The Trouble with Fate (23 page)

I stepped back sharply, as did she, though neither of us broke our stare fest—maybe
dominance through eye contact is something understood by all predators, not just Weres.
Her slumberous eyes narrowed to slits. Then she lifted her chin and clapped her hands
into a prayer position. With a small wait-till-you-see-this smile, she opened them.
As her palms spread wide, the topmost branch of the barricade rose, and moved aside.
The one below that followed, and then all of them shifted, so quickly that the movement
was a visual blur, lifted up and away. Their branches hung in the air, trembling slightly
above the arched doorway she’d created.

She stood one hip cocked to the side, her head tilted to the other, possibly considering
what to do next. In my experience, churning minds usually herald bad things to come,
so I put a few feet between us, and kept a keen eye on her hands. As she passed the
threshold, the arch of branches trembled against each other, chittering like bones
rubbing together in a grave robber’s satchel.

Spooky, but not
half
as chilling as what was happening down at ground level. Mad-one didn’t walk, she
glided
above the clearing’s floor.

She kept coming and I kept backpedaling. I spared a quick glance behind me and realized
the bitch was herding me toward the seething dark end of the clearing. Screw that.
I altered my course to take me back toward the hedgerow.

“You know, I think there’s been some confusion.” I did a backward jog around a tree
stump. “I’m not a challenger. I’m here strictly to find someone, and then I’m gone.”

Mad-one replied in a perfectly pleasant voice—almost normal, considering she was moving
over the ground like a wraith as she followed my retreat. “Then perhaps you wish to
learn from me? I can teach you many things. How to breathe a whisper of doubt so softly
they don’t even know it’s from your lips. How to change a dream from sweet to sour.
How to plant a seed of craving that they cannot quench. You can stay and be my new
chosen companion. We can be friends.”

What happened to her last one?

“Who is it that you seek?” she asked, gliding closer.

As if.

She must have read my mutinous mug like I’d read her mad-ass, crazy face, because
she made a lunge for me. Happily for me, it was evident she’d never had a twin. Her
fingers harmlessly raked the air where I’d stood a second before. Child’s play. I’d
been ducking incoming G.I. Joes since Lexi’s hands were large enough to hold a toy.

She was going to have to be faster than that.

As Mad-one recovered her balance—
aha! She’s not impervious to gravity
—I cut loose and hauled ass, looking for a gap in the line of hawthorns. There! I
surged through the first hole large enough to accommodate me. A thorn dug a furrow
along my spine as I tunneled through. I felt a tug on one shoe, and let Mad-one have
it—
why the hell am I always losing my shoes?
—scooting on hands and knees through the short passage as fast as a fox with a trail
of starving hounds behind it.

I emerged and kept going, my steering still set for a full-speed-ahead crawl, not
stopping until I was well past the border of shrubs and could go no farther, stymied
by a minigrove of sumacs. I scrambled to my feet. This side of the clearing’s woods
wasn’t civilized and cultivated, like the forest of ancient elms beyond the other
row of hawthorns. It felt … wild. Blue fog silently snaked through the tall trees
and saplings. Multihued jewel-toned lights glittered above. No pearly peaches or primroses
in this misted sky.

I breathed through my mouth, waiting for Mad-one to come shooting through the same
tunnel from which I’d just crawled. But she didn’t. Once again, we stared at each
other through a chink in a barricade.

She beckoned. “Come to me.”

Why didn’t she scoot through the tunnel? Or glide over the top of it? What was holding
her back? Obviously she didn’t have to worry about gravity. When I didn’t emerge from
the tunnel, she rose in the air, until her face hovered ghostlike above the line of
hawthorns.

“Did the Black Mage tell you nothing of the things in these woods?” she asked. Her
tone was bland, but her eyes were sharp as they calculated the risks of the thorns
and the narrow gap between a nearby maple’s low-hanging branches and the hedgerow
top.

She’s afraid—no, leery—of the hedgerow,
I thought.

Wondering how much time I had before she overcame her distaste for some overgrown
shrubs, I searched the area around me for a stone or a broken branch, but all I could
turn up was a shred of old parchment—just a brush of my fingers, and someone’s broken
memory streaked through my being—and a handful of moss. “I told you before, I don’t
know what mage you’re talking about.”

Mad-one exhaled through her nose sharply and then she did something I hadn’t anticipated.
Her hands flattened into a prayer position again, but this time, when they parted
a fireball erupted between them. I ducked behind a tree. I should have just let her
hover there, holding her fiery handful of snap, crackle, pop, until her skin turned
black. But curiosity got the better of me, and so I peeked. She’d been waiting for
just that and she threw. Not at me, or at the spruce whose protection I was leaning
away from, but at the section of hedge in front of us. The fireball tore a wide, burning
path through the shrubbery, but didn’t cut a trail completely through the thick vegetation.
Instead, it got lodged three-quarters through, caught in the forked branch of an elderly
hawthorn, where it smoldered a few inches from the overgrown shrub’s soul-light.

No, don’t
. My hand crept to my mouth in horror.

The stubby branches cradling the hedges’ spirit-ball burst into flame. I watched,
sickened, as tongues of heat delicately licked at the parchment. With a sudden whoosh,
it was consumed, and the soul was left naked—a glittering light burning too bright
for my eyes to look directly at it. I covered them and watched through my slitted
fingers, as it danced an agonized jig in the heated air. Beneath my bare foot, the
rough earth trembled. The soul-light flared once. Then with a pop, it was gone.

The hawthorn’s roots wept as the rest of the shrub burst into flames.

Run. She’ll be through the gap in the hedge in a moment or two
.

While the fire devoured its meal, I slipped deeper into the woods the Mad-one seemed
so reluctant to enter.
It’s dark in here. Focus, you’ve got a witch on your heels.
I flitted through the trees, searching for a place to hide, and found it.
There,
I thought.
She won’t like their light.
I dashed to where the two pines grew side by side, so close that their separate trunks
had almost merged into one. Their brilliant glow dispelled the shadows. Behind them,
the forest was tangle-thick, shrouded in mist.

Time for a last stand. I stood under the lights of their soul-balls, half frightened,
half resolute as Mad-one glided our way.

“You murdered that soul,” I said, when she came close.

“It was its time,” she replied with an indifferent shrug.

“But you
chose
its time.”

“I am the Mystwalker,” she replied coolly. “It is my duty to guard this realm. Life
or death, terrifying dreams or naught—it is to me that those decisions fall in Threall.”

“It was a
living
soul.” I shook my head. “No one has the right to make those choices.”

“‘It’ was nothing more than a guard, who could not keep you from these woods.” Her
voice grew hard. “The punishment for that failure is death.”

“And you’re the executioner.”

“Killing one to protect many is not a difficult choice. A mystwalker’s first duty
is to protect the Royal House from those who wish it harm. You seem lacking in that
training.” She cocked her head, her brows furrowed. Then, decision made, she said,
“Wind.”

No hand gestures this time to give me warning.

The resulting blast of air hit me square in the belly. Even as her Fae-invoked chinook
pushed me backward into the trees, my mind was spinning—
she can harness the wind? How’d she do that? Could
I
do that?
—and then my leg hit the bark of the smaller of the pines, and suddenly …
oh Goddess
. Sensation shimmered up my shin. Pleasure. Sweeter than maple syrup, more exciting
than boosting a shiny silver ring.

My spine melted against its rough bark as the wind died around me.

I was in someone’s mind. Deep within. No walls to repel me. My curiosity, always such
a besetting sin, came boiling up within me as urgent as the need to drink, to eat,
to think. I dipped into a soul’s mind—not a dreaming one but a sentient being on the
edge of waking.

Oh my
. Mad-one’s lip curled into an addict’s knowing smile as I tipped my head back in
near rapture.

The soul inside the pine is open for my exploration.
My vision faded.
Wondrous
.

She was so different from me. Whole, not fragmented. She didn’t live under a deluge
of questions, or wade daily through a muddy stream of doubt. This Fae soul lived for
the field, for the family, for wide-open spaces. Layers of scent delighted her, and
each one she greeted with a gourmand’s appreciation. Oh my, I thought, digging deeper.
So sure. So steady. She was satisfied, and yet not self-satisfied.

Is this truly how others felt? Safe?

Excitement and pleasure streaked through me. It was the best type of stealing: I pocketed
her memories like they were diamonds, chuckling at the things she found funny, marveling
at the things she held dear. Grubby children and the grizzled face of an ugly man;
all made beautiful by the way she loved them. Ah, that was it—the essential difference
between her and me—she loved in the present tense. More stunningly, my dreamer knew
herself to be—yes, there’s the source of the biggest warmth—loved. She accepted it,
without inspection or question. I followed the thread of that warm comfort, and found
“him” everywhere and yet nowhere, until … ah, there … yes, there. Her soul was wound
around him like Merry was wound around that cold, lifeless amulet.

And then, my eyes were open, and I found myself staring at the bleak weight in Mad-one’s
eyes.

“The first time you touch a soul,” said the Mystwalker, “you begin to understand the
possibilities of your gift.” She spread a hand. “Here, as long as you fulfill your
duties to the Court, you may live any life you choose. You can discover every secret
once thought well hidden. Without ever leaving this realm, you can experience every
sensation, every adventure. If you’re gifted, you can alter souls and destinies.

“The Old Mage would have taught this. He would have trained you, and you would have
understood that you have been given the great honor of serving the Court, and that
your sacrifice protects those who need the most protection. But you were trained by
the Black Mage, who taught you only what he understands—deception and guile. His skills
are weak, his knowledge of Threall ever weaker, but his desire for power strong. Consider
very carefully his instructions to you and your allegiance to his service. And think
too of this. If you live past the dawn, I can show you so much more. If your wish
is to plunder, I’ll show you where to find the sweeter trees. But now, you must come
away from this place. These woods are not safe for our kind. Things wander here in
the daylight hours.”

I pushed myself away from the dreaming Fae soul and felt the pang of disconnect when
my fingers left her callused trunk. Alone again. The loneliness that I wore like a
cloak was wrapped tight around me once more.

Mad-one sidled up to me, but I didn’t flit away from her this time. I didn’t fear
her anymore. If anything, I felt—

The Mystwalker leaned past me to place her fingers on the ridged bark spine of the
fir. Her eyes slanted into slits of purring pleasure as she invaded the other spirit’s
mindscape. “You didn’t leave a sign that you had passed.” She shook her head reprovingly,
her eyes glassy and unfocused. “You must always leave a mark. Your purpose is to search
for agitators and impose the will of the Court.” Mad-one reached out to briefly touch
the adjoining tree. “They have been together a long time, these two.” She raised her
head and looked upward where the balls of light were almost melded together. “True
soul mates. They believe themselves above our command.” A quick inhale, followed by
a tiny smile.“This creature has never felt the touch of a mystwalker before. She’s
a moment from waking. She’s trying to evade me.” The ball of light above her flashed
a bleat of stark yellow.

Both arms wrapped around the tree, Mad-one leaned her cheek against the rough trunk,
and spoke. “He lusts for another. Someone younger and more beautiful. He sees her
in his head, every day. He yearns for your death so that he can be free to go to her.”
The corner of her lip lifted. “When you wake, he will be gone.”

The Mystwalker of Threall waited another beat, then stepped back, satisfaction twisting
her youthful features into a smile that turned my stomach. She wiped her cheek clean
with her hand before dragging it across the shining blue fabric of her gown.

Heartsick, I touched the pine whose sweet spirit had just been marked. Inside that
near-awake mind, I could feel the dreamer’s hurt, cold and numbing, spreading outward
from that wound of doubt. My jaw hardened. I put my lips close the fir’s bark, and
concentrated. “He loves you. He always will. He dreams of no other. This was nothing
but a bad dream.”

“You dare challenge my mark?” she shrieked.

Kind of reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West, the way Mad-one’s voice rose,
and damn me, if I didn’t taunt her with a smile. Unfortunate choice, that. Suddenly,
we were face-to-face, our breaths mixing in the close air between us.