A Different Kind of Despair (19 page)

Crossing the Howling Desert was a grueling
task when the days were long and we had a man walking on skeletal
stumps to account for.

But finally, after nineteen days
of trudging through the sand, we reached green fields and spotted
the Faespeare Wood in front of us.

It was a viridian bulwark, with
evergreens lining the horizon as far as the eye could see. Will
shook the remaining sand out from his joints and sockets. Leo
charged into the nearby brook, and Marvin and I sat heaving on the
grass, grateful to be out of the difficult terrain.

"After this is over with," I started, "promise
me that we'll settle on some nice solid land."

Marvin smiled through a gruff breath. "No
roaming the plains for you, Miraj?"

"It'd be inconvenient for you to
get medical supplies without a steady source," I thought aloud. "We
can make one of those farm things. I always wanted to try them
out."

"An underground-"

"A house," I corrected. "But we can have a
nice dark basement if it makes you feel any better."

"Compromise," he sighed. "The things I do for
love."

We exchanged amused looks, twining our fingers
together on the lawn.

"
Come, O' come to the Gildengrove…
"

All of us stopped and listened. A pleasant
voice rang from between the trees ahead. It was female, at any
rate. But whether or not she was human I couldn't say.

"
A
palace of stars in the sylvan scene…"

Koronos reared his presence in the back of my
mind like a bear awoken from its long slumber.

Be on your guard. Whatever it is,
it's more powerful than everyone here combined.

I didn't need to relay his message. Everyone,
even Will, had some magical sense about them. We knew that whoever
was approaching was not to be trifled with.

I spotted a young figure charging
out onto the lawn. It was a boy. A youth on the cusp of
adolescence. His ruddy expression fell a bit once his eyes settled
on our group. His gaze became stern, aging him by a solid five
years in the process.

"Ian, I thought I told you not to run off
like-"

A female elf appeared not long
afterwards; her long white hair fastened by a ribbon at the base of
her neck. She wore a plain dress with a white apron around her
waist. Apart from her slanted ears and striking features, she
looked the picture of a young housewife.

She handed the basket in her arms, filled with
mushrooms and nuts, to the boy beside her. The elf clapped her
hands and came forward.

"Faespeare doesn't get many visitors," she
said. "It's not a good idea to go in there."

Leo made a face. "If you can survive then I'm
sure we can outwit or outrun anything that lives there."

The woman, fortunately, did not seem to take
offense to that callous remark. She reminded me of Formosa, her
stillness and her certainty in particular.

The elf's eyes hovered on me for a
long moment, but she chose not to make a comment on my appearance.
She didn't even seem to care after her initial glance.

"Excuse me," Marvin cut in. "I know this might
seem like a bit of a long shot, but we were thinking that the Ice
Empress lives in these woods. Do you happen to know if she
does?"

A faint smile spread across her sylvan
face.

"Might I ask who's looking for
her?"

"A couple of people who need her
help."

"With?"

Will stepped between them. "Why
should we answer to you? For all we know you could be one of those
monsters from Faespeare sent to lure travelers in."

Her smile grew, unsettling us as a
whole.

"Clearly you're the brains of this
operation if you managed to figure that one out." She paused here,
looking off to the side at someone who didn't exist. "What? I'm
telling the truth, aren't I? … Misleading? How so?"

"She's a nutcase," Leo whispered.

I don't know what scared me more. The fact
that this came from Leo or the fact that it made sense.

"AUNT SIL!"

The elf spun on her heel. Everyone
watched as Ian dropped the basket in his hands. A root burst from
the ground and lunged towards him.

She swung her arm in an arc; a wall of ice
stopped the errant appendage in its tracks. I had never seen such a
blatant, large, showy kind of magic before. Most tiny spells
performed by wandering performers took a lot out of them. They were
usually incapacitated for the rest of the evening. This display
should have killed the woman.

Instead she acted as though it were only a
minor inconvenience.

We waned as a whole once we spotted the source
of this attack. The Crone, in her sickly, toxic glory, emerged from
between the trees. Taking her particular plant-based affinity into
consideration, my guess was that she grew from a pod somewhere in
the wood.

The elf didn't take her eyes off this new
opponent.

"Is this the problem you needed helping
with?"

"One of them," I piped up. "She's trying to
steal my husband's soul."

The woman didn't question my words, instead
she sighed as though this was a problem she had far too often. The
Crone's gilded eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as she surveyed
the unexpected stranger. Koronos made a low growl.

If she has any sense she'll try to
avoid a fight.

"I have no quarrel with you," said the
Crone.

See? She knows power when she sees
it.

"Give me that man behind you and I'll be on my
way."

"This woman," said the elf, motioning to me,
"tells me you're after his soul. Has this man struck a deal with
you?" she asked pointedly. The Crone thought long and hard about
how to answer that question. I was no longer sure over who was the
greater monster before us.

"His… predecessor did."

"Then you have no claim."

"He's his reincarnate," the Crone argued. I
watched as her flowers bloomed across her body, releasing their
poisonous fumes, like a threatened animal rising on its haunches in
a show of defiance. "His soul was mine to take!"

"So why didn't you?" the elf wondered. I
could've sworn that the air was getting colder. I wrapped my arms
around myself. Marvin placed a hand on my shoulder. He was freezing
too.

"He became a Ghostwalker."

"
Ahh
," the woman breathed, as though
everything suddenly made all the sense in the world. "Are you
talking about Inval, perchance?"

The Crone paused, as did we.

"Do you happen to know a woman
named Diana Galatea?" the elf maid asked, stepping
forward.

"She's poisonous!" I shouted across the
grass.

She stopped long enough to look back over her
shoulder, her blue eyes laughing. Her smile was brimming with
warmth and certainty. Looking at her, it felt as though we were the
safest people in the world.

"Poison has no effect on
me."

The Crone took a step back, thorns sprouting
from the ground at her feet as a barrier to separate her from the
woman approaching.

"I know Diana."

"Is she dead or alive?"

"Dead."

"Bring her spirit here." It was a
command and a warning rolled into four little words. I wondered
what had happened to Diana after we left Nethermountain. Her soul
was tied to the coffin in the attic. I knew, in my heart, that no
spirit could tread far from the object they were bound
to.

"That… is not possible."

"And why is that?"

"I devoured her."

The elf stopped, only a foot away
from the nearest razor-sharp branch. We watched in wonder as an
arctic mist gathered around her. The thorns were quickly limned in
frost, growing brittle and withering before our eyes.

The youth, Ian, shook his head at the scene
before us.

"Wrong answer."

Ohh, I'm going to enjoy seeing
this.

I wanted to tell Koronos not to say anything,
but the truth was that I was also eager to see justice visited upon
the foul demoness. The elf brought what looked to be a glass orb
from the pocket of her apron. She dropped it on the
ground.

We waited for something to happen… only
nothing did.

The Crone took a breath of relief.

And then her head flew
off.

Black blood gushed from the wound.
The elf standing before the roots disappeared. It looked like that
was only an illusion, as the real one became visible as the demon's
corpse fell forward and was impaled on its own thorns.

The woman dropped a frozen dagger in the
grass, grimacing at the ichor pooling at her feet.

"You," Will said, feeling more than a little
stupid in his tone, "you're the Ice Empress?"

"That's what they call me these days," she
replied, entirely blasé over the fact that she killed a demon mere
seconds ago. I took a step back in spite of myself, feeling, for
lack of a better word, in awe of this person. She was powerful.
More powerful, perhaps, than the Eyes of the Leviathan.

"Ian," she called, looking the boy over. "Are
you alright?"

"Yup."

"Would you go gather up the mushrooms,
please?"

The boy nodded and went off to do
as she asked, shooting us a final, curious glance back over his
shoulder as he ran.

The Ice Empress set her sights on Marvin. He
looked particularly lost at the news of Diana's fate. I, too, was
crestfallen. Diana was different. Gruff, in some ways, tender in
others. She risked much to help us escape
Nethermountain.

And she lost everything because of
it.

"I'm Silhouette," she introduced herself. "Is
that thing back there the reason you were looking for
me?"

"Nope," said Leo. "But it definitely solves a
big problem."

"I see." Ian returned to her side.
She ran an affectionate hand through his hair. I smiled wistfully
at the way she looked upon him, so much like the way my mother once
looked at me. Sometimes, it felt as though I only lost her
yesterday. Other days it seemed like she was gone years ago. And
every so often, like now, I could feel her right there next to me,
as real and alive as my own flesh and blood.

"Ian, could you go ahead and set
the table? We're going to have four extra guests. I have a feeling
they'll stay with us a while."

"Alright," he said, stalking off
into the woods.

Silhouette turned back to us. "I hope you
don't mind?"

"No." Will was red in the face. "Um, sorry
about before."

"I'm used to it," she shrugged. "No harm done.
So why not tell me what really brings you to Faespeare? You're
beyond lucky to have caught me when you did."

"I'm starting to think there's no such thing
as luck."

The Ice Empress snorted under her breath at
Marvin's comment. Clearly, she knew things we didn't. Clearly,
we've come to the right person.

We entered the woods and were
immediately startled by the fact that the trees closed the gaps
behind us. It was no wonder that most people avoided the place,
especially since the forest literally swallows them
whole.

Despite the darkness of these woods, in
Silhouette's company we felt perfectly safe. Even Koronos,
suspicious and guarded as he was, could only find fault with the
woman herself -for being stronger than he was, and therefore worthy
of envy and admiration.

"If I had met you two years ago,"
the elf began, "I would've agreed with you, that there is no such
thing as luck, coincidence, or chance. Not to play devil's
advocate," she added. "But because this was an irrefutable
fact."

She led us to a coiling stream. Fey creatures
giggled on our approach. Silhouette waved them off, and their mirth
was silenced. I watched as fairies dispersed from the area in
trails of glittering mist.

Silhouette sat upon a rock, motioning for us
to do the same on the logs before her. We took our
seats.

I couldn't help but notice that
she didn't seem real. Intangible would be a better way of putting
it, I suppose. I couldn't read her emotions. I couldn't sense her
heart. She sat in the patch of sun like a statue, an image as
distant as it was lovely, as though she belonged in the pages of a
fairytale.

"There was once an old and powerful being, a
woman called Neith."

I sucked in a breath at the name
in the Lost Verse. Silhouette's eyes flicked towards me. She shared
a smile whose meaning I couldn't decipher.

"She was also known as the Weaver, because she
wove an existence called the Tapestry of Fate. Like tapestries have
patterns, so did we. History repeated itself for that reason.
Follow one Thread long enough, and you find that everything is
interconnected in a way that makes more sense the further you go
along. So you're right," she said, again looking at Marvin. "Luck
did not exist, because everything in this world, every action,
every choice, every consequence, was destined to happen as Neith
had designed."