P.C. Cast - Burned

“No, we haven’t stopped coming. I’m right here,” Stark told the ancient queen. “I’m a Warrior. I’m of the MacUallis blood. I’m asking for your help so that I can protect my Ace. Please, Sgiach, let me enter your island. Teach me how to keep my queen alive.”

Sgiach hesitated only long enough to share a look with her Warrior, then she lifted her hand, and said, “ Failte gu ant Eilean nan Sgiath . . . Welcome to the Isle of Sgiach. You may enter my island.”

“Your Majesty.” Darius’s voice made everyone pause. The Warrior had dropped to one knee before the archway, Aphrodite standing a little way behind him.

“You may speak, Warrior,” Sgiach said.

“I am not of Clan blood, but I do protect an Ace; therefore, I ask for entry to your island as well. Though I don’t come as a newly made Warrior, I believe there is much here that I do not know—much here that I would like to learn while I stand at my brother Warrior’s side in his quest to save Zoey’s life.”

“This is a human female and no a High Priestess. How could yie be Oath Bound to her?” asked the vampyre Warrior.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name. Was it Shawnus?” Aphrodite stepped to Darius’s side and rested her hand on his shoulder.

“It’s feckn’ Seoras, are yie deaf, too?” the Warrior said, enunciating slowly. Stark was surprised to see his lips curling up at Aphrodite’s bitchy tone.

“Okay, Seoras. ” She mimicked his accent with eerie accuracy. “I’m not a human. I was a fledgling who had visions. Then I wasn’t a fledgling anymore. And when I un-fledgling-ed, Nyx, for reasons I’m still pretty clueless about, decided to let me keep my visions. So now I’m the Goddess’s Prophetess. I’m hoping that, along with all the stress and eye-aches it gives me, this Prophetess stuff means I age gracefully, like your queen.” Aphrodite paused to bow her head to Sgiach, whose brows went up, but who didn’t strike her dead like Stark thought she deserved. “Anyway, Darius is my Oath Sworn Warrior. If I’m getting the allusion right, and here’s hoping ’cause I’m shitty at figurative language, I’m an Ace in my own way. So Darius does fit in with your Guardian Clan, blood tie or no blood tie.”

Stark thought he heard Seoras mutter, “Arrogant feckr,” at the same time Sgiach whispered, “Interesting.”

“ Failte gu ant Eilean nan Sgiath, Prophetess and your Warrior,” Sgiach said.

Without any further discussion, Stark, carrying Zoey, followed by Darius and Aphrodite, passed beneath the marble archway and entered the Isle of Women.

Seoras led them to a black Range Rover that was parked around the corner and out of sight of the archway. Stark stopped beside the vehicle. His face must have shown his surprise because the Warrior laughed, and said, “Did yie expect a wee cart an’ a Highland pony?”

“I don’t know about him, but I did,” Aphrodite said, climbing in the backseat beside Darius. “And for once I’m super glad to be wrong.”

Seoras opened the front passenger’s door for him, and Stark got in, holding Zoey carefully. The Warrior had started driving before Stark realized Sgiach wasn’t with them.

“Hey, where’s your queen?” Stark asked.

“Sgiach doesna need the motor tae be traveling her island.”

Stark was trying to figure out how to ask his next question when Aphrodite spoke up.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means Sgiach’s affinity isnae limited tae any element. Sgiach’s affinity is with this island. She commands everyone and everything on it.”

“Holy shit! Are you saying she can transport, like an undorky version of Star Trek ? Not that it’s possible to be undorky about Star Trek ,” Aphrodite said.

Stark started to consider ways to gag her without Darius freaking on him.

But the old Warrior was completely unruffled by Aphrodite. He simply shrugged, and said, “Aye, it will be as good an explanation as any.”

“You know about Star Trek ?” came out of Stark’s mouth before his brain could stop it.

Again, the Warrior shrugged. “We do have the satellite.”

“And the Internet?” Aphrodite asked hopefully.

“And the Internetograph, too,” Seoras agreed, straight-faced.

“So you do let in the outside world,” Stark said.

Seoras glanced at him. “Aye, when it serves the queen’s purposes.”

“I’m not shocked. She’s a queen. She likes to shop, ergo the Internet,” Aphrodite said.

“She is a queen. She likes to be informed about the world and its goin’s on,” the Warrior said in a tone that didn’t invite further questions.

They rode on in silence until Stark started to get worried about the lightening in the eastern sky. He was just about to tell Seoras what would happen to him if he wasn’t inside and under cover at sunrise when the Warrior pointed ahead and to the left of the narrow road, saying, “The Craobh—the Sacred Grove. The castle is just beyond on the shore.”

Mesmerized, Stark gazed to the left of them at misshapen trunks of what must be deceptively spindly-looking trees because they held up an ocean of green. He only caught glimpses of what lay within the grove, layers of moss and shadow and clumps of more of the marble from which the archway had been made that appeared as splotches of sparkling light. And in front of all of it, like a beacon drawing travelers, was what looked like two trees twisted together to form one. From the branches of the strange joining, strips of brightly colored cloth were tied to it in a strange yet complementary contrast to its ancient, gnarled limbs.

The longer Stark stared at it, the odder it made him feel.

“I’ve never seen a tree like that, and why is all that cloth tied to it?” he asked.

Seoras braked, coming to a stop in the middle of the road. “ ’Tis a hawthorn tree and a rowan tree, grown together to make a hangin’ tree.”

When that’s all the explanation he gave, Stark shot him a frustrated look, saying, “A hanging tree?”

“Yer education is sadly lackin’, laddie. Ach, well, ’thon tree is a tree of wishes. Each knot—each strip of cloth—represents a wish. Sometimes it’s parents wishin’ for the well-being of a wain. Sometimes it’s friends remembering those passed on to the next life. But most often it’s wishes of lovers, tying their lives together and wishin’ fer happiness. They’re trees grown by the Good People, roots fed by passin’ on their well wishes from their world tae urs.”

“The good people?” Stark looked exasperated.

“The Fey—Fairies tae you. Do yie no know that’s where the sayin’ ‘Tie the knot’ comes from?”

“That’s romantic,” Aphrodite said, her tone—for once—totally devoid of sarcasm.

“Aye, wumman, if it’s truly romantic, then it must be Scottish,” said the Warrior as he put the Range Rover into gear and pulled slowly away from the wish-laden tree.

Distracted by the thought of tying a wish with Zoey, Stark didn’t notice the castle until Seoras stopped again. Then he looked up, and the blaze of light reflecting off rock and water filled his sight. The castle sat a couple hundred yards from the main road, down a single lane that was really a raised stone bridgeway over a boggy field. Torches, like those that lined the bridge from the mainland, lit the lane, only here they were easily three times in number, illuminating the pathway to the castle and the walls of the huge edifice itself.

And in between the torches were stakes, as thick around as a man’s arm. On each stake was a head—leathered, mouth grimacing, eyes missing, the macabre things at first appeared to move and then Stark realized it was just the long, stringy hair from each shriveled scalp that floated, ghostlike in the cold breeze.