Faerie Winter Part 13

I was the only one left to do so. I forced my thoughts away from the pain in my shoulder and focused on choosing my words. "You will leave all the human towns, or I will keep the leaf."

Arianna crushed her winegla.s.s into the mud with her boot. "You try my patience, Liza. I will not harm any human who remains within this world's few surviving towns. You will give up the leaf and never seek to hold it again. Are we agreed?"

I looked at my mother. She gave me a bright, empty smile as she twirled the knife in her hand. She'd left me, she'd chosen others over me-but she hadn't wanted to choose, any more than Karin had, any more than I did. She was only human. She was only my mother. The thought filled me with a strange, aching sorrow.

I drew my knife again and flung it away, into the brambles. "We are agreed." Whatever happened next, the human towns would be safe. I reached between my jacket and my sweater to clutch the silver chain.

"You have given your word." The Lady's voice was velvet soft. She held out a pale hand.

The stars glittered, cold and distant, above me. I would protect those I I could. I would do exactly as I had promised and give up the leaf I wore. could. I would do exactly as I had promised and give up the leaf I wore.

In a single motion I drew the chain from around my neck and draped it over my mother's head.

"Mom," I said, my voice steady, sure now of what I needed to do. "Wake up."

Mom drew me close, and I knew, in that embrace, that she was my mother once more. I fought the longing to stay there, to believe that she could protect me.

I knew better. I pulled free and ran, sure of what must happen next. I'd kept my word-but that wouldn't save me. I could only hope the Lady was truly bound to keep her word as well, to leave my people alone.

"Liza!" There was nothing soft in the Lady's voice now. I fell to my knees at the power there. She was before me in an instant, lifting my chin, forcing me to look into her bright eyes. Fear trembled beneath my skin. That fear was already fading. I knew I would do whatever the Lady asked of me. There was nothing soft in the Lady's voice now. I fell to my knees at the power there. She was before me in an instant, lifting my chin, forcing me to look into her bright eyes. Fear trembled beneath my skin. That fear was already fading. I knew I would do whatever the Lady asked of me.

Mom circled around behind her, holding her knife.

The Lady held up a hand, not turning. "One more step, Tara, and I shall order your daughter to pluck out her own eyes. Would you like that, Liza?"

"Yes." My fingers moved toward my face. I wondered what it would be like to feel my nails pierce that soft flesh. Would my blood please the Lady?

Had Johnny's blood pleased her? I felt a ripple of fear at that thought, but it was a distant thing, as distant as the ache in my shoulder.

Mom went very still. "It's me you want. Let Liza go. She is no part of this." I saw fear in her eyes, and anger, and understood neither of them.

"Oh, but she is. The moment you seduced my son into withdrawing his glamour from you and betraying his people, you and all that is yours became very much my concern." Arianna reached for my hands and drew me to my feet. "You are a clever girl, aren't you, Liza?" I frowned, not sure whether being clever was good or not, as the Lady went on. "Yet I can be clever, too. I note that neither you nor your mother are within the borders of your town, and so my promises do not apply to you. All humans leave their towns, for one purpose or another." She glanced at the oak branch from which Elin watched us, utterly silent. "And my granddaughter has made no promises. It will be a small matter for us to destroy your people. The terms of your trade are not as well thought out as you believed."

Her words should have troubled me, but they didn't. Mom looked near to tears, though. I'd always hated to see her cry. "It's okay." I leaned back against the Lady. "There's nothing to be afraid of." Not anymore Not anymore.

The look that crossed Mom's face was a terrible thing. "To think I wanted to bring our children back to your world when they came into their magic," she said. "I thought they'd be safer in your world than mine. I thought surely you had perished in the War, and I imagined that with you gone I might find teachers there."

Arianna stroked my hair. "I think you'd better give me the knife, Tara."

Mom stepped back. "Not unless I have your word you won't give it to Liza."

Arianna laughed at that, laughed and laughed. I wasn't sure what was so funny, but I laughed, too. "I do not need your feeble human weapon to hurt Liza." She smiled down at me. "What shall I turn you into, child? A wolf, perhaps, to replace the one taken from me? Or a cat. I could use a good hunting cat, and Tara tells me you are quite the hunter."

"A cat," I agreed. I'd had a cat once, hadn't I? I liked cats.

The sun touched the horizon, and gold light flashed into my eyes. The Lady gripped my shoulder, hurting me-I didn't mind. I'd never feared pain.

Mom clutched her knife. "Surely there is no need-"

My skin melted beneath the Lady's grasp. Something caught fire within my bones-I screamed as they melted like iron in Jayce's forge, melted into the mold the Lady pressed on them. I fell to all fours, and my scream turned into a cat's growl. Not a small cat, like the cats I'd known. A hunting cat, bigger than a wolf. I paced, tail thrashing, strength coursing through me. The night around me seemed sharper than before, the moon brighter.

I flexed my claws. I needed to sharpen them. The Lady drew her hand away. I stalked toward a tall oak, snarling, and raked my claws against the tree. My shoulder screamed in protest. Some shadow within the wood shifted. A hawk cried and threw itself at me, but the creature's wing failed it, and it sank to the ground.

The Lady sighed, reached down, and brushed her fingers over the hawk's feathers. Silver light washed over the bird, and then Elin huddled, naked, on the ground, one arm drawn to her side. Arianna put her hand to my back, drawing me away from the oak. "There is no need for you to punish Karinna, my cat. As a tree she will die, as all trees must in this dying land, and it will not be without pain."

Elin looked up at the Lady, her eyes wide. Arianna reached out and stroked my fur. I purred at the Lady's touch. Power coursed beneath my skin, but I held it back-I could hold back for her. I wasn't afraid, in this powerful body.

Mom stood just a few steps away, clutching her knife. "Liza. Give me some sign you're still in there."

Of course I was still in here. I was better now, stronger-surely Mom could see that. I opened my jaws in a toothy cat smile.

Elin struggled to her feet and took her grandmother's hand. Wind blew her fine hair over her bare skin.

The Lady smiled. "Kill Tara, Liza." Her whisper sc.r.a.ped the inside of my skin. "Kill her now, my powerful cat."

I leaped, releasing taut muscles, knocking Mom onto her back. The knife fell from her grasp. Pain flared through my shoulder as something tore inside it, but that didn't matter. Only doing as the Lady demanded mattered.

"Liza. You're Liza." Mom's voice was hoa.r.s.e as she fixed her gaze on me, as if she were trying to call me out of the cat, the same way I'd once called a boy out of a wolf, a girl out of a bird. But my mother was no summoner. I would stay a cat, filled with a cat's power. I snarled and lunged at her throat. She threw her arm up, and my teeth dug through her coat sleeve to pierce flesh. The taste of her blood mingled with the taste of goose down and nylon.

Something stirred inside me at that. I drew back, memory bubbling to the surface. To do no harm To do no harm. I was Liza, and Liza had spoken words-human words. Something about those words was important. They were a promise; that was it. I couldn't break my promises. Yet it didn't feel like harm, this flexing of strength, this drawing of blood. It felt like what I was made for.

Mom's other arm slammed into me, knocking me aside with startling force. She leaped to her feet and ran. She'd run from me before; I remembered that. The Lady released Elin's hand to step toward me-and fell, a remarkably graceless motion. Her dress had tangled around her legs, and its fabric bound her arms to her sides. Weaver work Weaver work. Arianna struggled to her feet. "Kill Tara, my cat! Kill her!"

The words hurt hurt as they clawed through my skin. I whirled and ran after Mom. That I was Liza, that I'd made promises-both were less important than that I was the Lady's cat and needed to please her. as they clawed through my skin. I whirled and ran after Mom. That I was Liza, that I'd made promises-both were less important than that I was the Lady's cat and needed to please her.

Mom wheeled around a trunk and ran back toward me. I bounded past, unable to slow down fast enough. By the moon's light I saw the glint of steel in Mom's hand once more. She leaped at the Lady in her tangled dress, and Arianna fell back to the ground beneath her. Elin pressed her hand to the Lady's shoulder, holding her down, eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g as the cloth of her grandmother's dress wrapped tighter and tighter around her.

They were hurting the Lady. Why were they hurting her? I leaped at Mom's back.

Arianna's hand tore through a bound sleeve to grab my paw. "You and your mother shall suffer yet," she hissed.

I felt my skin and bones burning, melting, shifting shifting. I turned from a cat into a wild dog as the Lady's magic poured through me, from a dog into an eagle, from an eagle into a slithering snake. I roared and howled, shrieked and hissed, as faster and faster I changed. Mom crawled out from underneath me. I struggled to get closer to Arianna and the pain she commanded. Mom tried to pull me away, but I fought her. For an instant I was human once more, kneeling naked in the mud and clinging to the Lady's hand as an icy wind raked my skin, and then I was changing once more, slowly changing to immovable stone. The Lady's gaze met mine, and in her eyes I saw winter unending and the knowledge that spring was nothing more than a story. "All things must end," she whispered, and fell still.

Glamour rolled off me, and all at once my thoughts were my own. I was alone-alone and human and very small-my hand clutching the Lady's. She stared at the sky, her dress wrapped around her, binding her legs, constricting her throat. Mom's knife was plunged through her heart.

She wasn't breathing. The magic she'd poured into me had been her last.

"I'm sorry," Elin whispered to her, kneeling beside us. "But you shouldn't have hurt my mother."

"Nor my daughter, either." Mom's voice was grim. Mud streaked her face, and her arm bled freely through her sleeve.

Horror filled me at what I'd nearly done. I tried to pull away from the Lady, but my left hand was strange and heavy in her grasp. I looked down at our clasped hands.

My hand was gray stone past the wrist, and the Lady's fingers were wrapped around it. Mom crouched beside me and uncurled those dead fingers from mine, one by one.

I drew my hand to my face. My stone fingers were curled halfway into a fist. Matthew's leather hair tie was wrapped around my arm just past the place where stone gave way to skin. My stomach churned, and I had to look away. My hand fell to my side, and its weight sent more pain through my shoulder.

I looked to where the Lady lay. Her eyes were dull as tarnished steel, and I could almost see the gray bones beneath her pale skin. As I watched, the fireflies in her hair flickered out, one by one.

"Liza?" There was a question in Mom's voice.

I couldn't look at her. I stumbled to my feet and turned away, ashamed. The cold mud hurt my bare feet, the cold air my bare skin.

Mom wrapped her arms around me from behind. "Don't you dare dare sacrifice yourself to save me, Liza. Not ever again. Enough of this. It ends here." Her voice was sc.r.a.ped raw. sacrifice yourself to save me, Liza. Not ever again. Enough of this. It ends here." Her voice was sc.r.a.ped raw.

I hadn't saved her. I'd nearly killed her. I would have torn out her throat without a second thought. I shook like a leaf in the wind. I was so, so cold.

Elin touched the Lady's dress, and fibers flowed away from Arianna to wrap around Elin's own bare skin, brown wool sheathing her chest and legs, leaving the weaver in a sleeveless dress and the Lady in a shroud as thin as gauze from Before. Elin stalked to the oak tree-to Karin-and put one hand to the rough bark. Her other arm hung, bruised and scabbed over, by her side.

She was crying. Karin's clothes were scattered around the tree's base, the silver b.u.t.terfly's wings trembling among them. In the mud and leaf litter between oak and quia, I saw Kyle's footprints disappearing over the hillside, and Matthew's wolf prints as well. I remembered the dead look in Matthew's eyes. I had to find him.

My pants and sweater and wool underwear lay on the ground. I tried to dress myself against the cold, but I couldn't do it with my dead hand and injured shoulder. Mom helped me. I avoided her eyes as she used her left hand to ease my undershirt and sweater over my head and held out my underwear and pants for me to step into. Her right wrist hung wrong-it was surely broken-and above it, the arm I'd bitten still bled.

"You should have run." I managed to get my boots buckled myself. "You should have run and kept the leaf safe." Kept yourself safe Kept yourself safe.

"You should have known better than to expect me to." Mom handed me my coat. I stepped away from her to put it on.

A hand snaked around from behind me. I felt a knife at my throat once more as the coat fell from my grasp.

"Call her back, Summoner." Elin's voice had a feral edge. "Do it of your own free will or do it under glamour, it matters not. Waste no more time. Do it."

Mom stepped toward us, and Elin stiffened. She was frightened, I realized, frightened of us small, glamourless humans. Her voice thickened into a syrupy sweetness. "Do it now. Call my mother back."

"Stop!" I said while my thoughts remained my own. "Of course I want to call Karin back. I'd do more than that for her."

"Why would you?" Elin demanded, the glamour gone from her words. "Why should a human care for my people at all?"

"I don't know your people. But I do know your mother." Karin, with her kindness and her teaching. I didn't know who the plant mage had been Before. I only knew who she was now. "You have my word, Elianna. I'll do all I can to save her. But I can't do anything until you take the knife away."

Elin drew back, taking the knife-one of Karin's knives, with a dark stone blade-with her. "I will kill you if she dies. Do not doubt it."

I ignored her and walked to the oak tree. Deep scores ran down the bark, and sap flowed slowly out of them. I'd done that, too. I forced the thought aside as I softened my gaze. I saw Karin's shadow within the tree-head between her knees, hands pressed to the ground. I felt the spark of life that was Karin, fainter and colder now. She was still there. I put my good hand to the rough bark.

The shadow looked up and shook her head-no.

As a tree she will die, as all trees must in this dying land, and it will not be without pain. The Lady's words, but Karin had said as much when we'd found the townsfolk changed.

"What do you wait for?" Elin demanded. The b.u.t.terfly was in her hair once more, but the wings had ceased their flapping at last.

"I wait because I fear calling will kill her." A loop of ivy hung from one of the oak's lower branches. Its leaves were already brown, without Karin to keep them awake. One drifted to the ground, and Karin's shadow shrank a little. I thought of the leaves I'd called from the sleeping maple seed, of how quickly they'd withered and died. I thought of the townsfolk in their trees, dying of winter as well. Winter would kill us all in the end, one way or another.

I turned to the quia tree. The shadow that clung to it seemed sharper, more clear than both Karin's shadow and the shadows of the townsfolk. It slept more lightly than the other trees, too, as if tossing in troubled dreams. I felt cold magic stretch between us once more. I hadn't imagined it-this tree knew me. It remembered me.

As I put my hand to the quia's smooth bark, I felt something more-the sense that this tree's shadow didn't end with its roots but reached far deeper, looking to someplace beyond the human world to remember how to grow.

I didn't know if I'd been right or wrong to plant the quia seed and, in doing so, call winter into this world. I only knew that I had. "This is my responsibility."

"Liza," Mom said. "Not everything is your fault."

"I know that." The War wasn't my fault, nor any of the things Mom, Caleb, and Karin had done during it. And maybe spring would still come on its own, just as it had Before, as the trees found the ancient pathways my people said they'd always followed to wake themselves.

But every moment I waited, the chances that there would be enough life left in Karin's tree to call her out grew fainter. Karin said trees died slowly, but I could see see the shadow in her tree shrinking. I could wait on spring no longer. the shadow in her tree shrinking. I could wait on spring no longer.

"I have to call it back," I said.

"No one can stop the worlds from winding down." So much despair in Elin's voice. She held her hurt arm close. "Grandmother said so, when we came to your world and found it as dead as ours."

"The Lady doesn't know everything," Mom said.

"Careful, human." Elin's bleakness was tinged with disdain.

Mom laughed, a wild sound. "I'm through fearing your people, Elianna. None can do worse to me than your grandmother has already done."

I kept my hand pressed to the quia tree. In the darkness, its shadow seemed more real than its bark and branches.

"Spring has been late before," Mom said.

Would the other trees follow the quia into spring, as they had followed it into winter? "I don't know how much time the others have. Would you keep me safe and lose them all?"

Mom didn't answer that. She didn't need to. I looked down, ashamed. Wasn't that what I'd wished of her before this all began? That she could have stayed with me, kept me safe instead of protecting others?

"Do what you need to." Mom rubbed at the arm I'd bitten. "I don't know as much about magic as Karinna and Kaylen, but I'll keep watch as best I can."

I swallowed hard. "Thanks, Mom." My breath puffed in front of me. The ground would freeze again soon.

Mom looked at Elin. "Promise you'll not harm my daughter should she fail."

Elin laughed bitterly. "Why should I make any promises to humans?"

"Because Liza won't do this thing unless you do."

I would do this thing no matter what-but I didn't say so. I couldn't lie, but my mother could. "Promise," I said to Elin, "that you won't harm me or Mom or anyone from my town."

Elin stalked to Karin's tree and leaned her head against it. "I do this for you, not them. I do not understand why you care for these humans so. I will never understand it. I will never understand why you did not take me with you when you went away to fight." If Karin heard, she gave no sign. She'd drawn her shadow arms around herself, and her head was bowed once more.

Elin turned back to us. She'd been crying again. "You have my word."

The moon was higher now, but I could still see the pinp.r.i.c.ks of stars, like light through old nylon. I rubbed at the leather around my wrist, feeling stone and skin to either side of it. Matthew and Kyle were both out in that darkness. Even now I chose who to save.

I returned my good hand to the quia's trunk, shivering as my skin touched the tree's cold shadow. All this long winter I'd been cold. I wasn't sure I remembered what spring felt like, let alone how to call it.

My dead hand weighed me down. I focused on the quia's shadow and the restlessness that slept within the tree. "Grow," "Grow," I whispered to it. I whispered to it. "Seek air, seek sun, seek life!" "Seek air, seek sun, seek life!"

The quia's shadow pulled at me, urging me toward the same uneasy sleep in which it already rested. I pressed my feet firmly into the mud and felt again the way the quia's shadow stretched beyond its roots, deep into some other place-into Faerie? Did Karin's world remember the green my world had forgotten? The Lady had said nothing grew there, but perhaps some thin thread of spring remained. "Wake!" "Wake!" I called to the shadow's roots-to that place beyond its roots. I called to the shadow's roots-to that place beyond its roots. "Grow! Seek air, seek sun, seek light!" "Grow! Seek air, seek sun, seek light!"