“Flame?” she called into the shadows. There was no fire, no light at all.
A low rumbling sound answered her.
Something pressed against her back, a heavy push and slide of an animal’s head rubbing against her. Wynn jumped forward and spun around. She almost fell over. But there in front of her were Shadow’s enormous eyes. They blinked at her as the tigereon changed her stripes from a very dark brown to white. It looked like she’d appeared from the air.
“You’re wearing elvish clothes.” Flame’s voice came from the darkness. Mildred clucked in greeting. “Shadow was confused by your scent. Are you friends with the elves now?”
Wynn didn’t know how to answer that. She was friends with Lexi, but she didn’t like the elf leader very much. “They locked me in a room.”
Flame stepped forward out of the dark shadows of her shelter. She didn’t quite look at Wynn and kept her staff carefully poised in front of her. “How did you get out?”
“Elric found me,” Wynn said.
Flame’s forehead crinkled, making the scars across her face stand out. “He left the shield and braved the wood to find you?”
“He is a good brother.” Mildred came over to her and Wynn picked her up as Shadow slipped beside Flame.
“If you have been saved, why are you here?” She placed both hands on her staff and leaned on it. Dark blue fire licked along the curls at her temples.
“You are my friend,” Wynn said. “Come back with me.”
Flame laughed.
Another loud boom echoed off the stones and old towers of the ruins. The sound of shattering ice was followed by a roll of thunder as the storm drew nearer. The Grendel was coming.
“Why would I want to live with the fairies?” Flame asked.
“Because you are a fairy,” Wynn said.
“A fairy?” Flame didn’t smile now. She looked very angry. “You think I’m one of those weak cowards? Can you believe this?” she asked as she turned her head toward Shadow.
“Fairies can talk with animals,” Wynn said.
Flame snapped her head up and scowled. It made her scars look very frightening. “I have lived thousands of days in this wood. I should know what I am.”
Wynn blinked at her. “Fairies don’t get old.”
Flame gripped her staff and pushed forward, but Wynn did not back down, not even when Flame’s staff hit her legs. “I am not a fairy!” she shouted. The old pillars of the archway burst into a roaring inferno of white-hot flames.
“Fairies have magic.” Wynn backed away from the wave of heat coming off the pillars.
They dimmed as Flame gathered control of herself. Blue flames licked up either side of the archway.
“This can’t be true,” Flame said, her voice soft and sad. “I’m something different, like you are.”
“I’m a fairy princess too.” Wynn reached out and touched Flame’s hand. She startled at the touch, then let out a heavy sigh and placed her own hand over Wynn’s. Wynn closed her other hand over Flame’s. “Even when I don’t want to be.”
“If I am a fairy, then why did they abandon me in the wood? Why did they throw me out here and then never come back for me?”
Flame sounded so sad. Wynn stepped forward and wrapped her in a hug. “The Grendel took you away.”
Shadow suddenly crouched and hissed. Mildred let out a loud cluck and trotted down the path just as Elric came running up with his sword drawn. The tigereon leaped forward and took a swipe at Elric, who backed away from the enormous beast. Her striped tail lashed in anger.
Wynn ran forward and circled her arms around Shadow’s neck. “No, Shadow, no. He is my brother.”
Elric stepped forward as if he wanted to be with her, but Shadow growled at him and he backed away. “We saw the fire. Wynn, are you hurt?”
“I am fine.” Wynn held tight to Shadow’s neck.
“This is your brave and devoted brother, I take it?” Flame stepped into the cool blue light of the flaming pillars but didn’t look at Elric. She stared somewhere past him. “The fairy prince?”
Elric crept forward waving his hand slowly. Flame still didn’t look at him. As he stepped in front of her, she whacked him hard with her staff.
He shouted in pain and fell to the ground. “I’m sorry. For a moment there, I didn’t think you could see me.”
“I can’t,” Flame said as she leaned on her staff.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXElric
“YOU’RE BLIND.” ELRIC COULDN’T BELIEVE it, but the scars across her face, slashing over her eyes, didn’t lie. It explained so much. No wonder she didn’t try to rejoin the fairies. She couldn’t see the fairy realm, and her tigereon couldn’t cross the barrier. She would have never set foot through the shield if she had to leave her only companion behind. For her, the fairy realm must have been like a legend that her tigereon told to her at bedtime, not the place where she belonged.
“I don’t know what ‘blind’ means,” Flame said as Lexi came forward. Shadow slinked behind Flame, curling her body around Flame’s legs. She put her head low to the ground and hissed. Her stripes shimmered between a harsh yellow shade and a vivid green. “Tell the elf to back away.”
Lexi did so, pulling her lantern closer to her body.
“Your eyes are damaged,” Elric said. “You can’t see things.” The reaper that captured her as a baby must have scratched her face, and cut her eyes. He wasn’t sure how fairy wounds healed, especially in a baby, but her scars were deep. The streaks cut across the her forehead, slashed her cheek and the bridge of her nose, and crossed over her lip and jaw. Instead of changing color the way most fairy eyes did, the princess’s eyes seemed fixed on dark brown.
“I can see things,” she said as she brought her staff around and swung it dangerously close to his face. He didn’t flinch, but he felt the muscles of his cheek twitch where her staff lingered. “Light, shadows,
