Barb Hendee - Rebel Fay

"Repeat my words," Sgaile whispered quickly, "exactly as I say them."

Leesil barely heard him, still searching for whatever came. He was prepared for a fight, not a speech. Then he glanced at Sgaile.

The elf stood frozen in place, staring straight at the silhouette trees. His eyes twitched once to the left toward the sound and then quickly turned back ahead.

" Ahdrneiv! " Sgaile began. " En pajij navajean'am le jhaiv …"

The dark base of one oak bulged near the ground.

The swelling rolled and flowed across the forest floor toward Leesil. It turned into the path toward the half-hidden clearing.

The soft glow beyond the silhouette oaks caught on the piece of slithering darkness, and its surface glinted to iridescent green.

A long body, as thick as Leesil's own torso, was covered in fist-sized scales. Their deep green shimmered to opalescence as it came closer. Leesil caught the yellow glint of two eyes that marked its approaching head, like massive spiral-cracked crystals in an oblong boulder pushed along at a hand's-breadth above the ground.

A snake… no, a serpent, too large to be real.

Leesil reached slowly down his thighs, but his blades weren't there. He slid one foot back to retreat.

"No!" Sgaile whispered. "Do not move! Repeat my words… quickly!"

The serpent's body knotted and coiled, gathering into a mass. Its scaled and plated head rose to hover before Leesil, swaying gently. A long forked tongue whipped at his face with a hiss.

Slit irises in its yellow eyes watched him steadily.

The serpent's jaw dropped open. Fangs as long as Leesil's forearm glistened in the dark maw of its mouth. It could swallow half of him at once.

"Leshil!" Sgaile whispered. "If you would save Magiere, you must speak my words."

The serpent undulated as its head swung toward Sgaile's voice.

Leesil heard the man's shuddering breath as he felt some part of the serpent's scaled body scrape across his leg. He was still prepared to fight his way past this thing if he had to. He glanced quickly at Sgaile, and the sight was like ice pressed into his eyes, feeding its chill into his body.

Sgaile averted his gaze, anywhere but at the serpent's massive head. He closed his eyes tightly. He was shaking, his muscles rigid.

An anmaglahk was frozen in terror, and Sgaile's fear bled rapidly into Leesil.

"I… I can't," Leesil whispered.

But if he died here, Magiere would die too. The serpent swung back, yellow eyes centered on him.

"I can't speak your language," he said, despair mounting. "I won't get it right."

Magiere wanted to beat answers out of Brot'an's scarred face. She had trusted him, and Leesil might pay for her mistake. Brot'an spoke before she uttered her first demand.

"There is more at stake than just your freedom. Even if Most Aged Father's claim is dismissed, neither you nor Leesil will leave this land alive. You are interlopers, humans, so do not be naive. Am I clear so far?"

Magiere's ire held beneath her uncertainty.

"Very well," Brot'an added quietly, and settled upon the chamber floor before her. "All balances on whether Leshil steps onto hallowed ground… as much as whether or not he gains the branch of Roise Charmune."

Magiere wasn't certain what this meant.

"To be elven, as you call it," Brot'an said, his voice tainted with distaste, "is notan'Croan. We are our heritage, our blood, more than whatever race you see us as. Only asan'Croan can Leshil plead for Cuirin'nen'a before the elders."

"If he's elven," she snapped back, "then he's got as much right as anyone, under your laws."

"No, he does not," Brot'an countered, quiet and sharp. "Do you think an outsider could demand Cuirin'nen'a's freedom? To bean'Croan — to be of the blood-is all that matters to my people."

Magiere looked awayThe last thing Leesil-or she-wanted was to be snared even deeper among these people and their ways. What arrogance, what nonsense and superstition!

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean you no malice," Brot'an said. "And only wish you to understand what is truly at stake. There was no time to waste in arguing this, so I chose not to give you that chance. The only way Leshil will be seen as one of us is if he can step onto hallowed ground. That is as important as the reason he goes there."

"If?" Magiere snapped.

"Sgailsheilleache will guide him… teach him the words to ask entrance. There is no other way."

"Ask who?The ancestors?"

Brot'an shook his head. "None of us have seen what guards Roise Charmune, as no one has gone there before but a full-blooded an'Croan. And none have been rejected, to my knowledge. Leesil must gain entrance before he reaches it or the ancestors."

Gain entrance? What did that mean?

"What did you see at this Roi-say… this Seed of Sanctuary?" she demanded. "What's guarding it? Just tell me what you know."

"A sound," he answered, "something moving in the forest surrounding hallowed ground. I know no more than that. When I spoke the words my father taught me, all was silent again. I stood a long while before I tried to walk in. Even when I left, I neither saw nor heard anything more."

"What did you say?"

Brot'an hesitated."A formal plea in my language.Nothing that would tell you more or ease your mind."

But it implied that if Leesil did not make it into the burial ground…

"For what it is worth," Brot'an added, "I believe Leshil will return."

"What did you… experience when you went for your name?" Magiere asked. She tried to remember what Wynn had said Brot'an's name meant.Something about a dog.

"That is an impudent question."

"Does it look like I care?" she hissed. "You think you'll walk out of here without answering?"

"I see that you love him," Brot'an said, "in some fashion, though I do not know if that is better or worse for him. I ask you again. Have you mated with Leshil?"

"That's still none of your business."

"No more than my naming is yours. I know the answer, but I would hear it from your own lips… now!"

Magiere saw Brot'an was as determined as she was to get answers.

"Yes," she said bluntly.

Brot'an slumped ever so slightly. "What do you know of Leanalham's mother?"

"She was never happy or at home here. She ran off when her husband abandoned her and Leanalham."

Magiere didn't care for the way Brot'an studied her.

"We have more than one word," he said, "for the degrees of what humans so casually call love. Only at its deepest do we bond… mate… for life. It is why we observe a period of boijt'ana before bonding, as En’nish did for Groyt'ashia."

"Groyt brought on his own death!" Magiere countered.

"I agree, though you are not following my meaning. En’nish may look upon Leshil as the murderer of her 'betrothed', you would say. But her obsession has taken her reason. Even Leshil's death may not end her suffering. My people bond for life."

Magiere knew of others who'd lost a loved one because of Leesil. "Grief never ends. It's just something you learn to live with."

Brot'an slowly shook his head. "Not for some… not foran'Croan. Mating is life-and death-and overwhelms all else. It is rare that we ever mate outside of bonding for that very reason. Do you not remember Leshil's words to me in Darmouth's crypt… when I stepped too close to you at the end?"

Magiere could never forget. Touch her, and I'll kill you and everything you love .

Brot'an went on. "It was then I first suspected what lay between the two of you."

He had purposefully chosen not to kill her that night in the crypt. Magiere now suspected the reasons were more complex than some slip of compassion.

"Leanalham's mother did not flee this land," Brot'an said. "That is what the girl chose to believe. Gleanneohkan'thva and Sgailsheilleache chose not to correct her… to let time bring her more slowly to the truth with the maturity to face it. Her mother ran mad into the forest. Though her body was never found, I do not believe she survived."