changeling chronicles 03 - faerie realm (21 page)

But the vow claimed my every step. I ran, cursing under my breath, Vance on my heels.
Dammit.

“Come closer, little human,” her voice crooned. “I invoke the vow. You agreed to find the talisman. You agreed to bring it to Faerie. With your help, and the talisman’s strength at full power, I will claim your magic as mine.”

Shit. Shit. That’s why she made the vow. With the veil back to normal, the only person in this realm capable of passing through to Faerie… was me.

“I won’t.”

Pain racked my body, like tiny needles underneath my skin.
Oh. Oh god, no.
If I fought the vow, I’d die. Think, Ivy. There must be a way around it. A second spasm of pain went through my limbs, and it took everything I had to keep standing.

“You cannot beat me in your own realm. With your help, now all the pieces are in place, the god’s power will be mine, Ivy Lane.”

I stopped dead. The vow wrenched at me and nearly pulled me off my feet.

“Gods,” I whispered.

The words of Frank the necromancer ghost replayed in my ears:
the Grey Vale… a piece of their world torn away by the magic of the ancient Sidhe when they exiled their gods.”

The life-drinker.

“Isn’t the god’s power yours already?” I asked loudly. Screw it—she already knew. “The life-drinker. You played on a shifter legend, too. Right? You had Vance’s uncle digging up the ground.”

“Part of the god is contained within the mortal realm.” Her voice sounded louder, like she stood right next to me. “The other part, in Death. But to access it, I need the power of Summer and Winter combined.” She appeared in front of me and tapped her sword’s hilt. “The power of a Lord of Summer and a Lord of Winter. The extent of
your
ability isn’t accessible here in this realm.”

“You’re dragging me to Faerie so you can kill me and claim my power?” The ground tilted under my feet, and another set of needles jabbed underneath my skin. “Uh, no way. I’ll send you to Death first. You’re in this realm.” I raised Irene. “You’re mortal.”

I ran at her. She disappeared again, the vow spinning me on my feet. Taloned hands latched onto my arms, squeezing hard. I wrenched my sword hand free, and another hand rested on top of mine.

Too late.

Grey smoke thickened and rose, obscuring the world. Frank the necromancer’s face flashed past. I reached out, but my arms refused to cooperate. The Lady held me captive by the vow.

But if I backed out, I’d lose my chance to kill her.

The Lady’s hand bit into mine, a bizarre sensation when I couldn’t even
see
her. She had no spirit, and couldn’t materialise in Death.

A tunnel of light bloomed through the grey space in front of me, alighting the path to a forest I knew as well as my own world.

My magic swirled to life, bright, agitated, drawn towards the gap. In my mind, paths traced through forested glades, past a castle tall as the sky with terror behind every arrow slit window.
No. Not there.

My sword hand moved back, pulled by the person who held it. Not her. Vance—

The Lady screamed. Magic flared from every inch of me, I broke free, and I crashed to the ground with the impact of a falling stone.

Branches formed a canopy overhead, interlocking and reducing the sunlight to faint silvery beams. A path stretched on ahead, seeming to have no end.

I rolled over, wincing at the pain in my arm where the Lady’s talons had gripped me. But she wasn’t here.

Someone else lay beside me. Vance sat up slowly, brushing leaves from his coat, eyes wide open in shock. Then it hit me.

“Shit,” I whispered. “I’m sorry, Vance. I brought us to Faerie.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I shook my head, the disembodied sensation vanishing and my body protesting at the impact of hitting the ground. Irene lay across my lap. My head swam, and the last threads of grey smoke dissipated around us. That was one hell of a rough landing.

Vance pushed to his knees. “Ivy?” he said, staring at his own blade like it was a foreign object.

“Shit,” I whispered again. “I didn’t mean—”

I’d meant to follow her, whichever realm I ended up in. I hadn’t meant to bring Vance with me. Nor lose our enemy. When I’d forced her to let go, I didn’t realise she’d disappear to god-knows-where.

“This is… the Grey Vale?” Vance leaned over me. “You’re bleeding. Did you bring a healing spell?”

“There’s one in my pocket.” I shook my head, dazed. “Crap. Can’t you displace objects from one realm to another?”

“No,” he said quietly, sounding a little stunned. “I can’t sense my ability at all.”

Crap. Was this realm mage-proof?

I stood. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Did you see where the Lady of the Tree might have landed?”

I’d planned to kill her. She’d come after me, one way or another. With a talisman like the one she had, she was at an advantage even in the realm which gave my magic its power.

“I didn’t see her. Do you recognise where we are?” he asked.

“This place all looks the same.” I shook my head again. “Shit. I didn’t know I’d bring you with me. Pretty sure I’m not meant to do that.” Twin shallow cuts marked the back of my knuckles. I frowned, willing my magic to flare up.

The blue glow obliged, encasing my hand. A tingling sensation followed, and the cuts retracted, disappearing entirely.

“Damn,” I said. “Guess it works on command now.”

“You can heal yourself?”

I nodded. My veins sung with fresh energy, and the light grew brighter than ever. Vance squinted at me, forehead scrunching up. “Am I supposed to be able to see your magic?”

“No. Maybe if I want you to? You can see most things in this realm. Just not magic or faerie glamours, usually.”

Unfortunately, a significant number of the creatures living here used glamours to sneak up on unsuspecting humans.

“So if you want me to see your magic, I can?”

“I didn’t think about it,” I said honestly. “I can’t use glamours. That wasn’t in Avakis’s skillset. Maybe because he stole this magic from someone else. Not many creatures actually have true magic here. It’s stripped from them when they’re exiled.”

“Like the Chief said.” He turned his sword over in his hands. “The Lady of the Tree must be somewhere here. We need to kill her, and ideally destroy the talisman.”

“Not sure a talisman
can
be destroyed,” I said. “If I killed her, I might be able to claim it, but every faerie in both realms would come after me then. I’d rather not be the sole guardian of an object that might cause the apocalypse.”

A skittering sound in the undergrowth made me lay a hand on Irene’s hilt. Vance spun to face the source of the noise, anger flashing across his face.

Shadows passed by. I waved my sword at them. “Faerie cats. They’re okay. They don’t bite, but they try to lure you off the path. Actually, there are a whole bunch of creatures here which do that.”

Vance looked incredibly displeased. “We can’t stay here. Doesn’t time pass quicker in this realm than in ours?”

Shit. “Yeah, it does. But this place doesn’t really go by logic. This path, for instance.” I indicated the sweeping, leaf-strewn ground. “It looks more or less the same, but leads somewhere different every time I come here. Supposedly it shapes itself according to the thoughts of the person following it. Not sure why it decided to split us up from the Lady when we landed. Maybe she had a specific place she wanted to find.” Like an evil villain’s lair.

We were completed screwed if we couldn’t find her. Not least because I wasn’t entirely sure I could get us both home. I’d never brought another person along for the ride before.

Vance moved forward. “So she might be anywhere.”

“Take your pick. Left or right. If she wants us to find her, we’ll find her.”

Vance hissed between his teeth. “Left.”

Damn. He hated this place. I didn’t blame him in the slightest.

“You—you really can’t use your ability here?”

He scowled. “No. Everything must be protected against mage abilities. Maybe because it’s created by faerie magic itself.”

“Everything? Even us?”

“I could probably move us, but I can’t transport myself or anyone else to a place I haven’t been to before.”

“Oh.” Crap. I hadn’t reckoned on the Mage Lord’s powers being totally cut off. Sure, I had my blade
and
my magic was at full power, but I hadn’t wanted to drag Vance into a realm that was deadly to most humans. Maybe even a part shifter Mage Lord.

Right. I’m staying right next to him until we find the blasted Lady of the Tree.
Or rather, the next Lady of the Grey Vale. Ugh.

With more confidence than I felt, I took the lead down the path. It was maybe two metres wide, strewn with leaves dappled silver by the light filtering through the canopy. I wasn’t sure if this realm had a real sun or moon or if this whole setup was an elaborate illusion. Maybe. When it came to Faerie, anything could become real.

Magic swirled around my hands, bright as starlight, humming through my bones. In Faerie, my magic was strongest. It wanted to be here.

Everywhere, except near Irene’s blade. I’d never noticed my magic avoiding the iron back in our own realm, but maybe there wasn’t enough magic there to make a difference. When I’d killed Velkas, I’d had to let go of my blade to deal the fatal blow with magic.

And the Lady had all but said she could beat iron…

The scenery didn’t change. We might as well have been walking in circles, though we kept going in a straight line the whole time. Shifting shadows accompanied us. Faerie cats, sensing interlopers on the path, potential humans to lure to their deaths. When one slipped in front of us, shadowy fur standing on end, I waved Irene at it. The shadow ran away.

Before us, the path opened up into a clearing where there hadn’t been one before. It grew wider and wider, trees moving out of the way like they possessed a life of their own. I glared. No other path remained. We’d have to walk towards it and hope nobody had set a trap.

Yeah, right.
The first general rule of Faerie was: don’t touch anything. When I’d last been here, I’d broken that rule within five seconds when I’d taken Lord Avakis’s hand. I’d sealed my own doom.

The clearing grew to the size of a football pitch. Vance walked alongside me, blade in both hands. He must have lost the second one at some point during the fight with the Lady’s thorns, and of course there was no way to grab another. Even so, his face remained impassive, not deterred by our alien surroundings.

At least until the giant toad appeared.

The tell-tale shimmer of faerie glamour gave me a five second warning before a giant wart-covered green body appeared in the middle of the clearing. Its squatting green legs were covered with hideous bumps bigger than my head, and its eyes were bright, bulbous and yellow, glaring at us.

When I was twelve, I’d unwisely watched
Pan’s Labyrinth
with friends at a sleepover. This toad-like creature might have walked out of the nightmares we’d all had that night. Its giant, warty mouth opened to reveal a tongue thicker than a man, pink and slimy. Yeuch. I skirted back, drawing my magic around myself in a shield. Damned thing was probably poisonous.

I lifted Irene in warning. Whatever it was, all faeries were allergic to iron even in here. The toad, however, didn’t move.

“I have somewhere to be,” I said. “Let us past and I won’t have to hurt you.”

The giant’s tongue flicked out, slamming against my shield. I extended it to cover Vance, too, who looked mildly revolted by the whole performance. So was I, come to that.

“Neat trick,” I said.

The toad’s foot stomped, and the ground split in two. Vance on one side, me on the other.

“Hey!” I moved towards Vance, but the toad’s giant tongue flicked between us again. Vance’s blade swung and missed. The ground moved again, not down but sideways. We were rotating, pulled apart on—giant leaves.
Huh?

I blinked and the entire scene shifted. We stood in the middle of a huge pond, on a lily pad the size of a shed. It had split down the middle, sending Vance one way and me the other. I was drawn towards the toad, which sat on another lily pad bigger than a huge house. The silvery trees remained, but at the edges of the pond, not a clearing. More of a lake than a pond, really. Murky water lapped against the sides of the leaf, and I shot an alarmed look at Vance. He stood dead-still, blade out.

Damned faerie glamour. Apparently even my Sight couldn’t detect everything here.

“Vance!” I yelled, but the toad’s huge body shifted, towering over me. Its tongue flicked out, ready to pull me into the pond and its gaping maw.

I swore, flicking out with my blade. A mild spray of green-tinted blood hit the air. Green meant Summer magic. This creature had probably got itself exiled for eating someone important.

The lily pad tipped. I swore explosively. Magic or none, nothing could save me from being eaten alive. Bracing my feet, I concentrated on my magic to keep from outright panicking. The murky water might be twenty feet deep. No way to tell without falling in.

I watched the toad carefully. “Let us go,” I said, with all the authority I could summon up. “Or I’ll make you sorry.”

Crap. Threatening evil toads who had the upper hand probably wasn’t a good idea. Sure enough, the toad slipped into the pond, sending a spray of murky water over the lily pad. It tipped precariously again. I gritted my teeth.

My perch continued to swirl in the water, driving me further away from Vance by the second. How in the hell to get back to him now? I could swim, but Faerie’s waters contained worse than sharks. I watched the brownish-green surface stir as the toad’s head surfaced.