Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (80 page)

Memory tried to make sense of the erupting chaos of death and battle around her. Did they have a chance to run? Was there a leader she could take down?

Erec had downed another lion-horse and its knight fell below the beast, his armor stained with dark thick blood.

Memory could see Shonae, scrambling away across the ground, the ashy dirt staining her pure white fur.

Roen and Eloryn were fighting back to back. Some of the knights had dismounted, beating them with the blunt ends of spears, knocking them to the ground.

Memory saw then that the fae men carried ropes, black and slick like the vines they’d just passed through.

Eloryn struck out again with her thin whip of iron, and screamed more words of behest as she did so. The iron danced and twitched in the air, striking into the vulnerable joints between the knight’s armor. Some fell, but more came. More and more. Too many.

The knights had not been there to kill them; if they had been they would have been dead already. They were so outnumbered, despite how many fell to the iron the humans wielded. The knights were there to capture them, no matter what the cost, but that revelation didn’t help Memory.

The words of Branding were croaked out again, barely audible over the screams of battle.

Erec.
Memory felt her eyes burn with tears.

One of the steeds bucked in panic through the fray, knocking Memory away from her friends. She tried to push back, fight her way back to Roen, Eloryn and Erec, but arrows rained down. One pricked her upper shoulder and blood bloomed quickly, dripping down her sleeve. Her left arm drooped, pain making it useless to her. Another barrage came from the air and Memory ducked and rolled away, taking cover behind one of the fallen animals.

Roen and Eloryn were screaming, lashed with rope and being dragged away from each other.

“Mem!” Eloryn’s cry shattered through the air. She struggled against the knight holding her. His hands were like claws and they yanked her up onto his steed which twirled, paws digging into the dry earth.

Memory could see Erec, fighting still within a crowd of unseelie fae, drawing all their attention as he refused to fall.

Memory stood from behind her cover, ready to run and help him, or Roen, or Eloryn. One of them, somehow. She wasn’t sure where she was going, only that her mind burned to
help them. Save them. Fight.

A strong hand wrapped around her arm, cold fingers digging in firmly.

Memory tried to yank free, and turned to see a cloaked figure.

“You can’t save them now. Run, fight later,” silver lips said, shimmering under the shadow of the hood.

Nyneve?
Memory stared into the black cowl, wanting to argue, but she was given little choice. Nyneve ran, dragging Memory behind her with unbreakable strength. She ran straight for the dark vines. They shrank away from them, clearing the way as Memory remembered the trees cleared their way from Eloryn the first time they met.

Shonae appeared, running frantically beside them, arms hugged around her chest and eyes wide. The vines gave off a low-pitched moaning, the sound hungry children made at the sight of food, and Memory had to hold her breath to keep from throwing up.

The three ran along the length of the wall of vines until Memory was out of breath, and when her legs failed her, Nyneve let go of her arm and Memory fell with a crack onto her knees, gulping air.

The moment she was able to stand, Memory turned back the way they had come, but hands wrapped around her wrists and held her tight.

Memory screamed and fought the cloaked figure, determined to go back and save her friends.

“Quiet, before you get us all killed.”

Nyneve loosened her hold, and Memory pushed free, looking up at the unseelie princess. Her hood had fallen back while holding Memory still, and her midnight hair tumbled around her silver snake-skin face like inky shadows.

Her black eyes swept the area around them, silver eyelashes shining in the thin rays of light coming from the western edge of the sky.

“What are you doing here?” Memory coughed out.

“Trying to save your life.” Nyneve placed the cowl back over her face. “I have little time, I cannot be seen with you and it cannot come to light that I helped you. If we are caught there will be no hope for your friends.”

Did that mean there was some hope?
Memory blinked back tears. “I’m covered in the blood of creatures I killed and just lost the people I love the most in the world so maybe you should talk real plain. How, how can we save my friends?”

Nyneve looked down her straight nose at Memory. Her face held little expression, like a fine silver statue. “Finvarra has captured your friends to get to you. He will keep them alive until he does.”

That’s why the fae Branded them first.
Hatred made Memory’s insides flame.

Nyneve’s face softened then, and eyelids fluttered down slowly. “I want to help you. Branding is a horrible death. An unfair thing. I saw it happen to someone I loved, once, long ago.” Her twig-like fingers rested on her heart. “I know what has been done to you by my father. Finvarra is… evil. He’s grown old and twisted and I fear for his mind. I want to help you and your friends, but he is still my father, and still my ruler.”

“I’m sorry you had to watch someone you loved die from Branding.” Memory was, and what was more she was pretty sure she was about to understand that particular pain very well soon.

“Let’s not let it happen again.” Nyneve turned to the side, away from Memory. With her face obscured by the cowl Memory couldn’t see her expression, but she sounded choked, as if she was crying, or maybe laughing. It was funny how alike the two could sound.

“Only the monarch of the offended race can lift a Brand once made. You can challenge Finvarra for the lives of your friends. You have one turn of the sun and moon to get to the Unseelie Court and fight for them before the Brand takes its toll. I will help you as much as I can when you get to the court but I have to go now.” Nyneve looked over at Shonae, and Shonae shivered visibly under her gaze, making her body small as though to hide in plain sight. Pointing behind the small faun, Nyneve showed Memory a tunnel of twisted sticks and dry brambles, woven into neat and intricate patterns and filled with a golden glow. “There is the briar path. You must take it. Listen to me, and listen well- do not tarry. Finvarra wants you, but he is unpredictable in his insanity. He could kill your friends at any time. That’s why I have to go back now. I will try to keep them safe from him, but I cannot keep them safe from the Brand. Twenty-four human hours and it will kill them.”

“Twenty-four hours,” Memory repeated. The words tasted like blood in her mouth.

Nyneve nodded. Just like that she was gone, only a faint ripple of air left where she had been standing.

Memory stared around her, unable to think or even want to.

All she wanted was to crumple, to let the weight that had built inside her finally break her down and let her become nothing, to become more dirt and ash on the ground. To become something that didn’t feel pain.

She felt utterly alone.

A soft scratching on the ground beside her reminded her she wasn’t.

“Will we keep going?” Shonae’s voice was a soft whinny. She had shuffled over close to Memory, but leaned back as though she could be struck at any moment.

“You’re still here?” Memory mumbled. “What happened? Did you forget which direction you were running in?”

“We made a binding oath.”

Stupid oaths
, Memory cursed. She’d held back her magic, not knowing how to use it, not wanting to break her oath to the fae. Maybe with it, she could have taken the upper hand in the fight, but not before Roen was Branded, or Eloryn. She might have saved them from being captured, but they’d still be Branded, and Memory would too be Branded, hunted, or killed by the seelie fae for breaking her oath.

“Stupid snot-licking, hatred-vomiting, kitten-killing, ass on backwards OATHS!” Memory roared, cursing the sky and kicking at the dirt.

Tears blurred her vision and that time she could not stop them from falling. Warm wetness spilled down her cheeks, ran across the bridge of her nose, down her neck.

Shonae’s voice was soft. “Keeping our oaths is what keeps the peace.”

“Do you think this is peace?” Memory bellowed. “Everyone is fighting! People are dying, fae are dying! Finvarra is a raging lunatic and I saw my friends get Branded and dragged away!”

She turned on the faun, bearing down on her as the fae backed skittishly away. “And you, you KNEW about the vines, didn’t you? I trusted you!”

The faun squealed. “I am not allowed to tell humans of such things. It is forbidden. I tried to keep my part of the oath. I did not lead you into the vines, into the danger. I am here because I am still trying…”

“They were BRANDED!” Memory screamed. “Do you know what that means?”

Shonae’s dark eyes flared with warning and her floppy goat ears stood straight up. “Yes, I do. Do you?”

“Yes!”

“Then why do you just stand there screaming?”

Memory’s jaw dropped. “Because I… am venting and… totally freaking out… Because this is all my fault.” She took a step back from the cowering white faun. “And I don’t know if I can fix it.”

Shonae said nothing. From the distance came the sickly rustling and whimpers of the vines, as though they were still trying to reach them. Memory wiped her eyes and took a long breath. Her whole body ached and her spirit was crushed, but not gone.

I’m going to save them all.

She dried her eyes on her sleeve. “Let’s go, the clock is ticking.”

Still holding her shoulders up defensively around her neck, Shonae asked softly, “Where would you have me take you first?”

It was a hard decision. Who did she love more? Was that the question? Would answering cost any of them their lives?

They were at the briar pathway. Beyond it would be the Seelie Court.

Will was there. Memory could get him back first, and then together they would be able to save Eloryn, Roen and Erec.

“Same as before. To get Will from the Seelie Court. I will need his help to save the others, and… and I need him.” Tears pricked her eyes again and she swiped them away with the back of her hand, angry at her inability to control her emotions.

She turned her sodden eyes to the path before her. The briar path.

Having just battled through the disgusting tangle of black whipping vines, travelling into another pathway of sticks and thorns seemed greatly unappealing. But at least the briar path was actually shaped like a path. Thick trunk-like vines that looked eons old, dry and lifeless, wrapped in spirals, forming a tunnel just wide enough for two to walk side by side. Dry silver sticks were layered and woven, twirling like fractals into a misty infinity. A smooth sandy floor shimmered like diamonds in the low light.

With a small nod from Shonae, Memory followed the faun into the briars.

How long have I been here?

Will shook his head, trying to clear his eyes and thoughts. Both were blurry, drunk with the bitter-sweet passion of fairy foods. In his years knowing Mina, she mostly left him in the forests of Avall, the neglected pet she came to toy with on a whim, but she had brought him to Tearnan Ogh on occasions, mostly to show off her human to the other fae. He was a status symbol to her. Few fae had their own humans anymore. He was Mina’s, Lugh was Aine’s, and he knew of only one other. Mina would bring Will here, flaunt him around the Seelie Court, and then banish him back to solitude in Avall when he seemed too needy. It wasn’t his fault humans needed to eat regularly.

In all that time, he never worked out where fairy food came from. He never saw anything growing in the fae world, no real trees to grow those incredible fruits. The fae themselves didn’t really eat, or if they did it was purely for pleasure, not for sustenance. He suspected the food Mina used to lure him as a boy, the food she now kept him drunk on, was created from pure magic. Maybe created from a fae’s life force itself. Maybe that was why if you ate it you became bonded to them.

He didn’t really care. He just wanted the strength to fight it.

He barely had the strength to sit up. He lay on his back in the softest of downs. Something white and so fluffy it was barely there under his fingers, cushioned around him like a cloud. Overhead was a ceiling of branches with silver and gold leaves woven into seven-pointed star shapes. Colors shifted and flashed, reflecting off the metallic screen like living rainbows. He couldn’t see anything else. His eyelids fluttered, falling closed.

He tried to gather his thoughts one at a time, lining them up, creating a wall of lucidity to protect himself.

I am Will.

I will find Memory again.

Worlds can’t keep us apart.

Something tickled his lips.

“My sweet pet. You seem hungry.”

Will could feel Mina snuggle in beside him. He growled, trying to push her away.

“Aw,” Mina simpered, her voice sickly sweet. “Don’t be like that.”

Will forced his eyes open. Mina’s face was right beside his, her amber eyes flickering with sparks of gold, lighting them from within as she smiled.

“Let me go back. Send me back to Avall,” he said, as it felt he had done a hundred times.

“No,” she said simply. “I don’t think we’ll ever go back there again.”

Mina ran a fingertip around Will’s lips. He lifted a leaden arm and brushed her away.

Mina pounced, landing across Will’s chest. He could feel the skin of her thighs pressing into his bare stomach, and she dangled a blue cherry-like fruit over his mouth.

He tried to turn his face away, but she turned it back.

Mina hissed. “Behave, boy! Or I will cage you!”

As weak as he felt now, Mina was easily stronger. Her fingernails dug into his cheeks as she clawed at his jaw, pulling his mouth open, and the fruit dropped in.

Will roared, summoning every scrap of resistance he had. The fruit already melted into his mouth like chocolate in the sun. He wrenched himself up, throwing Mina off him.

She shrieked, cursing him.

He tried to find a way out, but his vision grew milky, fading.

He landed on the floor, and everything he knew fell away.

The tears helped Memory keep going. Some of her anger and fear ran out of her along with the salty wetness, splashing on the powdery path. All the emotions she had not dealt with came to the surface and she let them run.

Inside the briar pathway, the darkness was lit by giant webs strung across the floors and walls, shining gold with their own luminescence.

Shonae reached out with her downy fingers, and tugged at one long thread. It twanged softly as it pulled free of the rest and she began winding it around her narrow waist.

Memory watched, curiosity overriding her sadness. “What are you doing?”

“The web of Rump of Steel-skin spiders is valuable. I can trade this well, if I live through my obligation to you.” Shonae flicked a look at Memory and flicked her tail at the same time.

“Rump of Steel-”
Rumpelstiltskin, spinning hay into gold… Everything is so connected.
Memory examined the webbing, spotted like glowing nightlights through the gloomy tunnel. “Is it actually real gold?”

Shonae snorted. “Not human gold. This is what fairy gold is made from.”

Shonae tugged the webbing again, and a spider the size of Memory’s face fell free of the tangled twigs, slipping down the thread into Shonae’s hands. Memory gasped, but Shonae just gently brushed the iridescent gold arachnid away. It fell on its back onto the sandy ground, spindly legs twitching, until it righted itself and disappeared again into the briars.

Memory watched the thorny walls around her with a new level of paranoia.

Overhead, the branches looked dangerous and thick with thorns, safely just out of reach. Shonae warned Memory that would not always be the case. Neutral territory or not, the pathway demanded its price from those who travelled it.

“Everything has a price,” Memory said. She’d learned that long ago, a world away. There, the prices were different and the rules were too but everything cost something.

Shonae eyed her for a moment. “I have an obligation to you and I will fulfill it. You want to save your friends? Yes? Then let go of all that anger and that greed because that will be what gets them killed, and me too.”

“Greed? I don’t want anything for myself!”

Shonae huffed. “Then why are you here?”

The question was a good one. It cut to the very heart of Memory’s anger. They were there because she had wanted Will back by her side and her friends were all suffering because of her actions, because of her greedy determination to have what was hers.

But was Will hers? She loved him. She knew it deep down in the bottom of her soul. But Will, he belonged to no one. He was a human being, not an object.

From that moment on, I was yours.

She knew that Will had given himself to her, as the greatest gift she could ever desire, but a gift she could not keep. She may have come here for the wrong reasons, but she would make them right. “I’m here to free my friend, not to take him for myself. Any claim I have to Will when I take on firefly-face Mina, I will give up to give him his freedom.”

And when he is truly free, would Will still choose me?

“Hmm.” Shonae snuffled, still winding thin strands of web, creating a neat spool like a belt around her middle. “I’ve only known humans to be greedy.”

Memory barked a sharp laugh. Talking with Shonae, as odd as it was, had improved her mood. She wondered why the creature was giving her breath to the conversation. She was under no obligation to talk to Memory. That was not part of their deal. Although the faun had been challenging with her words, they were never spoken unkindly.

“And I’ve only known unseelie fae to be evil monsters,” Memory shot back.

Shonae tilted her head. “Would you call a snake or spider evil? They are creatures of nature, same as the unseelie, same as all fae, same as humans. We are as we are and all have our place in the balance.”

Memory eyed the skittering shapes of elongated legs creeping above her through the briars. “Snakes and spiders generally only bite when threatened, and only some of them are outright aggressive. Most of the time they are more scared of us than we are of them.”

Shonae tilted her head back the other way.

Oh…
Memory frowned.

Shonae’s furred lips seemed to have the smallest of smiles on them.

Memory knew that she was right on some levels. She thought she hated all the unseelie fae, but what did she really know about them? She hated them based on her own limited experience, but were her reasons all personal and did they have any truth to them? And what about her experiences with the seelie fae? With Mina, or Aine?

A Rump of Steel-skin spider skittered across the ground beneath Memory’s feet and with a clenched jaw she made an effort not to stamp down and squish it. It seemed to hesitate, angling its many eyes toward her, before rushing off again.

Memory watched Shonae walk in front of her for a while, the slight sparkle to her wild mane of wooly white hair, the long, black claws protruding from her furry paws. “What is the difference? Between seelie and unseelie fae, I mean. Both courts have all different kinds, and as far as I’ve seen you’re all just as tricksy as each other.”

Shonae lifted one shoulder. “Unseelie fae, we were born of the night, which gives us the shadows in our eyes. Seelie were born of day.”

“So you don’t get to choose?”

“Choose what?”

“Whether you are seelie or unseelie.”

“No.”

“So you are born good or evil and you get no say in the matter?”

Shonae’s lips split, showing her teeth as she nickered loudly. “Would being born on one day or the other force a man to behave a certain way? Humans are just as capable of dark and light, of choosing their own way. We are not as different as you would like to think. The night gave me black eyes. That is all.”

That is all.
The cold nausea of confusion and uncertainty had started to spread in Memory’s stomach. It was so much easier to hate the unseelie fae, to hate all of them, to think of them as monsters. But she’d hate even more to do so and be wrong. “That is really the only difference between seelie and unseelie fae? Your eye color?”

Shonae’s grin vanished. The web she’d been winding came to an end, and she snapped it from where it was anchored to the curling tunnel. “I know your kind find the seelie fae more fitting to your ideas of beauty.”

Memory paused. Was it really that simple? Did humans make the unseelie into monsters with just their thoughts and imagination, a prejudice that made the unseelie fight back and become the monsters they were perceived to be? Could it be as simple as visual bias?

Memory hopped forward a few steps so she was within Shonae’s field of vision. “What do I look like to you?”

“Like a human.”

“Do we all look different?”

Shonae wrinkled her nose as she often did when Memory came close. “Of course, but none of you is very pretty.”

“Thanks a lot.” Memory chuckled. “You look like a white deer-girl to me. Not as scary as some other unseelie I’ve seen.”

“I am still young.”

“Yikes.” Memory’s first reaction was to imagine the hideous transformations this deer-girl’s body could take as she aged. But she had to stop and think- even if Shonae changed, if she looked like a troll or a banshee or some other monstrous fae she’d seen before, inside, wouldn’t she still be the same being who spoke with her so thoughtfully now? It was only appearance. That was all.

“I’m sorry,” Memory said. “For trapping you like we did. I realized then that you were young. You were just as scared to die as I am.”

Shonae’s black eyes opened wide. “I did not know you were afraid to die.”

“Of course I am. Most people are. I think it’s why we’re so stupid all the time.”

“I never knew humans feared death. You always seem to court it.”

“Court it?”

Shonae rolled her hands in the air, as though that would help her explanation. “You always do things to put yourselves near death. Things that make no sense. Like jumping off the castle walls with just the gust of your skirts to protect you from a fall to the earth.”