Fae Hunter (Tangled Fae Book 1) Read online

  Experimentally, I slipped the blindfold back on. Bright light crashed into my mind, sending a stab of pain and joy through my head.

  I could see again! I sighed with relief.

  So, I’d have to wear the scarf all the time. That was okay. It was better than losing my sight again. I tried not to let the disappointment at not really being healed from filling me. There was no point mourning what never was. This was simply the way things were now. Whining about it would get me nowhere. Heldra had been right about that part.

  When I looked at the cage again, it was nothing but a rusty old piece of junk.

  They didn’t even need to hide it. It was hiding in plain sight.

  But now something else occurred to me – as magical as this scarf was and as amazing as it was that it returned my sight to me – did it block my second sight? As long as I was wearing it, I wouldn’t see the spiritual plane, would I? I wouldn’t see what was going on that no one else could see.

  I had my sight back, but I’d lost something in return. I couldn’t find my way home without it, but I also couldn’t see the Fae slipping through the woods with it on.

  What an interesting predicament.

  I clambered down the steep shale path, leaning on the staff, even though I could see. Shale bounced down the path and dropped down the steep edge into the trees far below.

  I’d climbed this in the dark. I was crazy. I probably should have died climbing this last night. And yet, I couldn’t help the joy soaring in my heart. I could hunt again! I could see people! And I had a cage that did ... something.

  Now, if I could just find a way to harness all this, maybe I could cross that circle of stones myself and bring back my sister.

  I’m coming for you, Hulanna. Hold on.

  Chapter Eleven

  When you know you’re blind to something, you feel like you can sense it everywhere. At every bend in the path, around every corner, behind every tree, I thought I could see Fae. Shining Ones. I had to remember not to say their name, or I’d lose the privacy in my own mind.

  But if they could control me by making me think a certain way, hadn’t I already lost to them? I slipped my blindfold off and scanned around me – only to find nothing at all out of the normal – so many times that I’d lost count. I needed to calm down and stop jumping at every shadow. I’d hunted predators with my father before. Calm was key.

  Even with my sight, the path home wasn’t clear. As soon as I was down from the mountain trail, the dense growth blocked any real landmarks. The path I’d traveled last night had disappeared as if it never was. I was pushing west by the sun – but was I angled south enough to reach the village? If I angled south too far, I should reach the rushing Mattervine River. I should know this part of the forest. It should be easy to find my way, but I hadn’t ventured off the known paths before – not very far at least, and every clump of trees and raspberry-cane-infested patch of glen was beginning to look the same.

  Fear filled me at the thought of being lost out here with the Fae loose. I refused to let it control me, though, turning it to determined anger in my mind. So, they thought they could scare me and control me, did they? I would show them that I was no easy prey.

  A storm was brewing in the woods. The winds so strong that they blew away any woodland sounds that might help guide me.

  Calm, Hunter, Calm.

  By the time I stumbled from the forest to the brushy mountain plain, I was winded, thirsty, and tired. The rocky plain rolled out in front of me, a tumble of broken rock chunks, lichen, and tangled low bushes.

  “Allie! Oh, thank goodness, it’s you!” Olen scrambled up from a lichen-covered rock he was sitting on. In the high winds, I hadn’t even heard his mandolin.

  I’d veered too far north and ended up emerging in the rocky mountain plains where the Star Stones guarded the entrance to the Faewald. Regret ripped at me more strongly than the raging wind as I stole a look at it. It seemed so unbearably simple. Just a ring of stones.

  A ring of stones my sister had disappeared into. A ring that had ruined my life.

  And here was Olen, looking a bit jumpy, his eyes going everywhere at once. But he was just plain Olen with his oval face and blemished skin and nervous stoop as he tried not to look too tall. He limped over to me and tugged on my long red braid awkwardly.

  “Should have seen you a mile away with that red hair, Allie. You stand out in the woods like a cardinal up from the valley. But I thought you were a ghost.”

  I knew not to judge him by looks anymore. Though I could live without the comments on my hair. I knew how he looked on the other plane and that tempered how I saw him here.

  On a whim, I pulled my blindfold off so I could see him properly. He flashed to life the moment it passed my eyes. He was bright glowing blue and other vibrant colors as his spirit self took over – wavering and smudged but also beautiful. That oval face looked stronger now – there was something about the set of the jaw that made him look more powerful and more determined. He was suddenly straight and tall, his head held so high that I wouldn’t have laughed if someone put a crown on it. He vibrated with music. As if it was as much a part of him as his own flesh. I sighed with relief.

  “I went out into the woods last night to find an old artifact,” I said as an explanation, but I wasn’t able to say more as my gaze drifted past him toward the Star Stones.

  “Have you lost your mind, Allie Hunter?” Was he mad? His eyes flashed. What did he have to be angry about? “Do you know why I thought you were a ghost? Your father was worried sick! He went after you. He and my dad set me to watch while they were gone.”

  Anxiety filled his voice, but it was nothing compared to what I was feeling with my blindfold off.

  The Star Stone circle was full of Shining Ones. They filled every inch of the space available, pushing against the edges of the circle as if there was a barrier there that no one could feel but them.

  Their eyes were hungry and their jaws tense. So hungry and tense that it almost amplified their striking physical beauty. Male and female, short and tall, dark and fair, they were all shockingly gorgeous with delicate, sweeping wings and clothing that flickered between rags and bones and feathers or magnificent finely cut silks and brocades. Some of them had horns and others tails like foxes or cougars. And all of them had sharp teeth. It was as if their glamor was flickering in and out again and I was seeing them both as the glorious creatures they wanted to be seen as, and the almost feral creatures of reality.

  Going into the circle and out of the circle, colored ribbon tracks wove – each of them bright and pulsing as if many important journeys had been made into that circle.

  One of them – dark green and so fresh that it seemed more real than the others – called to me. I felt, without knowing how I felt it, that it was somehow connected to my father.

  “Allie? Are you listening to me?” Olen sounded panicked. “You’re not in there and they went in looking for you!”

  “Went in?”

  “They went in the circle, Allie! Your dad and mine! They went looking for you and your sister.”

  No wonder he was angry.

  I looked the nearest Fae in the eyes. What had they done with Father when he went in there? And had something else come out? How many of them were out now? One had come out for Hulanna – the one who chased me and stole my goat. But a second Fae had been in the woods with the smoky wings. And now there could be two more – one for Father and one for Chanter.

  I pulled my blindfold back on. I needed to not see them while I spoke to him. It was too hard seeing their eager looks as he spoke – as if they were sure that they could suck us into their circle, too.

  “But I’m not in there,” I said as if I could argue sense into them after they’d already acted. My normal vision returned, and the circle became a boring ring of stones again and Olen became just a slightly hunched teenager with an anxious expression and nervous fingers that played with the strap of his mandolin as he spoke. “I’m right h
ere. I’ve never been in there.”

  “How were they supposed to know that?” he demanded, angry now. “How were they supposed to know when you went missing, too? It was all they could do to keep your mother from leaping into that circle. They didn’t let me go. They left me to watch and to play. I’ve been playing all night, but I haven’t seen any Shining Ones. I’ve just been playin’ and fearin’ all night since they disappeared.”

  “All night?” I repeated. Those hungry eyes. Those crowds of Fae. Had they been there when my father went in? Or did they come later? After they had finished whatever they’d done to him. A chill filled me.

  Olen grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me with fear and worry in his eyes. “You aren’t listening to me, Allie! Our fathers went in there – past the ring. They were looking for you and your sister. And Allie, no one ever comes out again once they go in. We’re Chanter and Hunter now. You and me. Do you get that? There is no one else left to be that but us. And your dad told me you saw a Fae – “his voice stuttered over the word. “Fair Folk loose here in the woods. And my dad said that I must stay here day and night and play the mandolin to hold them back as much as I can because it’s all we have left to keep them out of our world. Don’t you understand?”

  “Don’t say their name,” I gasped. “They can hear it in your mind.”

  “Fae. Fae. Fae,” he said, spitting the name as if it didn’t matter to him at all. “Who cares if they hear? We’re all dead already! That’s what my mother says. She says I shouldn’t bother to stay. All the whispers old wives tell to young wives say the same thing. If anyone goes in the circle, something comes out. One for one. And if even one of them gets out, they will destroy us all.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “There are three of them out there somewhere, Allie. Three of them. And both our fathers are in there looking for someone who isn’t even there!”

  My teeth were chattering – was that from the pressure of all of this happening, or was it from seeing all those ... Shining Ones ... waiting on the other side? I hadn’t meant to let them chatter. But I hadn’t meant any of this to happen either. I hadn’t meant to let my sister go in the circle, I hadn’t meant to push my father or Olen’s father into going after us. Everything had just spiraled out of control.

  Fear – powerful as a winter storm threatened to overwhelm me. My life – everything about it – was gone now. With effort, I shoved the fear away, forcing it to feed my determination instead. I would not let this ruin everything. I wouldn’t.

  “We need to go in after them, too,” I said between my chattering teeth. My blindfold had fallen a little and over the edge of it, I could see the Fair Folk grinning from inside the circle. With every word I said that made it more likely that I might go in there, they seemed more excited. Some were even standing on tiptoe as if to reach for something just beyond their grasp. “We can’t leave them in there looking for me when I’m not even there.”

  Olen made an angry sound in the back of his throat. “It’s like you don’t even get it.”

  But I got it. That was the problem. I knew exactly what he was telling me. I’d doomed his father and mine to death. And with them, the whole village.

  Not fear, Allie – determination. Don’t let this stop you. Make it drive you!

  “I get it,” I forced between gritted teeth. “I’ve doomed them to die because of me. Because of one decision!”

  Olen let out a long breath and looked at me as if he was bringing all the patience he had left to bear on me. My head ached as my two eyes saw him differently – one seeing the hero in the spirit plane and the other seeing the average teen boy.

  “Allie.” He said each word carefully as if I’d lost my mind along with normal sight. “You. And. I. Are. All. That’s. Left.”

  “I understand,” I said. He was still holding my arms as if I was a child he was scolding – or maybe protecting.

  “You don’t understand. We can’t go after them, Allie, because you and I are Chanter and Hunter now. I must stay here day and night and chant and play to keep our enemies at bay and you, Allie. Blind or not – though you can’t be all that blind if you went on an adventure in the woods last night, hmmm? – you must hunt and kill the Fae that are in our woods before they steal our children and livestock and destroy our worlds.”

  “Worlds?” I asked, and this time I felt stupid. I was pretty sure that there was just one world.

  “Each person lives in their own little world with their own little suns that make it alive. For your parents, those suns were called Alastra and Hulanna. What happened to them when they lost their suns, hmmm?”

  “Their world ended,” I agreed. Mine had ended when I lost Hulanna and my father.

  “Yes. So – go save us all before more worlds end, hmm? Can you do that.”

  I nodded numbly.

  He laughed. “I asked that as if it’s actually possible. Of course, you’re going to fail. I’m going to fail. But we still have to try.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re terrible with people?” I asked.

  “Well, I’d been wondering why none of the girls was sweet on me,” he said with a rueful smile. “Maybe that’s it.”

  “It’s definitely it,” I said sharply, though I knew it wasn’t true. I’d heard him whispering with one in the woods. The very one who thought I was trouble. It stung that he thought I was stupid and bound to fail and it reminded me that she’d warned him to stay away from me.

  Although, if I was being objective, what chance did a blind girl have against magical creatures from another world? Not much. Maybe I was trouble.

  “You’d better get back to playing that mandolin if you want to keep people from dying and all that stuff.”

  He snickered, but he was calming down, at least. “Yes, one mandolin will definitely defeat the hordes. Just don’t forget the rhyme, okay? Music to bind, Fire to blind, Look in their eye, With Iron they die.”

  “I thought that was just a nursery rhyme,” I said.

  “Our lives are nursery rhymes and Faewald stories, now, Allie. We need to ask some children to help us remember them. Because if we don’t, we’re going to all die.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” I said, but my heart wasn’t in it. After all, I’d already lost my father and sister. My mother was all that was left. Wasn’t that close enough to everyone dying? “I’ve heard every Faerie story there is. And I plan on ruining them all.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I was six the first time I sat with my father for deer. It had been a hard winter. Back in town, people were grinding potatoes for flour and rationing each dried bean. Every scrap of meat brought to the town could help.

  He’d come in the door with a flurry of snowflakes like glittering stars swirling around him as his breath still plumed in the cold air rushing into our house.

  “Come on girls, let’s hunt!”

  “You shouldn’t bring the girls, Hunter,” my mother had chided. “They’ll only hold you up and we need the meat.”

  But one look at my big pleading eyes and he’d winked. “Can you be quiet, Allie? Can you be still?”

  I had nodded, excitement brimming up inside me. I wanted to be just like my father. Fearless. Unstoppable.

  “I’d rather stay by the fire,” Hulanna had said and he’d tramped snow across mother’s clean floors to join her by the fire and kiss her tumbled curls.

  “Stay here, then, poppet.”

  But he’d taken my little hand in its rabbit mitten with his big one and I’d followed him through the snow, walking in his big footprints.

  Around us, the winter ghouls howled in the wind and the trees cracked and moaned, but I was safe with my father and his ash bow.

  I was safe even when the ghouls howled close to our hidden winter blind – so close that my knees trembled and twice my father caught my eye with an encouraging smile.

  I was safe as they rattled the tree above us.

  I was safe as Father leaned in and whisper
ed to me, “Don’t let fear drown you. Let it fuel you. Let it make you strong and fiery.”

  I’d let it burn inside me until my anger at my own fear burned every last scrap of it away and underneath was nothing but bravery.

  When the stag finally walked past our blind, there was nothing left in me but determination and fire. Even when we had to drag the deer through the snow with ghouls howling in our ears the whole way.

  Our success was enough that the whole town ate hot meat that night. And through our wild excitement, I’d shared the secret smile of Hunters with my father and I knew this was what I wanted to do all my life.

  Hulanna could wear beautiful dresses and walk down the aisle of flowers with a boy someday. My dresses would be the hides we scraped clean, my path the one that went through deep snow past the reaching arms of the forest ghouls.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was easy to talk big around Olen. He made that easy. It was a lot harder when the sound of his lonely mandolin was in the distance and it was just me again trudging down the forest path.

  I needed a plan. A blind girl with a staff, a blindfold, and a little cage wasn’t much use unless she had a plan. The problem was, I thought that the Fae might be a lot smarter than I was. Any plan I made would have to account for that. So how did you trap someone who was a world-class trapper? How did you kill something who lived to kill? How did you catch the uncatchable?

  If only those old wives had left tales about that. Rhymes were handy, but so far, my iron birdcage and Olen’s mandolin hadn’t done a whole lot of anything.

  I was almost at the village when I saw the faint flutter at the edge of my sight. I’d taken the blindfold off periodically to check around me and this was the first movement I’d seen in the spirit world.

  They were out there. Hunting me.