Milo - Erana

[Sir Milo Quartermass]

(I apologize in advance if all this is rather childish.  I'm super nervous about posting it up.  The story is meant to be a gift for a friend's daughter and I'm just sort of having a great time!)

ERANA
CHAPTER ONE
The Farm at the Crossroads

Once upon a time (for this is how all truly magical stories begin), there lived a little girl.

At first glance, the little girl and the life she led were not the stuff of song and legend. She was a delicate looking girl, lean as a Spring fawn, porcelain-cheeked and green-eyed. Her chestnut brown hair was often windblown over her shoulders and her small rosebud lips were chapped by the wily winds that whipped through the fields. She was a daisy instead of a rose, pretty as sunshine, but hardy and tough.

She lived alone save for her ancient grandfather in a little blue house with a little while door at the heart of a little farm. The farm sat in a green field on a small, craggy cliff overlooking the tossing depths of the wide, wide sea. On the other side of the farm was a lonely crossroads rarely visited by another living soul outside of the girl and her grandfather. Beyond that sat a deep forest which was full of dark shadows as far as the eye could see. There were times when the forest seemed even greater than the roiling sea and even the sight of it would send the young girl rushing to hide behind her grandfather’s rickety legs.

The farm, a meager handful of animals and the field it sat in were all that the little girl and her grandfather had in all the world. Despite having so little, they were glad for what they did have for they were the humblest of people and always had been.

Of course children, no matter how humble, will always feel a far-flung longing in their heart of hearts. It isn't for things or possessions or glory, no. The little girl, even at the young age of thirteen, had begun to feel the hearth-bright longing for Adventure. Little Erana (for that was her name) found herself looking more and more to the shadowy fringes of the forbidden woods that loomed near to the farm even though they set her heart to racing. She found herself staring for long minutes down the dusty crossroads, hoping against hope to see a new face coming towards the farm from places unknown. No one new ever appeared, of course.

The story, such as it is, began on a gloomy morning at the end of a chilly Autumn.

Erana had risen early only to find her grandfather gone. He’d left a breakfast of cheese, bread and bacon warm on a plate for her with a note resting beside it. He explained that he had gone into the woods to hunt for young deer. It was time for them to start collecting supplies for the long winter and hunting meant a trip to the darkest reaches of the forest where Erana was not allowed to venture. The note asked her to go out and see to it that the animals of the farm were warm and safe before going back inside until he returned at sunset.


She’d eaten quickly and dressed in a heavy blue riding cape with a deep hood to keep out the cold and mist before venturing outside. The whole world outside was dim and unwelcoming, the grass turned soggy beneath her sturdy shoes as she dashed across to the barn where the horse and the hens were kept. Stinging drops of rain slipped up under her hood and dashed themselves across the bridge of her button nose, scattering amongst the freckles there. Her little fingers were wet and nearly numb by the time she grabbed hold of the rusting iron ring bolted to the barn door, pulling it open and slipping into the relative warmth there.

Inside the barn, their big workhorse, Barra, lifted his head and nickered lazily, his tail switching this way and that.

Barra was a massive animal the colour of smoke on a winter’s eve. His hooves, big as dinnerplates and surrounded by masses of fluffy hair, tore up great clods of earth when he walked outside. He was a powerful beast, capable of tilling a whole field in a single day without ever showing signs of tiring. Despite his impressive size, however, Barra had ever been a gentle giant, showing great care for Erana and her aging grandfather. He had muscles of steel and a heart of gold and the little girl didn’t fear approaching him now.

A scattering of hens clucked about her muddy feet as Erana walked to the peg where the horse blankets were draped in layers of red and blue and rough-spun browns, picking one up for Barra. She had to reach up onto her very tip-toes to get it, pursing her lips in concentration as she wiggled their very best one free. When she felt the good wool between her fingers, she gave it a tug and gathered the blanket to her chest, wandering down to the end of the barn where Barra waited for her, nosing at the gate to his stall.

“I’ve brought your blanket since it’s so frightful outside,” Erana said, unlatching his gate and shinnying inside next to the horse’s impressive bulk.

Barra only snorted, tame as a kitten as the little girl fussed over him, her small hands cold against his shivering flanks. He cocked one foot up and leaned his weight idly to one side so she could pull over her stool and throw the blanket over the dip of his back. She smoothed the wool carefully over his spine, making sure it tucked from the edge of his mane to the top of his tail. Once she was sure it would keep the chill off of him, she gave him some fresh oats and a loving pat on his velvety nose.

“I wish I could stay longer, but I have to go back and wait for grandfather,” she assured her old friend.

Before leaving the relative warmth and safety of the barn, Erana threw down a few handfuls of feed for the chickens, watching them scrabble and peck for the bits of corn. Waving a final time at Barra, Erana pushed open the door of the barn, fighting against the wind and departing into the dreary deluge beyond.

She immediately drew her hood around her mouth and nose to stave off the biting rain and ran back to the flickering lights of home. Perhaps her grandfather might have even returned by now. She couldn’t possibly see him staying out until sunset in such dreadful weather (especially as it currently showed no signs of lightening). It was dangerous for one of his advanced age to be wandering in the rain whether or not it was in the forbidding depths of the deep woods.

Her heart leapt when she a black mass on the stone step of her home. It looked very much like the draping piles of her grandfather’s oilskin cloak. She supposed that he had left it out so he wouldn’t soak the floorboards of the cabin with it when he came in. Erana’s spirits lifted and she broke out into a run for the house, sliding perilously on mud and clods of grass torn up by her eagerness.

“Grandfather!” She called out, her voice echoing back to her from the cliffs.

Her cloak was thrown back in her excitement as she called again, “Grandfather! You’re home!”

Suddenly, her foot caught in a particularly deep and slippery puddle and sent her headlong towards the ground. Freezing mud soaked into her dress and leggings as she collided with the earth, a clump of turf shoving down into her boot. A rather unpleasant rock found its way into her ribs and her freckled cheek scraped the grass. The little girl groaned and pushed herself up on her hands, looking towards the door and waiting for her grandfather to have heard her calls...to come out and gather her from the cold, cold ground.

Her brows knit in concern when no one opened the door.

Standing on wobbly legs, Erana reached down to brush what mud she could off of her clothing. Huge collections of it sloughed off, leaving her fingers stained brown and unpleasant. She moved to scrub at a particularly stubborn collection of grime on her knee, pausing when her porcelain-pale fingers came away stained ruby. She stared long and hard at the smear on her fingers. It had hurt when she’d fallen, yes, but she wasn’t cut. None of her clothes were torn and no part of her hurt more than it should for having fallen in cold mud.

With a growing sense of dread, she looked over her shoulder to the puddle that had tripped her up. Her stomach turned when she realized that it wasn’t water at all.

It was blood.




CHAPTER TWO
Mischief Done

Erana cried out in horror and ran for the house as fast as she could.

Such a puddle of blood could only mean one thing; that her dear grandfather was badly hurt and needed help. She reached the house at such speed that she couldn’t stop in time and her tender palms slammed into the rough-cast wood of their front door. Her little lungs were going like a bellows. She pawed blindly at the handle of the door, throwing it open desperately, not caring for the loud ‘bang!’ it made against the hinges when it caught. Desperately, she searched the warm interior of the cottage.

Her grandfather was nowhere to be seen. Nor was there a single drop of blood or water upon the floor. Whoever had left the mess she had fallen in had never gone indoors. It looks like they’d never even crossed the threshold. So then where…?

At her feet, the black mass shifted and let out a pitiful noise.

Stifling a gasp, Erana jumped away and looked down to see that she had once mistaken for an oilskin was, in reality, an animal. Lying at her feet was a wounded raven, though one of truly massive size. The bird looked as though his wings would span the length of both her arms held out and his feathers were blacker than night. Its eyes were an unearthly gold and glinted with an intelligence greater even than one would expect of a raven. It’s sharp beak clacked weakly at her and the little girl’s kind heart took pity.

The raven’s wings were held at odd angles and his feathers were askew here and there. Blood dripped from him and his breathing was heavy. While this creature might once have been a terrifying predator, it was cold and badly wounded now. Even the sparking gold of its eyes looked dim, like a tarnished coin.

With great care, Erana unwrapped her cloak from around her own shoulders and held it out like a blanket, “Mr. Raven, if you will hold still, I’ll take you in by the fire.”

She had only meant the words to be soothing, but the bird actually seemed to understand her. It dipped its beak in something like a nod and lowered its head. Awed and a little confused, the young girl reached down with a gentle touch and bundled the massive black bird in her cloak, holding it close to her chest and going into the cottage. She closed the door against the rain behind her and went over to the hearth, resting her bundle a safe distance from the dancing flames.

Once she had the bird settled, she retreated a few steps, kneeling down and watching her charge, “Whoever could have hurt you so badly, Mr. Raven?”

The raven did its best to let out a baleful caw and Erana looked unsure, “Well, until you are well, you are welcome to sleep in my cape. Perhaps grandfather can take care of your injuries when he comes home. He is very good at it.”

A meow from behind them surprised the girl and she turned to see her cat slip out from a mound of blankets on the low couch. The couch at the cat both had seen better days in their long lives, for both were a little bit ragged and had been for as long as Erana could remember. The cat was a deep black like old coal, her fur ruffled and tatty with time. She seemed to perpetually wear a squint so that one could barely see her eyes the colour of haypennies. She always seemed to know more than an ordinary farm cat should and she also seemed to disapprove heartily of it. Currently, the big black cat was staring suspiciously at their new houseguest.

“Tattershawl!” Erana said, standing to go and scoop up the cat, “This is our new friend. He’s very badly hurt, so you must be good and leave him alone.”

Tattershawl peered up at the girl and let out a very resigned meow, kneading at her arm.

A warm smile warmed the little girl’s features, “Thank you. If you’re very good, I’ll make sure you get a treat when grandfather returns.”

Her face fell, her heart catching a little as she was reminded of her grandfather, “Tattershawl, tell me I’m being silly. Grandfather is a very wise old man and he’ll be perfectly safe out in the woods. He’ll return at sunset just like he said.”

The cat leaned up to tap her nose against Erana’s, purring like a thunderstorm. It lifted her spirits, even if only a little, and she walked over to the couch. The child sat down on its old, but comfortable cushions, Tattershawl settled in her lap like a living blanket of rumbly purrs and toasty fur. In the warmth of the little cottage with the rescued raven recuperating in front of the fire, her dear friend on her lap and her clothes slowly drying it was easy for her to forget her harrowing morning out in the rain. She forgot the rain the muck and the mud.

“Yes...you’re right,” she mumbled, mostly for her own comfort, “I shouldn’t worry. I’ll wait patiently.”

Erana leaned her head back against the couch cushions while Tattershawl stared intently at her, eyes hypnotic in the flickering firelight. She knew that she should get up and try to clean off some of the muck that stained her clothes and skin. She should probably change into clean clothes and keep an eye on the wounded raven, but she just felt so weary and Tattershawl’s deep purring took on a lulling quality. It made even the air around her feel heavy, like it was dragging her down and holding her to the couch.

Quite against her will, the little girl found herself falling deeply asleep.

~***~

As soon as Erana was wrapped in slumber, Tattershawl jumped down from her lap and padded slowly over to the hearth. Her eyes were wider and brighter than usual, as if the years were peeling back from her as she stalked to the fireside. Her fur grew sleeker and her movements smoothed out with every step until she was slinking like water across the cobbled floor. She was intent on the raven, who watched her in turn. They eyed each other from across the room, the air between them practically crackling as they confronted one another.

All at once the cat made a dash for the raven and pounced, landing right in front of it, claws out to steady her.

“Glashtyn!” she hissed in a voice that was decidedly more human than feline.

The raven clacked his beak at her, “An impressive display, sister, but I’m afraid I’m a bit too out of sorts to appreciate your theatricality.”

“Change,” Tattershawl ordered, “I want to see how bad the damage is.”

The raven croaked and shook out his glossy feathers, almost seeming to glare at the cat while he did so. He hopped out of his warm bed and paced across the hearth, his scaly legs smoothing out while his body grew and lengthened. His feathers almost seemed to melt away and his wings stretched as he raised them up above his head. To see him change was like watching a reflection shift with every ripple after dipping a finger into the water of a mirror-smooth pond.

By the end of it, the raven was totally gone. In its place stood a man, long and leanly muscled like a hunting cat and wrapped all in slim leathers of black. His eyes were almond shaped and sly, still sparkling gold, lined in kohl and set in a sculpted face full of angles. His hair was blacker than ink and artfully disarrayed, woven here and there with shining raven feathers. He was lovely and not. Despite his looks, there was something markedly inhuman about him that put a charge in the air...something otherwordly and dangerous.

His full lips twisted in pain and his leaf-shaped ears twitched, “Here am I in all my...glory, sister. Have you missed me?”

“Hmph. Now who’s being dramatic?” Tattershawl scolded.

With a flick of her plume-like tail, the cat leapt up into the air and, between one blink and the next, she was completely gone. In her place was a woman who matched the man in height, build and alien beauty. Her hair fell in coal-black waves down her back and over her shoulders and her face was more imperious, more wise than the man’s. Her eyes sparked like copper, hypnotic and deep and full of magic. Her pointed ears were lowered in displeasure as she regarded the man, one hand on her leather-clad hip.

“Masterful as ever, dear Tattershawl,” Glashtyn said.

“Enough. Show me the wound and tell me what you’re doing here,” the woman-who-had-been-a-cat ordered her brother.

Painfully, Glashtyn reached to the edge of his leather jerkin and pulled it up. Across his side was an ugly gash. It didn’t look clean or neatly done, probably done by a rough-edged sword. It was no mere glancing blow, either. He wouldn’t die of it, certainly, but it had been intentionally done and a great deal of force had been put behind it. Blood had dripped down his side and he was careful not to touch the injury directly as he showed it to Tattershawl.

“You were in a battle?” she asked with surprise.

“Yes...and one I wasn’t able to charm my way out of,” he affirmed, hissing as she pressed at the edges of his wound.

“Will wonders never cease?” she huffed, “But what I truly wish to know is why you’re here. You were meant to meet with Frod today.”

Glashtyn rolled his golden eyes and batted at his sister’s long fingers, “Ach! You have all the bedside manner of a crone!”

“Do stop fussing and tell me what happened,” Tattershawl said, unimpressed.

The young man rolled his eyes and let her go about her work, “I’m afraid the news isn’t good, sister. It was meant to be as it has been these past thirteen years. I was meant to meet Frod in the wood and tell him the state of the kingdom before returning to the Black Court. The only problem was that the war ended today.”

Tattershawl gasped and jumped in surprise, her fingers jamming inelegantly into the wound she had been repairing with low-level magick, “What?!”

Glashtyn squawked in pain and pulled away from her, “Murderer!”

“Glashtyn, enough! Tell me what’s happened, now!”

Looking mutinous, the young man stood near the hearth and cupped a hand protectively over his side, “It is as I said. The war has ended.”

“So then, is it safe at last to take Erana there?” the woman asked with excitement in her voice.

From the couch, a tiny voice asked, full of hesitation, “...Take me where?”

The shouting had filtered down through Erana’s hypnotized sleep. She was awake and quite confused about what two strangers were doing in her home.







CHAPTER THREE
Her Highness

Tattershawl and Glashtyn’s heads snapped in shock over to where the little girl was meant to be sleeping peacefully on the couch. They were both caught. There was no way they could shift back to their animal forms now. Even through the haze of recent sleep, Erana was watching them both with far too keen a gaze. The siblings turned to each other uncomfortably.

“I thought you glamoured her to sleep…” Glashtyn grumbled under his breath.

Tattershawl glared at him and walked over to where the little girl sat on the couch, her eyes kind, “Ana, darling, please don’t be afraid. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re your friends.”

Pushing a lock of brown hair behind her ear, Erana said, “You don’t look like any friends I have ever had.”

Not that she had ever had many friends outside of the animals living out here alone on the farm.

“Dearest,” soothed the woman, “I know we don’t look like your friends, but it’s me. It’s Tattershawl. I’ve been by your side for ten years.”

Erana looked at her with wide eyes the colour of sea-glass, “...But my Tattershawl is a cat...a little black cat.”

The woman’s face was gentle, “A glamour only, Ana. It was a magick disguise.”

From beside her, Glashtyn spoke up, “Perhaps it’s time to tell her everything, Tatty. It’s important.”

The lack of mischief or mockery in his voice took the woman by surprise and she sighed, “Very well. Ana? Come with us by the fire. There are things we must tell you.”

Concerned, but swayed by how very serious both of the adults sounded, Erana slipped from the couch and padded over so she stood to the side of Tattershawl and Glashtyn. There was something terribly familiar about the woman who called herself Tattershawl, but not so much with the man. Still, the woman seemed to trust him at least a little bit, so for the moment she would as well.


The man leaned an elbow against the hearth and began to speak, his voice mesmerising and musical, “Once, a long time ago, there was a beautiful Kingdom. It was always Spring there...and it was a land of plenty. The trees were always green and full of fruit, the waters always ran with shining fish and flowers never died. It was the Kingdom of the Fair Folk, ruled over by good King Finn and his Queen, the Lady Ceridwen. From this land of magic came fertility for Human crops and protection from dark spirits who would seek to hurt mankind, for the Fair Folk were old and their powers were great and they knew it was their duty to protect the young race of Man.”

Face growing dark, the man continued, “But the King had a brother, Brannus, who was not nearly so charitable. He saw all that the Fair Folk did for Man and believed that they were meant to bend the knee to their elders. Finn loved his brother dearly, but never gave into his demands to subjugate the Humans...and this angered Brannus even more deeply.”

Erana listened, spell-bound.

“One day,” Glashtyn said, “The Lady Ceridwen gave birth to a daughter. She was the Princess of the Fair Folk and would one day become the Queen of all. Brannus knew then that time was running out. He would never inherit unless he broke his brother’s line and so, he secretly gathered supporters to his side. He found all the black spirits and wicked faeries who had long plagued the Humans...Trolls and Redcaps and Ghouls...and he made an army of them. He called them The Black Court.”

“...What happened, then?” asked the little girl.

Tattershawl took over, her voice very sad, “The war began in secret. He attacked one night, hoping to take King Finn by surprise. He hadn’t counted on Queen Ceridwen being awake at her daughter’s side. She raised the alarm when one of the creatures came in to murder the Princess as she slept. She died in defense of the infant princess, but it gave the Kingdom enough time to mount a counterattack and for the King to gather his most trusted advisors and friends.”

Glashtyn slipped in, “They were Frod the Treeshadow, Glashtyn the Trickster and Tattershawl the Wise. To Glashtyn was given the bleak task of playing traitor so that he might be at Brannus’s side and know his movements. To Frod and Tattershawl, he gave his daughter, charging them to take her into the Human world and hide here there where she might be safe until the war was over. Once a year, Frod would venture back to the edge of the Faerie Realm to meet secretly with Glashtyn to learn the state of the war and wait for a time when the Princess could return.”

“If you are Tattershawl,” Erana said, pointing at the woman when she felt that the story was done, “And you called him Glashtyn,” she pointed to the man, “Then where are Frod and the Princess?”

Glashtyn raised one fine eyebrow in shock, “Tatty, you never told her?”

“I never breathed a word of it. Neither of us did,” the faerie woman narrowed a glare at her brother.

“Tattershawl?” Erana asked, padding over to tug at her sleeve, eyes wide and mirror-like with innocence.

The woman saw her own face reflected back in the depths of those eyes and she sighed heavily. She knelt and placed her long-fingered hands on the young girl’s shoulders. Erana didn’t know why, but she suddenly felt as if a great weight had settled on her that didn’t come from those hands. She could feel the world tipping, as if everything rested on the point of a needle and was rapidly shifting out of balance.

“Ana darling,” Tattershawl said, her voice gone soft, “We never told you because we wanted...we needed to keep you safe. We promised the King that we would do whatever we could to keep you separate from our world until the war was over. I am truly sorry.”

Erana felt like all the air had gone out of her lungs in one fell swoop, “I am a Princess?”

“Princess Erana, Heir to the Wild Magick and the Throne of the Fair Folk, Daughter of Finn the Glorious and Ceridwen the Fair,” affirmed Glashtyn from his spot against the mantle.

“And Frod?” the little girl asked, swallowing thickly.

“Your grandfather, darling. Not your grandfather by birth, but just as I chose the form of a cat so I could remain your close companion, Frod chose the form of an old man and posed as your grandfather so that he could watch over you always,” the woman said, her hands still braced on the child’s rabbit-narrow shoulders.

“But...where is he now?” Erana dreaded to think.

Tattershawl looked sharply at her brother who cut his eyes away, looking tired and a bit shamed, “I called Frod earlier than our appointed meeting because I noticed Brannus withdrawing his armies from all the battlegrounds and amassing them back at his camp. I knew something big was going to happen soon and I wanted everyone prepared for it. I slipped up in my haste and Brannus, crusty beast, noticed and had me followed to the meeting place.”

“By what?” his sister interrogated.

“The Sluagh. They came upon us by surprise like a host of birds, wounded me and captured Frod. In the confusion, I managed to escape and as I flew, I passed over a great battlefield. What I saw there...I knew I had to come at once to the Human Lands and find the Princess.”
“What did you see, Glashtyn?” Tattershawl’s voice was deadly serious.

The golden-eyed faerie man looked uncomfortably at Erana and then back down into the flickering fire, “...I do not think the Princess should hear the things I saw.”

“Glashtyn. If the war has changed, then we must all know,” Tattershawl said softly, but firmly.

Erana cleared her throat softly, “...Mr. Glashtyn? Please, sirrah. I must know what happened to my grandfather. I’m very worried for him.”

Making an irritated sound, Glashtyn swept his hands over his mussy obsidian hair, knotting his fingers here and there around the feathers. His kohl-lined eyes were narrowed in a mix of pain, annoyance and anxiety as he tried to decide between saving the little girl from what was clearly a harsh truth and doing as his sister ordered him.

Tattershawl strode over to him, the heels of her hunting boots clicking against the cobbles, and she gently pulled her brother’s fingers from his hair, “Earlier you said that the war was over. Does this have to do with what you saw?”

Finally, Glashtyn relented with a sigh, “Aye, it does. As I flew over the great battlefield, I saw...I saw King Finn fall to the blade of Brannus the Black. Our good King was overwhelmed. When Brannus started withdrawing his forces, Finn and his exhausted people allowed themselves to believe that they were winning. They allowed themselves to hope and Brannus crashed over them like a wave upon the shore in a tempest. They fought valiantly...but they have lost.”

An awkward silence fell over the room.

One hand over her heart, Tattershawl retreated to the couch and sat down heavily (though she barely disturbed a cushion or blanket). She looked stricken, all the light gone out of her penny-bright eyes as she stared blankly and tried to make sense of what she had heard. Erana knelt on the floor where she had been left, feeling tears rise in her throat. Her dear grandfather had been taken away and she did not know if she would see him again. She could feel the great sadness settling over the room and it moved her deeply. Glashtyn would look at no one, just holding his injured side and looking into the flames.

He licked his lips after a long moment and said, “There is nothing for it. We must take the Princess and flee.”






CHAPTER FOUR
The Princess’s Choice

Tattershawl looked at her brother in shock, “We cannot simply run away.”

It earned her a snort, “Well, we certainly can’t run back to the Fair Kingdom with the Princess! Not now that the Black Court have claimed victory!”

“We have no choice,” the woman said, lifting a hand to touch her brow, thinking very hard.

Glashtyn stalked away from his station near the fireplace mantle and cast a direly unimpressed look at his sister, “I do beg your pardon, sister dear, but have you lost your mind? You are proposing we take the thirteen year old heir right into the heart of the Black Court!”

Coppery eyes narrowed, the woman rose to meet her brother, “It’s either that or we lose the Fair Kingdom to the Black Court for ever! Or have you forgotten the Ritual of Ascension?”

“Hang the Fair Kingdom! I would rather save the life of a child than be a soldier in another forsaken war!”

“What...what is the Ritual of Ascension…?” Erana asked softly, standing and walking over so that she stood between the bickering pair.

Two pairs of unnaturally bright eyes looked down at her, and then back up at each other.

Glashtyn’s pointed ears flicked and he folded his arms stubbornly, “You’re the one who wants her to do it, Tatty, so you explain it to her. I’ll have no part of this madness.”

Glaring darkly at her sibling, Tattershawl sat back down on the couch and considered her beloved charge, “Ana, did you know that the Moons are very special to the Fair Folk?”

When the little girl shook her head, Tattershawl reached out and fondly wiped some mud from her cheek with a thumb, “The Full Moon is the most special to us. It symbolizes the beginning and end of a cycle...the start of new things and the end of old things. Well, when a King or Queen of the Fair Folk dies or chooses to step down from their throne, they are also relinquishing control of the Wild Magick which governs our world and the world of Man. It means the Wild Magick must choose a new Master...and this can only be done on the Full Moon.”

“It can also only be done if the heir is sitting in a special throne at the heart of the Fair Kingdom when the moon is high,” Glashtyn snapped.

Ignoring him, Erana’s old friend finished, “There are only two heirs to the Fair Kingdom now. You, our own dearest Princess, and Brannus the Black.”

“So let Brannus have the accursed kingdom,” intoned Glashtyn.

“The Wild Magick is woven in through the Fair Kingdom and the Kingdom of Men. If he ascends the throne, then there will be nowhere in this world or the next where we can keep Ana safe!,” Tattershawl snapped, a bit of panic sneaking into her tone.

It was enough to stun the other faerie into silence, blinking as everything sunk in. They were well and truly stuck. The fire snapped and crackled, cutting through the tension in the room. Erana felt a bit like she was drowning. First her cat wasn’t actually a cat, then her grandfather was stolen away by faeries and now she was a Queen? Or might possibly be a Queen? Worse than that, the whole world might very well be in danger?

Taking a deep breath, the young woman drew herself up to her full height. Even as small as she was, she had a presence to her that drew the gazes of both Tattershawl and Glashtyn. She raised her chin as high as she could manage and puffed out her chest as she gathered her courage around her like a shining cape. She didn’t feel very much like the Queen of a mystical race and she only hoped she looked more the part than she imagined.

“If it’s the only way to save grandfather...to save everyone...then I will go.”

“Princess,” protested Glashtyn in soft, velvety tones of concern.

Trying her best to behave like a Princess, Erana set her jaw, “We will need to gather supplies for the journey. We should make traveling packs and one of us should go saddle up Barra. I don’t think we can all ride him, though…”

“I will become a cat again and travel in your satchel, Ana,” Tattershawl said.

“...And I will ride on your shoulder as a raven, Princess. I’m afraid I’m no good to fly with my side as it is,” replied Glashtyn.

“Then we haven’t much time, I suppose?”

“Very little at all, Ana darling. The full moon is but one week away.”



~***~


At the edges of the forest, one lone buck stood, chewing at the grass growing in tufts along the roadside. His skin jumped and shivered as the cold drew in closer against his flanks. The rain had only begun to come down harder and, though barely noon, all the birds of the wood had gone deadly silent. Even the winds seemed to blow in the wrong direction, smelling not of the sea or the forest, but of something primal and dark.

The buck made a low noise and picked his head up from foraging, looking this way and that. He sensed a threat, but he could see none. He pranced nervously, torn between leaping into what should have been the safety of the forest and fleeing away from what he could feel lurking there between the trees. The menace of it brushed up against his skin like icy fingers.

Overhead the sky grew darker as if a veil of night had been cast over it. The wail of a hunting horn filled the air, echoing all up and down the crossroads. The sound rang out over the fields and tumbled down into the sea, filling up everything it touched and racing back to its source. Baying hounds sang along to it, issuing forth from deep in the woodlands. A bone-deep cold wrapped itself around the surrounding lands as they horn brayed wildly again, louder and closer. Thundering hoofbeats and depraved cries rose up, drowning the air in a mad cacophony.

The stag fled for its life.

~***~

Back at the farm, there was a whirlwind of activity. Erana had pulled out the two traveling packs that belonged to Frod and herself and Glashtyn had begun to fill them with provisions for the road from the larder. While he worked, Erana had gone back to the room she had shared with her grandfather and opened their deep cedar chest, pulling out all the warmest clothes she could find including a clean cloak. She dug down as far as she could reach and gasped as her small fingers wrapped around something hard.

She drew it out and marveled to see that it was a hunting knife, long and wicked, sheathed inside a case of carved bone. It dangled from a leather belt and she considered it for a moment. It was not much of a weapon, but if this trip was truly as dangerous as Glashtyn believed it would be, then she would need something with which to defend herself and grandfather had taken his bow with him. She drew the blade out of its sheathe and jumped in surprise when she heard Tattershawl’s soft voice behind her.

“It’s Cold Iron. There is no better weapon to use against Faerie kind. The wounds it makes are deep and no Faerie hand can wield that blade which means it can never be taken from you. It is a good choice, Ana.”

Erana re-sheathed it quickly and held the knife to her chest, “It...it was in my clothes chest.”

“That means Frod left it for you and that he trusted you to use it well. Buckle it on and prove him right,” she said with quiet pride.

Hesitantly, Erana strapped the belt on around her small hips, feeling the weight of it.

TBC...

[Sir Milo Quartermass]

CONT...

Hesitantly, Erana strapped the belt on around her small hips, feeling the weight of it. It pulled slightly, sitting towards the right side. The young girl ran her fingers over the woven leather of the belt, feeling the grooves jump and catch against the pad of her thumb. The physical feel of the weapon she wore made everything snap suddenly into sharp focus. There had been a dreamlike corner of her brain even now that had not believed. She’d had a secret notion that, the moment she struck out with her companions down the crossroads towards the woods, grandfather would come up to meet her...or she would awaken swaddled in the blankets on the couch.

The hunting knife, wickedly sharp, was the truth.

“Grandfather truly isn’t going to come back, is he?” she asked no one in particular.

Oddly cool, deft hands fastened a drab coloured riding cape around her shoulders and Tattershawl said, “I am afraid not, Ana...but we will save him.”

“Do you think that we can?” Erana asked, gazing down at her weapon-belt.

The tall woman behind her tutted, drawing the girl’s hair out of the neckline of the cape, “You are a Princess and the daughter of Lady Ceridwen. You will be stronger than you believe.”

Erana turned to smile softly at the strange woman who had been her friend for thirteen years and yet not when suddenly a chilling noise slipped into the room. It slithered in through the panels of the wall, rose up through the floorboards and insinuated its way into her ears. Goose pimples rose on the skin of her arms and she shuddered. Beside her, Tattershawl went stock still, her haypenny eyes shooting wide. There was another blast of sound from outside.

There was a soft tap that may have been footfalls had any mundane creature come running and Glashtyn appeared at the door, his gold eyes manic and mouth drawn tight, “Get the Princess. The Wild Hunt is coming.”








CHAPTER FIVE
The Wild Hunt

“What?” Erana asked, glass-green eyes wide with confusion, “What is the Wild Hunt?”

“Something you certainly do not wish to meet, darkness or daylight, Princess. Quickly now!” The dark faerie disappeared out of the doorway, the almost-there taps of his rapid footfalls disappearing down the hall.

His sister was a whirlwind of motion, gathering up the clothes that Erana had been pulling out of the chest with one hand and the Princess’s arm in another, “We have to finish packing quickly. Once you hear their hunting horn, you’ve not much time left.”

She pulled Erana down the hallway as fast as she could while still being somewhat gentle and the girl protested, “But what is the Wild Hunt?!”

Out in the main room the packs were mostly put together and Tattershawl began putting the clothes into them, not caring for neatness so long as everything fit. Their time was gone. By the main door of the cabin, her brother stood with his ear to the wood, his body a line of tension, barely moving even to breathe. In his hands was gripped a sinister curved sword, white and silver with a wrapped black hilt. He flicked his eyes to Tattershawl when they entered and tipped his chin to a hole he had made in the floor and she went over, retrieving a pair of dirks made from the same silver-white metal from it.

“You were not the only one Frod saved weapons for,” she said in response to Erana’s questioning glance, “And the Wild Hunt is the law of the King. He can send it out to retrieve those who break the law or rescue those in need of aid.”

“And since Finn is no more their master, it’s only too certain what they’re after all the way out here in the Human lands,” Glashtyn hissed between his teeth.

“Hush, Glashtyn,” Tattershawl snapped and then turned to Erana, “Ana, put on a pack and carry another. I’ll help you get the last one outside. We have to go and get Barra. Quickly now!”

Erana hurried to obey, shrugging on one of the haversacks and looping the straps of another through her arms. Nodding, pleased, her friend went outside and retrieved a bucket that had been left out to collect rain, bringing it inside and dousing the cozy fire. It died in a flurry of smoke and crackling, the whole room plunged into darkness without even embers left to guide them. Tattershawl and Glashtyn’s eyes glinted in the dark like cats and the thought occured to her why, if she was the Princess of the faerie, she lacked so many of their otherworldly traits.

“Come along, then!” whispered Glashtyn, “I will go first, Tatty, and you last. The Princess will travel between us to the barn.”

“I shall travel in front. You’re not fit to fight with that wound in your side, brother,” the dark-haired woman said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I haven’t much choice if we are facing down the Wild Hunt, have I?” the man murmured, but allowed his sister to open the door.

Outside it was dark, far darker than it should have been at this hour of the day, storm or no. It was as if the sky itself was swallowing up all the light, leaving only a void in its place. There was no sign of the sun, no sign of clouds...just a vast expanse of black. Rain was pouring down in sheets now and the sound of waves throwing themselves mercilessly against the bluffs echoed around like thunder, losing itself in the sound of the Wild Hunt’s clarion call. Erana shivered and drew her hood over her head.

Silent as a night breeze, the small party made the dash from the darkened house to the barn. Tattershawl and Glashtyn in their black leathers seemed almost to melt into the night itself and it was all Erana could do to keep sight of her old friend’s back. Only the occasional flash of paler skin let her know that she was still safely between them. All around them, the sound of the horn rose again, but beneath it came the baying of hounds, hollow and far-away, but coming ever closer. The trip from the house to the barn surely took no more than a handful of minutes, but with the threat bearing ever closer on them, it felt as though it could have been an hour.

By the time the rough latch of the barn was thrown open, the trio was already soaked to the bone and slathered from toe to ankle in sucking mud. Inside, the hens were going mad, clucking worriedly and dashing to and fro. In his stall, Barra was kicking and rearing, roaring in the way that only agitated horses can. He pawed at the floor of his stall, arching his proud neck and tossing his mane, anxious to get out. When he saw Erana, he stretched out his neck to her and whinnied loudly.

“I’ll get Barra. He’s going to need a saddle. Glashtyn, stay with Ana and guard the doors,” Tattershawl said, sheathing her dirks and striding quickly back towards the stall.

The willowy faerie bowed in deference to his sister and planted himself at the barn doors. He raised his sword as if prepared to take off the head of anything that dared step through. He cut a deadly, dashing figure, but Erana could see the way his hands shook where they gripped the glinting sword. His wound, though not mortal, must have been paining him something awful. She wished that she could help, but there was simply no time. She wasn’t sure she liked feeling quite so useless. She busied her hands by throwing down enough feed for the chickens to last them through the storm, the week and...possibly until someone else found them in case they did not return.

Erana turned in surprise when there was a click and the pounding of giant hooves. She turned in time to see that Barra had burst from his stall when Tattershawl opened it, running immediately to her side. She covered her eyes, terrified at first that she might be trampled by the big horse. Instead, Barra skidded to a stop immediately in front of her and reached out to nuzzle her with the velvety tip of his nose. He hadn’t gone crazy with fear, he had been desperate to see if his mistress was alright. Tattershawl came up with a heavy saddle in her hands.

“Hold him still for a moment, Ana. I’ll have him saddled in a flash,” she said.

Looking upon her horse in wonder, Erana stroked his nose, “I thought for sure he was going to run me over.”

The woman spoke quickly while her nimble fingers worked, “Never, Ana darling. He is a faerie horse, one of the most loyal, intelligent bloodlines known in this world or the next...and he was your father’s. He would rather throw himself from a cliff than do you harm.”

“My father’s….?”

“Aye. Faerie horses can live for half a millenia if they are well cared for,” Tattershawl said, reaching beneath Barra to tighten his girth.

“Haste, sister! I hear hooves. They’re far off, but with the Wild Hunt, that never lasts for long,” Glashtyn called from the door.

Tattershawl put on a turn of speed and held out a hand, “Give me the packs, Ana. I’ll strap two of them to the saddle since Glashtyn and I won’t be able to carry them.”

Erana did as she was bidden and the work was done in a flash before the woman very nearly leapt into the saddle. She almost looked as if she had flown there. She sat high in the saddle, competent and regal even soaked and covered in mud. Her long fingers laced delicately in Barra’s mane and her shoulders were set. Her leaf-shaped ears were upright, alert.

Tattershawl reached out one elegant hand to Erana, “Come now. Take my hand and I’ll pull you up. Glashtyn! Unlatch the barn doors and be prepared to change!”

The click of a rusting latch snapped through the barn and Erana reached for Tattershawl’s hand, finding herself swung up into the saddle behind her friend by a strength she hadn’t realized a breakable looking creature like her would have. She gasped and gripped to Tattershawl’s leathers, trying not to pull on her long ebony hair. In front of them, Glashtyn sheathed his sword across his shoulders, leapt into the air, folded himself into an impossibly tiny ball and exploded outwards as a massive black raven. His talons flashed in the low light as they dug into one of the leather packs, roosting snugly.

“Here we go, Ana! Hold tight to me!” Tattershawl cried and spurred Barra into motion.

They were off with a powerful lurch, the massive horse taking off at a dead run towards the barn doors. Erana tucked her head tightly against Tattershawl’s back, wincing as Barra hit the swinging doors as hard as he could and they exploded outwards, plunged once again into darkness and biting rain. The wind immediately snatched at her hood, but she reached up with one hand to hold it tight over her face. She expected them to run on into the night, but Barra let out a wild scream and bucked, drawing up short and panting only a few feet from the safety of the barn.

“Curse it…” Tattershawl swore under her breath.

Erana dared to look up and what she saw stole her breath.

Before them was an entire host of spectral warriors, their phantom forms shining pale without moonlight or starlight. They hovered at least a foot off of the ground, each of them, their horses pawing at air instead of earth. Their slavering, scruffy dogs all stood as high as a man’s ribs and their teeth flashed ivory when they snapped their jaws. The warriors were at least twenty strong, each of them wearing armor from centuries long gone by and bristling with razor-sharp weapons. Mist rose off of them like steam from a mountain lake and, most horribly, they had no eyes to speak of. Where eyes might have been on a normal man, they had only black pits that showed nothing but saw everything.

They hadn’t managed to flee in time. The Wild Hunt had found them.






CHAPTER SIX
Flight

“Go, Tattershawl!” Glashtyn croaked, wings flapping.

With a wild cry, his sister spurred Barra and they tore off as fast as they could, cutting beside the Wild Hunt. A flurry of arrows followed them, phantasmal in appearance, but sharp enough to stick in the ground with very real ‘thud’ sounds. Barra’s hooves tore up massive clods of mud as he fought his way towards the road. Behind them, the clarion call sounded again, this time close enough to rattle their bones and send their skin crawling with fear. The hounds bayed beneath it, silvery drool falling from their jaws.

The hunt was on!

[Sir Milo Quartermass]

The hunt was on!

The ground flew beneath Barra’s hooves, eaten up and spat out behind him. His head was bowed against the rain and steam poured from his nostrils as he used all of his speed to outpace the Wild Hunt. He struck for the path that took them to the crossroads, not needing any direction at all from Tattershawl, who was glad just to hang on. It was lucky, since she had reached for one of her long dirks, using her strong legs to keep her seat on the galloping stallion. Her other hand was braced back on Erana’s side to make sure she wasn’t lost in the mad run.

“Why are they chasing us?” the girl called from where she had plastered herself up against her friend’s wet back.

Glashtyn replied, hissing menacingly back at the Wild Hunt, “If we know that getting you to the Ritual of Acension will make you Queen of the Realm, then so does Brannus. He’s trying to make sure we don’t get you there.”

“He’s going to kill me?” She asked, breathless from shock.

She’d rarely even seen another person in her thirteen years of life, let alone one who wanted her dead.

“Or worse,” the raven faerie affirmed.

“Worse?” Erana shouted back, clinging tighter to Tattershawl as Barra put on a fresh burst of speed once the crossroads were in sight.

“Where the Black Court is involved? There is always worse, princes.”

Tattershawl gritted her teeth against the rain, “Which is why we are not going to be caught, brother, Wild Hunt or no! We gave them the slip before and we can do it again.”

Glashtyn let out a coughing noise that might have been a scoff, “We were younger then, sister, and somewhat more clever and less injured than we are now!”

“Well then!” she said, grinning as they made the crossroads, “We shall have to be twice as clever and twice as fierce to make up for it! Now then, trickster, you used to be a dab hand at casting glamours. Can you still do that much?”

“I do not know how well they stand up against the Wild Hunt, but I can safely say that my glamours are nothing to sneeze at,” Glashtyn said, “What do you have planned, Tatty?”

“Listen carefully…”

~***~


The hounds and warriors of the Wild Hunt were tireless.

They took no note of the rain that cascaded down from the sky. They paid no heed to the cold that grabbed and snatched like icy fingers. The heavy darkness that had settled, low-bellied, in the sky did little to impair their senses. Mud did not suck them down nor did wind scatter them off course. They had been given orders by their master to steal away the Princess and dispatch of any who might be with her. Until they had achieved that purpose, naught could slow them down or stop them.

Suddenly, ahead of them the dark-haired woman turned in her seat on the saddle, something glinting in the long fingers of her right hand. Her glinting eyes narrowed and she let fly the object that she held. It was only after the object was loosed that the collective warriors of the Hunt realized that it was a weapon. It zipped through the air and found a true mark in the chest of one of their brethren, thudding deep and causing his horse to startle and buck, very nearly throwing his rider off.

The advancing force drew up short as the soldier reached up and grabbed the hilt of the weapon, drawing it from his chest. It was a simple throwing knife made of faerie metal. Just a pathetic toy meant nothing to a Wild Huntsman and he let the pretty piece of nothing fall to the wet ground where the rain and the mud muffled any sound it might have made. It was an insult for them to believe such a petty attempt would do anything more than insult the Hunt. They would run them down like dogs and see that they paid for it.

When once again their collective attention turned to the road, they saw with disdain that the fugitives had chosen to veer madly off of the road, taking a sharp left and pitching headlong into the fields on the other side. It would not save them. It was a desperate attempt to evade the notice of the Wild Hunt and it would fail.

The leader of the hunt drew forth the hunting horn again and let out a note which echoed all through the hills and glens. With the hounds howling a song of blood, the Wild Hunt too abandoned the road. None could escape them, not even with the dawn, for they drew darkness with them like a cloak. Let the fools try.

~***~

“They...they’re leaving off!” Erana whispered excitedly as the Wild Hunt veered off into the unsettled fields.

Glashtyn croaked in his throat, “Whotta bunch of numpties. Don’t know an illusion when they see it.”

“Well done, brother,” Tattershawl praised as they continued their ride straight down the crossroads towards the deep woods.

“Well, we’d best make it as far as we can as fast as we can. I won’t be able to do that twice and the Wild Hunt are bound to be furious when they found they’ve been tricked,” the raven faerie replied, “They’ll come back at us twice as quickly.”

“Hopefully it keeps them busy enough that we can find the Thorn Gate and slip through. Once we cross the veil between worlds, we’ll be that much harder to track,” Tattershawl said.

“Or that much easier. Brannus himself will be able to sniff us out himself the minute we cross over,” grumped the other fey.

Tattershawl rolled her eyes dramatically, “Not without the Wild Magick, he won’t, and we’ve got a week’s time until he can use that against us. Now hush or your incessant gab will lead the bloody Hunt right to us.”

Silence fell between the three again as they pelted madly through the false night that the Wild Hunt had brought down on their heads. The freezing rain continued to lash at them, weighing down their hair and clothes so much that not even the mischievous wind could find a hand hold. Ahead of them looked the forest, its depths looking blacker and more forbidding than ever before to Erana. She wondered what sort of nastiness lurked in there, then promptly chided herself for her fear. There was enough nastiness outside of the wood looking for them that fearing what was within it just seemed foolish. After all, what was a bear or a wolf compared to an entire host of unearthly murderers?

Barra’s mad pace slowed as they left the road and plunged into the forest. It would benefit them to go slower here to avoid slamming into a tree or making an undue amount of noise. Steam rose off of the horse’s back in slow curls and his flanks shivered as he caught his breath. Carefully, Erana leaned down to pat at his sides, a gentle reward for his hard work in saving them. Well...they weren’t completely safe yet, she supposed, but he had put in an excellent effort.

All around them, the forest was unnaturally quiet and still.

Everything was dark, painted in heavy shades of deep green, ashy gray, rich brown and gloomy black. Shadows danced and jumped in their path as tree branches shuddered in the wind that managed to slither in past the leaf-cover. No birds sang in the trees and no little animals darted through the underbrush. Even the flowers seemed to have curled over and hidden their faces. It was all powerfully strange to Erana who, even though she had never been in the forest before, was used to being surrounded by nature. She was used to light and liveliness, but here it seemed that everything was either asleep or hiding.

“Was the Thorn Gate unguarded when last you passed this way, brother?” Tattershawl asked softly, her voice little more than a breeze itself.

The raven lifted his head, “I was a bit too preoccupied to check, but since nothing tried to kill me as I passed through, I suppose not.”

“Beg pardon,” Erana said quietly, “But what is the Thorn Gate?”

It sounded positively unpleasant to her.

Tattershawl reached down to squeeze one of her hands, “It is the doorway between the world of Men and the world of the Fair Folk, my Ana. It is a place of profound magic and only those Fair Folk who know how to find it may pass through.”

“But I don’t know how to find it,” the Princess said, looking around.

“Lucky for you, Princess, your escorts know exactly where to look,” Glashtyn informed her.

Her old friend turned to smile at her, face serene and mysterious, “Follow the bluebells.”

The gut-wrenchingly familiar sound of a horn bellowed from outside of the forests, out in the plains.

“....May I suggest that we do it quickly?” The raven huffed.





CHAPTER SEVEN
Follow the Bluebells

“Come, Barra old friend, we must make haste,” Tattershawl said and the horse picked his way more quickly through the standing tree roots and winding paths.

Rain dripped from the trees all around them, but it no longer stung their faces and hands, kept out by the thick canopy far above. There was no starlight to guide them...no moon...and certainly no sun. In the silence between horn blasts, Erana could almost believe that she and her escorts were the last living creatures in all the world. She’d never experienced such a remote, isolated feeling before. It was lonely and peaceful, wondrous and fearful. It was much like the Fair Folk themselves...a feeling of duality.

Thick black trees rushed past them, the forest blurring slightly.

Then, there out of the thick loam and moss, there was a tiny wink of blue.

“Look there!” Erana said, tugging on Tattershawl’s sleeve.

The woman looked to where her dear girl pointed and a smile broke through her severe expression, “Look closely, my Ana. That is a bluebell...and there will be more to come.”

Before they passed it in their speed, Erana took a long look at the little thing. It was a flower so blue that it was nearly purple. To the princess, it looked less like a bell with its narrow body and curling edges and more like a goblet that had been turned upside down. It was clustered up on a stem with at least ten other blossoms, the stem so laden with their bounty that it bowed back again towards the ground.

“Keep your eye out for them, for they will show us the way,” Tattershawl said, sounding relieved, “They only grow in faerie woods, and only in places where our magic is strongest.”

[Sir Milo Quartermass]

“Keep your eye out for them, for they will show us the way,” Tattershawl said, sounding relieved, “They only grow in faerie woods, and only in places where our magic is strongest.”

Erana trained her eyes upon the ground, looking for the next flash of shadowy blue hidden down in the wet ferns. Tendrils of mist slipped over the ground like water, swirling thinly around Barra’s big hooves as he charged forward, ever wary of the Wild Hunt who had not yet surrendered the charge. Every time one of his hooves ploughed down into the earth, a burst of scent traveled up to her nose, smelling of dirt and leaves and life. There was a tang of something underneath that, in her childlike way, she thought smelled of the air after a lightning storm.




Barra cleared a fallen log clothed in a thick carpet of moss and his hooves cleared a smothering patch of mist that had nestled there like a lazy cat. Another smudge of blue peeped out of the darkness and the princess looked forward and back, trying to find a path. Her heart fluttered with excitement as a whole row of the bowing flowers seemed to appear, showing an almost perfect path off into the darkness of the wood. Down the path, she could see the slightest glowing as if from a distant star winking in the night sky and she knew that it must be the right way to the Thorn Gate.

“Tattershawl! Look there!” She pointed.

Her old friend smiled and turned as if to speak, but never did she manage to utter a word of what she had meant to say.

One of the large, spectral hounds belonging to the Wild Hunt lunged out of the covering fog and slammed its muscular body into Tattershawl, throwing her from the saddle. Both of them landed hard in the foliage on the forest floor, leaving a long skid in the fallen leaves. The monstrous dog landed squarely on the faerie woman’s chest, baring its massive fangs. They dripped foul ropes of pungent drool as it snapped at her face.

A few of the precious bluebells were ripped up beneath them.

“Tatty!” Glashtyn yelled, flapping free of the pack where he’d been roosting and seeming to simply fall into his faerie form.

The hound tried to paw at her face with its impressive claws, but she fended it off with swings of her arms. Tattershawl shouted in anger and kicked fiercely at the animal, trying to dislodge it from its position on her chest. She huffed for breath, but her eyes glinted with a warrior’s spirit. With a movement almost too fast to follow, she drew her second dirk from its sheath and slammed it up into the monster’s chest, bracing it there. Tattershawl and the hound glared each other down, one howling in pain and the other snarling in anger before the beast simply dissolved into the air.

“I’m fine, Glashtyn!” she called and got to her feet, “That monster won’t reform until the next moonrise, so we won’t be followed.”

When she turned back to the group, she saw that her brother had withdrawn his shining sword and stood still as stone, “...I’m afraid, Tatty dear, that they’ve sent the hounds ahead.”

Even more of the devilish hounds had appeared, lurking between the trees and standing atop stumps. Their teeth were wicked pearls in the dark, shining like the edge of a knife. Steam rose from their slavering jaws. Every pair of glowing eyes was trained on the fugitives and their horse, prepared to spring at a moment’s notice and take down any who tried to flee.

Holding her dirk warily, Tattershawl looked to her brother, “...How fares your wound?”

“Barely a tickle,” he quipped, swinging his blade and doing his best to hide a wince.

Not daring to move, the faerie woman whispered to their charge, “Erana...listen very carefully to what I am going to tell you. We have no time.”

Erana still sat up on Barra’s back, her glass-green eyes wide and stunned. She could only nod.

“Ana darling, when I give the signal, you need to get down off of Barra and run as fast as you can for the Thorn Gate. Glashtyn and I are going to hold off the hounds for as long as we can, but I’m afraid that’s still far too little. You must get through the Thorn Gate. There are glamours on you that have kept you looking human for thirteen years and they will also make you harder to track in the Fair Kingdom.”

“But what about you? What about Glashtyn and Barra?”

“The hounds can outpace Barra and you are a bigger target when you are on him,” Tattershawl said, hissing as one of the hounds faked a lunge.

Glashtyn, backing up warily, murmured to the girl, “Don’t fear for us, princess. Tatty and I have survived worse than this. You get through the Thorn Gate and we’ll meet you on the other side, aye?”

“...Aye…” Erana said, sadness colouring her voice.

“Go now, darling. We’ll see to it you escape,” Tattershawl said.

Lingering a moment, not wanting to leave her friends both old and new to the mercy of the odious dogs, Erana looked over their faces. She received an encouraging nod from Tattershawl and a roguish smile from Glashtyn that she only half believed. The girl laid a kindly hand on Barra’s neck before taking a deep breath and launching herself from his back. She looked down only long enough to make sure she was following the bluebell path and then she was off, quick as a shot.

The blood curdling sound of ghostly baying followed her.

As she disappeared into the gloom and the hounds prepared to pursue, Glashtyn readied his blade and said, “Will she be alright, Tatty?”

“She’s the daughter of King Finn and Queen Ceridwen. She’ll make it to the Fair Kingdom and snatch her throne right out from under her uncle’s nose.”

“And will we be alright?” he asked, watching Barra lower his head to bull a few of the dogs away from the path.

Tattershawl readied her dirk, “Likely not. Objections, brother?”

Glashtyn grinned as the first wave of hounds gathered enough muster to throw themselves into the fray, “None whatsoever, sister.”









CHAPTER EIGHT
This World and the Next

Erana ran for her life through the winding trails of the forest, trying her best not to listen to the sounds of combat that grew fainter and fainter as she went. The fringes of her cape whispered against the ground as she ran and her breath sounded harsh even to her own ears. Her heart thudded like a drum against her narrow birdcage ribs, but she did not stop for anything. If her friends were being brave, then she would be as well. She only even slowed to make sure she hadn’t lost the bluebells.

They were growing thicker now, the closer she got to that distant glow tucked into the darkness. Where before there had only been one or two springing up occasionally, there were now bunches of them growing among the trees. Not even a breeze stirred them.

That was one thing Erana had noticed in her flight into the deep woods. The closer she got to the Thorn Gate, the stranger things became in the forest. It had been peculiar from the very start, what with no animals to be seen or heard, but even the wind itself didn’t seem to reach here. The world around her was still as a painting and as unreal as a feverdream. It made her long for the crash of the sea against the cliffs, for the sound of her grandfather’s whistling in the late hours of the evening, for the crackle of a warm fire and the wind across the fields.

She looked over her shoulder, hoping against hope that she would see Glashtyn, Tattershawl and Barra racing to join her.

There was only darkness behind her.

Darkness and the chilling song of the Wild Hunt’s hounds.

With doom behind her and the promise of the soft, glowing light ahead, Erana had no choice but to continue on. She had to believe that her friends would find her once she found the gate. The young princess ignored the part of her heart that said how false Glashtyn’s bravado had been, that whispered to her how much danger her companions were in. Tattershawl had told her to go on and so that was what she did, running until her feet were sore and her cheeks were pinked with the effort.

At her feet, something quite remarkable was happening to the bluebells. They had begun to grow larger in their lush groups. Their stems were longer, brushing at Erana’s knees instead of her ankles. She could have sworn that the delicate blossoms hanging covered with dew had begun to give off a soft, radiant glimmer, lightening the twilight darkness all around her. Pale indigo light suffused the night. The mists even beginning to peel away as if to clear a path for the princess as she slowed from her pelting run.

The subtle glow that had drawn her own was now a nimbus of clean light.
Erana steadied herself and turned a final corner and there, before her in a clearing ringed with bluebells, in all its glory stood the Thorn Gate. It was a wondrous thing, an immense hawthorn tree so mighty that not even ten men with their arms spread wide could have encompassed its middle. The glow that she had been watching was the aurora given off by white blossoms threaded all throughout the tree’s vast, arching canopy. Their petals littered the forest floor like snowfall, her feet sinking into them as she padded towards the tree. At the heart of the trunk was a yawning doorway, shifting and changing in a dizzying array of rainbow colours.

The princess looked upon the Thorn Gate in awe, approaching it slowly and running her hand over the rough bark of the tree. The places where her small fingertips touched the bark sang with energy. It was like a silent song meant just for her and it spoke of deep magic and of home. She ran her hands over it again, wanting to feel that tune once more, but every now and then there would be a sour note. It felt like a hard winter stealing over springtime. It felt like illness and it scared her.

She looked over her shoulder once more, willing her friends to be there, but she was met with only stillness and emptiness. Her heart ached to go without them.

Erana bit down worriedly on one of her little rosebud lips before turning back to the Thorn Gate. There was no more time to waste or wait. Gathering up what courage she had left after the fury of their escape, she closed her eyes and stepped into the swirling portal at the heart of the Gate, only hoping not to fall into an abyss or, even worse, for nothing at all to happen.

[Sir Milo Quartermass]

Erana bit down worriedly on one of her little rosebud lips before turning back to the Thorn Gate. There was no more time to waste or wait. Gathering up what courage she had left after the fury of their escape, she closed her eyes and stepped into the swirling portal at the heart of the Gate, only hoping not to fall into an abyss. She held her breath as she took the first step, waiting for there to be no floor or no weight. The young girl held out her hands in front of her, ready to catch herself should this all prove a disastrous mistake.

Secretly, though, she worried more that absolutely nothing would happen and that her friends had been put in very real danger for nothing.

Her stomach dropped down to her knees when her feet touched down on solid ground.

Fearing the worst, Erana finally dared to open her eyes (first one, then the other) and she was utterly taken aback by what she saw. Instead of just a hole in a very ancient, massive tree, she found herself staring down a long corridor made of intricately twining wood. It was polished to a high shine and full of rosy light that made her feel warm down to her toes. Balls of twinkling light floated on their own in gracefully etched bowls to either side of the walkway. The scent of dirt, leaves and mud was gone and in its place were the perfumes of flowers so exotic and strange that Erana had never before experienced them in her young life. Far ahead of her, she could see a keyhole doorway brimming with the red lights of a distant sunset. The hall was filled with comfortable silence and she quickly turned to look behind her, stunned that she could no longer hear the chilling howls of the Wild Hunt.




Behind her, the hallway stretched out the same as it did in front of her, another keyhole doorway behind her showing the occasional flicker of the Thorn Gate’s waxen blossoms. Erana realized then that stepping through the Gate had placed her right in the middle of this hallway. She was literally between the worlds, hanging in a sort of limbo until she chose to step into one or the other. Indecision gripped her. Should she stay here and wait just a little while longer now that she was safe from the immediate danger of the Wild Hunt to see if her friends would come dashing through the Gate after her? Or did she heed their orders and continue on to the Fair Kingdom?

Her feet felt mired in mud before, at last, she turned her back on the Thorn Gate and took her first unsure step towards that winking sunset on the other side. She took one deep breath, then another, the rapid thudding of her heart calming by degrees as she made peace with her decision. She would enter the Fair Kingdom and find a place to wait until Tattershawl, Barra and Glashtyn could find her again and then they would face the dangers of the journey ahead together. They would find a way to rescue her grandfather (though not really her grandfather now, she supposed) and maybe, just maybe, save the whole Kingdom while they were at it.

As she drew near to the door filled with the fiery colours of the setting sun, new scents began to filter in over the intoxicating aroma of flowers. She could smell fresh breezes, slightly chilled, carrying whispers of wood-smoke. Perhaps on the other side there would be a place where she could warm her bones and dry her clothes so she didn’t catch cold? The idea was enough to have her picking up her pace, moving speedily towards the door and peering out, hoping for sanctuary.

The doorway at the end of the hall looked to be covered with a fine layer of golden mesh, sparkling and shifting in soft zephyrs like a living thing. Tentatively, Erana reached out for it, letting just the tips of her fingers brush over the dancing veil, gasping softly when her porcelain-pale hand began to pass right through it. Where she touched it, her skin fizzled with energy as if the golden portal was alive, feeling her out. When nothing hurt her, she stepped the rest of the way through the door, the tingle spreading over her whole body from the very tip of her button nose to the soles of her boots.

Just like that, she left behind the world she had known and found herself standing in front of a marble archway, shining white pillars holding aloft a crystal lintel. In wonder, Erana looked closer and found the crystal was expertly etched with flowing script. At first she could not make out the words, the language strange to her. Yet, as she continued to watch, the letters swam before her eyes until they re-formed into words she could read easily. Now, the crystalline lintel clearly said, “Honour Always the Mirror”. She wondered what it meant and why it would be written there.

Erana turned and looked out over the new world.

CHAPTER NINE
Sir Merrick

Erana realized very quickly that she was standing high on a cliff jutting out from the side of a mountain all covered in trees. It’s peak pierced up into the sky like a fang, almost lost in the clouds. The foothills far below were wreathed in heavy mist, verdant treetops blowing to and fro in the wind. That same wind raced up the mountainside and blew at Erana’s face, whipping her brown hair back over her shoulders. She took a deep breath of it and the wood smoke from before hung heavy on her tongue mixed with something she couldn’t name.

The cliff she stood on was relatively tree-less and a path led down into the forested mountainside, meandering its way down to the bottom, surely. Beyond the mountain Erana could see such sights. She saw the emerald forest stretching out at the root of the mountain slowly turn into just the edges of pale green fields and rolling hills. She thought she could see the tell-tale curl of smoke rising as if from chimneys on the horizon. There must have been a village there or at least a house. Her feet ached and it looked very far off, especially with a mountain to climb down, but she had to at least try. She hoped that her friends would be along before too long to travel with her and distract her from how very lonely she was beginning to feel.

Taking another lingering glance over her shoulder, Erana turned and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, striking out for the path that would take her down the mountain. Her boots clung to her clammy feet and she couldn’t wait to remove her soaking cape, but there was still work to be done and she had been raised to see a task through to the end, especially when there were others counting on you. Luckily for her, the path ahead seemed relatively smooth and the eerie darkness brought on by the Wild Hunt hadn’t followed her here. She still had the sunlight.

She didn’t even realize that she was being watched as she disappeared into the treeline.

~***~

Clinging to one of the back of one of the pillars was a strange, unpleasant creature. It was the sallow colour of spoiled milk, all spindly legs and grasping multi-jointed fingers like a spider. It crawled on its belly like an insect and its eyes were huge and black, unblinking in a most unnatural way. Its mouth was a long, thin line that stretched from one oversized pointed ear to the other, closed tight and lipless. It crept down from its perch, its head ticking this way and that as it picked up stray sounds like a dog. Making nary a sound, it scuttled after Erana, making sure to always stay hidden in behind stones, trees or in shadow.




The thing watched and followed her only a little ways down the path before turning its back and speeding away through the trees. It ran so fast on its hands and feet that it was a blur, a whisper in the hidden places of the woods. It stopped abruptly at a boulder and let out a clicking noise. Horribly, another one of the pasty monsters pulled itself from out of a far-too-small crevice beneath the rock and perched itself upon it, staring unblinking at its twin. The first leaned up to the second beast and whispered almost unintelligibly into its gaping ear. The second creature was as still as a statue while it listened. When the first stopped whispering, there was a bare second of utter stillness before the second beast slithered off in one direction, his twin another.

The second disappeared behind the shadow of a particularly large stone as it continued on its journey. The first was not so lucky. It scrabbled beneath the belly of a fallen oak tree to look for any of its kin. As it tried to come out the other side, a hand wrapped around its throat and hauled it up into the air, hissing and snapping and kicking and clawing. It was suddenly staring into a pair of piercing sapphire eyes, unforgiving as the sea and hard as ice.

It was held in the grip of a lithesome youth dressed in a sleek , mud-stained tunic of blue. The leather armor beneath it was light and adhered closely to his tall form, flexible and allowing for swift, quiet movement (though full of nicks and even singed in places). His feature and form were strange, not human and yet not fae either. His ears were round as any human’s, but there was a peculiar Otherness to his face that only the Fair Folk possessed. His hands were not particularly long or fine, but he had the light step that only a faerie would use. His hair, once black, had faded to a deep royal blue and it was clipped in neat layers about his neck and ears, feathering down over his brow. The sword he held in his hand was of elegant faerie metal, stained with something that looked suspiciously like blood.

There was only one man in all the realm it could have been.

“Changeling brat!” hissed the creature.

“And where is a Gwyllion off to in such a hurry? The last I recall, the Watchers are not over-fond of leaving their holes,” said the youth in a rich tenor full of reproach.

“The others whisper that you were slain by a Redcap on the fields of Mor Aur,” the Gwyllion snarled.

The youth gave the Gwyllion a shake and leveled his sword at its throat, “The matter of my death or survival is not the subject I wish to discuss and should be rather obvious. Tell me, what have you seen, Watcher?”

“Something that will greatly interest my master, Sir Merrick,” the Gwyllion spat out with disdain.

“Your master? Gwyllions serve no master,” replied the man, named Merrick, with surprise, “Who has pressed the Watchers into service?”
At his question, the Gwyllion grew mutinously silent, wide mouth pressed so tightly closed that it almost seemed to disappear into the creature’s face. Merrick frowned and pressed the tip of his blade against the Watcher’s thin skin, the threat clear. Gwyllions were cowardly creatures and always had been, content just to sit in their hide-aways and watch the world go by, seeing everything and keeping the secrets of the Fair Kingdom for no reason that anyone had ever been able to decipher.

Predictably, the Gwyllion curled away from the sword and Merrick asked again, “Who is your master?”

“...Brannus the Black,” the creature surrendered.

The youth’s eyes grew even wider in shock, “So, the Black Court is using Gwyllions as spies. Tell me then, for I will only ask you once more, what did you see that you are in such a rush to report?”

“...When the thrice-cursed spy Glashtyn slipped Brannus’s net, he set us by the Gate and ordered that we must report any who come or go from the portal...especially strangers. I...I saw a human girl come through and disappear down the path.”

For a long moment, Merrick was very quiet before he seemed to come to a decision. He tossed the Gwyllion to the ground and held his sword point at the thing’s nose, holding him in place while he delivered a decree.

“Gwyllion. You will not report what you have seen to Brannus the Black. Swear your oath to me now and I will not run you through.”

The Watcher spat, “Even if I do so swear, my brothers are already spreading the word like wildfire through the trees. It will reach Brannus’s ears no matter what you do, humanspawn.”

“Then you wish to perish?” asked Merrick, pressing forward with his razor-sharp blade.

“I swear!” hissed the Gwyllion quickly, shrinking away.

With a flick of the wrist, the young man with the sapphire eyes sheathed his blade and nodded at the Watcher. Without another word spoken, he darted away into the woodlands, going back the way the Gwyllion had come. A human girl sneaking in through the Gate? Times were too dangerous for even the Fair Folk in the Kingdom right now, nevermind a defenseless human child. He would have to find her and usher her back (not that the human world would be any safer come the full moon) before anything more nefarious happened across her. With the war lost in the favour of the Black Court, Gwyllions were the least of anyone’s problems.


CHAPTER TEN
The Changeling’s Tale

Further down the path, Erana’s exhaustion had finally gotten the better of her and she had been forced to take a short rest. She sat herself down on a rock at the edge of the path and stuck her legs out straight, wiggling her toes in her boots and trying to get feeling back in them. She pulled off the back that had begun to weigh heavy on her shoulders, very happy that she had it but very weary of carrying it now that the adrenaline of her flight from peril had worn off. She set it down by the side of her rock, hoping that even some of the clothes and food in it were still dry.

So tired, she leaned down to rest her forehead on her knees, wrapping her arms under her legs and shutting her eyes. She’d never worked so hard in all her young life and it had caught up to her at last. Erana drifted in and out of a doze as she sat, letting her mind wander. She let herself ponder about what everything meant in a way that she hadn’t had a chance to yet.

So, Frod was not her real grandfather. It didn’t change so very much for her whether he was her blood or not because he had raised her with all the love and tenderness that she supposed a real grandfather was should. Then there was the matter of her cat having never been a real cat at all, but a bodyguard of great skill in disguise. It was strange, to be sure, but it seemed that Tattershawl loved her dearly no matter what form or face she wore. Nothing about her new situation truly troubled her except for her parents.

She had known from a very young age that she was an orphan. It was why her grandfather had raised her and not her parents. However, before all of this strangeness had been revealed not so very long ago, the idea of a mother and a father had been vague and just that...an idea. Her grandfather had never talked about her parents very much (and now she could see why). Yet, now there were names and stories from people who had known them very well and loved them deeply. Unbidden, Erana felt a sharp sense of loss in her heart that she’d never experienced before, especially knowing that, until yesterday, her father had been alive. For the very first time in her life, she felt cheated.

It was a dreadful feeling, made more unbearable by the idea that it was her own uncle who had done her family such wrong.

Erana sighed heavily into her knees and drifted off.

~***~




There was a rustle from the trees and young Erana sat up quickly, looking around with wide eyes. Had she truly fallen asleep during her break? How long had she dozed? Had Glashtyn and Tattershawl finally caught up to her? She stumbled up from her spot on the rock, looking eagerly up and down the path for any sign of her companions. The excitement bled from her when she didn’t see anyone or anything and her heart sank right down past the soles of her boots. She turned back to collect her pack.

Someone cleared their throat behind her.

Erana let out a little cry of surprise and looked sharply to the path. Where once it had been abandoned and empty, there now stood a tall young man in battered regalia. There was a smear of soot across his nose, he smelled of blood and a sword hung at his hip, but his blue, blue eyes watched her with open curiosity instead of malice. He held out a hand in peace and didn’t move toward her.

“All is well, miss. I’m not here to do you harm,” he said.

“Then why were you lurking there in the trees?” Erana asked warily, remembering the Wild Hunt that had been sent to steal her away.

The man offered a gentle smile, “The Fair Kingdom is a dangerous place just now, miss, and I’ve many enemies. I had to make sure you wouldn’t hurt me either.”

Thinking quickly, the girl asked, “Are you a member of the Black Court?”

“How did you…?” Asked the youth, sounding mystified.

“Tell me if you are a member of the Black Court!” the Princess said, taking a step back.

She reached for her Cold Iron hunting knife and drew it, pointing it at the young man. She would not be easy prey, even without her companions. She wasn’t even sure if she was holding the weapon right, but she remembered what Tattershawl had told her about Cold Iron. Faeries couldn’t even bear to touch it, so she hoped that the sight of it alone would be threat enough.

The young man reached up and tapped at his tunic. His finger rested on a gold seal in the shape of a shield. At the center of it was pressed a majestic golden sun, a songbird stretched out beneath it with a banner in its feet reading the words ‘Rise Like the Sun’. There was a little splash of red against the breast of the songbird that was clearly not supposed to be there, but he let his hand rest upon the seal.

“This is the family crest of King Finn, our Lord of Light. If you know of the Black Court, then you will also know of him and know that, as I wear his crest, I am no threat to you,” he said with honesty ringing in his tone.
Erana breathed out in relief, letting the point of her knife drop, “And if that’s the seal of King Finn, then I’m no threat to you either.”

Looking very hard at the newcomer, Erana saw that he had ears just like hers even though his hair was deep blue. It confused her, but she knew faeries seemed to be fond of taking on new forms. Perhaps he had hidden what he really looked like so his enemies wouldn’t find him as easily?

“I’m very sorry, but I’m quite bad at this. Are you glamoured to hide from the people who want to harm you?” she asked.

The youth looked even more confused than when she’d spoken of the Black Court, “Miss, I’m not glamoured at all. I beg your pardon, but how do you know of any of this? You are a human girl and yet you speak of The Black Court and glamours and you know of King Finn. You cannot be one of the Folk, either. You’re holding Cold Iron!”

Erana looked at her hunting knife and then back to the young man, “I...my friend told me that I had a heavy glamour cast on me...so that no one would find me. I suppose it makes me human enough to touch the knife.”

“So you are one of the folk?” asked the youth.

“I suppose I am,” Erana replied, finally acknowledging out loud that she was more than a human girl.

The young man looked her up and down, trying to get the measure of her, “Look, I captured a Gwyllion racing away from the Gate, saying that he’d seen a human girl come through it. I came to find her and escort her back to a place where she might be safe. Then I find her and she is...pardon me, but may I ask who you are?!”

Green eyes met blue and Erana decided to trust this man who wore her father’s crest, “...My name is Erana.”

It was as if she had spoken a magic word. The blue-haired youth stood there, looking as if he had seen a ghost. He could only stare at her, like she was the greatest revelation in an age. It made her feel self conscious. Being told that one was a Princess and being treated with such awe and reverence were two totally different things and the latter was not something she had been prepared for. Silence stretched out between them, disturbed only by the whispering of the wind through the high branches of the trees.

When finally the young man spoke again, his voice was trembling ever so slightly, “Erana? Princess Erana?”

“Yes,” she murmured, “What is your name?”

“I am Sir Merrick, your highness. I am your Changeling.”

“My what?” She asked, lost.

Merrick shook his head, “Not now and not here. Come with me. We’ll find shelter before the sun falls completely and then I will tell you everything.”

He held one hand out for her. Hoping that she was making the right choice, Erana retrieved her pack and came back to take the young man’s hand. It was warm against her in the way Tattershawl and Glashtyn’s hand not been. Not looking back this time, the two of them left the path for the woodlands.

~***~

Merrick led Erana through twisting paths that only he could see, over boulders and under trees. Their going was slow and careful, stopping now and then so that the young man could listen out to make sure they were not being followed. Once or twice he’d darted away from her to ensure that a sound he’d heard was just an animal, startling her every time, but he always returned to her side. Eventually, he’d jumped down off of a low cliff and brushed away a thick curtain of draping vines to reveal a cozy, empty cave. He’d ushered her inside quickly, looking around once more to make sure they were alone, before following her in. Once they were settled, he’d set up a small fire so that Erana could get warm and stood outside so she could change into one of the dry outfits from her pack.

Once she was dressed in a pair of roughspun trousers and a shirt, she called him back in and he sat across from her, his back against a cave wall so he could watch the cave entrance. He looked every bit as tired as she did, but there was such life in his eyes when he watched her. It was not in any way untoward. Instead it was full of unconcealed wonderment.

Erana brought her knees to her chest and hugged them for warmth, looking into the fire, “Sir Merrick? You said once we were safe you would tell me what you meant when you said you were my Changeling.”

Startled out of his reverie, Merrick blushed a bit and looked away, “Yes, I did. Well, did you see the writing on the Gate? When you came through?”

“Yes,” she remembered the words shifting into something she could read, “It said ‘Honour Always the Mirror’, but I didn’t understand why it said that. I didn’t see any mirror.”


“The Mirror is an…” Merrick cast about his brain for a way to describe it, “The Mirror is an idea. The Fair Kingdom and the Human World are like two sides of a coin with the Fair Kingdom as its head. What happens here is reflected in the other world, like ripples in a still pond. The words on the Gate are meant to remind us always of the balance we must not upset.”

“Yes, Tattershawl and Glashtyn said that magick in the Fair Kingdom does good things for the other world, but what does that have to do with us?”

Merrick held up the pointer fingers from each hand, holding them apart from one another, “The infant Princess of the great Faerie King was a being of deep magick and great importance to her realm. In order for her to leave and be hidden in the Human World, an exchange had to be made. A Changeling had to be sought.”

Erana looked over the young man across the fire from her, “...You?”

“Yes. The very same night the Princess was born, so too was born a Human Prince. When the King’s friends and ministers stole away into the night to hide her away in the Human World, the Prince was stolen to make the exchange even and keep the worlds in balance. The Prince was raised by the King’s side in her place and he grew to be a strong knight...a knight who served his Lord proudly...until the end,” Merrick told her the tale with great solemnity, his eyes growing faraway when he reached the end.

The princess looked upon him with green eyes full of compassion, “You were taken from your mother and father?”

“It was necessary, your highness. The Princess needed to live for the sake of the Fair Kingdom and the Fair Kingdom needed to stand for the good of all,” Merrick explained.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

Merrick regarded her gently, “There is no need. King Finn was good to me...as good as gold. The war made everyone’s lives hard, but he cared for me as if I were his own and I was...happy.”

“But...if you and I are both thirteen, then how do you look so much older than I?” Erana asked.

“Time is different here, my lady. While you aged as a mortal, the magick of the Fair Folk sank into my bones and I became a part of this world. I am closer to one and twenty than I am to thirteen. Incidentally, that magic has made a half-breed of me,” he smiled wryly and ran a gloved hand through his blue hair.


Erana nodded and fell silent, just thinking. In order for her to live, another family had lost their child...another kingdom had lost their heir. While she had grown up in relative happiness with very few cares, her Changeling had been brought up in a time of war, taking up sword and putting his life on the line before he was even a grown man. He had fought in the war now at twenty-one while she had spent gay evenings with her grandfather and her beloved Tattershawl. Yet, he had something that she didn’t….he had memories of her father.

She leaned closer to the fire and said in a small voice, “Sir Merrick? Tell me of my father? What was he like?”

A fond, painful smile crossed the young man’s face, “My lady, he the kindest man I ever knew. He would smile upon me and all I wanted was to make him proud. He never asked for loyalty, not from anyone, but he was fair and just and all longed to follow in his footsteps. He was patient and somehow, even with the world falling down around him, he found time for me.”

He stopped himself and met Erana’s eyes, “I’m sorry, my lady. I speak too personally of your father.”

“Seeing as King Finn was more or less your adopted father, I believe in this case you are allowed to speak personally of him...and you are permitted to call me by my name,” Erana said.

She stood and walked to his side, re-seating herself against him and resting her head on his shoulder to comfort him. She could feel the sadness and the exhaustion rolling off of him. He must have been there when her father fell on the field of battle...when the war was lost. There was something in her that was able to forget her own hurts and her own tiredness in the face of another’s suffering.

Keeping her voice very quiet, she said, “I accidentally took a nap earlier and you look as though you haven’t slept in a week, Merrick. You rest now and I’ll watch the entrance. We’ll trade later.”

Merrick looked down on her with such gratitude before closing his eyes that Erana would have gladly given up a thousand nights of sleep to see it again. It soothed her frazzled nerves to watch over the needs of another living being. The only reward she needed was the knowledge that she had brought them some solace and Merrick, poor Merrick, had needed kindness more than any other being she’d ever met.

And so her first act as Princess of the Fair Folk was nothing more than to take first watch.

It was exactly what was needed.

[Sir Milo Quartermass]

It was exactly what was needed.



CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Black Court

An impossibly journey’s worth of miles away from where Erana and her more-or-less adopted brother weathered the long night, Black Brannus reclined impatiently upon his stolen throne like an indolent cat.

Even half concealed in shadow, he was still an intimidatingly sized man, all massive shoulders, long limbs corded with muscle and a savage bearing. He had a strong jaw covered in a short, rough black beard and eyes that flashed dark and dangerous against the low light. His powerful fingers curled and uncurled against the wood of the throne, sending the ancient structure creaking and groaning at the strain. His forearms bunched and released at odd intervals while he fought to control his most unpleasant urges. Yet he gave the outward appearance of utter calm, one leg bent at the knee and the other allowed to recline full out in front of him, lending him the facade of lazy ease.

Two days ago he had won his too-long war, wrested the kingdom from his brother’s cold hands and seized the Wild Hunt for himself. Nigh on a day and a half ago (in the skewed time that the Human animals kept for themselves), he had sent the Hunt forth into the world beyond to seek out his brother’s last living heir and fetch her back here that he might deal with her personally. He had also seen to it that they would dispense with the traitor Glashtyn, that hateful snake in his bosom who had thought he could turn tail and bite at his throat at the very last moment. If his first act as King of the Fair Kingdom was to snuff out the Trickster, then he would be only too glad.

He had heard no word from the Hunt or his newly minted spies yet. It was driving him to distraction. Surely one little girl, a changeling woman and her injured brother would not be enough to keep the Hunt so very long away from their borders? He’d grant that the woman, Tattershawl, had always been more wily than he liked and it was possible that she’d managed to gain some ground with the Princess before the Hunt caught her and dealt with her. Still, he didn’t give them much of a chance. Tattershawl was a bleeding heart just like the King she had served and she would not leave behind a wounded sibling. Glashtyn would slow her down and they would fall.

Brannus diverted himself from his concerns, looking out over his Black Court with a heady mixture of pride and narrowly concealed disgust.

“Is it not everything you had hoped for all these years?” asked a voice at his left shoulder.

Imprisoned in a weighty metal mockery of a birdcage was a faerie man. His long ash-brown hair, once lustrous, was tangled and hung lank across his shoulders and forehead. There was a knick in one of his leaf-shaped ears and his chestnut coloured eyes were clouded with exhaustion and denied pain. His double-breasted jerkin of mahogany leather was missing buttons, stained with things he dared not name and his moss-hued kilt was torn raggedly in places. A small rack of young buck’s antlers had once curled elegantly from behind his pointed ears, but now one of them was missing and the other was cracked. He was a ruined vision of a handsome man...of a friend that Brannus had once prized highly.

Keeping his face carefully neutral, the Black King leaned over the left arm of his throne, considering the man, “The Treeshadow speaks.”

“Aye, so I do,” replied the other man wearily.

Brannus reached out and pinched cruelly, roughly at the short bristles of the man’s scruff, “The Treeshadow didn’t question the wisdom of speaking.”

The other man hissed in pain at the twisting, pinching sensation, speaking through gritted teeth, “There was a time when you welcomed my insight.”

“That time was many years ago, Frod, before you chose that fool Finn and forced me to resort to this,” Brannus said, gesturing once again to his new Court.

In halls that had once been filled with the radiant light of eternal spring there now cavorted forms of untold horror. Wicked monsters of all sizes and shapes slithered and scurried and stomped across the polished floor studded with pieces of rain-soft glass that had been salvaged from the sea after years of smoothing submerged beneath the waves. The walls of the great Royal Hall had been alive once, actually made of the weaving heart of a tree, and once beautiful golden flowers and grown from crafted sconces on the walls. They had given off glorious light and had stood in the place of torchlight. Now they were wilting and dying, turning the Hall sickly in their failing glow. Goblins, Redcaps, Trolls and Glastigs mixed with Kelpies and Water Witches. Whether they had always been wicked or had simply chosen Brannus long ago, they were all one twisted kin now.

“If only you and the others had cared to lend an ear, I would not have had to seek elsewhere for support of my great and noble cause. Then our home would not have been reduced to a playground for the lesser Folk,” sneered the King.

“Great and noble cause?” scoffed Frod lowly, “What? Ending Spring, killing your brother, casting aside all those who had once called you friend and dishonouring the Mirror? All so you might persuade a few Humans to bend a knee.”

Brannus pushed him back so hard by his chin that Frod’s back slammed against the cage painfully.

The King spoke again, his voice deep and dark as midnight, “Their world is given peace and plenty by our hands. It was not so much to simply ask that we make our presence known openly that they might thank us for our work and give us tithings. It was not so much to give our own people the freedom to move as they willed. My brother was simply too afraid to break with tired, old tradition and you were all too enamoured of him to attempt what he would not. Imagine how glorious our grand revolution would have been had we remained together and I had not been reduced to allying myself with this...rabble.”

Frod gave in to his weariness and let his chin dip to his chest, “Yet now your brother, who loved you better than any, is dead. You have sent the Wild Hunt, a force meant to guard the law and protect the peace, to murder two of your oldest friends.”

“Tattershawl made her choice, same as you did. Glashtyn was a traitor and I do hope he feels torment before he goes. As for Finn, I am merciful...his death was quick and he will be joined by his beloved daughter soon enough,” Brannus replied airily while slipping full back into his throne.

The Treeshadow’s eyes, which had been slowly drooping, popped open as he was reminded of the girl who had been as good as his grand-daughter. How had he ever allowed himself to forget for even the barest of moments that his old friend’s madness wasn’t just confined to the destruction of his old friends. Erana. Oh dear, sweet, kind little Erana! Erana who was probably still waiting for him obediently by the fireside...if the Wild Hunt hadn’t chased her down already. He rose quickly to his knees (the tallest he could get in his cramped cage) and tried desperately to appeal to whatever was left of the man who had once been his dearest friend in all the world.

“Brannus, please! She’s your niece...your own flesh and blood. She is no threat to you...only thirteen years old and glamoured so deeply that she will never find her way here on her own.”

The Black King turned serpentine-flat eyes on Frod, “I gambled once on family and lost. I shall not repeat that mistake. You were once a Warden of these lands. You knew all too well that when a threat rose, it was wisest to follow it to its source and destroy it utterly down to its very roots so that it may never rise to trouble you again. It was part of why I was so fond of you. You did what needed to be done.”

“She is a child...your own brother’s child!” Frod protested, pressing close to the bars.

“Living fifteen years in the world beyond as an old man has addled you...turned you soft,” Brannus said sadly, placing a hand beneath his old friend’s chin condescendingly.


From some hidden crevice in the Royal Hall’s construction, an ugly little creature slithered silently. It was one of the Gwyllions, spidery-limbed and all yellow-white like milk left too long in the pale. The Watcher crept unnoticed through the writhing mass of monsters on the main floor of the Hall and made its way quickly up to the Throne of the Black King. Preferring not to be seen, it moved around behind the throne and dug its grotesquely long fingers into the woven wood, climbing up so that it could peep over the back. Brannus, aware of it, cocked one ear to the creature so he could hear it speak over the din.

“Our Brother-at-the-Gate reports that the Hunt has not returned. Our Brother-from-Beneath-the-Stones reports that our Brother-at-the-Gate said to him that he saw a young girl...a human girl...come through instead. Our Brother-from-the-Trees reports that Our Brother-at-the-Gate was threatened by Sir Merrick, the Changeling,” the little beast said in the whispering tones of its people.

“Merrick is alive?” Frod asked from his cage, cheered by even a little scrap of good news.

The Gwyllion cast the captive a baleful glance and did not intend to answer, but Brannus waved one hand, “Answer him.”

“He is living, yes,” the creature whispered.

The Black King’s eyes narrowed dangerously, “Wounded, mortally or otherwise?”

“Scratches and scrapes at most. Clothes perhaps hid more.”

There was a moment of drawn-out silence while Brannus considered his options. He was still as a statue, not even a muscle twitching to prove that he had not become a gargoyle, doomed to haunt his own Hall. Even with the unholy din rising from the horde celebrating their awful victory on the main floor of the Hall, the Watcher, the King and the Prisoner were far removed. It was as if a curtain separated them from the dark revelry below.

At last, the King nodded and leaned towards the Gwyllion ever so slightly, “Go. Spread the word among your Brothers that the Changeling and the Girl are to be found and observed. Inform all those between them and the Palace that they are to do whatever can be done to impede them. Trap them, enchant them, eat them, for all I care.”

The Watcher was there and then gone from one blink to the next, the spot he had occupied behind the throne suddenly bare as if it had never been there.

Turning a merciless smirk on his old friend, Brannus murmured, “You underestimated what that girl of yours was capable of. I shall not do the same.”


CHAPTER TWELVE
To the Uncertain Future

The night Erana spent in the cave with Merrick had been long and decidedly unrestful.

She had elected to take first watch so that the exhausted young soldier could get some rest after his long ordeal. Unfortunately, she’d only realized after he’d fallen asleep that she had no way to keep the time. On the farm, it was easier to tell. She knew what birds sang when the morning was drawing close and what animals scurried about when the night was deepening. In this forest, same as the one she had passed through to reach the Thorn Gate, there didn’t seem to be any animals to tell by. If a bird did dare to sing, it wasn’t one she recognized and it offered her no help. It bothered her because she didn’t want to risk waking her companion up too soon, but she also didn’t wish to miss sleep herself and be completely useless the next day.

In the end she settled on making a deal with herself. Once the small fire they had built was nothing but embers, she would wake the knight at her side. She would stay awake long enough for one of them to go out and collect more wood to stoke it again and then it would be his turn to watch.

Her turn as guard had been nerve-wracking and lonely. Outside their cave, she kept hearing peculiar noises after night fell. Even though birds rarely bothered to sing in the faerie wood, certain other things weren’t discouraged from making their presence known. Things had hissed and slithered and scuttled through the leaves. At one point in the night, she was sure she’d even heard screams echoing from far away. She watched the door to their cave intently, a cold chill down her spine at every moment while she visualized whatever was slithering out there making its way in here.

At last the fire had died down until the embers themselves flickered mutinously and Erana had roused Merrick. She never actually knew if he’d gotten enough sleep since he was so appreciative that she’d let him sleep at all. He’d insisted on taking over the watch and darted out to gather more wood for them. When he returned, he’d re-made the fire and sat, staring at the door while the princess drifted into uneasy dreams at his side, unwilling to lie further off. She felt safe with the knight watching the door at least.

She only woke when a warm hand touched her shoulder and for a moment she was confused, unable to figure out who it was. The fingers on the hand were too short-fingered to be either Tattershawl or Glashtyn, too smooth and strong to be Grandfather. When she peeped open her eyes she realized that it was Merrick and the events of the previous day after she ran through the Thorn Gate came rushing back to her. The Princess sighed and sat up.

Merrick’s voice was kind, “Forgive me for waking you. It’s morning and we need to make some headway on our journey.”

“Journey?” asked Erana, baffled.

Her knight turned his honest sapphire gaze on her, “Well, yes. You’ve returned now to reclaim your throne, right? The only way you can do that is if we arrive at the Ancestor Tree by week’s end. We’ve got quite a trek ahead of us.”

“How did you know I came to take the throne?” she asked curiously, just watching him.

“The timing. The long lost princess of the Fair Folk returns just as the war for the Kingdom is lost? You have to have come to ascend the throne on the Full Moon to claim the Wild Magick before your uncle does,” replied Merrick, matter-of-factly as he went about snuffing the remains of their fire.

Erana hadn’t budged, “But we can’t leave yet.”

“What? Whyever not?” queried her adopted brother.

“Tattershawl and Glashtyn haven’t found me yet. I have to wait for them. They said they’d meet me on the other side of the Thorn Gate and they’ve not made it yet,” Erana said.

Merrick’s spine straightened like a startled cat, “Glashtyn?! Glashtyn the traitor? You’re friends with the Trickster?”

The princess felt herself getting offended on Glashtyn’s behalf, “Now, see here! Glashtyn is a good, brave man. He flew all the way to find me just so that he could warn us about what was happening. He fought the Wild Hunt for me even while he was already injured!”

“He turned on King Finn and served Brannus the Black for years! He became the Black King’s lackey the very night Queen Ceridwen was slain,” argued Merrick hotly.

Erana adopted a wider stance and drew herself up to her full height. Her glass-green eyes blazed and she fisted her hands at her sides. Even at thirteen years old, she commanded quite a presence and Merrick quickly fell silent, watching her warily. The princess squared her shoulders and lifted her chin without even thinking about it, so enraged was she on her friend’s behalf.

“Glashtyn only served Brannus because he was a spy. King Finn asked him to go over to the Black King and pretend like he was a traitor so he could get information to help in the war! He was injured when he was caught selling secrets to grand -....to Frod,” She said, sure and strong.

Merrick was humbled by her anger on the behalf of the other man, “...I did not know.”

“Probably for good reason, too,” Erana huffed.
The Knight rubbed at the back of his neck, embarrassed, “Princess, forgive me...what I said was untoward and unbecoming a knight.”

He sounded so sincere that a bit of Erana’s righteous anger slipped away from her. Her shoulders relaxed and the hard line of her rosebud lips softened. The fire in her eyes cooled and she considered her shame-faced adopted brother. He was truly sorry now that he knew the truth of it...and he had only been angry because he’d truly loved King Finn, her father. Of course he would be enraged with anyone who had betrayed the kind man who had raised him. He’d been through a very long, hard ordeal and she could understand.

She was kinder when she spoke again, “I forgive you. You didn’t mean to be rude. Do you understand why we must wait?”

It was Merrick’s turn to sigh now and he looked away, “Erana...we can’t. Time is so short as it is...and the path is sure to be full of traps. We can’t afford to lose an instant.”

Erana faltered, “But...what if we leave and they can’t find me?”

Merrick paused, his gaze still turned away from the Princess. He rested one hand over his sword, fingers tightening reflexively around the pommel while he fretted about what to say. She had mentioned that Glashtyn was fighting the Wild Hunt with Tattershawl and Merrick knew too well how effective the King’s private hunters could be. Finn had been in control of them until very recently and their successes far outweighed their failures. The odds that her friends even still lived were few, but how in all the world could he possibly tell her that? It would be too cruel.

At last he reasoned, “They know you are destined for the Ancestor Tree, yes? Well, the safe paths left there are few and far in between. They’ll catch up to us, Glashtyn and Tattershawl are legendary after all, or they’ll meet us when we arrive.”

“Do you think so?” the Princess asked, face radiating innocence.

In his heart, Merrick told his very first lie, “...I know it to be true.”

A lie told in kindness was still kindness, right?

~***~

With that decided, the Princess and the Knight had collected up their few belongings and set out upon the road. High above, the sun was shining, but it had a thin, watery look about it. Erana squinted up at it, following behind Merrick, and wondered why it looked sick. All around them, the trees rustled and whispered, their green leaves dancing. When she looked hard, Erana could see that they weren’t all green...not anymore. At the edges of many of them, reds and browns and golds had begun to set in.

“It looks like Autumn is coming,” she said.

Merrick’s sounded unhappy when he replied, “That’s a problem.”

“What? Why? Doesn’t Autumn happen everywhere?” the Princess asked.

“Not here, it doesn’t. This is the land of Eternal Spring. Things are always green and growing here and it is that special magic that keeps the Human Realm alive even when Winter descends on your lands,” the knight explained, “That Autumn is coming here means very bad things. It means that the magic of life is waning...or being perverted.”

“But what happens to the Human Realm if the magic leaves the Fair Kingdom?” there was so little Erana knew…

“Then everyone suffers,” the knight said, his jaw tight, “Which is why we must make haste to overthrow Brannus.”

“Then tell me what we must do,” Erana said.

“First we must descend from the Mawcrags...the mountains we are in now. At the bottom are the Gloaming Caves. We must be very careful there, for many dark creatures have settled there since the beginning of the war. They used to stay on the other side of the Mawcrags, but they grew bold when Brannus staged his coup,” Merrick explained.

He continued, “After that, there is a road leading through the Plains. We will have to take care not to be seen, but there are villages there where we can take shelter. After that, we find the River Dream and follow its banks into the Deepwood and eventually to Llyn Arian. On an island at the center of the Llyn, we will find the Ancestor Tree...and Brannus the Black.”

“A tree? Shouldn’t we be looking for a palace?” his companion asked.

Merrick smiled, “The Ancestor Tree is the palace. It was the very first thing ever to grow in this world...the first thing to take shape out of the Wild Magick. From the tree was born the very first Dryad, a tree spirit, and she was the first Queen. Her name was Frenhines and she took hold of the Wild Magick and sculpted the rest of the realm around it...and the reigns to the Realm have been passed down through her bloodlines ever since.”

“So...my ancestor?”

“Just so!” the knight replied.

“There is so much I have yet to learn,” the Princess said, stepping carefully over a rock in the path.

“Well, our journey will be easy going for at least an hour more. Why not ask me something and I will answer? I had to learn all of this long ago when I was brought here,” Merrick said lightly.

Erana thought about it for a moment before she said, “Glamour. I keep hearing that word and...I know I have one on me...and I know that people use it to change the way they look...but what is it?”

“The Fair Folk can’t use it to change the way they look. They can use it to change the way they look to other people. Think of it as pulling on a very, very convincing disguise. It’s a sort of magick that is very useful, but it has its limitations. For instance, a faerie couldn’t use a glamour if you were staring at them while they did it...it’s a magick that works on belief and you’d never believe it if you saw them use the trick,” the knight explained as they walked along.

He looked over at her, “And, in some cases, if it’s cast too strong, it becomes truth. Like you. You’ve got a powerful glamour on you to look human...but it’s so strong that it’s made you a human until someone takes it off.”

“Well that all sounds complicated,” Erana said.

Merrick couldn’t help a little laugh, “Magick can be. Now come on, ask me something else.”

Erana smiled up at him and the two chatted quietly all the way down the mountain.









CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Gloaming Caves


Further down the mountainside, at the root of the Mawcrags, the ground looked like it had long ago been boiled and then frozen. The trees cleared away and even the grass wouldn’t grow, but the round backs of stone burrows and caves rose up out of the earth. Only the toughest of heather could even take root in this unforgiving landscape. There was no water to be seen and no animals scurried around the bubbles of stone. It was an inhospitable landscape, yet there were dark, terrible signs that something lived down there in the dark. Crude markings were etched into the stone, coloured with smears of stuff that were better left unnamed.

Merrick had halted their forward march as they reached the treeline overlooking the ugly blemish of land.

He crouched down behind a very large tree and sat as still as a hunting cat, his thin, muscled body leaned forward intently. He didn’t seem to blink as he stared hard at the caves, his nose twitching every once in awhile as if he were seeking a scent. For a moment, Erana was concerned that he had turned into a particularly life-like statue until he held out a hand to her to beckon her forward. She came to kneel at his side and he pointed down to the boiled land.

“The Gloaming Caves. The only way to the road is through there.”

“Should we make a run for it?” Erana asked, concerned.

He shook his head, his silky blue hair shifting slightly as he did so, “Never run unless you’re being chased. It draws their attention. We’re going to have to go slowly and stay on our guard.”

“But if we were very quick, they’d never even know we were there…”

“It doesn’t work that way. The Fair Folk...and the monsters who live with them...live very, very long lives. They’re used to moving at a slower pace, so except in the very young, running draws their attention for good or for ill. Also? Whatever lives down there would feel the vibrations of our feet if we ran,” Merrick whispered, “We must go slowly and try to walk lightly.”

“They’re like spiders…” she shivered.

“Yes, just like,” agreed the knight, “Are you ready to try?”

Erana took a deep breath, “I must be ready.”

Merrick spared her a bolstering smile, “I’ll be by your side the whole time...and so will your knife. We can do this.”

The princess smiled appreciatively and slowly, carefully, the two of them slipped out from the cover that the trees provided them. Erana’s breath caught in her throat as the soft foliage that carpeted the forest floor thinned out over the stone and there was nothing left to muffle their footsteps. She prayed for delicacy as she and Merrick took their first steps onto the rocky terrain. He seemed more sure than her, but then again, he’d had to travel over this path to even reach the Mawcrags where he met her. He was a trained warrior and she, princess or no, was a farm girl.

Suddenly, a hand reached out for hers and she looked up to find the blue-eyed knight still smiling at her, offering her a hand. She smiled back and wrapped her pale fingers around his larger ones, using his grip to steady herself. It gave her confidence and she dared to take another step and then another until both of them were moving at a carefully quick pace. She began to breathe easier even though neither of them dared speak for fear of drawing out whatever was dwelling down there in the darkness.

It was still agonizing going, though. She looked ahead of them and it seemed like the end of the Gloaming Caves was an eternity away. She felt prickles all up and down the back of her neck once they were completely surrounded by the stone burrows and it was no longer an option to run back to the safety of the trees if something went wrong. It made Erana feel like she was adrift in an unfriendly sea...too far from shore to turn back and no mooring in sight. She could understand why this was a dangerous place...the worry of it all made her want to run for the plains beyond, even though that would certainly be the thing to doom them both.

Something squelched beneath her boot and Erana looked down, unwillingly. Beneath her shoe was a hank of shredded clothing, turned dark with some sort of liquid. She turned her foot to the side and was shocked to see it stained with red. She very nearly cried out in shock before she remembered herself and clapped a hand quickly over her mouth. The only sound that escaped was a whispery little whimper that died on the air before it ever reached the caves.

Merrick spared a moment to look back at the Princess and ensure that she was okay. Strong girl that she was, Erana drew in a deep breath and nodded at him to continue. The faster they got through the Gloaming Caves, the faster they would be safe. She took another shaky step, taking care not to look down at the ominous red stain on the bottom of her boot. Her glass-green eyes were trained on the horizon, her jaw stubbornly set. Ahead of her, Merrick moved lightly and quietly across the cracked, dingy stone.

Little did either of them know that the insidious network of Gwyllion spies already stretched clear to Brannus’s seat of power and back. While they had slept, more or less peaceful and secure in their little hidden cave, the agents of the Black King had spread his message throughout the land like wildfire: “Impede them, entrap them, enchant them, eat them”. This was the word of the King of the land and his word was law. No creature of the Black Court was willing to break the law.

To raise the Princess’s spirits, Merrick waved out a signal that seemed to say, “Over that ridge it gets easier.”

On feet almost as light as a faerie’s, the Changeling knight darted a little bit ahead though he dared not run. He hoped to see that the path was clear so that he and Erana could make quick work of escaping the dangers of the Gloaming Caves. Not even a pebble stirred underfoot as he went, peering up over the ridge. He should have seen the route that would begin to wend away into the fields. What he saw instead chilled his blood all the way from his toes to his heart.

Bones.

In a solid wall as high as his shoulders were bones of every size and shape. Rib bones locked in with backbones, little finger bones poked out from hip bones and here and there, leering skulls grinned out at him, moulded and grey from years beneath the earth. It was only a loose collection and he would have been able to fight over or through it, but not without effort and not without waking every monster in every cave throughout the whole forsaken valley. What was worse was what such a wall could possibly mean. It looked as though every single burrow had vomited out its horde of spoils all at once...deliberate and unmistakable.

The beasts of the Gloaming Caves knew they were coming.

Merrick looked sharply down at his feet when he felt the stones trembling beneath his boots. There was no more time. They had been lured into a trap like flies into a spider’s web. Behind him, he heard Erana cry out sharply and he turned in time to see a knobbly, gnarled hand with curving yellow claws reach out of its whole to wrap around her ankle. It gave a sharp tug, trying to yank her down into the abyss below and her knight shouted, trying to throw himself to her rescue.

He was stopped when a large rock whizzed by his head close enough to clip him, sending him sprawling backwards. He wasn’t badly injured, but it was enough to stun him and take him off his feet, which was all the creatures needed. He felt something terrible grip his dark blue hair and start to drag him backwards, another one of the villains grabbing at his arm when he reached for his sword. Merrick struggled for all he was worth, refusing to go down without a fight...not when he had already survived a war and certainly not when his Princess needed him!

Suddenly, hissing squeals filled the air and the painful pulling was gone from his hair. A pretty little freckled face peered at him upside-down from above. It was Princess Erana, her knife of Cold Iron gripped in her hand. Her brown hair fluttered in the breeze, a smudge of something dark against one cheek. Merrick could see King Finn shining through the determination in those big green eyes.

“Get up, quickly!” she said, sounding out of breath, “I think my knife scared them, but the bullies are going to try again. They look hungry…”

Merrick quickly pulled himself to his feet and drew his sword, looking out over the slavering horde that churned behind them, blocking their only way back. They had no choice but to go forward now, up and over the wall of bones. At his feet, one of the devils that had held him lay unmoving, the others long gone. Erana had done that for him.

The knight said, “A princess who saves her own knight. Truly, Erana, you are a wonder. Thank you.”

“What do we do now?” replied his lady, taking a slash at a monster who grew too bold.

It skittered back, gibbering, and Merrick braced himself, “We have no choice but to scale the wall. Once we clear it, we can run for the plains. They won’t follow us there. These beasts are cowards at heart.”

“They’ll chase us the moment we turn our backs, won’t they?” asked Erana, taking a careful step back.

“Undoubtedly,” responded Merrick.

“We will have to run very fast, won’t we?” the princess queried again.

“Faster than we ever have before,” replied her knight.

Like waves ebbing and flowing on the seashore, the creatures of the Gloaming Caves were gathering themselves into a huge mass, preparing to crash upon their prey (Cold Iron or no). It was a mob of yellowed teeth, twisting claws, crooked legs and grabbing fingers. Eyes the colour of old corn followed their every movement, glinting hungrily under the morning sun. Both Erana and Merrick tensed, waiting for just the right moment…

“GO!” shouted Merrick and they both turned, whisking away desperately for the wall.

Behind them, they could hear the thunderous thump of the entire gang taking off at once on their heels. They could practically feel the hot breath of a thousand predators on the backs of their necks. Erana imagined she could feel thick claws grabbing at her dress, trying to haul her back and her heart thumped wildly in her chest. Beside her, Merrick ran as if he had the North Wind itself strapped to his feet. The ground beneath them rumbled with the frantic footfalls of the voracious pack trying to hunt them down.

A hand clutched the hem of Erana’s traveling cloak just as Merrick reached the wall. The princess slashed at it with her knife, calling to the knight when she realized he’d stopped to come back for her. No! She would not allow it! She was already missing two of her friends because she had let them stay behind to protect her. She hadn’t had a choice then, but she certainly had one now. The princess would not see another one of her dear companions left behind on her account. They were both getting out of this!

“You go first! Go, please! They are at least a little bit afraid of Cold Iron, so I can buy a little time for you!”

Merrick yelled, “I won’t leave you behind!”

“Then don’t!” the young girl said, holding her knife’s blade out like a ward, “Just keep going and do not stop for me!”

With sound of displeasure, Merrick obeyed the order of the Princess and launched himself nimbly onto the wall. The pack of monsters snarled, longing to yank him down and eat him up as they had surely done so many other unwary travelers, but every time one of them tried to make a move, Erana’s blade flashed and they all fell back. Like true bullies, they were afraid to act when they were up against someone of equal strength. It wouldn’t be long before the power of numbers won out again, but for now, it was enough.

Once Merrick reached the top of the wall, he held a hand down, “Erana! You too!”

A final warning flash of her blade and the girl turned, launching herself at the ghastly wall of bones. She reached wildly for Merrick’s gloved hand and nearly missed, but he caught her at the last minute. Her booted feet scrabbled against a loose leg bone and she began to slip, falling back towards certain doom. The young man, however, would not let her fall, tugging hard until she had her footing once again and was able to climb up to him

They stood together atop the grisly heap, sparing only a moment to collect themselves before they were both jumping down, running the rest of the way out of the Gloaming Caves. They ran until they no longer felt the unforgiving stone beneath their feet. They ran until they could hardly breathe any longer. They ran until, at long last, Erana gave out and sprawled to the ground, trying to catch her breath and staring up at the sky, listening for the footfalls of monsters behind them.

She didn’t hear anything.

Nothing but the soft sigh of the wind, the rustle of grass all around her and, much to her surprise, Merrick’s genuine, soft laughter.

Erana sat up a little and realized that they’d made it all the way to the plains and, as Merrick had said, the pack had not dared to follow. She looked up to see the knight leaning on his knees, smiling happily and breathing deeply, tall green grass brushing against his nose as he doubled over. Why on earth was he laughing? They had very nearly been eaten alive!

He looked at her, sapphire eyes twinkling like gemstones, “You were magnificent! Never have I seen such courage! To think that you not only saved me, but were willing to face down all of those creatures on my behalf.”

Unused to such high praise, Erana just huffed, “Well, what was I meant to do? You were going to do something silly like tell me to run and save myself. It just won’t do. We make it together or not at all. Friends must stand together. Understood?”

Taking a deep breath of the unnatural Autumn air, Merrick nodded, his smile softening, “Understood.”