The Danger of Destiny (15 page)

Maybe it was the prefect trifecta of misery? Not one thing, but three. I was hurt, physically drained,
and
starving. Yep, that would do it. I was so famished, my gut hurt all the time. Hell, it bothered me more than my ankle, and you had to appreciate how bad my leg was to comprehend the hidden weird in that statement.

Despite my wolf-blood, my injury wasn't healing quickly. Though I hadn't looked in over an hour, from the smell of sweet peas blooming in the woods I knew the wound was still oozing blood.

Clearly, Lexi had taken my agony and kept it.

A piece of knowledge that held me stiff in the saddle, acutely conscious that every minute adjustment I made to my own personal comfort might be adding to my brother's anguish.

You see how each of my endless “wants” fed back onto another problem? I was hungry, so I thought of endless food metaphors, which made me all the more conscious of the squeezing pain of my empty gut. This led me to ponder on the non-existence of pain in my leg and the need to remain still.

Which, of course, made me want to move.

I could console myself that I actually was moving forward by plodding slowly toward the Two Sisters, but that didn't stop me from aching to stretch my leg. If only to kick the Gatekeeper, who every so often turned around—eyes narrowed, mouth pursed—to check to see if I was still upright.

Exactly like she was doing right now.

I gave her a nod.

Yes, bitch. Still sitting upright.

You'd think she'd give that a rest, considering what she knew of my connections. I was the Shadow's sister—a fact she'd sussed out at first glance based on the distinctive eye color I share with Lexi—and I obviously had friends in high places. As far as she knew, I was Mad-one's one and only BFF. Think about it: with ten thousand Fae souls or more from which to choose, the Mystwalker of Threall had tapped
her
for my rescue. How's that for coincidence? The only Fae who knew how to open the Safe Passage being coerced into helping the halfling from Creemore who didn't know how to open it.

I wouldn't want to make book on that.

While the sour-faced Fae chewed over those odds, I'd reached my own conclusion. There could be only one explanation for the Gatekeeper's providential appearance, and it came with a gut-punch: Mad-one had delved more deeply into my memories than I'd realized, culling important details such as the fact that I needed the surly Fae's amulet and knowledge to return home to Creemore.

I'd sensed Mad-one's intrusion during our talk yesterday afternoon and thought I'd rebuffed her. But now I was wondering if she'd ever truly left. What if the Mystwalker of Threall's palm was semi-permanently glued to the trunk of my walnut?

Ew.

It was entirely possible that she was listening to me think right now.

If she was, she could go fuck herself. Right after she told me exactly how much of my inner musings she was passing to the devious old bastard sharing my brother's soul.

*   *   *

I swallowed down some sick and rebalanced my left wrist on the saddle's pommel. Neither one of the twin cables of magic streaming from my fingers was weightless.

How much longer?

I lifted bleary eyes to the cloudless sky and marked the sun at mid-morning. Trowbridge had reckoned it was a half day from the shallow crossing to the path between the two hills. Daniel's Rock would be on the other side. But last night's run had added miles and we were coming at the two hills from a slightly different direction.

I didn't know how much longer it was going to be. And I wasn't going to ask.

Stay awake.

A few miles back Merry had instigated a campaign of pinches and jabs in an effort to keep me in the here and now, but about five dales ago she'd run out of gas too. Now, under the cover of my shirt, she lay sluggish, bouncing between the valley of the girls.

Stay awake.

I forced my eyes wide until my brows rose, and then wider again until I could feel my pointed Fae ears pull back, and then, for lack of anything better to do, I pinned my dull gaze upon Mouse. His hair needed washing, his clothing needed burning, and he had a long scar running down the inside of his arm.

My rope of magic was a glowing green coil around his waist.

Mouse shot an upward glance at me through his lashes. “Fair gave me a fright the first time the Shadow's eyes rested on me. But then I said to myself, for all his fine clothes, the Shadow was a mutt, just like me. Is he your da, then?”

“No.”

“And here I thought I knew every mutt's face.” Mouse caught a low branch and held it away back so my trusty pony and I could pass.

“Stop fishing,” I told him, bending low over the saddle.

“Never in my life have I taken a fishing pole to the River of Penance.” He let the branch fly with enough force for my hair to stir in the backdraft. “Where has he kept you? Some village sympathetic to your birth, filled with kindly souls who don't mind the Shadow's mutt among them?”

“Still fishing.”

“You're a mutt,” stated Mouse, his tone flat, “whoever your da may be. And they won't forget that—the Fae
never
forget that. The Shadow may have worn the silks of the court, but he was never one of them, was he? I know he's missing from the court. They say the Black Mage has their hounds looking for him as well as the Son of Lukynae. If he's sent word that he needs your help and you answer him, you're fat for the fire.”

At mention of the Black Mage's name, my insides clenched, which my Fae incorrectly read as a threat. She reacted without leave, swelling until the slack, invisible rope about the boy's torso tightened into a squeezing vice.

Mouse's face set, his nostrils flared with pain. They were fine nostrils. On a boy better dressed, on a youth better loved, they'd be elegant ones.

Still he didn't try to fight the restraint. It made me think that he must be accustomed to being restrained and/or being hurt.

“Lighten up, magic-mine!” I snapped. “He's allowed to talk.”

She hesitated, the shiny bits inside the stream of green flashing her reluctance; then she sulkily loosened her hold. And something changed in Mouse's expression, or perhaps better said, something was added to his carefully set countenance.

He edged closer and I put a cautious hand on the burlap sack that brushed against my knee. “Why is getting to that God-cursed rock so important that a mystwalker would sink into a shit-pool like my mistress's mind?” I didn't answer, suddenly awash with the need to move in my saddle again, and he asked with a trace of his old belligerence, “Do you think you're better than me?”

“Oh, don't get your panties in such a twist. I'm not better than you and I'm not less than you. I'm just me.”

A girl with a quest and a numb bottom.

“What are panties?”

“Something I wish I'd thought to put on before I left my house yesterday.” I gave the strand of hair tickling my nose a huff and it went back to tormenting the corner of my lip.

The path narrowed to curl around an outcrop of boulders about the same time as the land began dropping on our left side. I was leery of Seabiscuit taking a misstep into the ditch widening on our left, but she seemed unconcerned. Her gait never faltered; she lumbered along, seemingly indifferent to my body's tension.

I forced myself to relax my muscles and tried not to think of my chafed bits.

Mouse took an opportunity to study me from toes to nose. “You'll never make it on your own to the rock.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “You're about to slide off your saddle like butter tipped from a fry pan.”

“I won't fall.”

He nodded toward the Gatekeeper, who was pretending not to listen but so very much was. “If you do, she'll be on you.”

“I repeat, I'm not going to fall.” I straightened, vertebra by vertebra. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You'll be needing friends. And mayhap, I'll be needing some.”

“I have lots of friends.”

He did a walking turn, arms held wide. “I don't see any.”

The front of my shirt rustled. Two golden arms grabbed either side of the chain I wore around my neck, then held on for the ride as Merry shortened the length of Fae gold until her amber pendant rested upright an inch or two above my cleavage line. Too weary to climb higher but too belligerent to let such a challenge rest, my BFF hung, arms raised, the bottom of her pendant balanced on the curve of her chain. A wrestler, waiting with resigned fatigue for the next round.

Mouse stared at her with parted lips.

“Meet my little friend, Merry.”

“Leaping goats,” Mouse breathed. “It's the Son of Lukynae's amulet.”

“Rock,” I warned him when he was in danger of walking backward into a boulder.

He executed a quick-footed evasion. “Who
are
you?”

“I'm Hedi of Creemore.” My gaze dropped to Merry as I spoke. With dismay, I noticed that her amber stone had a brownish cast and her inner light had faded to a pinprick of red. No wonder she'd grown quiet over the last couple of miles.

She was starving too.

Now that I focused on it, I realized that Ralph had been peculiarly quiet since I'd jammed him in my jeans pocket. Normally, he made his presence known, at least to the person who bore him, but he'd hardly twitched this last age.

Last night's dinner had amounted to a snack. There'd been no time to fully satisfy their hungers before the moon dominated the sky.

We'd have to stop, but stopping had a lot of built-in problems. Unless I could navigate my pony over to a stand of trees, get within arm's reach of a healthy branch, and let my amulets take over from there …

I studied the staggered ridge of firs above the outcrop of rocks.

Not worth the climb.
Merry hates spruces.

I swiveled in my saddle.

Though the ground dropped sharply away, the forests to my left were a smorgasbord of yum: elders, beeches, and maples. Merry and Ralph could pick their choice if I could only get to them. However, we had that ditch bordering the beaten path. As an obstacle, it wasn't terribly deep or wide, but navigating its incline would prove a daunting challenge to my minimal riding skills. Up to now, any pitch changes to our road had been gradual and slow, requiring minute adjustments to my seat. Sometimes I was required to lean slightly forward in the saddle, sometimes slightly backward.

I was never going to be a student of dressage. Riding was hard. I had chafing. I'd ridden Seabiscuit without a stitch of clothing for half of a mile before I picked up my clothing, and I had chafing in places you don't want chafing.

Enough said.

Bottom line, my seat was not confident in more ways than one. Besides my being crazy-ass tired, my grip on Seabiscuit's reins was tenuous—a less than satisfactory arrangement of a tired thumb pressed hard against the loop of leather circling my right palm.

I couldn't do the ditch. I was down to one thumb; I had magic streaming from my fingertips and tethers leading from my hands. There was no way I could hang on to the pommel in an effort to keep myself in the saddle.

Maybe the ditch would shallow out around the next bend.

Goddess, I hope so.

“There is no village named Creemore,” pursued Mouse.

Worried, I said sharply, “Well, that's where I come from.”

At this, the Gatekeeper turned, and paused to look back at me, her eyes narrowed into unappealing squints.

“Keep walking.” I gave her all my teeth.

*   *   *

See? My Goddess heard me again.

I saw it the moment we completed the fourth bend in the road: one very old ash whose limbs were spread out in an expansive welcome. Hell, I wouldn't even have to slide off the saddle to reach the thick, knotted branch that arched low over our chosen road. Feeding Merry and Ralph was going to be as complicated as saying, “Whoah, horsie.”

“Buck up, Merry. I see lunch,” I murmured in English.

Switching languages, I told the others to slow down, which earned me a quick, dark glance from the Fae. I waited until the baleful Gatekeeper was a few feet past Merry's dinner before bringing my mount to a stop more or less underneath its heavy branch.

Mouse said, “I need to piss.”

At which point the diminutive Fae swung completely around, her features twisted into a full, foul glare. “Why are we stopping here?” she demanded.

“Turn around and face forward,” I growled.

“I have done what was required of me. Release me or—”

“Turn. Around.”

Her eyes warred with mine for three very long “Mississippis” before she complied. I studied her rigid back for a tick before I tilted my head back to gaze upward.

Crap.

Perspective had made me believe the tree limb would be horizontal to my current elevation astride old Seabiscuit once we caught up to it. And if that had been the case, feeding Merry and Ralph would have been dead easy. But now, sitting under the tree, I realized that I'd need to stretch and stand on my stirrups to pass Merry up to it.

A problem, as both of my hands were tethered to my reluctant tour-guides.

I turned to consider the ditch again.

Double crap.

Merry crawled up the slope of my breast in order to take a better look at lunch. There was none of her usual vigor on display as she attempted to heave herself into a vertical position. She noticeably wobbled, I noted with increasing glumness.

“Use my hair,” I said, hardly moving my mouth.

She didn't sass me for my suggestion, and I didn't grimace when the sharp edges of her ivy leaves raked my skull as she reached for a hank of my hair. Holding on to it gave her the support she required to stand, and now, more or less upright, she unfurled another tendril of ivy from the nest surrounding her dull stone.