Free Fever Mist by L. K. Rigel Page B

again.
    Crows!
    Being in the faewood had changed me. It had made me realize and activate my fae nature, and that had informed my understanding of the world. On returning to the human realm, I found that I understood the language of crows.
    Confined to the cottage, crows screaming at me from the garden, and two human souls screaming at me from my ring. This should drive anyone mad—but I wouldn't let it. I wouldn’t let Idris win.
    I shook out my hair, grown well past my waist, then tucked it back into its net. With my skirt pulled up and tied around my hips, I started to climb the tree. Leaves growing high up in the full sun give glamoured images a robust quality, with sharper colors and clearer sounds.
    “Kaelyn calls!” the crow yelled, his beady black eye fixed on me. “Kaelyn calls,” he said again, without enthusiasm, like an afterthought.
    I clung to a branch and hung there for a moment, considering the bird. Why not? I let go and dropped to the ground.
    What if the crow was right? Crows usually were, their missives delivered so tauntingly. Kaelyn is there. The crows had watched me on the roof with the glimmer glass, calling out Kaelyn’s name in my incantations. They knew I wanted to find her. They knew I had been searching in the Small Wood.
    Anyway, there were yew trees in the Small Wood. It would be interesting to try the bark and leaves from a different stand. And I could gather some hazelnuts from the trees at the lake. Why not?
    “I need a little adventure. Don’t you think so, bird?” I hadn’t been out in such a long time, and I was unlikely to come upon any people up there. I could be back at Glimmer Cottage before the evening meal was served at the castle.
    I pushed the prince and princess out of my mind and locked them down in the double ring, Diantha to the silver band and Galen to the gold.
    “Sleep.”
    Not having bodies, they didn’t actually sleep, but out of sheer desperation I’d discovered the sleeping wyrd put them into a sort of trance. It took much of my power and never lasted long—sometimes only a few hours, sometimes as many as eight—but the respite was worth it. I’d have to sleep all the next day and half the day after to get my strength back.
    “Athena!” My horse appeared in the courtyard, two empty sacks hanging from her saddle. I might as well collect other interesting stuff from the Small Wood along with the yew parts.
    It felt odd and wonderful and good to be away from Glimmer Cottage. Leaving the courtyard, a cool breeze invaded the fine spring morning and raised chill bumps on my neck. The mist had rolled in from the Severn Sea bringing its strange dark look, like a living thing fed by malice.
    Or maybe my guilty conscience wanted to ruin this rare day of freedom.
    I turned Athena east on an inland path, out of the way and seldom used, and rode to the Small Wood without incident. I was glad I’d come. The yew trees were old and teemed with power. As I filled one of my sacks, I sensed the enduring energy of the ten thousand things flowing through their bark, branches, and leaves.
    At the lake I tied Athena outside a hunter’s cottage and walked to the hazel trees on the far shore which gave the lake its name. Legend has it that Nine Hazel Lake is the sacred home of the Lady of the Lake. She sleeps beneath the surface with Excalibur, King Artos’s sword of power, in her arms.
    I peered into the pristine waters, half hoping and half afraid to catch a glimpse of the mystical sight, and a sudden breeze whipped through the trees. I inhaled the cold air and listened to the sound of leaves in the wind. Something strange was in that breeze, but I couldn’t put a name to it.
    I filled my second bag with hazelnuts. On the way back, I passed a flat rock at lake’s edge which jutted out over the water, a pleasant spot to do the work I had in mind. I sat down with my two sacks and withdrew a few handfuls of yew sticks and some dried leaves I’d found on the ground.
    Using