Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [59]
If I could drive my knife between the Lady’s shoulders before she turned … I reached for the blade.
“I would not try that, Liza.” The Lady didn’t look at me. “Let your hand fall now, else the animal speaker will be under my control and gouging out his own eyes before you can draw iron.”
I released the knife’s hilt. Kyle edged behind the quia tree, Johnny beside him.
Karin raised her glass but did not drink. “Much has changed indeed. Truly, Mother, I did not expect to find you whiling away your time playing with humans.”
The Lady shrugged, an eloquent gesture. “We all must have our entertainments.” Her gaze flicked to Elin on the quia branch. “And what of you, Granddaughter? Have you brought me what I asked for? Or do you disappoint me yet again?”
The hawk made a mournful sound. The Lady extended her arm, and Elin hopped obediently down from the branch onto it. She was trembling, though, both wings drawn close to her body.
The Lady’s fingers brushed her feathers. “We shall talk about your failures later.” She set the hawk back on the branch and turned to me. I backed into a defensive crouch. “I believe, Daughter, that your student holds something which is mine.”
Karin stepped around to put herself between us. The Lady smiled and sipped her wine. “And so you play your own games with humans, do you not?”
Karin’s eyes didn’t leave her mother. “I have never played at anything.”
The Lady laughed. “Ah, yes. As I recall, that caused us both a fair amount of trouble at court. But I do not ask you to play today. I ask only that you return the leaf to me, as is my right.”
Behind the quia tree, Kyle sang softly. Dying grasses rustled at Karin’s feet. “I do not believe it is,” she said. “Or have you not heard that Kaylen, too, yet lives?”
The Lady’s smile was cold as starlight. “That he has not returned to the dust from which we all rose is clear enough, lest the leaf would have crumbled into that same dust. That he has long since broken every bond that ties him to the Realm is also clear, and whatever existence remains beyond that hardly matters. He chose a human over his people and his land, and the price paid for the Uprising that resulted was great. That is what happens when one ceases to play games.”
Caleb had saved Mom’s life. He saved lives in his town yet. But they were human lives, and no doubt beneath the Lady’s notice.
She traced a finger along the rim of her half-empty glass. “I would hope, Daughter, that bonds of love and loyalty would be enough for you to do this thing. Even so, I offer you this: command your student to give me the leaf, and I will go on my way and leave you this human town to play with as you will.”
My hand went to my chest. “No.” Caleb’s town needed him, too, and if Caleb’s life was truly bound up in the leaf—I couldn’t buy the lives in my town at such a price, even if spring came and I was able to call them from their trees. I couldn’t save this town only to leave the Lady free to destroy other towns instead.
The Lady’s fingers tightened around her glass. “Your student speaks out of turn.”
Karin smiled grimly. “My student merely speaks my mind. We will not barter one life for another.”
“Kaylen bartered away the lives of all our people. And so summer ends and unending winter takes hold in both the Realm and the human world. There is no plant speaker strong enough to stop this dying, just as no fire speaker could control the fires the humans sent, nor any healer stop the poison that tainted air and soil when the fires burned out. The worlds wind down, Daughter, yet justice will be done before the game is through. Give me the leaf, and let Kaylen and his human toy pay for their foolishness at last.”
“No amount of justice will bring back the dead,” Karin said. A breeze rattled the quia’s branches. “I offer you this instead: leave the few surviving human towns alone, and take me in their stead.” She dropped to both knees and emptied her glass at her mother’s feet. “Punish me for Kaylen’s mistakes if you wish, or demand that I return to Faerie by your side—whatever you command of me,