Into the Nightfell Wood Read online

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to Dr. Scarberry, because you saved

  her life, and to Dr. Boreman, because you saved mine.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Wynn

  Chapter Two: Elric

  Chapter Three: Wynn

  Chapter Four: Elric

  Chapter Five: Wynn

  Chapter Six: Elric

  Chapter Seven: Wynn

  Chapter Eight: Elric

  Chapter Nine: Wynn

  Chapter Ten: Elric

  Chapter Eleven: Wynn

  Chapter Twelve: Elric

  Chapter Thirteen: Wynn

  Chapter Fourteen: Elric

  Chapter Fifteen: Wynn

  Chapter Sixteen: Elric

  Chapter Seventeen: Wynn

  Chapter Eighteen: Elric

  Chapter Nineteen: Wynn

  Chapter Twenty: Elric

  Chapter Twenty-One: Elric

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Elric

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Wynn

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Wynn

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Wynn

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Elric

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Elric

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Elric

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Wynn

  Chapter Thirty: Elric

  Chapter Thirty-One: Elric

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Kristin Bailey

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wynn

  WYNN DIDN’T LIKE BEING A fairy princess. She sat on the end of her fluffy bed and kicked the wall with the toe of her silk slipper, making a low thumping sound on the soft wood. Living inside of a giant tree wasn’t very nice either. If she were a squirrel, or a bird, maybe she would like it. But she wasn’t a squirrel or a bird. She was a girl, and she wanted to go outside.

  Before she came through the Silver Gate, Wynn used to go outside every day. She could go outside when she lived with her mother in a hut in the woods. She used to gather sticks for the fire and feed the chickens in the garden. There was lots to do, and her mother was always there. Sometimes her older brother, Elric, would come back from tending the sheep for the village, and they would play in the woods and try to find the gate to the realm of the Fairy Queen.

  But then her mother got sick. And the storm came. And Mother didn’t get better. She didn’t wake up.

  Wynn hugged her arms across her chest as she remembered. The shimmering skirts of her dress rustled as she drew her feet up under her and sat on the edge of the bed. Her father had come to the hut. He was angry. He wanted to get rid of her. He didn’t like that it took her so long to think, and her words didn’t sound right, and her thumbs weren’t shaped like other people’s thumbs. He thought she was cursed, a changeling child, a monster.

  But then Elric came and together they ran away. Wynn followed the clues the Fairy Queen left for her, and she led them to the real Silver Gate, the only place where someone from the Otherworld could cross over to the land Between from the human world. It had been a scary adventure. They almost died. But they found the gate and Wynn was very happy when the Fairy Queen made them prince and princess of the land Between. The queen gave them beautiful and wonderful things and Wynn felt safe again.

  Maybe too safe. She looked around her room. A magical tree formed the entire palace. The branches of the great tree were so large they held entire corridors with stairs and bridges. Wynn lived in a little nook, carved into one of the branches. It was a pretty room.

  The fairies told her it didn’t hurt the tree to live in it. It wasn’t like the trees where she came from. This tree was magic, and magic could do strange things.

  Sparkling stones had been fixed in the ceiling and walls. They glittered like stars in the night. A large glowing orb traveled across her room every day, following a sun that she could not see. When it stopped glowing and rested on the floor, she had to go to bed.

  The magic in the Between was very beautiful. Colorful lights danced everywhere, and there was no dark shadows or mean villagers. But the magic things in her room only seemed magical for a while. Now they were just the same thing day after day, after day. Wynn got up and walked in a small circle around her room. It was very boring. Now no one needed anything from her.

  The fairies had given her pretty dresses, funny puppets to play with, and a toy bird that came alive in her hands and flew around the room. But she couldn’t go outside. Not ever. It wasn’t safe. She walked over to the narrow slits in the wooden wall and tried to push her hand through, but her palm stuck. She wiggled her fingers outside, but she couldn’t feel a breeze. She couldn’t see anything interesting through the slits either. All she could see were some big leaves and the pinks, blues, and cool green colors that shifted through the magical dome that covered the fairy lands. She wanted a real window.

  “No, Wynn, you could fall. No, Wynn, you can’t swim. No, Wynn, it’s too hot.” Wynn repeated the phrases that came too easily to her mind. She had heard them enough. They made her so angry.

  She picked at the soft bark on the edge of the slit pulling it away in strips, then dropping it through the narrow gap. When she lived in the Otherworld, she used to spend her entire day looking for sticks so she and her mother would have enough wood to tend the fire at night. Every day it was the same: go to the woods, pick up sticks, find her way back home. Her pet hen, Mildred, would follow her and eat bugs. Wynn liked finding sticks. It was an important job and she could do it without help. Her mother needed those sticks. Her mother needed the fire. Her mother needed her.

  Now she didn’t even have a window she could see things out of. The fairies were too afraid she would fall out of it. She knew how to stay inside a window. Wynn kicked the wall hard, and it hurt her foot, so she smacked the wall with her hand.

  Elric had a bigger window, and his room was next to hers. She should go see what he was doing.

  Wynn carefully opened the door to her room and peeked out. The hollow branch of the tree formed a long, curving hallway. The fairies didn’t like her to leave her room without someone to watch her, but there were no fairies in the hall right now. She bunched up her skirts and held them away from her feet, then ran next door and slipped into Elric’s room.

  “Elric?” She closed the door behind her. His room wasn’t as fancy as hers. She stepped over to his bed, but his blankets were messy and he wasn’t in it. Where was he? “Elric?” she called again. Usually he came to get her and they would eat together and stay together in the palace. He shouldn’t be gone now, and it made her feel upset. She didn’t like to be away from him for long anymore. She wandered over to his window, a teardrop-shaped opening in the branch wall.

  Wynn stuck her head out and looked straight down, her shoulder-length hair falling around her face. Fairies scurried around like bugs in the courtyards below. She watched them for a second but the silver circlet on her head shifted forward. She slapped a hand on her head to hold it steady and looked up. Hills blanketed with a rainbow of flowers rolled around the great valley. It would be fun to play in them. She could walk with Mildred. She hadn’t seen Mildred in several days. Mildred didn’t like to be in the high branches of the palace.

  And Wynn’s room was very high. She could see the tops of the stone towers that surrounded the tree like the old druid circles in the Otherworld. Curling blue designs glowed on the surface of the enormous stones in pretty knotted patterns. Fairies liked circles. The courtyards below were circles, and the dome formed an enormous circle of light.

  On the other side of the protective dome, a dark forest waited, a
nd the tall shadows of storm clouds lingered beyond that. The storms couldn’t reach them here, and the dangerous creatures of the forest never crossed the line of magic that kept them in their woods.

  She needed to find Elric. Wynn crept out of the door and went farther into the palace. She turned and climbed higher in the branch, holding her skirts in a big bunch so she didn’t trip on them. They were too puffy and long but her soft slippers made her feet quiet and that was good.

  The queen’s rooms were nearby. She would know where Elric was.

  Wynn reached an alcove at the end of the branch with two doors made from carved wooden screens. One side showed the queen looking down on the palace tree and the fairy lands with the moon behind her. The other side showed a fairy man with the sun behind him and the woods at his feet near a great city with tall stone towers. Light glittered through the screens. Wynn cracked open the door and stepped into a perfectly round chamber with high arching windows and a second set of doors on the other side. Sun streamed in from everywhere, throwing green and gold splashes of color on the pale wood walls. That light danced off the shining treasures filling the room.

  What was this place?

  An animal skin hung on the wall, but it was different from any animal Wynn had ever seen. It had dark stripes on pale gray fur. The fur was old and worn as it sagged. It made Wynn feel very sad to look at it. Whatever animal it was might have been very beautiful when it was alive. A long staff with a clear blue gem at the top hung next to it on the wall. Next to that stood a pedestal with a crystal crown on a silk pillow.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Wynn whispered as she stepped closer to get a good look. The crown wasn’t silver, exactly. It looked like starlight. It seemed to glow with an inner light, and Wynn thought she heard the sound of tiny bells as a breeze blew over it.

  Wynn reached out to touch it and carefully lifted it so she could see it better. She took off her own plain circlet, and reached to place the crown on her head.

  Suddenly the golden room filled with an icy blast of air. Wynn gasped and nearly dropped the crown as a flurry of snowflakes swirled over her in a cold and angry wave.

  “Wynnfrith!” The voice of the Fairy Queen filled the room like thunder. “Do not touch that.”

  “Do not touch that!” Wynn repeated. Her body tensed and shook as her thoughts turned into a jumble. The crown slipped in her hands.

  The queen rushed forward on a gust of wind, and caught the crown before it fell. Wynn covered her ears and hunched over. The queen placed the crown back on the pedestal, and immediately dropped to her knees in front of Wynn.

  She was so beautiful the shadows bowed to her, and light tended her as a handmaid. Her large eyes shifted color, reflecting the magic of the protective dome around them. She reached out to Wynn, her glittering white sleeves floating beside her. “Oh, no, darling. There’s no harm done. It didn’t break.” The queen wrapped her arms around Wynn and pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wynn repeated again, because her own thoughts still wouldn’t work the way they should. One of Wynn’s tears fell on the deep brown skin of the queen’s arm, and the queen gently brushed her tear away and placed a kiss on the top of Wynn’s head.

  “I know you’re sorry. Don’t worry. Nothing was harmed.” The queen picked up Wynn’s plain silver circlet and placed it on Wynn’s head, then smoothed Wynn’s hair back behind her ear. The queen began to softly sing to Wynn. The words were new, but she knew the tune by heart.

  “My love, my love, my changeling child,

  You braved the wind and snow

  To find me here within the gate,

  And make my magic grow.

  Please stay with me, my changeling child,

  And for all time I’ll keep you.”

  The Fairy Queen stroked Wynn’s hair. Wynn wrapped her arms tightly around the queen’s neck, holding on. She was the only mother Wynn had now. Slowly her mind cleared enough that she could form her own words again.

  “What is this place?” Wynn asked, looking around the room.

  The queen smiled, but it didn’t look like a happy sort of smile. “It is where I keep things that are special to me. That crown is the crown I made for my daughter.”

  “The lost baby?” Wynn remembered the story of the baby the queen lost, but didn’t remember all the parts. There were things she didn’t understand. She only knew the baby was stolen by the Grendel.

  “Yes, she never had a chance to wear it. I keep it here now, to remember her.” The queen stood and looked around. Her pure white hair floated around her head as the glittering crystals on her dress seemed to flow like drifts of snow down her body. The golden light shining into the room made the queen glimmer with magic. She gently picked up an amulet with a flower symbol on it lying next to the crown. Wynn thought she had seen one of those before, but she couldn’t remember. “Who is this for?” Wynn asked, pointing to the necklace.

  “My last changeling son wore a matching one, so I could call him home when he wandered. He fancied himself a brave adventurer.” She gave Wynn a sad smile and placed it back down on the pedestal.

  “What is this?” Wynn asked, stroking her hand down the striped fur. It felt coarse and dry.

  The queen placed her hands behind her back. Wynn couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad anymore. She was very still. “It was a gift from someone I thought was a friend. The creature was the last of its kind, a tigereon, a dangerous darkling creature that didn’t obey fairy magic.”

  “That is sad,” Wynn said, but the queen did not respond. Wynn moved over to look at the staff. “What is this?”

  “That belonged to my . . .” She stopped herself and looked out the window into the dark shadows beyond the shield. “That belonged to a great prince, long, long ago. It was a gift. Elves gave it to him. It is made from the same crystal as the heart of the kingdom.” The queen didn’t say anything more about the prince, but stared at the staff for a long time before she turned to look at Wynn. “Why did you leave your room?”

  “I want to go outside,” Wynn said. “Want to play in the flowers. Will you play with me?”

  This time the queen smiled as she brushed her hand over Wynn’s head. “I wish I could, darling, and I will once things are secure. All the other fairies and I are working to make sure the shield is strong now that my magic is returning. I must protect everyone. When it is safe for you, I will take you outside.”

  “I want to do magic,” Wynn said. “Then I will help.”

  The queen folded her into a hug. “You can do magic. When you sing, it’s magic. When you dance, it’s magic. There is magic in the joy and love you share. That magic helped bring you here.” She bent down and smiled. “You are my magic. That is why it is so important to keep you safe.”

  Wynn looked around the room. All of the treasures were from people that made the queen feel sad. She glanced down and kicked off her shoe, picked it up, and set it next to the crown. “There, now you have something that is happy.”

  The queen laughed. “And I will treasure it always. Come, let’s go back to your room now.”

  “No.” Wynn pulled her arm away. “Elric’s gone. Where is Elric?”

  The queen looked troubled. She twisted her hand and a small ball of light appeared. She flicked it out the window and turned with her hands behind her back. A moment later a raven flew into the room with a loud caw.

  The large bird hopped forward, and as he did, his body stretched out and in a blink he became a fairy man with long indigo robes and a cape of shining black feathers. His slick black hair lay smoothly over his head. He lowered his body in an elegant bow. “My queen, you called?”

  “Where is Prince Elric?” she asked.

  Wynn tucked herself back toward the door. Raven didn’t look at her. Wynn didn’t think he liked her very much. He never talked to her, but told other people to make her do things. She didn’t like it. He cleared his throat, placing one of his pale hands over the
other. “Master Elk is teaching the prince fighting techniques this morning.”

  Wynn held very still and didn’t say anything. When other people talked, sometimes they said lots of things that they didn’t know she could understand. She learned new things that way. Why was Elric fighting?

  A stiff breeze blew around the queen as she frowned. “I thought his lessons wouldn’t begin until we found a way to make the shield completely opaque. There are still spies in the woods. The elves have those peering glasses trained on us at all times.” She waved an arm toward the windows, her sleeve billowing beside her.

  “The elves won’t risk an attack now that the shield is stronger,” Raven insisted.

  “Have all the cracks and fissures been found and repaired?” the queen asked.

  “Of course, it’s perfectly safe.”

  The queen glared at him. “A reaper has prowled along the shield for the past three nights, looking for a weakness in it. I fear the Grendel knows I have another child.” The chamber grew cold. A flurry of snow blew across the floor. She looked back at Wynn. Wynn batted at her skirts as if she weren’t paying attention.

  Raven stepped closer to the queen and lowered his voice. “We both know the Grendel will use his reapers to try to take the children. However, we have one advantage.”

  The queen turned to him.

  Raven continued. “If he sees only one child, he will assume there is only one child. And your deeper bond is with this girl.” Raven pointed to Wynn. She didn’t like that, either, but he was saying important things, and she was trying to remember them. The Grendel was trying to hurt them. He was bad. And they were teaching Elric to fight. Did Elric have to fight the Grendel?

  “I will not sacrifice the boy,” the queen said. “I will keep them both safe.”

  “As you should,” Raven said, holding his hands out. “As you should. But if the Grendel only knows of one child, it should be the child capable of defending himself. It does not hurt to let those spying on us get a glimpse of him, rather than her.” Raven walked toward Wynn. He peered down at her and held out a hand. “We should keep the other tucked away at all times, like the treasure that she is. Come, little one. I will take you back to your room.”