Moonkind (Winterling) (17 page)

Fer, watch out!
he wanted to shout, but his words were stuck in his throat.

Her bees howled around her, and she whirled to face the Lake. She saw it.

The stilth. It had gathered its strength in the Lake, and now it was coming for all of them.

It was too late, Rook knew. The stilth had won.

Twenty-Eight

Fer staggered back. The Lake of All Ways seethed and bubbled; coils of shadow seeped from it.

The Forsworn had fulfilled their oaths; the Lords and Ladies had removed their glamories; everything had changed. But, Fer realized, it hadn’t been enough.

Her heart pounding with sudden fright, she took another step back from the Lake. Beside her, Rook stood with his head lowered, caught in the stilth. Everyone was caught; she was the only one who could move. The heavy air pressed against her; every breath was a struggle.

What could she
do
? They were all going to die—she had to do something!

Her bees settled around her in a cloud, as if protecting her.

“The stilth is in the Lake,” she realized. It was in all the Ways. It was everywhere. The stillness and death of changelessness.

Never forget that you are human,
her grandma had told her once. And she had never, ever forgotten it. Being human meant she made changes happen. She herself was change. She remembered how the stilth in the Lake of All Ways had pulled away from her. From her human-ness.

She took a step toward the Lake, and her shoulder brushed Rook’s.

At her touch he stirred. He drew a ragged breath. Then, “Fer, what are you doing?”

With a shock of cold, she realized what she had to do. “I’m going into the Lake to fight the stilth,” she answered. Into all the Ways, all at the same time. “It’s the only way to stop it.” She was about to take another heavy step toward the Lake when she felt Rook’s hand seize hers. He stepped up beside her. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“What’s it look like?” he answered. His face was pale and set. “I’m coming with you.”

She shook her head. “Rook—” Her voice faltered, and she took a steadying breath. “It’s going to be dangerous. We might not be able to come back.”

“I know that,” he said. His hand gripped hers more tightly.

“You can’t come,” she insisted. The air had thickened even more, and darkness was rising up all around them.

Rook’s yellow eyes glared at her. “I won’t let you face this alone, Fer. I’m staying true to you, all right?”

Staying true?
He’d told her what that meant to a puck. “Rook, you can’t,” she whispered.

“Leave it,” he growled. “Let’s just get this over with.”

She nodded. They were beyond friendship now. “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand, and turned with him to face the Lake.

Her breath sounded harsh in the silent, heavy air. One breath, then another. One step, then another. The grate of pebbles under her feet. Rook’s warm hand around hers.

Slowly she bent and, using her Lady’s power, she opened all the Ways. She stood. The stilth rushed around them, a silent roar. Rook’s lips moved, but she couldn’t hear his words. It was time. She and Rook started to step into the stilth-filled Lake.

Then, from behind them, a voice rang out like a trumpet—
“Wait!”

She cast a quick glance over her shoulder.

The sky was black and the land was wrapped in the dread silence of the stilth. But light was coming. Like beacons in the darkness, the High Ones strode, with Arenthiel hobbling by their side. The stilth parted around them like black fog; they glided past the Forsworn and the Lords and Ladies and the pucks and all the people who were balanced on the very precipice of death. They came to stand before Fer and Rook at the edge of the Lake of All Ways.

The two High Ones looked as calm as ever; their faces were still and lovely—but they were weary, too, as if they were using the last of their waning power. “Lady Gwynnefar,” one said in her musical voice; they both bowed their heads in greeting.

All Fer could do was stare back at them.

Beside them, wizened, old Arenthiel gave Fer a grin and a sideways, hidden wave. “Lady Fer,” he said. “And the young puck with her. I knew you would stay true, dear Rook.”

Fer gave Rook a quick, astonished glance. He was
friends
with Arenthiel?

As an answer, Rook shrugged.

“Lady Gwynnefar,” one of the High Ones repeated. “We three come to help drive back the stilth.”

Fer found her voice. “It’s too late,” she explained. “I have to go into the Lake to fight it. I’m part-human. I understand why it has to be me.”

“No, it does not,” the High One said. “For too long we have resisted change. Here, now, we embrace the change you bring to us, Gwynnefar. And you show us now why we must no longer trust to oaths to bind us together.”

Fer nodded. From the very start she had known that oaths were wrong.

“But we cannot be unbound from one another,” said the other High One. “What shall bind us instead, Gwynnefar?”

Fer asked herself the question. What bound people together? It wasn’t a hard question, but it was one only her human self could answer. “Love,” she said simply, because it was a simple, human answer.

At the sound of her voice, the people and the Forsworn and the Lords and Ladies stirred.

In the Lake, the stilth continued to churn; its deathly, black smoke towered over their heads and spread across the sky.

Love,
Fer thought. Love for her people and her land—the same love shared by all the people here. “We don’t have to do this alone,” she said to Rook, and raised her hand that was holding his so that all the people could see it. Then she turned and offered her other hand to one of the High Ones. With a wan smile, the High One took her hand. The other took Rook’s hand, and then came Arenthiel, and then all the people and the Lords and Ladies were linking hands along the banks of the Lake.

Against them, the stilth roared and swirled.

Fer felt her human half so strongly. She
was
caught up in a river of time, hurtling along, days slipping past like seconds. At the same time she felt how love transcended time, how it was stronger and deeper than any oath. She felt her connection to her land and the people, and to all the people standing on the bank of the Lake.

Together they were a wall against the stilth. It battered against them like a huge wave—powerful, deadly—and stalwartly they flung it back again. The tendrils of stilth retreated to the lake. It gathered its strength for one last, battering rush; Fer felt its heavy, crushing weight and darkness, and against it she called up her love for her land and for all her people, for Twig and Fray and for Phouka’s wildness and for the pucks laughing around the fire, and Grand-Jane’s comforting embrace, and most of all she called on Rook staying true to her, on the steady warmth of his hand in hers.

The stilth shrank back. Its black tendrils drew in until only a writhing cloud of darkness swirled at the center of the Lake. It hovered there, contained but not defeated.

Fer found that she was panting for breath; beside her, Rook looked pale and weary, but he’d fought hard too; he’d had his tie with his brothers and with her to draw on. Along the edge of the Lake, the other Lords and Ladies and all the people were trembling and leaning against one another for support.

The two High Ones and Arenthiel—three High Ones—stood together. All three seemed dim, as if a light within them had gone out. Arenthiel gave an exhausted, rattling cough that shook his frail body; the other High Ones bent over him like drooping flowers.

“Are you all right?” Fer asked, worried, keeping an eye on the last of the stilth in the Lake. She had her knapsack full of herbs and medicines; she could make them a healing tea if they needed it.

One of the High Ones shook her head. With a frail hand she pointed at the remaining stilth that hovered in silence at the center of the Lake. “It waits for us,” she said wearily. “We have ruled here for too long, Gwynnefar. The nathe has been a place outside of time, without change. Now change has come and our time here is over.”

“Wait,” Fer gasped. What was the High One saying, exactly? “You can’t—”

“The change will be hard for everyone,” interrupted the other High One.

“Will these lands fade?” the first High One put in. “Will the people die out? Or will they change and love and thrive? It is up to you, Gwynnefar. Will you help them?”

She nodded, suddenly understanding what had to happen. “I will,” she promised sadly.

“And you, too, Rook,” Arenthiel added.

“I will, Old Scrawny,” Rook said, his voice rough.

“Well, then!” Arenthiel said, and, leaning on the other High Ones, he turned away.

Slowly the three High Ones paced to the Lake, where all the Ways stood open. They reached up, and like pulling curtains of darkness after them, gathered the remaining stilth into themselves. Calmly they stepped into the Lake, and the stilth swept after them like the hem of a long dress. The darkness receded. The three High Ones went away—into all the Ways—and they were gone.

Twenty-Nine

Fer found herself crying against Rook’s shoulder. His arms were wrapped around her. She cried for the brave High Ones and Arenthiel, gone forever, and for the sudden release of all of her exhaustion and fear. The tears kept coming.

“You’re getting my shirt all wet,” came Rook’s grumpy voice.

She gulped down another sob. “Sorry,” she said with a watery sniff. She looked up.

The sun shone down, warm on her shoulders. Her bees buzzed happily overhead, golden-bright against the blue, late-afternoon sky. She heard the quiet lap and rush of the Lake’s waves on the pebbled shore.

She stepped away from Rook and rubbed the tears off her face. All around them, the people, free of the stilth, were stretching, smiling, looking at the world with wondering eyes. Several were gathered around the Lords or Ladies who had once been Forsworn. There were hugs, and more tears, and barks of joy from the seal-people as they found the Sea-Lord.

She took a deep, steadying breath, and then waded into their midst. The High Ones had given her a job to do, and she would do it. “Listen, you people,” she shouted. But there were too many of them, and they were too excited.

Then, a ripple in the crowd, and Phouka pushed through to her. He shook his head and snorted. “Good idea,” she said to him, and grabbed his mane, pulling herself onto his back. “Hey!” she shouted, and now all the people could see her and hear her. After a few moments they quieted, listening. She caught the Sea-Lord’s eye, and nodded at him and at the other formerly forsworn Lords and Ladies. “Your lands have been poisoned by the stilth,” she said loudly. “It’s gone now, but the lands won’t recover so easily. You’ll have to go back.”

She saw heads nodding. The people stirred.

“But here’s the thing,” she said, holding up her hand so they’d wait to hear the rest. “The glamories are gone. There will be no more rule. You will have to work together to heal the lands.”

“We belong to the land, Lady,” the Sea-Lord said with dignity. “We remember now. We can do this.”

“We can!” others shouted.

“The Ways are clear of the stilth,” Fer told them. “You can go now, and get started.”

There was a surge toward the shore of the Lake, and the Ways started opening as all the Lords and Ladies led their people back to their stilth-stricken lands.

Phouka pranced as people pushed past him.

“Thank you, Lady,” called the Birch-Lady, surrounded by her saplinglike people. They hurried to the Way, eager to return to the Birchlands.

Fer nodded and then sighed. All the lands had been damaged by the stilth. She thought of the Sealands, the horror of the plain of mud, and the forest land draped in the cocoons of dead butterflies. Fixing those lands would not be easy. They had a lot of work ahead of them.

And oh, she was tired. Wearily she slipped from Phouka’s back.

“And what about us, Lady?” Asher asked. He gave her a glinting grin. All the pucks, including Rook, stood behind him in a shifty, dark crowd, watching her. “Got anything for us to do?”

“Ha,” she answered. As if she’d order the pucks around.

“We’ve decided, Lady,” Rip answered. He stood with hands on hips, his yellow eyes fierce in his black-painted face.

“We have, that,” Asher added. “We pucks are tired of wandering around all the lands, having no place to call our own. We like the nathe, and this handy Lake of All Ways, and now that the High Ones are gone, we’re going to live here.”

She opened her mouth to protest.

The pucks watched, waiting to see what she would say.

She swallowed a giggle. Pucks at the nathe! Living with the nathe-wardens! It was perfect, really.

Laughing, the pucks gathered around her. Phouka nudged her shoulder.

Hm, yes. She had something to settle with Rook. She reached out and grabbed his arm and pulled him out of their midst.

The pucks made a circle around them. Rook watched her warily.

She smiled back at him and felt a bubble of happiness floating inside her. “Well, pucks. There’s something else. Your brother Rook has stayed true to me.”

They laughed at that. “Leave it,” Rook growled at them.

She smiled at him, then stepped closer. “And I will always stay true to you, Rook,” she said, holding out her hand.

He took it and nodded, suddenly solemn. “You are true, yes.” The pucks stilled around them.

“Do you know what this means, Lady?” Asher asked, from the circle of pucks.

“I do, yes,” she answered.

“If one is true, it means we’re all true, Fer,” Rook said to her.

She nodded. It meant she was one of the pucks. They were bound together. She could
feel
the bond with them, feel it in her heart. It was stronger than promises, stronger than friendship, stronger than oaths.

She looked around at the pucks. Tricksy, all of them. Black hair, flame-colored eyes, full of trouble. Her brothers. “So I’m a puck now, am I?” she asked.

“You are, yes,” Rook said warily.

She grinned up at him. “Okay. So when do I get to turn into a horse?”

The pucks stared.

“Or a dog?” she asked. “You’ve all got a shifter-tooth, right? Don’t I get a shifter-tooth, too?”

“You do, Fer,” Rook answered, smiling at last. “You do, yes.”

She laughed. Being one of the pucks was going to be so much fun.

But she was never, ever going to eat any rabbits.