The firelight gets closer with every step.
Our footfalls are soft on the grass path, but I feel as though I’m walking to a beat. My heart? Soren’s? But it’s below me, in the ground too. Perhaps the people of Briar Knoll use it to keep the night howls or the ghosts from Nine Days away. The more I tune into it, I find that it’s sweeter than the nightly drumming in Raven’s Landing, almost celebratory. I feel a deep connection to everything—the land and sky, people and animals, the water and ice—even the sun and moon are part of me and I’m part of nature too. The deep thrum, thrum, gets louder, pulsing all the way to my bones the nearer I get.
The dark outlines of domes about the same height as Soren dot the landscape. In the center is the fire, circled by a large group of people, clapping in rhythm while two figures with thin strips of fabric streaming behind them, dance closer and closer to each other in the middle. They stamp their feet in time, echoing the drums. Only, they’re not dancing on their feet, but fluttering on wings. Fae.
Something icy hot surges inside of me and I want to rush into their midst. If my mother was fae, what does that make me? I’m done with all the questions. I want answers.
The firelight illuminates a young man and woman, each with flaxen hair. She wears a silvery-green dress and has ribbons tied around her wrists. He’s dressed in dark green and wears the ribbons too. They continue to circle the fire, spiraling toward each other, brushing up flower petals scattered on the ground.
I recall the white starflower in Inverness and how easily the fire would melt it.
Soren and I remain a few paces away from the ritual and watch. My lips part in awe as the pair doesn’t break their gaze, their eyes locked only on each other. The ribbons dance wildly.
At last, they reach the blaze, and I fear their ribbons will catch fire, but a woman wearing a dress almost the exact shade of the sky lifts the ribbons over the fire. The couple links their fingers, palms together, and the priestess binds their hands together. She speaks words we can’t hear, and the lips of those in the circle smile. Their eyes sparkle.
She says something more and then turns to the crowd and they lift their hands over the licking flames. We edge closer.
In a strident tone, a woman says, “The cords holding these two fast connect them to each other, to all of you gathered here, and across earth and sky, sea and ice, joy and pain, dreams and the waking life. And so the binding is made.”
The couple gazes at each other with tender warmth and then they kiss.
When they part, the woman says, “Let us honor their union with a great celebration.” Her eyes shine the color of amber in the firelight.
The group erupts into cheering and whooping. The clapping and foot-stomping seamlessly transform into music I’ve never heard—especially not the club music or rock from back home. Instead, it’s a plucking noise that rises and falls. There’s a smooth whistling sound like the wind dancing over dents in the ice, but more tuneful. It’s the sound starlight would make.
It doesn’t take long for several of the revelers to notice our outsider status. A child dressed in purple with a thin crown woven of flowers on her head runs toward us. She stops short and then turns around, skittering back the way she came with a giggle. Young women in green dresses peer at us as they dance gleefully. Older women with their silver hair piled on their heads spare us a glance, nattering in low tones.
“I think this is a wedding ceremony,” I whisper to Soren.
A man in blue with light hair and a matching beard eyes us and confers with a woman who wears a wide wreath made of evergreen and berries around her head. She’s at once regal and earthy. They both approach with hesitant, wary steps. Wings glisten at their backs, conveying their otherworldly power.
“This is the first time I’ve crashed a wedding,” I whisper.
“I am Arth of Briar Knoll. Who are you and what brings you here?” the man in blue asks. His eyes are the color of lavender flowers.
“I am Thea, the elder of Briar Knoll, Seelie fae and daughter of Tawn and Alan of the forest court.” The woman with the wreath nods in a regal way.
Soren looks away from me and meets the man with sharp caution. “I’m Soren, and this is Kiki,” he says. “We’re traveling to the Morgorthian Mountains.”
Their gazes dart from our heads to our feet but mostly linger at our sides, perhaps gauging whether we carry weapons. Soren has blades sheathed under his massive coat and a bow on his back. I carry the blade from work but don’t have any more of Heather’s single-use talismans in my pocket.
“We’re coming from Raven’s Landing.”
Their shifting feet and darting gazes suggest they don’t trust outsiders as Soren said, but perhaps especially not those from Raven’s Landing.
“You made it through Nine Days?” Thea asks.
Soren nods. “We’re merely passing through and would like to stay here the night if possible.”
“We’re not here to burden you with trouble,” I add, though hopefully, the king’s guard doesn’t make it past the ghosts because they could certainly be a problem. I tell them about what happened.
Thea touches the top of my head and closes her eyes. I have the urge to duck out from under her hand and take a swipe, but she’s gentle and I sense she doesn’t mean harm. She does the same to Soren who visibly stiffens and balls his hands
