The Lord of Stariel

by A J Lancaster

  She paused to briefly touch her palm to a window. The glass was ice, cooling her hand instantly. The rainclouds of earlier had rolled away, leaving a clear, still night, and the glitter of stars spilled down on the terrace outside, washing everything in monochrome. Though she couldn’t see far in the darkness, through her land-sense she could sense the immensity of the estate lurking out there: people and farms and wild forests. How could any one person be responsible for so much?

  Perhaps she should ask Angus for advice on how to deal with Mr Fisk’s defection. But that would require talking to him—something she’d been putting off ever since Angus had semi-proposed in Alverness. I’ll talk to him after the Frost Faire, she promised herself. After this pretence is done with. If he still wanted to talk to her afterwards; he might not. The temporary state of her title was rubbing against her more and more.

  She drew closer to the tree. It was a fine specimen of its kind, precisely the right height for the room, branches well-spaced. It radiated green vitality, though it was, of course, dying. It had been propped into position with the aid of a brass tub filled with water and stones. Hetta knew that the smell of the dying pine would spread through the house over the coming weeks, as would its slow-shedding needles. Already a sprinkle of fine green lines lay scattered around its base.

  The tree was as yet undecorated, appearing oddly naked in its natural state. Hetta had reached out to brush the upright tip of one of the branches when the sound of a door opening made her turn. Even if the halo of white-blond hair hadn’t instantly identified the dimly lit figure, the way he moved with the slow, graceful precision of a heron would have.

  “They wanted to decorate it immediately, but I suggested they should wait for you.”

  Hetta rubbed one of the branches between her fingers, feeling the sticky pine resin cling to her fingers. “Thank you.” She hadn’t known it until she stood here, but she wanted to recapture that childhood memory. She’d always enjoyed decorating the tree.

  A brief silence fell, in which Wyn paused in his movement. “Gwendelfear has escaped. We hunted for her, Jack and I, but she has passed the bounds.”

  The words were so at odds with his quiet tone that it took Hetta a moment to process them. “How?” she asked eventually.

  He came closer. “I cannot be certain.”

  “But?”

  “I think she must have had help. Human help,” he qualified. “I set my own spells against fae intervention, and there were the iron bracelets as well. But my spells are intact and the door was not forced.”

  “Who had the keys?” Hetta asked, although she already knew the answer.

  “You. Me. Mr Fisk.”

  “I cannot think of any reason for Mr Fisk to be setting rogue fairies loose. Although I admit I don’t understand the man. He has, according to the bank manager, been stealing from the accounts.”

  “The tower key is missing from Mr Fisk’s set,” Wyn said. “Though the rest of the keys remain. I checked. Mr Fisk himself is absent, along with his most valuable possessions. The stationmaster said he got on a southbound train.” Wyn ran a hand through his hair, creating static between the fine strands, and gave a long sigh, full of frustration. It surprised but also pleased her, so rarely did he let himself express stress so obviously. “It seems I’ve failed in my duties. I’ve sent notices to the police in Greymark and Meridon of Mr Fisk, if he is seen there, but I do not have much hope of catching him without pursuing him in person.”

  “I don’t suppose we would get the money back even if we did catch him, though we might find out what he meant by releasing Gwendelfear. I didn’t think he was even aware of her imprisonment.”

  “Neither did I.” Wyn’s gaze turned inwards. “My spell-casting leaves something to be desired these days, it would appear. The glamour should have held against those who had not been directly told of her presence.”

  Here was confirmation of Hetta’s suspicions regarding the servants’ lack of curiosity about the Tower Room’s occupant. Disquiet rippled through her. Wyn saw it show in her expression and accepted it without comment, although a certain heaviness crept into his posture.

  Instinctively, she took a step towards him, shaking her head. “No, that was unfair of me. I knew what you were doing and gave my tacit approval. It was a sensible precaution. It would be the height of hypocrisy to reprimand you for it now.”

  Wyn’s lips curved slightly, and he inclined his head towards her. “My Star.” She knew she hadn’t undone the damage her inadvertent reaction had caused, but he shrugged and deliberately changed the subject. “In any case, shall we give chase to our escaped steward?”

  “No. He’s caused quite enough trouble already that we’ll have to manage. I say we wash our hands of him until and unless he emerges from whatever hideaway he’s burrowed into.” She examined his expression. “But that’s not the escape that worries you most.”

  His voice grew quieter. “No. I cannot predict what will happen when Gwendelfear reports Stariel’s affairs to DuskRose. I cannot decide whether it would be better for me to leave or not, whether my presence here will make the situation worse or if the aid I can offer weighs against that sufficiently.” His eyes met hers, dark with worry.

  “Don’t you dare leave, Your Highness.” A wisp of a smile crossed his face at the address. “And that’s an order. I’m already down a steward for the day. I can’t lose my butler and housekeeper as well.”

  He considered her with an inscrutable expression, then bowed his head. “My Star. If you wish it, I will stay until the lordship is confirmed, at least, and the boundaries back to full strength.” Hetta wanted to object but hadn’t figured out exactly which part of that statement she objected to most before he hurried on. “I had better check the defensive wards we placed.” He made as if to leave and then paused, turning back. “What will you do when the Star Stone is found?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose I shall endeavour to explain to my family why it is we need to re-choose a lord. That shouldn’t pose much difficulty, should it?”

  Wyn smiled. “I meant afterwards.”

  Hetta looked down at her feet. “I know you did.” She blew out a long sigh. “I don’t know. Everything seemed much simpler when I first arrived. I suppose I’ll go back to Meridon, see if Bradfield needs two illusionists.”

  “Of course.” Some inner debate took place, ruffling the smooth serenity of his countenance. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he asked, “Will you miss me, Hetta?”

  She looked up. It was a mistake. Their gazes locked. She stepped forward, or perhaps he did; she wasn’t sure except that suddenly her hands were hovering half an inch from Wyn’s chest. The warmth of him radiated across the space, the ghost of a touch.

  Wyn froze as her hand lifted, almost of its own volition. Her pulse roared in her ears, impossibly loud in the quiet of the ballroom. When she rested her fingers gently against his cheek, he shivered, as if she’d plucked a violin string and sent it thrumming, his skin scorching against her chilled, ungloved hand.

  The world quietened, became only the two of them and that single, feather-light point of contact. A sparking anticipation grew, flowing from Hetta’s fingertips and curving around the space between them, and Hetta knew it wasn’t only her own. Wyn’s pupils were blown wide, the black nearly swallowing the russet of his irises.

  And then Wyn jerked as if lightning-struck, stumbling back from her. His eyes were wide and unseeing. “No,” he said hoarsely.

  Hetta crossed her arms. “Well, you needn’t sound quite so appalled.”

  He blinked down at her in blank incomprehension, and Hetta began to feel alarmed rather than annoyed when he did not answer, a slow, unfocused horror rising in him that had nothing to do with her. At least, she hoped not.

  “Wyn? What’s wrong?”

  “I have to go. I have to stop it before it reaches the house.”

  “Stop what?”

  He was already moving, quick and focused as a blade, but he paus
ed before wrenching open one of the glass doors along the side of the ballroom. For a moment, he couldn’t hide his chief emotion: fear. “A draken. My father—King Aeros—has sent one for me. One of the winged beasts of ThousandSpire.”

  And then he was gone.

  32

  Draken

  For a long second, Hetta stayed frozen, staring at the open door through which Wyn had disappeared. Then she swore and began to sort through her thoughts with cold rationality, fear clamped down as tightly as a snowball compacted into ice. There was no time for anything else. Wyn had gone to face a monster, a monster that had been sent to kill him. A monster that very well might kill him and would then, very probably, turn to the rest of Stariel’s denizens.

  Hetta thought of the guns locked in the gunshed but abandoned the idea even as it occurred. Her father had held strong opinions concerning women and guns, and while this had only made Hetta more determined to learn, no one had been willing to risk his wrath to teach her. Marius disliked the noise and recoil of the weapons and disliked even more the blood and gore involved in hunting with them, and he hadn’t seen why anyone would want to know anything about them if they were not forced to. Jack had shared Lord Henry’s opinions about guns’ unsuitability for feminine hands. Hetta would be more danger to herself than any monster wielding such a weapon.

  The internal door opened, and Hetta whirled towards the sound. It was Jack. He came into the room bristling with suspicion and performed the briefest of double-takes at the sight of her. His shoulders came down a little.

  “Oh. Hetta. Has Wyn told you that—why are you standing here in the dark with the door open?”

  “Wyn just left through it,” Hetta said to him, as calmly as if they had all been taking tea together. Keeping the same matter-of-fact tone, she said, “It seems he felt something cross over the wards he placed. Some kind of monster is on its way to Stariel. Wyn has gone out after it, and I believe I must go after him.”

  “A monster? What kind of monster?” Through the ice that had formed up around her, she noted that Jack sounded alarmed rather than disbelieving.

  “A draken. Whatever that is. It doesn’t sound pleasant, does it?”

  “I’ll get my gun. Which way did he go?” Then he stared out through the open frame of the doorway and said, “South,” before she could answer.

  He’d reached for Stariel for direction, Hetta realised with a jolt, doing the same herself. She wasn’t expecting to feel anything, but to her surprise even she could feel something was wrong. Perhaps her land-sense was growing as she spent more time at Stariel. Or perhaps it was just a sign of how disturbed Stariel was by the threat. Something that should not be there was intruding, and Jack was right—it was southwards.

  She took a deep breath. “I’m going with you.” She jerked into motion. “We’d best not waste any more time.”

  Jack blinked at her. “You aren’t serious? This is no time for your dramatics. You’ve no part in this. Now, I need to go.” And he turned and strode away and out of the room. He’d intended to leave Hetta behind, but she followed him, though she had to trot a little to match his pace—Jack’s legs were longer than hers. The possibility that she would disobey him hadn’t crossed his mind, so he was both surprised and angry when he stopped in the entrance way to collect his coat and boots and found her right behind him.

  “Hetta! Don’t be stupid! And don’t try to tell me you know how to handle a gun, for I know well you don’t!”

  Hetta ignored him in favour of digging a battered but warm-looking overcoat out of the coat bay. She had no idea who it belonged to. Fortunately, Alexandra had left her walking boots downstairs since she’d managed to get them caked in mud on her last outing, and Hetta had the same sized feet. She pulled off her house slippers and began to lace them. Only when she’d finished did she look up, to find Jack glowering down at her.

  “You had best put your coat on, Jack. You’re wasting time.”

  “You’ll only get in the way,” Jack said brutally, grabbing his own coat with a snarl. “Do you want to get Wyn and me killed?”

  Hetta met his eyes coolly. “Trust me, I’ve no intention of getting anyone killed. And you’re right—I’ve no idea how to handle a gun and no intention to try under such circumstances as these. But you forget that I have another weapon at my disposal.” She focused her will and made a throwing motion. White-hot fire blossomed in her hand, and she hurled it at the door. It hit with a sizzle, leaving a black, smoking hole the size of a fist in the front door. With an effort, Hetta willed it to extinguish. Hetta was quietly impressed—she hadn’t actually intended it to be quite that big—but she maintained a nonchalant attitude in front of Jack. Control your emotions, she reminded herself. First principle of magic. Or at least, that was how it worked when casting finely crafted illusions. Hetta frowned at the hole in the door and wondered if pyromancy might be different, if all you wanted to do was make a lot of fire.

  Jack stared at the door, mouth agape. A strong, acrid smell of wood smoke filled the entryway, cold air rushing in through the hole.

  Abruptly she laughed. “Oh, you made me lose my temper. However am I going to explain why I’ve made a hole in the front door?”

  Jack still hadn’t moved, so Hetta prodded him sharply, jarring him into motion. He scowled. “This is a bad idea, but I don’t have time to argue. You do what I tell you—I won’t have you taking fright at exactly the wrong moment.” But he pulled on his boots and coat and didn’t try to further dissuade her.

  She could feel Jack’s disapproval as he made his way down to the gunshed and armed himself with quick, efficient movements.

  Hetta was perfectly happy to let Jack take the lead as they made their way along the edge of Starwater towards the southern forest. He handed her an elektric flashlight taken from the gunshed and availed himself of one also. Hetta didn’t remind him that she could make her own light, not sure she had the control required after that fireball.

  Along the edges of the lake, it would have been possible to make their way guided by starlight and moonlight alone, for the night was very clear and the moon was more than halfway to fullness. But once they were under the trees, they were glad for the torches.

  The native forests of Stariel were a mix of deciduous and evergreens, and the thick green needles of the evergreens muffled sounds. There wasn’t even the faint hooting of owls or the rustle of animals moving in the darkness. Everything felt caught in the same frozen stillness as Hetta, waiting for the axe to drop.

  Now that she was outside and concentrating on it, Hetta felt Stariel’s awareness as a weight on her mind. Jack didn’t need to tell her that he was leading them towards the centre of that sensation of wrongness. Hetta stretched out every nerve, hoping as they rounded each bend of the path along the lake edge that she would spy pale hair glinting in the starlight, but there was no sign of Wyn.

  The tension grew until Hetta felt that surely they must be nearly upon the monster. Just as she was about to risk opening her mouth to ask Jack, a screech pierced the night. The sound had something in keeping with an eagle’s cry, but no eagle was large enough to make a sound so loud. Or perhaps it was only because the sound came out of silence and echoed around the surrounding hills, off the water, through the trees, that it seemed so unnatural. The sound came again, and Hetta struggled to find a direction for it. Then she saw that Jack was looking up. She followed his gaze and gasped.

  The draken was visible only as a darker shape against the midnight blue of the sky. It was difficult to judge its size, but Hetta thought that it was larger than a carthorse—perhaps larger than several carthorses. Two sets of great feathery black wings stretched wide, and the creature shrieked again. Hetta realised that the sound was a battle cry, directed at its attacker.

  For the draken wasn’t alone in the sky. A much smaller shape swerved around it, darting in here and there, occasionally inflicting some small wound but for the most part barely managing to keep out of reach of the creature�
��s claws and fangs. The smaller figure was man-shaped, with wings that were far more visible than the draken’s, silvery white under the stars, the same as the figure’s hair.

  “Wyn,” Hetta whispered.

  Jack didn’t appear to have heard her. He swore. “The idiot will get himself killed.” He shook his head and raised his gun to his shoulder.

  Hetta had no time to reflect on how strangely unsurprised Jack was to see their butler appearing in so decidedly inhuman a fashion. “No!” she cried. “You’ll hit him!”

  “Damned if I will.” Jack took a careful line of sight. “I’m a better shot than you give me credit for.”

  Hetta wasn’t willing to take that chance. “Wyn!” she screamed at the sky. “Get down!”

  She wasn’t sure he would hear her from below, but the figure faltered in his frantic dance. The startled pause was his undoing. The draken gave a roar of triumph as it caught one of Wyn’s wings in its claws. Hetta’s heart rose to her throat as Wyn managed to pull himself free, but he was wounded, his movements jerky. He did not fall to the ground so much as crumple towards it, a one-winged butterfly.

  Jack fired the gun. The crack of it rang in Hetta’s ears, the burst of flame temporarily leaving her night-blind. The creature shrieked, but when Hetta’s eyes adjusted, she saw that it didn’t appear to be wounded. Instead, it shifted its attention to Hetta and Jack and beat its wings towards them.

  Hetta had time only for one quick, startled breath before it hit the ground where they had been with a thud and an irritated snarl at being denied its prey. Jack had had far better reflexes and had shoved Hetta out of the way, following her to the hard ground.