Janni Simner - Faerie Winter

The Lady reached down and stroked my cheek, where the crow’s claws had scratched it. I shivered at her touch. “You want to see your mother, don’t you, Liza?”

“Yes.” I wasn’t sure quite why I’d left her. “I miss Mom.”

“Of course you do. Perhaps when this is through, I shall let you be the one to take her life at last. You would like that, yes?”

Something about the Lady’s words didn’t make sense, but I couldn’t puzzle out what—and I did want to please her. “Of course.”

The Lady laughed and took my chin in her hands. “So weak, human minds. You’ve always been weak. That the Uprising happened at all is an insult that will be avenged, though the Realm itself winds down. Come with me, Liza.”

I stood and wrapped my fingers around hers, trusting as a child. I couldn’t remember when I’d last trusted anyone like that.

I’d trusted Matthew, hadn’t I? I held out my hand to the wolf, who stood once more. He snarled and drew away, and I wasn’t so certain.

The Lady turned slowly around, as if looking for someone else. Johnny, I realized. He wasn’t here. Of course he wasn’t. “Johnny does that,” I said. “Disappears, and hides, and sneaks up on people.” I lowered my voice, as if sharing a secret. “I hate him, you know.”

The Lady hadn’t spoken to Johnny. Only Elin had. He didn’t know yet that he needed to obey the Lady, too. I saw his boot prints disappearing through the snow, in the same direction Kyle had gone.

The Lady ran her fingers along Matthew’s back. “I trust you can sniff him out, pet? Find him, and bring him back to me.”

Matthew barked and trotted off, following Johnny’s prints.

I let the Lady lead me away. Wind had scattered the clouds, and moonlight illuminated the bodies of the dead as we walked through Clayburn’s ruins. The temperature was dropping, but the stench of smoke and decomposing flesh lingered in the air.

“A sweet scent, is it not?” the Lady asked.

Something twisted inside me, something that needed above all else to please her. The smell grew strange and sweet, like dead flowers. I inhaled deeply and quickened my steps.

“Human towns are weak, too. Every one of them holds the seeds of its destruction within its own children.” The Lady’s fingers tightened around mine. “Time was that humans had their uses. They were crafters, singers, players, entertaining diversions from life in the Realm. The Uprising swept all that away, when your human weapons held more power than anything human-crafted had a right to. Many of our shelters did not hold, and the injury your weapons dealt our land made it reluctant to yield up sustenance even for those who survived. Still we grew what we could, until this past season, when the land refused to serve us at all.” Despair crept into the Lady’s voice, as beautiful as the scent of decay. “So we came to your world at last, to take from it what we could. Only your land has proven as gray and desolate as our own. Even humans must know that nothing more can grow out of such death. And so the worlds wind down, and tragedy runs its course.”

We walked past the last of the burned houses. Beyond them, bare trees lined a frozen river. Trees had always slept in winter; the adults in my town all said so. Yet what were the assurances of humans beside the Lady’s words? I’d never truly believed that spring would return after this gray season.

The Lady glanced past the river, where the bluffs reached for the sky. “Have no fear, Summoner. The Realm will be avenged before this is through, and your frail human towns will fall, one by one. That is justice, is it not?”

I nodded my agreement as we came to a fallen house at the far edge of town, one that wasn’t burned, only broken, beams and planks sticking out from the silver maple branches that held the building in their embrace. Behind the house lay several piles of mounded dirt, freshly dug out of the snow and mud, as long as a person was tall.

The Lady slowed her steps to follow my gaze. “So you see the harm this town’s children have done to our people. Do not let that trouble you. This is not the first human town we have destroyed and it shall not be the last, though it’s the first whose destruction I left in my granddaughter’s hands. She will deal with the escaped fire speaker soon enough, and I have no intention of letting you stray so far from my sight.”

It took a moment to remember that the fire speaker was Ethan. “He might already be dead.” The thought should have worried me, but it didn’t. “He took too much fire into himself, after he came to my town.”

“Truly? We shall all see him soon enough, then.” The Lady drew me away from the graves to lead me down a crumbling stone staircase. We entered a basement thick with maple roots that reached down from the ceiling and pushed through the cracked concrete walls. “Cozy, is it not?” She led me to a small cave among the roots. “Almost like home.”

Roots caught in my hair. Dimly I remembered that there ought not be anything cozy about a tree or its roots, but I wasn’t sure why.

“You are a pleasant surprise, Liza.” The Lady traced a vein along the back of my hand, and I trembled at the touch. “The first summoner we’ve found among humans, and Tara’s daughter besides. The wolf is merely a toy, but you, Liza—you are a weapon. What was the name of your town?”

“Franklin Falls.” Had I told her before?

The Lady’s smile was cold as ice. “Soon we will test the extent of your power, Liza, and then you will show me the way to your mother and your town. But first we must wait for the others. Until my granddaughter and my wolf return with their prey, I think it best if you sleep.” She brought her fingers to my eyelids, closing them. Velvet darkness surrounded me, and I suddenly wanted nothing more than to sleep. I curled up among the dead tree roots. It was cold there, but I wouldn’t trouble the Lady with complaining. I could handle the cold.

“I very much look forward to seeing your mother again,” the Lady said, and then sleep overtook me.

I woke once, to the sound of Matthew’s bark. When I opened my eyes, the Lady stood among the tangled roots with her hands on Johnny’s shoulders, whispering fierce words. His shirt was torn, and there was blood on one arm, along with what looked like a wolf’s teeth marks. My gaze went to the knife that hung sheathed at his belt. My knife. I didn’t want Johnny to have it. I stood and reached for it, but then the Lady looked at me. “It displeases me to see you awake, Liza.”

I didn’t want to displease her. I slept once more.

I dreamed I walked through a dead forest. Ash fell like snow around me, and smoke drifted through the air, stinging my eyes, clogging my throat. I was looking for something. First I thought it was a leaf, only it was winter, and the trees had no leaves. Then I thought it was my knife, but that made no sense, because I never went anywhere without my knife.

A wolf loped toward me, its powerful gait swiftly closing the distance between us. The wolf leaped, throwing me to the ground. As I looked into his wild gray eyes, I knew that this was what I’d lost, after all. “Matthew.” Too late I realized I’d put a command into his name. The wolf lunged at my call, gleaming teeth piercing my exposed neck—

I woke screaming, my hands grasping my throat. Someone grabbed my arm. “Go away!” I cried. I opened my eyes to see the Lady gazing down at me, her silver eyes bright. “Go away!” Beside her Matthew stiffened, ears alert, fur bristling.