“Keep your advice.” Not giving him a chance to respond, Trisha spun around.
Dark forms swayed among the eddies of white mist. Before she could backtrack, before her fears could get the better of her, she sucked in a deep breath and dove into the night dance. The mist was cold against her skin. Through the whorls of damp fog, Trisha twirled. Silver-white haze moved in lazy curlsthat stroked Trisha’s cheeks, leaving droplets of pinprick-cold water on her skin.
The first partner that emerged was a sylvan. This one resembled a juniper shrub, and its eyes shone clear like an icy mountain stream. They embraced. Its needled hand drew pricks of her blood, but Trisha swallowed the stinging with a polite bow. The sylvan’s eyes glimmered, and they joined the swirling mass of dancers. Slow and seductive, the music and Shi’as’ low-pitched song swept over her.
Her partner changed mid-spin into a woman with bat’s wings and opal eyes. Her fingers were white and their tips clawed.
“Such a lush mortal,” the woman whispered, licking Trisha’s blood from her hand. “Your warmth carries the tang of iron.”
“Madam,” Trisha said, following the song’s tempo. “It’s poor etiquette to taste one’s partner during the dance.”
“Don’t dance, then.” The witch-woman smiled, revealing a row of yellow, sickle teeth. Her clawed hands grasped Trisha harder, bony fingers pressing into her skin. Counterclockwise, they moved, following the tide of dance. Trisha’s bare feet slid over the grass, slippery and cold. Her magic hummed beneath her skin, splintered and raw. Torn like her. She clung to the memory of the bonfire’s smoke, the salty wind, the bite of sand. The icy touches of the fae chilled, but she warded herself against them, imagining Blainor’s hands digging into her waist, lifting her into the air. A ghost of his heat warmed her bones.
A memory was not a protection, but she held on to last night’s wildness and fire as though a lifeline. Her chest ached. Here, beneath the nameless gods, beauty reigned, but it hollowed her out. Aine’s phantom voice chastised her for her crinkled woolen dress. In this domain, her partners in theirgowns made of leaves, moth wings, and dusk would not care in the slightest.
Ash and cedar echoed in her mouth. Her magic whispered—this is what you left, this is what you gained. Beyond the crowd, King Teoryin kept spiraling with his ever-changing partners. Trisha edged closer, each companion more grotesque, more unsettling. Each partner siphoned a bit more of her warmth, flocking around her, blocking the view. She strained her neck. They all hurt her in one way or another.
The shadows flickered, mist swirling around her feet, frost creeping up her skin. She shivered as though from the cold, sweat pearling on her neck. Her body started to slow. Ice glazed her fingertips, and Trisha’s vision swam. And yet, she couldn’t stop. The magic shimmered under her skin, fractured. Through its splinters, a touch, a claw, a tooth drew another gash. One after another followed. The dancers swarmed closer. Blood dripped down to the dark grass.
Still, she moved. To stop would mean death.
At last, she reached him, the horned king. He watched her with his black eyes. She swayed, bone-tired, but standing. “Two answers,” she whispered through her white lips.
As though her words caused it, the fae court vanished. She stood before the fae king, the dancers gone. And even in their cocoon of darkness, Shi’as’ amber eyes shone. His song penetrated the shelf of the king’s magic.
“Fair,” said the king. “One for dance. One for tribute—a memory of a sunlit world.”
Unable to stop shivering, she fumbled with the purse’s cords. Scratches marred her skin, red drops leaking to the ground. As they fell, the ground whispered. Trisha placed the star-shaped flower in the king’s waiting hand.
He lifted it, face unreadable, and looked at Trisha. “Your first question?”
“My lyre—I snapped its string when playing earlier. It shouldn’t be possible, should it? Grentuff fashioned it from the Player’s Light. Its wood was collected from a living tree. I must know why before I leave the Undying Lands.”
The king’s fingers flexed on the flower. He twirled it, the bloodred blossom too vibrant, too alive. His onyx eyes gleamed, and something fractured washed over his features before he locked the emotion inside him.
“You ask a question to which you already know the answer. You play an instrument of the land where time and death don’t exist and nothing changes.” He fell silent, shadows, darkness, and something ancient in his face.
“But I do,” she whispered. What would she do with this knowledge? If Grentuff fixed her lyre, would there be any assurances that it wouldn’t happen again? She couldn’t stop time, couldn’t halt aging. She would die, and no magic, no plea would change it.
“Your next question, Trisha an Tilia. And mind your words, since my patience has grown thin.” He grimaced, baring sharp and pointed teeth. “Choose wisely. Don’t think I didn’t notice you wove two questions into your last one—my permission to leave, hidden in the threads of your broken lyre.”
Her vision blurred, but she forced herself to stand tall. “I need to know what my human mother said when she gave me away. Why did she bring me here?”
“Ah, the question I have the serpent to thank for.” Teoryin threw a look in the direction of the white-scaled shape of Shi’as. As though sensing the king’s attention, the snake’s song strengthened. “He plays a long game. Instead of your mother, you should ask why he wants you to know.”
She almost followed the king’s gaze before controlling the reaction, biting her teeth together. “I stand by my original question.”
Teoryin tilted his head in silence before finally speaking. “Your music is of the fae, the magic you weave in it.” His depthless gaze was cold. “Yet, we haven’t walked in the mortal world in hundreds of years. The earth remembers, or… something left behind. Your mother knew that as well. She feared it. That, child, is why she brought you to us.”
“She… she feared my magic?” she whispered, then quieter: “I was born with it?”
Something cracked open inside her, the fragile hope she’d carried ever since that fateful day when Shi’as had removed the layer covering her mind. They’d abandoned her because of what she was. Nothing more.
A quick smile. The cocoon shattering, Teoryin bowed. As he did, he offered his hand. Like a wooden doll, she dipped low and took his hand. Sharp nails cut into her skin, but she swallowed her cry. She had no voice for words. Teoryin let go of her, leaving a pearly trail of red pooling from her skin. He licked off the blood. “You have your answers, Trisha. What you make of them is now up to you. And if you’re in need of more, you’d better seek them back in the mortal world.” A pause before he added, “Just be careful of the answers you’ll find.”
Around them, the wild fae spun to the music, their claws scraping Trisha, drawing a trickle of blood. And even if she didn’t have any more energy, even when she thought she would stumble, she made her way out.
When at last she was standing outside the mass of the wildly spinning fae and their pointed nails and claws, Trisha exhaled. Her knees nearly betrayed her, her steps stumbling. She turned. Above the dancers, in the twilight, shadows winked between pulsing lights, like fireflies in the night. Trisha’s heart stuttered. Among them was Rilka, still dancing, part of her kin. The music drowned the fairy’s voice, but Trishacould imagine her carefree laughter, her wild joy. She hugged herself.
