Nothing made sense, the torture driving paranoia along his nerves like lightning.
He didn’t know who he was. He didn’t care.
He reviled himself, but he knew not why. He pushed the memories away. It didn’t matter. Within his being, angry hornets buzzed, filling him with hate. Heat bloomed inside, and he knew the demon eyes danced with glee, slavering their wickedness in all-consuming madness. Part of their essence entered him and he cried out. He knew he was sickened by the past. It no longer bothered him. It made up who he had become. Worms slipped through his dreams, eating their way out, and the place his heart had been was empty, the disease having started there.
He failed to remember why it began. Wailing punctuated the void, sorrow so raw it crushed him deeper into despair. He had cried that way once.
Then a song of growing things dulled the chaos, until a foreign sound intruded upon his suffering, out of place in his dismal world.
It was the sound of a fairy manically screaming.
Memories flooded back as if a dam broken. The fey. Seattle. Old World Tales. Merle. The sword Arondight. Elizabeth. Louis Glenallen. Annwn. John Lewis Hugo. Bran and Arrow Jack. The flood of demon wolves as it broke like a tidal wave upon him, rending claws and evil teeth ripping at his exposed flesh.
He broke the surface of clarity.
He was Richard McAllister, Knight of the Yn Saith.
He lived. And he hated himself for it.
Richard opened his eyes, blinking wildly to clear his sleep away, disoriented from the nightmares. It was night, the circular window across from him allowing moonlight to infiltrate the room. He lay in a soft bed, the covers pulled up to his chest. A hint of lavender mixed with earthy herbs he could not identify clung about him. He tried to take a deep breath but couldn’t; he then realized bandages bound his chest tightly.
“Let go of me, you prattstick!” the fairy yelled.
Richard found the reason for his awakening. Bran lay on a bed of his own, his fingers gripping the stick-like figure of a fairy. The fey creature struggled in the fast grip like an overly large dragonfly caught in a trap. Bran held on despite the fairy’s fit. For the first time, Richard wondered where he was, how long he had been asleep, and what had transpired since the attack at Dryvyd Wood.
“What were you doing, Snedeker?” Bran hissed.
“Nothing, tosser!” the fairy growled, squirming. “Release me!”
“It was up to no good, boy,” Richard muttered.
Bran sat up, clearly surprised. He maintained his hold on the fairy. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”
“I’ll live,” Richard said, wincing from a flurry of pain as he sat up. “If barely.”
“You should lay back down. Rest.”
“Mother hen now too, eh?” Richard glowered. “Mind your business.”
The fairy had stopped fighting, realizing the struggle was futile or hoping the boy would grow lax for an escape. Bran held the creature up so Richard could see it.
“What was this thing doing?” the boy asked.
“Why ask me? Ask it.”
With his free hand, Bran pulled free the box he had tried to use in Dryvyd Wood before the demon wolves fell upon them. It was the size of a jeweler’s box. In the glow of the moon, an image of a silver knot on its wooden lid shimmered in the dark. Richard knew exactly what it was and what it heralded.
He cursed Merle all the more.
At the appearance of the box, Snedeker fought harder. “Get that thing away from me!” the fairy screamed. “I do not want it!”
“Have you opened it, boy?” Richard asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Bran replied. “Merle said to use it when I wanted protection.”
“Use what though? Do you even know?”
“I guess I just assumed—”
“Never assume,” Richard cut Bran off. “Not here. Ever.”
“No one does this to an Oakwell fairy!” Snedeker screamed. “When I am free, I will destroy you both with a word from the Lady of the Lake and the authority she has besto—”
“Shut up, fairy,” the knight growled. “Before I pull your wings off and really give you something to cry about.”
Snedeker quieted but continued to rail against his prison.
“I told you, Bran,” Richard admonished. “Don’t trust Merle.”
“Do you know what is in the box?”
“I do. And you should throw it away right now.”
Bran sat still, pondering what Richard said. The knight looked about the room. The walls seemed to be cut from the very rock of a mountain, but they were carved with elegant care, the lines simple and