by Jean Lee
Dorjan tongues a hunk of flesh into the side of his cheek like a squirrel. “So now it’s all about getting Arlen to can again. Nothing like a jar of Arlen’s peaches warmed over the fire on a cold winter’s night. Bit of brown sugar—”
“What in the FUCK are you two doing here?”
Dorjan and Liam stop at the edge of the dead river. Liam drops his unfinished peach onto the riverbed, stirring the dust. One of the water road’s old currents reflects the light—such an innocent looking cord above ground, a thread of sunshine. But when the peach rolls upon it, the cord snaps around it, burning its essence until its pit is but a small pebble on the riverbed.
On the other side of the dead river stands Keller, fur and dust fleeing his squared shoulders. He still wears his suit from last night, rumpled and stained green. His gaze could frost like a Celestine’s hand.
He wanted to take Charlie from me.
The pecks of yesterday return beneath Liam’s skin: his jaw snaps like an eagle’s beak, craving a competitor’s blood before it can dare approach his mate. He leaps across the dead river, legs curled under him, arms stretched. Keller’s jaw burns white, his arms growing into bear legs—but Liam is faster, landing on Keller’s shoulders and headbutting his brother before somersaulting off.
“Let’s not be late, Cousin,” Dorjan says as he leaps across, scrumping a few apples as he goes.
So Liam walks on, leaving Keller to shake the blurred world out of his head. He is but one target, and not the prime one.
The cousins exit the clearing just as the sun begins its climb above the treeline. Everything is still a wet mess from the night before: the crack Liam made in the earth, the frostbitten grass of Celestine footprints not yet melted by sunlight. Bearnard waves his arms about in the clearing’s center, surely telling his own dramatic fiction of the night to two men of rigid stature, pristine haircuts, and polished shoes.
Liam hates them immediately.
Treasa stands before Rose House, still closed off, it seems, for she scolds a graying woman draped in lilac for attempting to peek through a window. Darra sits by the matrignis, sumptuous and tragic in her wedding dress among the roses studded with jeweled rain. Yet there’s a rotting smell from those roses, cut and neglected too long. And for all the beauty of Darra’s painted eyes and lips, Liam cannot shake the vile nature she revealed last night.
Vincent leans against the library wall of Rose House with a carafe, one eye freshly blackened. He sits next to a disheveled, grizzly gentleman, more grey than blond, eyes large and watery.
Dorjan’s blue eye turns cold. “That bastard showed up.” He cracks his neck. “Of course, kiss-ass he is.”
Liam watches the man take a swig, barely smile. He’s gaunt, like Arlen, but there’s a jitteriness to him that smacks of an unhealthy life.
Dorjan’s ear twitches, green eye flashes.
One branch snaps behind them.
Warning enough.
Liam bends away just as Keller emerges mid-leap from the trees. Liam grabs Keller’s coat and throws, but Keller clamps down on Liam’s wrist before he can release. They flip and roll together in a whirlwind of dust, fur, feathers—Keller’s face transforms and Liam grabs his maw, nearly cracking it apart—Liam’s legs transform, and talons rake Keller’s belly—Keller’s arms transform and slam down upon Liam’s chest—
“Enough!” Treasa flicks her ringed hand at them, and the ring’s shriek yanks the brothers apart.
50
Damned Family Ties
Arlen and Charlotte move as quick as they can through Rose House’s tall, narrow tunnel, fingers on the wall to feel their way onward. After a couple minutes, a thin line of light outlines the trap door in the tunnel’s ceiling.
Arlen holds a single finger to his lips. Charlotte nods. Both reach out with all their senses but receive little in return. No movement on the floor. Multiple voices, distant—outside, like as not. Cowslips and mint.
The two slink out of the trap door.
Ho-lee SHIT. Liam did this?! Charlotte stares with Arlen, awed. From the top shelf of the second floor to the bottom floor’s, well, floor, the library is covered with woven cowslip flowers. Tears in the weaving show where the Artairs and Alerons must have been caught and eventually freed. The intensity of so many yellow blossoms makes Charlotte blink, and the smell is still very sweet, dreamy—they both have to shake the wooziness from their heads.
Arlen crouch-walks towards the stems, fingers gingerly feeling along them while Charlotte presses her hand back on the trap door. This is amazing, Rose House, but we need the second floor. I don’t want to risk getting caught in this net, please! She opens the trap door again and finds herself looking down at her lucky bathroom. YES thank you.
A slight tap on the floorboards—Charlotte whips around to see Arlen, knuckle poised above the floor. He nods at her bone knife. Charlotte pads over, gives it to him, then heads to the trap door and drops herself in.
The flowers are not in this room, thank goodness, so Charlotte’s able to pee and splash water over her head. Arlen drops in, face dark with anger. They hurry to what once was Arlen’s quarters, and lock the door behind them.
Two rooms, almost bare. One has a small stone fireplace, the other, a battered wooden trunk trimmed with iron.
Arlen kneels before the trunk. “I’m sure I have Rose House to thank for this surviving the Incomplete and Artairs both,” he says as his hands slide along the worn surface.
Charlotte can’t get a read on his smell just now—it’s a weird mix of excitement, fear, rage, resentment. “Why cut the cowslip net downstairs?”
“Because…” Arlen uses Charlotte’s knife to knick the center of his palm and presses it upon the metal. The trunk cracks open. He hands back the knife. “…Liam’s working should have held.” He pulls a clump of the tangled flowers from his pocket. “Someone broke through enough of the stems to weaken the spell around one princeborn, and that princeborn then tore the others free.”
“You mean like Darra’s human pets?”
Arlen lifts back the trunk lid. Breathes deep. Looks at Charlotte. “A human could not have stayed conscious long enough.”
The Voice in Charlotte’s heart shivers. But a scout...
Charlotte remembers Liam and Arlen after they left the lake yesterday, discussing the Artairs arrival. Someone had to tell the Artairs Liam woke up.
Someone is still helping the Artairs.
A traitor.
Arlen hands Charlotte a small folded tapestry of man, woman, and a baby. The age of the thread sets Charlotte’s fingertips humming.
A family portrait.
Been a while since she’d seen one. Held one. Sat in one.
Her eyes sting. “They’re beautiful.”
Arlen does not respond. He stares at what had been laying beneath.
A blood dagger.
Charlotte knows it even before he pulls the blade out of its half-sheath, a short sword of bronze engraved with a vine of thorned roses. “You said we only had one blood dagger.”
“I said one tested dagger.” Arlen gives a quick smirk. Stands, belts it on. “This blade’s not known blood since Rome sent its armies to Britain. I found my father’s stone ring…cleaner, for a time.”
“Oh.” Daaaamn. Charlotte carefully sets the tapestry back into the trunk and closes it. “You don’t transform into a fiery rose bush, do you?”
Arlen gives her a wry look and heads for the second-floor landing. Charlotte follows. Stops.
Someone’s fighting outside.
The shocked silence sends Bearnard into a cacophony of harrumphs and croaks as he barrels over to his son. “Liam! Liam, we all thought you dead! You fought so bravely against the Celestine to protect us!” Indeed, his scarlet pinstripe suit bestows a deeply mournful look on the man.
“True love’s sacrifice to save his beloved bride.” The words might have been poetic, had Treasa’s teeth not gnarled each one before they left her mouth. She’s dressed like a summer
breeze, her blue dress hemmed with small orange stones like wildflowers. Or flames, Liam isn’t sure which.
“Even Lann and Idaeus agree that now is time for princeborns to form their own hunting parties and bring those pompous bastards off their celestial perches,” Bearnard waves at the two men. The taller of the two strokes a beard the likes of which any Viking raider would present with pride, while the other, olive-skinned and lithe, takes one absurdly long finger to gently stroke the wing of a small orange bird upon his shoulder as it quietly sings.
In Mawdre.
Bearnard gapes at the little creature. How quickly his memory fails him! “Is that…” Liam can almost forgive his inability to remember—Devyn’s mad screeching from the tree is enough to drive Darra to crack her picturesque face with a grimace.
Liam rolls into a casual stance between Bearnard and his cronies. “The star-folk found us too boring to kill, I’m afraid,” he says with a shrug, hand tucked into his pocket, “so Cousin Dorjan”—Dorjan takes a bite of apple and waves—" and I took a stroll through the orchards. Really very pretty. Anyone care to—?” he thumbs towards the orchards over his shoulder.
Brutus Aleron shifts away from Lann and Idaeus. He slumps in his crumpled brown suit, and his shoes are not polished. Surely an old buzzard more than a hawk.
The grizzled man by Vincent staggers to his feet, his leather jacket so thin it’s got a few holes in the front. Dorjan glares at him but says nothing.
“Then today is a day of miracles,” Darra says. Pink blossoms below her cheek bones as she rights her grimace into a demure smile. Her eyelashes bat modestly beneath pinned raven tresses. “My love was taken but has returned. Now we can be wed for the prosperity of our Houses.”
“Finally.” The lilac woman uses her sweeping skirts to hide her shuffle as best she can. “I didn’t walk the water road all the way from Scotland for mere warmongering.”
“It is not ‘mere warmongering.’” Treasa’s ring sparks as she gestures to one of the salvaged earthen seats. “It is time, Marciane, for Velidevour to take their rightful place in the cosmos.” She bows to Bearnard, who in turn bows to Lann and Idaeus—
“Oooooh, a ride! Me first me first me first!” Poppy leaps as a mouse and lands as a girl squarely upon Bearnard’s back. Her hair flies wildly as Bearnard spits curses and spins beneath her, his fat arms unable to reach back and pull her off. “Hi, I’m Poppy! What’s your name?” They almost spin smack into Lann as she says, “I think I’ll call you Bushy, and you,” she points to Idaeaus as Ember flies off, “Dead Meat because Devyn’s reeeeally mad you touched Ember like that cuz there’s rules on touching and you can’t touch wings or paws cuz they’re really fragile even though I fell from a tree three times and never broke a bone and the trees here are so pretty and they have fruit and did you know fruit juice makes sand stick to skin AND paws and sandy juice is really yucky like when I tried to—”
A shriek then a squeak: and Poppy rolls off Bearnard’s back, shaking. Treasa’s ring hand remains high in the air, sparking. The sound and power bounce off Rose House’s walls, knocking even Vincent out of his stupor. “E-nough, Commoner!” she says, heel inches away from piercing through Poppy’s little hand. Her eyes slowly slide past her husband to Idaeaus. “And just what, pray, did the little bird tell you?”
Lann’s eyes may laugh as Beanard blusters himself into an upright position, but he maintains a curt tone and straight mouth. “And I thought you enjoyed girls attacking you, Bearnard.”
Idaeus spots little bird Ember perched beneath the curved wing of Devyn. Devyn’s screech sounds more like a growl than anything else. “Only a few curiosities about the land, Treasa,” he says, face blank. “It is so very unlike my holdings by the Jarama in Madrid. The Wall, especially.”
“Yes…” Lann saunters over to Bearnard with a feline’s grace. “Tell me, Bearnard—how did you construct it, again?”
Bearnard grins, jolly as can be. “Why, with teamwork, my friend. Teamwork!” He waddles over to take Treasa’s hand and bows with her. “When princeborns combine their powers, nothing can stand in their way. But the technical aspect is soooo dull. Come,” he spreads his other arm wide towards the almost-repaired seats, “let my son be wed, and then, we can talk.”
“Yeah…about that.” Liam scratches the back of his neck, other hand still in his pocket. He approaches the matrignis with a slow gait, ignoring the “Hurry along” of Marciane at his side, fanning herself against summer’s damp heat. “You’re gorgeous, Darra. Always have been. But,” he pats her shoulder, “you deserve someone who can truly appreciate all your skills. Someone pretty as you, as smart and ambitious and unafraid to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, to get what he wants.” He looks over his shoulder. “Like him.”
Everyone stares at Brutus Aleron. “Oh! Pardon,” he mumbles, and waddles out of the way, revealing Keller.
Dorjan chewes his apple slower than Liam thought possible, the grizzled man now in spitting distance. Dorjan still ignores him.
Behind Brutus stands Lily, transformed and with desperate expression, reaching for Keller.
Keller draws back from her and the looks of everyone, disgusted and fuming.
Darra’s mouth hangs open. Sounds tumble out without words. Her cheeks flush a deeper red, and not in modesty.
“Don’t thank me all at once,” Liam says. “Everyone’s here for a wedding, aren’t they?” He waves his hand in the air. “Then have at it.”
“Heeeey, it’s just like I said, mate!” Vincent trips a few steps towards the matrignis only to be tripped back to the ground by Judoc, who grabs the carafe before it can spill and steals a swig for himself before heeding Devyn’s screech to stop.
Treasa ensares Liam’s arm.
“Sleep well?” he asks nonchalantly.
“What in Aether’s Fire do you think you’re doing?” she hisses into his face.
Liam’s face remains bland, voice loud and clear. “What I should have done yesterday: renounce my place in the House of Artair and pass all rights and duties on to my far worthier brother, Keller.”
Lily gasps. No less than five grey hairs fall loose about Treasa’s temple, while Bearnard can’t stop saying, “WHAT?” as if deaf.
“I can’t imagine why,” Marciane says with a flourish of her fan. “The House of Artair remains one of the few pure princeborn Houses.”
“I’m not sure that’s worth being proud of after several millennia, Madame,” Lann mutters, giving Bearnard, then Liam each a once-over. “You wouldn’t care to move to Peru, would you? I’ve a daughter around your age.”
“Don’t you dare talk about that prissy little bitch on my wedding day!” Darra launches up from her seat, gown and all, the train whipping old Marciane right off her seat as she grabs Liam and yanks him from Treasa towards the matrignis. “Liam is mine!”
Lann growls a curse in Mawdre and jumps into the air towards Darra. Black fire courses over him and he emerges a panther, eyes pale gold, teeth burning white.
Darra pushes off of Liam to change but her tail feathers hardly have time to form before Lann lands upon her back, massive front paws pinning her arms, teeth dripping saliva upon her lovely raven tresses.
Brutus Aleron doesn’t move a muscle. Here merely titters, “I have warned you about your temper, child.”
“Lann! Dear Lann,” Treasa flutters before the wild cat, preens before him, bows to him with more humility than Liam ever thought possible of her. “Surely a bride is allowed to be a little protective of her mate.”
Not that Liam’s allowing her to protect him. “Come, brother,” he says with a sweeping bow to the matrignis. “This is where you truly belong.”
Despite Idaeus’ studious gaze, Keller presents himself as unmoved, merely brushing the grass from his clothes. “Very noble, brother, but you know I cannot accept.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Liam hops—hops!—out of the matrignis and over Marciane’s legs, “cuz I ain’t marryin’ Darra.” Char
lie’s vernacular tickles his tongue.
Bearnard shakes, a volcano on the cusp of eruption, but his smile beams joviality. “Liam, you know this is no time for jokes. Come come, back to the matrignis, and show our guests true Artair honor.”
“Oh, is that what this is?” Liam storms towards Bearnard, pointing once more to his feathered scar. “Is this just some joke? How’d you tell this story to your cronies?” He waves at Idaeus, who holds his head in hands, finger tapping his temple. “And this?” Liam shakes his sleeve, causing a flash of fire to run its course to the cuff. Bare arm revealed, all can see the feathered scar weaving with the thorned mark that binds him to River Vine. “Just a trick, imprisoning me here for the past three hundred years? How did you explain why the wedding’s here and not in the mountains, Lady Artair?”
Lann steps off Darra and transforms, narrowed eyes fixed on Liam’s mark. “You never mentioned this,” he purrs to Treasa, his claws not quite gone.
“Shut up, boy!” Bearnard grabs Liam’s marked arm.
Liam spins round and punches him so hard and fast Bearnard hits the ground, mouth bloody, teeth loose.
“I am no boy for you to beat,” Liam declares with fists at his sides, chest deeply heaving. “I am no toy for you to throw to your friends for their own pleasures. And sure as Aether’s Fire I am no one’s Bloody Prince.” Fire’s feathers crest his shoulders as the heat of embers course through his blood. He faces them all, these princeborns ready to align themselves to a tyrant he once called Mother. “I. Am. Liam, princeborn of cursed wings, survivor of heavenly whips and hellish thorns. And I shall forge my own destiny beneath my true House’s name: The House of Constantine.”
No one speaks. Bearnard spits his blood. The grizzled man stands next to Dorjan and Brutus, who gives him a polite nod. By heart’s fire, that little buzzard’s actually smiling with the apple Dorjan’s given him.
Treasa, with nostrils flared and lips thinned, reacts as he expects: “You will do no such thing. You. Will. Listen. To. Your. Mother.”
