For a moment, there was silence. Then, the ward filled with a high-pitched whistle that Abisina recognized from watching the fauns with Haret. Seconds later three fauns vaulted through the entrance between the Sylvyads, swinging their torches, crouching low then leaping high, their hooves pounding the ground faster than raindrops in a cloudburst. Absorbed in the movements of these three, Abisina hardly noticed another three, and then three more, spring between the Sylvyads until the ward teemed with fauns—moving, gyrating, lunging, leaping, the music dipping and diving right along with them. Torches swung in all directions, and Abisina was sure one would hit a dancer or an onlooker, but the fauns’ timing did not falter.
Just as Abisina began to grow dizzy from the fauns’ mad caper, they fell back into a ring two deep, lining the inside of the circle. The music stopped abruptly, and then a new song emerged, higher and wilder than the fauns’ pipes, and achingly beautiful, somewhere between a human voice and the call of a nightingale. Abisina couldn’t tell the source, but two figures at the ward’s entrance stood illuminated by the strange glowing orbs they held. A breeze ruffled Abisina’s hair, and she smelled deep, old forests.
Abisina knew very little about fairies—mostly stories of devilish beings told to scare Vranian children. The two who stepped into the fauns’ circle, and the many who followed behind them, were decidedly not human. They were the same basic build and size—as tall as most men—but the grace with which they moved, the way their hips swayed, the fluidity of their arms—made even the fauns look clumsy and lumbering.
Their skin was as black as a moonless night; their hair, as long as Rueshlan’s, rippled through the air in waves; their loose, silky tunics and pants reflected the burning torches and the orbs they carried; even their skin shimmered. They moved with such weightlessness, tossing their orbs to one another in intricate patterns, that Abisina was sure they would leave no footprints behind. At the height of the dance, she counted thirty fairies, losing track twice in her awe of them.
“Those balls they carry,” she asked Findlay, without looking away, “what are they?”
“Moonlight,” he breathed back.
“Can they—fly?” Abisina asked a moment later when another fairy leapt into the ward, head almost touching the Sylvyad branches.
“Not quite. But they are not held to the earth as we are. They have an affinity with birds. They communicate with them in their own language.”
The fairies’ expressions were inscrutable, their almond-shaped eyes touched with blue. Each became a small part of a larger whole. And though Abisina assumed that the music came from the fairies, she never caught their lips moving. Through the whole of the dance, she didn’t know if she watched men or women, or if gender was as immaterial to the fairies as gravity.
At some unseen cue, the fauns with their pipes joined the fairies in a dance of circles inside circles inside circles, each one moving in opposite directions, so that Abisina looked into the heart of a whirlpool, felt the tug of its current. She took a step forward and next to her Findlay did, too, and others around them until the circles melded together, and the fauns and fairies clasped hands, weaving through the onlookers toward the ward’s exit.
At the melding of the circles, the watchers made their own chain and began to follow the dancers to the next ward. But Abisina, totally absorbed, did not stir. So she came face-to-face with the last fairy to leave. This fairy stood taller than any of the others, had hair which shimmered with strands of silver, and wore a circlet of silver leaves around its brow. As the fairy stepped toward her, their eyes met.
Abisina’s world turned upside down, her head dangling toward the center of that cool blue eye and the infinity beyond it.
The fairy spoke: “Our ancient enemy has returned. This human has seen Charach.”
“Lohring!” Rueshlan spoke sternly but quietly, breaking the spell of the fairy’s gaze, and bringing Abisina tumbling back to earth. He put his hands on Abisina’s shoulders as the rest of the crowd filed out. “Let them go, let them go,” he murmured until the last dwarf had disappeared along the trail. Findlay had started to follow, but hung back when he saw that Abisina was not with him. Sensing that something was amiss, Alden, Frayda, and Kyron stayed behind, too.
Rueshlan faced Lohring, jaw clenched. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Lohring stood up taller, eyes flashing. “Do you doubt me, Rueshlan? Do you forget that I am the Daughter of the Fairy Mother?” The tones in her voice rang high and low, reverberating through Abisina.
“I do not forget, Lohring,” Rueshlan answered. “But you speak of very dark things—and at the height of Midsummer.”
“We cannot wait, Rueshlan. Every moment is precious. Charach is back and on the move—and your daughter knows him!”
The others gasped at Lohring’s words.
Abisina looked to Rueshlan for help, but he focused on the fairy.
“How do you know this?” he asked.
“It is in her eyes,” Lohring said. “The White Worm leaves his mark.”
“Abisina,” Rueshlan took her hand, “is what Lohring says true? Have you seen the White Worm?”
“Y-yes,” Abisina stammered. “I didn’t know that you knew Ch-Charach until last night when Sahnda . . .” Her voice faded.
Rueshlan bent closer to her. “Tell me, Abisina. Tell me what you know.”
She took a deep breath. “My last day in Vranille, he came. But he came as a man and the people thought he was a hero. He promised to lead us—the Vranians—to defeat our—
their
enemies—the dwarves, the fauns, the centaurs.” She glanced nervously around the group. “He came during the Ritual of Penance. He—he was beautiful. At first. I thought he was Vran. But then—his eyes! That’s when I saw it.” Abisina’s voice shook.
“What?” Rueshlan asked, leaning still closer.
“I—I felt like I was being swallowed by darkness. And at the center, I saw—” She couldn’t get out the words.
“Yes?” Rueshlan urged.
“I saw the White Worm. And I knew then that he was evil—a shape-shifter,” Abisina whispered.
“Did others see it?” Rueshlan asked in the same steady voice.
“I don’t think so. Maybe one.” She remembered the outcast Jorno, helping her lift Paleth as the rest of the crowd fell apart in a frenzy, telling her to run. “They cried out to him, Father. They wanted to touch him. They
loved
him. Then—then he turned on the outcasts. They chased us, and they killed us. They got––they killed my mother. . . . But—she—and Vigar—told me to warn you, to tell you about Charach. That this is the beginning.”
There. It was out—what she had avoided for so long.
No one moved.
Rueshlan stared off, past the Sylvyads, pain clouding his face. “I’m sorry, Abisina,” he said, focusing again on his daughter. The lump that had risen in Abisina’s throat threatened to dissolve into tears, but she fought to stay dry-eyed.
Rueshlan straightened up. “Charach is back,” he said dully. “Call the Council.”
The small group scattered. Kyron reared up and galloped away, carrying the news to the farthest wards. Lohring stayed long enough for a hurried, whispered conversation with Rueshlan, before setting off to catch up with the fairies who still danced through Watersmeet. Findlay was the last to leave, tentatively touching Abisina’s hand before he turned to go. The lump in her throat threatened to dissolve again.
There were several hours before dawn and Abisina spent them with Rueshlan sitting before the smoldering fire, the remains of the banquet still spread on the table. Rueshlan asked her again to tell him what she knew about Charach, why he had come to Vranille. He wept with her when she told him about the fire in the burial ground. When she described finding the necklace, he stood abruptly. “I thought she had given it to you,” he said.
Abisina shook her head. “I found it after she—was gone. Haret thought the necklace
knew
me. He said the snow and wind at the altar were the necklace’s power.”
“He may be right. Through the necklace, Vigar—and your mother—brought you here.”
Mama was with me. We went on the journey together
. She held the necklace tightly. “Vigar said something like that. And soon after that, a minotaur got into Vigar’s garden.”
“Minotaurs in the
garden
? It’s always been a refuge. . . . The signs are becoming quite plain. Charach’s power is growing.”
His words made Abisina feel sick. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you earlier,” she said. “But I didn’t want to bring
him
here.”
Rueshlan laid a hand on her arm. “It’s all right, Abisina. All this time, I’ve been defending Watersmeet, as if her folk were the only ones that needed me. I should have seen that Charach would take any opportunity, use any foothold. It’s been so long since—I had begun to think he was truly defeated.”
The question that had been lurking in the back of her mind tumbled out before she could stop it. “Sahnda said Charach killed Vigar. So is he old—like you?”
“Much older. The stories of Charach go back as far as there are stories. And he has many guises. He can look quite beautiful, as he first appeared to you. That is one way he gains followers. Charach was here when Vigar came to Watersmeet, but she defeated him.”
“Was Vigar
human
?” Abisina asked.
“Yes, she was—as were her original followers—but she embraced all beings. That was her power. Charach grew weaker as more and more joined Vigar. They were strong enough to drive him out. The folk of Watersmeet believed he had been killed, but Vigar knew better. Did he slip into the Fens? Cross the Mountains Eternal? Head south to the sea? Or did he go underground?” Rueshlan sighed. “Wherever he went, Vigar knew he would be back. I have had the same fear. Charach does not take defeat lightly, and he is patient. But lately, I let myself forget.”
Abisina mulled over Rueshlan’s story. “Why did he come to Vranille?”
“He feeds on hatred. The Vranians provide plenty, born of their fear. It’s another reason to kill the outcasts—it shows the people that he will defeat what they fear.”
“The Vranians don’t fear the outcasts!”
“But they do. They fear what they cannot control. Since they descended the Mountains Eternal, the Vranians have viewed this as a hostile land. They have struggled to control it by deciding who lives, who dies, and how each life will be lived out. Killing a centaur or dwarf—even a helpless infant—provides them with a sense of power, but they fear deeply that this power is an illusion. And Charach feeds on this fear.”
The windows of the room were no longer dark, but gray. It was time to go to the final Midsummer Gathering. Abisina had one more question. “Why did I see the Worm?”
“Perhaps Charach offered you something you didn’t want. The villagers longed for a hero like Vran to lead them. But you know in a very deep way that Vran—and Charach—are your enemies. Eventually all the Vranians will realize this. Then Charach’s outer beauty will fall away and his followers will behold the White Worm—but it will be too late.”
Abisina stood next to Rueshlan as the fairies and fauns entered the Gathering Place for the climax of the Mid- summer celebration. Abisina wanted to feel the beauty of the ceremony—the light of the torches and the fairy orbs greeting the dawn, the music climbing to impossible heights, the lithe dancers moving with the same intensity and passion that had delighted her only a few hours earlier—but she viewed the scene as if through water. The outlines of the dancers wavered and bent at odd angles, the music came to her from a distance, and the roar of the crowd sounded hollow.
The Council met as soon as the Gathering ended. The crowd heading wearily but happily home did not notice the strain on their leaders’ faces.
Abisina was relieved that Rueshlan took her with him to the Council. She was afraid to ask—it wasn’t really her place—but she couldn’t imagine waiting alone while they discussed how to respond to Charach.
The Council House stood at the center of Watersmeet where the First Sylvyad had grown. Rueshlan had described it to her while they first toured Watersmeet. The enormous tree had fallen, leaving its splintered base, twice as tall as the fence around Vranille and double the girth of any other Sylvyad. The shadow of the fallen giant lingered on the forest floor, a clearing that reached straight to the bank of the River Fennish. The folk of Watersmeet had hollowed out the center of the trunk and built two wide doors opening into it.
Abisina was sure the Council included centaurs, and she braced herself as she entered, walking a little closer to Rueshlan. The mood was somber, the merry greetings of the Midsummer replaced by terse nods. The whole Council—one representative for every ten wards—knew that danger had come to Watersmeet.
Before Rueshlan could tell Abisina where to sit, Lohring approached, pulling him aside, and Abisina was left standing alone in the middle of the floor. She searched the room, hoping to find a familiar face. She spotted Frayda and Glynholly and others she recognized, but all the Council members stood huddled in conversations. There were many she didn’t know. And there were centaurs—more than she’d seen since Icksyon’s lair—chestnuts, blacks, dappled grays, palominos, and whites—and she forced herself not to back out of the doors behind her.
Cut into the wall were at least sixty seats of varying heights as well as over a dozen rooms dug out at various points around the circle. To Abisina’s surprise, two dwarves headed straight for the highest seats, which appeared too high even for a tall man. But when the dwarves climbed steps hacked into the wall, she understood: the seats were built so that all sat at the same level. The lower seats were for the humans, the middle height for the fauns, and the highest for the dwarves. The rooms carved into the walls were for the centaurs. When Kyron entered his room, he went down several steps, his great height necessitating a large drop to keep him level with the others.