As the sun slowly drifted towards the horizon in the western sky, Willow's mood darkened more and more. She was not used to riding and had given up on sitting astride Colm's gray cob after only an hour, but her thighs still ached from the effort. So she plodded forward, down the narrow track, lagging behind the two men who rode on horseback. Every once in a while Colm would turn back as if to confirm that she was still there, but other than that, the group continued on in silence.

The familiar fields and farms had faded behind them much earlier in the afternoon. At first the thrill of new sights had excited Willow despite the aching in her legs, but she found herself already missing her little cottage with the thatched roof and the soot-blackened fireplace.

It was a blessed relief when Sir Ardál pulled his horse to a stop alongside a stream and announced that they would be camping there for the night.

Willow half-sat, half-fell to the ground, rubbing the inside of her legs as her aching muscles screamed in protest. She wanted to moan, to ask the knight how if there were really four more days ahead of them, but her mother's words echoed in her mind. "Be brave." So Willow did not complain.

No sooner had Sir Ardál dismounted from his horse that Colm was there to tend to it. Willow admired him from her position on the ground; he was swift and sure, and both horses were hobbled and enjoying a feast of spring grass in a matter of minutes.

"Are all squires as good with horses as you?" she asked as he rested the saddles on the ground near her.

Colm began rubbing down the saddles, brushing the dust and sweat of the day off them with a gentle swishing sound. "No, not really," he replied. "Sir Ardál bought me from a horse trader years back, so I know my way around them. Plus I like horses."

Willow watched him intently, studying the way his hands moved over the saddle and into each nook and crevice, clearing out the dirt and sweat of the day's journey. She had felt the calluses on his fingers when she had held his hand in her own and taken away the whitethorn's cut. Her finger traced lightly over the tiny injury, already fading away into nothingness, on her thumb. It had been a simple fix, just a brief twinge of pain when the skin on her thumb opened, but she was glad that she had helped him.

He glanced up at her, and Willow smiled cheerfully in response. "You seem like you've done that a fair few times," she chirped happily.

"A-a few," the squire stuttered, his cheeks flushing as his gaze fell back on the saddles.

If this is the kind of thrilling conversation we're going to be having, I'll have to find some other way to entertain myself, Willow thought with a sigh. Though maybe he's still recovering from being sick earlier.

"Do you want any help? I've not cleaned saddles before, but I'm happy to try," she said.

But Colm just shook his head in reply, the soft swish, swish of the cloth against the saddle leather continuing on in a soothing rhythm.

"Do most knights get their squires from horse traders?" Willow asked, tilting her head to the side. It seemed like a useful skill for a squire to have. After all, everyone knew that knights rode on horseback, and a squire who could care for the knight's horses well would be a valuable asset. She had never thought about it exactly in those terms before, but she supposed that it made quite a lot of sense.

"Most squires are noble's sons," Sir Ardál replied while Colm put down the chestnut mare's saddle and moved to his own, smaller saddle.

The knight sat on the ground a few meters away from them, his gaze fixed firmly on the stream in front of him. He pulled off his brown leather boots and sighed in relief.

It's been a long journey for them, Willow realized. They've already been riding for days. She wondered at the idea that anyone could sit astride a horse for a whole day, let alone several. Every time she shifted her weight on the grassy ground, her thighs ached in a reminder of the single hour she had ridden the gray cob.

The pain was no match for her curiosity, though, so she plowed ahead with her questions. "How do they arrange that? I mean, what is it that's so good about noble's sons?"

"Knights take them on as squires to train them up, and in exchange, the nobles offer them patronage. That is, they might support the knight financially, even in times of peace," the knight explained. "Then the lads know how to fight if another war comes, or at the least they know discipline and strategy. Most of them become knights themselves, if they're not worthless. And it's a good way for the nobles to get rid of extra sons that they don't have enough land for."

"Then why don't you have a noble's son for a squire?" Willow asked. She paused for a moment, tilting her head again as she pondered further. "And does that mean that you're a noble's son who became a knight?"

Ardál grunted as he pulled the heavy woolen socks from his feet and wiggled his toes in the fresh evening air. "I've no interest in training anyone to do anything, and I certainly have no interest in lands and favors from nobles. Their sons are grasping fools, always looking for a way to move up in the world. I'll not be a rung on anyone's ladder to be stepped on."

Willow nodded as if she understood, but the questions continued on in her mind. A rung on someone's ladder? What ladder were these people climbing, and why would a knight be a step on it if knights were supposed to get favors from nobles? It was all a bit too much, so she sat silently and ruminated. At any rate, it was clear that from the knight's tone that he was not keen to answer any more questions about his past, so it was best not to pry.

There was little conversation for the rest of the night, other than for when Sir Ardál made Colm give his bedroll to Willow. And even that had not been much of a discussion; the squire had acquiesced immediately and had set out the horse blankets on the ground to use instead.

Things will be better in the morning, Willow thought. Her aches and pains would fade by then, and perhaps Colm would be in a better mood to answer her questions.

The thin bedroll offered little comfort on the hard ground, and Willow tossed and turned for some time as she tried to find a comfortable position. Her back ached when she tried to lay flat, but the ground dug painfully into her hips when she tried to lay on her side.

Sleep had never come easily to Willow even in the best of conditions. She'd been a fussy baby, her mother said, always late to fall asleep and late to wake up, and that had continued even as she'd grown older. "The world sings at night," she'd told her mother once. Her mother hadn't understood, so Willow hadn't explained any further; hadn't told her that the soft song of the wind in the trees and the flight of the owls was only discernible at night. By day, the moon and the stars quieted and fell silent under the sun's watchful gaze. It was only when the daylight began to fade from the sky that the gentle melody returned.

Well, perhaps it's less beautiful some nights, Willow thought with a smile as gentle snores began to emanate from the pile of horse blankets where Colm slept.

She struggled out of the bedroll and sat up, stretching her arms towards the stars. They looked no different here than they did at home; a little dimmer, perhaps, but that was surely due to clouds.

Ardál sat with his back to the two of them, facing the narrow path. Willow couldn't see his face, but his shoulders tensed as she yawned and stretched again. "Does he snore like this every night?" she asked him in a whisper.

He grunted in return, not turning to face her. "You should be asleep."

Willow stood up and stretched again. "He's too noisy and it's too early. Mother says I'm a night owl." She heard him let out a small sound—a laugh, maybe?

"I can keep guard if you want to sleep," Willow offered. Her bare feet padded across the grass until she came alongside the knight and crouched down beside him. "That's what you're doing, right? Keeping guard?"

He didn't answer for many moments, to the point where Willow would have thought he had fallen asleep if not for his eyes flicking up and down the stretch of road. They had passed only one other traveler on the little path the whole afternoon, and she doubted that anyone would be passing by at this time of night. But if the knight wanted someone to keep watch, then Willow was happy to oblige.

"I promised her I would keep you safe," he answered, so long after the question that Willow had almost forgotten what she had asked. "Part of that means keeping watch."

"But you have to sleep at some point. Squire over here clearly can't be trusted to stay awake." She nodded towards Colm's bedroll. "Here," she suggested, adjusting herself to sit cross-legged on the ground beside the knight. "I'll keep you company. I have a lot of questions to ask, anyways. If you don't mind, I mean."

Ardál grunted, eyes flicking up and down the road again. "You should be more like the boy," he grumbled. "He never asks questions."

"Is that because you never answer them?"

The knight sighed heavily. "You're as difficult as your mother, if no one's ever told you that before."

"That's not an answer to the question, you know," Willow replied with a smile. "Would you answer some of them? I do have a lot of things I want to know, and I think it's only fair of you to answer my questions given that I've agreed to come with you when I could have said no."

The words were false bravado; Willow knew she could not have said "no." The lure of adventure had been too tempting to resist. But Sir Ardál sighed and nodded, and Willow's grin widened in triumph.

"When did you first meet my mother, then?" she asked. It was a simple question to start with, one that wouldn't make him rescind his offer.

"A long time ago," he answered, his voice low against the wind rustling in the grass. "Before you were born. Before the Fae Battles."

Willow nodded. "I thought so. I don't remember you, and I certainly would have remembered a knight who came to visit." She paused, trying to choose her next question carefully. "But you were in the Fae Battles, right?"

Ardál turned his head away, staring so intently down the road that Willow was certain he must have seen something. She leaned forward, squinting into the darkness, but there was nothing there. He's avoiding the question, she realized.

"My mother told me about the war between the humans and the fae," she pushed, her eyes fixed on Ardál.

His shoulders tensed, but he still did not turn to look at her. "What did she tell you?" His voice was quieter now.

Willow shrugged. "Only the usual things, I think. The nymphs were upset because the men of the kingdom were chopping down the forests they lived in. The forests were shrinking and shrinking, and the nymphs were too timid to fight back even though their homes were being destroyed. So the fae, they rose up and protected the woods. An army of the fae and the nymphs even tried to go to the castle to demand a truce, but King Odhran beat them back and sent out knights to kill any survivors from the other races. And that's why the nymphs all live out beyond the edges of the kingdom in the Wildnerness, and why there aren't any fae left at all."

"That's a fair recollection. But it's a bit different from the way they tell it in the kingdom." His tone had shifted; Willow wished to see his expression, but he kept his face turned away from her, staring down the narrow road.

"Would you tell me the story, then?" she asked. "If you're not too tired."

Sir Ardál nodded, then nodded again. "Aye," he finally said. "It's an important thing to hear. But I'll only tell it the once, so you had best remember it well."

Willow smiled broadly and crossed her legs over one another, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. "I'll listen carefully," she promised.

Ardál cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and began.

--

Not that long ago, perhaps only a few generations back, men and nymphs lived in peace. The men stayed in the kingdom, and the nymphs--the wood fairies as some called them--stayed in their forest homes.

And the fae, who had once ruled the lands through corruption and fear, had long since disappeared from the lands. The armies of men had defeated the fae three centuries prior in the Great Wars, and peace had reigned ever since. It was rumored that they still lived in the mountains to the north, but that was more a story used by mothers to scare their children into obedience; "Go to sleep now, for the fae walk in the shadows and steal away children who roam outside at night."

The nymphs were a peaceful race; they lived happily in their own simple way in the forest. They had no rulers or kingdom like the humans have, and lived simple lives hunting and gathering berries or herbs in the forest. They would venture out from the woods from time to time, though, to trade goods and knowledge with the humans who lived nearer the forests.

Some naïve women even fell in love with nymph men and bore them children, but as everyone knows, the nymphs were thoughtless, flighty creatures who cared nothing for the women and would abandon both their human lovers and their unborn children. The human men who were seduced by the nymph women would awaken to find little half-nymph babies on their doorsteps some months later, for it is said that even the bonds of motherhood did not bind them to their children.

But as the kingdom grew more and more prosperous, humankind's need for land grew. So they began to fell the forests that the nymphs called home. The farmers were peaceful and friendly, and only cleared the forest for farmland when it was necessary. But the wood nymphs, who have no homes and no borders, refused to give up even the smallest parts of their forests. The men tried to explain that the kingdom was growing and people were starving for want of food, but the nymphs refused to move. This angered the king greatly, for the forests stretched for hundreds of miles out into the Wilderness, and the nymphs could have moved there easily and left more land for the farmers. But nonetheless, they refused.

The most heavily-forested part of the kingdom was owned by the Duke of Redwood, a distant cousin and close ally of the old king. The Duke set his son Padraig to organize the relocation of the nymphs and the clearing of the lands. Padraig was a kind and bright young man, more scholar than soldier, and he sought to relocate the nymphs as peacefully as possible before clearing the land. He even went so far as to offer the nymphs farms and orchards in the newly-cleared areas, but his generous offers were rebuffed.

The nymphs then turned to violence. They were a simple folk, equipped only with bows for hunting small game and coats of leaves to blend in with the forest, but they began to use their stealth to kill in cold blood any men who set foot inside their forests. In response, the king was forced to send soldiers to support Padraig and the duke. They began the gargantuan task of felling every tree in the Redwoods, and killing every nymph who refused to move out of the kingdom's lands.

It was then that the fae, mostly forgotten by men and nymphs, saw their chance for revenge against the kingdom. They had been lurking in the inhospitable mountains, stewing in their hatred and savoring the grudges they had long held.

They came down from their mountain lands with magic honed in the fires of hatred and rage; the most skilled sorcerers could stop a man's heart with a single word and send him to sleep eternal. They brought their dark magic and their leadership to the nymphs, who were scattered and disorganized, and together formed a mighty force that drove back the men with magic and blood.

The most dangerous of all the fae was their queen Riane, beautiful but cruel, with hair as black as night and eyes as gray as steel. She rode astride Horella, a great dappled grey horse with a silver mane and flashing orange eyes, and where his hooves touched the ground, grasses died and crumbled away into dust. Riane could fight with a sword, but preferred the poison-tipped daggers that she could slip under an enemy's ribs in the dead of night, for she was as cunning and deceptive as any of her fae soldiers.

The Fae Queen met with Padraig, the Duke's son, under the guise of a treaty, for he still sought to bring peace between the humans and nymphs. In his innocence and honor, he trusted her, but she granted him no mercy in exchange for his kindness. Instead, she slew him with her poisoned blades, and her warriors fell upon Padraig's men in a bloodlust, until not one human in the camp was left alive.

The horde of nymphs and fae turned towards the King in his stronghold, marching for days from the forests in Redwood. They torched and destroyed any houses or farms they passed, stealing food from the innocent and leaving only enough survivors to flee and spread tales of the horror they had witnessed. And through it all, Riane rode at the front of her forces, black hair blowing in the wind, a curse for the king on her lips.

----

Willow sat with her eyes transfixed on Ardál as he paused. She suddenly realised she had been holding her breath, which she let out in a soft sigh as she waited for him to continue the story.

Another loud snore came from Colm's pile of horse blankets, and the knight shifted his weight from one side to the other, the intensity fading from his eyes.

"And what did the queen do then?" Willow prodded, urging him onward. "Did she curse the king?" Queen Riane sounded terrifying but magnificent, something that Willow could only imagine. She had seen pictures of knights in the few precious books her mother owned, but they were all men. A woman with eyes as gray and sharp as a sword, riding on a horse whose hooves destroyed leaves underfoot... It sent shivers down Willow's spine, though she was not sure if it was from excitement or fear.

But Ardál had once again fallen silent. One loud snore had been enough to ruin the moment and stop the story. She fought the urge to be angry at Colm; after all, she had just resolved to be kinder to him, and he could hardly help it if he snored. She wished, however, that the fable had continued.

"Ah," the knight continued softly. "She made it to the castle but one of the king's knights struck her down and killed her before she could reach him, and the rest of her forces scattered. Yet before she died, she cursed the king's family with unhappiness and misery for the rest of their lives."

A disappointing ending; Willow had somehow hoped the queen had lived. And how was one supposed to be cursed with misery? "And what happened to the Duke of Redgrove, after his son Padraig died?"

Ardál's eyes flicked up and down the road again. The spell was certainly broken; his attention was elsewhere. "Redwood. The Duke of Redwood. The story says he was killed by Fae Queen Riane, and as Padraig was his only son, his lands became the king's property. The Redwood family is gone from the kingdom, just like the forests that once stood on their lands."

"I... I guess that makes sense." Willow had never considered the intricacies of noble land ownership before. "Did he not have any daughters, or any brothers or cousins or anyone else who would rule it?"

Ardál sighed, drawing his attention from the road back to Willow. "I'm just a knight, girl. I don't own any lands or titles to leave anyone. And things like that, things that don't concern me, I don't bother with. You'll have to ask elsewhere." The tone of his voice suggested clearly that there would be no more discussing the matter.

Willow stretched her arms above her head and yawned. The stars had shifted in the sky since Ardál had begun speaking; an hour, perhaps, had passed. She hadn't realized the air growing colder or the stiffness in her legs.

"You can go to sleep," he said. "We have more long days ahead of us."

Willow sighed softly, resting her forehead on her knees and closing her eyes. Sleep had crept up on her unexpectedly, and she would not be able to resist for much longer.

The stars shone down on them; Willow could hear them calling, whispering something to her, but the knight's heavy breathing and Colm's gentle snores drowned them out. She opened her eyes, but not to look at the stars. She only looked at Ardál, his expression unreadable in the darkness. One last question, she decided.

"The knight who slew the Fae Queen. It was you, wasn't it?"

Sir Ardál laughed. The sound was harsh against the soft rustle of the leaves in the wind. "Aye. It was me who killed her. And I only wish I'd done it faster."

Willow nodded and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, bringing her forehead back to rest on top of her forearms. The answer made her sad, though she was not sure why.

She tried to listen to the night, but it was nearly silent now. It shushed her gently to sleep, and she dreamed she was the Queen Riane, riding bravely to the castle with hair as black as night and eyes as silver as the moon.