Cursed Rebel, page 6
If I’d expected Fin to snap at me again for pitching a fit, he didn’t. He just frowned and lowered his gaze back to my hand, which was starting to throb. The scrapes over my knuckles stung, but I didn’t mind the pain. It distracted me from the feeling of his fingertips trailing tenderly between my knuckles, his touch light enough that it sort of tickled. There was a look of concentration on his face, and his other hand was still locked around my wrist. His grip wasn’t hurting me, but it was unbreakable. He was stronger than he looked, and not being able to pull away from him made me feel helpless, and I couldn’t afford to be vulnerable in that place.
I had learned, after the previous night, that I couldn’t let down my guard around him. I had been tired and had started to let my guard slip, thinking that maybe he wasn’t quite as evil as I had pegged him for at first, because he’d kidnapped me but hadn’t hurt me. Then he had drugged me. Again.
So, no, I couldn’t let myself fall for his charming act or his dazzling smiles, because underneath that false charm, he was cruel, calculating and completely inhuman.
A strange warmth spreading through my hand startled me from my dark thoughts, and I looked down. Fin’s fingertips rested in the hollows between my knuckles, and pale light seemed to ray out from his hand, enveloping my fingers. I stared in awe as the scrapes on my knuckles sealed over, and the ache in my hand faded away.
Fin let go, at last, and I lifted my hand in front of my face, flexing my fingers. Aside from the smears of blood between, it looked and felt perfectly normal. I lowered my hand and looked at Fin, pressing my lips together. He raised an eyebrow, folding his arms.
“You’re welcome,” he said flatly.
My amazement instantly fell away. “Here’s your tip,” I muttered, using my newly healed hand to flip him off. “Keep the change.”
He glared at me, but his lips twitched up at the corners. It wasn’t until I felt someone pinch my backside that I realised it wasn’t my smart-mouth remark he was laughing at. I squealed, jumping forward, almost bumping into Fin. He burst into laughter, as did the person who’d pinched me—if you could really call him a person.
I gawked at the tiny, baby-faced creature who was chuckling at my reaction. He was about three feet tall, barely reaching my waist, with strangely shaped legs covered in a coat of thick, coarse fur. His chest was bare, his hair a shoulder-length tangle the same colour as the fur on his legs, with leaves and vines braided into it. Around his neck was a set of hand-carved wooden panpipes on a twine.
He had an extraordinarily beautiful face, the beauty of a pretty, young boy, with pouty lips and unnaturally large brown eyes. However, he had the deeper voice of a teenager, and clearly, the same sense of humour as an adolescent.
Fin noticed my eyes popping out of my head, and grinned. “It’s rude to stare, Snowdrop. He’s a Satyr, not a zoo animal.”
The furry faery’s eyes slid over me, head to toe, making me shudder, and then he glanced at Fin. “Snowdrop? Not her real name, I take it? She doesn’t look fae, even in those clothes,” he said, waving a chubby hand at me.
Fin rubbed the back of his head, hitching up one shoulder in a half-shrug. He looked uncomfortable. “Nah, not fae. I was just hoping that, with the clothes, nobody would look close enough to realise it.”
The Satyr’s eyebrows went up, and he took another look at me, stepping forward on those oddly-shaped legs with a kind of animal grace I hadn’t expected. He propped his small hands on his hips, the panpipes bumping against his bare collarbones. His nostrils flared as if he was smelling me, and I took a step back, creeped out. The animal-boy didn’t seem to notice.
His eyes widened and darted to Fin. “A human,” he said quietly. “Another one for the King?”
With a roll of his brilliant eyes, Fin snorted. “No, Pan, I’ve taken a fetish for mortal girls,” he muttered sarcastically.
Despite myself, I felt a sting of offence and glowered at him. “What’s so wrong with mortal girls, huh?”
Fin glanced at me sideways, something like surprise flashing in his eyes, though it could have just been amusement. He opened his mouth, his brow creased, and he closed it again, apparently uncertain how to respond. The Satyr, though—Pan, as Fin had called him—laughed.
“You’ve got a firebrand this time, eh? Well, that’s right up your alley, isn’t it, Fa—”
Suddenly angry, Fin whipped his head around and cut Pan off. “Shut up, Pan!” he snapped. There was a warning in his eyes as he locked gazes with the Satyr.
Pan frowned, and then shook his head. “You didn’t tell her your name?”
Fin pressed his lips together, but that was answer enough.
I replied for him anyway. “No, he didn’t.” I gave Fin a pointed look, which he ignored.
Tilting his head, the animal-boy looked at me. “So what have you been calling him, then? I know a few things the other girls have called him, unpleasant names—impolite creatures you women are when you’re angry.”
He chuckled. I scowled.
Snorting, Fin replied, “This one’s naturally impolite, no matter her mood. Worse than a Harpy when she’s pissed off.”
I didn’t know exactly what a Harpy was, but it sounded like an insult, so I punched Fin in the arm, hard.
“Ouch!” he said, choking on a laugh. His amusement only made me want to punch him again, and I raised a fist, but he held up a hand. “Hey, wait, no! That actually sort of hurt! You’ve got sharp knuckles. Damn, you’re violent today.”
I smirked. “At least hitting you is more satisfying than punching trees.”
Pan whistled, watching us. “She punched a tree?” he asked Fin, who nodded, rubbing his arm where I’d hit him.
“Threw a real hissy fit. Broke the skin on her knuckles and everything. I had to heal her up, so the smell of blood wouldn’t attract every flesh-eater within a five mile radius.”
My anger grew. Hissy fit? I’d show him a hissy fit. “Shut up, Fin,” I seethed, tempted to hit him again.
“Fin?” the Satyr asked, his eyebrow raised. With his eyebrows up, his large eyes looked even larger. It was sort of creepy, those huge eyes in his small, round face.
Shrugging, Fin said, “That’s what she’s been calling me. She picked it. Says it’s short for Fingal.”
Pan nodded, eyeing me. “Fingal. It’s a fae name. It means fair stranger.”
I smiled. “I know. That’s why I picked it.”
The animal-boy smiled back, showing dimples in his cheeks, and said, “Good choice. It suits him.”
It was strange, how I felt so unnerved with Fin, but I was almost at ease with the strange, half-animal creature. You’d have thought that, because he looked mostly human aside from the pointy ears and incredible beauty, I’d be more comfortable with Fin and that I’d be terrified of a furry, inhuman faery. Maybe that was just it. Pan didn’t look human, so there was no chance of me forgetting he wasn’t, of slipping and beginning to trust him. Fin looked and acted close enough to human that it would be too easy to forget he was a monster.
I wanted to think I wouldn’t make that mistake twice, but looking at Fin, with his bright hair and casual smile, I had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to keep from slipping up. That scared me more than anything else could.
Chapter Ten
** Lucy **
Pan decided to join us on our little journey, and Fin seemed a little more relaxed with the Satyr around. Truthfully, so was I. Pan had an easy sense of humour and kept up a steady chatter and stream of jokes. His distracting presence at least kept me from wanting to kill Fin. The furry little faery eagerly explained the areas of the Summerlands beyond the Tangle to me, telling about the beauty of the Waterfall Valley, the dangers of the Troll Swamp and the pixies that lived in the Flowering Fields. Which was where I’d woken up when Fin had pulled me into the Otherworld the day before, surrounded by purple flowers,).
Pan also told me about the creatures, the different kinds of fae that lived in the various parts of the Summerlands. The selkies and kelpies of the Brown Loch, the mermaids of the Crystal Sea, the bogarts and goblins of the Dark Woods. The pixies and pillywiggans of the Rose Lake, the dwarves and dryads of the Green Grove, the salamanders and ifrits of Fire Mountain and the Imugi dragons that lived in the Lava Caves below it.
Fascinated by the amounts of different fae there were, I asked, “So what’s Fin?”
Fin, who had been wandering along slightly ahead of us, stopped and turned to look at me. The satyr glanced up at me too.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is he an elf, or and imp, or…or a sprite or what?”
Pan smiled, causing dimples to appear in his boyish young face. “Oh, no. Care to tell her yourself…Fin?”
Rolling his eyes, Fin turned away, waving a hand over his shoulder in a vague gesture to continue.
Pan grinned and turned to me. “You see, Lucy, Fin is unusual—”
“You can say that again,” I murmured.
Pan chuckled. “Well, yes, he’s a little odd sometimes. But see, your strange faerie guide here…is a half-breed.”
I saw Fin’s shoulders tense, but he kept walking.
Pan continued, “His father was a hobgoblin, and his mother…well…”
“My mother is a frost-hearted wraith,” Fin muttered darkly without turning around.
My shock must have shown on my face because Pan laughed and patted my elbow.
“No, no, not really. If she was that, Fin would undoubtedly be one of the Winter fae. No, his mother, though cold-hearted, is Summer fae. Indeed, she even resides in the Palace, for she is a pureblood Sithe—one of the nobilities of our world. It’s very rare for a Sithe to join with a Muddy—that’s what they call common fae from any of the Green Places like the Grove or the Tangle. They sometimes join with the nymphs of the Waterfall Valley, for the nymphs are very beautiful and make lovely music. But the Green Places are seen as wild, and their people much the same.
See, the Sithe are the most beautiful and most cruel of our kind, and they like to play games of politics, so they rule the Lands. Each Lord and Lady rules a particular area. For example, Lady Lilac oversees the Flowering Fields. Lord Vale rules the Twilight Valley. Lord Sprig rules the Green Grove. Of course, nobody rules the Dark Woods or the Lava Caves. They’re simply too dangerous and wild to be ruled over in any effective way.”
I looked around us, at the brightly coloured leaves in every shade of green, orange, gold and even purple. “Who rules the Tangle?”
Pan beamed as if I had just asked exactly the right question. Ahead, Fin snorted, but I ignored him.
“Ah, I was wondering if you would ask. The Tangle has been the object of much disagreement over the years because it lays in the Summerlands and crosses the border into the Winterfields. It is the only place in our world where the boundaries of Summer and Winter overlap. The Courts argued over who should own the Tangle, and eventually, they simply tried to split it, but…well, you cannot just split a place like the Tangle, as if it were a cake. The Tangle rebelled against it, and I don’t just mean the creatures who live here. You have seen the trees. You feel them watching you, don’t you?”
I swallowed and nodded. He was right. I had felt the trees watching me as I passed. I’d been trying to ignore it because it creeped me out.
Pan gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, Lucy. They won’t hurt you. Not while you’re with me and Fin. But they did hurt the Lords who tried to split and tame the Tangle. Word is, those Sithe were never seen again.”
“So…nobody rules the Tangle then?” I said, pausing to watch a red-speckled toadstool, which seemed to be hopping across tree roots.
“Not quite,” Pan said, plucking a round, purple berry from a nearby bush and tossing it into his mouth. “You see, the Sithe figured out that the Tangle could not be ruled from without…but perhaps, it could be ruled from within. But none of the creatures of the Tangle wanted anything to do with the Sithe of the Palace, and the Sithe didn’t trust any of the Tangle’s creature anyway because they were just Muddies. And then…”
Pan spread his small, chubby hands in a dramatic gesture. “They discovered that Lady Silver of the Birch River, the area of land that lines the border between Summer and Winter in the North, had become pregnant by a Muddy lover from the Tangle. Everyone in the Palace was shocked, of course, and it became a big scandal. A pureblood Sithe taking a lowborn hobgoblin to her bed? Lady Silver claimed the hobgoblin had tricked her into it, and because she was a Lady and he was just a Muddy, the hobgoblin was found and sentenced to death.”
I gasped, my eyes wide. Pan nodded solemnly, his excitement for the story telling drained. There was a sort of anguished sympathy in his soft brown eyes as he looked toward Fin, who had stopped walking again. He had his back to us, his head bowed, but his hands were in fists by his sides. I felt a sudden pang of sorrow for him.
Pan went on in a low, sad voice, “Aye, it was a sad day in the Tangle when the Sithe’s Sun Guard came and took Jonah Oak away. He was a good friend to a lot of the Tangle’s creatures, including my father. I was young at the time, but I remember my father crying over the porridge the day we found out Jonah was dead. Of course, by then, Lady Silver had given birth to Jonah’s child, a boy, we were told by the Doves.
“A few days after the baby was born, a Sun Guard showed up at my father’s door with a bundle wrapped in rags. The boy, being born of both low and noble blood, was to become the new Lord of the Tangle. My father was charged with taking care of the half-blood until he was old enough to rule. So, my father named the child, and I was brought up alongside the half-blood lordling. I watched him grow to be tall and beautiful, and in just a decade and a half, he was taken to the Palace to be named Lord of the Tangle.
“My father had always treated the little lordling like his own son, but the day before he was taken to the Palace, he explained the truth of the boy’s parentage, and his destiny to become the Lord of the Tangle. The boy was upset for a bit. Of course, he’d already known the man who’d raised him wasn’t his father because he was clearly not a satyr, but wouldn’t you be upset if you found out your mother had had your real father killed? But when the Sun Guard came to take him to the Palace, the boy dried his tears and marched away with his head held high.
“When he came back to us three days later, the boy was not quite the same. He had a haunted look in his eyes, and his smile was less quick to spread upon his handsome face. It wasn’t until the next day that I understood why. You see, the Sithe of the Palace didn’t want the new Lord of the Tangle to listen to anyone but them. He was to be theirs to command. They saw the loyalty and love the new Lord shared with my father as a threat to their control. So, they had my father…removed. Just as they had with Jonah Oak.”
I covered my mouth with my hands, my eyes stinging as I looked down at the grief-stained face of the satyr. His brown eyes were watery, his boyish face etched with pain. It occurred to me that he must have been much older than he looked if he was older than Fin.
I looked toward Fin, too, and saw with some surprise that he had vanished. My heart skipped a beat in panic.
Pan said softly, “He’ll be back. Don’t worry. We’ll camp here for the night.”
Startled by his words, I realised the sky was indeed beginning to darken, turning from powdery blue to watery indigo and limning the treetops in soft pink light. Pan sat down, bending his legs under him like a deer, and rested his small hands on his furry knees. Slowly, I sat down next him on the leafy ground, wary of snakes or spiders. I could feel the weight of the trees’ eyes on me, and I shivered.
Pan waved a hand toward the ground in front of us, and a crackling campfire appeared out of thin air. I jumped a little in surprise, and Pan smiled wearily. It was as if the story had taken all the bounce right out of him, but I had to know, I had to ask.
“What happened…to you and to…to the boy…after…?”
Pan shrugged. “We grieved and, eventually, we moved on. The Lord continued to grow up, becoming more beautiful and more erratic with every passing decade. He ruled the Tangle but never with the iron fist the Palace Sithe wanted. He was kind and merciful to the creatures, kept them safe from the dark fae, gremlins, wraiths and other nasty things that dared creep into the Tangle. He made peace between the Winter fae of the West Tangle and the Summer fae of the East. All the creatures of the Tangle, Winter and Summer, came to love and respect him.
”Then, the Summer King, who ruled the entire Summerlands and oversaw the Lords and Ladies, died. It wasn’t a shock. He was old, even for a faerie. He’d ruled the Summerlands for nearly five centuries and lived almost twice as long. It was his time. But after the King died, his son took the throne, and he was stricter and crueller than the last King. After all, he had been raised in the Palace, surrounded by the Sithe, who had been whispering to him since he was a boy. He had none of his father’s experience with the kingdom beyond the Palace walls, none of his father’s age and wisdom to temper his cruelty.
Ever since he was a child, the new King had heard many stories of the mortal world from the Palace Sithe , and he was curious. He wanted to see these creatures the Sithe had called humans. But because he was King, he couldn’t just leave the Palace and the Otherworld, so he commanded his servants—low-born fae—to go to the mortal world and bring him a human back to the Palace. Of course, we all know the rules, and none of the King’s servants had the skill or beauty to lure a human into agreeing to come to the Otherworld.
The King tried sending a few of his Sithe Lords and Ladies to the mortal world, but they all returned swiftly and empty-handed. The iron and smoke of the human world was too much for them—it affects the purebloods much more harshly than those of us low-borns.
So, the King was stumped. The low-born servants could withstand the human world for days at a time, but they didn’t have the Charm to lure a human to the Otherworld. The pureblood Lords had the Charm, but couldn’t stay in the mortal world long enough to collect a human. Then, he remembered the half-blood Lord of the Tangle, who never came to the Palace. The King sent for the half-blood, and the Lord had no choice but to do as his King commanded.
