Of Mushrooms and Flowers (short story)
(Of Mushrooms and Flowers is another short story I wrote, again for a contest! Enjoy!)
Evelyn Fletcher stared into the mirror, frowning at the bridal wreath of daisies and rosin roses. Red berries from ash trees glistened among the petals and flowers like little gems. She could tolerate the nails, the lines of salt at every window, the blessed water flicked at her whenever she was dragged back after sneaking out. Even the red yarn tied around her ring finger, so tight it came just short of cutting off her pulse, was just an inconvenience. Just another change in routine. The worse change that came with the faerie rings that started dotting around the meadows and forests outside the town was the mass increase of weddings.
Euranthians believed that marriages performed under the eyes of the gods kept the women safe. No fae man could steal an already-married woman as a bride, they said. Poor families scraped together dowries and married off girls as young as fifteen. Evelyn herself had been engaged for a year, long before the first ring of toadstools, but she’d put off the wedding in every way she could. It had worked until her parents whipped themselves into a frenzy over the idea of her being turned into a fae bride. Faking her moonblood so she’d need to be isolated, pretending to have fainting spells, claiming dreams with bad omens, every excuse she’d had. They’d all stopped working.
Now she sat in her best dress, the soft moss green now marred with overpriced embroidery, black hair full of fae-repelling flowers, red ribbons at her wrists and throat that felt more like bindings than decorations.
No one listened when she said she didn’t want this. She had nothing against marriage itself. It was just the particular man her parents chose for her, with his smooth gold hair and chiseled face and wealthy family. Those were the things people spoke of when they told her to be happy, feel lucky. No one brought up how his mother disappeared after a fight with his father. No one acknowledged his maids watching her with pitying eyes. When she was forced to attend a dinner party at his house and he gripped her thigh under the table, digging in his fingers until she bruised, her own maids made no comment upon seeing the ugly purple marks. Her mother refused to even look at them.
She looked away from the mirror and gazed out at the forest, wondering how fast she could run.
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The temple overflowed with flowers. More daisies, more rosin rose, their whites and yellows shot through with sprays of red verbena. It looked less like a wedding and more like a vigil against the fair folk, especially with the red garlands twining up the stone pillars and the iron bars that hung like wind chimes in every window and every open archway.
Euranthian temples had no walls. They were closer to pavilions, large stone canopies held up only by pillars. At the northern half of the temple, their seven major gods were carved into the pillars, unyielding stone eyes gazing down at where the people and priestesses would gather. Evelyn looked up at them, silently pleading for a way out as she walked down the stone path to the altar. A priestess stood, hooded and silent and gripping a censer that leaked cedar and pine smoke. Already waiting was him, her husband-to-be. Evelyn wasn’t sure if she imagined the wrinkle of distaste that flashed across his face at the sight of her.
She only realized that she stopped walking when her mother urged her forward a few more faltering steps. The closer she got, the more she was certain she hadn’t imagined the look on his face, though now it was schooled into careful neutrality.
She was three steps away from them when her foot caught in the hem of her dress. She was just righting herself when the howls rang through the air.
The priestess dropped the censer, the burning embers of incense scattering across the floor as the blood drained from her face. Beside her, Evelyn’s groom mirrored the horrified expression.
Evelyn’s heart thrilled.
“Wild Hunt,” her mother breathed.
The howls of fae wolves, soon to be followed by the hooves of fae horses, and on their backs a host of hunters coming for them. There was no one left alive from the last time they’d prowled human soil, but the unnatural tone to their wolves triggered a primal fear that all recognized. Everyone had a different story about the Wild Hunt. About who led the horde of dark fae on spectral horses, hunting with otherworldly hounds. Some tales claimed their leader was a fallen deity, a sovereign of fae who was deposed, or even a human spirit doomed to hunt even their kind by a faerie curse.
The small wedding party descended into chaos, no one wanted to test if their paltry protections would keep the Wild Hunt from entering the temple. As everyone turned to flee back to the village, Evelyn raised her skirts and raced in the other direction.
The evening air whipped through her hair as she ripped off the bridal wreath and threw it aside. The thought that maybe this was crazy, that perhaps running away from town while otherworldly hunters were out for blood was a bad idea, crossed her mind. Evelyn dismissed it. All she cared about right now was the slightly damp air filling her lungs and tingling across her skin. All she cared about was the first taste of freedom as she kicked off her shoes and loosed the ribbons from her throat and wrists.
The forest engulfed her with a rustle of leaves, surrounding her with the continuing howls of the Wild Hunt’s wolves, yet the fear didn’t set in until she saw their eyes glowing through the gloom of the trees. Evelyn stumbled to a stop, backing away as the first horse came into sight. A large beast, black as night, shadows rolling off it like smoke. Pure white orbs made its eyes, and on top of it sat the tall, lithe figure of a fae. Silver hair flowed down their back, loose and smooth, and as glossy as silk. The helmet revealed nothing. Even the eye holes only looked into an abyss.
The leader of the Wild Hunt extended a hand, but Evelyn was already running again. Her dress tore on thorns and broken wood, branches whipping across her skin to leave worn lines of blood across her legs and face. Still, she didn’t turn back to the village, even as she heard the Hunt behind her.
Instead, she let herself fall into the faerie ring.
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She woke with the sun on her back and her face resting on lush green grass. When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking right at a white mushroom. She didn’t raise her head quite yet, but she had a feeling that if she did, she’d find herself in a circle of them much like the one she fell through.
“Falling into a fairy ring while fleeing the Wild Hunt,” a resonant, beautiful voice said, making Evelyn jerk up and stare as the leader of the Wild Hunt approached, their steed behind them continuing to give off a mist of shadows even in the sunshine. “Unwise. Very unwise indeed.”
Evelyn scrambled to sit up, but the fae only laughed. “No point in running, dear girl. Getting into our world is easy, you see. It’s getting out that’s the problem.”
They removed their black helmet, shaking out their silver hair and revealing a sharp, fox-like face with eyes as dark and glossy as onyx. Sharp ears knifed out of their hair, surely marking them as fae if the shadow horse and silver hair weren’t enough. Their face was near divine in its perfection, carved in fine, sharp lines that could have been designed by the gods themselves.
They knelt at the edge of the ring with a dangerous smirk that only lasted for a moment before dropping. “You smell of banes and fear.”
Evelyn coughed and summoned her first words all day. “I… I smell of what?”
“Perfumes that repel us, and terror… but not towards me.” Those dark eyes narrowed. “What were you running from that was so bad that I’ve become the lesser evil?”
The memory of the scattered wedding party came back with a rush and Evelyn shook herself. She looked around, finding that the ring was in a clearing surrounded by tall, imposing trees, and the whole place was eerily silent. Perhaps every other creature around them recognized the dangerous predator that was kneeling before her and chose to stay quiet.
She swallowed hard and met their eyes. They were so beautiful, but in a way that no human could be. Not just stunning, but wild. A being born to the night and wind and stars. It was so much easier to hate the fae for what they caused, but it still made her heart skip to look upon this fae.
Worse, it made her have an idea. One to ruin her for any human man.
“I’ve come to be a fae bride,” she blurted.
The leader of the Wild Hunt raised their sterling brows. “Ah, another feeling a marriage… Oh, don’t look so surprised, sweet. Men and women and everything in between have run away from their spouses and come to fae lands, hoping to be whisked away by one of us and hoping to never have a human look twice at them because of it. You’ll have to look elsewhere. I’m not in the business of stealing humans as any kind of spouse.”
They started to stand, and Evelyn panicked.
“No, wait!” Evelyn jumped up as well. “I don’t want to go back, and I don’t know where else to go here, so I’ll do anyth—”
She cut off as suddenly the fae’s hand was on her mouth, sealing off her last word before it could be finished.
“First rule of faerie,” they whispered, close enough for Evelyn to feel the brush of their breath on her cheek. “Never utter those words. They bind in this land, and there are many out there who could fulfill your wish in the worst way and truly make you do anything to thank them for it. And they wouldn’t blink or regret a single action. Understood?”
Evelyn nodded once, and only then did they let go.
“What’s your name, human girl?” the fae asked, and then before she could answer, “Not your full name.”
“Evelyn.”
“Well, Evelyn, you may know me as Gwynn.”
Gwynn. Something about the name nagged at her; a memory from back before people stopped telling stories about fae as if even speaking of them might summon them. She brushed it aside. None of those tales would help her when faced with someone so powerful.
“So… you’re really the leader of the Wild Hunt?” Evelyn whispered, looking up at them.
“Have you seen anyone else leading a horde of spectral riders?” Gwynn cocked a brow and stepped back. “You’ve caught me in a good mood, and human girls running straight to faerie don’t make good quarry, so you’re lucky. The hounds and specters are no longer tracking your scent. You’d do best to go home.”
“I can’t!” Despite her common sense advising her otherwise, she grabbed Gwynn’s hand as they turned away again. “I can’t. If I go back, they’ll make me marry him, and he scares me.”
Gwynn paused and crossed their arms. “And why are they making you marry this person?”
“Well… the faerie rings. They don’t want us being taken away, so they’re marrying us off. But I don’t even really know why the rings came back. You left us alone for decades. Why… why do we have to go through this again?!”
By the time she was done, she was basically yelling at Gwynn, tears coursing down her cheeks, and Gwynn looked uncomfortable, face twisting.
“If they knew what we came back for this time, they wouldn’t just marry you off,” Gwynn said. “They’d lock everyone away. No one would leave their houses, and you’d pray to your gods until your voices died. Go back to your world and tell them that, and just maybe you’ll get out of it.”
Evelyn stared in horror. “What are you hunting?”
“The queen must pay a tithe, and I must be the one to bring it to her. This tithe doesn’t consist of paltry coins of worthless, ephemeral metal, though. It’s a sacrifice of the one thing, the one thing, that fae don’t have: a soul. As I said, you’d do best to go home and warn your village. Tell them to hide. Tell them to surround themselves with the things that poison us. Trust me, you’ll be a hero.”
“Why warn me if this is your job?”
Gwynn whipped their head to her with a snarl. “You ask too many questions. I have no desire to do any of this, but the queen binds me. She owns my essence, so she commands me and therefore the entire Hunt. Luckily for you, her orders are far from strict enough to make me bring the very first human I see. So why are you still here?”
Despite everything, the thought of going back was still worse. No matter what Gwynn said, Evelyn knew no one would listen to her if she told them about the Wild Hunt seeking a human sacrifice.
“Is there no way to stop it?” she whispered.
“No one can stop the tithe. The only way to delay it would be freeing me, but no fae will disobey the queen, and no human could accomplish it, so don’t hold your breath.”
Sorrow colored Gwynn’s voice, hanging heavy on their words.
“Fine,” Evelyn whispered. “A fae bargain… I’ll try to free you. If you marry me right after, as soon as we’re both safe, so no human can claim my hand.”
They were silent for a moment, studying Evelyn without a word.
“Still on that, I see,” they said at last. “You must be as desperate as I am. You understand that if I accept the terms of this deal, we’re both stuck in it, and both can interpret it as we please?”
Evelyn nodded, and Gwynn stuck out their hand again. This time, Evelyn took it and she let herself be taken onto the shadowy horse.
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Gwynn took Evelyn through the forest, galloping on the back of the shadow horse. She clung to their back, their hair a flurry around her. She caught glimpses of other creatures in the trees as they flashed by, but they all shied away from Gwynn. They recognized the deadlier power of the Wild Hunt in their veins. At least Evelyn didn’t have to worry about anyone, or anything else, bothering her as long as they stayed with Gwynn.
They reined in the horse before another clearing, this one clustered with tents. Other fae milled about, tending fires, polishing weapons, and drinking a nectar-colored liquid. Gwynn, however, was the only one with silver hair and coal-black eyes. They dismounted, and before Evelyn even had a chance to try and figure out how to get down as well, their hands were on her waist, picking her up and settling her down with all the gentleness of a falling feather.
“Drink nothing,” Gwynn said, “Eat nothing. You won’t be able to go back to your world if you do.”
“Then this had better be a quick process,” Evelyn muttered, hugging herself as they walked through the host of fae. They parted for their leader and thumped their fists to their hearts as Gwynn passed, but Evelyn didn’t miss eyes flicking to her before turning to their leader to pay respects.
“If you need sustenance, it can be taken care of,” Gwynn said, holding the flap of the largest tent open for Evelyn to enter. “But yes, it will be quick if you succeed.”
It was the if that made Evelyn nervous as she entered the tent. It was bare on the inside, with just a bed of moss, a rack of weapons, and a bottle of that nectar-gold drink.
“The way to free me will be difficult,” Gwynn said as they flung off their helmet and sat on the bedroll. “I won’t lie. There’ll be consequences for failure beyond just our bargain never being completed.”
Evelyn paled despite herself. “Like death?”
Gwynn let out a bitter bark of laughter. “That’s if you’re lucky. You could find yourself bound to her service as well. She could turn you into any variety of unsightly creatures, make you dance on coals, do whatever she asked without the chance to refuse. Death is one of the kindest things she can inflict.”
She shuddered at their words, struggling to keep her mind from thoughts of what other things might lie in her future.
“All right,” she whispered. “What do I do?”
“You will have only one chance to approach. Declare your love—don’t give me that look. It doesn’t have to be true. You just need to make her think it’s true, which will be easy. Fae can’t lie, you see, and sometimes we forget that humans aren’t bound to our rules. Once she’s convinced, challenge her for me. She will have to present you with an impossible task. Complete it, and I’ll be bound to you instead.”
Evelyn waited quietly for Gwynn to continue, but they just raised a brow at her silence. After a moment, it hit her what Gwyn meant by bound and her cheeks pinked.
“Oh,” she said. “Bound as in… married.”
“As the humans put it, yes. By freeing me, my end of the bargain will also be complete. But if you’d prefer, we never even have to see each other again after that. You can go back to the human world to do… whatever it is you planned. Meanwhile, I can go back to leading my Hunt with no orders but my own to follow.”
Evelyn put her hands to her cheeks and willed them to stop blushing as she nodded. “When will I approach her?”
“You’re in luck. She’ll be out with her host tonight.”
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Night on faerie was a different creature entirely from what Evelyn knew of nights on earth.
Back to riding behind Gwynn on that strange horse, she couldn’t tear her eyes from the sky above. The moon was a soft violet, and so big that Evelyn felt as though she could reach out and touch it. Though it was bright enough to see by, casting long shadows across the grass, the stars were thickly clustered across the whole blanket of black velvet that made up the sky. She could hardly breathe at the sight of it. If there were any constellations that the fae recognized, Evelyn couldn’t guess where they might be. There were simply too many of them to figure out where any shape might start or end.
“Right ahead,” Gwynn’s whisper finally made Evelyn look away. She raised herself just enough to look over their shoulder and, sure enough, was perhaps the exact opposite of the Wild Hunt.
The horses were all white rather than black, and all the fae wore gauzy robes and gowns that could have been woven of spiderwebs for how easily they floated. All the way at the front was a woman who could never be mistaken for anything but a queen. Her hair was a shocking gold that stood out like a hot poker against the cool, dark shades of the night, braids piled on top of her head, yet still long enough that two thick, rope-like plaits dangled down from the top of her head, swaying with the movement of her horse. Her dress wasn’t just white; it glowed like it was sewn with the light of the stars above, and even from this distance, Evelyn could see that the queen was beautiful enough to take anyone’s head away.
“I must go join her,” Gwynn whispered. “She summons me. Dismount, and run up to us. Remember the plans.”
Evelyn nodded and scrambled off of the horse. Gwynn didn’t help this time. Their eyes were fixed ahead, black irises as hard and cold as chips of onyx as they glowered at the queen.
A nude from their heels sent the horse forward for them to join the procession of fae. Evelyn shifted from foot to foot, watching them go and chewing on her lip. Gwynn joined the queen at the front, the whole procession pausing as one when the queen stopped to regard the leader of the Wild Hunt.
Evelyn raised the skirts of her wedding dress and ran before she could get a chance to second guess her decision.
The queen’s eyes snapped to her before Evelyn even managed a step, but no one stopped her as she closed the distance between them.
“I come to declare my love!” she shouted. “I challenge the faerie queen for Gwynn, leader of the wild hunt.”
Gwynn didn’t look at her, but every other fae did, including the queen, whose full, wide mouth lifted into a heart-melting smile.
“How wonderfully romantic,” she said in a voice as clear and sweet as spring water. She dismounted, her glowing dress fluttering behind her as she approached Evelyn. She lifted a lock of Evelyn’s dark hair, letting it slide through her fingers. “I smell the bane of our kind on you… the rosin rose. Red verbena. Iron. Why would someone drenched in the perfume of our poison come to free our darling Gwynn?”
Evelyn felt the blood drain from her face, ready to panic, but the queen continued.
“Forbidden love, perhaps,” the queen mused. “The tales are full of such things, are they not?”
She turned on her heel and walked back to her horse. “Very well. You love our dear leader of the Wild Hunt so much? Surely you must know their name.”
Her grin turned sharp as she climbed onto her horse. “Join the host. You have three days to tell me our Gwynn’s full name. As soon as you speak it, they will be free. Of course, neither Gwynn nor anyone else is allowed to tell you. No one may speak, write, or whisper to your mind their name, or point you in the right direction of where to go. Otherwise, I’ll carve your and their pretty little hearts out for all to see. Understood?”
Gwynn nodded, their beautiful face twisting with concealed rage. Evelyn didn’t have a chance to agree before she was swept up by a pale-faced fae.
At the command of the queen, the slow pace of the procession was abandoned, and these horses that were the opposite of Gwynn’s took off at a pace that whisked her breath away in the wind.
Three days to free Gwynn and save her life, and all that stood in her way was a name she’d never known.
She’d have cursed if the wind had allowed her a chance to breathe.
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The procession took them to a palace made of trees. Evelyn had hidden her face against the neck of the horse she’d been flung over for most of the ride, but she raised her head when the wind slowed and she found herself looking at trees rising before her, so tall it made her dizzy to raise her eyes to the canopy. Their bark was pure white, and their leaves were a green so dark they were almost black. They grew so close it was a surprise they survived, but they parted to make an archway as the queen approached. A flick of her hand summoned forth the fae carrying Evelyn on his horse.
“I know the perfect room to keep her,” the queen said sweetly. “A nice little place with a view. Of course, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a human guest, so do forgive me if I forget what your kind needs.”
“Your highness,” Gwynn said, but the queen made a shutting gesture and their words cut off with a choke.
“That’s enough of that. As for you, human, what’s your name?”
Evelyn clenched her jaw shut before an answer could slip out, drawing a laugh from the queen.
“Ah, Gwynn’s already had time to teach you about names, have they? I’ll have to see just how much you know later. Now, though, I’m bored of you, and I’m not at all interested in listening to you scream.”
“Wha—” Evelyn didn’t get to finish even a single word before the queen’s hand came over her eyes and the world was ripped away.
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Evelyn didn’t so much wake up as she did wrench herself from the darkness. Shadows chased her vision as she struggled to make her limbs move, dragging herself to her feet and squinting through the disorientation. A cage of branches surrounded her, flat on the floor but arching around her. They wove and twined so close that only thin shafts of light cut between them from the top. Flowered vines curled around them, the blooms surrounding her with whiffs of sweet perfume. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that she couldn’t see a way out.
No door, no window. Not even a gap in the branches big enough to squeeze through. Worse, there was no source of water that she could identify, and her lips felt as dry as parchment. She swallowed her panic as well as she could and walked along the walls, tugging on the branches and praying that one of them would open a door of any kind. They shifted, some even bent slightly when she pulled hard enough, but by the time she got back to where she'd started, Evelyn had to accept that she was trapped.
Gwynn's name. Their full name. The leader of the wild hunt had had so many names and roles in the legends. No two myths seemed to agree on their identity outside of leading their fae hunters. Evelyn sank against the wall with a shudder, licking her lips to keep the dryness at bay. They already seemed to be on the verge of cracking. She couldn't be sure how long she'd been in faerie. She'd arrived during the day, then night had fallen. The light shining through the leaves made her think it was daytime again, but how long had she spent with her mind trapped in that darkness? How long did she have left?
She lowered her head to her knees and sucked in deep breaths, ignoring the way how they shuddered with her trembling shoulders.
If nothing else, at least the fact that she was trapped would give her time to think. However little time that may be. She ran through the legends in her head over and over again, but there were gaps in her memories of all of them. She couldn't remember any names from any of them. All she knew were the things no one dared to forget: the protections. The whispers of what kept them from being able to take you away or inflict you with curses. The stories and names were lost. She recreated Gwynn's face in her mind, trying to find any other name to attach to them. Their sharp cheekbones and almond eyes felt familiar, but she didn't know what name or myth to ascribe to them.
She raised her eyes enough to look around herself and wondered if she'd have to make peace with this as the last place she'd see. She only allowed herself a moment of despair before turning her mind back to the myths.
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Creaking drew her out from her own mind, which had long since drifted from names to imaginings of what might happen to her if she couldn't produce the right one. She peeked out from under her arms to see parting branches and an armored leg stepping in.
"Evelyn," Gwynn whispered as they hurried over to her, the branches closing behind them. "I tried to come earlier, but I couldn't get away until now. Here." They knelt before her and pressed a full waterskin into her hand. "Don't worry. It's from the human world. You can drink it."
She was surprised to see them for a moment, but then she remembered that they needed her as much as she needed them. She took the waterskin and downed half of it before she felt like she could speak.
"I can't remember any of the names you might have," she rasped. "The legends… they were being forgotten before the rings started appearing."
"If you're looking at fae legends, you're not—" Gwynn's voice cut off, their face twisting into a grimace. Evelyn took the moment of silence to examine them further. Something about their face nagged at the back of her mind the more she thought about it.
"How old are you?" Evelyn whispered.
Gwynn's lips quirked into a wry smile. "Older than your language has words for. Older than the queen herself."
"Then how did you end up bound to her?"
"The same way any rogue fae ends up bound to the court. I made a bet and I lost." They shifted to sit next to her, their back against the wall of branches. "You do know my name. Sadly that's all the hint I can give you. Even thinking about the others makes my throat close up." They sighed and looked at the cage of branches around them. "That being said, you can leave. I can rip open these branches and you would be able to just climb down and walk out. No terms of the deal keep you from leaving and going back home."
"I don't want to go home." The words came out before she had a chance to think about them, but they were true. That small town was full of people who turned blind eyes to cruelty. She'd give herself a chance to solve this problem before resigning herself to going back there.
"Then I wish you luck, Evelyn. For both our sakes."
Evelyn looked up at them, her cheek still pressing against her arm. "If I hadn't run into the fairy ring, would I be the tithe?"
Gwynn grimaced. "Yes. The queen's words were to 'chase your quarry across mountains and seas until you bring them to me." At no point did she specify I had to chase any prey across worlds. I've gotten quite proficient at finding loopholes."
"And what will you do if I solve this riddle and you're freed?"
"I'll go right back to doing what I did before."
Their voice turned strained by the end. Evelyn sighed, guessing that they were struggling not to give a hint again. "I probably should have asked this earlier, but how much longer do I have left?"
"Midnight tomorrow."
Evelyn shot to her feet. Midnight tomorrow. That meant…
"I was unconscious for a day?! How is that at all fair? She said I had three!"
"But nothing said you had to be awake for all three. Or that she had to keep you awake." Gwynn stood with her, crossing their arms. "All fae bargains work with the exact wording of the deal, not the spirit, but the court fae, especially the queen herself, take extra delight in twisting the words for fun. This panic is exactly what she wants. Don't give it to her."
Rogue fae, court fae… a whole world kept from her out of fear. Part of her understood that; humans wanting to forget a time when they were under constant threat was understandable. At the same time, though, she wished she'd had a chance to learn all this.
"All right," she breathed, pacing back and forth. "Produce a name… the right name. And it's one I already know. But I learned almost no fae legends…"
She stopped to scrutinize Gwynn again. They seemed to understand, holding still as she studied them. Beautiful, but a constant air of just how dangerous they were hung around them like perfume. Something about them was intrinsically tied with death and nightfall, but not in a way that made her think she was in danger. Death itself was never the part that scared her, but rather how it might happen. Murder scared her. Starvation scared her. Gwynn and their sepulchral bonds, whatever they might be, gave her reassurance of a kind. The reaper was on her side in this endeavor.
She noticed with a start that Gwynn was smiling. She felt far from making such an expression in their dire circumstances, but it lessened the weight on her shoulders.
“I can’t say I’ve ever been studied before,” Gwynn said. “Stared at in horror, perhaps, but never studied like a puzzle.”
“Right now you are a puzzle.” Evelyn huffed and took another drink from the skin just to have something to do with her hands and mouth. She started to say something else, but Gwynn suddenly stood stock still in a different way. No longer were they just politely letting her study, but their gaze was fixed away from the light, muscles tensed.
“I have to go,” they whispered. “The queen approaches. I don’t want to give her a reason to ban me from coming here. I need to take the skin with me, but I’ll be back. You won’t want for food or water as long as I have anything to say about it. I dragged you into this mess, after all.”
The branches parted for them, and despite Evelyn’s determination to complete this, it was still all she could do not to dart through them. She gripped a branch to keep her in place and watched Gwynn go with her lips pressed tight. That star-silver hair disappeared all too quickly, and as soon as they were gone, Evelyn turned her face to the branches and rested her head on the rough bark.
What was she forgetting? She knew for sure that Gwynn’s was a name she once knew. A name of death. A name tied with the underworld, with tombs and gravestones and decay. Something that was struck out from their pantheon and forgotten, whispered of in myth.
The branches parted again, and she didn’t bother to raise her head to see who came in. There was no darkness in the presence of this visitor, but a threat lingered in their every breath.
“I hear you’ve woken,” the queen said. Evelyn wrinkled her nose. She didn’t know the queen’s name, either. It, too, was long since lost. “I so often forget how delicate humans are. Spells affect you so much more strongly. So, do you have a name for me yet, human?”
“You know I don’t,” Evelyn said.
“No need to take all the fun out of it. Especially after I gave you such a lovely room.”
Evelyn jerked back from the wall when the branches shifted and bent to make a tiny window for her to see out of. She must have been at the very edge of the tree palace because all she could see was endless grass and a river that cut a shining silver ribbon all the way to the horizon. She decided not to try and see how high up she was.
“There is another option,” the queen said. “I’m not cruel. I can offer you another bargain. Gwynn is a useful servant. Their Hunt can do great things for me and faerie. But fae, and especially that one, make boring servants. They fear nothing but iron. Give me your name, unknown human, and I’ll free Gwynn.”
Evelyn pursed her lips and backed away from the window. She didn’t want to abandon Gwynn and go home, but she wasn’t ready to give up her own freedom for someone she barely knew, either. She wasn’t sure if her own bargain with Gwynn would even let her, but the queen didn’t need to know about that.
“No,” she said. “I may be human, but you won’t find me so easily tempted.”
She turned to face the queen, expecting annoyance but startled when she found the queen’s beautiful face contorting with a malicious grin that emphasized the razor gleam of her teeth and the predatory shine in her eyes.
“Perfect,” she purred. “Here I was, worrying that you’d be boring, too.” That awful expression dropped with a sigh. “Gwynn was interesting, too, once. Did they tell you how they ended up bound to my service? Another rogue, a member of the Wild Hunt, was set to die. You humans may find comfort in the afterlife, but we have no souls. When we die, we’re gone. Gwynn loved this fae, but she interfered with another fae’s human thrall, freeing the servant, and rules are rules. She had to die. Gwynn challenged me. An impossible task in return for the woman’s life.”
“And they failed the task,” Evelyn whispered.
“No. They succeeded.” The queen drummed her fingers on her cheek with a smirk. “Just not in the exact way I intended. Rogue fae always make these mistakes, thinking they can take the court on in games of bargains.”
“But they’re not just fae, are they?” Evelyn asked. The queen’s face fell, anger edging her features at last. “They’re something else. Something older.”
“If you have even a hint of what they were in your mind, you should know that unleashing them is a bad idea.”
“As bad as leaving them in your control?” Evelyn demanded, advancing on the queen. She clenched her hands into fists, the red yarn she’d forgotten digging deeper into her ring finger. “You said before you tired of me? Now I’ve tired of you. Leave!”
She thrust the red yarn in the queen’s face with a snarl.
The queen laughed and grabbed Evelyn’s ring finger, but there was no amusement on her face. Just cold, vindictive anger.
“Red yarn?” she whispered. “Humans have forgotten everything, haven’t they? This would barely keep a hobgoblin from spoiling your milk.” She bent the finger back until Evelyn’s knees buckled with pain, a cry bursting from her throat. “Let me show you what I think of the insult of thinking this would do anything to stop me.”
A flash of silver was all Evelyn saw before red was coursing down her arm and her severed finger fell to the branches of the floor. She shrieked, more in shock than anything. The pain hadn’t reached her yet. To her horror, the blood that fell didn’t just drip or run along the leaves. The branches absorbed it like the ground drank water. The red yarn lay on a single leaf, dry from the trees sucking her blood from its fibers. She clutched her hand to her chest, squeezing until she thought her joints would pop in desperate attempt to staunch the blood flow.
“Is it worth it?” the queen whispered. “To go through this for a fae who, I’m guessing, you hardly know?”
Yes, Evelyn thought bitterly. It would be worth it just to win against the queen. She’d always hated being ordered around. She hated being told what was good for her and manipulated into staying quiet when faced with powerful people’s cruelty.
She’d win this time, one way or another. The queen scoffed at her silence and left. Evelyn fell to her side, the stump of her finger clutched to her chest and her breath coming in hot puffs. Her jaw clenched so hard she wasn’t sure if she’d ever wrench it open again.
The pain began to throb a few minutes later, blinding as it pulsed through her arm, but at the same time, it just set her resolution to see this through. She slowly uncurled her fingers from her injured hand and used her teeth to rip a strip of fabric from the hem of her skirt and wrap her hand as securely as she could. The end result was sloppy and loose, but it would keep the blood from flowing too much if she cracked the scabs.
Her focus sharpened with the wound wrapped. She’d been injured badly before. Not as bad as this, of course, but a broken arm when she’d tried to run off on a draft horse and fell. The village healer had seen to her, splinting and wrapping her arm as she’d sobbed. The healer hadn’t been kind, scolding her for her sobbing and saying that… someone, some incarnation of death, came to get little girls who cried too much.
It hung on the edge of her tongue. It was like one part of her knew it and was striving to scream it for as long and loud as it took to get this all over with, but the rest of her couldn’t remember.
She curled up, hiding her face again as she screwed her eyes shut and cursed herself for forgetting.
🙞☙❁❧🙜
The night and next day passed without a single bit of progress. She didn’t see Gwynn, but she found the waterskin, full again, and a roll of bandages when she woke up. Her first instinct was to drink all the water and slake the dryness of her throat, but she made herself unwrap the makeshift bandages and wash the wound as well as she could, and rewrap it with the bandages. Only then did she lift it to her lips and drink what was left.
It was hard to tell from the tiny window that the queen left in the wall, but she guessed it was noon by the time she found the strength to stand up and look out. Twelve hours left. She set herself to pacing again, trying not to use her footsteps as a mark of the passage of time.
The name. Gwynn… she was sure that Gwynn was part of it, at least. Gwynn something. She whispered it to herself, hoping it would jog her memory. She pointedly ignored the severed finger that still sat on the branches, not wanting to touch it to get rid of it or even look at it. To do either felt like it would risk her sanity, which was already being shredded by this tiny, confined space and the ever-present passing of time.
She looked up after what felt like it could be hours as easily as it could have been minutes and got her answer: hours. The shadows were angled. The sliver of the sky she could see was darkening. Nightfall approached.
A sob broke out as she brought her bandaged hand to her face, shaking in agony and fear.
Perhaps Gwynn was powerful enough to free her once they were no longer bound to the queen. She had to hope so because she realized nothing in her challenge with the queen specified that she, herself, would be freed if she won.
Not that winning looked likely at this point. She collapsed, hiding her face against her hands, the branches, whatever she could as if it would keep any keen-eared fae from hearing the fact that she was sobbing. At the absolute least, it kept her from watching the time pass.
🙞☙❁❧🙜
At some point, she must have cried herself to sleep, because the next thing she knew she was being yanked from her nightmares by the sound of branches not creaking from movement, but breaking. She sat up to find Gwynn tearing the cage open with their bare hands.
“I’m taking you back to the human world,” they said, taking Evelyn’s uninjured hand and helping her up. “Whatever you were running from… it can’t be much worse than this. And even if it is, you can run somewhere else. Somewhere that isn’t in the clutches of the queen.”
“But you…” Evelyn said, her voice as rough as gravel.
“I will be fine! I’m ancient. I can outlive her or her interest in me. Come, quickly!”
With that, Gwynn ran, Evelyn stumbling to keep up behind them and digging her fingers into their hand to keep them from getting separated. They took her down branches that grew in spirals like staircases, carried her across rickety bridges of vines. Her shoes touched the grass as soon as the sounds of pursuit started behind them. Gwynn’s face visibly drained of blood and they swept Evelyn up before running even faster, turning the tree palace into nothing but a blur of green and white around them.
They were trying to outrun the queen, Evelyn realized. As soon as the queen was close enough for Gwynn to hear—or perhaps all she needed to do was see Gwynn—she’d have control over them. Their plan thwarted, some punishment meted out.
The trees were violently ripped apart to allow them through. Evelyn clung to Gwynn, watching it get closer at impossible speeds. Gwynn was one leaping bound from taking them out of the palace when they came to such a sudden halt that Evelyn tumbled out of their arms. She pushed herself up, shoving hair out of her face to see the queen approaching, fae soldiers forming a ring around them.
“I should have known,” the queen snarled. “To attempt to escape… neither humans nor you rogues have any sense of honoring the deal!”
“I’m honoring the word!” Gwynn growled back. “Just like you did all those centuries ago. Nothing said she had to stay until she gave you the name!”
“You just love doing things the hard way, don’t you?” Evelyn watched in horror as the queen advanced on them, Gwynn helpless to stop as invisible bonds kept them from moving. The queen grabbed Evelyn’s injured hand, yanking her up so violently that the scabs tore, blood flowing anew and making pain shoot through her, so intense that her eyes rolled.
“You want a deal that makes this justified?” the queen whispered. “I will carve a piece of this girl away until you make a vow to never seek freedom from me again. Or until she gives me her name and I can use your soft hearts against each other for as long as it pleases me! I have been dealing in bargains and vows for as long as I’ve drawn breath and you cannot beat me!”
Evelyn shook with pain, her stomach convulsing as her head rolled through the names again. She whispered them to herself like a desperate prayer.
Arawn…
Fionn…
Berond…
Gait…
Gwynn…
“Gwynn,” she whispered. “Gwynn ap…”
She yanked her head up and looked the queen in her terrible, cold eyes, lips drawing back from her teeth.
“Gwynn ap Nudd!” Evelyn screamed in the queen’s face. “Their name is Gwynn ap Nudd!”
She could almost feel the bonds in the air snap. The queen’s face filled with shock, and a moment later power rolled over both of them and Evelyn fell to the ground when the queen released her and stumbled away, fear twisting her face.
“I forgot what it feels like,” Gwynn whispered as Evelyn stood, watching in wonder as Gwynn rolled their shoulders, changing in all the subtle ways that made a difference. Their black irises expanded, filling the scleras. Their pointed ears knifed higher, their cheekbones grew sharper, and Evelyn knew their face. Their statue had once stood in the pavilion temple, but it was removed when people stopped worrying about fae and hunts and the sovereign of the underworld.
They looked at the queen with distaste, drawing Evelyn close with a protective arm.
“And so an ancient queen finds her match in the form of a human woman,” they murmured. “Count yourself lucky that I am older and wiser than you and recognize your place in the natural order, or you and your palace would come down around you and your last thoughts would be regret as your mouth filled with the ashes of your failure.”
“You bind yourself to a girl?” the queen said. “A mortal?”
“Mortals are more closely bound to death than any fae. They walk with me and mine as their closest companions, the only assurance of their lives. I find that I am more appreciated among those who see me on the horizon than those who laugh in the face of time.” Gwynn turned a wicked grin on Evelyn. “Shall we? My hunt awaits.”
Evelyn nodded breathlessly, and the warriors parted for Gwynn, not even daring to look at the face of a freed deity as they walked Evelyn out of the palace.
“You said you’d do what you did before?” Evelyn asked quietly. “What exactly is that?”
“Live, Evelyn. Even death has a hint of life in it. After all, I can’t exist without either aspect of the world. And you? You’ve come out of this the bride of a fae deity, sans left ring finger.”
The shadow horse approached. Evelyn looked at it, then at the darkening faerie world around them, and turned her eyes to Gwynn once more.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to better know my spouse, the sovereign of the underworld.”
Gwynn swept her up by her waist and put her on the horse. “Welcome to the Wild Hunt.”
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