Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [58]
Something in the quia’s shadow reached for me, and the cold shimmering thread of magic between us felt familiar, as if the quia and I were old friends.
Melting ice dripped from the quia’s branches. How long could we keep walking into this trap? The Lady surely knew we approached. Was she near enough to see us?
Was she near enough to hear us? I stopped abruptly. Maybe we didn’t have to do the walking. Maybe there’d be something to gain by meeting the Lady at our call and by our choosing, rather than the other way around.
There was only one thing we needed first. I turned to Karin and asked, “What is your mother’s name?”
Elin screeched her anger and flew at me. I raised my arms to my face, but before I could send her away, Kyle shouted, “Stop it, stupid bird!” Elin squawked and wheeled off. Her injured wing strained, but this time the wing held her, and she fluttered to a low quia branch.
Karin’s shoulders stiffened. She climbed the hillside to the quia tree, blackberry and sumac branches moaning as they parted before her. She looked into her daughter’s eyes, but the bird turned her head away.
“I know, Elianna. I do not consider such things lightly. I never have.”
“She says you can’t choose humans instead of your own true people.” Kyle pulled Johnny up the hillside after Karin as he spoke. I ran after them.
“She says it’s bad enough you abandoned her,” Kyle said as he reached the tree. “She says you can’t—” He looked up at the bird. “She can do whatever she wants.” He stuck out his tongue.
“My people,” Karin said as if testing the word on her tongue. “Your people.” She looked at me. “It was Kaylen and Tara who first said separating our peoples made little sense. It was Kaylen who first wore his name openly among humans, though they did not understand the gift he offered them, and so insisted on shortening it. I did not understand, not until after the War, not until humans were born with magic.” She took off my gloves to stroke the vine wrapped around her wrist. A leaf curled around her finger. “It ought not have taken magic to make me understand. Even so, my mother’s name is tied up in vows that I may not lightly set aside.”
She promised not to tell, I thought. “You can’t speak her name, even if you want to.” My voice was flat. We were going to have to walk into this trap after all.
“Oh, I can speak it. The vows I took are not so simple as that. I can speak, but if I do, I sever the bonds between myself and my people.” Karin sighed; and the leaf uncurled. “In truth I severed those bonds when I entered a human town and allowed my life to become tangled with those of its people. I know why you ask this of me, Liza, and it is not badly considered. Still, I’ll not try this thing until no other choices remain. There are other ways of calling.” Karin set her pack down and lifted her head. “Mother! If you can hear me, come to me. Let us talk.”
A breeze rippled through the forest. The Lady stepped out from among the winter trees beneath us, silent, beautiful in the growing moonlight. Even without glamour, some part of me wanted to bow at her feet. I grabbed Kyle’s free hand, but he pulled away. Johnny hissed softly, the first sound I’d heard from the shadow, and moved closer to his brother’s side.
The Lady ascended the hillside, two slender glasses filled with dark liquid in her hands. Her hair was once again bound in its firefly net, and her gaze fell entirely on Karin, as if the rest of us were unworthy of her notice. Where’s Matthew?
The Lady turned her back to Kyle and me as she offered a glass to Karin. “So, Daughter. You have returned for the wine I promised. And I have returned to hear how my daughter comes to teach humans. Much has changed, in the short years since the