Fallen

Chapter 4: You Get What You Bargain For

YOU GET WHAT YOU BARGAIN FOR

The guards left Crwys in her quarters. Her knees creaked as she moved to the small window in the room and squinted. The other high families of the Summer Isle always received her with dread. This family went beyond dread. Sylas had welcomed her. That was uncommon. Even more so to be asked to stay until first light.

She hobbled to the window and gazed out. Sylas waited with his horse in the stable yard below. After he mounted, he looked up and locked eyes with her. Crwys sucked in a breath. The prince kicked his horse into a gallop. They sprinted toward the forest. Crwys rubbed her runic tattoo and wondered what she had bargained for. It was not in the books to care for a human, to show them mercy. This break with tradition moved her. Sylas’s touch awakened something she did not share with others, not even of her own kind. She wondered where he was going. What could be so important in the woods that he would need to ride that fast for?

Crwys moved closer to the wall and placed her hand upon the stones. The energy within each was palpable. She closed her eyes. Her lips began moving. She issued a command. The room darkened and shadows formed on the wall. Impish Fomóraiġ and devilish Sluagh wrestled one another for her attention. Crwys continued her cant, and the shadows grew more tumultuous. The call of a crow sounded in the room.

“Come my clever friend,” Crwys hissed, “let us scry.”

Sylas stroked Flann’s face as the stable boy finished saddling him. The prince closed his eyes and sighed. His heart ached. “One last ride, old friend?”

Flann whickered softly, his whiskers tickling the prince’s neck. The stable boy passed the reins to Sylas who. He swung into the saddle. Black storm clouds were rolling in. Lightning in the distance gilded the cottony giants with flashes of purple and indigo. Thunder growled. Sylas looked up at Killeagh’s towers. Crwys peered from her window. Sylas frowned. His hands tightened around the reins and he popped Flann into a gallop. The forest swayed under a gust of wind. He’d kept Ciatlllait waiting long enough. While Flann moved swiftly toward Kilbarry forest, Sylas tried to take in a memory of this world. The mineral smell of the oncoming rain against the dryness of earth, the grating sensation of stormy air brushing against his face, how Flann’s red mane whipped rhythmically in time with his stride and breathing. And the colors. Oh, the colors! The green leaves of ash trees, and white apple blossoms bursting with luscious pink buds beside them over brown trunks, and high, golden fields of rye. The gray and emerald mountains, freckled with bushy firs, still capped with snow at their peaks. The sting of tears formed in the corner of his eyes as it all suddenly went blurring past. This moment, one of his last.

He lighted from Flann’s back and pulled the reins over before he came to a stop. The colt tossed his head and snorted and pranced, his haunches glinting darkly beneath the canopy of the forest. Sylas tied him to a low tree branch.

“I wondered if you would come,” said a sultry voice.

Sylas smiled, forgetting for a moment the promise he had made to Crwys. He stepped around. Ciatlllait leaned against a tree. The wind tussled her hair while her gray mare grazed contentedly near a small spring. What light remained peeked through the trees to dapple the wild flowers and new grass.

He moved to her side and slipped his arm around her waist. “I am sorry I kept you waiting.” Sylas carressed her cheek and lowered his head to hers to kiss her.

She pulled back unexpectedly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Ciatlllait brushed a stray hair from his forehead tenderly. “I don’t believe you.”