Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

She was watching Shade and took one soft step forward.

“Look at her!” Wynn called to Vreuvillä, though she pointed at Shade and not the silver-gray majay-hì. “Think about her!”

Vreuvillä held her ground, only briefly turning her eyes upon Shade.

“Why would she defend me ... turn on her own kind?” Wynn demanded. “Why ... if what your ‘Pain Mother’ says is true?”

Vreuvillä scowled with disdain at that translated title.

Wynn wasn’t certain what it meant, but it gave the priestess further pause. She needed to stall a little longer for what she thought might happen.

The silver-gray female inched another step. Shade lunged partway and snapped at her, and then froze as the mottled brown male wheeled in, returning Shade’s threat.

“Shade, no!” Wynn called.

The silver-gray dog shouldered the mottled brown aside and took another step.

Do not listen to this spy! Truth and lies—she will use both to delude you!

Wynn tried not to shudder under the Fay’s denouncement. At least she’d turned their focus onto their own emissary, and this confirmed Wynn’s suspicion.

The Fay couldn’t enter First Glade. They were afraid now, and Wynn knew it was the truth they feared more than any lie.

“Look at them ,” she told Vreuvillä, pointing to the silver-gray female, as even the brown male stood in tense watchfulness. “They want to know.... Don’t you?”

“Know what?”

“Ask them,” Wynn answered.

The female came nose to nose with Shade. Even as Shade snarled, the female thrust her head forward. Shade’s spittle spread across silver-gray fur as they slid muzzle against muzzle.

Shade instantly quieted.

Her hackles began to settle, though the mottled brown male stood a half length behind the female, ready to lunge. These two of the pack, or at least the female, wanted to know why one of their own, foreign and strange as Shade was, had turned against them for a human.

Shade would tell them, and Wynn could only imagine the flurry of memory-speak.

Whether it was her own remembrance or that of Shade’s mother, Lily, Shade among all majay-hì was more gifted at passing on the memories of others. The silver-gray female would see that one dark night, halfway across the world.

In a clearing within the an’Cróan’s forest, Chap had gone to commune with his kin and learn why they’d left Leesil’s mother to suffer in isolation. He learned something more, as well. When he’d chosen to be born into flesh as a majay-hì pup, he was fully aware of the task that lay ahead in his life. But he was not aware of everything he should’ve been.

His kin had stolen most of his memories from his time among them.

There were secrets the Fay kept from him in his newly taken form, his new life. Even now, like Chap, Wynn wondered what he was missing. When he had denounced them for this, they had caught Wynn unintentionally listening in.

If not for Chap, or more especially Lily, a true majay-hì, Wynn would’ve died that night.

Lily’s faith in Chap made her dive in to defend a human, and her pack had followed. But the Fay hadn’t relented. They turned upon the majay-hì who tried to help. The Fay invaded through a large downed tree, making its roots and branches lash at Lily’s pack.

They killed a majay-hì that night—without hesitation—in their attempt to kill Wynn.

All of this must’ve passed from Shade to the silver-gray female in less than three blinks. The female wheeled, rushing back around Vreuvillä’s legs. The mottled brown male joined them as Vreuvillä crouched down and lowered her head.

As both of the priestess’s companions nuzzled her face, Wynn heard the torrent in the trees whip to a frenzy. It was so suddenly violent that it pulled her attention from the trio.

“What is happening?” Ore-Locks called out, turning every which way.

Shade backed up until her rump hit Wynn’s legs. She was trembling as she looked about. As the wind shook the trees, Wynn thought she saw something move among them.

It was only a glimpse ... a large form that walked just beyond the closest thrashing trees at the clearing’s edge. Or, rather, Wynn thought she saw branches bend and spring back in something’s passing. What it was, she couldn’t tell, for it was little more than a darker shadow. Something made of whirling wind, swirling leaves, and mulch torn from the earth stalked through the forest.

Again, Wynn wanted to look to Chârmun, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the forest.

“Aovar?”

Vreuvillä cried out that one root word in her tongue. It meant “reason,” or even “cause” or “impetus,” but her anguished inflection made it something else.

“Why?” the priestess shouted again.

Standing upright between her companions, she glared into the trees. Her tan cheeks glistened with smeared tears. The silver-gray female and mottled brown male raced out among their pack. Brief touches of heads and muzzles passed quickly among them.

Because that thing listens! She steals ... our hope, our knowing ... that which no mortal should have, more so a tainted one!

Again, Wynn heard those words in her mind.

“Answer me,” Vreuvillä returned, her voice growing raw. “Why did you kill one of your children?”

The wind quieted only a little and a long pause followed.

Regretful ... tragic ... necessary.

Wynn had no pity for their regret.

With tears flooding, Vreuvillä shrieked at the immense shadow beyond the trees like some animal too enraged for the power of speech. When she regained her voice, Wynn followed her strange dialect more easily.

“Your descendant of flesh, a majay-hì, guards this Numan woman ... even against its own kind! You killed one of them to get to her? Would you do so again, here and now?”

She is a tainted piece of Existence, too twisted and dangerous.

“You gave birth to Existence, no matter the form of its parts!” Vreuvillä snarled back. “Is this now what you make of the bond that I serve ... that all Foirfeahkan have nurtured for ages?”

Wynn glanced aside. The pack circled chaotically, but mostly toward Vreuvillä. What they’d learned had left them confused and wary.

“How can I,” Vreuvillä went on, “or any others left of my way, serve to maintain the bond of parent to child ... if this is the price?”

No answer came.

Every root around the clearing went limp upon the earth. The wind died in the trees in all but one place. Wynn thought she saw a form hidden partly beyond the branches. Larger than any living being she could imagine, it was not as tall as the trees themselves. That shadow of whirling air and leaves beyond the branches was the only spot Vreuvillä focused on.

Necessary ... mournfully necessary.

That answer made Wynn long to shout her own denial at the Fay. They were insanely set on a course of enforced inaction, deterring anyone’s efforts against what might come. That included Magiere and Leesil and Chap, even more than Wynn herself. But Chap hadn’t agreed with his own kin, even in ignorance of what they truly hoped to accomplish at any cost.

Neither did Wynn.

She kept her tongue, letting the priestess’s tension mount. The Fay were sacred to this woman in some way, and this conflict was costing her. Wynn had to shape that outcome to her need, even to creating a crisis of faith for Vreuvillä.

“Whatever would be gained is not worth this,” Vreuvillä said. “Whatever would be made by it will never replace what is lost. I see no price or loss in what this woman seeks ... not for what you have done.”

The wind died instantly.

Wynn heard a disquieting sound in her head. The leaf-wing chorus made it hard to be certain. It could’ve been a shriek of either rage or suffering.