Gossamyr

The thought of this mission verily sizzled inside her. She wanted this! For many reasons. But fore, she wanted to protect her homeland from the threat of the revenants.

“It is the mortal passion, be that so?” Shinn’s quiet words made Gossamyr wince. “It blinds you to the real danger.”

“But I crave danger!”

He caught the end of her staff as she swung it in declaration. The tension strumming from end to end of the staff—Gossamyr’s grip to Shinn’s—felt palpable. Unwilling to concede, she lifted her chin defiantly.

“You have not experienced real danger.” Her father’s stern tone curtailed her swagger a bit. “Bogies and hobs—”

“And that core worm a few days earlier! The thing spat dirt balls the size of a spriggan’s head.”

Shinn turned a wry smirk upon her. “Gossamyr, core worms do not spit.”

“It was spitting at me.”

“Think about it, daughter. How is it a worm exudes dirt from its body?”

“Well, it—” Throws up casts. Oh. She hadn’t thought of that. So the thing had been—Ah. “Don’t you trust I’ve the ability? You have trained me for this opportunity.”

Her father released the end of her staff with a gentle shove. “You are skilled, this I know.”

“Then I am ready. I will return to you—”

“Will you?” So much unspoken in those two words. And the sigh that followed.

“Yes. Of…of course I will return.”

Did he worry that her mortal blood would prevent her safe return? Gossamyr had ever coached herself to resist the mortal passion. If it had seduced her mother, she, as well, risked such temptation, for Veridienne’s blood coursed through her veins instead of Shinn’s ichor.

Or was it that he could not abide her to leave him? The pain of losing Veridienne had changed Shinn, closed his heart. Emotion was difficult to mine from the stalwart fée. Gossamyr would not bring further heartache to her father.

And yet, Shinn had bruised her heart with his own cruel indifference. The memory of a Rougethorn’s kiss would for ever live in Gossamyr’s being, and for evermore close her heart to the mutable love faeries feared.

But it was all for naught. Love was not to be hers. Shinn had already announced her engagement to a most frustrating man, his marshal at arms, Desideriel Raine. Frustrating to Gossamyr’s heart, but certainly deserving where skill and knowledge of the Glamoursiège musters were concerned. When Shinn had first suggested such over a meal the diffident fée had suppressed a sneer as he’d looked across the table to Gossamyr. She had read the young warrior’s look—she is not true fée. The humiliation had prompted her to excuse herself before the final flower course.

She was perfectly capable of ruling Glamoursiège on her own, but tradition required marriage—marriage being reserved for royalty and the upper-caste lords and ladies. And, Gossamyr suspected, Desideriel would represent true fée blood when all in Glamoursiège merely tolerated Gossamyr’s half blood.

“Truth,” Shinn said.

Drawn from her troubling thoughts, Gossamyr approached Shinn.

Truth? Studying the sun-laced tower floor, the blue veins purling through the marble like cold blood, Gossamyr vacillated on admitting the truth. A truth that sat in her heart like the pulses of mortal Time that fascinated her so. How to do it gently?

“Truth,” she murmured. An exhale released reluctance. “I do long to visit the Otherside. You know that.” She met Shinn’s gaze, half-concealed by a fall of his long raven hair. He sought the truth of her, and yet he would hide behind his own hard emotions. “I want to understand that part of my heritage most alien to me. I want to…experience.”

She followed Shinn’s pace to the tower’s edge. The evening primrose that grew in the roots attracted night moths, which then attracted frogs. He nodded. “And find.”

Frustration, muted and held back far too long, oozed throughout her. He would not close out her desires. Not this time. Even more, Gossamyr would have her father know her heart. She whispered, “Love never dies, Shinn.”

“You think to know love?”

“I…yes.” And not the fickle love faeries know. “I know the fée cannot truly—”

Too fragile, the memory of Veridienne, to speak of it. And so Gossamyr would not. But what of her lover? The one her father had banished from her very arms? Then, he had claimed she could not begin to know love. Did they both fool the other with their secret longings for fulfillment?

To continue would gain her no ground.

“Here is my home, Shinn.”

“Yes, because you believe.”

Yes, yes. Always he repeated the mantra to her: Believe and you Belong. She believed. She belonged! Nothing could change that.

“Faery is your home,” he said. “Should you venture away…you must then return.”

To marry Desideriel was the unspoken part.

“Indeed. And my home is no longer safe unless someone stops the Red Lady. I want to help Faery. How will I ever stand in your place if there is naught a place to stand?”

The summer breeze lifted Shinn’s jet hair over his shoulders and twisted fine strands around the horns at his temples. Gossamyr read the pain in his tightened jaw. His own memories haunted. It had been much simpler for her to place aside the memories of an always-distant mother.

“Grant me this opportunity, Shinn. I will return to you.”

“You vow to me?”

A father’s fear: violet eyes unwilling to focus upon hers; hyacinth, heady and oozing with an expectant pulse.

“You won’t lose me, Shinn. I vow it upon my fée essence.”

Gossamyr noted the twitch at the corner of her father’s mouth. Suppression always tightened his features. “This mission is deadly. Time cannot be tricked or defeated.”

A stab of her staff rang against the marble. “I am skilled.”

“A—” Shinn looked to the summer-pale sky “—champion is needed.”

A champion. “Oh.” Her bravado mellowed, Gossamyr bowed her head.

Indeed, a champion.

When had she ever proven herself in battle? Fighting dirt-casting core worms and drunken bogies? Night-creeping spriggans rarely offered more than a few moments’ struggle before scampering away from challenge. Werefrogs were vicious but stupid. Tournaments offered her but display of singular combat skills. There had not been opportunity for real challenge here in Glamoursiège. And she’d never been off the Spiral, not even a near fall from the Edge.

The touch of Shinn’s finger lifted Gossamyr’s gaze up to his. His eyes glittered. With tears? She had not thought to ever see the like. Certainly it was a mirage created by the sun and the glimmer of his blazon.

“Of course you do know champions are not simply ready and able?”

She lifted a brow.

“They are made. Truly, you are the only one for this mission, Gossamyr.” He bowed his head and clasped his fingers, the moue of his mouth frowning. But in a remarkable recovery he lifted a confident eye to Gossamyr. The former commander relayed battle details. “The Red Lady is malicious and is unlikely to rest until her penchant for feeding off fée essence restores her ability to return to Faery. She scents them out, newly arrived in the city, just as Disenchantment has begun to set in, for then the essence still retains its glamour.”

Gossamyr touched the faint blazon curling up her neck in a manner of twisting design. Would Disenchantment steal her blazon?

“But most important…” Another heavy sigh released what Gossamyr guessed to be regret and fear and the intense compulsion to protect his only child. “You are ready.”

A champion? Gossamyr straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Have at me.

Eagerness uncontained, she blurted, “How will I know the Red Lady? Is she…red?”

Shinn’s smirk teased at a genuine smile. “You will know her when you see her. Banished long ago, she bears the mark.”

The mark. Yes. Horrid memories flooded Gossamyr’s mind. She had witnessed a banishment. The curl of red pinpricks boring into flesh. A cri de terroir. The suddenness of expulsion. And her bruised heart.

“You have seen the mark,” Shinn had the audacity to remark.

A nod confirmed Gossamyr’s understanding. Bile stirred in her throat. “Speak no more on it; I will know it when I see it.”

Swallowing back memory, Gossamyr sorted the facts. A succubus fée. Red. Banished. An unmistakable mark. Paris. Her father never elaborated beyond the necessary information.

“How long ago was she banished?”

“Before your birth.”

“Ah.” And yet, only now the succubus had begun to havoc the Otherside? Hmm…

“Mortal time is different than in Faery,” Shinn commented. “You will find it faster, startling. But most important, you know much about the Otherside; that will serve well.”

“I have gleaned what I can while studying Mother’s Bestiary of Humans—” Gossamyr stopped. Shinn did not appear startled by her confession. She had ever used stealth to steal into the locked study to snoop, much to the horror of her maid, Mince.

Veridienne had been detailing the mortals, magnifying them on amphi-vellum in the most remarkable detail, diagramming their manner and social ways from memory—re-creating her natural history. Gossamyr pored over the articles any chance she could find. The drawings were marvelously rendered in gild and such pigments created from madder, azurite and verdigris. Text gave splendid descriptions of clothing, food and custom.

I know you are half-mortal, Gossamyr. Your brown eyes intrigue. You are exotic…

Shucking off the cloying memory of a Rougethorn’s enraptured voice, Gossamyr looked to her father. He studied her, his jaw tight. Ever visible, the hurt in Shinn’s eyes.

“I wanted to touch a part of her,” Gossamyr offered in a quiet voice. “It was difficult trying to get close to her. She was ever busy.”

“Veridienne loved you, Gossamyr. The mortal passion led her astray. Nothing more. You two are devastatingly alike, so…passionate about life. Rebellion runs like ichor through your veins.”

Ichor? Not in this half-blood’s veins, she thought wistfully.

Gossamyr felt her father’s sadness ran far deeper than he would ever show. Had Veridienne’s departure been rebellion? To journey to the Otherside had always been her dream, but a dream tainted by the reality of her mother’s absence.

“I have been nothing but clear regarding your never Passaging to the Otherside.”

A shiver prinkled up Gossamyr’s spine. Would he yet deny her this mission? Forbid her from yet another enticing fragment of life? Champions were made, not hired! And such an experience for the future lady of Glamoursiège! There was yet opportunity…

She scuffed her palms across her leather braies and scanned the gloss shimmering in her father’s violet eyes.

“It is dangerous. We both know that.” Shinn’s breaths settled in the air between them, heavy with something akin to dread. “But the time has come to release you from a father’s protective obsession.”

Apprehension tightened Gossamyr’s limbs so she stood boldly erect.

“Yes, you see, even I have my obsession. I cannot protect you once you leave Faery.”

She needn’t protection. With staff in hand and a keen eye for danger, Gossamyr invited the experience.

“Just remember,” he said. “Always Believe—”

“And I will Belong. I know, Shinn. Worry not, I will never lose mind of my home. Will there be revenants on the Otherside?”

“No, they flee to Faery as quickly as the essence is stolen.”

“Which is why you must remain here.”

“Indeed. A fée can only travel to the Otherside on so many occasions before Time masters his body. I have journeyed there many a time. Would that I could accompany you.”

“You mustn’t risk it.”

“I will muster my troops and prepare for a sure battle. I sense their numbers will only increase as the Red Lady remains unstopped. I have been witness only to those who return to Glamoursiège. I expect other Faery tribes have been attacked, as well.”

“These revenants, what happens when one does manage to obtain an essence?”

“That would leave an innocent fée dead, and the revenant would have its final twinclian.”

“Would not the innocent become revenant?”

Shinn nodded. “You understand this vicious cycle could cripple Faery.”

Further reason to avoid delay. Time must be faced. “I can do this.”

His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know.”

Why did a prinkle suddenly cleave to Gossamyr’s spine? This is what she most desired.

“I should not send you alone.”

“There are none in Faery who can accompany me.” For there were none with mortal blood to protect them from the Red Lady’s seeking lure. “You’ll need your troops here to fight the revenants.”

“Perhaps a pisky guide—”

“What of Mince?”

“She is far too aged, and honestly, much too plump to keep your pace. The Disenchantment would take her swiftly.”

Indeed. Gossamyr would not risk the matron, even as she dreaded leaving her maternal influence. The only kind arms she had known following Veridienne’s departure, for Shinn did not express his concern with sympathetic touches but with stronger actions, such as teaching her to fight.

“I will fare well on my own.”

“Mayhap a fetch?” Shinn nodded, pleased with his notion. “Indeed, I will send one along to repeat back to me your successes.”

She liked that he already thought of her success.

“Now, Disenchantment occurs quickly,” he warned. “Once you set foot on the Otherside you’ve perhaps less than a day before you lose all glamour.”

“I have no glamour!”

“You’ve a cloak of glamour.” He splayed his fingers before her face, raising a sensation of warmth in her flesh, drawing the shimmer of the fée to the surface. There in the blazon tracing her collarbones and upper chest did she feel the magic, the innate being of her kind. The prinkles dancing on Gossamyr’s spine subsided.

“It has seeped into you over the years,” Shinn assured.

So she twinkled. That did not mean she could perform twinclian. Hers was a false glamour. No flight, no twinclian, no glamour. Lousy fée she had turned out to be. Half-blooded was nothing more than mortal.

Gossamyr tightened her grip about the staff and strummed her fingers across the clutter of stringed arrets dangling from her braided-leather hip belt. “What of my skills, my speed?”

Shinn set a hand on her shoulder. Violet eyes looked into hers, as if to leap into her being. “The skills you have honed over the years are yours to own, Gossamyr. Nothing can strip your physical prowess or your battle technique.”

She nodded and slid a hand upon the Glamoursiège coat of arms that she also wore on her hip belt, her family’s sigil, it was carved from the same applewood as her staff. “What of my essence, er…my soul? Do I have both? Can the Red Lady take either from me?”

“Your mortal blood—as well, the fact you are female—will serve a boon. The succubus will not have the slightest interest in you.”

Her father’s voice, deep and strung with a melodious harmony, vibrated within her. Ever and anon he had protected her—even when that protection had hurt her heart. When all other fée would look upon her with a strange reluctance that would keep them an armshot away, yet still amiable, Shinn stood at her side, his pride in her apparent in the determination that pressed back the naysayers.

“Desideriel will be glad of my absence,” she remarked.

“He is a fine match, Gossamyr. We have discussed this overmuch.”

“I do not like him. Do you not sense his distaste for me?”

“You see things only you wish to see.”

With a sigh she offered a silent agreement. So, too, did Shinn see only what he wished to see.

So little to look forward to with her marriage to a man who saw only her faults, and yet, she did anticipate taking the Glamoursiège reign.

“I have groomed him.” Reluctance cautioned Shinn’s voice. “He understands what is expected.”

“As well do I.” A marriage for Glamoursiège, her heart be cursed to suffer for it. But she did respect her father’s choice.

She would speak to Desideriel Raine. Perhaps look again into his eyes and determine if it truly was only her that thought to see his reluctance.

Shinn reached for her staff and drew it between the two of them. One toise in length, the steel-hard applewood had been carved by the Glamoursiège sage and fire-forged by dragon’s breath. Intricate ribbons weaved into a crosswork of roses and flame about the rich wood.

“I will not bid you farewell,” he offered as he pressed the staff into her hand. “Because you are unable to twinclian, you will have to Passage. There is no way to place you immediately in Paris, so a journey awaits. Take this purse of coin, purchase a swift horse and make haste.”

Slipping a leather pouch from his hip, he then tied it to her belt. His fingers lingered on the coat of arms before relenting and stepping back.

Gossamyr spread her fingers around the ample pouch, feeling rich with its weight. Never had she required coin, for her father’s steward and Mince had seen to her needs and desires. How she would miss Mince!

Shinn touched her forehead with his thumb and closed his eyes, imprinting the whorls of his life upon her flesh, connecting with her hidden eye, the all-seeing and all-knowing. No lack of glamour could dispel intuition.

“Come back to me,” Shinn whispered.

A sudden hollowness in her chest forced her to swallow back a strange sense of loss. It wasn’t as if she would never again see him. And Mince, the fretful matron, would only worry should she seek her for a farewell. Such discovery waited her on the Otherside!

“I will,” she promised. “Set me off, and I shall succeed.”

“I send you forth with my blessing, child of mine. Make right what you shall, and may you discover the solace to the ache that has been your nemesis.”

With a nod, Gossamyr silently vowed that ache—the mortal passion—would not defeat her.

The soft press of Shinn’s lips replaced his thumb. Gossamyr lifted her head and in the violet gaze looming over her she found all the strength she would ever need. “I am off, then?”

Shinn stepped back and nodded.

“Very well, but I’ve no twinclian. How shall I enter—”

TWO

France—1436

“—the Otherside?”

The droning alarm of a cicada announced her arrival. Wobbling off balance, Gossamyr swiftly recovered. She bent her knees and, hands spread, scanned her surroundings.

Every pore on her body sensed the world had changed. The air smelled verdant. Tightly sown moss, plush in density, cushed beneath her bare toes as they curled into the thickness. The musty vapor of earth rose about her. ’Twas a muted aroma of decaying wood and fetid bracken, similar to Faery but…different.

Gone, the Glamoursiège castle of blue marble.

Gone, the crystal Faery sky devoid of cloud or shadow.

The Spiral forest, why…it was gone. She stood on horizontal ground, not a mass of forest and marble and reticulated roots all twined and flowing at the slightest of angles.

A squeeze of her fingers reassured her staff was to hand. The carved ribbons pressed into her palm tingled with glamour. She had not natural glamour, but over the years Faery had seeped into her being, imbuing her with a latent glamour that could be briefly utilized.

Gossamyr touched her hip belt, clasping a narrow arret string. Scanning the ground she sighted within the brushy grass bright red toadstools dotted with white warts, closing her into a complete circle. Amanita muscaria; long ago her mother had taught her the strange name for the mushroom; Latin, she’d named the identifying language.

Names possess power. A litany fed to her every day since she could remember. Use that power wisely.

The toadstool circle had risen up below the castle tower overnight. Gossamyr had marveled that the peacocks had walked a wide berth about it. She had been standing in the tower immediately above the circle—indeed, a Passage.

A copse of pendulous cypress rose to her left, shadowing the thick grasses with a silky gray lacing. Pine and earth and grass flavored the air in a pale mist. Gossamyr drew in a breath. Gone, the sweet aroma of hyacinth. Shinn did not stand beside her, his hands clasped before him. The glimmer in her father’s violet eyes was but a twinkle in the air, a breath of fée dust shimmering to naught.

She reached out, grasping at the absence of all she knew, all she had come to depend upon—Faery. Opening her palm upward, she spread her fingers. Gone.

But still there.

Faery was neither here nor there but betwixt and between. Though she could not see him Gossamyr knew Shinn could see her. I will send a fetch. She looked about, but sighted not a hovering spy.

According to what she had read in Veridienne’s bestiary, mortals did have ways of peering in to Faery.

Indeed?

A mischievous tickle enticed Gossamyr to test that theory. Tilting her head forward, she peered back through the corner of her eye. Swiftly, she jerked her head the opposite direction and narrowly stretched her gaze.

Hmm. Not a glimmer or vibration in the sky. No flutter of iridescent wings, not a single flicker as fellow fée twinclianed elsewhere.

A trickle of panic tittered in Gossamyr’s belly. She rubbed her palms up and down her bare arms—the quilted pourpoint stopped at hip and shoulder—and turned about, eyeing the ruffled canopy of treetops. Grapelike clusters of bright yellow laburnum flowers speckled the greenery. ’Twas clearly the edge of the same forest that limned her father’s castle. There! She recognized the hollowed-out yew stump—a youngling’s favorite hiding spot. But this forest edge was no Edge. There was no risk of falling to a crush of bones amidst the marsh roots should she step off the Edge, for the land beyond this forest stretched on. The Bottom. Everywhere.

Gossamyr gulped. The Bottom was a dangerous place. But where there were no marsh roots there would be no kelpies. No kelpies meant no werefrogs. Blessings.

But what situation was she in now?

She had asked for this mission. And wonder upon wonders Shinn had relented. What was once forbidden now lay before her. The Otherside was hers to explore.

But not to forget: the fate of Faery relied on her success.

A decisive nod stirred courage to her surface.

“Champions are made. I will return to Faery the victor.”

Until then—“Achoo!”

Spreading her arms to adjust her balance, Gossamyr settled a few steps from where she had landed. “Achoo!”

What tickled her senses?

Sniffling, she thought briefly her watery eyes were tears. Tears were a sign of weakness, of unfettered emotions. One could not Be amidst a fury of conflicting emotion. She had once cried enough tears for a lifetime, so it surprised now there should be any left.

Mayhap they were tears caused by the mortal atmosphere?

“It is merely the dust.” For indeed motes of dust floated, and close loomed a skein of buzzing gnats.

Turning, Gossamyr scanned the dark emerald lacework of the forest canopy and the blackened trunks of oak trees she recognized, but had known in a more spectacular image. No exposed roots twisting and trailing down the length of the Spiral forest. ’Twas her favorite activity to swing and climb amongst the network of roots, chasing night moths. And where be the canorous frog song that so twinkled from amidst the shadowed roots?

Shrugging her hands up her arms, she scanned the forest. A rabbity moan brewed in her throat. Gossamyr pressed a hand to her chest. Calm yourself.

How to return when her mission was complete? She wasn’t sure how she had entered the Otherside. Born without twinclian—the ability to twinkle in and out from a place—she could only imagine the task had been accomplished via Shinn’s glamour.

Perhaps she should have gotten the return method clear with her father before setting off on adventure. Always, Shinn had tried to crush her penchant for rushing blindly into situations. A warrior must assess and plan. But Gossamyr liked the danger, and the thrill of dashing into the fray—as much as the peaceable kingdom of Glamoursiège had allowed. There were the occasional vagrants from the Netherdred that crept into the Spiral; excellent opportunity for Gossamyr to put her training to use. Always, though, Shinn had been there to aid.