Barb Hendee: Rebel Fay

Eillean's heart grew heavy as she walked away from the city of Venjetz and into the night forest. Dressed in breeches, cowl, face scarf, and cloak, all dark-tinted, between night-gray and forest-green, only her movement would have betrayed her presence to any watchful eyes.

She did not care for sentiment, but lingering melancholy nagged her just the same.

Brot'an'duive walked silently beside her.

Tall for an elf, he stood almost a full head above her, yet he was proportioned more like a human. Both traits were common among his clan. His hair was bound back beneath his cowl, but a few silvery strands still wafted across his dark-skinned forehead. Faint lines surrounded his large amber eyes.

She had not asked him to come on this strange journey. Yet here he was.

They had traveled for nearly a moon from their homeland-what humans called the elven Territories. Crossing the Broken Range and its western foothills, they arrived at the lake beyond Darmouth's keep. And for what? To bring a majay-hi pup to Leshil, a grandson she had only watched from afar.

Foolishness-and yet she had felt compelled.

With the pup now safely delivered to Cuirin'nen'a, her daughter, Eillean brushed her gloved hand against fir tree branches as she walked. She missed her people's verdant forest, and it was time to return home.

Brot'an'duive's cowl was up and a wrap covered his lower face, the same as hers. Not that it mattered. He too hid his emotions behind a passive mask. Perhaps their age and decades among their caste were responsible.

He was not that much younger than she, and she had walked this world for more than a human century. Not so old for an elf, though beyond middle-aged, but venerable for a life of service to the people. A life among the Anmaglahk was seldom a long one.

"Why do this, if it troubles you so?" Brot'an'duive finally asked. "Why bring the pup for Leshil? Taking a majay-hi from our land will not sit well with our people."

Always direct-his most devious approach. No matter how well Eillean hid her mood, he often sensed it. It was in part why she had taken him into her confidence shortly after Leshil's birth.

"I stopped at the enclave where I was born," she answered quietly. "There were few faces left that I remembered. A female majay-hi had borne a litter in the settlement, and this one pup was not playing with the others. I picked him up and…"

"Now you have doubts?"

"Leshil must be strong… uninfluenced by ties beyond his training. It was why Cuirin'nen'a chose to bear a son of mixed blood, an outsider to any one people. I do not wish to soften him."

"A companion does not make one soft."

Eillean scowled slightly. "You sound like his mother, and I fear Cuirin'nen'a hastoo much love for the boy."

"As you have for her," he answered.

She stopped walking. "You are most irritating."

His calm eyes peered down at her over his face wrap's edge. "One emotion can serve to counter another. And you are still hiding from something more."

"We labor from within the shadows," she said. "Cuirin'nen'a cannotelude the risks she faces alone. She bred Leshil in her own body and now trains him to kill an Enemy we still do not know. All we have are Most Aged Father's fears and his mad obsession with crippling the humans. I am tired of waiting for something we cannot predict."

She paused with a small snort. "So I brought my daughter a majay-hi pup for her son… and do not ask me why again! Perhaps it may clarify this future none of us can-"

"It might," he said.

Eillean stalled at a sudden spark of warmth in Brot'an'duive's eyes. How did he always know the right thing to say… in the fewest words possible and in the most annoying way?

Emotion had no place in an anmaglahk's life. It clouded judgment in choice and action when both might be needed quickly and without conscious thought. That was the difference between life and death in silence and in shadows. But Brot'an'duive always found a way to goad her.

Eillean stepped into Brot'an'duive's way, bringing them both to a sudden halt.

"Swear to me that no matter what comes-no matter what you must do-you will protect Cuirin'nen'a, and that her vision will be your vision. Swear to me that all she has done will not be for nothing."

Brot'an'duive put his hand upon her shoulder. It slid softly down her arm to her hand.

"I swear," he whispered.

Eillean had lost her bonded mate, Cuirin'nen'a's father, long years ago. His death shattered her, and she had barely clung to life. She was too old now for such things, and still…

She put her free hand on Brot'an'duive's chest and clutched the fabric of his tunic. She did not let go so long as she felt his hand in hers.

Who among the living-even the Anmaglahk-could claim to have never been a fool at heart?

Chap fought for each breath the blizzard tried to rip away, and every step sank him nearly chest deep in the snowdrifts clinging to the cliff's path. Squinting against the wind, he flexed his paws to fight the numbing cold.

His fur and the folded blanket Magiere had tied across his body were thickly crusted, and his vision blurred if he looked up too long at the whitened sky. To his right, a deep gorge fell beyond sight, while on his left, the peak's steep facerose sharply, its upper reaches lost in the blizzard.

Lashing snow and hail had pelted his face for three days as he led his companions onward. This was the third storm since they had entered the winter-shroudedBroken Range over a moon ago. The map Wynn had procured in Soladran had guided them partway, but once beyond the Warlands' foothills, it was of little help.

Chap had crossed these mountains only once before, and in winter as well, as a pup. Leesil's grandmother, Eillean, had carried him in the company of the deceitful Brot'an'duive. Here and now, so many years later, Chap tried not to think upon his failure.

He could not find a passage through to the elvenTerritories.

Chap flattened his ears. Each time he raised them, pelting flakes collected in the openings and sent an icy ache into his skull. Even that pain did not quell his panic. Rather, his fear grew as he looked back down the narrow path.

A dozen paces back, a short figure trudged toward him, half-obscured by snowfall blowing in the harsh wind. It was Wynn. Beside the small sage thumped the hulking silhouette of a burdened horse, either Port or Imp. Farther behind came two more figures with the bulk of the other horse.

And three questions still plagued Chap as he waited for his companions to catch up.

Why did Aoishenis-Ahare-Most Aged Father-seed war among the humans? Why had the dissidents among the Anmaglahk-Leesil's mother and grandmother included-created Leesil to kill an enemy they knew nothing about? Why had Chap's own kin, the Fay, now abandoned him?

More than a season past, he had left Miiska with Magiere and Leesil. Every day and league brought more questions he could not answer. All he had wanted in the beginning was to find Magiere and keep her from the hands of the returning Enemy. And Leesil had been his instrument to accomplish this. It was-should have been-a simple task to accomplish. Perhaps this life in flesh made him foolish and naive, stunting the awareness he had shared among his kin.

Wynn's muffled form grew distinct as she neared, one mittened hand braced against Port's shoulder. Her cloak's hood was cinched around her face, and the wool blanket tied over her cloak was caked with frozen snow. A loose corner of Port's baggage tarp snapped and cracked in the wind.