27. Tamsyn

27

Tamsyn

I MADE MY WAY NORTH. THORA'S ADVICE HAD NOT DETERRED me. Besides. Where else could I go? Where else did I belong?

I recalled those mist-encircled summits as though they were from a dream. My panicked tear through the sky felt as though it had happened in another life. And I supposed it had. It had happened to someone else. Something else. Not the girl I appeared now. And yet I recalled the perfect calmness that had settled over me when I'd looked at those mountains. The peace, the sense of surety—refuge. Considering I didn't feel that way about anything or anyone anymore...

I was headed to the Crags.

I held the compass Thora had given me in my hand, marching determinedly in line with the little jiggling arrow. There was no sun here in the skog. Only a canopy of tangled branches and leaves blotting out the light. No way to determine which way was north without this compass. Another reason to be grateful for Thora. I would be lost if not for her.

And yet the compass wasn't the only thing filling the cup of my palm. Beneath my glove, my hand sparked and buzzed with awareness.

It had throbbed that way ever since I awoke in the barn—even before that... since I was blooded to Fell—but now my body was one great amalgamation of feelings and emotions and sensations, sparking with heat, a great throbbing force as I strode forth. It was impossible to fixate on my hand when I was being bombarded on all sides. When there were so many distractions, so many things happening, churning through me.

The air was changing. From thin to thick. From water to syrup. From a murky opaque, typical of a dense forest, to... red.

A red film draped over everything.

Another mystery in a growingly bewildering world.

Another inexplicable occurrence in a long line, in a string of incomprehensible occurrences.

I knew the skog was not a normal wood. It was a place where witches and huldras dwelled, avoided by humankind, avoiding humankind.

A world where I was not me. At least not the me I had thought myself to be. No daughter. No sister. No pretend princess. No whipping girl. No girl at all. Not even a wife to the Beast of the Borderlands. No longer any of that.

No longer anything except... alone. I. Was. Alone. A wanderer. Rootless. I'd never been so chokingly alone before.

Palace life was a busy, noisy, messy affair. My only solitude had been found in sleep, in my chamber, and even then my sisters had often invaded my bed.

Now solitude wrapped around me like a heavy blanket, weighing me down, holding me close as I moved through the stillness of the skog, each of my footsteps leaving an impression in the moist earth, the only reminder that I existed at all. Too still. Too quiet. A tomb for the dead. And yet it was alive. Alive and watchful in the way a water snake holds still and peers out above the waterline. Waiting. Unblinking. Biding its time.

I wasn't like Thora, who was content with her aloneness and as much a part of this world as the whispering grass and listening trees and the squelching ground beneath my feet.

And yet I told myself I could do this.

Reminded myself that since the moment of my birth, I had been bred to endure. I'd taken the beatings. Withstood the whippings and the floggings. I could endure loneliness, too.

My pace was strong and steady until I hit a wall of dense foliage. It was a game of dexterity and nimbleness then as I squeezed in and around the thick trees and bushes and descending branches, dipping under and around the drapes of moss.

And suddenly it all faded away. Melted like butter on hot bread from an oven. The trees became fewer, the bushes fewer, the clawing branches shrank away like a receding sunset. All but the air.

The air grew. Swelled and expanded like a sponge swollen with water. Heavy and dripping red. It felt thick, sitting like oil on my skin.

This.

This was what Thora had been talking about. The danger of the skog. The teeth. The claws. The hissing breath.

I'd entered the huldra's silken web.

And I was not the only one here.

My vision was still wildly sharp, the colors searingly bright even within the titian haze, senses as alive and bright as they had been when I'd burst out of my skin and incinerated Arkin.

It still took a moment for me to make sense of what I was seeing. Because it was so very in sensible.

Fell was here.

My first instinct was to turn and run... to get away, to escape my husband, because... reasons. We could not be together. The Lord Beast with me... this thing I was now...

I shook my head. No. He would kill it—kill me . He would destroy me if he knew the truth.

But what I was seeing now cast all that from my mind. Fell and Mari and two other warriors: Magnus and Vidar. They were tangled up together. At first glance it was difficult to determine whose limbs belonged to whom. And there was another body in the fray. A stranger. A woman.

I frowned, assessing her... a task that should not have been so very difficult, but for the fact that her face seemed to change. Like a puddle caught in sunlight, the surface waxy and effervescent, variable and temperamental as the changing wind.

I warily inched closer for a better look. Dried leaves crunched beneath my boots. The woman whipped her head around to face me in a move so animalistic, so predatory, that I knew at once: she was not human.

I gasped.

She was a combination of faces. A mix of three or four people... the blurred visages where one face should be, flashing in and out, overlapping.

There were three women there. Unknown to me. Young and lovely all, but as different to each other as the night was to the day. One with short hair pale as moonbeams, the other one with dark russet hair, another one with jet-black braids... and then another face... a fourth face. Me.

Me but not me. Because I was standing right here.

And yet it was my face. My. Face. But not. Looking at myself—but not myself. Not myself as I had ever seen myself. Not myself as I existed. This was a trick.

A huldra's trick.

She smiled widely, all those lips, all those mouths peeling back to beam a multitude of teeth at me. It was a dizzying effect, looking at one body, one entity, and seeing so many faces merging together... but beneath all those faces, there was one.

One face. A true face.

The huldra's face.

I saw her. I saw her for what she was.

A hag.

Paper-thin skin the color of ash. Sparse, stringy hair that sprouted randomly from her scalp, leaving bald patches everywhere else. A black hole for a mouth, full of rotting, nubby teeth. Eyes milky orbs that moved about almost unseeingly... except they landed on me with unerring clarity.

"Ah, hello, my love," she greeted in a voice so beautiful it hurt. There was nothing about the harmonious sound that hinted at the hag underneath the veil of faces. Her words were youthful and melodic. Captivating. Entrancing. I felt their pull, but I gave myself a hard shake, somehow resisting.

She approached me, Fell and his warriors following close, trailing her as though they were small children, desperate for their mother's attention. Clearly they had fallen under her power. Although the attention they wanted from her was definitely not of the maternal variety. Their hands groped her wherever they could reach.

As she neared, I could again see that one of those false faces blurring in and out belonged to me. Mine.

It was an eerie thing to see yourself but not yourself reflected back at you. I was certain I had never looked like this... like a wide-eyed wanton, eager for sex. It was disconcerting to see all four of them fondling a body that mimicked mine. Mari and Magnus cupped and plucked at my (not my) nipples. Vidar's giant hand circled my (not my) backside. And Fell. His hand slid down between the gauzy material of the huldra's gown, disappearing between my (not my) legs.

Not me. Not. Me. Not my body.

How dare she steal my likeness? Rage stirred in my chest, steam filling my nose. He did not belong to her. I wanted to grab Fell, wrench him away from the creature, and let her feel the sting of my wrath.

The force of my reaction jarred me. I never lashed out. Never retaliated. Well. Never before.

The image of Arkin as I had last seen him filled my mind. A burning reminder, literally, that I was not what I once had been. Now I felt things. Now I fought.

This creature had stolen my face and was using it to manipulate and captivate Fell. Not so with his warriors, though. The faces of the other women must be people Mari, Magnus, and Vidar wanted... loved.

But my face was for Fell. I didn't know whether to be flattered or offended. Right now I simply knew I had to save him. I had to save all of them from this fiend.

As she stopped before me, I pasted a smile upon my face and struggled not to reveal what I knew of her. That I knew her. The real her. That I could see her in all her grotesque glory...

"My lovely." She reached an inviting hand toward me, and I did my best not to shudder as she stroked my arm—did my best not to reveal that I could see its skeletal shape, the gray skin like wrinkled parchment, the yellowed and cracked fingernails thick and hard as walnut shells.

She continued to speak a litany of endearments, of praise, of words that attempted to wear down my resistance.

Then, unbelievably, remarkably, her face rippled and flickered and changed anew. Over her grotesque features a new face dropped into place... a new veil, different from the others. A beloved face. A face I had thought to never see again. A face I had not realized I missed so much.

My heart lurched, and I choked back a sob. Treacherous emotion welled up in me at the sight of my friend: Stig, the echo of him, a fine, translucent film stretched over the huldra's ancient skin and milky eyes, pushing all the other faces aside as he smiled at me.

Stig, only not Stig.

In the huldra, he was somehow amplified. Brighter, shinier... those warm brown eyes of his a deeper shade. More black. Glossy like a well-polished stone.

"My sweet girl. My heart. My pet. How I have been waiting for you, longing for you, needing you... and I know you've needed me, too."

The huldra was a master at this, at saying the right words in that delicious voice. An expert at her craft of deceit, and I knew I must tread carefully. Give nothing away. Pretend I was as the others, captivated and enchanted by her machinations.

"Stig," I breathed, in what sounded like a properly mesmerized voice.

The sound of my voice did something, however. Fell flinched. Blinked. Scowled. Cocked his head to one side and narrowed his gaze at me, seeing me, then seeing the huldra. He was coming out of it. Returning to himself. Viewing me clearly for the first time since I had entered his orbit.

I needed to act fast. Fortunately, the huldra's gaze was still on me. She did not notice him slipping away, like water through a sieve, escaping her.

Before he could speak or do anything to call the creature's attention to the fact that he was breaking free from her, I seized her hand.

"Yes," I breathed, still feigning rapture, drawing her closer, into me like air into my lungs. Into me and away from them. Away from Fell.

The huldra obliged, placing her corpse-like hands on me now.

One of my hands went to my side, dipping inside my pouch, fumbling around, seeking even as I resigned myself to what was coming, even as I braced myself for her crooked body leaning into me, more bones than flesh and meat. Even as I accepted the cold press of her rancid mouth with its shriveled lips and rotting teeth to mine.

She kissed me.

It was her face now over mine. I could not unsee her. The faces of the others were blurry shadows.

I forced myself to kiss her back, releasing a cry of relief as my fingers wrapped around what I was searching for in my bag. Hopefully the sound was mistaken for passion, and she would not realize my intent until it was too late.

Clutching the fabric in my hand, I acted quickly. My only hope would be to surprise her. To deliver the unexpected.

I threw all my weight against her, slamming us both to the ground. She shrieked in astonishment but did not move for a full ten seconds. Time enough to seize my advantage.

Straddling her, I made quick work of the leather strap, gagging her and silencing that sweet voice holding the others captive.

That done, I reached for the other strips of leather and set to work, tying off her bony wrists and ankles, managing to subdue her even as she came to her senses and struggled wildly.

"Tamsyn!" It was Fell, blinking the last of the fog from his eyes.

The others were slower to shake off the huldra's influence. They stood in a confused stupor, looking down at her, their eyes still glazed.

I beheld the huldra, so terrifying before but now only a pathetic creature.

Inhuman growls leaked from around her gag. She strained and worked and fought like a wild thing, a beast of the forest, and I supposed that was true. She was tireless in her struggles. As desperate as a bird's wings, beating wildly, frantic to break from its cage, and I knew I would have to leave her like this. If she escaped, she would do everything in her power to kill me.

Suddenly she stopped her frenzied movements, her violent thrashing, her thin limbs quieting and going still as the grave as she caught sight of me watching her. Her milky gaze locked hard on me. Saw me for the first time. Those ancient eyes narrowed with comprehension. She knew . Recognized me as one monster recognized another.

I swallowed and had the sudden urge to run, to rush away from this thing that was holding up a mirror to me so plainly.

Fell advanced on me with long strides, his big hands closing around my arms and lifting me up on my tiptoes. Instantly I felt the brand of his touch through my clothing, the lines of the X clearly delineated on my bicep. It was pleasure and pain. Hot and cold. Heavy and feather-soft...

He said my name again, a breathy benediction. "Tamsyn... I knew you were alive." His frosty gray eyes slid over my face, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.

I opened my mouth, lips working, searching for the words that would not convey my dismay at finding him when I was supposed to be on my way north. Alone. And yet that wasn't entirely true. Not fully. Not really. I did feel dismay, but excitement hummed inside me, too.

He was like poisonous berries in the wood, so bright and colorful and sweet at the first taste, but bad for you. Toxic.

My body vibrated like the plucked string of a harp. Wrongly so. The blood rushed beneath my skin where his hands held me, smolder building in my chest in the most troubling way, and that was reminder enough. The crux of it all. The reason I could not be with him, the reason I needed to get far, far away.

"You beautiful, clever thing. How did you know what she was? How did you know what to do?" He sent a quick glance to the trussed-up huldra on the ground.

I shook my head and shrugged helplessly. How could I explain? Her magic simply had not worked on me. It didn't work because...

Well. Because I was the same. In a way. Magic could not best magic.

He hauled me into his arms, against his warmth, holding me tightly... so close that I could feel the pounding of his heart against my ribs. It was exhilarating and good and right, when so many things lately had been wrong. But this. Him. Us...

Being in his arms felt like coming home. Even if it was false, a trap, another trick of the day, another veil to be ripped away sooner or later. Sooner. Or later. Sooner. Or later. Eventually, it would be taken from me.

For now, I surrendered to it, finally letting myself go, sagging against him, relenting, weakening, reveling in being with him again. Close to the flame.

Later, I would worry.

Later, I would figure out how to pull myself away without becoming permanently, inexorably burned.

His voice rumbled in my hair, reaching all the way down to the core of me. "What happened to you? Did you escape the dragon?"

Did you escape the dragon?

In a manner. I suppose that was the truth of it. For now at least.

"Yes," I said at last, because, really—what else was there to say?