Then the trees seemed to part, and a clearing edged by boulders the size of horses appeared. It was cool and damp, the leaves on the surrounding trees dripping with dew. An enormous spiderweb cloaked the farthest boulder, and I shuddered to think what sort of spider had made it.
A sputter of a noise drew my attention to a boulder on the far side of the clearing, and I glanced up just in time to meet a pair of curious golden eyes framed by thick lashes. A youngling.
I blinked. I’d never seen a young faerie before, but this one appeared to be many years from maturity. Though his hair was as yellow as his eyes, he bore the same glowing green markings as the female.
“Sit,” she said, casting the youngling a sharp look as she gestured to a smooth white rock. The ground was carpeted in thick green moss, which formed a springy surface that I could tell would not be ideal for fighting.
Adriel gave a loud harrumph but sat, sword resting across his knees. I sank down nervously beside him, but when Sorsha moved to take her place, the female stopped her with a low hiss.
“Not you, Melody Maker. You shall sing for us.”
“Sing?” Sorsha blanched.
“Sing, sing, sing!” cried the youngling.
The female turned toward him, hair billowing, and he ducked out of view once more.
A muffled grumbling drew my attention, and I nearly yelped when the great spiderweb moved.
Peering closer, I saw that it concealed another figure — a gnarled male with hair the color of mist. His back was so bent and his skin so weathered that he appeared to be growing into the tree behind him.
Adriel must have seen the other fae at the same moment I did, because his hand tightened on his blade.
The female didn’t acknowledge the male wasting away beneath the web. She merely inclined her head, and Sorsha nervously cleared her throat. She stammered over the first few notes of the melody, her voice coming out sweet and shaky.
I hail from the dark mountains
I am a child of snow
But when I wandered the Ravenous Wood
I went to the yew below
Asleep I fell ’neath its heavy bows
And dreamt of fields of gold
My mountain was gone t’when I awoke
I found that I’d grown old
As Sorsha finished her song, a placid smile spread across the female’s face. She looked like a cat that had gotten the cream, and when she finally turned in my direction, her eyes seemed to burn right through me.
“Why have you come here?” she asked.
Though she’d posed the question to the group at large, I had a feeling it was directed at me.
I swallowed.
“Your blade thirsts for blood,” the female said, nodding at the dagger sheathed at my thigh. “Though you are not the warrior.” Her gaze drifted to Adriel, and her yellow eyes narrowed. “You have killed many, and you will keep killing to protect the one you hold dear.”
Adriel’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t say a word.
The fae’s attention slid back to me. “Though your blade is stained with the blood of innumerable monsters, there is only one death for which it thirsts.”
Fresh unease coiled in my stomach. She spoke as if my blade were sentient. As if it were my witchwood dagger that hungered for Semphrys’s death.
Maybe her fae senses could detect an intelligence in the blade that I could not, though I struggled to know what to say.
