The Changeling Child by E.D. Walker

Author:E.D. Walker [Walker, E.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: EDW Books
Published: 2016-08-22T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

“Mary, it’s a horse.” A fine horse, to be sure, with a well-arched neck and powerful hindquarters. Sixteen hands high, he possessed a glossy black hide and startlingly blue eyes, but still…clearly a horse. Perhaps incidents like this were why they called the midwife Mad Mary in the village. Beatrice cast a questioning glance back at Llewellyn, but he merely shrugged.

“It’s a kelpie.” Mary clucked her tongue at the magician, looking smug, and took a bridle off its peg. “Here, my lady.”

The horse, meanwhile, watched their exchange closely, tension in every line of his sleek muscles.

As her fingers touched the bridle, a voice erupted suddenly inside Beatrice’s head. “GIVE IT TO ME.”

She staggered, nearly dropping the bridle, and stared wide-eyed at the horse, whose eyes seemed to burn into hers now. “That voice…”

The horse nickered and tossed his head, and the strange voice sounded inside her head again. “Give it to me, sweet lady, kind lady.”

Beatrice gasped as she recognized the fairy’s voice. The taunting one from last night.

Mary took the bridle from her and slid the leather straps through her palms. In his stable stall, the horse-fairy snorted with impatience, pushing against the stall door.

“He’s a kelpie, my lady,” Mary said. “A water horse. He tried to drown me tonight, but I cut his bridle off in time and trapped his power. Now he’s stuck as a horse, and he must do what I say.”

Beatrice tilted her head, a spark firing inside her. Hope. Or maybe just the potential for hope. “Or what I say?”

“If you hold his bridle, my lady, yes.”

Beatrice lifted the leather straps out of Mary’s hand again and rubbed the material between her thumb and forefinger. “Magician?”

Llewellyn startled guiltily and eased back from the kelpie, whom he’d been studying. Llewellyn held the changeling child, and Beatrice fought back a jolt of disappointment. She kept forgetting—letting herself forget—that the baby wasn’t really her son. Which made it worse every time to remember.

“My lady?” Llewellyn prompted her gently as he shifted the changeling’s wiggling weight in his arms.

Beatrice tilted her chin back and straightened her spine for courage. “Magician, you believe that an assault on the fairy mound would be useless? We’d waste lives and ultimately fail at rescuing my son anyway.”

“Yes, my lady.” Llewellyn opened his mouth, then closed it, scowling. “Would you consider the lives wasted if we did get your son back?”

Mary hissed in outrage.

Beatrice met his stare, unflinching, and felt a smile twist on her lips. “You know the ruthless bent in my blood. I would waste lives like water and laugh at the cost if it would get my son back.” Beatrice waved her hand through the air, ignoring Mary’s wide-eyed stare. “But that doesn’t matter. We must come up with a better plan that will actually work. And we must do it before my husband brings the wrath of our Good Neighbors down on this countryside.”

“I can help.” The fairy-horse sidled over to the door of his stall and whuffled in her direction.

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