Page 35 of Ties of Bargains

Juggling her plate while still fending off Daisy, Valtook the flask and popped the cap off with her thumb. She tipped the flask back and took a swig.

A taste that was both sweet and tart coated her tongue from the juice, a refreshing sensation that paired well with the cheese.

Val lowered the flask. “What is that? It’s really good as well.”

“Cassis. A drink made from black currants.” Harm’s grin now sparkled in his blue eyes as he stuck another bite of cheese in his mouth, as if he was enjoying sharing these bits of his home with her.

“I like it.” Val resisted the urge to down another swig and instead nibbled a bite of cheese, trying to savor it.

Food in the Fae Realm didn’t usually have such complexity of flavor. It was all sweet or all tart or all sour, and usually to the extreme, like everything here in the Fae Realm.

Try as she might to make the cheese last, Val was soon down to her last two bites. She ate one piece, then held out the last piece to the now drooling Daisy. Daisy nearly took Val’s fingers off as she snapped it up, gulping down the cheese so fast the dog probably hadn’t even tasted it.

With one more sip of cassis, Val capped the flask. Enough companionable sharing around the fire. They should turn in for the evening and remember that once morning came, they would be back to being a package and delivery mercenary, nothing more.

Chapter Twelve

After the time he’d spent in the Fae Realm, Harm shouldn’t be shocked as he and Val stepped from the lush green moss shaded by towering trees into crisp air and fields with waving cornstalks ready for harvest, a stark contract marking the boundary of the courts.

“Do you ever get used to that?” Harm halted, gaping at the fields bursting with ripe vegetables in a variety of strange colors and shapes. “The abrupt changes between the Courts?”

Val’s mouth pressed into a tight line, her face especially hard. “No.”

After the moment around the fire sharing cheese and cassis, Val had woken in a foul mood, going all prickly once again.

It was getting rather frustrating.

Perhaps she was right. He shouldn’t be trying so hard and should just see her as his captor and enemy as much as the one who held his bargain.

Daisy bounded off to sniff around the fields and each of the ripe vegetables.

Harm reached for one of the vegetables that was cerulean and shaped like an eggplant. “These are really strange.”

“Don’t pick anything.” Val halted and glared. “Don’t even touch them. We’re not a part of the Harvest Court, so we don’t have permission to pick anything. We’ll bring down the wrath of the nuckelavee if we do.”

“What are the nuckelavee? You’ve mentioned them before.” Harm fell into step with Val as they followed what seemed to be a meandering path between the plants. Unlike the farm fields back home, which were planted in straight lines, these fields were all higgledy-piggledy with no set rows and plants growing in various clumps. Haphazard seemed to be the organizational style of choice here in the Fae Realm.

“Monstrous creatures that are part nightmare horse that eats meat and part a headless rider perched on its back. Except that horse and rider are one, and both bodies are formed of rotting flesh.” Val didn’t even break her stride as she described the horrible thing. “They’re monsters, technically, but monsters of this court rather than monsters belonging to the Realm of Monsters. The nuckelavee guard these fields, especially at night.”

“Charming.” Harm gave a vegetable growing into the path a wide berth. He didn’t want to accidentally call the nuckelavee down on them. “Are you sure cutting through the Harvest Court is safer than the Court of Sand?”

“Yes.” Val’s jaw worked. “That court has sand dragons—those are animal dragons that spit venom—thunderbirds, and giant snakes. That’s not even counting the shifting sands where the barrier between the realms is so thin you could stumble into the Realm of Monsters without even meaning to do so. Monsters stumble out just as easily. Oh, and it’s abominably hot.”

“Right. Yes, the Harvest Court is better.” Harm rested his hand on the hilt of his new sword.

Val just sent him another sour look and kept walking.

Apparently she wasn’t in a talkative mood.

They walked in silence for several miles, the fields around them never seeming to change all that much. Occasionally Harm caught a glimpse of smallfeeënwith gray-brown skin. They trundled between the fields, pushing wheelbarrows laden with vegetables. Brownies, Val called them.

The path took them into a field of dry and rustling stalks of corn, stretching for as far as Harm could see. The tassels of the cornstalks were level with his head, even with his height, while every stalk held several plump ears of orange-colored corn.

Val halted so abruptly that Harm nearly ran into her. She reached behind her and gripped his arm painfully tight.

“What is it?” Harm kept his voice low, even as he scanned the area. All he could see was corn and a single scarecrow on a pole. It wasn’t dressed in clothes but was formed of bundles of straw tied together with twine, a round orange vegetable for a head.

Val crouched so that the corn fully hid her, dragging Harm down next to her. When she spoke, her lips barely moved with her whisper. “Scarecrow.”

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