He gave a quick shake of the head. “As far as I know, but I am uneasy. We need to keep watch. My father could be in this area and he would have the advantage here.”
Smoky’s father had a grudge against Camille, as well as his son, and had threatened to kill them just a few weeks prior. Now we were headed into territory that led to the Dragon Reaches and could easily meet Hyto or his friends.
“We’ll keep our eyes open,” I murmured.
Roz let out a long breath. “No matter how many times I come here, I am astounded by the strength and resilience of the inhabitants. I cannot imagine living here.”
“It is beautiful, if you like your beauty sparse and cold,” Smoky said. “The Dragon Reaches are snowy, but they are at the top of the world, where the mountains are craggy and overlook fields filled with mist and fog. During the summers, the Northmen bring their goats and oxen to the fields to feed, and we have bounty. They always bring extra, as a tithe, for we allow them use of the fields. An ox cow can feed a dragon for well over a month.”
He leaned back, draping one arm around the back of Camille’s chair. “At some point, I will take you home to meet my mother, love.”
She paled. “After meeting your father, I’m not sure how much I look forward to that.”
“My mother is far more pleasant than Hyto.” Smoky grinned at her, but then a scowl crossed his face. “If he comes near you, he will die.” Hyto had threatened to rape and eat her when they’d met.
Just then Jonah appeared at the table with a cart covered in plates. Heaping bowls of beef stew, thick loaves of bread and a crock of butter, a wheel of cheese, an apple pie, and a pitcher of beer soon sat in front of us. The rising aroma made my stomach rumble. My last meal had been lunch.
Howl motioned for the bartender to pull up a chair. “Sit for a moment. We seek information for our journey.”
Since nobody in their right mind refused an Elemental Lord, Jonah was only too willing to do so.
He glanced at the rest of us. “How do? I’m Jonah and I own this inn.” He looked at us each in turn, and when his gaze fell on me he paused. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
STRUGGLING INTO THE inn, my pack was so heavy that I could no longer feel a thing in my legs or arms. Somehow, I’d made it down the mountain despite my pain and humiliation, although at one point I could swear I’d had help crossing a chasm from a beautiful spirit, and at another, I thought I’d fallen asleep in the snow.
But when I opened my eyes, I was sitting on the steps of the inn, so I must have walked in my sleep—or the pain was so bad that it had blanked my memory. I pushed myself up and in through the doors to find the room almost empty.
The barkeep, a dwarf, caught sight of me as I stumbled forward and fell. He rushed out, gathered me in his arms, and when I screamed, he gently carried me to a room and called for his wife. He left us alone while she removed my clothes and bathed and treated my wounds, all in silence.
When she was done fixing the last bandage in place, she held my hands and gazed into my eyes. “Ishonar leaves horrible welts, though it does not break the skin. Someone hurt you. Do you want to tell us who? There are remedies that can be taken . . .”
I knew the Northmen stuck together, dwarf, human, and Fae alike. But how could I ask them to go against a temple that was part of their culture? I shook my head. “No . . . no . . . there is nothing to be done. I’m lucky to have come away with my life.”
“Are you sure?”
I held her hands, staring into her eyes. “I’m sure. I have to be sure. Please, ask me no more questions.”
“Then we will let it rest. I’ll bring you dinner and a drink. I assume you are headed toward the portal?”
“First thing come morning.” As I fumbled for my purse, to pay her fee, she waved away the coin.
“You are a stranger in need. Rest now, and I will bring food.”
And she did. I ate—stew and mince pie and fresh bread—and when I was done, I drained the pint dry. She must have put healing herbs in the beer because by the time I finished, I was falling asleep, and for the first time in several weeks, I slept without pain. Slept without dreams.
I GAZED INTO Jonah’s eyes and gave him a slow smile. Should I say anything? Was I the same sprite who’d come down the mountain, still wanting to die? Would he and his wife even remember me?
“You and your wife paid me a great service six hundred years ago,” I said quietly. “Your wife bathed my wounds, bandaged them, fed me, and helped me to sleep without pain for the first time in a long while. I wish you’d let me give you something—repay you for the kindness you showed me.”
“My wife?” Jonah blinked. “Althea’s been dead for nigh on two hundred years.” He let out a long sigh and shook his head. “You look familiar, but anymore, I’m afraid I don’t remember much that happened long ago. Thank you, though, for reminding me of what a gentle creature my wife was. The animals came to her for help when they were hurt. Came right up to eat out of her hands. She treated them and kept them in the stables until they were ready to head back into the wild again.” He brushed his hand across his eyes. “I do miss her.”
“What happened?” I asked softly.
“Werewolf got her. Tore her to shreds. I found her remains.” He shuddered.
“I’m so sorry.” I felt bad for bringing up the subject.
Camille noticed and jumped in. “This is incredible stew. What meat is it, might I ask?”
Jonah shook his head, inhaling deeply. “Oxen—the animal of choice around here. We add root vegetables: carrots and potatoes and turnips. Rich gravy and onions.”
Howl set down his spoon. “We are traveling to the ice fields. You know the shadow that lurks on the Skirts of Hel?”
“Yes . . . Don’t tell me you are headed up to challenge it. We’ve lost so many to that black shade of Hel. But then—you are an Elemental Lord,” Jonah hastened to say.
“I am. And with me I have a dragon, a witch, an incubus, and your friend—the Talon-haltija. It is her fight, truly, but we come to give aid.” Howl frowned. “Have you heard any reports lately of the shadow creature?”
Jonah was staring at me in earnest now. “Talon-haltija?” Blinking rapidly, he scooted his chair back. “There were reports, so many hundreds of years ago, of a powerful priestess, a sprite, who misused her powers, and the result . . . was the creation of the shadow creature. Are you she? Were you the Ar’jant d’tel who was disgraced and turned out of Undutar’s temple?”
My cheeks flamed. “I do not know if I am responsible for the shadow—nothing could ever be proven and I have never been able to remember exactly what happened. But yes, I am Iris, and I was Ar’jant d’tel—Chosen of the Gods, the pariah of the temple.”
I bit my lip, praying he wasn’t regretting helping me all those years ago. “I come in search of the truth. To clear my name or to accept my punishment, whatever the case may be.”
Smoky leaned across the table. “We need to sleep. Hold your questions till later, dwarf. Iris is an honored friend of mine, and I am dragon. Do not entertain thoughts I would not cotton to. Understand?”
Jonah’s eyes grew wide. “Not a problem, Lord Iampaatar. I know who you are.” He turned to Howl. “As far as your question, yes, the shadow has been active lately—in fact, he claimed a village girl from the Edanuwit people recently. They found her, her life force drained, her body mangled.”
“How do they know it was the shadow?”
“It leaves a magical residue. If you go looking for it, you’ll surely find it.” And then Jonah bid us good evening and went back to the bar.
I finished my meal but felt terribly self-conscious. It was clear that our conversation had been overheard. The rest of the patrons skirted around us, which was probably just as well, but it made me feel like I had a big red bull’s-eye painted on my back, or a scarlet A on my forehead.
As we headed upstairs to bed, I couldn’t help but hope that when—if—I proved my innocence, every sing
le person who had given me icy stares would hear about it. And in the pie-in-the-sky corner of my wishes, I wanted an apology from every one of them.
*
MORNING SAW US on the path at the break of dawn, after a hearty meal of eggs, bacon, bread, cheese, and soup. The network of trails joining the villages in the Northlands were a loose affair, opening and closing with the storms that raged down the mountains. We veered onto a fork that would take us to the Skirts of Hel, an ice field that buttressed up against Odin’s Glacier. Apparently, Vikkommin had chosen to make this his home.
“Vikkommin has been following you for years?” Camille struggled to stay on her feet. The trail was hard going, with large patches of ice glazing the surface. In places, small boulders the size of my head were buried just deep enough in the snow to trip over.
“You saw him—that one time when we linked minds. He’s been following me for hundreds of years, daring me to return. I think he believes I was the one who did it. He comes to me in my dreams, looking for revenge.”
As we turned the corner, we found ourselves at a copse of trees. The forest was dark and old, but at least we wouldn’t be pounded so badly by the elements.
Howl glanced at me. “Come. We must get through the woods with all haste.” He ducked under the low-hanging cedar boughs, setting off a shower of snow from the upper reaches of the trees.
I glanced back at Camille, who gave me a brave smile. “I’m sorry I brought you—I asked too much. This can’t be very pleasant.”
“You’re family, Iris. Smoky and I were happy to come.”
“That we were,” the dragon said, kissing the top of Camille’s head. “We would have been worried sick with you out here by yourself.”
“Ditto,” Roz said.
And so, after a long breath, I followed Howl into the depths of the snow-covered wood, with the others behind me. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of wolves howling filled my ears. They were singing of danger, and I knew they were singing to me.
THREE
THE TREE BOUGHS WOVE A SNOW-COVERED lattice above our heads as we entered the White Forest. The path inclined, a steep grade. There would be no respite from now on as we climbed toward the Skirts of Hel.
During the summer, the birches shimmered, their brilliant green leaves shining against white trunks. But during winter, they were barren, lodged between cedar and fir, a reminder of the season long gone.
Creatures lived in the White Forest, twisted and ancient—Elder Fae like the White Woman and Jack-A-Johnny, Blue Manan and Swirling Devon. There were also plenty of Cryptos who made this wood their home: trolls and ogres and others even more terrifying.
We moved silently along the path. I noticed Camille was having a harder time of it—she might be half-Fae with plenty of endurance, but the going was tricky, and the path was already taking a toll on her. She used her yew walking stave for good purpose, keeping herself balanced as she skirted the worst patches of ice on our upward climb.
As we entered the heart of the forest, with the snowfield behind us and the Skirts of Hel still far ahead, I began to notice the silence of the wood. Few birds were about during the season. Here and there a rustle in the wood warned of an animal. Twice, Howl stopped to let out a loud wolf-cry. His howls echoed through the forest, reverberating into the core of my heart.
“What are you telling them?”
“That their Master is here. That all who walk abroad with me are under my protection and not to be eaten.” Howl smiled down at me. “The wolves will listen even though their hunger is keen, and they seek fresh meat. But the others—perhaps not. Do not count on my presence to offer protection against every creature who makes this woodland its home.”
I blinked. “But you definitely help. As my granny used to say, ‘When the wolves are at the door, best have their king sitting inside by the fire.’ ”
“Your grandmother was a wise woman.” He seemed more comfortable now that we were in the forest, striding tall and strong, his pelts barely shielding his bare chest. The cold did not seem to bother him, the snow did not faze him. His feet were encased in thick fur boots, and his trousers were sewn of tanned leather. “So, Mistress Iris, tell me, will it be worth this journey, should you break the curse that lies so heavily on your shoulders?”
I shrugged. “In my culture, being a mother is the highest calling a woman can have. We are the ones who keep the race alive, we are the wellspring of history. Barren women are not ostracized, but those who have been struck barren by curse are pitied, and I am an outcast. When I went home after the temple excommunicated me, none in my family would speak to me. They gave me food and shelter, but they remained silent. They would not acknowledge me, so I left. I found a farm family who needed help, who didn’t care about my past.”
“The Kuusis?” Camille was walking close enough to overhear me.
I nodded. “The Kuusis. They were FBHs—full-blooded humans—and they did not care if my hair was cut short, they never asked about my past or my lack of a family. They took me in and gave me shelter and friendship.”
“How did you happen to go to work for them?” She was using her stave to dig into the snow and propel herself along.
“I left home after an awkward stay and struck out on my own. When I got tired of walking, the first few weeks I slept in the open, and luckily nothing happened. But then I came to a farm. I snuck into their barn that night, and early morning Kustaa—the father—found me.” I sighed softly, remembering that morning.
“What did he do?” Howl asked. “By the way, you do know that I am known by the name Aatu in Finland?”
It was my turn to smile at him. “Yes, I know, great and noble wolf. You are not just Aatu, but the Aatu. Anyway, when Kustaa found me, he asked who I was. I picked out a name, Iris—that was my favorite flower—and gave him that.”
Camille stopped in her tracks. “Your name wasn’t Iris all along?”
I shook my head, deciding I might as well tell her the truth. “No, my name was Pirkitta, but I was afraid that my reputation might have filtered down from the Northlands. News from the temples often did. So I picked my favorite flower, and then when I came over to the States, I used the Western form for it.”
“So how did you go about working for the Kuusis after they caught you hiding in the barn?” Smoky paused by a tree that had fallen across the path and, with a nod from me, lifted me over it like he might lift a baby out of a crib. He did the same for Camille, then lightly leapt over the trunk.
Smoky had traded in his trademark ankle-length white trench for an ankle-length white fur cape that billowed around him. Rozurial was wearing a black fur cape, and beneath these they wore their elfin cloaks. I had my cloak over my parka, and Camille wore hers over her robe made out of the black unicorn hide.
When we were all on the other side of the deadfall, I answered. “I told Kustaa that I needed a job, that I had lost my family in a tragedy and was on my own. He recognized that I was a house sprite and offered me a place in his family, helping his wife with the children and gardens. He had such a kind demeanor . . .”
I closed my eyes, remembering his gentle voice that seemed so out of place against his gruff exterior. “I couldn’t help but say yes. They had ten children, and his wife’s parents were living with them, and a maiden sister and an unwed brother.”
“That’s a lot of work,” Camille said.
“Oh, it was, but they treated me fairly and never raised a hand to me. Kustaa and the men would go hunting for weeks at a time, while the women watched the home fires. I was used to hard work from the temple—we had to shoulder our own weight there as well as learn all our magic, so it was no stretch to help out the Kuusis. And so I stayed.”
“You became part of their family,” Roz said, a gentle smile on his lips.
“Yes, and had I wed there and had children, we would be bound as a family to them. That’s the way it works when you belong to one of the house sprite races. We love helping out, we’re homey folk in
general.”
“You stayed for a long time, Mistress Iris.” Howl glanced at me. I hadn’t realized he’d been listening and felt slightly self-conscious.
“I did. As time wore on, the children grew. One of the daughters wed, and her husband moved into the house, and they raised their children there . . . and I stayed on after Kustaa and his wife died. I stayed for over four hundred years until the last of their line passed.”
Camille bit her lip, looking like she wanted to cry. “When did you leave?”
“I left in 1875, after burying Kustaa’s many-times-over great-granddaughter. She’d died unmarried, the last of her line who had stayed in the village. There are others of the family, no doubt, but long scattered. I buried her in the family plot, and then I took the money that she had left, and a few treasures, and I left the door unlocked for anyone who might need a home, and I walked away.”
I remembered that day—I had felt both free, and sad. Sad to see a family come to the end. Sad to say good-bye to the sturdy house I’d lived in for four hundred years—a house I’d helped rebuild and renovate time and time again.
“From there I traveled to Spain and caught a boat to London, and from there I immigrated to Canada. I stayed in what’s now British Columbia for over ninety years. In 1970, I began to feel a pull—as if I had to pick up and move again. And so I came to Seattle and settled in, living as one of the little people—the FBH little people. And then the portals opened and I was able to come out of the closet. And I met you.”
I glanced up at Camille and smiled, my eyes teary. So many things had passed through the years, but I was barely entering the prime of my life as far as my people went. I was still young and considered pretty, even though so much had passed through my life. My hair had long ago grown back and I kept it ankle length, every night brushing the golden strands a hundred strokes and then braiding it up into long coils. I’d kept a good figure, and Bruce—my leprechaun boyfriend—wanted to marry me and have children.