Clipped

Chapter 18.

The deeper they ventured into the woods, the more the mountain’s rugged stone gave way to the ancient, suffocating density of a forest that remembered the world before men. Sunlight struggled to pierce the canopy, falling in jagged, dusty needles onto the moss-covered floor.

​Fenris followed a pace behind her, his footsteps nearly silent for a man of his size. He didn't question her direction, though they had long since veered off the established pack trails. He simply watched the back of her head, his nostrils flared to catch the changing scent of the air.

​Rhiannon’s breath came in short, sharp bursts. The whistle in her hand was vibrating now, a rhythmic thrum that matched the quickening of her pulse. The static hadn't just gone quiet; it had transformed into a pull so visceral it felt like a hook in her navel.

​"It’s here," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Just beyond the silver birch."

​They stepped into a perfectly circular clearing. To an ordinary eye, it looked like a peaceful meadow reclaiming itself. But to Rhiannon, it was a tomb of light. A faint, shimmering haze hung in the air- a perimeter she had woven ten years ago with the last desperate residue of her strength.

​It was her Sanctuary. The place she had built to hide the night the world ended. After the clipping, after the silence of the Elder Council, she had crawled through the dirt and woven this perimeter with the last of her blood and the stuttering beat of her heart. She had intended to stay here until she healed, or until she faded into the roots. But the iron-bound men had found the clearing. They hadn't broken the barrier; they had waited like spiders at the edge until she was forced to step out for food.

​"Your perimeter still holds," Fenris observed, his voice hushed with a rare note of awe.

​Rhiannon walked toward the shimmering air. As her fingers brushed the invisible wall, the forest erupted. An iridescent wave of neon green and violet bloomed from her touch, rippling outward like a stone dropped in a still pond. The magic, stagnant for a decade, recognized its maker.

​The energy surged up her arm, a violent, beautiful homecoming. It wasn't the roaring ocean of power she’d had as a girl, but it was a warm, singing river. Her skin, once sallow and scarred, flushed with the healthy, translucent glow of fairy-kind. Her dark green eyes ignited, glowing with a bioluminescent light that pushed back the shadows of the trees.

​She stepped inside the circle, the air instantly turning sweet and warm, smelling of crushed mint and summer rain. She turned back to face him, standing in the center of her own forgotten kingdom.

​"I made this the night they took my wings," she said, her voice sounding resonant, layered with the echoes of the forest. "I didn't realize how close I was to your mountains. I just needed to stop the bleeding. I needed a place where no one couldn't find me. It was supposed to keep me safe... but they just waited for me to leave."

​Fenris stared at her, his expression unreadable. This wasn't the broken girl he had bought. This was a glimpse of a High Fairy, a creature of the First Magic. He took a step forward, his boot hovering just inches from the shimmering edge of the barrier.

​"Fenris, wait!" Rhiannon gasped, reaching out a hand. "Don't. The barrier... it’s woven with a Filter. I was a child and I was terrified. I didn't want the men with the shears to ever touch me again."

​She remembered the words she had sobbed while her blood stained the roots of the rowan tree: "Only the worthy. Only the kind. If you have a heart of iron, you cannot pass."

​"It will reject you," she warned, her glow flickering with anxiety. "It’s designed to burn anyone who isn't of a pure heart. Even other fairies struggle if they carry too much malice. It’s meant to keep out the monsters."

​Fenris didn't flinch. He looked at the iridescent veil, then at the woman standing within it. Without a word of hesitation, he stepped forward.

​Rhiannon braced herself for the scream, for the sound of magical fire searing through a wolf’s skin. But there was only a soft, melodic chiming sound, like a finger traced around the rim of a crystal glass. The barrier parted for him like silk, folding around his massive frame as he stepped into the clearing.

​Rhiannon stood gaping, her glow fading slightly in her shock. "How? How did you pass?"

​Fenris looked down at his hands, then back at the shimmering wall behind him. "I'm not entirely sure, Rhiannon. I just walked through. It felt... like a breath of warm air."

​"That’s impossible," she muttered, pacing the small circle of grass. "Only those with a pure heart can walk through. Only the worthy. Maybe I made it wrong... it’s quite hard to do a Filter without a wand. I must have botched the weaving."

​Fenris straightened, his brow furrowing. "You don't think I have a pure heart?" he asked, his voice carrying a hint of being genuinely offended.

​Rhiannon stopped and looked him dead in the eye, her neon-green gaze searching his. "Fenris, you’re an Alpha. You’re a warrior. You've fought your way up from nothing." She paused, her voice dropping. "Have you killed someone before?"

​The silence that followed was heavy, filled only with the distant rustle of leaves. Fenris didn't blink. The answer was written in the way he carried his shoulders, in the scars on his chest, and in the century of history he carried.

​"Yes," he said finally.

​"Then I don't understand," Rhiannon whispered, shaking her head. "I don't think someone who has killed can pass through a Filter of the Pure. It should have turned you to ash. I made it so that no one who could hurt me could ever get inside."

​Fenris walked closer, stopping just outside her personal space. The warmth of the barrier was nothing compared to the heat radiating from him.

​"Maybe your barrier doesn't look at the blood on a man's hands," he said softly. "Maybe it looks at why the blood is there. Or maybe it looks at what a man does with his strength when the fighting is over."

​Rhiannon looked at the man who had spent a hundred years protecting the discarded, the man who had sat outside her door for two days just to keep her grounded. She looked at her own hands, still vibrating with the remnants of her magic.

​The barrier hadn't failed. It had simply recognized a protector.

​"Or maybe," she whispered, the realization sending a new kind of shiver through her, "you're a much better man than you've ever let yourself believe."