On the Edge

ROSE sat on the porch, a cup of tea in her hand. Inside, George ate like he hadn't eaten in years, and Grandma was overjoyed to pile more food into his and Jack's dishes.

The screen door opened, and quiet steps approached her. Declan sat next to her on the steps.

For a long minute they said nothing, then she leaned to him and brushed his cheek with her lips. "Thank you for saving my brother."

She pulled away before he could touch her.

"You don't seem happy," he said.

"I am. It's just . . ." She ducked her head. "I've lived with this fear for so long. He started raising things when he was six. He's ten now. For four years, I watched him fade. I know that it hampered his growth. He probably never will be as tall or strong as he should've been."

"Children are resilient," Declan said. "Given the right diet and exercise, he'll hold his own."

"I've tried to help him," she told him. "I've done everything I could think of. Once Grandma and I put him to sleep for ten days, hoping that all of his creatures would die. But they just kept on sucking the life out of him. This will sound so terrible, but I'd convinced myself he couldn't be helped. I think that's the only way I could deal with it. I never stopped hoping and trying, but deep down I sort of came to terms with knowing that one day he would just burn down, like a candle." She covered her face. "You saved him. You saved Georgie. I'm so grateful. I don't want you to think that I take it lightly. It's just that I don't even know what to say. I'm scared to believe it. I should've tried harder . . . I should be thrilled, but I'm just so . . . lost. Stunned."

"Like a runner whose race had been cut short," Declan said.

"Yes. It's selfish and terrible of me, and I'm ashamed of it. I don't know why I'm even telling you this."

He pulled her to him, wrapping his massive arm around her back. She pushed away.

"Let me hold you," he said. "I won't 'maul' you. You need it. Just sit with me."

There was a quiet strength in the way he held her, and she drew on it, wrapped up in his warmth and the scent of his skin. She'd never had anyone to lean on, not like this. He made her feel so safe that she was afraid to let go, terrified that she would break into tears if she did.

"I felt that way when Casshorn rescued William," he said. "And felt like scum for it. I was sure nothing good would come of it. I knew it then, but what could I say? No, Will, take the death instead?"

"Why did Casshorn do it?" she asked.

"Me. I think he was planning the beginnings of this insanity back then. Casshorn is older than me by three decades. He's well trained and he's dangerous and skilled, but he always lacked the perseverance and discipline necessary to truly master a weapon. In his best moments, he's brilliant, but it will do him no good in a direct fight. If we cross blades, I'll cut him down. He's well aware of it. He wanted William to use against me. William's deadly with any blade, especially knives."

"But William is your friend."

There was a tiny pause. "After William was released, I met him at one of the formal dinners His Grace gave. He came as Casshorn's adopted son. He wouldn't speak to me."

Rose glanced at his face. "I'm so sorry. Did you ever find out why?"

"No. I don't know if he was angry because I failed to secure his release or if it was something Casshorn told him about me. The next thing I knew, both of them were gone. You spoke to him. What did he say?"

"He mostly tried to get me to go out with him. The last time he spoke, he told me he wanted me because the boys and I were together. He said he never had a family and always wanted one, and we fit the bill."

"Well, he'll have to do without," Declan said with the warmth of a glacier. "You're mine, and he can't have you."

Well then. "That sounds pretty final. Do I even have a say in this?"

"Of course you do," he said softly. "If you say no, I'll have to accept it."

Sure, he said that now. But the oath he swore was very clear. If he won the challenges, Declan gained the right to her. She would be his possession. Not a wife, not a friend, a lover, or an equal. A possession.

Declan always planned things out. He didn't know her at the time he swore the oath and probably thought she was unhinged. He had phrased his oath to gain as much as he could with minimal risk, relying on his presence and her fear to carry it through. If only she had called his bluff. He wouldn't have hurt the boys, not in a million years. He would've walked away. But then she wouldn't have gotten to know him. Rose tried to imagine him leaving on that day without another word. Her throat constricted. Her heart beat faster. She leaned a little closer to him, seeking reassurance that he was still here in spite of herself and realized a simple fact.

She was in love with Declan Camarine.

But loving him and being with him weren't the same thing. He was still a blueblood, and she . . . She had no dowry and no pedigree. She didn't fit into his world any more than he fit into hers. He wanted her. She was a challenge, and just like Grandma said, Declan couldn't resist. And once he got her, what then? One day they would wake up next to each other, and he would be Earl Camarine, lord of a dozen places with names she couldn't remember, and she would still be only Rose.

She swallowed. In her head she pictured him walking out the door, never to come back. The anxiety squeezed her heart in a lead fist.

"There is no hope for us," she said softly.

"There is always hope," Declan said. "As dangerous as Casshorn is, he's also irrational, and that weakens him."

She shook her head and forced herself to pull free of him. He didn't understand. He concentrated on the biggest threat, and it would do her good to do the same. For now, she had to keep her worries to herself. Casshorn had to come first.

"As far as William goes, I don't know what the devil he's doing, but I doubt he's helping Casshorn," Declan said.

"What makes you think that?"

"William is a decorated veteran with over a decade in the Legion. Casshorn couldn't hack it in the Legion longer than six months. Hell, he couldn't hack it in the research branch of the Airforce." Declan shook his head. "All he had to do was study wyverns, and he failed at that. I have no respect for him, and I wouldn't suffer his orders. I don't see why Will would."

"So why is he here, then?" She frowned.

"I don't know." Declan grimaced. "I know what I'm going to do once I find him."

"And that would be?"

"I'll beat him bloody."

She blinked.

"I walked away from eleven years in the Legion to pull his ar - him out of the fire. One would expect a thank-you or at least a cordial demeanor. Failing that, one would expect some small courtesy for old times' sake, such as a note perhaps, something along the lines of 'My adoptive father is about to make off with a world-destroying device, so he can kill us all. Just thought you'd like to know.' "

"Maybe he didn't know."

Declan gave her a hard look. "He knew."

"A little of you is pissed off because he didn't go all to pieces thanking you for saving him," she said.

Declan swore. "I couldn't care less."

"It bothers you. It would bother me, too."

A man appeared at the end of the road. Slight, a bit di sheveled, he wore black pants, a red polo shirt, and a dark leather vest over it. The shirt and pants sagged on his thin frame. He was balding, and the remains of his short hair and a neatly trimmed, short beard were liberally salted with gray. His face radiated calm kindness, and he smiled at them as he came down the road, leading a horse to the house, but his hooded eyes were solid black.

Declan focused on the man with predatory alertness. "Who is that?"

Rose sighed. There went her chance to talk. "That's Jeremiah Lovedahl."

"Why is he coming here?"

"Supposedly he's coming to take Grandmother and the boys to Wood House. It's a heavily warded shelter deep inside the Wood."

"You seem skeptical," he said.

"He has an agenda," Rose said. "The Edge is very much an 'every man for himself' kind of place. But once in a while we run across a threat that's too much for any one family to handle on its own. At times like this, people like my grandma and Jeremiah step forward. They're our elders. There are six of them, and when they agree on something, East Laporte usually pays attention."

"They won't compel you to obey, but they issue advisory opinions?" Declan asked.

She nodded. "Something like that. After we had that fight, I called them for Grandma and they had themselves a huddle. They've realized that we're too weak to fight Casshorn directly, so they're trying to outsmart him. First step is to deprive him of food, so to starve him and the hounds, they 'advised' getting the hell out of town. Last night everyone with a drop of sense packed up, and this morning, they all drove out as if to work in the Broken, but none of them are coming back. Some holdouts remain, as usual, but what are you going to do?" She shrugged. "The Edgers are outcasts. For some of us, our house and land are all we have. I swear, you could have a wall of fire sweeping through East Laporte, and some of the harder heads would hole up on their property. They'd rather die than leave."

Jeremiah tied his horse to a tree.

"So what does he really want here?" Declan asked.

"Jeremiah hopes to convince you and me to come with him to Wood House, where the rest of the elders are. They want to know more about Casshorn, so they want you to help them with that. I'm to come as their protection against you and Casshorn both. You make them nervous."

His green eyes studied her. "Do you want me to come?"

Rose pursed her mouth. "It's up to you. I don't want to ask you to do something you don't want to do, but yes, I would like you to visit Wood House. The elders are old and full of magic. They can't attack Casshorn or the hounds directly, because the hounds absorb any magic less intense than a flash, but I wouldn't discount them. And we don't have a lot of allies."

"We? Do you include yourself in my fight?"

"He's destroying my home, eating my neighbors, and wants to kill my family. I told you before; I don't intend to sit on my hands. And you need me, Declan. You need my flash."

He gave her a pointed stare.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh, the blueblood look of scorn. Whatever shall I do? I do declare, I feel faint."

Declan growled under his breath.

She patted his hand. "It's not too late to reconsider this whole 'I'll have you, Rose' business."

"Nice try," he told her.

Jeremiah came up to the porch. "Hello, Ms. Drayton." His accent was the old Southern, slow, refined, swallowing his r's as if he'd just stepped off some plantation in Virginia.

"Hello, Mr. Lovedahl," she said. "Would you care for some iced tea?"

"I would, thank you."

When she returned from the kitchen with two glasses, Jeremiah smiled at her. "Lord Camarine and I were just discussing the defenses of Wood House. He mentioned he'd like to see them for himself."

"Did he now?" Rose smiled pleasantly and handed out the tea.

"Will you be joining us?" Jeremiah asked.

"I'd be delighted," she said.

ROSE walked next to Declan, picking her way through the forest floor thick with centuries of autumns. They formed a narrow procession: first, Jeremiah, leading the horse loaded with their bags, then Grandma, then Georgie, and then she and Declan, bringing up the rear. Jack had gone cat as soon as they set out, and he slunk along on their flanks. Once in a while she'd catch a glimpse of him, creeping over a log or scrambling up a tree, but he blended in so well, she wasn't even sure if she truly had seen him or if she just imagined it.

They were only twenty minutes into the Wood, but the change was startling. The forest here was older. Colossal trees towered above them: enormous pines, straight as masts, venerable Edge oaks, pale poplars . . . The forest was grass green, and emerald, and yellow. Patches of velvet moss climbed up the bark and sheathed the forest floor, so bright that when the sunlight spilling through the breaks in the canopy struck it, the moss nearly glowed. In the shadows, Granny Rose lichens bloomed on trunks and boulders like vivid scarlet peonies, and in the deeper gloom between the twisted, massive roots, delicate lady's slipper flowers stretched on thin stalks, and yellow-, brown-, and red-capped mushrooms the size of footstools squatted in clumps and rings. The air smelled of life, greenery, and magic. It filled Rose's lungs and carried away worry. She smiled quietly to herself and kept walking, following Jeremiah and Grandma along the trail she could barely see.

"I'm too old for this," Grandma murmured.

"I do recollect that you made this same trip all by your lonesome earlier in the week," Jeremiah said.

"Well, that's true," Grandma murmured.

"I was always of the opinion that some women improve with age," Jeremiah continued. "Like fine wine."

Rose rolled her eyes. Jeremiah Lovedahl was putting the moves on her grandmother. What was the world coming to?

They reached a grove of pines. The trees stood very dense here, the stubby broken branches near the roots supporting pale clusters of bone wind chimes. Each chime consisted of a skull, suspended from a metal ring among an assortment of small bones. Past the chimes, the forest stood unnaturally still. Not a single pine needle moved.

"Is there a spell on the trees?" Declan asked softly.

"Bone ward," Rose murmured back. "Very old, very strong."

They came to a halt at the trees marked by chimes. Most skulls were possum, wolf, lynx, but three were human, and one, heavy-jawed and oddly flat, had two thick fangs curving down like sabers. Declan nodded at the bizarre skull. "Troll."

"That's correct," Jeremiah said. "One came our way from the Weird about fifty years ago. Killed two little girls and ate them."

"How did you manage to bring him down? Their hide's too thick for a bullet, and they're immune to most poisons."

Jeremiah plucked a wide triangular leaf from a low branch and held it up. It was slightly larger than his hand. "Forest Tear. If you boil the sap of the tree, it makes glue, clear, odorless, and very strong. We served the troll a freshly slaughtered cow on a blanket of these leaves dipped in glue. Trolls are dumb creatures. He got down on all fours to eat his feast, and the leaves stuck to his feet and hands. He tried to shake them off, and when that failed, tried to pull them off with his teeth and got a leaf stuck to his face for his trouble. Then he panicked and rolled, until he was completely covered. The original plan was for him to suffocate to death, but he somehow got to his feet and ran blindly, until he knocked down a power line pole and got himself electrocuted."

"I'm beginning to see that one doesn't disturb your town without consequences," Declan said.

"Oh, we're just simple country folk." Jeremiah gave him a mild smile. "We don't take kindly to having our children murdered, but really we keep to ourselves. We're mostly harmless."

Magic streamed to him, gathering about his body in a deep red cloud. He raised his hand up to the sky. His black eyes narrowed to mere slits, and he barked a single word. "Break!"

The magic shot up and vanished. A moment later a long serpentine body crashed through the canopy and thudded to the ground. A leech bird. About five feet long and pale blue, it resembled a stork, but instead of the normal feathers, its tail split into two long, snake-like whips, tipped with blue tufts. The leech bird flailed in convulsions, slapping its broken bat-like wings on the ground. It had no beak. Instead, its jaws were very long and narrow, full of sharp needle-teeth. Magic spiked from it in dangerous bursts, but they fell short of Jeremiah.

"Dreadful creatures. Foul magic, too. Common wisdom says you'll turn into one if bitten. I haven't witnessed that happening in my lifetime, but I wouldn't discount it." Jeremiah raised his rifle and shot the leech bird twice. It jerked and became still. He waited a minute or two, approached the carcass, then pulled out a machete from his belt and hacked the head from the bird in a single chop. He picked it up and tossed it at the ward. The head crashed into the woods and vanished. Wind stirred the chimes. Bones rattled against each other with a dry clatter.

"It takes blood to open it," Jeremiah said. He hacked at the leech bird, carving it like a chicken, and nodded at the bloody chunks. "Each of you, take one and pay your dues. Quickly now before the blood cools."

One by one they fed the carcass to the ward. When Jack descended from the trees and dragged the last piece to the spell and pushed it in with his furry head, the chimes froze, but beyond them the Wood came to life, as if someone had pressed Play on an invisible remote. Branches shivered. Small red leaves fluttered to the ground here and there, breaking free from the vine garlands dripping from high branches. Magic bloomed like a flower.

"Come," Jeremiah ordered.

In they went. The Wood grew darker here, older, harder. You'd never guess the town roads were only a half hour away. The trees were truly enormous now. It would take several people with their arms outstretched to enclose one of the trunks. Odd creatures skittered in the branches: some small and furry, some scaly, some with eyes that glowed orange and red. Jack spat, and hissed, and promised trouble in his cat language, until Declan picked him up to keep him put.

Twenty minutes later, they finally reached Wood House. It sat on top of a low man-made hill, shaped like a pyramid with its top chopped off. A wooden palisade, centuries old and slathered with clay to protect it from moisture and fires, surrounded the apex of the hill. Moss and underbrush hugged its roots, trying to climb up the palisade, and pale flowers thrust through it to the sun, as if a wave of greenery had crashed against the wooden walls. Rose remembered coming here only once, when she was very small.

They climbed up the side of the hill, using ancient stone blocks placed there like giant steps. The wooden gate swung open with a creak. A weather-scarred totem pole stood to the right, next to a bonfire pit filled with stones. A tall oak rose straight up, a small wooden lookout platform sitting in its branches like a tree house. To the left, a big log cabin waited for them, its walls so layered with moss and lichen that the building seemed to have grown from the Wood's floor, and behind it a scattering of smaller buildings only intensified the illusion: the structures sat together like toadstools in a ring.

The wooden gate behind them shut, and Rose turned to see Leanne sliding a heavy wooden beam across it. A few other familiar people walked in the yard: all about her age, most single and magically adept. The Edgers with the least to lose, she realized.

"Welcome to Wood House," Jeremiah said.