The Red Wolf (The Wolf Fey #2) (14 page)

“The unicorns, you mean?”

“The mermaids, the White Dragons, everyone. We can't do this on our own, Connell. I don't deny it – your sacrifice has done more for Feyland than I could have done. Your Wolves are surviving longer than our Fey – they're managing to fell a few hundred members of Hordes.”

“They're beasts,” I said. “And now we are beasts, too.”

For beasts we were. As wolves we were able to use our animal instincts to predict the movements of the Hordes, to let our hearts beat in unison with theirs, to feel what they felt. A few seconds' advantage over those with human natures – but it was enough. The non-Wolf Fey were treating the Hordes like rational foes – assuming that they would fight like men and women would fight. But the Hordes were not rational at all. They were elemental, primal, their evil more ancient than thought or speech.

Beasts like us.

The Midnight Knight and I continued conferring for a while, but our minds were made up. We had no choice but to summon the pixies and the other Feyland creatures with whom we had warred. We sent emissaries – flying phoenixes and speeding elves – to the far-flung castles of those whom the Fey had dispossessed, begging for help. For Feyland.

We didn't expect an answer. Things were looking desperate; our numbers were rapidly diminishing as the Dark Hordes marched ever-closer. But as night began to fall, we saw in the distance a wave of dark figures, glimmering with a yellow-gold light.

Pixies.

The Pixie King, Llandudno, rode up to me, his face solemn, his pointed ears flushed with exhaustion. “I have answered your call,” said Llandudno. “Although I despise you Fey, and everything you stand for, I am willing to listen to your appeal.”

“I am not Fey,” I answered. “No longer. I have sacrificed the purity of my blood – the purity of my Fey powers – to save Feyland.” I morphed into a wolf to prove my words, turning back to see Llandudno's eyes open wide in surprise. “The Queen Panthea has given me these powers in exchange for my silver blood, my immortality. I am like you, Llandudno – part-Fey and yet not fully Fey. And I too am willing to fight for Feyland. It is time that you, too, join with me.”

Llandudno gave me a twisted smile. “I must admit,” he said. “I would never have expected a Fey to give up the purity of silver blood. Such treacherous creatures as Fey guard their purity so selfishly – after all, is that not why we were expelled from the territory of Feyland? Because we were not Fey? Do you truly trust that the Fey will continue to support you once this battle is over – that you will be welcome in this land as full citizens? Or will your sacrifice be forgotten by future generations – your brotherhood with the Fey betrayed. Just as ours was.”

“I have to believe,” I said. “I have to believe in a United Feyland. A Feyland with a place for all of us.”

Llandudno nodded his head. “I think you are a fool,” he said. “But I want to live to see the day to see it proven. If you save Feyland, your sacrifice will be forgotten. But Feyland must be saved nonetheless. You have convinced me, Wolf, I will fight for you.” He turned to the Midnight Knight. “Do I have your word – that you will welcome us into whatever Feyland we can save?”

The Midnight Knight nodded. “You have my word,” he said.

And so they joined forces – not only the pixies but also the unicorns and the dragons, all inspired by the sacrifice of the Wolves. And together we fought for days more – but this time the battle was not a losing one. Feyland's ancient magic responded to the unity of its children – as the magic of wolves and Fey and pixies and dragons combined in our swords and in our shields, under the banner of a Feyland made whole – we all felt tingling within us the remnants of an older, better magic.

Feyland itself was fighting against the invasion. The earth was shaking beneath the feet of the Dark Hordes; the skies opened up and burning rain fell upon the invaders, yet left our own men and women untouched. Violent winds forced the banshees to the ground; hail fell onto the heads of giants and felled them swiftly.

The Midnight Knight and I headed the army; we charged forth towards the Hordes. Confidence surged through us – Feyland's magic surged through us. We were no longer afraid. We were no longer despairing. We could feel the force of Feyland's power all around us. The love of our land. The love of our comrades, our brothers-in-arms.

For now we were brothers – pixies and Fey, Wolves and unicorns – all of us united by a love greater than any distinctions of race or kind. A love for the land we all shared.

And then the ground began to open. The magic of Feyland had been awakened; a chasm appeared upon the plains. And, with a wail and a scream, one by one the members of the Dark Hordes began to fall into the newly-made gorge, lava spitting up from the belching depths. We watched with a mix of horror and joy as the Hordes tumbled into the gorge, as the lava hardened, as the giants and witches were encased in the molten stone.

And then it was over. The magic of Feyland – a combined magic greater than the magic of any one of our races – had spoken. In our unity, in our brotherhood, we had managed to do what none of us could do on our own: we had saved Feyland.

 A sigh of relief – mingled with the grief for the fallen, a grief that we now at last had time to express – came over Feyland. We fell to our knees, weeping together. Weeping for the friends and lovers we had lost.

And then the vision came over me again – over Connell the Red Wolf, and over the Midnight Knight. We saw first the joy of the first few years after the battle: of a united Feyland joined in peace and prosperity. A Feyland in which Wolves and Fey and pixies lived side by side.

And then we saw what would happen afterwards. The Pixies banished once more to the northern lands. Wolves no longer welcome in fairy territory. Fairies divided into Summer and Winter, warring with each other so bitterly that their battles would threaten to bring the Dark Hordes into the fray once more. Not two hundred years after this battle, Feyland would forget the lessons of this first Battle of the Gorge.

And my face was wet with tears; silver ran down the Midnight Knight's face.

“Did you see it too?” he asked softly. “The vision.”

“Yes...” I nodded.

The gorge was rapidly closing – the Dark Hordes were vanishing, enveloped in the earth. And across the gorge we saw Queen Panthea – awe-inspiring in her beauty. Her arms were stretched out to us.

“You have served Feyland once,” she said to us. “But I have sent you these visions to show you that you will need to serve Feyland again. You have two choices, my friends. You can live out your days in peace and prosperity in Feyland, and die long before Feyland becomes broken again. Or you can come with me, come with me and sleep – and reawaken when Feyland needs you next. You will need to save Feyland again. The choice is yours.”

But there was never any choice. We had given up so much for Feyland already; we knew now that our fates were forever intertwined with that of Feyland. We could not live as long as Feyland was under threat.

The Midnight Knight and I traded glances.

“Come, brother,” he said.

Together we took Panthea's hands.

Chapter 19

I
woke up from my slumber more confused than ever. I had heard stories of the Red Wolf, stories of the Midnight Knight – but nobody in Feyland had ever told me this true story. That the Battle of the Gorge, the defeat of the mythical Dark Hordes, was affected neither by Fey alone nor Wolves alone, but by all creatures working together. Even the pixies. I thought of cruel, bitter Delano and sighed. Could one of his ancestors really have worked to aid the Red Wolf and Midnight Knight in fighting off the hordes?

What King Llandudno had said in my dreams was true. Even if Feyland had been united once, it certainly wasn't united now. Pixies hated Fey; Fey hated wolves. And Summer and Winter were divided and at each other's throats. He had risked his men and his life to save Feyland – and what had he received in return? Being expelled to this dark, remote corner of Feyland, never to participate in its beauty or majesty. I couldn't help but feel sorry for Delano. As cruel and unfeeling as he was, there was no doubt that the pixies had not been treated too kindly by Fey in the past. Like Wolves, pixies were outcasts in Feyland: treated with suspicion, ever on the sidelines.

And yet Feyland, in its finest hour, had not been a place of division. It had been a place of unity, of brotherhood. The Midnight Knight had sworn to fight for a Feyland united – now even the fairies were divided against each other. The Red Wolf had trusted that the fairies would accept the Wolves after their transformation – he too had been deceived.

And I too wanted to weep for Feyland. For the beauty and magic of this place so torn apart by war. If I survived this place, I told myself, I wouldn't let it go on like this any longer. I would fight not only to restore the immortality of the Wolves, but also for peace between Winter and Summer, to a Feyland as united as the one that had banished the Dark Hordes into the depths.

My reverie was interrupted by the appearance of Delano's guards. I expected another round of torture, and braced myself for the impact. But to my surprise, they treated me gingerly – even kindly. They let me walk myself down the corridor – they took me to the palace's bathhouses and allowed me to wash away the scent of filth from my skin. They cut my matted, mangy beard and scrubbed me with scented soap. They dressed me in fine, soft silks and consigned my blood-stained loincloth to the fire.

“Now there, puppy,” they said. “You're dining with Delano tonight. We want you to look respectable.”

Delano? Wanting to dine with me? I looked up at them in surprise. What was Delano planning for me now? My heart began beating faster. Perhaps he had decided to execute me – perhaps this recent show of mercy and dignity was Delano's equivalent of a last meal: one last experience of human dignity before I was put down like a dog.

I was ushered into an ornately decorated room, one glimmering with gold and emeralds. Delano sat, swaddled in a green ermine cape, at the head of a long wooden table laden with aromatic meats and stews. The smell of fresh-baked bread and roasting meat wafted through the room, making me weak at the knees with hunger. I hadn't realized quite how ravenous I was until I smelled the delicious scent of fresh meat.

“Sit down,” Delano motioned to a chair at his side. “Please, eat! Dine! Enjoy!”

I looked at him warily. What was Delano up to? I sat down slowly, trying to stop my mouth from salivating uncontrollably as I inhaled the smell of roasted potatoes.

“Go on!” Delano began digging into his own plate. “Don't be shy. You're not full, are you?” He gave a cruel, sarcastic little laugh.

“No, not full,” I muttered.

Was the food poisoned? I watched as Delano took a bite of his own dish before daring to try my own.

The food tasted even better than it smelled. My taste buds were tingling with delight; only my fierce refusal to appear anything but dignified in front of Delano stopped me from morphing into a wolf and gobbling down the roast to the bones. Instead, my hands trembled as I used a fork and knife, swooning with hunger as I moved bite-sized pieces of chicken and spinach to my mouth.

“See,” Delano said as I ate. “I'm not a
bad
man, Logan – you have to understand that. I work very, very hard to ensure that my kingdom is a safe and happy one. And you know – that's no easy feat. We pixies have been mistreated by all races. The Fey – Summer and Winter alike – have abused us and taken our land...”

I recalled my dream about the Pixie King Llandudno, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for Delano. He was trying to garner my sympathy for some reason, but I wasn't about to forget my period of torture so quickly.

“I can imagine it hasn't been easy,” I said diplomatically, not wanting to give too much away until I figured out where Delano was going with all of this. “It's true that your relationship with the Fey has been awfully...fraught.”

“So if I am harsh,” Delano continued smoothly. “It's only because I
need
to be. Surely you can understand that?”

“Go on,” I said.

“It is a difficult life – being a ruler of a people in danger.”

“Right...”

“And I haven't treated you too badly, have I? See – dressing you in nice clothes. Giving you good food to eat. Letting you sleep in one of the palace bedrooms.”

“You're letting me...” I looked up in disbelief.

“Of course I am,” laughed Delano. “I've been letting you sleep in the palace bedrooms, in luxury and comfort, since you arrived. And that's what I want you to tell Breena when she comes. I certainly can't have her thinking I'm some sort of monster, can I?”

Now I understood. Delano wanted to treat me well in order to look good for Breena.

“You want me to lie?”

“Well, not
lie!
” Delano patted my shoulder. “Just – you know – emphasize the good.”

“I can't do that,” I said.

“Breena is very important to you,” Delano said. “And she's very important to me. And it's my priority to ensure that she's happy. And Breena is happy when her friends are happy. Friends like you. Or like me. I don't want to hurt her. It would hurt her to know you were tortured because of her, wouldn’t it? I just want what's best for my people. What's good for the pixies. And what's good for the pixies, my friend, is good for you. Fruit pie?”

He handed me a plate piled high with desserts.

“You don't have to answer right away, Wolf. Just think about it. Over your nice, warm, comfortable bed tonight. I may have been harsh with you in the past, but now you will live quite happily. At least until Breena comes to fetch you.” Delano paused. “You know, despite her seeming to care for that Winter Prince, I think she cares about what happens to you, too.”

This new false kindness of Delano's worried me almost as much as his previous cruelty. Delano clearly knew something I didn't. What did he have planned next?

Chapter 20