Page 2

Chapter Two

W ith his pack weighing heavily on his shoulders, Harm paced beside the strangely circular patch of pure white tulips in the field several miles up the Ronddwalende River from the city of Tulpenwerf. The full moon beamed overhead, its silver light glistening in the dewdrops on the tulip blooms. Near the river, the squat silhouette of a windmill broke the otherwise flat landscape, its blades still in the breezeless night.

The mucky black dirt squelched beneath Harm’s tall leather boots, and he still wore his good black coat, white shirt, and gray trousers. He was likely overdressed, but he was the heir of Tulpenland. He couldn’t walk into the realm of the fee?nvolk looking scruffy.

His father marched back and forth a few paces away while a handful of guards waited with the barge docked beside the riverbank. They were far enough that they wouldn’t overhear or see, but close enough that Father could get to them quickly if things went wrong .

So far, the only thing going wrong was that the fee was late.

Father halted and glared at the tulip circle. “It’s well after midnight.” His tone indicated that he found it quite insulting.

Punctuality came above cleanliness and thriftiness for virtues. Bad enough that a fee was coming to take Harm away. It was a nearly unforgivable affront that the fee would be late doing it.

Harm huffed and rubbed his hands over his arms. At this time of spring, the night held a chill. “What do we do if they don’t come?”

“If they don’t come, they are the ones who broke the bargain. You would be free.” Father’s voice held a heavy weariness as his breath puffed silvery in front of his face.

But Gijs would die.

Harm paced along the squishy mud yet again, trying to stifle his yawn. He’d spent most of his day reading all the books on the fee?nvolk he could find in the palace and the city libraries. When all the knowledge to be gleaned there had been exhausted, he’d haunted the merchants’ quarter, asking the far-ranging traders for stories from other kingdoms.

Until a few generations back, Tulpenland had very few dealings with the fee?nvolk , except for the occasional merfolk getting tangled in fishing nets. The theory was that the land—so waterlogged and barely kept above the reaches of the sea by dikes, canals, and windmills—didn’t provide the firm anchoring points for fee?n circles like other nations .

After tulips were introduced, Tulpenland experienced more interactions with the fee?nvolk during the spring when the tulips were blooming. Even then, such occurrences were rare and usually staved off by the farmers cutting the blooms off the flowers.

But that left Harm unprepared for what he was about to face. He didn’t have generations of lore of the fee?nvolk . Just a head full of hastily crammed book knowledge and secondhand stories told by the seafaring merchants.

As Harm turned to pace back along the row between the tulips once again, a shiver spread through the night, tingling against his skin and raising the hair at the back of his neck. He and his father both turned toward the fee?n circle.

The white tulips glowed, the moonlight collecting in a pool of silver.

A figure appeared in the silver a moment before a woman stepped from the circle into the tulip field, followed by a well-muscled dog.

In the haze of moonlight and shadows, Harm couldn’t make out much of her features, though he guessed she was only a handful of years older than him. She had brown skin and straight black hair that she wore unbound down her back. Her clothes were leather and more form-fitting than anything he’d ever seen a woman wear before. The dagger belted at her waist was all business.

The brown dog at her side only came up to the woman’s knees. But its square head was set on a thick neck over such a muscled chest that it looked like it could plow over a cow.

The fee?n woman halted before them and rested a hand on her dagger’s hilt. “Duke Johannes?”

“Yes.” Father took a step forward before halting again, as if he wasn’t sure how to address this strange, warrior-like woman. She must not be the same fee who Father had bargained with before as he didn’t seem to recognize her. “Who are you?”

“I’m the mercenary tasked with delivering this and retrieving the package.” She held out a stoppered glass vial. The contents glowed with a milky blue light at odds with the silvery moon overhead. “Have your son drink this as soon as you return tonight. He will be well by morning.”

Father took the vial, closing his fingers over it almost hesitantly as he glanced at Harm, the moonlight glinting in the pained depths of his eyes. With that action, he sealed his choice of one son’s life for the other’s.

Harm gave his father a slight nod, and Father hugged the vial to his chest. His father might have promised his life away, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t Harm’s choice.

“Then you must be the other son.” The woman turned to Harm, her eyes appearing like black pools in the shadows of the night. “You’ll be coming with me now.”

Harm caught his breath, shifting back a step. He’d expected it, and yet…

“No.” Father still gripped the vial to his chest, even as he glared at the fee?n woman. “The bargain was a life for a life. I will not hand over my eldest son until my younger son is healed.”

“That vial holds your younger son’s life already.” The woman’s fingers flexed on her dagger’s hilt. “What is in that vial will cure him and restore him to health, returning his life to him fully, as you bargained.”

Harm rolled those words over in his head, but he could hear no fault with them. The fee?nvolk were wily. If his father had merely asked for a cure, then he might have received something that would kill Gijs quicker, as death could be considered a cure. But as far as Harm could tell, his father had bargained well and left no wiggle room in the wording.

But the woman’s explanation also held the hope of Harm’s salvation. If handing over that vial counted as a life, then Harm handing himself over to the fee would also count as his life. The bargain would be complete in that moment, and he would be free to escape without jeopardizing Gijs.

“For the bargain to be complete, your son must come with me now.” The fee?n warrior woman’s posture grew more belligerent. Her dog gave a faint growl.

“It’s all right, Father.” Harm didn’t want to go right now. If only he could see for himself that Gijs was cured.

But if this was the price, then so be it. He’d said his farewells already, knowing this would be the likely outcome.

Father nodded and took a step back.

The woman’s posture relaxed, but she didn’t take her hand from her dagger as she turned to Harm. “Stand still while I search you and your pack for weapons.”

Harm eased his pack to the ground, then held his arms away from his sides to indicate that he wouldn’t resist. He didn’t have any weapons for her to find.

She strode up to him, carrying with her the scent of leather, oil, and a sweet fragrance he couldn’t identify. She was as close as if they were about to dance, her hands reaching for him.

Yet her movements were brisk as she patted him down, starting at his shoulders, checking each of his arms and down his chest and back. He tried not to react as she ran her hands over the waistband of his trousers, then down each of his legs. She paid special attention to his boots before she went through each of the pockets of his jacket.

As she straightened, she must have gotten a glimpse of the look on his face because she gave a huff as she opened his pack. “Your dignity is fine. Another mercenary might have made you strip naked to ensure you didn’t have any hidden weapons.”

Father made a choking noise, and Harm coughed, his neck heating as he tugged at his collar. He’d known the fee?nvolk didn’t have the same sense of modesty that Tulpenland held in high regard, but he hadn’t expected it to be stated so baldly. Nor to have the indignities he might face start so soon. “And you deemed such a search unnecessary?”

She glanced up from rifling through his pack to sweep a glance over him from head to toe. “I could take you. ”

Harm’s pride wanted to protest but…she probably could. She seemed far too comfortable with the weapon she carried while he was a Tulpenland prince who had only cursory training with weapons. “Good to know.”

“Yes. Keep it in mind.” The woman went back to poking through his pack. She inspected the wedges of cheese, unstoppered the flask to sniff at the cassis juice inside, and frowned at the salted pork. But at least she returned all the food to his pack without confiscating it. According to the stories, it was dangerous to eat fee?n food.

After a moment, she held up a blue-and-white pottery plate and raised an eyebrow.

“Trade goods for bargains. Not a weapon, and thus something I’m allowed to take.” Harm held her gaze without backing down. He wasn’t going to budge on this.

He needed something in his favor, and this was the only thing he could think of. He’d gotten his hands on a variety of pottery plates, teacups, and even a teapot, and he’d used his spare set of clothes as padding to keep them from breaking or rattling. Hopefully the pottery would be unique enough to appeal to the fee?nvolk .

“It’s a lot of extra weight to carry.” She lifted his pack with her free hand as if to test its weight.

“I know.” Harm crossed his arms.

“I’m not carrying it for you.” She stuffed the plate back into his pack.

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Fine. If that’s what you want to take, it’s no business of mine.” She buckled his pack shut, then pushed to her feet. After reaching into a pocket, she drew out what looked like a slim rope, though it shimmered in the moonlight. “Now, let’s—”

“Wait!” Father stumbled forward, holding out a hand, even as he stuffed the vial into his coat pocket with the other. “Please, let me have a moment to say goodbye to my son.”

Harm met his father’s gaze. They’d already said goodbye over an hour ago as midnight had been approaching. They hadn’t wanted to say farewell with a fee watching.

There was something in Father’s gaze. A glimmer that was more shrewdness than tears.

Whatever Father had in mind, Harm wasn’t going to protest.

Harm strode the two steps to his father, even as his father stepped to him and, inexplicably, embraced him.

He stiffened, his arms at his sides. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been hugged. Grown men didn’t hug. Women didn’t even hug all that often. Tulpenlanders simply weren’t the type.

As his father leaned close, as if to share a few parting, emotional words, he whispered, “There’s an iron knife tucked into the back of my belt.”

Harm hesitated only a heartbeat before he brought his arms around his father as if to return the embrace. Trying to keep his movements slight, he patted his father’s back until his hand closed on the knife. As he pulled it free, he could feel straps for securing it to an arm or a leg, if he had the chance.

For now, he simply had to hide it as best he could. She’d already searched him, so hopefully she wouldn’t think to search him again.

Harm stuffed the knife up the sleeve of his coat, tucking the hilt into the seam at the end of his sleeve to hold it there as best he could. With a pat to his father’s back, he stepped out of the hug. “Look after Gijs. I will come back as quickly as I can.”

Father slid his hands free, as if reluctant to let Harm go to the fate that awaited him in the land of the fee?nvolk . He didn’t say I’m sorry for trading you to the fee?nvolk . Nor I love you . Instead, it was a stiff, “Take care of yourself.” But that meant the same thing.

Harm faced the fee?n woman again and strode toward her, his heart hammering in his throat as he was all too aware of the iron knife up his sleeve. “All right. I’m ready to go.”

“Hold out your arm.” She gripped the shimmering, roughly ten-foot long cord in both of her hands.

She knew about the knife. Heart roaring, Harm held out his other arm, the one not hiding the knife.

Instead of ordering him to reveal the knife, she slipped the loop at the end of the cord over his hand and pulled the slip knot tight around his wrist. It didn’t seem like a secure way to tie his hands—he could simply loosen the knot and slide his hand free—but he wasn’t going to argue with her.

With a glance at him, she stuck her hand through the loop on the other end of the cord and pulled it tight.

In a flash, the cord became more transparent, though it still appeared as a string of sparkling moonlight running between them .

“What—” Harm stumbled back, staring at his wrist. When he moved his arm, the soft fibers of the cord rubbed against his skin, even though it didn’t look so much like a rope anymore.

“Come.” She spun on her heel and snapped her fingers.

Harm picked up his pack, swung it onto his back, and trotted to join her.

As he reached her side, she gave him a glare. “I wasn’t talking to you.” She patted the top of her dog’s head before she held up her wrist with the tether. “I have you on a leash.”

In other words, her dog had more freedom of will—and thus the need for a command—than he did right now.

So that was how it was going to be. Harm forced himself to merely grin back at her. The most annoying thing he could do was give her a dose of his Tulpenlander cheer. “I see. Your dog must be very well trained.”

“Yes, she is.” The fee?n warrior shot Harm another sweeping glare. “I have yet to see how well trained you are.”

Ouch. She left no doubt where he stood with her.

She strode straight toward the still glowing silver circle inside the white tulips, her dog trotting faithfully at her side.

Harm cast one last glance over his shoulder at his father, taking in his lined face, the agony in his eyes, the slump to his shoulders, before the cord tightened around Harm’s wrist and he was yanked into the fee?n circle.