The Price of Freedom
The baying of
hounds in the distance rang through the silence of the frozen forest belonging
to the winter fae. Not that Donnella needed the warning—she knew what was after
her. She pawed futilely at the faint glow of the tracker’s mark on her chest,
sobbing as she tripped over an unseen obstacle on the path. She looked back the
direction she had come and thought she saw a hound cresting the hill. She
looked around wildly for cover of some kind. There wasn’t much but she did see
particularly large dead oak leaning over the road that might slow the hounds of
hell. She scrambled up it and pressed her body into the trunk, hoping she might
confuse her pursuers by muffling the magic beacon on her chest. She held out no
real hope for the ploy, though. A person did not outsmart grimm hounds. They
outran them or they died.
Grimm hounds were
the stuff of nightmares. They were huge black spectral dogs with glowing red
eyes and were said to feed on the dead and the dying. Legend held that they had
been created to guard holy sites but the elfin black lords used them to hunt
fugitives. Donnella peeked over her shoulder and saw the whole pack, at least
fifty hellish beasts, cresting the hill. She buried her face in her shoulder to
muffle her cry of terror but could not bring herself to look away. Her urge to
scream grew exponentially when she saw who was running the pack.
“No,” she
whimpered. “No-no-no-no-no! It can’t be; he’s dead!”
The black
stallion the houndsman rode had glowing red eyes like the hounds. Its hooves were
striking sparks against the cobbles as it ran after the baying hounds.
Billowing clouds of steam pumped from its withers and muzzle as the stallion’s
sweat evaporated in the cold night air.
It was the rider
that was the true horror. Deathly pale skin, shocking red hair… ruined, once
hansom face. His eyes glowed, too, though with the blue of human magic rather
than the red of necromantic power. Even from this distance, she could make out
his features clearly because the power leaking from his ruined eyes was
dribbling down his face like horrible tears, pooling in the seams of scar
tissue before being whipped away by the speed of his charge.
Why wasn’t he dead?
Donnella ducked
her face, pressing hard against the rough bark of the oak she clung to. She
didn’t want to see the proof of her crimes but the nightmarish rider’s presence
so close to his enemy’s castle beguiled her. Maybe it wasn’t really him.
She peered under
her arm at the pack, now milling beneath her tree, and stifled another whimper.
The rider was urging his mount into the roiling of mass of black bodies and
glowing eyes. The hounds turned their dreadful gazes to their master adoringly.
He patted a head here scratched an ear there as his mount picked its way closer
through the pony-sized monsters.
So close.
She had gotten
away from those hunting her one last time and made for the lands of the winter
fae. The King of Winter had approached her with the plan to put herself on the
throne of the forest elves. He had trained her in the art of assassination,
given her spells to killer her targets. Surly he would offer her asylum if she
could just get to his fortress. She had killed both elfin trackers and the
houndsman so no one would be able to follow her, or she had thought she killed
them.
The first three
curses she’d used had worked as promised. But the forth one failed to kill its target.
The houndsman had been the fifth person she used the spell on and he wasn’t
dead, so the trackers probably weren’t dead, either. Everything had gone wrong
and she didn’t know why.
“Are you going to
make me come up there and get you?” the houndsman’s voice rasped from his
ruined throat far below her. “Or are you going to pretend that if you don’t see
me, I won’t see you?”
Donnella looked
out over the tops of the wasted trees. In the distance, she could see the glow
of the winter king’s stronghold. It was no more than an hour’s walk, she guessed.
So close.
But not close enough.
*
* * * *
There had been
a time when not getting her way had been the worst thing Donnella could think
of happening to her. She knew better now. She knew a lot of things now that she
wished she didn't.
She now knew
that nothing made her nose itch worse than not being able to scratch it.
She now knew
that being beautiful was not a license to behave badly.
She now knew
that some crimes were inexcusable no matter the reason they were committed. And
that it wasn't for her to decide if the reason was valid, at least not after
the fact.
She also now
knew that nobility by birth would not save her from paying the price of those
crimes.
There were
worse things than not getting her way. Oh, yes there were. There were worse
things than death, too. Death would have been a fresh start, and that was not
what those who'd judged her crimes had wanted.
Having her
immortal spirit bound to a keeper stone so that she would be trapped in her
body as it was slowly turned to stone was much worse than death. She couldn't
bring herself to be angry about her situation--she'd earned it. This wasn't to
say that she liked being the grotto, but she understood and begrudgingly agreed
that she had earned her place here.
The grotto, as
it was called, had no proper name. It wasn't a graveyard, exactly, but rather a
collection of stone figures that had once been elves. Like her, all of them had
done the unthinkable and betrayed their people. Also like her, their souls had
been bound to their bodies before they were enchanted to turn to stone. It
really wasn't a good idea to anger the Black Lords of Argental or their high
prince, Nuada. He was very imaginative when it came to punishment but not very
forgiving when it came to traitors.
Unlike her,
most of them had not gone quietly into their punishment. She'd seen some pretty
horrible visages as she was led into the fabled, underground cave. It hadn't
been pretty. Despite her mounting terror, she had made a point of standing
quietly so she wouldn't be stuck looking like a nightmare for all eternity.
Another thing
she hadn't known, or rather hadn't believed, was that in the dark of night, you
could still hear the screams of those entombed in their own bodies. It had
taken only moments to be frozen in time but weeks to turn to stone. Every night
as she stood there slowly petrifying, she heard the screams.
Once fully
petrified, she discovered that she could hear them all the time, only they
weren't screaming but rather muttering, sometimes to each other and sometimes
to no one she could identify. She suspected some of them were muttering to her,
but she did her best to ignore them, so she wasn't sure.
The only time
the muttering stopped was when he was there. Lord Nuada, the blackest of the
black lords, the oldest black elf still living, the high prince of Argental.
The one who had carried out her sentence. The others got quiet when he walked
in, which is how she knew he visited at all. She was too lost in her grief to
notice on her own.
He was here
now, in fact. Standing in front of her, staring at her as if she was something
he was trying to understand. She was trying desperately to ignore him. It was
easier to tolerate her punishment if she didn't surface from her stupor. Easier
to ignore the hate filled mutterings of her fellow damned. He wasn’t going to
let her ignore him, though.
"You are very
quiet, my lady," he said eventually. "Have you nothing to say?"
She sighed and
wished yet again for him to just leave her alone.
"That's really
not an answer," he murmured. Donnella flinched at his words, at the
magical compulsion hidden within them.
"Go away,
ancient one," she muttered. Yes, muttered, just like every other damned
soul lock down here.
"I was wondering
why you don't scream like the others," he replied, sounding confounded.
"Are you
here to make me scream?" she asked sarcastically. There was no doubt in
her mind that he could do it, even with her body turned to stone. Maybe that's
why the others all screamed. Some of them had been here locked inside a granite
hell long before the seven-thousand year old Nuada was born. Surely they would
have shut up by now unless they were egged on.
"No,"
was all he replied. He stood there looking at her for a good long while before
speaking again. "How would you like to leave this place?"
"Why?"
she shot back. "Looking for a bit of statuary for your sitting room? And
here am I, poor stupid Donnella, to pitiful to even bitch about my lot. I'd be
a nice silent addition to your upstairs collection."
"I am not
a patron of the arts, also," he said, smirking. She couldn't see him, of
course--she didn't have eyes to see with any more than she had a nose to
scratch--but she could tell.
"Go away,
ancient one," she said again. "I doubt I would want to pay the price
you are asking."
"You sound
as if you think there is something worse than your current situation," he
said.
"Of course
there is," she snapped. "I earned my punishment and I accept it. But
I've also learned that just because you can't think of something worse, it
doesn't mean there isn't something worse."
"Wise
words," he conceded. She felt his presence wane until it was gone. The
muttering didn't start up again, though, not for a long while.
Eventually, he came
back, staring at her like before. She didn't know how long it had been since
his last visit. Days. Weeks. Maybe even months.
"Have you
thought about our last conversation?" he murmured quietly.
"Go away,
ancient one," she replied. She swore she wasn't going to talk to him this
time. He had destroyed her inner reflexion with his uncomfortable words the last
time he’d spoken to her. That was probably how he made the others scream, by
taunting them with hope. Hope should never be used as a weapon. That was yet
another thing she now knew.
Just then, she
heard a new sound, the plop of a drop of water slapping stone. The sound was
strangely comforting.
"Have you
ever heard of true companion stones?" he asked, ignoring her request that
he leave. She tried to ignore him but failed. She did manage to fight off his
compulsion to speak, though. That was something.
He stood there
studying her and she stood there fiercely listening to the drip-drip-drip of
water.
He eventually
left.
Donnella had
discovered that she could tell the passage of time after a fashion by the
dripping of that water. She didn't have a reference for what it meant but it
seemed to her that sometimes the water dripped harder than at others. It was
quite rhythmic and soothing, much more enjoyable than curling in a mental ball
and rocking herself to sleep, though she still did that on occasion, too.
He came again,
of course. This time, instead of talking to her, he just stared at her. He felt
sad, somehow. She wasn't sure how she knew that; only that she did.
Three more
times he came and stared at her before talking again.
"Why do
you cry?" he asked. She ignored this question, too. She wasn't going to
let him drive her insane. She had eternity to suffer in this state and she had
no intention of doing so while screaming and muttering in the dark.
Eventually he
left.
He didn't visit
again for a long while. She knew this because she had discovered that the
drip-drip-drip grew heavier as day wore into night, hitting its crescendo just
before the dawn and dissipating with first light. It took a while for her to
realize this, since she had no way to gage the passage of time. She also
realized that she no longer heard the others muttering.
"When did
you move me?" she asked him when next he came.
"How did
you know you'd been moved?" he responded, sounding a bit shocked that she
was aware of it but also intrigued.
"I can
tell day from night now," she said simply. “And I can’t hear the others
screaming. I dount they suddenly shut up after all this time, so you must have
moved me.”
"Interesting,"
he replied. "To answer your question, I moved you after you started crying."
"I'm a
lump of rock," she said bitterly. "Rock does not cry."
"And
yet," he said. She gasped when she felt his hand brush across her cold,
stony cheek. There was a pause in the cadence of the drips. Bloody hell! she
thought. The dripping was the sound of tears! Her tears!
The cadence
picked up, running almost as fast as right before the dawn as that realization
sunk in. She half laughed and half sobbed.
"Perhaps rock
needs to be truly pathetic to cry, then," she conceded.
"Why do
you cry?" he asked, mirroring his long ago question. She didn't answer.
Eventually, he went away.
He came back
fairly quickly this time and he stayed for quite some time, too, at least two
full days, watching her as she stood there in her granite prison, crying. He
said nothing the whole time but when he left this time, he left her a torch.
"So the
night won't be so dark ," he murmured.
She stood
there, watching the torch flicker softly, entranced. It didn't occur to her to
wonder how she could see it, only that she was no longer in the dark.
* * * *
I hope you like my little tale. If you'd like to learn how Donnella ended up in this little scrape, check out my e-book series, The wild Lords. There are two novellas and one full novel. The links are in the side bar. Also, I'm giving away a free copy of my first Wild Lords story, "The Hawk's Bride," to one random commenter. Have a safe and spooky holiday!
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