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But…she wondered now if Mince was asking for her absence. What must her maid think? Did she fear for Gossamyr, all alone in a strange land? Mayhap Shinn had not mentioned her departure. And if he had, only the facts—details were unnecessary. Surely, Mince worried.
Something so insignificant as a sigh now felt a heavy burden as Gossamyr marched along the rutted path alongside her mortal traveling companion. She kept turning to look back, thinking to spy the marble castle from the corner of her eye. She didn’t like feeling this way. Uncomfortable. At a loss. For all purposes she should charge ahead, thinking only of the task. All of Faery relied upon her defeat of the Red Lady.
“All,” she murmured. “That is…quite many.”
So many, she wondered now if Shinn had made a wise choice.
It was not a choice! You begged.
Yes.
I hope you discover the solace to the ache that has been your nemesis.
He knew. It had been time to set her free. If only to fulfill the personal quest she sought before settling upon the Glamoursiège throne. To experience the Otherside, and to claim victory.
Ahead, torches flickered and wobbled along the path. Night had settled, completely blacking the sky save for spots of starlight.
Gossamyr skipped ahead. About a shout down the road an equipage with two armored destriers in the lead pondered slowly forth. Both carried torches. Following, a carriage and a large covered wagon behind, trailed by yet more mounted riders. Every corner of the carriage was hung with yet another torch.
“What is that?” She turned to Ulrich. “Royalty?”
“Unlikely.” A bounce on his toes scanned the coming caravan. “No banners or coats of arms that I can see. It is likely a traveling merchant who has just passed through Aparjon. We should move from the road.”
Gossamyr stabbed her staff into the red clay. “Why?”
A chuffing breath preceded Ulrich’s sharp retort, “Do you wish to be trampled?”
Gossamyr held her tongue. She held no position here in the Otherside. While normally her equipage would command the road, she was supposed to be lying low. Waylaying suspicion. Besides, a mule and a dancing fool could hardly be considered an equipage. A touch to her neck; she spread her fingers down over her collarbones. Darkness hid her blazon.
Leaping from the path, she landed Fancy’s side and gave the mule’s neck a smooth of her palm. “Will they be dangerous?”
“Not unless provoked.” Ulrich eyed her suspiciously. “You, er…won’t provoke them?”
Did he think her so unhinged? “Not unless they give reason for such.”
“Of course. I should expect nothing less from a bogie-killer. Just…do not speak,” he muttered in low tones as the equipage neared. Iron-bound wheels creaked under the load and armor clanked with the pace of the horses.
The mounted men leading the band were attired in black armor with black leather straps and polished silver buckles that glinted with torchlight. Black leather braies and boots blended with the velvet-black hide of the horses.
“Perhaps not a merchant,” Ulrich whispered over Gossamyr’s shoulder. “Not with an armored escort. Stand back and allow them passage. It is safest.”
Solemn in expression, the men’s eyes turned to Gossamyr and Ulrich as they slowed to pass by. The lead rider wore a bascinet helmet sporting a brilliant red plume. Gossamyr looked boldly into the dark eyes of the man. A chill touched her breast. Malevolence followed her gaze, but offered not a word. Only when he had to turn away or force himself to twist in the saddle did their contact break. Not friendly, but neither did she feel threatened. They would offer no challenge so long as they were not pressed.
An entire band of mortals!
Eager to take it all in, she propped her chin on the hand she fisted about her staff and watched as the carriage approached. Filigreed iron lanterns dangling at the four corners of the boxy vehicle glittered across the highly polished wood body. Simple narrow red flags hung limp in the lacking breeze; the fabric ends were frayed and dirtied from the road. The carriage rumbled slowly, the uneven path likely joggling the passengers inside to a jaw-jarring clatter.
Light from inside the carriage box set the heavy window hangings to an eerie glow. As a hand pulled back a curtain, Gossamyr’s heartbeats quickened. A female peered out—her eyes were rimmed in thick kohl and bejeweled at the corners with glittering red stones.
“The Red—” Gossamyr choked on her declaration as she rushed the carriage.
“No!” Ulrich shouted.
A call from one of the leaders brought the equipage to a halt. Hoofbeats pounded up from the rear, drawing a half-dozen mounted men to defense.
Gossamyr gasped in the dust of the sudden upheaval as she slapped a hand to the carriage window and clung. The woman inside, not at all frightened by Gossamyr’s hasty approach, stared curiously down at her. Long red hair slipped around her neck and dangled upon exposed upper curves of her pale breasts.
“It is she!” Gossamyr cried. “The succubus!” She stretched to touch, to grope, but her reach was shortened. Someone grabbed her about the waist and jerked her away, legs flailing and staff swiping the air.
“Settle.” Ulrich held her. Gossamyr struggled, but the sudden dismount of the rear guards, and the barricade they formed before the carriage—crossbows to the ready—halted her in Ulrich’s arms. “What do you think to do?” Ulrich hissed in her ear. “We are outnumbered with long pointy, sharp weapons. The woman is but a bit of damask and lace.”
The woman in the carriage now leaned out the window. Gossamyr saw there was not a mark of the banished on her face. A very obvious mark that no one should miss. And her hair was but a rusty shade of red, not brilliant as a ruby or the blood of a slaughtered hare.
“I thought she was the Red Lady,” Gossamyr said under her breath. A foolish act on her part to approach so boldly. “She is not.”
The mounted rider who had held her stare appeared at their side. The sixteen-hand destrier unnerved Fancy with a snort of warning, and the mule backed away.
The tip of a sword drew up under Gossamyr’s chin. “Mean you my lady harm?”
“I plead mercy,” Ulrich said with a stunning swipe of his hand to deflect the blade from Gossamyr’s neck. He approached the barricade and addressed the woman in the carriage over the warning crossbows. “Forgive me, my lady, for the rudeness of my, er—” he turned to Gossamyr and shot a glance up and down her body “—my sister.”
Gossamyr gaped, stepped up to defend—but was stopped by the leader’s sword. Leery of mortal steel, she kept still. Two dark eyes peered out from the narrow slit on the helmet, holding her more fiercely than a blade to her shoulder.
“You see, my lady,” Ulrich continued. He managed, after a bow, to gain access between two of the men barricading the carriage, insinuating himself right next to the lady’s window.
The woman propped a hand on the window ledge and, fascinated by Ulrich’s gesticulating confession, gave him her full attention.
“She is daft,” Ulrich explained with a wide stretch of his arms to encompass the enormity of his statement. “Luna-touched. She meant you no harm. Just a little difficult to keep…calm when the light of the moon threatens her very soul.”
“I see,” the lady replied in throaty tones that slipped into Gossamyr’s ear so smoothly, she settled, and stepped back from the threatening sword. But not too far. A half circle of weapons were to her back. Kohl-lined eyes peered carefully at her. “She is dressed oddly.”
Now Gossamyr gripped her pourpoint, trying to clasp the broken agraffe. It was too dark to make out details, so long as she stood out of the lantern’s glow.
“My family indulges her whims,” Ulrich explained. “Fancies herself a forest warrior, at times. Others, we must chase her cross the meadow to place a stitch of clothes to her naked back.”
Blight that!
“How troubling,” the lady said. Her eyes sought Gossamyr’s secrets. So dark, and moving up and down, and along every portion of her being. “Yet you allow her a weapon? Might she not injure herself?”
“Oh, she does! The occasional hit to her head knocks her out for but a time. Blessed relief, I tell you, from tending her idiotic antics.”
“I am standing right here!” Enough. Gossamyr would not allow them to make jest of her with such falsities. She knew what Ulrich attempted; but his suggestion she was a lackwit only drew more attention to her than masking it. She nodded toward what looked now to be a cage all covered over with a tapestry tied at each of the four corners. “What is in the attached carriage?”
“Allow her to approach me. Guards,” the woman commanded lazily. “Step back. I see no harm so long as her brother stands beside her. I want to look upon madness.”
Bloody elves. So now she was mad?
Yet, the woman announced her desire with such passion it shot a prinkle up Gossamyr’s neck. And not a favorable prinkle.
Eyeing the covered cage, Gossamyr stepped cautiously past the men who smelt of horseflesh and sweat, and who clinked with every cumbersome step. Stealth avoided them, but, it mattered little; they could take her down with fight. She was no match to four men on their feet and wielding weapons. But if need be, she would give them a challenge. Oh, indeed.
Ulrich slid close as Gossamyr approached the carriage. His cheek brushed hers as he whispered, “Caution, Gossamyr. We want to walk away. I do not favor a sword to my gullet.”
He did not leave her side, remaining just behind her shoulder. A presence that somehow stilled Gossamyr’s apprehensions, almost as if grounding that part of her that wished to fly. With a glance to the well-armored men who stood but a leap to either side of her, Gossamyr then stepped up to the carriage. She did not get so close this time. Her enthusiasm must be restrained. This woman was not the Red Lady.
A movement from inside the cage alerted Gossamyr. Her sudden jerk to look to the side was met with a shing of steel as two swords were released from their sheaths and placed to threaten.
“Relax,” the woman said to her men. “She is but a troubled girl.”
Wincing at the bright light that beamed across her face, Gossamyr ducked her head to better view the woman. A small ruby had been pressed to the corner of each eye, distracting with each glint of lamplight. Her lips were glossed with an unnatural substance that also shimmered in the light. When she opened her mouth in a wondering observation, it revealed a row of small, thin teeth, almost as a fox’s foreteeth. Sharp and made for exact cutting.
“Your costume is most creative,” the lady commented. The sound of her voice reminded Gossamyr of the ungraspable past. A piece of mortal, whole and deep, very similar to Veridienne’s voice.
Forgetting her interest in the cage, Gossamyr merely stood there, betaken by the woman’s unnatural allure.
“It grows cold for her.” Ulrich made a move behind her. Gossamyr turned to ask of his concern only to see the swing of his dark cape billow toward and around her shoulders. He fastened the embroidered peacock agraffe at her neck and pulled the hood up over her plaited hair. “I shouldn’t wish my sister to take a chill.”
He’d covered her blazon.
He had not—he was…touching her. Mortal touched. A fearsome condition whispered by those who would never dare to visit the Otherside. The touch of a mortal makes you shiver, and the shiver never leaves, eventually it eats away a faery’s wings.
But Ulrich’s hands were not cold, rather warm. Instead of a shiver, Gossamyr smiled as a relaxing loosen of her shoulders chased back her fears.
“Where do you journey?” the lady asked.
“The next village,” Gossamyr replied.
“It is dangerous.”
“I crave danger.”
“Do you?” A chuckle again revealed those vicious little teeth. “But there are Armagnacs.”
“You saw them?” Ulrich asked.
Sensing his sudden tension by a squeeze of his hand to her shoulder, Gossamyr peered cautiously out of the corner of her eye toward the direction they traveled.
“Indeed,” the leader said from his mount. “We exited the city as a score of mounted Armagnacs, wearied and hungry, crept in.”
“Mayhap we shall pass around the village,” Ulrich said.
“It would be wise.”
“Do you journey for a convent?” the lady asked.
“Oh, indeed,” Ulrich spoke in Gossamyr’s stead. “The best place for my sister, you understand. She is marveled too easily. ’Tis why she became so excited to see you, my lady. If I may be so bold, your beauty rivals quite any woman my sister has yet to lay eyes upon. Mine, as well.”
Oh, but he was laying it on thick. It took all her strength not to swing about and knock him silent with a club of her staff.
“You like marvels, do you?” the woman asked Gossamyr. “Mayhap you wish to see what I’ve in my cage?”
Gossamyr followed the slender finger that pointed out from the carriage and behind. Lace threaded through with glinting strands of silver fell over her narrow wrist. Gorgeous, the mortal vestments.
“Yes, please,” Gossamyr cooed. And then she found herself shaking her head. Snapping out from a strange fog. Almost as if a faery erie. Blight, what was this? ’Twas as if she was mesmerized by the woman. The mortal passion?
No! Concentrate. She was merely tired and hungry.
“What is behind the tapestries?”
“Look at me,” the lady beckoned.
Spots of brilliant gold dotted her deep brown eyes. Gossamyr found herself leaning forward, to better scent. An indefinable odor, not like any flower or even the must of mortal earth, surrounded her. Almost cold, like the depths of a dark cave oozing with dribbles of ice water.
“Your eyes are brown,” the woman commented. As if it were uncommon. “Have you ever…” She leaned forward, clasping the rim of the carriage door with long fingers painted with rust-colored designs that swirled across her entire hand.
Gossamyr swayed closer.
“…looked into violet eyes?”
Struck by an unseen force, Gossamyr pressed a hand over the agraffe at her neck.
“Do you believe in faeries?”
“Wh-what?” A step back found her tumbling into Ulrich’s arms.
“We should leave you to your travels,” Ulrich said as he righted Gossamyr. “My sister tires. We need seek shelter.”
Ignoring Ulrich entirely, the woman announced in spectacular breaths, “I’ve a faery in my cage. Do you wish to see it?”
“A f-faery?” Finding herself quite unable to stand upright, Gossamyr clung to her staff. They keep them caged to display in market squares. This woman had captured a fée?
Teetering her gaze between the covered cart and the woman’s sharp smirking mouth, Gossamyr fought a sudden rise of fear. “I—I don’t think I believe in faeries. No, of course not.” She stiffened, locking her knees to remain upright. “This is the mortal realm. So many…mortals. Faeries are nonsense and so much blather. We are off, brother?”
“First you must look!” The woman’s head withdrew from the window and moments later Gossamyr heard her call from the rear of the carriage, “Draw back the curtains!”
Utterly gasping for breath, Gossamyr fought to settle her racing pulse. Intuitive caution could not dispel the hard compulsion to seek the truth.
Using Ulrich to steady her on the left side, Gossamyr, much against her better judgment, but compelled by her curiosity, walked toward the cage. The armored men cautiously parted to allow her access. Mortal steel clinked; horses snorted. She ran a palm over the heavy tapestry; the weave was tight and heavy. The fabric pushed in through two thick poles—two of many dozens that caged whatever it was inside.
Fear dried her throat. Horror stilled her heart. Not a faery. It cannot be!
“Are you ready?” the lady whispered so loudly Gossamyr heard it as a scream.
“My sister—” Ulrich started.
“I am!” Gossamyr declared.
With little fanfare the tapestry curtain was drawn back and flipped over the corner of the cage. The contents were not initially visible, for a sheer curtain that glimmered like faery dust hung from top to the floor of the cage. The rear lanterns, while boldly kissing the woman’s cruel grimace, barely lit the fore of the cage.
