With another breath, Mariel pushed off the branch and jumped toward the next. She easily closed the distance and continued along the next branch at a run, leaping once again when the next tree came within touching distance. Mariel smiled to herself, keeping up her pace as if she had raced through the trees a hundred times before.
Because she had.
Once, the castle that loomed to her right had been her home, and she had spent many days traipsing around the woods, climbing trees, and brushing the bottom of her gown against the dirt. She knew every trunk by heart. Now, the nobles who lived in the castle avoided the woods as if they were something to be feared.
As if responding to her very thoughts, the branch creaked beneath her boots. Breath puffing, cheeks warm, she grabbed onto the tree and came to a sudden stop. Mariel cocked her head, listening. Despite her pursuit of the assassin, she took a moment to regard her surroundings, watching and waiting for anything out of the ordinary.
Mariel had learned long ago that the Witchlight Woods were alive. Many believed that Tir Na Nog had been completely drained of magic during the Fall. This just wasn’t the case. There were still pockets of power hidden throughout the realms, if one only knew where to look. The Witchlight Woods had always been a great source of power, and it continued to live on even while ancient fae began to wither and die.
As Mariel clung to the branches, the tree rumbled beneath her and wind swept through the brittle leaves. She closed her eyes and breathed in the magic that surrounded her body, scenting the rustling leaves and the pristine snow that doused everything in brilliant white. When she reopened her eyes, a small hole had appeared in the trunk of the tree. Inside, a small blob of sap glistened in the dappled sunlight. Greedily, Mariel pressed her finger against the sap and then brought the honey-like liquid to her tongue. As soon as she tasted the sweet sap, strength and power swirled through her veins.
The sap was one of Mariel’s greatest secrets. She was well over a hundred years old, and she was as spritely as a twenty-five-year-old. Her eyesight was keen, her hearing amplified, and she could move with a speed and dexterity that most fae could scarcely remember.
Most fae her age were either dead or growing old as humans did.
Not Mariel.
When she had been nothing more than a wee child, the trees had revealed their secrets to her. Even now, they provided her with their strength. She did not know why they had not given their sap to the nobles who now ruled over these lands. Mariel often wondered if the trees somehow knew how the Selkirks had taken the throne.
With a new, electric magic surging through her veins, Mariel turned her attention back on the pursuit. The would-be assassin was now nothing more than a black speck amongst the towering trees, but it would not take long for Mariel to match her pace.
She leapt, arcing through the air at an almost-impossible speed. Landing on the next branch, she barely took two steps before she soared to the next tree and then the next. The ground far beneath her became a blur. The stinging in her palms from the sharp leaves faded into nothing more than a distant, dull ache.
Mariel felt like the very thing she was: a fae. For many of the inhabitants of this city, that was an impossible feat. She had tried to secure the sap for others, but the trees refused to yield it to anyone but Mariel. If she tried to leave the forest with it, the sap formed a hard lump, which then promptly shattered.
She continued to run through the uppermost branches of the woods, exhilaration pumping through her.
If only the sap could bring back her wings.
The assassin’s hooded form became clear through the thick branches, and Mariel began to slow. The fae who had tried to kill Reyna, and then had somehow escaped, might not have Mariel’s enhanced hearing, but Mariel did not want to take that chance.
She slowed, quietly stepping from one branch to the next as the fleeing assassin reached the edge of the woods.
Mariel ducked beneath a thick branch, falling into a crouch as she watched the assassin step out from the woods and scan the horizon. What was she searching for? The High Queen? Reyna had suspected that Imogen might be behind these attacks, but it made little sense for the High Queen to be this far into the woods. They had come to where the trees backed onto rolling hills, where thieves were becoming much more abundant. The war brought out the worst in most, especially so in the lands surrounding the castle. Anyone who came or went from Tairngire was at risk, so most never left the safety—or the lack thereof—of those walls.
Very curious indeed.
A lone figure appeared on the horizon, just beyond the slope of the nearest hill. Tall grass poked up from the ground beneath a dusting of untouched snow. The assassin stiffened when she saw the figure, but then she quickly relaxed. Mariel squinted, trying to make out the features of the new arrival even at the distance.
It took a few moments for his face to come into view. He strode forward on an ebony horse whose long dark mane rippled in the harsh breeze. He wore a dark green cap that matched his tunic. Beneath his cap, Mariel could just make out a head of moss-colored hair.
Mariel shifted on the branch, taken by surprise. It should not come as a shock that the Wood Court was involved in a conspiracy to murder Prince Thane’s betrothed, but it shocked her all the same. It was a bold move, one that would no doubt have brutal consequences if the High Queen discovered it. She might not be Reyna Darragh’s greatest admirer, but this type of assault would not go unpunished.
She frowned, mind whirring. The Air Court was already at war with the wood fae, but it had been almost a decade since an all-out battle had been waged between them. The fighting had died down, almost as though both realms were taking in a deep breath. Mariel could only see this escalating the tension once again, She did not wish to see things return to the near-constant struggles of her people, to the death and the blood and the fear.
Tairngire itself had never come under attack. If it did, thousands upon thousands would die.
Steadying herself on the branch, she waited while the wood fae approached. The assassin stepped toward him, her body tense and uncertain.
“You should not have come here,” he said sharply, his hooded eyes flicking toward the woods behind the assassin. “Are you certain you weren’t followed?”
“No one followed me.” The assassin shook her head, taking another step toward him. “I have been found out. I need somewhere to go. If I stay here, they will kill me.”
“You were found out? How?”
“In my attempt to kill Princess Reyna, I…well, I misjudged her. She is the Shieldmaiden the rumors claim. I stood no chance against her. She caught me in the act, and then she had me taken into the dungeons where I was to be thoroughly questioned. Another tried to stop her. One of the guards you must have turned. But I believe she killed him, too.”
Mariel smiled.
