CHAPTER TWELVE

THROUGH THE BRIARS

The Briars rose before us like the black face of a cliff, an endless wall of thorns, vines and branches, clawing at the sky. From a distance, they appeared to move, swaying and writhing, never still. Of all the places in Faery, the Briars were the most mysterious, and one of the most feared. It was here long before the first faery emerged from human dreams, and was said to encircle the entire Nevernever. No one knew how it came to be. But everyone knew about it. Within the thorns, the trods to every door and gateway in the human world lay hidden and well protected, waiting to be discovered. Find the right trod, and you could go anywhere in the world. That is, if you could survive the things that lived in the thorns. And the Briars themselves were always hungry.

No one had ever traveled all the way through the thorns; there were rumors that the maze went on forever. But if what Ariella said was true, the End of the World lay beyond the Briars, and somewhere beyond that lay the Testing Grounds.

The five of us—myself, Ariella, Puck, Grimalkin, and the Wolf—stood side by side at the front of the boat, watching the Briars loom before us. The river wound sleepily toward the wall of thorns, into a tunnel of interlocking branches. As we drew closer, we could hear the Briars move, creaking and slithering, eager to welcome us into its embrace.

“Quick question.” Puck’s voice broke the silence. “Did anyone think to bring a can of Off?”

The Wolf gave him a confused look, and I raised an eyebrow. “Do we even want to know?”

“Mmm, probably not.”

Ariella leaned forward, gazing up at the looming expanse of black thorns, awe written plainly on her face. For a moment, it reminded me of the first time I had seen her, that pretty young girl staring at the winter palace in amazement, still innocent of the ways of the Unseelie Court.

But she was different now, not the girl I had once known.

Ariella caught me looking at her and smiled. “I’ve never seen the Briars,” she said, glancing back at the wall of thorns. “Not like this. They’re so much bigger in person.”

The Wolf snorted, wrinkling his nose. “I hope you know where you’re going, girl,” he said in a dubious voice. “If we get lost in there, you’ll be the first one I’m going to eat to keep from starving. Well, after the cat, anyway.”

I glared at the Wolf, but Ariella shook her head. “We won’t have to worry about getting lost,” she said in a distant voice, not even looking at us. “The river will take us where we need to go. To the End of the World.”

“Great,” Puck said, grinning and rubbing his hands. “Sounds easy enough. Let’s just hope we don’t fall off the edge.”

Gripping the railing, I stared up at the moving wall. This is it. The last barrier before the End of the World, and one step closer to keeping my promise. Meghan, I’m almost there. Wait for me just a little longer.

As the ferry slipped beneath the Briars, what little light there was dimmed to almost nothing, leaving us in pitch darkness. Extending my arm, I drew a tiny bit of glamour from the air, and a globe of faery fire appeared in my palm, washing everything in pale blue light. I sent the ball ahead of us, lighting the way down the channel, where it bobbed and weaved and cast weird shadows over the bristling tunnel walls.

Grimalkin sniffed. “I do hope that does not attract anything,” he mused, watching the bobbing light as if it was a bird, just out of his reach. “We are not will-o’-the-wisps, trying to get creatures to follow us, after all. Perhaps you should put it out?”

“No.” I shook my head. “If something comes at us in here, I want to see it.”

“Hmm. I suppose not everyone can have a cat’s perfect night vision, but still…”

Puck snorted. “Yeah, your perfect kitty vision does us no good if you don’t warn us that something is coming once in a while. Poofing away doesn’t count. This way, we can at least have a heads-up.”

The cat thumped his tail. “Additionally, you can paint a neon sign over our heads that says, ‘Easy meal, follow the flashing lights.’”

“Or we could use you for bait….”

“Does anyone else hear that?” Ariella asked.

We froze, falling silent.

The Briars were never still, always rustling, slithering or creaking around us, but over the thorns and the sloshing of water against the branches, I could hear something else. A faint chittering noise, like claws clicking over wood. Getting closer…

The Wolf growled low in his chest, the fur along his spine beginning to rise. “Something is coming,” he rumbled right before Grimalkin vanished.

I drew my sword. “Puck, get some light back there now.”

Faery fire exploded overhead, a flash of emerald-green, lighting the passageway behind us. In the flare, hundreds of shiny, eight-legged creatures scuttled back from the sudden light. The tunnel was full of them, pale and bulbous, with bodies the size of melons and multiple thin legs. But their faces, elven and beautiful, stared down at us coldly, and they bared mouthfuls of curved black fangs.

“Spiders,” Puck groaned, and drew his knives as the Wolf’s growls turned into snarls. “Why does it always have to be spiders?”

“Get ready,” I muttered, drawing glamour to me in a cold cloud, feeling Puck do the same. “This could get messy.”

Hissing, the swarm attacked, dropping from the ceiling with muffled thumps, legs clicking as they scuttled over the deck. They were surprisingly quick, leaping at us with bared fangs, legs uncurling as they flew through the air.

I hurled a flurry of ice shards at the attacking swarm, killing several in mid-leap, and raised my sword as the rest came on. I cut a spider out of the air, ducked as another flew at my face and speared a third rushing at my leg. Ariella stood behind me, firing arrows into the swarm, and the Wolf roared as he bounded and spun, ripping spiders from his pelt and crushing them in his jaws. Puck, covered in black ichor, dodged the spiders that sprang at him and kicked the ones that got too close, sending them flying into the waters below.

“Aggressive little buggers, aren’t they?” he called, yanking a spider from his leg and hurling it over the railing. “Kinda like redcap spawn, only uglier.” He ducked as a spider flew overhead, hissing, only to be snapped out of the air by the Wolf. “Hey, prince, remember that time we stumbled into a hydra nest, just as all the eggs were hatching? I didn’t know hydras could lay up to sixty eggs at a time.”

I sliced two spider creatures from the air at once, black ichor splattering my face and neck. “Now’s really not the time to reminisce, Goodfellow.”

Puck yelped and cursed, slapping away a spider on his neck, his hand coming away stained with red. “I wasn’t reminiscing, ice-boy,” he snapped, angrily kicking the spider away. “Remember that cool little trick we did? I think we should do that now!”

The spiders’ numbers were increasing; I’d cut one down only to have four others come at me from all sides. They were everywhere now, crawling over the railing and skittering across the roof. Ariella and I stood back-to-back, protecting each other, and the Wolf was going berserk, bucking and rolling as spiders crawled all over him like monster ticks.

“Come on, prince! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten!”

I hadn’t forgotten. I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. It was risky and dangerous and would take a lot out of us both, but if the spiders kept coming, we might not have a choice.

“Ash!”

“All right!” I yelled back. “Let’s do it. Ari, stay close. Everyone else, take cover now!”

I stopped fighting for an instant, feeling several of the creatures land on me, their slender legs scuttling up my clothes. Ignoring them, I knelt and drove the point of my sword into the wooden floor.

There was a flash of blue, and ice spread out from my blade, covering everything. In an instant, it had coated the deck, the railings, the benches, even some of the spider things, freezing them in place. It covered the branches of the thorns around us and spread a thin sheet of ice over the water around the boat. Though the spider things continued to pour out of the brambles, dropping onto the deck, for a moment, there was absolute, frozen silence.

“Now,” Puck muttered, and I pulled up my blade.

The ice shattered. With the sound of breaking glass, it fractured into thousands of razor-sharp edges, glinting in the darkness. And at that instant, Puck unleashed the whirlwind.

With a roar of Summer glamour, Puck’s cyclone whipped through the thorns and surrounded the boat, shrieking and causing the small craft to lurch sideways. It picked up debris in its wake, branches, spider bodies and thousands of fractured ice shards, spinning them through the air with the force of a tornado. I grabbed Ariella and pulled her close as the Wolf hunkered down beside us, hunching his shoulders against the wind.

When the winds finally ceased, we were surrounded by twigs, branches, melting ice and spider parts, oozing over everything. Icicles stuck out of the benches and walls like crystal shrapnel, and black ichor was splattered everywhere.

“Yes!” Puck cheered as I sat down on the floor, leaning against the railing. “Home team, one—spiders, zero!”

Ariella looked at me with wide eyes. “I never saw you two do that before.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said tiredly. “Before we ever met. When Puck and I…” I trailed off, remembering the years when Robin Goodfellow and Prince Ash thought they could take on the world. Reckless and defiant, spurning the laws of the courts, they sought out new and greater challenges, always reaching for more, and got into more scrapes than anyone had a right to come out of alive. I shook my head, dissolving the memories. “It was a long time ago,” I finished.

“Regardless.” Grimalkin abruptly materialized, sitting on a bench with not a hair out of place, his tail curled around himself. “If the two of them have any more tricks like that, they would do well to remember them. Summer and Winter glamour, when used in conjunction instead of against each other, can be a powerful thing. Thankfully, neither of the courts has ever figured this out.”

The Wolf shook himself, spraying ichor and spider parts everywhere, making Grimalkin lay back his ears. “Magic and parlor tricks,” the Wolf snorted, wrinkling his muzzle, “will not get us to the End of the World.”

“Well, duh,” Puck shot back. “That’s why we’re on a boat.”

The Wolf gave him a sinister look, then stalked to the front of the boat, not caring about the spider parts scattered about the deck. For a moment, he stood there, sniffing the air, ears pricked forward for any hints of trouble. Finding none, he curled up in a relatively clean spot and closed his eyes, ignoring us all.

Ariella looked down at me, then at Puck, who was yawning and scrubbing the back of his head. “That took a lot of power, didn’t it?” she mused, and I didn’t argue. Releasing an explosion like that would leave anyone drained. Ariella sighed and shook her head. “Get some rest, the both of you,” she ordered. “Grim and I will take last watch.”

* * *

I DIDN’T THINK I WOULD SLEEP, but I dozed fretfully as the ferry made its way through the endless tangle of brambles. Despite assurances from Ariella and the Wolf that nothing followed us, I found it impossible to relax. Often, I would be jerked awake by a splash or a snapping of twigs somewhere in the thorns, and every once in a while the scream of some unfortunate creature would echo through the branches. Eventually, everyone gave up trying to rest and spent the journey in a constant and exhausting state of high alert. Except Grimalkin, who vanished frequently and made everyone nervous while he was gone.

The Briars went on, never changing, never still. I caught glimpses of various doors through the thorns, trods to places in the mortal world, doorways out of the Nevernever. Creatures seen and unseen skittered through the branches, furry or shiny or many-limbed, peering at us through the thorns. A giant centipede, over twenty feet long, clung to the roof of the tunnel as we drifted beneath it, close enough that we could hear the slow clicking of its huge mandibles. Thankfully, it didn’t seem interested in us, but Puck kept his daggers out for several miles afterward, and Grimalkin didn’t reappear for a long, long time.

Hours passed. Or days—it was impossible to tell. The Wolf and I were standing at the rear of the boat, watching an enormous snake glide through the branches overhead, when Ariella’s weary voice floated up from the front.

“There it is.”

I turned as the tunnel opened up into an enormous cavern made of thorns, the branches shutting out the sky. Tiny lights filled the cavern, floating in the air and bobbing over the dark waters like erratic fireflies. Torches stuck out of the river, some bent or leaning at odd angles, flickering with blue-and-orange flames. They lit the way to a massive stone temple looming at the end of the cavern. It rose from the dark waters past the ceiling of the cave, extending through the branches farther than we could see. Vines, moss and thorny creepers covered the crumbling walls, winding like possessive talons around pillars and laughing gargoyles. Even in a place as ageless as the Nevernever and the Deep Wyld, where time didn’t exist and ancient was only a word, this temple was oldest.

I took a deep, slow breath. “Did we make it?” I asked softly, unable to take my eyes from the massive wall of stone that loomed before us like the side of a mountain. “Is this the Testing Grounds?”

Beside me, Ariella shook her head. “No,” she whispered, almost in a daze. “Not yet, though I’ve seen this in my visions. The Testing Grounds lie beyond the temple. This is the gate to the End of the World.”

“Big gate,” Puck muttered, craning his neck to look up at it. No one answered him.

The River of Dreams continued, past the temple, into the thorns that surrounded the cavern, but the boat drifted lazily until it bumped against the huge stone steps that led up to the doors, and stopped.

“Guess this is our stop,” Puck said, and practically leaped out of the ferry onto the steps. “Whew, it’s nice to be back on solid ground again,” he mused, stretching as the rest of us followed, easily crowding onto the platform at the bottom. Grimalkin appeared from under one of the benches, minced to the bottom of the steps, and began rigorously washing his tail.

Gazing up the long flight of stairs to the temple, Puck shook his head and sighed. “Stairs.” He grimaced. “I swear there must be like some secret code. All mysterious ancient temples must have a minimum of at least seven thousand steps to the front door.”

I followed his gaze, frowning as I realized we weren’t alone. “Someone is up there,” I said quietly. “I can sense it. It feels…like it’s waiting for me.”

The rest of the group exchanged glances, except for Ariella, who stood a little apart, staring back at the river. “Well, then—” Puck sighed with exaggerated cheerfulness “—I guess it would be rude to keep it waiting.”

He and the Wolf and Grimalkin started up the stairs, but paused when I didn’t follow. “Uh, prince, aren’t you coming?” Puck said, glancing back at me. “Seeing as this is, you know, your party and all.”

“Keep going,” I said, waving them on. “We’ll catch up. Yell if something comes at you.”

“Oh, believe me, I will,” Puck said, and continued up the stairs, Grim and the Wolf leading the way.

I turned to Ariella, who still gazed out over the River of Dreams, not looking at me. “Ari,” I said quietly, stepping up behind her, “what is it?”

She was silent for several heartbeats, and I was beginning to wonder whether she’d heard me at all, when she took a shaky breath and closed her eyes.

“We’re almost there,” she whispered, and a shiver went through her. “I didn’t think it would be so soon. I guess…there’s no turning back now.”

“Ari.” I stepped closer, putting a hand on her arm. “Talk to me. I want to help you, but I can’t if you won’t let me in. I could—”

She turned suddenly, and before I could react, framed my face with her hands and pressed her lips to mine.

I froze, mostly in shock, but after a moment my body uncoiled and I closed my eyes, relaxing into her. I remembered this; the feel of her lips on mine, cool and soft, the touch of her fingers on my skin. I remembered her scent, those long nights when we would lie under the cold, frozen stars, dreaming in each other’s arms.

For a second, my body reacted instinctively. I started to pull us closer, to wrap my arms around her and return the kiss with equal passion…but, then I stopped.

I remembered this perfectly; every shining moment with Ariella was forever etched into my mind. What we’d had, what we’d shared, everything. I’d built a shrine to her in my memories, carefully tended with grief and anger and regret. I knew every inch of our relationship, the passion, the feeling of emptiness when we weren’t together, the longing and, yes, the love. I had been in love with Ariella. I remembered what she’d meant to me once, what I’d felt for her then…

…and what I didn’t feel for her now.

Gently, I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her back, breaking the kiss. “Ari—”

“I love you, Ash,” she murmured before I could say anything more, and my stomach dropped. Her voice was quietly desperate, as if she was rushing to get it out before I could speak. “I never stopped. Never. Even when I knew you would fall for Meghan, when I was so angry I wished we were both dead, even then I couldn’t stop loving you.”

My throat closed. I swallowed hard to open it. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because I won’t get another chance,” Ariella went on, her eyes filling with tears. “And I know, after your promise to Meghan, after everything we went through to get here, I know you can’t turn back, but…” She pressed close, gazing up at me. “Do you still love me? I can’t…I need to know, before we go any farther. I deserve to know that much.”

I closed my eyes. Emotions swirled within me, guilt and sorrow and regret, but for once, my thoughts were clear. “Ariella,” I murmured, taking her hands in mine, feeling her pulse race. This would be hard to say, but I needed to get it out, and she needed to hear it. Even if she hated me in the end. “When I lost you that day, my life ended. I thought I would die. I wanted to die, but only after taking Puck down with me. The only thing I was living for was revenge, and I nearly destroyed myself, because I couldn’t let you go. Even when I met Meghan, I felt I was betraying your memory.

“But it’s different now.” I opened my eyes, meeting her starry gaze. “I regret a lot of things. I wish I could’ve been there for you, and I wish that day had never happened. But the thing I don’t regret, the one good thing that came out of it all, is her.

“Ari…I will always love you. I always have. Nothing will change that.” I squeezed her hand, then gently released it. “You’ll always be a part of me. But…I’m not in love with you…anymore. And, despite my promise, despite seeing you again, I do this because I want to be with Meghan, nothing else.” Ariella’s eyes glazed over, and I eased back, speaking as gently as I could. “I can’t be yours, Ariella. I’m sorry.”

For a moment, she stared at me with a completely unreadable expression. Then, unexpectedly, a sad smile crossed her lips.

“That’s it, then,” she murmured, more to herself than me. “For us, anyway.” I blinked, and she glanced up at me, her starry eyes clear. “I didn’t want you to have any doubts, in the end.”

“Is that what you wanted?” I stared at her, aghast. “Were you just forcing me into a decision?”

“No, Ash. No.” Ariella put a hand on my arm. “I meant what I said. I’ve always loved you, and I wanted you to know before…” She shivered, hugging herself as she stepped back. “I’m happy for you,” she whispered, though her eyes were glassy once more. “You know what you want, and that’s good. It will make it easier….”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oy, ice-boy!” Puck’s voice came, rough with disapproval, from farther up the stairs. “I think you’d better get up here now!”

I scowled at Puck, cursing his timing, and glanced at Ariella. She gazed up the steps, her cheeks dry, her expression resolved. I sensed she was making peace with herself, coming to some important decision.

“Ari…”

“It’s all right, Ash.” Ariella raised a hand, not meeting my eyes. “Don’t worry about me. I knew, eventually, it would come to this.” She took a breath, let it out slowly. “It’s time to move on, for both of us.

“So, let’s go,” she said, turning and giving me a brave smile. “We’ve finally come to the end. We can’t stop now.”

* * *

PUCK WAITED FOR US near the top of the staircase, the Wolf growling low in his chest beside him. But Grimalkin was also there, calmly licking a front paw in between disdainful glances at the Wolf, so I relaxed a bit. When the cat disappeared, then I would worry.

Still, Puck looked grave as we joined him, nodding to the top of the stairs. “We’ve got company,” he muttered, and I looked up.

A figure stood at the top of the stairs, robed and hooded, and nearly eight feet tall. Its face was hidden in the darkness of the cowl, and a pale, bony hand clutched a gleaming staff of twisted black wood.

And, though I couldn’t see its face, I felt it was looking right at me.

“I know why you have come, knight of the Iron Court.”

The deep voice shivered into me, coming from everywhere, from the thorns and the river and the temple itself. It echoed in my head and in my bones, cold and powerful and older than the stars. It took all my willpower not to sink to one knee before the robed figure, and by Puck’s lack of an irreverent smirk and the hair standing up along the Wolf’s spine, I knew they felt it, too.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I am the Guardian at the End of the World,” the figure intoned. “I am the keeper of the Testing Grounds, the one you will have to impress to earn your soul.”

“And you came out just to say hi? That’s awfully considerate of you.” Puck regained his grin and turned to me. “Don’t you feel special, ice-boy? We didn’t even have to go to the End of the World. Be polite to the nice hooded man, and maybe you’ll get a soul.”

“But first, to reach the End of the World, to prove that you are worthy, you must run the gauntlet.”

“I knew it.” Puck shook his head. “There’s always a catch.”

I ignored Puck, taking a step toward the hooded figure. “I’m ready,” I said, searching for a face behind that dark cowl, finding nothing. “Whatever you throw at me—gauntlets, tests, anything—it won’t matter. I’m ready. What do I have to do?”

The Guardian didn’t seem surprised. “This trial is not only for you, knight,” it said, sweeping a robed arm at the group behind us. “Anyone who wishes to see the End of the World must first make it through the gauntlet. Alone, you will fail. Together, you might have a chance to overcome the challenges. But know this—not all who enter the temple will leave. Of that, you can be certain.”

My stomach dropped. I didn’t doubt his words, much as I hated to accept them. The Guardian was telling us that not everyone would survive the gauntlet. That one or more of us was going to die.

“One thing more.” The Guardian raised a hand in the silence of that revelation. “You do not have long to find me, knight. Once the doors open, at both ends of the gauntlet, they will not remain that way forever. If you are still in the temple when they close, you will be trapped there until the end of time, joining those who have already failed. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said numbly. The cowl nodded once.

“Then I will see you at the End of the World, knight. Where, if you make it through, your real trial will begin.”

And just like that, it was gone. It didn’t fade away or vanish in a puff of smoke or even disappear like Grimalkin, becoming invisible. It simply wasn’t there anymore.

I stood at the top of the stairs, feeling my companions’ gazes at my back, and raised my head.

“Anyone who wants to turn back, should,” I said quietly without turning around. “You heard what the Guardian said. Not all of us will make it out of here. I won’t hold anything against you if you want to leave.”

I heard Puck’s snort of disgust as he climbed the last of the stairs and stood before me, crossing his arms. “What, and let you have all the fun? You should know me better than that, ice-boy. Though, I will admit, the thought of being trapped with you forever makes my skin crawl. Guess we’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen, huh?”

“I’ve come this far,” the Wolf growled, padding forward to stand behind Puck. “No good turning back now. I said I’d see you to the End of the World, and I will. The cat can leave if it wants. That would be in tune with its cowardice. But the story must go on.”

“Please.” Grimalkin trotted up the steps and turned to glance back at me, twitching his tail. “As if I would allow myself to become trapped with the dog until the end of time.” He sniffed and curled his whiskers. “Fear not, prince. There is no doubt that I will leave if I think that you are close to failure. But these gauntlets always have some sort of ridiculously aimless puzzle or mind game to solve, and you will likely need someone with intelligence before it is done. Besides, you still owe me a favor.”

I nodded at them all and turned to Ariella, still standing a few steps down, gazing through me at the temple. “You don’t have to do this,” I told her gently. “You got us this far—you’ve done more than I could’ve asked for. You don’t have to go any farther.”

She smiled that sad little smile and took a deep breath. “Yes,” she whispered, meeting my gaze. “I do.” Climbing the stairs, she came to stand beside me, taking my arm. “To the end, Ash. I’ll see you to the very end.”

I put my hand on hers and squeezed. Puck grinned at us, and the Wolf snorted, shaking his head. With Grimalkin leading the way, the five of us approached the massive stone doors to the temple. With an earth-shaking rumble, they slowly opened, showering us with pebbles and dirt. Beyond the doors, everything was cloaked in darkness.

We didn’t stop. With Ariella and Puck beside me, the Wolf loping behind us, and Grimalkin leading the way, we crossed the threshold and entered the gauntlet.