6. Jen

6

Jen

T roy did all they could to attempt to dissuade Jen from going to retrieve Maeve, but she would not be budged.

"You drive me crazy, little woman." They scowled at her, crossing long arms over their chest. "I grew up on stories of that place. Attica is a land of monsters. Everything that wants to kill you on the Realms resides there, or was born there."

Jen stepped toward them, looking around to find if they were still alone in Maeve's inner sitting room. The doors were open and there was the murmur of conversation from the other chamber. The imperial guard were all in the know when it came to Maeve's status, and they were crowding the rooms. Jen had dragged Troy in here for some measure of privacy.

"That's why I have to go," she said, voice low and measured. "Troy—she's all alone over there. I have to help. If I'm left to just sit here while you all go off on a rescue mission, I'll go crazy."

They unfolded their arms, reaching out to grasp her by the elbow, the touch gentle. Their callous-roughened thumb swept over the soft inner flesh of her arm and she shivered. "What if I can't protect you?"

"Oh, Troy," she reached up and cupped their face. "Haven't you learned anything from Maeve? There is no such thing as safe. You cannot protect me from everything."

Their other hand covered hers where it rested on them. "Being unable to save you from the cruel twists of fate and destiny is one thing. Leading you directly into the jaws of creatures we know to be deadly, that's another." Their sharp elven features softened, and their deep brown eyes brimmed with tears which did not fall. "I don't want you to get hurt. I love you."

Jen's breath hitched, and something in her chest grew tight. They had never said those words to her before, but she could hear the sincerity in them. Even still, she said, "Don't say such things if you don't mean them."

Troy smiled at her, flashing sharp teeth. "I love you," they repeated, and gathered her to them, their hands tangling in her short hair to tilt her face up. "I would never lie to you."

When they kissed her, she sighed into it, and wished with a large part of her that they could be alone. She did not want to hear those words and then go off and die.

To hell with that , she thought. I aim to live.

A throat cleared, and she pulled away from Troy's kiss to find Rodan just inside the door. "I don't mean to interrupt," he said, his tone dry. "But if you're coming along, it's time."

Jen wanted to stick out her tongue, but she swallowed back the impulse. She felt giddy, despite the circumstances.

They love me.

She had not heard those words in years, except from Maeve. It had been a long and lonely stretch of time.

"Who else is coming?" Jen asked, breaking away from Troy all but for her hand in theirs, lacing fingers together.

"Nath, Lizette, and you two, so far," Rodan said. "There are others who may join, the final count has not been taken." His gaze swept over them both. "Good that you changed. Jen, you have your weapons?"

"I do." She let go of Troy's hand and grabbed the sword and dagger off the couch. She had changed into hunting leathers similar to what Troy often wore, lined with fur because it was still winter, and Attica was further north. She had gloves and blackened goggles in her small pack, and wore boots with good tread.

Troy was there helping buckle the weapons to her hips—she was still unused to all this. Being armed and having some training to boot? It was beyond what she thought life would look like as a mid-level manager in one of the larger talent agencies in the country.

Gone from reading about fantasy to living it , she thought, still somewhat giddy. This is my life now .

To her knowledge, she was never going to set foot on Earth again. Not unless Maeve took her on some kind of odd vacation.

And Jen wanted to see other worlds, not the same place she had known her entire life. The Fae Court? That intrigued her.

"No," Rodan said, so abruptly on the heels of that thought that she startled. "You don't want to see the Fae Court, Jennifer Casper. It is not a place for mortals."

She glared at him. "You're reading my thoughts?"

He shrugged, glancing away for a moment but otherwise looking unconcerned. "You were telegraphing, I could hardly help but overhear." He rubbed his temple with a few long fingers. "You would be amazed what people go around saying as loud as possible in their heads. I think teaching all those in the household staff to mentally shield is going to be on my top priority list."

Jen frowned at him. "Don't you get your psychic abilities from Maeve? With the bond cut off, how is it you're this sensitive?"

"Because he's bleedin' High Fae," Pike growled as he came into the room, giving Jen and Troy an assessing once-over and a stiff nod of approval. "Apparently, his trip to his father's world brought out quite a few hidden talents."

Rodan looked so exasperated it was near-comical, arching a dark brow at the scrapper. "Is this how you treat all my secrets?"

"It was a secret?" Pike retorted. "You said it loud enough for the whole rotten castle to hear, and Nath is a gossip you know that he is. Sweet lad," he added. "But still has a wagging tongue. You know Victor will be made aware so long as he's conscious, and then it's just a matter of time before the rest of the guard?—"

"Yes, I understand," Rodan said, tone weary. He gave another shrug and looked to Jen, gold and black eyes stunningly similar to Maeve's. "I am of the High Fae. I will explain it all in time, but the short story is that I was bound by… a retainer of High Queen Titania, some years ago. It stifled my abilities until the bond with Maeve started to break loose the ties, and my father finished the job. My abilities are quite different than what you have known before."

She opened her mouth to ask a question—dozens were burning on her tongue—but Rodan held up a hand.

"If you please," he said, beseeching. "There is no time. We must meet the others, and go to Attica. Maeve—she is in grave danger. I know it."

A chill raced down Jen's back at the thought of this, but resolve strengthened her spine and she gave a nod. "Okay."

They moved back into Rodan's main chamber, where Nath and Lizette were waiting alongside approximately three quarters of the imperial guard. They all turned as the four of them entered.

"I cannot take you all," Rodan said, flashing a smile. "Though I appreciate your enthusiasm." He motioned to a nearby table where there was a corked bottle of greenish-blue hued liquid. "The healing potion is activated and ready for anyone I send back. Be sure to administer it quickly." He looked to Jen. "Take hold of me with a firm grip."

She did, stepping up to his side and hooking her hand around his bicep. He instructed Troy, Lizette, and Nath to do the same, and then hesitated.

"We need a voice for Maeve to remain," he said, looking to Pike.

The scrapper turned purple-red like a beet within an instant. "You do not mean to keep me from this."

"I'm sorry, my friend, but someone has to stay."

Pike still moved toward them, but Rodan was quicker.

One instant Jen was standing next to him, sandwiched between Troy and Lizette, and the next she was in an utter void, spinning away beneath her into nothingness. Before she could do more than pull in a startled breath, however, the surroundings were changed once more.

Pebbles crunched beneath her boots as Jen spun, releasing Rodan a moment before she lost her breakfast. She sucked in a great lungful of chilled air, gasping for breath in the wake of— whatever the hell that was , she thought.

Troy rubbed her back, and she heard the concern in their voice. "No one else is vomiting."

"Some have a stronger reaction than others, traveling this way," Rodan said, and when she looked over at him he was staring, a curious expression on his face. "Were you simply there and then here, or did you see the between place?"

Jen wanted to weep. "The—what? Is that what that nothingness was? The void?"

"Ah. I'll have to shield you a little better, next time. Good to know." His gaze moved away, scanning the terrain.

She stared at him, wanting nothing more than to grab a rock and chuck it at his rotten Fae head. But then she, too, noticed where they were, and fell quiet as she rose to a stand, wiping her mouth on a square of cloth that Troy handed to her in silence.

They stood on the shore of a massive lake, stretching so far that the distant ring of hills surrounding it were like pebbled bumps on the horizon line. Jen squinted, unsure if they were perhaps clouds? It was not the sea, the smell was wrong, but the water was black, and so flat it shone like a mirror.

The shoreline was thin but long, disappearing around corners, and a forest of trees crowded close to the water's edge.

The trees were the biggest she had ever seen. The size of redwoods, only these were like oaks, limbs spreading and twisting into one another to create a lattice above them that blocked out most of the dim light from the cloud-filled, grey sky.

And it was silent.

Utterly, completely still.

Only the slight lap of water against shore broke that silence. No bird cried, or insect trilled, or twig snapped beneath the weighted foot of forest creatures. There was the whisper of the wind, the steady heartbeat-like rhythm of the water, and their own breathing.

Rodan was tense, as were the others, but Jen felt like she was going to throw up again. The hairs along her arms and her neck stood on end. A part of her was screaming to run, run as far and as fast as she could.

She didn't want to go through that darkness again, though. Never again, if she could help it.

"My gods," Troy whispered. "It's like a storybook."

The words fell out of her before she could pull them back. "Then where are the monsters?"

They all glanced at her, then back to the forest line. All of their words had fallen flat, without echo, despite they stood near a body of water. Everything about this place was off.

"This is nowhere I've been before," Rodan said. "I asked the Realms to guide us, but I am no longer ruler here, and its will can be strange." He kept his gaze on a pivot, now looking out over the large body of water. "But I have the feeling," he murmured. "That it guided us true."

"You can feel Maeve?" Jen asked, excitement bubbling over and raising her voice.

He was quiet for so long she wondered if he had heard her, his gaze fixed on the still black water.

Then he nodded.

"She's beneath the lake."

Jen waited a heartbeat, then asked, "You mean metaphorically, right? She's not—she can't be down there."

"Not in it," Lizette said. "Beneath it."

"The Nyx are fond of their caves," Rodan said with a widening smile. "I know she's down there."

Jen did not think this was the best time to bring up her fear of being crushed. The Transbay Tubal in San Francisco always scared the piss out of her. She tried to hold her breath, to not look at the sudden mirror-like reflection that peered back at her from the wide windows, but always she ended up staring back at her terrified eyes, trying to talk herself out of a panic attack. The weight of all that water above her…

I should not have left my pills behind , she thought. This was not the time to be without.

And on the heels of that , I have to be able to withstand this. For Maeve .

She would do near anything for that woman.

"Well," she said into the deafening silence. "Time to go spelunking."

Every movement the group made seemed as loud as a gunshot. Jen's nerves, on high alert, were calmed only when Troy placed a wide hand on her neck, the grip strong and sure.

There was something about them that made her feel safe. It was an odd sensation.

When she saw one of the Nyx for the first time, it was because she nearly crashed into it. Her breath steamed before her in the still and frigid air. It obscured enough of her vision that she did not see the creature lurking just inside the shadow line of the thick forest.

If it had still been alive, she would have been dead.

The skin was bubbled, and the blisters burst with black-tinged liquid along every sharp line. It looked like the carvings of dragons she had seen in the castle, but twisted. Instead of four legs it had enough that it looked like a massive centipede, overlapping chitinous plates in place of scales. There were two serpentine-like heads, covered in sprays of spikes and multiple eyes that were glazing with a milky color.

Jen swallowed back the scream bubbling up in her throat, falling into Troy, who was studying the thing just as intensely as she had been, if not more. Their nostrils flared, and quick as a flash they shot an arrow into the side of the creature. It did not move.

"Why is it dead?" she whispered.

"It stayed out in the daylight, and slowly boiled to death," Rodan answered from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to find Lizette and Nath not far off, scanning their surroundings with weapons at the ready. "Even these shadows were not enough to save it. The question is why it did not move further into the forest, or back to its cavern when the suns began to rise." He crouched beside the carcass, prodding it with a gloved finger. "This would have taken some time."

"It's huge," Jen murmured, realizing that with the forked tail the thing was at least twenty feet from snout to tip. "Are they all?"

"No, but this is a continent of monsters," the Fae responded, standing and brushing off his leathers as he did. "What else did the Nyx have to turn here, but those of its own ilk?"

"Perhaps," Nath supplied. "That's why the silence."

Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged, turning back to his scan of the nearby tree trunks and shadows.

Jen took mid rear position as they continued on, Troy behind her, their steps perfectly silent on the forest floor strewn with frosted dead leaves. She did not know how they managed it. Her footsteps were like canon fire, crackling and crunching on every twig and leaf. Only the Fae was like Troy, stride sure and without a whisper, but Nath and Lizette also crashed through the undergrowth in a similar fashion.

That helped her feel better.

There were more Nyx they came across. Some had died like the dragon one just inside the tree line, caught in puddles of weak sunlight streaming through crisscrossed branches. Others, however, were very much alive.

The first of these was massive, nearly seven feet tall and armored like a rhinoceros but with the slimmer build of a deer, though here, too, it had been changed. It had six legs. Two short arms ending in clawed grips. A head with a spray of eyes like those of a spider. It stared straight ahead, covered in shadow and utterly still.

Rodan was first to spot it, calling a halt to the party before doing some sort of magic—his felt like sunlight and the pages of old books—and then approaching it alongside Nath. "It seems to be stunned," he said. "Or, rather… the energy of their being is focused elsewhere."

Jen swallowed, not wanting to approach the breathing creature. It stank. Bitter blood and oil smoke, it reminded her of all the places she had been where industry overtook the landscape. The dead things they had been finding had less of the smell about them, and were more rot and decay, despite the bitter cold.

"Does it know we're here?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Rodan responded, prodding it in the chest, between the sharp talons hanging loose but looking no less deadly. "And from what I can sense of what passes for its own mind, it and the others caught outside the primary cave system where Maeve is being held? They are on their own. Their Queen is giving them no direction."

The thing twitched, and Troy pulled an arrow, glancing at the Fae.

Rodan nodded, and Troy shot it dead center in the cluster of eyes.

It fell where it stood, crumpled as though strings had been cut, and twitched until it fully died.

"Don't you think that will let this Queen you speak of know we're coming?" Jen could not help but ask.

"Not if she's nowhere near this mind when it died. And she wasn't. She may come searching for her minions and find less of them, but so long as her attention remains focused on Maeve, I believe we have something of an advantage." Rodan gestured at the path forward, where cliffs were peeking through the trees further along the way. "There are at least two others I can see before we reach those rocks. They may possess some sort of base reaction instinct. Troy, do you think you can dispatch them?"

"Of course," they said, sounding pleased.

Lizette scowled.

"You will have your turn," Rodan soothed. "I have the feeling when we're dealing with closer quarters, we'll also have more of them to contend with. You're going to have to be ready."

"I'm always ready," Lizette said back. Her tone, while not holding the whip or snap she would have used toward Jen and most of the people in the guard, also did not hold the reverence that was there when she spoke to Maeve. "I only want to move faster."

Rodan bared his teeth with a grin, breath fogging in the still air. He gestured for them to keep moving, and this time Troy took point, shooting several arrows ahead. There were grunts from some of the Nyx, but most crumbled silently into death. Jen was far less concerned about the noise she made as she moved, and instead focused on not twisting an ankle.

Cliffs began to be visible through the branches of the trees, rising enormous, towering sheer granite reaching more than five hundred feet into the air. And there in the cracks, where broken bits of rock and gravel signaled old movement, was a massive entrance to what seemed to be a series of underground caverns.

Jen tried not to audibly gulp as they moved closer, slipping over loose stone and dust. The path was more a suggestion.

"When we get to her, we have to remove the bracelet on her wrist," Rodan said as they entered the cave, summoning small round fireballs that hovered over each of them, helping illuminate the surroundings. "It's what is keeping her from her power, and the bond. Remove it, and I can get to her."

"How do you know she's wearing a bracelet?" Nath asked before Jen could.

"Because my father used one on me," he said, drawing his sword and cutting down a Nyx standing in the middle of the cave walkway. "And he told me he had done the same to her. Said when she had realized what he had done, she begged him to stop."

Jen glanced at the ceiling of natural stone above her head, slick with moisture. Anxious sweat began to trickle down her spine. "I hate your father."

Rodan laughed. "The feeling is mutual."

They continued on, and every few feet or so they had to dispatch another Nyx. There was a sameness about them, and but they were still hideous, and terrible to behold. She stepped over one still-twitching body and found herself gagging with the stench rolling off it.

The path sloped ever downward, and twisted this way and that. Despite the many turns, Jen had the sense they were far from where the cliffs had been above the ground, and were now traveling below the wide dark lake. Her ears popped as the pressure changed.

Water seeped from the walls and made the footing treacherous. The Nyx often had multiple limbs, which must have been a help in such cramped and winding corridors.

The cave passage soon became choked with the same smell, and she covered her nose with a sleeve, still keeping one hand on a dagger just in case. Jen tried to breathe through her mouth, but then she just tasted it. Gagging a little, there was a part of her that helpfully pointed out, hey, at least you're not thinking about the literal thousands of tons of rock and water over your head, and how at any moment the ground could shift.

She was native Californian. She had a natural distrust of things under the ground, because when the Earth began to move, it turned liquid. You did not want to be under that.

And this, of course, made her heart rate tick up even more as those before her dispatched one Nyx creature after another. So far, she had not needed to use her weapon, and now she was starting to feel the need to do something—anything—to keep from thinking about all that water, and how it was only a matter of time before?—

Fuck this , she thought, gripping her dagger tight, and the next Nyx they came across she was there, too, plunging her blade into its side. She had to sidestep it quickly to keep from being skewered by one of the clawed appendages, and Troy yanked her back.

"What are you doing?" they hissed.

The others were pressing on, but slowly, the Nyx more numerous and harder to move aside.

Jen glanced at them, and knew her eyes were wide, showing too much of the whites. "I don't like small spaces," she said quickly, knowing now was not the time to dance around subjects. "I'm starting to panic. I need a distraction."

"Not one that will get you killed, little woman," the elf growled. They grabbed her free hand with theirs. "Hold onto my belt, stay behind me, but do not engage unless you absolutely must. Understand?"

"Lover I can barely breathe, my heart is going crazy, I?—"

"I can help but I cannot explain," they said quickly, pulling her forward. There was already too much distance between them and the rest of their party. "I can make you calm."

Jen let out a breath. She trusted them. "Do it."

Troy whirled on her, their long fingers pressing hard first on her temples, then between her eyes and on several points along her neck.

And at the last, she felt the shift. It was exactly the same—better—than how it was when she took her anxiety medication and it finally kicked in. She was focused, but absolutely, utterly calm. Thoughts of the water were far away, despite the wet sheen to the black walls.

She nodded. "Okay. I can follow you. I'll be good."

Troy flashed her a grin, and then turned back toward their companions, pulling an arrow and loosing it in a blink.

The elf really was someone incredible. She could not believe they were with her, sometimes, but, oh she was thankful for it.

The party traveled ever down and onward, and what would have become an unbearable, crushing darkness to her prior to Troy's treatment now seemed like a curious oddity. Despite that Rodan summoned magical flame to light their way, the inky black beyond was stifling. Yet there was so much life, so much difference in texture and shape. She examined the stone, watched how Rodan and the others dispatched creatures out of nightmare with a sort of butcher-like quality, sweat on every brow except the Fae's.

The Nyx fought back, but it was with a half-heartedness that felt unreal. As though all this were a dream.

And then they arrived at the main chamber.

Jen peered around Rodan when he stopped, and was greeted with nothing but inky dark. That, and a sense of malevolence so intense she took a step back.

"She's in there," he said. "Maeve and the Queen. I don't think we have much time."

Jen took a deep breath, as did the rest of them. Nyx stirred near them, seeming to come awake and drawing away from the circles of illumination surrounding the group.

Even though she was calm, she knew that this was the moment they had been hastening toward. Gods, let us save her , she prayed. Let us win .

Touching Troy's arm, she drew their attention one final time before the battle began. "I love you too."

Their eyes widened, but then Rodan threw his hands up, hundreds of orbs of fire coming to being. He poured them into the chamber before them, and Jen saw the Nyx entire. The hoard. There were thousands upon thousands, hideous, stinking, and deadly, even as they first shrank from the illumination?—

And then began to charge.