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Fenric snapped alert. His hand clapped to his swordhilt—until he remembered he perched in a tree.
He dragged his senses into wakefulness to study that jolt.
It came from the child. Fear, sudden and keen, screeched over every nerve. The child tried to hide. A shudder wracked her every breath. She screamed—. No, she remained silent. That was power screaming out of her, unfocused, unfettered, edged with fear.
Fenric tore his focus from the child to find the woman. Her heart beat a fearful tattoo. No power emanated from her. He had to stretch his Fae senses to catch her fear.
Masking her was the enchanter. The man sucked up her fear, gobbling it down, a vulture tearing each acid drop as it leeched from the woman. He did something that kicked the woman’s heart into a dangerous beat. And the child—.
Even far outside the closed-up cottage, Fenric heard the scream, a real one now, breaking the stilly silence in the clearing.
He dropped to the ground and ran for the cottage. Sword in one hand, he called bright energy to his left hand. The Fae magic struck the door and shattered it. He leaped into the room.
Shadows cast by a hearthfire danced grotesquely on the walls and ceiling. He flung an orb to the rafters. The chandler light filled the room. Magic pulsed around him. He spotted the child, huddled beneath the table. Then power and movement yanked his attention to the enchanter, turning from a cabinet bed—with a knife in his hand.
A knife that dripped blood.
The woman’s heartbeat slowed.
The enchanter’s left hand was as bloody as the knife in his right. And he laughed.
Fenric flung the steely knife he didn’t remember drawing. Then he charged.
The enchanter knocked away the knife—but Fae-magicked steel did its work. The spell in the metal exploded into shards as sharp as the honed steel. The shards struck the man, cutting, slicing, a first attack.
He screamed. Then he scrambled to weave a spell, but Fenric was on him before he wove the first strand. He took the man’s head. It rolled into the hearth, scattering the flames while the attempted spell collapsed to the mud-packed floor and sputtered out. He stomped out the scattered sparks of the foul magic before they skittered away.
Then he dropped the arrowhead on the corpse.
And turned to the woman in the bed.
She died. Her heartbeat faded as he stepped over the corpse to reach her. The man had cut her in the belly, ensuring a slow death. The fading heart would pump blood rich with lifeforce for a long time, feeding his greed for power.
“Hurt,” she breathed.
“You die,” he said baldly, never good with the human platitudes that avoided the truth.
“Burchard?”
“Dead already.” He glanced at the body. Referring to that name, he added, “No longer strong as a castle.”
Her body eased into its blood loss. “Good,” she pronounced with a venom that surprised him from one so near to death.
Fae died, after a long life, and he’d seen Fae death rarely. Human death no longer surprised him, although he grieved for the few good humans he knew.
Pain stiffened the woman, but it passed quickly. “Elaine?” she whispered, calling the child with a mere breath.
Fenric flinched, for that was one of the names by which humans knew the Faerie Nimuë, Lady of the Lake, who had tricked the enchanter Merlin. His second shock came when the child crept past him to peer at the dying woman.
“Basyne? I am here.”
Basyne, daughter of Ygraine, wife of Gorlois then King Uther, mother of Arthur of Camelot. The additional connection to the old legend startled him. Were this the Basyne of legend, she would be hundreds of years old.
“Go ... with this Fae, child.”
“No, Basyne. You—.”
“I will not ... be here ... to guide—. This Fae—.” Her eyes lifted to the Fae sentinel. “Your name?”
“Fenric.”
The wolf name pleased her. Even in pain, she smiled. “Fenric will ... guard you, Elaine, ... in my place.”
“No. I don’t want you to go.” The child buried her head against the woman. Blood seeped into her curls.
“Burn ... this place and ... him with it.”
“Are there more?” Fenric asked what mattered to him. “Other enchanters?”
“Else ... where. I go. Oh, the ... light—.”
The child wept. She struggled when Fenric picked her up, a long-legged girl, older than he had first thought, orphaned now. He carried her from the cottage.
She quieted when he set fire to the cottage. They watched as the thatch caught, flaming fiercely then burning out, exposing the charring rafters that soon dropped inside the breaking walls.
He knew nothing about human children, but he knew someone who did, one of the few humans he trusted.
Elaine fell asleep long before the last burnt wall collapsed. With satisfaction, Fenric toppled the chimney into the ruin, leaving a desolation that no one would want to rebuild.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
He stopped only once on the long journey. The white stag leaped before him, moonshine reflecting off its hide and magic glinting like silvery moonshine on the antlers.
“O king, the enchanter is dead.”
Elaine roused. She blinked sleepily at the stag.
The great white hart dipped its head then bounded away.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Elaine woke again once they entered Underhill.
Faeries gathered around, for a human child was a wonder in their realm, especially a child on the cusp of becoming fertile.
The Faeries’ attention had her squirming in his arms, and he let her slip down to stand beside him. They touched her golden hair, tugged at her curls, and flicked her pale cheeks. Fenric kept a possessive hand on her arm. Tricksters had come with the others. They would willingly steal away a human child to trap her in Underhill and delight in her torment.
Seeing the strangers with their peaky features, many caught between Fae and animal guise, Elaine tucked against him as the weirdness overwhelmed her. She buried her face against his arm.
Once away from the Seelie Court, he coaxed her to view the magical archways and sparkling pools, the alabaster colonnades to the palace of the duchess. At the flower-lush gardens, she asked, “Was the white hart a dream? A—a vision?”
“No.”
She walked more slowly. He lifted her again, and she accepted it. They passed the arbors of the blue wood and the green pools and the gold garden.
At the fernery, she ventured, “Did Burchard hurt the white hart, too?”
“Aye, for he killed the stag’s doe and their fawn and another doe. Burchard will never hurt anyone again.”
“Good.” She wiped tears from her cheeks.
Fenric felt no apprehension until they reached his bower. Ellen Best had wakened earlier. When he appeared with the child, she calmly finished braiding her long white hair then tossed the ribbon-tied rope behind her. She studied Elaine, and he worried, for human women could be unpredictable.
Ellen gave him one straight look then turned to the child. “A good morning it is. Has Fenric carried you all this way?”
“Not all the way. I walked a little. For most of the night, while we were ... above, aye, he carried me.”
“Then you will be hungry. I have bread of my own baking and butter from a cow named Good Bess and a sweet strawberry preserve from my friend Melly. Our cooking is safe here in Underhill, child. Take only food from our hands. Promise me.”
Elaine solemnly nodded. Once the food was placed before her, she laded the fruit preserve onto buttered bread and bit down. Only then did the child smile.
With the child happily eating and distracted, Ellen whispered, “What happened, Fenric?”
“I encountered an enchanter. Hopefully, this one will not keep her memory of the magic he wove.”
“Will she be looked for in the human world?”
“I think not.”
“What is the reason that you believe Underhill is the best place for a human child?”
“She has magic. She must learn to wield it. The duchess will find her a teacher. When she can wield magic to protect herself, then she may live in Robin’s camp.”
“In that camp?”
He slipped an arm around her. “My star, the child cannot remain here. She will mature but not age.”
Ellen gave a sharp little inhalation. “Then she must meet Melly and Alcide, Marianne and Lily and Rowena.” She reached up, and Fenric brought her hand to his cheek. “You did right to bring her to me, beloved.”
He leant his head against hers and watched Elaine add strawberry preserve to another slice of buttered bread. Ellen would keep her safe in Underhill, and the ladies would keep her safe in the human world.
Blasyne would not haunt him.
