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I forced myself not to look. That triple-damned Heidar. I’d already promised to kill him, but for this I would kill him slowly.
“Since you act like a warrior, we will treat you as one,” the Fey said. “I will give you the opportunity to die fighting.” He draped an arm around my waist to keep me upright. The feel of it made the sweat on my body suddenly chill. “Do you see the house?”
Since it was lit up like a Christmas tree against the boiling darkness of the sky, it was a pretty stupid question. But then, the Fey didn’t seem to have a lot of respect for human intelligence. I nodded. Anything was better than going on to element number four. I didn’t know what form it might take, but somehow doubted I’d enjoy the lesson.
“If you reach the house, I will let you go.”
“Reach the house?” My voice sounded thin and breathy, not at all like usual. But I was grateful for it. If my vocal cords still worked, I couldn’t be as hurt as I felt. Right?
“My people will not try to stop you. But the fourth element will. Touch the house, any part of it, and we will leave you be. Fail—” He shrugged. “I will tell your people where to dig for you.”
I assumed he meant that literally, since the only element left was earth. Goddamned Fey and their goddamned games. I’d heard the stories, but never thought much about them. I had certainly never thought I might die in one. Even worse, that I might die for nothing.
My eyes made a quick survey of the vineyard, but if Claire and Heidar were there, they were hiding well. But were they? The level of control I was somehow maintaining seemed to vote yes, but in that case, why were none of the Fey reacting? Heidar had known the Svarestri were here before I did; surely they would be able to detect him? And then the ground rose up on either side of me like black waves in the sea, and I ran.
I can outrun most things on earth, but not, I discovered, earth itself. I made it to the edge of the rows of vines before a wall of dirt hit me like a club. I tried diving through it, but there didn’t seem to be any end. Acres of soil crashed into me, over me, my overtaxed muscles screaming as I fought uselessly. I was drowning in fine particles that rose up choking thick around me. My abused lungs filled with dust, my eyes and ears clogged with dirt, and heavy clots rained down on top of me like blows from a hundred fists.
I struggled, clawing against the weight with everything I had, but I wasn’t completely certain which way was up anymore. Was I digging toward air and life, or away from it? Was I helping to free myself, or digging my own grave? I couldn’t tell.
Then something rough and hard twined around my ankle and tugged. The ground didn’t want to release me, but the hard ropelike touch wouldn’t be denied. It gave a massive heave, and I shot out of the mound of earth like a bullet from a gun.
There was too much dust in my eyes for me to see, but I felt it when I crashed into the vines like a trapeze artist falling into a safety net. They broke my fall, but not by much. What little air was in my lungs was forced out when I hit the ground, hard enough to rattle my bones. I just lay there for a moment, shocked and unmoving. Then I started to heave and cough up great streams of brown goop, in between trying to suck in whatever air I could.
I heard the sounds of battle going on around me, but it took several minutes for my brain to make any sense of it. Finally, I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand and fought my way free of the vines—including the one still securely wrapped around my foot—just in time to see Claire take on one of the Svarestri. I lurched to my feet, sure I’d be too late, certain she was dead. But instead, I saw the Fey stagger and fall to his knees, screaming. I couldn’t figure out what Claire was doing to him—she wasn’t even touching him—but he acted like he was being slowly tortured to death.
I staggered out of the vines, caked with dirt that kept falling into my eyes, and she saw me. She gave the Fey a vicious kick in the ribs and ran toward me, screaming something my dirt-clogged ears couldn’t make out. Behind her, Heidar was battling two of the Fey, and looked like he was holding his own. What I couldn’t figure out was who was dealing with the others—especially the leader. Then Claire crashed into me, sobbing and shaking. The impact was enough to loosen the land fall in my left ear, so that I would have been able to hear myself being royally told off if she had been at all coherent.
I looked around frantically for the leader, but didn’t see him. What I did see was Caedmon, kneeling with his hands against the ground—no, in the ground. His fingers were buried deep in the wet, black dirt. Vines had wrapped themselves around his arms and across his back, flowing out like a living mantle behind him. He didn’t see me—his features were twisted in an intense concentration that seemed to border on pain. Nearby, two Fey warriors lay unmoving, impaled on the infant grapevines that, even as I watched, grew up through their bodies to unfurl green, waving arms at the dark sky.
“—ever do that again, I’ll kill you myself. My God, I thought you were dead—” Claire suddenly hugged me, tight enough to bruise my tender ribs. I grunted in pain and she let me go, looked at me for a second and burst into tears.
I spat more dirt and stared at her, not sure what to do. I’d never seen Claire this upset; she was usually the calm one. I looked up in time to see Heidar behead one of his opponents before turning all his fury on the other. “Wh-where’s the leader?” I managed to croak.
It seemed to be the right thing to stop Claire’s tears. They turned at once to rage. “Æsubrand,” she spat, her cheeks flushed and damp. “When I find the bloody evil cowardly bastard, I’m going to… going to… oh, God, I can’t think of anything hideous enough right now, but it will be bad, really, really bad!”
Heidar had almost finished off his other opponent and I decided it was safe to collapse. So I did. And immediately regretted it when Claire burst into tears again and began shaking me. “I’m not dead,” I told her as distinctly as possible with the inside of my throat coated in dirt.
“Water,” she gasped. “You need water.”
I needed a two-month vacation on a beach, but water would do. I nodded and she ran off in the direction of the house. I thought about what Louis-Cesare would say if he saw me now, after my declaration of competence, and decided to sit up. Caedmon had finished growing his crops—the two Fey were now vine-covered hillocks that had already started to form tiny green grapes. He collapsed beside me, looking smug for some reason.
“You’re early,” I croaked.
“It seems I was almost late,” he replied, lifting my grimy, scratched and bloody hand. “My apologies.” Then he drew me close and kissed me.
Power sang in the air. I felt it on my tongue, thick and syrupy and sweet, and then it flowed into me like a spring flood, and my body grasped it like a parched thing. Caedmon’s hand smoothed down my side and my whole body tingled and came alive. I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see him. The creature holding me was a brilliant light in the darkness, bright as a sun, eternal as a mountain and utterly unmistakable for anything but what he was.
Gradually, the brightness faded and I came back to myself. My first thought was that Radu was going to need a new vineyard. The straight, symmetrical lines were no more. In their place was a riot of green—grapevines and small trees sprouted everywhere, and thin delicate garlands of bougainvillea and hibiscus draped over it all. Heavy with blossom, they swayed in the cool breeze, dropping an occasional orange or vividly pink petal onto the soft, grass-carpeted floor beneath us. The storm clouds had rolled back, and the sky was a pale, rain-washed blue.
“ ‘Caedmon’ means ‘Great Kin
g’ in Gaelic,” I said, as a vine burst into flower over my head, like a living firework.
“Does it?” Caedmon looked mildly interested. Heidar gave a yell and chased a retreating Fey into the vines.
“And your loyal retainers would be where?”
The king shrugged. “Serving my interests in Faerie. That is why we were to meet tonight—I needed time to contact and assemble them. But when an informant told me the Svarestri had been seen in this area, I sent word to my people to join me here as soon as they might, and returned to be on hand in case anything went wrong in my absence.”
