mer leaped over to a trunk and dug her hands into its grooves. The sigh had risen to a terrible wail, the wood wind, she thought, blowing at full force.

A groan of pain snapped her attention back to Avry. He was grappling with a root, his knuckles white as he fought to free himself. Mer jumped across a crack and balanced herself on one of the roots pinning his leg. Avry had discarded one story and was launching into the next. His voice sounded strained; the wind drove against it, shredding it like so many leaves.

"The stories aren't working," he said between clenched teeth.

Mer slid on the root. As she tried to right herself, the ground heaved again, and Avry's leg sank deeper. She grabbed his shoulder. Finding his eyes in the shadows, she touched her throat. "This story."

He shook his head uncomprehendingly. His eyes were red-rimmed, narrowed with pain.

She lurched toward his ear. "The slaves' tale."

Had he heard her? He was still for a moment. The wind had calmed too, as if it waited.

At last he drew a ragged breath and began. "Many hundreds of years ago..."

His voice steadied as the story progressed, and gradually the root let go. But Avry was far from finished. He crawled over to a tree truck and leaned against it. His eyes, lifting to the branches, began to close and then to tighten. He described the method the fae used to ruin the slaves' voices, the signs that the slaves were forced to learn, the whips that kept them from whispering. The slaves ran away and were punished. The slaves worked until they collapsed. The slaves slept in cramped chambers; they woke early, cold and miserable, wishing they could go home to their families, unable to grieve for their dead.

Mer bowed her head over her knees, but she was too wearied, or perhaps too numb to cry. She listened to his voice until it trailed into silence.

A hand fell on her arm. "Lady, we must move on."

"Was I asleep?" She tried not to stare at his red-rimmed eyes.

"Only for a moment."

He held her arm until she found her footing, then they both went deadly still.

The air shivered as though a sound, too deep for human hearing, was building around them. Mer placed her hand tentatively on a tree.

It was warm.

Her eyes came back to Avry's, wide with shock. He began to say something, but a terrible sound muffled his voice.

It was the sound of the earth moving.
CHAPTER 25

Mer was sprawled on the ground, shuddering under the force of what felt like an earthquake.

Avry seized her wrist and pulled her toward him. "Climb!"

They reeled against a tree. Mer found a foothold in the trunk's shadowy grooves and clambered up. While she searched in the dim light for another, Avry caught her hand and dragged her onto a branch. "Higher," he urged. "Climb as high as you can."

Her feet slipped on the wet bark, but she managed to trail along behind, her trembling fingers clinging to leaves and branches as she heaved herself up. They had ascended for perhaps ten yards when, with a jolt that nearly shook her off a branch, the tree itself began moving. Mer looked desperately for Avry. She heard his voice, but the words were jarred, broken under a deafening roar that was working its way into her bones. Gripping the trunk with both arms, she lowered herself down until she straddled a thick branch. There came another sudden lurch. Mer felt wind on her face, a sensation of falling, and then something firm pressing into her back, squeezing her against the trunk. She dragged in a terrified breath. The tree shuddered violently, and her head slammed back against whatever pinned her to the trunk.

She felt a numbing dizziness, then nothing more.

***

She woke to brilliant sunlight.

Her eyes opened a crack; green leaves flecked with summer light waved in front of her face. Her eyes closed, and she lifted a hand to her aching temples. Though the tree had stopped moving, there was still movement inside her; her own blood, she thought, rushing in her ears.

She leaned back against what was probably a branch. Her finger traveled idly over the rough bark then froze in sudden horror. Where was Avry?

The branch at her back eased a little, allowing her to turn. She looked to her right, where she thought she had last heard his voice. Her hand, moving to part the leaves, frightened her for an instant before she remembered why it was black.

She found him behind the leaves, hanging over a branch. A second branch had come to settle like a bent finger over his back, pressing him into the tree trunk. His shorn head was turned away from her. She could not tell if he was breathing. Leaning sideways, she managed to graze his arm. Still, he did not move. "Avry!" she hissed in her hoarse whisper.

He woke with a grunt. Mer touched him again, and his head turned. Their eyes met; his were strangely vacant, as though he were caught in a dream. They're the color of sunlight, she thought, that gold that glimmers over a dry meadow in autumn. His hand lifted and found hers.

Mer closed her eyes.

***

She dreamed of leaves, their shadows moving coolly over her skin. They seemed attached to nothing, like feathers that the wind had snatched from a bird's nest.

Something flicked her face, and she woke. Pulling a leaf off her forehead, she glimpsed a dark figure climbing above her.

She followed him up the tree.

"Careful!" Avry shouted back as a twig snapped under her fingers. "It's a long way down."

Gradually, the patches of blue sky widened. The tree had seemed tall from the ground, where the high branches remained invisible behind a fog of leaves, but beyond those leaves was another length of tree, a trunk that seemed to ascend into the clouds. Mer found him perched between two branches, his skin glistening with sweat, his fingers clinging, white-knuckled, to a handful of leaves. His face was rigid as he peered at something in the distance. Mer, following his eyes, saw nothing but trees, a waving ocean of green that stretched on and on into the horizon.

Then something glinted, and her heart lurched into her throat.

The spire of Thorsault castle peeked incongruously from the crown of a green, far-off hill.

It's not possible, she thought, her head moving slowly from side to side. Where was the tor? The walls that surrounded the city? Could there be two castles, built the same way? There had to be.

"No," Avry whispered, as if he had been listening to her thoughts, "there's no other castle. That is Thorsault. The hill beneath it is the tor. And the walls—they are broken, buried under roots and debris. The city has been engulfed by the Cursed Wood."

"They moved that quickly," she whispered harshly, forgetting for a moment that she had no voice.

"Quickly and relentlessly. They charged through the smaller outlying trees and closed around the city like a horseshoe bending in."

"Why a horseshoe?"

"Because the south was open." He pointed to a brighter area of green. "Do you remember the road that ran south from the city gate?"

Mer shuddered at his use of the past tense. She shaded her eyes, searching for a road that no longer existed. "The road. Yes. It ran into the wood."

"Into an ordinary wood. A slave told me the Cursed Wood is far from the village."

Where was that slave now? Dead, probably.

Wind touched the leaves; Mer broke one off and held it over the spire. She pictured the ghastly scene in her mind.

Having stayed up late feasting, the fae would have been deeply asleep by dawn. They might have woken to a rumble like distant thunder. A guard on the wall might have spotted it first: a mysterious darkness, like the shadow of a cloud passing over land; not an enemy, nothing he could have put a name to. As it drew closer, he would have alerted the door guards. What is it? they would have whispered to each other through the morning mist. Any soldiers left in the fields would have arrived now, and an alarm call would have been sounded. But too late. The city was surrounded. Soon it would be engulfed, and no wings could have carried the fae high enough or far enough away to escape the raging of the trees. "What about the people in the tor?" she heard herself say.

His voice tightened. "If they survived, they're stuck there now. I doubt they would have the courage to leave it."

Mer's thoughts turned to the maid who had helped her find Gandel's chamber. The girl had been afraid of punishment. Now she would have starvation to fear, if the plague did not find her first.

"Ghislain will send men back," he said, watching her face.

More men to die in the trees. "There might be some slaves left in the village. Maybe they'll help the others."

"Possibly..."

But it was as if he had not heard her. He let go of the leaves and wrapped his fingers around a branch, as if it were an arm. "Do you think—could the tree be aware of us? Is it listening now?"

"I hope not." She gave a little shudder. "And anyway, it's strange to think that way. Like listening for your own heartbeat."

"That's a good analogy. No one has been listening for the wood's heart. For its collective mind. But it exists nonetheless. It acted on my story." He glanced at her briefly, as if gauging her reaction. Mer's mouth had gone dry. Avry sighed and turned away. "We have to move on."

"Avry, it was my idea to tell that story."

His jaw tensed. "So it was," he said evenly. "And you saved both our lives by suggesting it."

Mer shook her head. She peered at the spire again, poking out of the miles of unbroken woodland. A touch of dizziness made her cling more tightly to the branch. It was all too much to take in.

Avry's insistent voice pulled her back. "Look." He touched her shoulder, turning her west. "Look how close to the edge we are."

The edge of the wood was indeed close. Mer, gazing past its rim to an empty plain where trees had once stood, found an image of a freshly dug potato field in her mind. "It won't be easy to cross that," she said.

They went back down the tree, Avry descending first with Mer a little ways above him.

On the ground again, they paused to catch their breath. The forest floor looked much the same as it had before the quaking. The roots had settled back into their tidy lines.

Avry set a fast pace, and in what seemed like moments they reached the tree line. They stood in grim silence, gazing out over a vast plain where trees had once stood. A soft wind moved, ghost-like, over the plain, stirring up dirt that the sun had already started to dry. The earth lay as lightly as freshly fallen snow. An army of holes was scattered through it. Though they varied in size, they shared the same form: sloped on the east side, sheer on the west, as if the trees had leaned forward and pulled out what was behind them.

Avry took a tentative step; his foot sank a few inches and stopped. He threw her a nervous glance. "It's solid enough. Best to keep away from the holes, though. The bottoms might be soft, or even hollow."

He seemed to want a response, so she nodded. "I'll follow you."

"Follow me closely. If you fall, I won't hear you cry out."

It was a bald reminder that she had lost her voice. They exchanged a meaningful glance, then he turned and began carving a path through the soil.

Mer forced her stride to lengthen as she stepped into his tracks. It was a familiar game that brought back memories of winter, trailing after her father in the snow.

She was grateful for his fast pace. Though it made her stomach cramp and her throat burn, she could not stand to move any slower. The Cursed Wood was a powerful presence behind them; every sturdy tree seemed to follow her with bright, watchful eyes. The sensation filled her with foreboding. It grew so strong that she could not stop herself from looking back, but there was nothing to see, just a hazy green shadow steadily shrinking behind her.

Perhaps the specter of her own guilt stalked her.

If not for her story, Thorsault would still exist. Mer could not evade that fact, no matter how it disturbed her.

If Avry sensed anything unusual, he kept it well hidden. He wore what she had begun to think of as his soldier's face. His silence accompanied it like a steady, beating drum. She wondered if he was as thirsty as she was. Her throat felt as dry as the dusty wind.

They climbed a low hill. Avry halted at the top of it. He glanced at her as she came to stand beside him.

"Look down," he said.

Mer followed his stunned gaze. The plain, which sloped gently away from them, was flecked with light, as if the sun had shed parts of itself onto the ground. The pieces that were nearest her blinked when she tilted her head, and then turned silver.

"Is it armor?" she asked dazedly.

"I believe so."

"It must be very old."

"It's probably as old as the armor I spied at the bottom of the gorge. There must have been a battle here, long ago."

Mer stiffened at the knowledge that he had spotted her secret armor. Then a terrible thought struck her: the armor was probably fae. "Why did the battle happen here?" she wondered out loud.

"I'm not sure. It's possible that after the slaves were captured they tried to escape, and this is where their enemies found them."

"The armor is fae..."

"Yes. You can tell by the color of the metal. I've never seen anything like it."

"The slaves must have fought hard to kill so many."

"Likely they outnumbered the fae many times over. Still, without armor they couldn't have hoped to win." He gestured as they walked past a hole. "Look."

She followed his downturned finger and saw a twisted strip of silver protruding from the side of the hole. Other pieces became visible as they walked. Some had retained their shape. Mer stepped uneasily over a breastplate, only to find eyes watching her from the upper half of a helm. The relentless wind whistled through the torn and twisted armor and made a low, breathy sigh when it encountered something whole.

"Where are the bones?" she heard Avry whisper—an echo of her own thoughts all those years ago when she peered into the gorge.

***

The sun arched across the sky. Unchecked by the smallest cloud, it blazed on Mer's face and arms. The soot made it worse; it seemed to know it had been hot once and basked in the memory. Mer did not realize Avry had stopped until she stepped into his shadow.

"There's water," he said, turning a little. "There, at the bottom of that hole. Do you see it?"

She stepped closer to the edge. The hole was shallow, not more than two yards deep, a little more in diameter. Her mouth slackened when she saw the water.

"It's remarkably clear," he murmured. "I could lower you down..." But she was already on her hands and knees, swinging her legs over the gap. Avry grabbed her wrist. "Wait!"

Their eyes met, and she threw him an awkward smile. "Help me down."

Down was not very far. Her heels scraped along the side before a splash told her she had reached the spring. Beneath it was solid stone. Slipping out of Avry's grasp, she bent down and began to drink. A little dirt had mixed in, but it hardly mattered. The water was cold and sweet. It reminded her of the stream that ran through the forest near her home.

Avry's shadow fell across the hole. "How solid is the floor?"

She wiped her face as she stood, leaving a dark streak over her hand. "Stone, I think. That might be why the tree was so small." She raised her arms, and he helped her back up. "Let the water settle," she recommended as he swung his legs over the side.

He chuckled. "Mud sounds wonderful right now."

When he had finished drinking, he knelt down and began to wash. His soiled tunic came off like a peel; he tossed it up over the side. Mer stepped back from the edge and watched him bathe. Water, streaked black with soot, ran down his muscled arms and settled like shadow on the inside crease of his elbows. He used dirt to wash, which seemed strange to her until she realized that it worked. Little by little, the soot came off his face and neck, revealing reddened skin flecked by scratches.

His hose was drenched and sticking to him by the time he came out. He flashed her a swift, embarrassed smile. "I should've let you wash first."

"The dirt will settle," she said, trying not to look at him.

He frowned. "Could you repeat that?"

"I—never mind."

He squeezed out his damp tunic, grimacing as he opened it into the light. "Would you mind very much if I didn't put this back on?"

Her face heated under the weight of his gaze. "Do as you wish. Could you help me back down?"

Removing the soot was a long and painful process. In addition to her neck and face, her arms and legs needed cleaning. She did not remember having so many cuts. Some reopened as she scrubbed, and she had to soak them in water. Avry eyed them uneasily as he helped her back up. She wanted to point out that he had just as many, but the wind was blowing again, and she could not bring herself to whisper in his ear. She was never sure if he really heard her or if he only deduced her meaning from gestures and facial expressions.

The wind calmed to a soft breeze. Thin clouds, brushed warmly by the sun, fanned out across the sky. Exhausted, they stumbled past the last hole and entered the scraggly wood that fringed the eastern half of the river. Mer wondered how they would find their way home without a lamp. Even if the sky remained clear enough to allow light from the moon, it would scarcely be enough to guide them through the wood between the gorge and her father's cottage. But the alternative was not pleasant: another night and perhaps half the morning without food. The thought sent her eyes to the ground. She nudged at dry leaves and prodded old, fallen branches, but the forest, tainted perhaps by its long proximity to the Cursed Wood, was not fertile.

As Avry slowed ahead of her, she detected a familiar sound: the distant rumble of water.

"I think we may have come too far north," he sighed. "But it can't be far now."

They pushed their way south.

Sunlight filtered down through the branches, casting a bright net over Avry's straight back and spiky, dark hair. The summer heat lingered in the air, soft and slightly humid. They veered out of the forest and skirted the cliff edge. Mer let her eyes wander down the steep wall of rock. There was little to see at this time of day. The gorge was in darkness. Its white walls, gray with moisture, were receding with it into shadow.

A single misplaced step, she thought morbidly, a swing into open space. It would be fitting to rest her bones near the fallen armor. It might even be justice.

Avry halted and looked at her so pointedly that she worried he had guessed her thoughts. But his next words put that fear to rest.

"We're here. But there's a problem." He stooped down and wrenched a hook out of a groove in the stone. The rope attached to it hung straight down over the water. He hauled it up. "It'll no longer reach," he pointed out, showing her the severed end. Then he added vaguely, almost to himself, "That of course was her intention."
CHAPTER 26

"So we're unable to cross," Mer said glumly, her hand on her belly where the gnawing hunger had turned to a dull ache.

"It'll only be one more night," he promised, "though it might be a damp one. We'll make camp and wait until morning. Rest here if you like. I'm going to gather branches for a fire."

"Wait for what? No one comes here."

The corner of his mouth turned up in a private smile. "Esperance," he said. "Hope waits."

Frustrated, she followed him into the wood. She snatched up an old dry branch and cracked it against her leg. Esperance. Hope.

Avry looked at her sideways. "You never asked how I knew to tell the trees stories."

She shrugged. Of course the question had intrigued her, but she had been too shaken by recent events to ask it. After a moment, he went on.

He told her a bizarre tale about a woman who prevented her daughter from meeting a lover in the wood. While the lover waited, he was attacked and killed by his own dog. The girl found his body. She thought wolves had got him, but her mother, having seen how the young man beat on his dog, guessed that the animal had finally struck back. The girl was grieved. She would not speak or eat, and finally she found a hook and some rope and crossed the gorge on her own. Her mother never saw her again. "But she waits," Avry said, "and she hopes. Esperance goes to the cliff every morning and watches for Astrid. And this story, she said, should be given the trees if they misbehaved."

Mer was bewildered by the story. Having made numerous trips to the gorge, it seemed incredible that she had never spotted this woman or at the very least her footprints.

"She doesn't like rope," he added.

Mer touched his shoulder. "Where does she live now?"

"In the north wood." He shoved some dry grass into a pile under his arm.

Mer watched him make fire. He began by separating the wood into piles. The first three were arranged in order of size, from twigs to thick branches. The fourth pile resembled a bird's nest, a hill of pale rocks, topped by grass, pine needles, and dry moss. This task completed, he returned to the first three piles and made a pyramid of sticks, piling the smaller sticks onto the larger ones until only the twigs remained. He placed the pine needles on top and ringed them with twigs.

"Now what?" she said.

"Do you see that large, flat piece of wood?"

"Yes." She wriggled it out of the third pile and passed it to him. He set it on the ground and struck it with the sharp end of a rock until a small recession formed, like a rough bowl. He filled the space with the crumbling innards of an old branch.

Crouching close to the makeshift bowl, he chose two rocks and began the lengthy chore of turning sparks into flame. Gradually, a thin stream of smoke drifted out of the bowl. Avry prodded the dry rot with a twig, breathing on it softly. The smoke thickened. He let it smolder while he wound a spool of dry grass. When the spool was tight, he jammed a stick into it; this, Mer understood, was to be his torch. Using the twig as his ladle, he scooped hot soot from the bowl onto the spool. Moments later, the spool caught fire.

He flashed her a triumphant smile. "Not so hard when the wood is dry."

The sun had set now, and the rock beneath them was cool. Avry had built their fire on the edge of the forest where the flat stone drifted into moss, ferns, and trees. The wind was low. Crickets buzzed. Mer stretched her legs toward the fire and picked apart her braid. Avry sat on the other side of the fire, his arms draped around his bent knees. His face looked calm and pensive. She imagined he felt relieved. His enemy was no more. The threat of what might have been a terrible war was gone. And he was free. Alive and somehow untainted by guilt. His past actions did not seem to trouble him. Perhaps they never had.

She pushed her fingers through her hair and lay back on the stone. The darkness soothed her. The stars spread over her like a vast sea, filling her with a sensation of space greater than the world. Like the armor, they seemed changeless. What was changeless could not be hurt; it existed in a permanent state of tranquility.

She peered across the fire to Avry, who was on his side now, facing away from her. She threw a stick at him. When she had his attention, she pointed up.

"Ah, the stars," he said, shifting onto his back. "They remind me of the lanterns we used to release in the summer." Mer nodded. She remembered seeing them from a distance. They had looked to her young eyes like an army of fireflies. "I always wanted to sleep outside and watch them," he added. "They moved so slowly, especially when the wind was low."

Her gaze drifted from the stars to his face. His lips looked warm, expressive. His eyes were the color of fire. She watched him serenely, thoughtlessly, while he watched the stars.

At last she leaned forward and whispered, "Then why didn't you?"

"Sleep outside? I suppose Blaise didn't want to."

"Why did that matter?"

He pulled a stick out of the flames and held its charred end up like a wand over the sky. "You mean, why did what Blaise want matter?" He glanced at her, and she nodded. He toyed with the stick some more then tossed it into the flames. "You've probably heard about my sister's death." She nodded again, puzzled by what seemed a sudden change in topic. He went on, "Most heard about a terrible accident, but not about how it happened. I was there. We were, all three of us, playing outside on the manor's grounds. Amée and I were close in age, both in our ninth year. Blaise was a full three years older. Usually our mother left him to look after us. He was trying to keep my sister from jumping into a fountain when I snuck away. I heard him calling to me as I entered what was then our family's manicured hedge maze." His eyes flicked to hers. "I don't know if you've ever seen that ancient maze. No one has entered it since that day. But its walls are at least eight feet high. To a child they're like battlements. Our parents didn't allow us to venture inside. Blaise ran after me, shouting. He found me in the maze, not far from the entrance. He moved in front of me to guide me out, but instead of turning back, he went through it. I think he always wanted to go through but never had a good enough excuse. I trailed closely behind him, and he kept calling out, 'Follow me. Follow me, Avry.'

"At last we came out and stood on the open green. Amée was nowhere. We searched for her—at the fountain, the gate, the trees behind the yard. Then we heard a distant scream.

"It came from the maze. Blaise decided to go in alone; I waited for him at the exit. When he returned he was carrying the body of our sister." He paused, and Mer glanced at him. His face had grown still, his lips slightly parted. "I don't believe he thought she was dead. But somehow, I knew. Something was wrong with the way her head hung, and her eyes—they were open and glazed.

"Later, we learned what had probably happened. Lost in the maze, Amée decided to climb. She might have crawled along the top for a distance before she slipped and fell to her death." He paused again then went on in a low voice. "After that Blaise grew dark and angry. At the time I was too young to understand why. But later I realized that it must've been guilt; he blamed himself for her death. He became overly protective of me, asking me to go with him wherever he went, to do what he did. That was easy. I always imagined him walking ahead of me while the maze walls reared up on both sides, his voice urging me on, 'Follow me, Avry. Follow closely.' For years I did. But I grew to regret it.

"Blaise—he began to thrive on the power he had over me. It grew worse as we got older. I tried to pull away from him, to free myself. I was about twelve then." He drew a harsh breath. "And then I knew what fear was."

Mer's hand lowered from her mouth to her chin. She was sitting up now, her back frozen in a stiff line.

"Finally," he went on, "my father sent him away for schooling, and I was left alone. Now I was free to do as I wished, to sleep outside if I wanted." He flashed her a swift, ironic smile. "Somehow I never did.

"Imagine that you never learned to make your own decisions. I'm sure I must've made some, but I don't remember them. I was so used to Blaise telling me what to do, where to go, that..." He shrugged. "Choice became chance, and chance—chance became a game. I'd imagine myself back in the maze, choosing between left and right. I never analyzed the choices I made. If I had, I probably would have seen that they weren't as random as they appeared. Still, this impulsiveness—and you might say recklessness—made my life unpleasant for a while." He prodded loose another stick. "Then I met the king. He spent time with me, and I admired him. In combat he showed me that decisions can be made quickly but should never be made rashly. A soldier acts with intention. He leaves nothing to chance.

"Combat is like life. At every turn there's a change, and a decision must be made. Not just any decision, but the best, the most appropriate one." His voice drifted on a dry note. He gazed at the darkness that hung over the gorge. For a while nothing moved but the fire. It stretched like a bird opening its wings, fluttered wildly, and folded back in.

He stirred at last and turned the stick in his hands. "Are you awake?"

Mer had lain back down. Her chest rose lightly and fell.

"Lady?"

Reluctantly, she sat up. Their eyes met for an instant, then she pulled a charred stick out of the fire and scratched into the smooth stone at his feet, I'm sorry.

"For what?" he asked. But she had already turned away. "Lady Merisande?"

The sound of his voice, bending itself around her name, hummed in her head like a lullaby. She closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 27

Let the forest take my heart

My breath

My tears, warm and flowing

Let the roots become my bones, leaves my eyes

Wind my spirit, sighing

Let me linger here, please

In coldest silence

—A Maiden's Request

Anonymous

The sun woke her.

Mer lay for a time without moving. The wood was in shadow, but light, as cold and delicate as an ice crystal, filtered through the trees, sparking where it found dew. Mer sat up, shivering. Avry was asleep beside the fire, which had been reduced to a few smoldering embers. His battered shoe grazed the words she had written on the stone. She considered rubbing the message out. He did not understand it, and no amount of questioning was going to move her to explain its meaning. So why draw attention to it? After a while she shrugged her shoulders. It was a riddle of sorts. He would just have to work it out on his own.

After that...

She did not know, and almost did not care. The woman who would have cared about such things was gone. She had left her shadow behind—a small, deadened thing that held Mer's shape but little more. A changeling.

Yawning, she took herself off the cold stone and leaned against a nearby tree. Her tired gaze lingered on the cliff across the water. There was the place where she used to lie, and there the spot where she had rested her basket. She could almost picture herself there, braid hanging loosely over her shoulder, waiting for the clouds to part so she could stare at the glittering armor at the bottom of the gorge.

A tapping sound drifted into her reverie. She peered around, unsure of where it came from. Avry was awake now too and sitting upright. Their gazes met for an instant, then movement at the corner of her eye pulled her back to the gorge.

A red doe stood on the cliff stone, exactly where Mer used to lie on her stomach. Her graceful neck hung down. Her dark eyes regarded them ambivalently, as if she had been asked a question. After what seemed an endless moment, her head lifted. Her slender body turned in a single, graceful motion and slipped back into the wood.

Mer stared at the place where she had been. Red deer, white deer, she thought with a small smile.

"Strange," Avry muttered.

***

No one else came.

Avry, cheerful at first, fell into a brooding silence as he stared out over the gap. Mer worried that her own state of mind was making him uneasy. She found it difficult to meet his eyes. She glimpsed him occasionally watching her, questioning. They were both tired and hungry. And that is all, Mer urged him silently. She would tell him nothing more than what she had already written on the stone.

"Well," he said at last, rising, "there's no point in staying here, not when an hour or two of brisk walking will bring us to the cliff opposite my father's grounds. If we could get the attention of one of the workers—"

"If."

He shrugged. "It's better than staying here."

"I'd like to wait a little longer."

She felt his eyes, intent on her face as he plunked back down. "Are you well?"

"I'm not sick," she replied stiffly.

"That's not what I meant."

She ran her finger over a smudged letter on the ground. The 'y' in sorry. "Isn't that the meaning of the question?"

"No. That is, not always."

"An unwell person isn't a sick person?"

"Wellness is a state of being," he said, watching her hand move on the rock. "An unwell person might be tired, or disturbed, or suffering from a headache."

"Then we're both unwell."

He was silent at that.

The morning passed slowly. They watched the sun climb into the gorge. The cliff wall blazed with light, like a bright sail unfurling, then darkened as clouds passed overhead. Mer, sensing the warmth of his shoulder so close to her cheek, allowed herself to lean into it. After a moment, his arm shifted behind her back and his hand moved lightly on her forearm.

Her eyes closed. Clouds drifted past the sun. The light was warm on her lids.

"Is this tolerable?" she heard him ask softly.

He would never hear her answer. Footsteps sounded on stone. The familiar tread made her scramble to her feet. And there was her father, standing on the cliff edge, a rope hanging loosely from one hand.

Their eyes met. Mer did not know what her face looked like then, but her father's had crumpled, and he fell on his knees to the ground.

She had never seen him cry. At two, she had been too young to remember her mother's death. He wept now, the back of his hand raised to his eyes as if Mer were the sun burning into him; it fell finally and he managed with trembling hands to toss one end of the rope over the gap.

Avry caught it deftly and fixed it with a knot to the nearest tree. As they waited for Rives to finish his knot, Avry leaned into Mer's ear and murmured, "It would be dangerous for us to cross together. I'm not sure I have the strength right now to carry you, and our combined weight would strain the rope. Now that I think of it, it would be safer to take the rope downstream where the banks are shallower and the current isn't so vicious. If Rives informed my father, a boat could—"

"Nonsense," she interjected. "I can cross right here." She would not admit to him the sudden recklessness that had come over her, the desire to throw herself into danger just to feel it.

Avry strode to the edge and peered down over the rushing water. Mer knew the drop was considerable—at least fifteen yards. But the river was even more dangerous than the fall, strewn with sharp rocks and a current that could drag you under in an instant. "Have you ever used a rope that way before?" he asked.

"I'm done," Rives shouted.

The rope, stretched across the gorge from tree to tree, now hung a few feet above the cliff stones. Mer ran her palms over it. "I can."

Avry took the rope in both hands; it creaked as he rested his weight on it, then he swung his legs up and locked his heels over the rope so he hung from his hands and ankles. "Keep your back straight. Don't slide your feet over the rope, but take small steps, like this..." His right foot moved in front of his left one and found a purchase on the rope; his left hand moved forward at the same time, and soon he was dangling over the gorge, creeping slowly toward the opposite side. At two thirds of the way along, he let his legs fall, twisted around, swung his legs back up, and returned to her side of the gorge.

Mer swallowed dryly. "Why did you come back?" she demanded as he fought to catch his breath.

"Were you watching?"

"Yes."

"Show me."

She seized the rope in both hands, got her legs up with an effort, and struggled to balance her feet. She took an awkward step and felt Avry's hand guide her ankle.

"Step farther. If you don't step far enough, your ankles will get knotted up."

They practiced for a while until Mer declared, with a measure of impatience, that she was ready to cross. She was far from ready but was worried that if she practiced any longer she would not have the strength to make the crossing.

Avry looked pale as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't fall," he pleaded.

Heart pounding, Mer began to crawl. The rope sagged until it reached a low point at the center of the gorge, then she was forced to ascend, feeling the river's cool breath running like a tongue under her skirt. Even when she thought she could no longer move, she forced herself on, until she heard her father's voice and felt his rough hands on her wrists, tugging her off the rope and onto the sun-warmed rock. He clung to her as she caught her breath.

Avry was with them when they pulled apart. Rives grasped his hand. "Thank you for—"

He shook the words away. "We must head straight back. Do you have food at your place?"

"A little," Rives said, embarrassment fanning across his cheekbones. "I'll need to set traps."

"I'll fetch something from my father's pantry." Avry took a step and stopped, his brow furrowing. "How did you know to come here?"

"A woman came to my door. Said she'd been out walking in the wood and saw you."

"We saw no one," Avry said.

Mer paced back and forth beside them. Now that she was on the other side she could not remain still. It was not hunger that drove her but a feeling that she was nearing the limit of her strength.

"Let it be," she breathed to Avry as she walked past him. Had they been alone, she might have added something more, for Mer had guessed who the deer was. But her father was watching, and it would have taken more than a few words to explain the story of Astrid and Esperance. She left them on the cliff top and went on ahead toward the bright shape of the rocky mound.

Rives scrambled up the mound behind her. "Are you hurt, Mer? In pain?" When she did not answer, he seized her arm and pulled her to a stop.

Mer shook her head roughly. "I just need to get home."

She ignored the question in his eyes. He did not understand why she whispered, and she could not find the words to tell him. She let him help her down the slope then gently broke away from his hold.

Avry joined them an instant later. Mer shot him a look of gratitude as he explained to Rives why she could only whisper. His words were greeted by stony silence. Unfazed, he went on to give Rives the bare bones of their tale. His voice faded as Mer moved farther and farther ahead of them.

A soft music drifted in. It was vague at first, like some elusive color hovering at the edge of ones' vision. Then it sharpened and she recognized it.

Once more she stood in the tower. Drums sounded and the dancers bowed. Dust motes floated in the bright space above them. Their wings opened as they swayed toward and away from each other. They moved faster and faster, until they were no more than a blur of white and colored cloth, untangling itself for an instant before it lifted off the ground. The fae lurched in the air. Their movements were burned in her mind like an eye's memory of light. She found them in the trees, in the water she stopped to drink, in the bare blue sky rimming her father's cottage.

Someone's hand drew her away from the door and opened it. The hand slid under her arm and guided her down the dim hallway. She fainted when she reached her bed.

***

Mer touched her head as she woke, wondering if the room was rocking or if it was all part of the pain that wanted to burn a hole through her temples. She stared at the familiar shape of the window, the closed door.

"Mer." She turned and found her father leaning against the wall on Jan's bed. A wet, folded cloth lay in his hands; another floated in a pot on the floor. "How are you feeling?"

"Unwell," she replied with a touch of irony. "My head—"

"It'll pass." He rested the cloth on her leg. The cool water stung, making her flinch. "Your scratches aren't healing well."

"Where is Jan?"

"I put him in my room." His arm made a clicking sound as he leaned over the desk. A bowl of cold soup appeared in his hands. Mer downed it in a few mouthfuls, barely stopping to chew. It was the best thing she had ever tasted.

"Is there more?" she asked as he took back the bowl.

"Yes. Enough for breakfast. Sir Avry brought back a couple of plucked chickens, but I haven't cooked them yet."

She rose weakly. "Where is he?"

"He left with his squire, Édouard. I advised him to sleep first, but he wanted so badly to see the king..." He regarded her face, a faint, worried frown between his brows. "Did you need him?"

She looked back at him silently. Yes, she wanted to say, instantly, urgently, but it seemed ridiculous. Rives could not make Avry reappear, and what was more, she could offer him no practical reason for doing so. She shut her eyes and lay back down, listening to her father's quiet, hesitant breathing.

He said, "I assume Avry told you about the coin he gave us. For the sheep."

"Yes. Was it enough?"

"Hardly. But Lord Piercy accepted it without complaint."

"Of course he did," she said dryly.

After a pause, he whispered, "I can't believe you're here. In this bed. It seems like a dream."

She ran her hand over her face then winced at her sore palm. The rope must have burned her skin. "Did you think I was dead?"

He did not answer. The bed creaked, and she heard the latch click back that held the shutters closed. He knelt a long time at the end of her bed, gazing, no doubt, at the dark line of trees. "I've thought a lot about your mother lately. About how she went. And I began to wonder... What if instead of dying she left me a note the way you did, disappeared the way you did? Would that have been better than—than the other?"

"What did you decide?"

The latch clicked shut. "You came back."

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry for coming back?"

She opened her eyes a crack and caught his small, tight smile. "I'm sorry for hurting you."

He nodded as he turned the cloth over. "I love you."

"I know."

"I never said that."

She shook her head. "It wouldn't have kept me from leaving."

"I know." He brushed her hair back from her forehead, an old, familiar gesture that he had not made in years. Guilt stabbed her as she gazed back at his kind face. She did not deserve such affection. She would have preferred anger. "But it was hard," he went on, "to think you might have died without ever hearing that from me."

He slipped something off her desk. "I was going to give you this in the morning, but as you're awake now..."

"What is it?" she asked, taking the folded sheet from his hand.

"He left it for you. 'Give this to her when she wakes,' he said."

The candlelight fell on the wax seal. Mer broke it open. The message inside was unsigned, but its brevity commanded attention. Don't fall.

"Is it important?" he asked.

Her lips compressed in a hard line. That was all he had left her, that spare command. Tearing the page at its seam, she held the top half to the flame, just close enough to scorch out the words.

"He thinks so."

Sighing, Rives lay down on Jan's bed. "I won't speak again about Sir Avry."
PART THREE   
THE CINDER GIRL
CHAPTER 28

The isle's bones are white

A beached whale, sun-dried

Bathed in light

Does not cry

—Merisande

June had drifted into July.

Mer, feeling her strength returning like a long, cold spring, gathered her baskets and charged into the wood. She filled them with everything she could find. Strawberries, raspberries, the small, webbed mushrooms that rose steeply from the ground. Wild garlic was thrown on top, the dirt still clinging to its roots. She dropped it all on the back doorstep and then took up the shovel to dig for potatoes.

She cleaned and chopped the garlic and potatoes, added them to what was left of the chicken, and cooked it all in a pot over the fire.

That evening they ate like kings.

Her father watched her guardedly while Jan, overwhelmed, she guessed, by the amount of food, ate in near silence.

"Your hands are shaking," Rives pointed out.

Mer wiped them on a cloth and pushed them under her thighs. "They're just cold. It's cold in here."

Jan issued a low moan, as he always did when she whispered. His hearing was poor, and he seemed to think she whispered on purpose to punish him.

"It's not cold," her father said. "It's never cold in July."

The next day, while she was outside laundering clothes, Rives returned from the wood with news that he had found honey.

Honey was rare. Though there were always bees around, their hives were not usually accessible. This hive was nestled in the branch of a rotting, half fallen tree.

She and Rives stole out at dawn armed with an axe, a lamp, and as many containers as they could find. Mer wrapped a torch while her father decided where to chop.

"I'm ready," he said.

She lit the torch. The axe bit quickly through the old wood, sounding in the near silence like thunder claps. As the branch began to split and sag, he exchanged the axe for the torch so he could smoke out the hive.

By midmorning they had filled their containers. Jan had joined them by then, his sticky hands coated with dirt and pine needles. Mer spent the afternoon picking berries. When she returned home, she emptied a third of the honey from each container into a cooking pot. She topped up the containers with berries, careful not to crush them as she pressed them into the honey. Her father took what was left in the pot to make mead.

***

While the sun shone, the ground was warm. But when it sank, the earth grew dark and cold. Mer began to see her life that way. Her days were cheerful, familiar. She sought out the things that grew, all that was warm, green, and alive.

Her nights were spent in Thorsault.

The dream was always the same, as if by closing her eyes she could sidestep miles of trees and tangled rock to reenter the corridors of the castle.

She was always alone. Lamps flickered on the castle walls, disturbed by wind that entered through unshuttered windows. All the doors hung open. Mer walked without ceasing. When she came to the spiral stairs, she would climb until she reached another hallway, other open, swinging doors, the stairs again, and the hallway. Her eyes would linger on the corners of the floor where vague, shadowy forms constantly took shape, only to spin out like snowdrift.

There was only ever one sound. At times it was as soft as a whisper, like a thousand breathy voices all speaking in a language she could not understand. At other times it was so loud, she wanted to scream: thudding, desperate wings.

Her strangled cry always woke her.

She would sit up, breathing hard, reach for the cup of water she kept on her desk, and down it with shaking hands, then get up and tiptoe down the hallway. Rives, who never used to be a light sleeper, would emerge like smoke when she quickened the fire. He never asked her what she dreamed about or why she could not sleep. Placing a blanket over her shoulders, he would settle into the chair next to hers and begin to speak. He talked endlessly, not expecting a response, filling her mind with words as if they were berries: the history of their family, horses, who he thought the next king might be. And memories. Mer's favorites were those from his childhood, early memories of her mother.

"Once, when she was thirteen," he said one night, "she took her father's shears and cut a hole in the top of a hay bale. She cut the hole so deep, she was able to climb inside it. And that was where I found her. I was out walking and saw something dark on the bale, like a speck of dirt on the sun. It was her head, all her dark hair. I climbed up and tickled her and told her she smelled like rotting hay and looked like a beetle. When we were that young, I had a habit of insulting her when I thought she was beautiful."

"When did you stop doing that?" Mer asked, her whisper loud in the night's stillness.

"When she realized that my eyes and mouth were saying different things."

He talked on and on until it seemed to be the fire speaking, the fire's voice. Her eyes drifted closed.

When she woke, he was gone.

***

Mer had been home for two weeks when a messenger arrived from the king.

It was a dreadful day for riding. Black clouds had gathered in the late hours of morning. Lightning split the sky. Mer, trying without success to calm her petrified brother, did not hear the hoofbeats or the damp knock on the door. Her father took Jan away while she spoke to the visitor.

"Are you Lady Merisande d'Ivry?" he asked with a formality that seemed at odds with his dripping hair and drenched, muddy coat.

"Yes," she said in her loudest whisper.

He offered a perfunctory bow then flipped opened his satchel and retrieved a scroll holder. The paper inside was surprisingly dry. "The king requires a statement from you, My Lady. You may write it yourself or give it to me by dictation."

"A statement of what?"

"Of your experience, Lady. You were on the east side of the isle from the twenty-second of June to the third of July. The king wants a detailed account of what you experienced there."

The last word was muffled by a crack of thunder. Her brother's cry followed it like a pitiful echo.

Mer took the paper from him numbly. "He would accept my statement?"

He ignored her question and tapped the paper. "Do you have pen and ink?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll wait here. Take as much time as you need."

She counted the pages under her breath. "Would you care to sit at the table?" she heard herself say.

"No, thank you. I'm fine here."

Mer took the paper to her desk. She sat for a while with her head in her hands, staring at the uncapped ink jar. She had not spoken a word about Thorsault to her father, and here was the king, forcing her to spill everything out, all the horrid, shameful details. Had Ghislain demanded the same from Avry? An image came to her: Avry with his back to a tree, eyes closed, face pinched while he bled out his story to the wood. The memory stirred her to pick up her pen.

"Was there enough paper, Lady?" the official asked as she handed him her statement. The rain had stopped by then. Jan had emerged from his bed and was huddled close to the fire, his arms tucked under a moth-eaten blanket.

"Just."

He rolled the pages into a scroll, sealed it with wax, and slipped it into the cover. "Your roof is leaking."

"We know," Rives called back from his chair.

The messenger bowed and turned toward the door.

"Wait," she breathed, touching his arm. "Do you know anything about Sir Avry d'Eleuthère? If he's well...?"

He shook his head. "Forgive me, Lady."

"You don't know—?"

"Forgive me," he repeated flatly. Offering them both another tight bow, he strode resolutely through the door.

***

Dry days came. The air grew still, weighed down by sunlight that simmered like heat in a dry pot.

It was a good time for thatching.

"Another layer," Rives muttered as he came down off the roof.

She understood his reluctance. The task would take weeks to accomplish, and with only the two of them to undertake it, the weather's cooperation would be vital. Rives, knowing that his land grew more stones than grass, had long ago obtained permission from Lord Gille d'Avrance to harvest from his field.

Mer was glad for the work. It seemed that the more she pushed herself, the less she was able to think. And if she could not think, she could not feel.

It was as simple as that.

"Keep an eye out for Jan," Rives warned as he made his way to the far side of the strip of green he had marked for cutting. Jan seemed oblivious to their presence. His body had folded into three neat parts as he bent to peer into a rabbit hole.

Mer worked to meet her father. The meadow, made up mostly of broom, heather, and field grass, was gentle on the surface but tough as nails at its base, and she often had to pause to sharpen her blade. Her hands were trembling again by the time she glimpsed Rives through the tangle of plants.

With the first strip completed, they gathered the brush together and hauled it behind the cottage, where it would be laid out to dry in the sun. The next day would be the same, and the next, until her father judged they had enough for a new layer of thatch.

They stumbled to their beds at sundown. Mer, hoping that her exhaustion would grant her a dreamless sleep, allowed herself to drift as soon as her eyes closed.

She did not wake in the castle.

Green leaves floated around her, brushed by the softest wind. The branch she leaned on was wet to the touch. Yes, she thought, squinting through leaves at the low, golden light, it would be that time of day in the Cursed Wood.

A stray feather fluttered down and settled on her face. As she went to brush it away, more tumbled around her, clinging to her arms and legs, sticking to the moisture the trees excreted. Mer picked one off and held it up to the light.

She dropped it abruptly, her stomach sickening. These were not bird's feathers.

She unstuck her hand from the branch and began to climb, wincing as feathers flicked their soft stems off her shoulders, her hair. At last the leaves parted, allowing her a chance to look out across the empty space to the other trees.

Through the falling feathers, she glimpsed a tangled nest of bones. Some hung down like chimes tinkling together. Others simply lay where they appeared to have fallen. One looked at her through dark, empty eye sockets.

Mer felt a scream building inside her, but it had no place to go.

She woke in a tangle of covers, half on and half off the bed. The shutters creaked a little, giving her a glimpse of the moon leaning like a sickle in the sky.

She followed it outside.

A cool breeze rustled the piles of newly cut grass. Mer lowered herself down on the back step and listened to the crickets. The stone was cold through her nightdress. But cold did not matter. Bones were cold. Armor was cold. She wrapped her arms around her middle and felt her cold bones.

Her eyes closed after a while, and she leaned back against the door.

Rives found her that way the next morning.

"Good thing it was a warm night," he grumbled as he returned with a blanket and helped her over to the fire.

The table was quiet at breakfast. Mer scowled at her plate, which held an unusual combination of pickled chestnuts and turnip mash. Sensing her father's eyes on her, she scraped some onto her knife.

"I want you to stay inside for a few days," he said, making her swallow. "I can do the cutting on my own."

"Why?"

"Because you've been working too hard."

"I feel fine."

His lips twitched. He eyed his knife, turning it in one hand. "You are not fine. You're as thin as a wraith, and as pale. Your hands tremble like an old woman's. You don't sleep. You only eat to please me. If you were to sicken—" He paused and drew a callused hand over his face.

Beside him, Jan began to moan softly. Mer had to wait until he was quiet to speak again. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "But I am trying."

"To do what?"

"To live."

Jan's keening cut into her whisper. Mer glanced from him to the base of the wall, where he used to look for mice. On impulse, she jumped out of her chair and dove down, reaching for an invisible tail. Jan was beside her in an instant, his grubby fingers pushing as far as they could into the crack in the wall.

Mer leaned back on her heels. She eyed the mouse door a long time, seeing other doors, passages. Rising abruptly, she went to the window.

Mist hovered over the ground. The sun would burn it away by midmorning. It would shine cheerfully for a few hours, then darkness would fall like a casket lid. Death would visit her again.

Was this to be her life?

Avry's words returned like a bad spell. Don't fall.

Would he care very much if she did?
CHAPTER 29

Mer decided to find Esperance.

She waited until Rives and Jan had vanished into the field, she then pulled on her boots and exited through the back door. She snatched up her basket as she went, in case her father wondered where she had gone.

She left it near the mouth of the trail.

Mist lingered in the wood, where the slanted light was still only a vague promise. Mer followed its ramblings down into folds in the earth, channels rainwater had carved at the bottom of hills. She had long veered off the path and knew vaguely that she was traveling northeast. There was nothing north of the Ivry lands. The wood went on forever until it grew strange, feral. She did not know that wood. Already she was farther north than she had ever been.

She climbed a hill covered by dense, springy moss. On the other side the wood loudened, as if she had opened a door into a realm where no one went. Branches rubbed together; birds collected in them, fluttering and squawking at the two-legged intruder. Red squirrels screeched from where they hid behind leaves.

Mer's legs grew heavy as she pushed through dense ferns and picked her way around rotting logs and moss-painted boulders. Then out of nowhere, it seemed, a wall of thornbushes ranged in front of her, as if to block her way. She followed them east for perhaps half a mile then collapsed against a tree and shut her eyes.

Little by little, the birdsong quieted. The squirrels ceased their incessant rattling. The wind blowing in the branches softened to a faint whisper.

Into that stillness a new sound drifted: the creaking of a door. Mer's eyes flew open. Stiff with anticipation, she peered around the tree.

And there it was.

The tiny cottage stood in a warm puddle of light, nestled in a field long cleared of trees. Ferns grew there now, fanning the air in soft green waves. Mer trailed her fingers through them as she crossed to the wood woman's cottage, her eyes narrowing against the light.

An annoyed snort cut through her reverie. "There aren't any princes here, girl," said a voice from inside. "No one's going to come and kiss you."

The ferns ended, and Mer stepped onto a stone slab that served as a stair. A woman of indeterminate age stood in the hazy light of her fire pit. Her cottage gave Mer a feeling of antiquity. The floor was dirt, pounded down almost black by the woman's own two feet and the soot that feathered every inch of space. There were no separate rooms, and aside from the few boards that had been thrown over the capstones, no space for a mattress.

The woman gazed wryly at her. She was long-boned and fair. Her hair, a thicket that she had tossed to one side, was the color of dried old roses. Not quite the same shade as the ruddy doe that had visited them on the cliff top, Mer thought. But close. Close enough.

"Come in, then." She filled a kettle with water and set it on a grate over the fire. "My name is Esperance." She plucked a couple of mugs off the wall. "And you are—?"

"Merisande."

"What was that?"

Mer stooped close to her ear and whispered loudly, "My name is Mer."

Esperance grunted, set the cups down, and rattled through some jars on a shelf. "You look like one of the dead."

Mer touched her shoulder, bringing the green eyes back to hers. "How can a person stop feeling like that—like they're already dead?"

Esperance shrugged. "Find a reason to live."

The water steamed. Mer turned slowly, eying a makeshift rack of dried roots that had been stretched across one wall. Herbs hung over it in tidy lines.

Esperance snapped off some leaves and tossed them into the cups. "Sit down," she said as she reached for a ladle.

Mer dropped into the proffered chair and leaned back with a sigh. She had not expected to find the cottage. But here it was, planted like some mythological beast in the pathless wilds of the north wood.

She flinched as a cup landed with a sturdy thud on the table top in front of her. A bundle of dry roots followed it down. "What is this?" Mer asked as the woman joined her at the table.

"Valerian roots. Break off a thumb-sized amount before bed and steep it for a good long while. It'll help you sleep."

Mer's heart turned over at such simple kindness, shown to her by a complete stranger. "Thank you. That's kind of you."

"You won't think so when you taste it."

Mer breathed on her tea and sipped it tentatively. Esperance had added something to it, some sweetness to disguise the bitter flavor. "I saw your daughter," she said with an impulsive smile. "She helped me find my way to the Cursed Wood."

Esperance threw her a penetrating glance, then her head sank over her steaming cup. She was still a long time, her chest moving faintly under her soot-stained kirtle. Her hands were lined, the grooves so deep that dirt had crept in and had never come out. "What did she look like?"

"White. White like the moon, and as graceful as water."

"That's Astrid."

"Why do you live apart from her?"

"My daughter left me. I didn't leave her. If she chooses to stay away, there's nothing I can do about it."

"But you still watch for her."

The hands lifted a little. "I'm still here, and I'm still her mother. It's something," she said succinctly, "to live for."

Mer thought about that while her host gathered her mug closer to her chest, as if it were a small bird or her own heart beating there. "You saved Sir Avry's life," she pointed out after a silence.

"Who?"

"The knight who visited you. I doubt he's had a chance to thank you."

The fingers opened and closed, as if to say it did not matter.

"He seemed to find it strange that you gave him Astrid's story, showed him all her clothes."

"Did he?" Esperance lifted her cup and blew on it softly. When she set it back down, she was looking past Mer to the fire still blazing in the pit. "It was what I had."

"But—"

"Was this your first time in the north wood?"

Mer looked at her blankly then managed a small, tight smile. "Yes."

"And what did you think of it?"

She fingered the end of her braid, found a leaf, and pulled it out. "It's unpredictable and...strange."

"It's a treasure. Follow the thorn wall east and you'll find plants you've never heard of. Go farther and you'll reach one of the highest sea cliffs on the island. I have made that journey."

Mer offered a solemn nod. But she was thinking about Astrid again, her small hooves balanced on the roots of the Cursed Wood as if she had been birthed on them. It had never even occurred to her that the white doe might have been harmed by the cursed wood's trampling. Somehow the idea was inconceivable. "I think there may be...a connection," she said hesitantly, "between your daughter and the wood across the river."

An awkward silence fell. Esperance's face grew still, as if an icy wind had blown by, rendering her immobile. Then chair legs scraped the floor. She walked with slow deliberateness to the door and opened it wide. Sunlight swept through, like glittering leaves.

Mer flushed with mortification. Head bent, she scooped up the valerian and crossed to the door. The woman's eyes followed her as if she were a pesky fly or a bird that might veer off in an instant and hide itself in the ceiling beams.

Mer touched her hand. "I'm sorry. I spoke without thinking. I didn't mean to imply that—that Astrid is responsible for the curse."

But was she? Mer wondered suddenly. Had her pain gone into the trees? Had they become her heart?

The questions drifted like air bubbles into the woman's stillness. Her eyes were the deer's again, as night-dark as the shadows that gathered in the rock face. "Take care, girl," she said in a low but firm voice. "Don't get yourself lost on the way back."

The door banged shut on the last word, the latch falling with the crack of small hammer.

Mer walked listlessly around the cottage. There was a loneliness about the place. An aging stack of wood stood along the back wall, and not a dozen yards away was the vague shape of a well, the stones so old they had fused together. She came around to the front and paused. A breeze tugged on her hair, dragging it in the direction the ferns were pointing. They made her want to lie flat on the ground, close her eyes, and never wake up.

Wearily, she cut a ragged path back to the wood.

***

Mer found the trail sometime later, after wandering, almost lost, for much of the afternoon. On impulse, she turned east instead of west. Avry's words had come back to her as she walked and chanted until the leaves seemed to chatter them. Don't fall, don't fall. Don't.

She ascended the rocky mound and paused at the top, looking down over the Devil's Playground. There was the cave where she had met Gandel, its top still draped by moss and vine. Amazing, she thought, how the place never changed.

She climbed down, stepped out onto the smooth, warm cliff stone, and stood for an endless moment looking out over the gorge.

The trees seemed brighter on the other side. Sunlight lingered in places where it had not been before. Beyond them was the glittering plain, the Cursed Wood, the ruined city.

Her fingers clenched and unclenched. She longed to feel a rope between her hands, to cross the gap and just disappear.

Find a reason to live, the wood woman had said.

Could she? How difficult a task would that be?

***

She met her father on the trail not far from home. He had found her basket. He dropped it when he saw her. "Where were you?" he demanded, his breath warm on her face.

She looked down at her muddy feet. "You wouldn't let me go, and I couldn't stay."

"So you just decided to leave."

"I'm sorry."

"Of course you are. You're always sorry." There was a lengthy pause. They both stared at the basket, as if it held the answer to an unspoken question. Shaking his head, he snatched it up and began walking again.

She jogged to catch up with him. "I'll leave a note next time," she said close to his ear.

"I don't want there to be a next time."

"I can't stay inside."

"Then stay outside. You could sit and read like you used to do." When she did not answer, he seized her arm and pulled her to a stop. They regarded each other darkly. "You aren't well, Mer. You can't see that now, and maybe you can't feel it. I know what it's like—to stop feeling. But it doesn't last forever. Death, however..." He shook his head.

Mer wanted to tell him he did not understand, could not understand what she had gone through. But whose fault was that? She had refused to talk to him about what happened. Avry had spoken for her. "I am sorry," she repeated earnestly. "You have to be patient with me."

He shot her a wry glance then dropped a hand on her shoulder. "Perhaps it's time you visited your aunt."

Rives had visited Lisette soon after Mer returned from Thorsault. Her aunt, barely able to speak through her tears, had agreed that she should not see Mer until her niece had fully recovered. But that was weeks ago.

"I didn't think she'd want to see me."

"She cried when she heard you were alive," he reminded her. "Why wouldn't she want to see you?"

She shrugged off his arm and began walking again. Rives paced at her side. "Where did you leave Jan?" she asked.

"I asked you a question."

"So did I."

"He was lying beside the mouse hole, dozing."

She tore a twig off a dead branch and snapped it between her fingers. "Maybe she does want to see me. But I don't want to see her. I don't want her to look at me like—like the way a child looks through the bars of a cage at some bizarre and dangerous animal." Her father stopped walking, but Mer carried on, snapping off more twigs.

"That makes no sense, Mer. You're not thinking clearly."

"My actions led to many deaths. That is perfectly clear."

He caught up with her, and she repeated what she had said.

"Which? Which actions?"

"When I ran away that day—"

"You didn't run away," he said flatly. Mer looked back at him, the twigs loose between her fingers. "You were summoned against your will. You were stolen away."

She dropped the twigs and said almost angrily, "You know that's not true."

"Truth is decided on by the king."

"The king—"

"It's the official story, Mer. The only story."

Her hand dragged on a branch. "Are you saying that—that the king intentionally twisted the truth?"

"Yes. That's what I'm saying."

Did Avry know about this? She asked him the question sheepishly.

Her father nodded. "He was there when the king worked it out. Aside from the three of us—myself, Avry, and Ghislain—no one knows what truly happened. No one, Mer."

"Avry didn't tell me."

"No?" He looked at the basket with a dry smile. "I don't think it was ever easy for him to talk to you."

***

One of her father's traps yielded a rabbit. He skinned it hastily, and Mer cooked it on a spit over the fire, which was the easiest thing she could think of doing. She went to bed early with a full stomach and dozed for a time, turning over all he had said to her.

The king's truth had granted the soldiers an honorable death. A lady had been taken; there could hardly have been a more honorable, chivalrous task than journeying to bring her back. Their deaths would be evocative of tales, poetry, pledges recited but rarely fulfilled by any number of knightly orders. Heroes, they were. Crowned in death, they would be greater than they had been in life.

She smiled dryly.

As it happened, she had not thought much of the soldiers since their profiles had faded to darkness in the wood. She had made her peace with them. They did not inhabit her dreams.

Thorsault was another matter.

Mer knew one thing for certain: the city had existed before she crossed the gorge; it existed no longer. Whether or not it should exist ought to have been a matter for others to decide. Kings. Generals. God.

Not her. Not her.

But it was gone, and had she not prompted Avry to tell his tale to the trees, it would be there still. The king's truth did nothing to change that.

She lay awake a long time, waiting for sleep, Esperance's words humming in her mind like a whispered song.

***

She woke late, alone in her room. Someone had closed the shutters. She flung them open, blinking at the brilliant light.

A tap on the door made her start. She rolled out of bed and lifted the latch.

"How did you sleep?" her father asked. His hands were grimy with dirt, and a small root clung to the brown stubble on his chin. Turnips or potatoes? she wondered and felt a stab of guilt that she had wasted her time rambling yesterday when she could have been foraging.

"Better."

"Good." His hand slipped down the neck of his tunic; it emerged holding a sealed envelope. He held it out to her, seal-side down so that she could not see who it was from. "A messenger came early this morning."

Mer took the envelope and turned it. The spread wings of an eagle made her take an abrupt step back.

"I saved you some breakfast."

"Thanks. I'll be out. In a moment."

She set the envelope on her desk and pulled out a chair. The eagle of Eleuthère regarded her calmly with sedate, waxen eyes. She tore its wings off with a finger and carefully unfolded the pages. They had not been sealed long. The first two were blank. The third was the letter, written on both sides in Avry's frugal but elegant hand.

My Lady Merisande, he wrote, I hope you are not angry at me for taking the liberty of writing you. I know that I am neither your lover nor your brother, but I must know how you are. He must have spent some time thinking after that, for the next line started with a blob of ink that had been hastily blotted dry. My life these days has not been a happy one. I have been forced to remain within the walls of the castle, exactly as a prisoner. And though I have provided an account of our tale, the king has not asked to see me. It is not that he does not believe me. Anyone with eyes can see that the wood across the harbor has shifted—indeed, it has retreated by at least a mile—and I would not have shaved my own head. But I disobeyed the king's order to remain, and for that I am to be punished. Silence is the least of it. Meanwhile, there are sympathetic ears, some among the knights. One has taken pains to keep me informed of Ghislain's decisions. As I suspected, he has chosen not to tell Alaric of Ann about our eastern neighbors. No doubt he fears that Alaric will send soldiers who will end up being posted indefinitely on the east side of the island. He may be right, but choosing not to inform Ann is a mistake. Alaric will find out what has happened regardless, and he will wonder why Ghislain kept him in the dark.

Nearly a month has passed since Thorsault was destroyed. If the fae are there still, trapped by the wood, then they will not live much longer.

Do you dream of that place? I have dreamed and wakened wishing that I had never set foot there. The king has arranged an expedition to the site. The men will be armed with tales scavenged from every corner of Aure. I will not be counted as one of the party. Another drip, hastily blotted. If you wish to reply, bring your message to my father's estate and place it in the hands of the house servant. He will pass it to my squire who is staying there now.

Your loyal friend, Avry.

Mer read and reread the letter, her fingers creeping up her forehead, pushing back her hair. She rose after a while and paced.

She refused to worry about the soldiers the king planned to send into the Cursed Wood. If he wished to risk their lives, that was his prerogative. But as for the knight...

She hissed out an annoyed breath. Avry had not been completely honest with her when they met on that bright evening in Thorsault. He had not merely "gone off on his own" to search for her but had intentionally disobeyed an order. Did he imagine Ghislain would set aside such an act of defiance and embrace him?

What was he thinking now? The king had yet to decide on a punishment, or he would have already meted it out. Instead of drawing sympathy from Ghislain's men, Avry should have offered the king a swift apology.

"Or maybe I'm wrong," she sighed, sitting down heavily on the bed. It was possible the king did not expect an apology but was simply waiting until he had enough information to make a sound judgment. Evidently he was dissatisfied with Avry's version of events, or he would not have sent for Mer's. Perhaps he hoped that the expedition would reveal what had truly happened. Would it? What story would the castle tell?

She returned to the desk and reread the letter. Do you dream of that place? I have dreamed...

She ran a finger over the words, as though she could make his dreams appear. His candor made her want to confide in him, but doing so would be worse than useless. Trapped as he was, he could not comfort her, nor could he afford to be distracted by her problems. She opened the ink stopper and held it steady while she dipped her pen.

Briefly she explained that she was "well." Aside from a leaky roof, which was well on its way to being mended, nothing was out of the ordinary. They had received a visit from the king's messenger, who had asked her for a "detailed account of what she had experienced in Thorsault." She let him reach his own conclusions about why the request had been made. She addressed his predicament then, writing so fast that she left grace notes of ink between the lines.

I am sorry for your trouble. Not knowing all the details, there is little I can say that would not come across as presumptuous, but I will offer you this one piece of advice, be it good or bad: apologize to the king. Your defiance of his order and subsequent disappearance must have caused him real pain. Ask for his forgiveness in the strongest of terms. What have you to lose by doing so? Pride is as good as currency. Empty your pockets of it if you have to.

She rolled it up and sealed it as carefully as she could.

A thought made her feet slow as she mounted the worn steps of his father's manor: she had not told Avry about her visit to Esperance.
CHAPTER 30

Rives d'Ivry knew when he had lost an argument. He smiled thinly at Mer as she joined him in Gille's field. The day was hot and muggy. Clouds were gathering in the west. Caught against a brilliant edge of sunlight, they looked like a bruise on soft blue skin.

Mer flashed his tight smile back at him.

They worked until noon and then sat in the shade of the border tree. Unfolding old stained napkins, they ate the leavings of last night's supper.

"You're quiet," Rives pointed out after a long and comfortable silence. "What are you thinking about?"

She had been thinking about Prince Gandel. The picnic lunch had sparked memories of him sitting against a tree, a mushroom poised between his fingertips. It seemed a hundred years ago now. Where had he ridden off to? It was a question that plagued her more than she cared to admit. She touched her throat, feeling the emptiness there.

Whether he had died in the trees or escaped the attack, it seemed safe to assume she would never see him again.

"Mer?'

"About Avry," she answered prudently and told him about the contents of the letter. "He's been confined to the castle."

Rives sighed. "I had a feeling that might happen, which is why I tried to keep him from leaving as soon as he did."

Mer grimaced. "That was energy wasted."

"Stubborn. Like I said." But there was a dry edge to his voice, a mocking note that made her wonder.

She dropped a bone into her napkin and let her eyes wander over the field. They paused on the empty pen. "Whatever happened to the bull?"

"Lord Gille began to feel it was unlucky. At least that was what he told me."

"Did he slaughter it?"

He shook his head. "He gave it as a gift to Lord Piercy—a peace offering, perhaps, for the mess it made of his sheep. Piercy slaughtered it and sent it to me in a covered wagon."

"To you," she exclaimed. "Why?"

"He didn't say why. He didn't even send me a note. At the time I had no appetite and nowhere to put the meat, so I returned it to Gille. The old lord was distraught, but he had no choice but to take it."

"Poor beast," Mer remarked as she shook the crumbs off her napkin.

Her father gave an absent nod. His gaze had come to rest on some point on the horizon. "A storm is coming."

They dragged the thatch around to the back and piled it, chin-high, into the pantry. Mer stood outside afterward, watching clouds range across the sky. Jan was safely inside, hiding in a corner.

The sky darkened further, blending with the line of trees, then lightning tore it in two.

Mer glimpsed the cinder girl again as that first band of lightning shot like fire over the wood. An old, skinny bush suggested the shape of her body. Mer's mind filled in the rest: a skirt wrapped by wind and rain around slender legs, fingers stained by soot, eyes peering flatly through dark strands of hair. Then thunder slapped the air like an open fist, and girl became bush again. Mer squinted through the rain at the place where she had been.

A wet hand landed on her arm.

"Come, Mer," her father said gently, holding open the door. "You're nearly drenched."

They ate a quiet meal. Jan, shaken by the storm, could not manage more than a few bites. Rives seemed pensive. He glanced at her often, his eyes thin and questioning, full of the candles Mer had lit when the sky had failed to brighten.

"They won't hold him forever," he said finally, throwing down his napkin.

Mer said nothing.

***

Three uneventful days passed. With the tea's help, Mer felt herself grow strong again. Though sleep did not come easily, she woke less often and rarely from dreams about Thorsault. Her dreams had grown vague, distorted, like reflections in a pool disturbed by a fallen pebble. She often thought about Esperance. Mer's question about Astrid still hung like the cut rope, unanswered. Like everything else in her life, she thought.

A week after she received Avry's letter, a reply came. Mer, already dressed to go out into the wood, tossed it into her basket unopened. "I'll be back before supper," she promised her father, who had already resigned himself to her leaving.

"With a full basket, I hope."

"I'll fill it with leaves," she told him cheerfully, and he gave a dramatic sigh.

The forest glistened after the rain. Moss, so green that it hurt the eyes, painted the trunks and some of the thick upper branches. Sunlight sparkled on the leaves. Mer tore off a crusty strip of bark and used it to dig up garlic.

She traveled north for a time, winding between the heavy skirts of pines, her eyes always alert for movement. The ground could not be trusted. Wet, fallen leaves hung over the holes where snakes hid. Fallen branches, undisturbed by the tread of human feet, concealed toads and other tiny animals that moved too fast to be identified.

She was finally forced to a halt, her path blocked by the thorn wall. She parted the spines with her bark-knife and peered through the twisting canes. But there was nothing to see. Only shadow.

When she was nearly home, she slid Avry's letter out from under the garlic stalks and began to read.

He was relieved that she was well and gratified that she cared enough to offer her opinion. I believe you may be right about the king, he wrote in a light, quick hand, as if he were running out of ink. However, this matter goes beyond the ties of friendship. I chose to ignore his command. Whether he wants to or not, he must set an example. An apology would not be appropriate. Besides, how could I apologize for something I would do again without thought? It would not be sincere, and no one would believe it.

I have received word that the soldiers have left for Thorsault. I should be able to tell you more in a couple of days.

There is an uneasy excitement in the castle, but whether this feeling extends beyond the castle walls, I do not know. But I imagine many are anxious to know what the soldiers will find. I pray they live long enough to reach Thorsault.

Keep well, My Lady. Your loyal friend, Avry.

Mer stood for a long time after, the letter hanging loosely from her fingertips.

Again, she wondered if she had been right to suggest he apologize. Her heart said yes. The king was a man like any other, and Avry had flaunted his authority as if it were meaningless, like a curtain that could be flung aside on a whim. Even if Avry's story proved true, the king could not forgive him, not without putting his own authority at risk.

"Blackberries," her father said to her basket as she pushed through the door. "Is the summer over already?"

"The blackberries think so."

"Then they're in good company," he remarked, reaching over the basket to pluck something off a chair. "Your fabric arrived for the autumn quarterly."

Mer numbly accepted the package from him. She could not, at that moment, picture herself attending any social event, never mind one that required dancing.

"You don't have to go," he said quietly. "No one would blame you if you didn't."

"It's still a long way off," she reminded him, though the thought did not comfort her as it ought.

She wiped her hands on her skirt and worked open the ribbons. As the cloth wrapping fell, they both fell silent. Rich colors winked at them like treasure gleaming from an open chest. Against the plain wooden table, the fabric looked like a dragon's hoard. Mer was caught between delight and discomfort. She had never felt less like one of the gentry.

"Isn't this more than she usually sends you?" her father murmured.

"Yes." She lifted a burgundy corner and found red silk and white lace tucked between layers of fine green wool. "There's enough for three dresses here. Four, if I'm careful."

A slip of paper dropped to the floor. He scooped it up and opened it. "I thought this would keep you busy for a while," he read. "Keep well, dear."

Mer's throat burned. She looked down at her soiled dress, her muddy boots. "I'll go to her straight away."

"I doubt she'll be at home. The package came by messenger from the city. Lisette must be there, visiting your cousin perhaps."

"Then I'll write her a note," she said, remembering the extra sheet of paper Avry had sent her that still waited in her drawer, "and leave it with the house servant."

***

It was a short but strenuous walk to her uncle's manor. Mer took the shortest way, moving west across the backs of half-buried boulders.

The old manor house stood like a drift of cloud over the green, as delicate as Piercy d'Eleuthère's was sturdy. The house servant must have spotted her from a window, for he came to the door almost before Mer had reached it.

Her aunt was indeed away, he informed her, and would not return for some days.

Mer gave him the note and left promptly by way of the gate.

Her thoughts drifted as she picked her way home. She wandered haphazardly over the rough countryside until she found herself on the main road, startled to find smooth paving stones under her feet. Sighing, she strode on with a firm step. They won't hold him forever, her father had said. And maybe he was right. But Avry would not be released without punishment. Would he be stripped of his knighthood? Return home merely as a lord's son? "At least he's alive," she muttered. Time was when she thought he would be tortured, perhaps even killed by the fae king.

She found herself thinking back over those terrible days. Her feet slowed as she recalled their last night on the cliff face, the story of his sister's death and how it had changed him and his brother. Blaise had ruled over Avry like a jailer. Unable to break free, Avry had allowed himself to be dragged along until his father finally snapped the chain by sending Blaise away for schooling. Mer could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Avry, not only during the time his brother was around but after he was gone. Imagine, he had said to her, that you had never learned to make your own decisions. Like a boat, Mer thought, cut loose from its moorings. Avry would have had to learn what it meant to be a separate person, responsible for his own actions.

He had not understood her apology, and she could not, even now, find the words to explain it. Maybe it was pride, or fear of how he would respond, what he would expect from her. Or maybe she still did not trust him.

The thought made her pause.

She glanced up at her home and the path that led off to it. Then she looked beyond it to Piercy d'Eleuthère's estate.

There was, she realized, something she needed to see.

***

The manor's pillared façade came into view as she climbed the hill. The house seemed almost abandoned, the windows dark, like closed eyes in a bright stone face. Estates on the outskirts of town usually had gates watched by guardsmen, but there was no need this far north, where robberies were infrequent. Mer jogged along the west side of the building to the back. The wind rose, brushing her hair against her cheek. She tucked her hands under her arms and strode across the empty green.

A sense of foreboding hung about the place: the roses trailing over a stone gate that ran along the back of the yard; the elegant statue of a lady rising up from a fountain, one hand outstretched as if reaching for something lost; the shadowy line of cedars.

The maze.

The entrance had been blocked off. Hedge and wild vine climbed over and through the wooden bars that had been nailed across the entrance. She peered through them into the maze. Two paths led off into darkness. I imagined myself back in the maze, choosing between left and right. It all became chance then, a choice made on impulse.

The hedge was taking back those paths, closing in. Branches stretched across the empty spaces to touch one another; vine wrapped them like cloth. Mer walked slowly around the perimeter. Thin spots in the hedge revealed nothing inside, only more twisting branches, shadow. She came around to the back and paused. The exit looked much like the entrance. If anything, it was even more densely obscured by branches. As she leaned forward to peer in, her foot bumped against something hard.

A stone about the size of her hand lay as if it had been thrown there. Two letters had been scratched onto its flat, upturned face: AE. Avry's initials, she thought. Then, No, they are his sister's, Amée. The letters were scarcely legible, a child's scrawl. Who had written them, Avry or his brother? She was still for a long time, listening to the soft wind in the leaves, imagining how the maze would have looked the day Amée died.

At last she stood, pushing herself away from the leafy wall. The sky had darkened. Clouds gathered in the north.

Peering around surreptitiously, she ran back across the green.

***

The rain never came.

Night fell slowly, as if its coming had been one long transition between the gloom of the storm clouds and the falling sun. They ate a quiet meal. Her father, having worked hard all day on the roof, could not seem to find words between bites. Mer was grateful for his silence. Her visit to the maze had left her feeling disturbed. She was not sure what she had hoped to find there. If she had simply wanted confirmation, she had found that and more. She picked at her food, taking small bites, forcing herself to swallow them.

"You were gone a long time," Rives pointed out as she stood and scraped what was left of her food onto Jan's plate.

"I took a walk."

Mer felt his eyes on her face as she took her package over to the fire and sorted through the fabrics. She set aside the finer pieces, unfolded a length of green wool, and measured it in hands. She marked it with a bit of chalk, fetched the sewing knife from her drawer, and went to work. The motion of the blade slicing through the fine wool was strangely soothing.

Her father, having put Jan to bed, threw another log on the fire and sat down beside her. The scent of honey wafted over, mingled with wood smoke. The chairs had been pulled together so they almost touched. The nearness made talking easier.

He set down his cup with a long sigh. "It's a miracle it didn't rain tonight."

"Would the roof have leaked?"

"Possibly. The wind is bad enough."

"Were you able to finish the bindings?"

"Not quite. But it'll hold until I fix more." A gust blew down the chimney, spitting smoke and sparks. He reached for the poker. "You haven't said a word about the letter that came this morning."

Her hand froze as she cut through the fabric. She stared, hardly breathing, at the dark line of coal, seeing the maze again in her mind. Her father's voice, saying her name, made her jerk back abruptly.

"There's little change," she answered, folding the cloth and setting it aside. "Sir Avry is still imprisoned, and the king won't see him. He tells me that men have been sent into the Cursed Wood to investigate Thorsault."

Rives retrieved his cup and leaned back in the chair. "It sounds as if the king may doubt Avry's story."

"That is certainly possible."

He nodded thoughtfully and fell silent.

Sighing, Mer sheathed the knife and tucked it with the fabric into her mother's sewing box, which had never moved from its place beside the chair.

"Are you to bed now?" he mumbled.

"Yes." She hesitated then stooped to kiss his cheek. "Goodnight."

***

Mer huddled in the blankets. The maze thrust itself into her mind again, though she tried to push it away. She imagined how Amée must have looked when Blaise found her, neck broken, lying where she had fallen. Had he tried to wake her in the maze?

The weather fueled her dark thoughts. The shutters shook so hard that she thought they would break. But in time, the wind softened to an angry mutter.

She hovered in that place between waking and sleeping, listening as Jan's noisy snoring changed to deeper, heavier breathing. Giving up finally, she threw off the covers and opened the shutters.

The wind had stilled. Nothing stirred in the darkness; even the crickets were quiet, as if the storm had blown them all away. Moonlight lay like a soft pool over the field.

The days after Amée had died must have been terrible. For the first time, Mer wondered what it had been like for Blaise, what kind of personal torture he had put himself through.

And Avry had watched it all.

Don't fall, he had said to her. Wasn't that what Blaise had done? "What's done is done," she said to the darkness.

Neither of them could bring back the dead.
CHAPTER 31

Rives took advantage of the dry spell to finish his work on the roof. The task took all his concentration, and he worked in near silence while Mer stood below, twisting the dry brush and binding it with heather cords. Her work-reddened hands reminded her of Avry's after he had spent the day laundering the fae king's garments. She let the bundle fall, wincing at the pain in her hands. It would soon be over, she told herself.

And one day, after they had finished an early dinner, her father announced that the new layer on the roof was complete. Before Mer could respond, Jan surprised them both by letting out a shrill cheer, spraying food all over the table. Mer rose to get a cloth.

The shutters hung open, letting in the warm, slanting light of late summer. Her gaze fell on the section of field that had not been cleared, where meadow flowers poked their heads through the heath.

"I think I'll go for a walk," she said to no one in particular.

She scraped Jan's splatter and the uneaten food into a cloth and took it with her outside.

She picked flowers as she walked, untangling them from the rough grasses. The evenings were growing cooler. She and her father would have to spend some days in the forest gathering firewood. Mer's weakness and the work on the roof had caused them to neglect their store.

She shook out the food and stood watching the birds gather: starlings, crows, a lonely sea bird that must have wandered in from the cliffs. Her fingers worked idly at the stems, braiding them into an awkward wreath.

Securing the ends, she held it out like a gift to the sun.

The birds, finished searching for crumbs, rose in a cacophony of chirps and flapping wings. Mer stood in the quiet aftermath, listening to the distant bleats of sheep.

She looked down at the wreath and suddenly knew where it ought to go.

Her shadow lengthened as she followed it up the hill. Gradually, the land on either side of the road changed. Wild heather and broom gave way to pasture grass, which had been mowed by the mouths of countless sheep.

She approached the manor with a firm but cautious step. A few of the windows were open, and there was activity around the outbuildings, but if anyone saw her approach, they let her be.

She came to the maze's exit and knelt down beside the stone. Some of the flowers had been damaged during her trek. She tweaked them carefully before placing the wreath on the ground beside the monument.

"What are you doing?"

Mer jolted, as if cold water had been flung down her back.

Avry loosed a dry chuckle. "I'm sorry, that was cruel. I should have stepped on some dry leaves or something so you would know I was there."

She shook her head, speechless, her mouth hanging gracelessly open. A storm of emotions beat against her throat, each vying for control. Relief was, perhaps, the strongest. If Avry was free then he might have been pardoned.

She found a teasing smile. "It's alright, but don't do it again."

Avry fingered the wreath, unbending a petal. He wore his knight's leather again. A sleeveless doublet, made of some soft, reddish stuff, had been pulled down over it. His short, dark hair stuck out at the collar like a spiny bush, emphasizing the pallor of his skin. She had not seen him that pale since he was a young teenager. A month and a half of confinement had taken its toll.

"This is nice," he murmured. "Is it for my sister?"

"Yes." She ran a finger over the letters on the stone. "Did you write this?"

"Amée did—well, we did together. I was learning my letters, and we had the same initials, so..." Mer suddenly wished she had not asked. It was rare for Avry to trip on words. "It's a miracle we didn't cut ourselves."

"You must have missed her after she was gone."

He touched the stone lightly. "It was long ago."

Wood smoke and a hint of freshly baked bread drifted in the air. The living were moving on with their daily rituals. Mer straightened her stiff back. She had been bent in one place for too long.

As the silence dragged, questions clamored into her mind. What punishment had Avry received, and what had become of the soldiers?

"This place is making me depressed," Avry said, rising. "Walk with me?"

They strolled past the manor and across the long, open field. No one was about. Wood smoke mingled with the aromas of fresh manure and cut hay.

Avry drifted to a stop by the border tree and gazed at it as if recalling some memory.

He joined her on the stone fence. "What happened to your hands?"

"I was twisting heather into ropes. Thatching," she added to his confused silence.

"You should've worn gloves."

She nodded, not knowing what else to do. "So you've returned to wearing your knight's leather. Were you pardoned?"

"I escaped."

Her mouth dropped open, but his sudden laughter stopped her from speaking. "I'm joking, of course." He looked down and tilted one of the loose stones. "It wasn't as clean a pardon as people think. The king has reassigned me to combat training. I'm to be an instructor."

"Is that...very different from what you used to do?"

He nodded grimly. "Very. I used to work outside the castle walls. Now I'll be trapped inside them. I won't be allowed to volunteer for missions or to do the more...menial tasks that used to make my week so varied. I've lost my independence. The king—either he no longer trusts me, or he wants to keep me near him."

"There's a third option," she said, and he raised a brow. "That he feels you are right for the job."

He snorted. "That must be it."

"So what happened exactly? A week ago you were confined, and now you're free and employed in the court."

There was a long pause. He fingered the loose stone again, and she was shocked to see a red flush work into his cheeks. "I took your advice," he said awkwardly. Mer's lips twitched at the admission, and she felt a sudden swell of pride, not only for herself—she had been right, after all—but for him. It was a new feeling. "It wasn't an easy decision to make," he went on, "for many reasons. The very thought of having to lie with feigned sincerity was repulsive to me. I might've done it before a stranger, or better yet, an enemy. But the king..." His voice trailed off.

"Then how did you manage it?"

He glanced at her briefly. "I thought about what I was sorry for and realized that I deeply regretted the damage I'd done to our friendship. The loss of his trust. The king and I have always spoken better with eyes than with words. If these regrets came through in my eyes, then..." He shrugged. "I could twist the truth, and it wouldn't matter. I gave my official apology before an audience in the knight's chamber."

The flush had faded from his cheeks. He leaned back a little, peering up at the swaying leaves. "I rehearsed what I would say many times. I knew that it had to be just right. If I made my speech too wordy, the knights wouldn't remember it well, and something would be lost in the retelling. If I didn't look sincere, or if my tone sounded false, it would be worse than if I'd said nothing at all."

"What did you say?"

His back straightened. "Six weeks ago I chose to embark on a mission to save Lady Merisande d'Ivry. I did this, ignoring the king's express order to remain. I am here to give my formal apology.

"I'm sorry," he said in a low, clear voice, the full force of his eyes on hers, "that I acted against your order. I swore an oath promising to obey my king in all things. When I broke that oath, I forfeited my right to the knighthood." He unhooked an invisible scabbard from his belt and placed it on the stone fence in front of him.

Mer loosed an uneven breath. This was a side of Avry she had never seen. Though his voice had not been loud, authority rang in his tone, in his expression, in his very bearing. Had he learned it from the king?

"So you forfeited the knighthood."

"I had to. When a knight breaks his vow of obedience, he forfeits his title by choice. Returning the sword was but a token of what I'd already done symbolically."

"Then why didn't you do it earlier?"

He shrugged. "The king wouldn't see me."

That seemed a poor excuse, but she let it pass. "So you're no longer a knight."

"I haven't lost the title," he muttered, picking at a piece of lichen.

"Then—?"

"The king accepted my apology but wouldn't accept my resignation. I believe his words were, 'Thank you, Sir Avry. You may take your sword and be seated.' He went on then to give a speech that would've made a lawyer weep.

"Given the state of my emotions, he said, an argument could be made that I had not been in my right mind when I chose to disobey the summons.

"After that, he gave a brief précis of our time in Thorsault, drawing on both our accounts. He concluded that I'd behaved exactly as a soldier ought. I spied. I discerned where the danger lay and acted on it. My behavior demonstrated a clear mind and loyalty to my king. At one point I even chose to abandon the lady I had come to rescue. This, more than all else, showed that my initial decision to ignore his summons had indeed been one made by emotion. Clearly, my mental faculties had been compromised, and I could therefore be forgiven." He shook his head with a faint, frustrated smile.

"You weren't punished, then."

"Oh, he punished me. Suggesting to the knights that my emotions can at times put me out of my right mind was punishment enough. Indeed, he knew exactly what he was doing."

She nodded grimly. It made sense to her that the king would find a subtle way to punish Avry. Ghislain must have been aware that Avry had used some of his men as spies. There are sympathetic ears, some among the knights.

"What are you thinking?" he asked softly, making her blink.

"Only that you should be cautious now."

"I agree," he sighed, then his brows cleared and a small, private smile touched his lips. "The king read passages from your account."

"No," she exclaimed. "To an audience?"

He nodded.

"Which ones?"

He waved his hand. "Just some conversations we had about escaping Thorsault. The important thing is that he read it. Your words. Out loud."

"So?"

"It shows he respects you."

Mer pursed her lips doubtfully but said nothing.

He picked at the rock again. "I wanted to thank you. For the helpful advice. The king thanks his men with gifts."

She started to shake her head, but he was already pulling something from his belt pouch: a small sack. Silver spilled out of it like a broken cobweb. He opened it into the fading light.

It was a fine chain, not unlike the one her aunt had given her. Hanging from it was a pendant of filigree silver. The tiny threads worked their way through and around each other, turning without a break into an unbroken circle. The workmanship was good. Better than good, she thought. What struck her, though, was its resemblance to the summoning stone. It was the same size, the same shape.

Mer felt her stomach clench as if some small caged bird had opened it wings and pushed out. "I shouldn't."

"Why not? It's only a small thing. I'm not asking you to wear it to the quarterly."

She traced her finger over the filaments. Then, feeling as if she was stealing something, she took it out of his hands and latched it around her neck.

She looked up. His eyes went to hers and then away.

"I have some news," he said at the same time as she said, "Thank you." He paused, and she gestured for him to go on. "The soldiers sent their scout back. He arrived a few days ago, though I only heard about it yesterday."

"What did they find?"

"Very little. They went to the village first and found it empty of the living. The castle was the same, though they were only able to search the top two floors, and not the tor at all. They found a few slaves, all dead."

"But no fae?"

He shook his head then gave a little shudder. "They'll find them. Eventually."

"Or not." Mer did not know what she feared more, that the bodies would never be located, or that they would be found in some hideous pose.

Darkness swelled inside her. She thrust it back ruthlessly. "Their bones don't stick around long," she said.

Avry frowned. His eyes moved past her to the horizon, and she wondered if he was seeing a field littered with armor, glittering like starlight. He seemed to want to say more but chose not to.

"How have you been?" he asked.

"Better." She knew it would be some time before she was fully recovered.

"Better," he repeated meaningfully.

"Of course, better. You remember how I was when you left me. How we both were."

His mouth tightened. In another moment they would be having the very discussion she had wanted to avoid.

"I saw Esperance," she said, flinging the name out like a rope. It had the desired effect.

"Oh? How? Where?"

"I walked north."

She told him then about the white deer Gandel had followed into the wood. That same deer had led Mer to Avry.

"And the red deer led your father to us," he pointed out, making the connection instantly, though she was not at all sure that he believed it. His expression conveyed indulgence rather than amazement.

"It adds another layer of complexity to Esperance's story."

"An onion's worth of layers," he agreed. Then he paused, his brow creasing. "Have you ever heard of 'The Maiden's Request'?"

"No. Is it a poem?"

He recited it slowly:

"Let the forest take my heart

My breath

My tears, warm and flowing

Let the roots become my bones, leaves my eyes

Wind my spirit, sighing

Let me linger here, please

In coldest silence."

They looked at each other, and Mer suppressed a shudder. "Do you think that Astrid...?"

"I don't know. Probably not. But stranger things have happened."

"Indeed." After what they had experienced together, nothing seemed beyond the realm of possibility.

There were other things she wanted to tell him then, things she had not been able to speak of with her father.

But it was growing late.

The wind rolled up from the darkness, blowing hair into her eyes. She looked out at the murky sky. "The air smells like the sea."

"Mer. Isn't that what your father calls you?"

She nodded softly. It was an incantation of sorts. A name. It held power.

He said, his gaze on the distant horizon, "It fits."

"So my aunt thought when she gave it to me." She followed his eyes then closed her own and breathed in. She thought she felt it then: the dark, heaving mass of the ocean, creaking with whales, sunken ships, shadows that moved like wraiths beneath the surface. "Have you seen the open ocean?"

"Yes. Many times."

"I would like to. Some day." What had Esperance said? That if she followed the thorn wall east, she would eventually reach the sea cliffs.

"I'm sure you will."

A silence fell. The moon was rising over them, clean and bright. She knew her father would be getting worried, but she was reluctant to move. A sudden memory made her smile. "Yes," she said.

He flicked her a curious glance. "Yes?"

"You asked me a question at the quarterly. I never answered it."

"Ahh. 'Let us be friends.' That was more of a request than a question."

"But there was a question in your eyes when you said it."

He moved then, unexpectedly, and grazed the edge of her jaw with his thumb and forefinger. For a wild moment she thought he would kiss her, and she wondered what she would do if he did. But his hand dropped back into his lap.

"Write to me," she urged him. "I want to know how things go between you and the king."

"Of course," he said, his voice oddly gritty. "Will you write back?"

"I have been. Yes. Yes, I will."

He looked away from her to the dark branches, hiding whatever expression passed across his face. "It's late," he said with some reluctance.

"Avry."

He met her gaze. In the murky light, he was almost unfamiliar. Or perhaps he was growing that way, changing into something new. "I'll miss you," she admitted.

His mouth opened. He looked down at their hands, which were leaning beside each other on the fence, then he peeled her fingers off the stone, gathered them between his palms, and kissed them. It was not a courtly kiss. If anything, it was the opposite of formal; it was as if he held all of her in that clasp. Her whole being.

Their eyes met somehow in the darkness. "I love you," he admitted unashamedly before all the stars of the gathering night. "I will always love you." He held her eyes captive a moment longer, daring her to deny it, and then he loosed her hand, and walked off without another word.

***

Rives turned in his chair when she strode in, letting the door bang shut behind her. The fire was bright and warm; she went to it without thinking.

"That was a long walk," he said dryly as she joined him.

Mer did not reply.

"So," he set down his cup with measured slowness, "how was Sir Avry?"

She looked at him sharply. "How did you know?"

"Someone put that look on your face, and it wasn't a bird."

"What look?"

"Like you're finally back in your body. That look."

There was a pause, then she leaned forward and laughed into her hands. She laughed until her face was wet with tears, and she thought she might be crying. "Yes, I saw Avry. He's still a knight, and he still loves me."

"Ah." He lifted his cup and took a long drag of whatever it was he had mixed for himself. "And?"

She let her head fall back against the chair. "And all is right with the world."
EPILOGUE

The merchant Linard Fleury stood with folded arms beside the gangplank, watching a train of crates disappear through the portside door of his ship. Many of them contained slabs of raw white stone. The building material had grown popular on the continent, to the point where buyers entered into bidding wars before the crates could be transferred from the ships. What made the business even more lucrative was how little the islanders sold the stone for. A cask of wine often bought him a crate. And since Linard owned a vineyard, this made him nearly one hundred percent profit.

The slow conquest of Aure, some called it in jest. Taking it stone by stone.

He squinted as the sun appeared, shooting an eye at him straight from the east. The sun was a rare sight these days. The autumn rains had come early to the isle, turning everything to mud. Even the water had changed to that murky color, like what was left at the bottom of a trough.

The last of the crates made its way up the plank and disappeared into the ship's cavernous hull. Linard turned sharply and nearly collided with the captain.

"Sorry for the bother," the captain said, tilting his head deferentially. His voice mingled with the growing clamor of the rigging. "There's a bloke wanting passage."

"We don't take passengers," Linard said tersely. "Direct him to a ship that does."

The captain rested a hand under his doublet, where he kept a flask he sipped from when he thought the merchant was not looking. "I did that, but he wants a more private vessel, and he's willing to pay for it."

Linard snorted, but a small, greedy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Bring him here."

The captain moved aside and waved to someone standing by the gangplank.

He was a tall, slender youth, with hair as pale as the island's bones. Though he appeared healthy, he clearly was not. His back was hunched, and he suffered from involuntary twitches. In fact, Linard thought, something was off about his entire body, though he could not say what it was.

A lord's bastard, he conjectured. The product of incest. Unlucky.

The youth managed a graceful, if shallow, bow. "My Lord—"

"I'm no lord, thank God and all his stars. Call me Linard."

"Linard, I'm not asking for a room on your vessel but simply a place among the cargo."

The merchant rolled his eyes. "You'd scare the ship's cat. He doesn't like pale, sickly things that creep about in the darkness."

The youth was unfazed. "Linard," he began again in his nebulous accent, shrugging off an involuntary twitch, "I'm as healthy as you are. It's only—" And he pointed a finger back to the hunch on his shoulders, which bulged oddly under the fabric of his coat. "I've been informed that there are some excellent doctors in Ann. Is that true?"

Linard smiled, despite himself. "Of course. They are the best on the continent. Well studied and up to date with every new procedure."

"And will do anything for coin, so I've heard."

The merchant frowned. His attention strayed to his ship, which would soon be ready to set sail. The sound of coin jingling brought his head back sharply. A hefty bag now rested on the youth's palm. The stranger parted the strings and drew between his fingers a silver piece.

Linard squinted at it curiously. It was a stamped coin with a griffin on one side and the head of some king on the other. "Where's it from?"

"Cabart," came the immediate reply.

Linard, vaguely embarrassed, pulled on the waxed tip of his beard. "Never heard of it."

"It's a country east of the salt ridge and just south of the Lednag Mountains."

The wax split. He moistened his finger on his tongue and began twisting the hairs together again. "I see," he grunted. In fact, he had no idea what the youth had just said. But the singular accent, together with the coin, compelled him to an odd sort of belief. He felt a sudden urge to return to his cabin and pore over maps. "The Ledag Mountains."

"Lednag. East of the ridge."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like a cabin?" the merchant heard himself say. He could invite the stranger to take wine with him, give him pens and paper, some maps.

The youth twitched again, causing silky strands of hair to drift into his eyes. Like feathers, the merchant thought. "I value my privacy, Linard."

"A space in the cargo hold will cost you more."

"How much?"

Linard took the piece from him and weighed it in his hand. "Two of these if you choose a cabin. Three for cargo."

To his astonishment, the youth counted out three pieces and placed them into his upraised hand. He was wearing a broad smile now, and behind it lay a perfect set of white teeth. Linard held the silver up to the light. He threw one against a rock, picked it up, and laid it flat over the back his hand.

"Captain!" he shouted. "This man wants to be a stowaway. Give him a space in the hold, something to sleep on, and whatever he asks for food."

The captain nodded and waved the youth forward.

"Cabart," Linard repeated as his new passenger marched up the gangplank.

The stranger flashed his teeth at him once more, gave a little twitch, and disappeared into the hold. Linard watched him bemusedly. He had a distinct feeling that he would not see him again.

The anchor was pulled. The ship, low with the weight of its cargo, moved sluggishly out of the harbor and joined the line of boats waiting to pour out into the sea.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Canadian novelist W.K. Greyling lives in the maritime province of Nova Scotia. When she's not writing, she spends her time curating the music library for Ancient FM, an online medieval radio station.

## Contents

  1. PART ONE THE CURSED WOOD
    1. CHAPTER 1
    2. CHAPTER 2
    3. CHAPTER 3
    4. CHAPTER 4
    5. CHAPTER 5
    6. CHAPTER 6
    7. CHAPTER 7
    8. CHAPTER 8
    9. CHAPTER 9
    10. CHAPTER 10
    11. CHAPTER 11
  2. PART TWO THORSAULT
    1. CHAPTER 12
    2. CHAPTER 13
    3. CHAPTER 14
    4. CHAPTER 15
    5. CHAPTER 16
    6. CHAPTER 17
    7. CHAPTER 18
    8. CHAPTER 19
    9. CHAPTER 20
    10. CHAPTER 21
    11. CHAPTER 22
    12. CHAPTER 23
    13. CHAPTER 24
    14. CHAPTER 25
    15. CHAPTER 26
    16. CHAPTER 27
  3. PART THREE THE CINDER GIRL
    1. CHAPTER 28
    2. CHAPTER 29
    3. CHAPTER 30
    4. CHAPTER 31
  4. EPILOGUE
  5. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

