Faerie Winter - Janni Lee Simner [60]
“No.” I moved to Karin’s side, meaning to say I wouldn’t let her barter her life for another, either—but I couldn’t say it. Karin wasn’t offering herself to the Lady to save a single life or a single town, but to save my entire world. I would do the same in her place, and do it willingly.
“You disappoint me, Daughter.” The Lady drained her glass, set it down in the mud, and walked past Karin, as if her offer were a trivial thing. “No matter. Justice can take many forms.” She gestured toward the forest.
Mom stepped out from among the trees. I froze. Her down coat was open, and the leg of her pants was torn, as by a wolf’s teeth, but otherwise she seemed unharmed. She held something in one hand—my father’s knife. Matthew paced into view a step behind her, his gray wolf’s eyes as dull as the skeletons of the winter trees around us.
I longed to run to them, but I didn’t. There was more than one kind of trap. They were both still alive. I held to that as I tensed, waiting for a chance to act. Karin rose to her feet beside me.
“Tara, pet, come here.” Mom obediently climbed the hill to the Lady’s side, and Matthew paced after her. The Lady reached out a hand. Mom took it, trusting as a child. “Your mother and I have had a very interesting talk, Liza.”
Ice trickled down my spine. Mom was under the Lady’s glamour as surely as Matthew—the glamour she had never stopped fearing. The Lady whispered in her ear, and Mom tested the knife against her hand, not drawing blood. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been weeping, but she wasn’t crying now. She waved the knife through the air as she walked toward me.
Karin’s hand reached out to squeeze mine—a warning.
I pulled away to step forward. “Mom.”
“Liza?” Mom’s voice was fuzzy, as if she spoke through layers of wool.
“Tara, dear, remember what we discussed.”
Mom’s eyes focused, as if she were seeing me for the first time. She drew me, one-armed, into a hug—a child’s hug, seeking comfort, not giving it. “I’ve missed you, Lizzy.”
I drew away to reach for her knife. Mom smiled, a secretive smile that reminded me of Kyle. She stepped back, as if to give the knife to me.
Then she darted behind me, pulled me close, and pressed the steel blade to my throat.
I didn’t move. I barely dared breathe. “Mom?” I reached for her knife hand, and she pressed her blade against my throat, biting skin.
“Tara,” I whispered. “Go away.”
Mom drew the knife back. I heard her take one step away, then a second, and a third. My neck stung where the blade had been.
There was a blur of motion—I whirled to see Karin knock the knife from Mom’s hand and sweep her feet out from under her. How had she moved so fast? Mom fell into the mud. I drew my own knife and lunged at the Lady.
She stepped lightly away from my blade, toward Karin. I stumbled and spun around.
“I do believe that was a direct challenge to my magic and my power.” The Lady’s voice was soft as silk, sharp as steel. She smiled as her fingers closed around Karin’s wrist. “And so you forfeit the protections of kinship and rank.”
Karin slipped from her hold—too late. She began to change, arms stretching into branches, feet rooting down into the earth.
“Karin!” I couldn’t let winter take her, too. “Karinna, come here!” My magic rolled harmlessly away, and I felt the Lady’s stronger magic rushing over her daughter, consuming her as fire consumed wood.
“I deny you, Arianna.” Bark flowed over Karin’s chest and neck, through her hair. “I deny you, and your games, and every last claim you have on me.” The last words came out with a gasp as her eyes and mouth disappeared within the thick bark of a winter oak. A spark of life reached for me from within that tree, then pulled abruptly back.
“Indeed.” The Lady looked to the silver moon. “It is poorly played, Karinna.”
I lunged at the Lady again. Again she stepped away, so quickly I wasn’t sure how I’d missed her. Matthew snarled and moved to her side. Mom grabbed her knife with her left hand,