A Spreading Wound
Some Long-Forgotten Tales
Centuries upon Centuries, Deeper and Deeper
Ripplings and Shadows
A Long-Unforgotten War
Down among Dragon Bones
A Burst of Light
Spring
Atop Mountains, Among Orchards
A Few Stolen Kisses
The End
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all the lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
— Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
SPRING
1
The King beneath the Earth
Seven crows fly to their king beneath the earth. Their wings are heavy with snowmelt, their beaks with gossip. For there are men on the edge of the fair woods, crude weapons in hand, expressions edged with worry, and human feet have not touched the path close to the mountain in a dragon’s age.
Eight there are, most closer to forty years than twenty, one man young and nimble with eyes quick as a hawk’s. He’s heard tales of the fair folk and creatures dwelling within the mountains since childhood. All have. Their thoughts drip in stories told by their grandmothers around fires and whispered in corners, or by the occasional man or woman who pushed the boundaries of the woods and turned up less of themselves than they once were.
These men hunt one of their own. Nothing so dangerous should be disturbed.
It slides across the footpath, a slice of sunlight in the still-wintering woods. Difficult to discern, none know to call him king, but his fingers are clawed. Slim rough horns slip with grace from a long fall of autumn hair, curling along the sides of his head and down his neck like oak branches huddled with age. Though his skin is translucent, flawless as a fine knife, each time the young man blinks, he glimpses a mess of scars crawling across the perfect limbs. A trick of the light, he’s certain.
His clothes are made of strange things, he thinks, scraping at childhood memories for tales his own grandmother told him of how to bargain with a fae. His feet step back before he forces them still lest it be taken as insult.
“What is your name?” the king asks. To his own folk, he is quite ancient. To these men, he was born in a time before their history. He finds humans, with their short lives and short-lived worries, to be amusing. He likes to bother them when they stray near his mountains.
Four men flee, their footsteps no longer silent in haste to be rid of the forest and its wild path. A shout can be heard from one. The young man is left at the lead of those remaining, panic shaking him, considering his options. He glances at the friends who haven’t abandoned him. There is a great deal of shuffling steps and tight lips. Wide eyes. Refusing a creature of sunlight and shadow is unwise. So is giving it your name.
“Weapons in my woods, but no name?” the king asks. He is greeted with silence. “Speak.”
“There’s an . . . um . . .” Blood rumbles in the young man’s ears, his pulse in his fingertips. A wood-chopping axe rests in his palm, dulled by age and work, but his grip is gentle. Taking up a weapon against a fae turns his stomach sour. “There’s a man farther down the path. He’s hiding in an old shack.”
“And you seek him out?” The king slips between them, difficult to differentiate where sunlight breaks the trees. They tilt their heads to glimpse his face when they dare. He is curious of their clothes and weapons. Human customs change so in a life as long as his. They carry crude trinkets and toys, not the glistening blades his own kind have crafted, like the one cradled against his spine, but he assumes they do damage.
“He murdered his wife.”
The king looks up. His eyes are silver birch bark, made brighter by his autumn hair. He wears no crown, but the horns grace his head as one, and the young man’s stomach knots at meeting those eyes. One of his older companions casts him a warning glare, lips pressed, then pales under the king’s attention.
“You know this?”
The human’s voice grows strong with anger. “He took her into the woods. I mean, she was alive, but he took her. No one’s ever had a good thing to say of the man. And he . . . He hits her. Everyone knows. There aren’t many other places he could have gone than the shack. It’s . . . just forest from here.”
The king knows of the little dwelling. His crows—now landing about him, hopping on shadowed feet, doubling in number, tripling, swarming in curiosity—didn’t bring him news of those other humans. He listens to the hum of his earth and whispers of his trees and hears a human far off. The shack dwells within the human world, but it’s close to the rippling borders of the king’s nearest neighbor. He casts a glance into the trees and brushes the chill from his skin.
“You are family to them?”
“N-no. I mean, his family lives far away. She . . . doesn’t have anyone else. But we are her friends.”
“And you seek revenge?”
The human snaps, “We have rules to protect our own. It is not revenge if it is just. Besides, we should’ve done something for her before . . .”
His companions stiffen at the outburst. One abandons his courage, stumbling down the path. The king regards his retreating form with boredom. “You can follow him back.”
“What?”
