Page 50 of The Longing

Below us, the terrain changes from heather-filled moorland to marsh and on to pastureland, bright green after all the purples and browns. Fenrother stays higher up above these areas than he did over the moors, but he executes one or two perfect circles so I can see more of the landscape below.

Here and there are dotted little cottages, their chimneys exuding white smoke. I see the occasional form of something…presumably an inhabitant of the Yeavering, but mostly they hurry inside as we fly over.

A river valley catches my eye, the broad, shallow bed winding its way through the fields and woodlands which are springing up. Mist comes and goes, some of it looking less like a weather phenomenon and more like something unworldly, as if to slam home that I am beyond the veil, and the Yeavering is not like anywhere else.

It is the place everyone has heard of and virtually all humans have no concept of what is here. The Faerie guard it well and I can see why. It is unmarked, clean, rich, unpolluted. Why would they want us here? We nearly did for ourselves with the viruses we unleashed on each other. No wonder the saviour of the human race came at the price of non-interference and a permanent place for the Faerie in every government in the world.

And the lottery. The one where the Faerie take humans for their own purposes. The one thing which doesn’t make sense at all.

The valley swings around a tight curve, revealing a large castle sat magnificently on a high cliff, its walls extending a distance and encompassing a small town, tightly packed save for a market square festooned with multi-coloured flags.

I tug at one of Fenrother’s claws.

“Can we go look?” I ask, giddy with the flight and the clear air.

Fenrother rumbles. It’s difficult to discern any emotion on his huge dinosaur head. I suspect it’s the teeth.

“Please?” I plead as the smell of food rises up to us, along with the chatter of many voices.

I want to experience so many things, now I’m away from my aunt. I want to have what I would never have had with her. I want freedom.

Fenrother’s huge flanks huff out a sigh, and he turns in a slow circle before dropping down to the ground some way outside of the castle town, his form swirling from Wyrm to his other shape as he sets me down.

“You want to go to Moranik?” he says. “I have to warn you—I am not welcome there.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I was accused of taking sheep.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.” Fenrother strides away down the road filled with car-wheel ruts.

At least he’s honest. Probably too honest. No filter and the unvarnished truth, that’s what Fenrother is. I catch up with him as the road incline increases up to the imposing walls of the town and the impressive gatehouse with a portcullis entrance.

There are carts ahead of us, loaded with produce. Fenrother pushes past them, and other than the occasional zip of magic, no one stops us until we reach the entranceway, the sandstone flags heavily worn with all the traffic.

“Wyrm.” An armoured creature bars our way. “You know the law.”

Although the rest of him is armoured, the creature wears a red cap on his head, plastered to his elongated skull. His skin is a green-grey, dull and sickly looking. His speech exposes crooked, yellowing, needle sharp teeth.

“The law does not stop me from coming here in this form,” Fenrother snarls as the first guard is joined by a second.

They look at each other.

“What the Wyrm says is true,” a man behind us in the line says. He wears a pointed hat, a pipe clamped between his teeth and his face crinkled like a walnut. “He cannot enter as the Wyrm, but he can as the man.”

He doesn’t look like a farmer, even if his cart is filled with boxes of vegetables. The smoke coming from his pipe is a purple colour, and his eyes have flashes of silver within them.

The two guards look disgruntled, but with further grumblings up the queue behind us, they reluctantly stand aside, and Fenrother stalks past, eyeballing the pair in a way which would make a human run for the hills.

“What were they?” I ask as I eventually catch him up.

“Redcaps,” he rasps. “And they know what I do to them,” he adds with a level of menace I’ve not come across before, even when he thought my bra was a weapon.

“Okay,” I respond, deciding against further questions because I’m genuinely not sure I want to know.

“They work for the Faerie mostly,” Fenrother says. “Moranick belongs to a Faerie lord.” He nods towards the imposing, rambling castle. “Guyzance,” he adds. “Not the worst of Faerie. Not the best either.”

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