Just before the road dipped and Trisha dried most of the wetness from her face, a movement on a hill caught her eye. Her breath hitched. There, under the pale light, stood a figure. Karring Katla, the witch. Disappointment washed over her.
Katla stood atop the hill and watched Trisha ride out of Moorhafen. The witch’s dark clothes billowed around her,spider’s silk hair flowing in the wind. She didn’t move or speak; simply stood like a silent witness.
Trisha sucked in a breath as her grip tightened on Dapple’s reins. Why was the witch here? Her presence carved into the morning like an omen. As if she’d known this would happen. If this were the direction the ancestors had given her, she would follow.
“Let’s go,” Trisha commanded, pressing her calves against Dapple’s flanks. They rode away from the rising sun, to the west, to the twilight. To the Opening that awaited.
The journey along the shoreline went in a haze. Her mind kept spiraling to the scene by the bonfire. Blainor’s hands, lips, and those exquisite kisses still burned on her mouth. How she’d fit against him, each soft curve molded against every hard shape of him. The sea’s murmur carried from beyond the trees, the world filled with the receding gray of the vanishing night. Alder and birch flanked her path, quiet and dreamlike, as though she were riding through a road that wasn’t. Part of her mind resided in Blainor’s arms; the other part waited where her journey ended.
The stones stood where she’d left them: white, ragged forms by the shoreline where the high tide reached them. The cold water stung her face, the wind yanking her hair. Those silent shapes had stood here for centuries, since the fae had abandoned the mortal plane. Trisha had always wondered if they knew the secret of why that had come to pass, if they waited for the fae to return. To feel the honeysuckle magic rip through the air and return under the sun.
Dapple puffed out a breath. His feelings were a mixture of complaints about the water’s coldness, his starving belly, and worry for her. He wanted them to return. Trisha’s shoulders tensed. To turn back would mean facing Blainor, and she couldn’t. Not after denying what he’d offered. She’d said ‘no,’and Blainor Dewingar wasn’t a man who accepted refusal lightly from anyone.
Carefully, she took the lyre in her hands and plucked a chord, willing magic to coat the notes and open the portal. Instead of a magic-laced song, only clear music filled the air—almost tinny, utterly normal. Her power refused to come out, sinking deeper into her bones. The lyre’s strings trembled in her hands, wanting to break.
“Insubordinate creature,” Trisha grumbled with a flicker of desperation and annoyance. So many times she’d wanted to play without her magic’s interference, and now, this one time when she needed it, it defied her. With a better grip of her lyre, she clenched her fingers on the wooden frame.You will obey me, she told both the lyre and magic.I must get away before I beg him to follow.
She grew feral, unable to stop. Only one thought burned in her—a need to run, to follow the road. A memory of a pair of gray eyes, full of desire and pain, flashed in her mind. Desperate, she reached deeper. Nothing. She plucked the strings again, forcing the magic to heed her. Slow and sluggish, fighting with each chord she drew from her lyre, it came. The music strained, the lyre trembled. Trisha wouldn’t yield, weaving a crazed melody with the wind. It was mad, senseless, without direction. Just random sounds played one after another. The atonal, discordant song made her ears ring. And yet, it felt right. Each furious note curling out claimed a piece of her sense of self.
Little by little, the magic stabilized, the lyre settling in Trisha’s hands. The air rippled just as the first rays of the sun reached the shoreline—gold mingling with the eerie shine of the magical portal. Trisha hesitated. The sea roared, the waves clashed against the stones, and salt clung to her skin. Swallowing hard, she hung her head, the lyre pressed against herchest. For a moment, she teetered between the choices: an undue reckoning she’d escaped seven years ago or confrontation back at Moorhafen with Blainor.
I’ve seen how you watch me.
With a sob, she dashed through the light into the Undying Land, Dapple at her heel. The only things they left were imprints on the sand, quickly eroded by the wind and the restless waves.
19
The twilight worldwrapped around her shoulders like a shroud, but not even the soft hum of the Undying Land lessened the torment inside her. Dapple promptly lowered his head, but Trisha wouldn’t give him a moment to graze. If they stopped now, she would turn around. The ghost of Blainor’s voice ordered her to come back.
She shook her head, voice firm. “We’re going deeper.”
An irritated swish of Dapple’s tail as he informed her of his opinion. She’d taken him out before his breakfast, and he deserved a break.
“Once at Tilia’s, you’ll have all the grass and water your belly requires.” With a flick of her reins, she smacked her mouth. “The magic’s stronger there. The grass is sweeter. You’ll see, Dapple.”
With a dejected sigh, her horse obeyed, his slow strides taking them past the obsidian ring into the dark forest.
Trisha kept the lyre close, magic waiting at her fingertips—the only protection against sharp claws and teeth here. The way her luck had gone, the first creature she’d meet wouldbe Shi’as. Breath caught in her throat as she envisioned the serpent’s delight, the torment of his slithering words. Shi’as would know.
The forest exhaled. Starlight danced on the leaves as the glowing spheres shimmered in the dusk. There was no way around it. Her path to Tilia led through the night folk’s land.
Trisha’s right hand remained poised to strum a chord as her magic hummed, petulant. It recalled the fire, mourning the loss. Her shoulders hunched against its accusation as she guided Dapple through the whispering trees. All the while, Trisha’s magic sizzled against her, hissing its disapproval. Riding through the dim forest, her skirt bunched in her lap, bringing nothing with her but Dapple, her lyre, and fresh scars, she felt like a true prodigal daughter. Not even in her nightmares had she imagined returning in such a state.
Would Tilia welcome her? Her anxiety eclipsed the pain of rejecting Blainor.
Somewhere nearby awaited the path, skirted by shifting-colored morrowflowers. Tall trees with thick stumps circled her. Small animals with luminous eyes skittered in the undergrowth as glowing lights danced between the shadows. The ground squelched under Dapple’s hooves. Trisha shivered, sensing a presence in the dark, beyond the trees.
She strained her neck. Where was that damned road? The path swayed as things in the fae realm tended to do, but she knew its shape and look. The obsidian road rimmed by flowers that changed their shades as they pleased.
Dark boughs like a maze, pulsing lights thinning the gloom. The creatures of the living trees held no love for mortals, but only through their gloomy forest could she find her road. Trisha’s nerves wrung tighter as she imagined Tilia’s dark, bark-like face. What emotion would her green eyes hold?
Trisha had left, declaring she’d never return. The taste ofash filled her mouth. She couldn’t go back. Couldn’t stay. Silent accusations tormented her mind. She’d lost her sense, the sight of her goal. All because of Blainor’s touch and promise of heat. Why hadn’t she said no? But… her eyes closed. No other man had ever made her feel like he did: wanted and dangerous, teetering between ruin and desire.
Dapple’s wet snort broke through her reverie. Jolting, she straightened, eyes narrowing. Hadn’t she seen that rock already? And that mountain ash, trunk curved like a snake, limbs heavy with red berries? The sensation of being watched intensified. Exhaling, she pulled her steed to a halt.
“Ha ha. Very funny,” she called out to the waiting darkness. “Such a great joke. My horse and I are so lost. Would the great, mischievous spirit reveal itself to us?”
Only the trees shivered.
