Grave War

by Price, Kalayna

  The two large floodlights were bright, but most of their beams were focused where I was lying in the center of the mirrors. The area beyond the mirrors was harder to make out between the gaps of glass, and the corners of the large space I was being held in were still lost to shadows, at least to my bad eyes. Flashes of silver caught at the corner of my vision as I attempted to peer into the spaces between the mirrors, but it was gone anytime I tried to move my gaze to focus on it. Magic. And fae magic, at that, though considering everything, that wasn’t surprising. If I made a point of not focusing on the magic, I could almost see it twining between the mirrors, and I gulped as I realized the mirrors formed a complete circle, of which I was in the center.

  I started to open my shields again, to try to get a sense of the spell contained in that circle of mirrors, but pain stabbed through my brain as the first crack in my shield opened, and I slammed it shut again. Apparently my psyche was not ready for that yet. My own magic was clearly out of reach for the moment, but what about my body? I lifted my head slightly, just an experimental movement. That didn’t cause any debilitating increase in pain, so I craned my neck, still searching for the people I knew were in the room with me.

  My gaze finally landed on Tem. He stood, slightly hunched in the low-ceilinged room, just beyond the circle, watching me from between two mirrors.

  “You asshole,” I said as soon as my gaze landed on him. The words emerged from my throat in a dry rasp, and I coughed before I could continue. “I should have known something was wrong when you made that oath so easily.”

  The troll shrugged his huge shoulders, but he looked away from me. “I didn’t kidnap you for your own good.”

  No, he certainly hadn’t done it for my good.

  Tem had been talking to someone, a woman by the sound of the voice, before I’d tried to open my shields and passed out. I scanned what I could see of the room, but didn’t see anyone besides the troll. Of course, sprawled on my side on the floor, there was only so much of the room I could see, especially with the mirrors and darkness.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled one knee to my chest again. Then I rolled myself up, over my knee so I was facedown against the stone, but at least my leg was under me. I didn’t immediately sit up this time, though, not after having passed out after doing it the first time. I suspected it had as much or more to do with the fact that I’d opened my shields at the same time the first time I did it, but I didn’t want to take that chance. So far Tem was hanging back, beyond the mirrors. Did that mean the magic was a physical barrier? I couldn’t feel it, so I wasn’t sure.

  I rolled to sitting slowly, deliberately, testing the position as I moved, ready to stop if dizziness or pain hit. I watched Tem’s shadowy form as I did so, but he didn’t move as I straightened. He just watched me, his mouth drawn down in a hard frown around his tusks. There had to be a barrier spell in the circle. Why else would he have left me without my legs bound? Of course, my arms were bound, and he was a hell of a lot bigger, stronger, and faster than me, so maybe he hadn’t thought it would be necessary.

  I’d made it upright without fainting again, so rose on my knees, trying to get my feet under me. That was a little harder, and I swayed slightly, my calves and thighs protesting as they took my weight. I wanted to close my eyes, to breathe and just focus on staying upright, but I didn’t dare look away from the troll. He still hadn’t moved, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t about to charge me. I glared at him as I attempted to catch my breath.

  “Which king are you working for?” I asked once I was relatively certain I wasn’t going to crash back down on my ass. Tem definitely hadn’t been assigned to watch me by Falin, and I had serious doubts the Shadow King had sent him. Light was ruled by a queen. So that only left spring, summer, and fall. None of which made a lot of sense. Well, or the High King, but that made even less sense.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” a female voice said. I jumped, whirling around, and nearly lost my hard-won footing.

  I again had to take precious seconds to steady myself before I could trust my eyes to move and search for the source of the voice. I found her a few mirrors over from Tem, squatting low with her knees splayed wide, her tangled hair touching the wet stone ground.

  “Jenny Greenteeth,” I hissed, my voice emerging from my throat as a hoarse gasp. The fae bogeyman smiled.

  “So you remember little Jenny, do you? I’m flattered.”

  “Hard to forget you trying to drown me.”

  She flashed a mouthful of sharp teeth and lifted one of her green shoulders. Then she twisted her head in a creepily inhuman manner and fixed her dark eyes on Tem. “I’m not getting blamed for this. You call him.”

  Tem only glared at her. “She was talking with Winter. It was the only option.”

  Jenny’s lips curled back in what was most definitely not a smile. Then she rose from her crouch and turned away from the circle where I stood. “Your blunder. You call him.”

  With that, she stalked away. I heard metal scrape on stone, and though I couldn’t see it, I guessed that must have been the door. I hadn’t heard the door open when they’d entered, but I’d apparently knocked myself unconscious again temporarily about then, so I wasn’t that surprised. I listened for the sound of a lock turning or a bolt sliding into place, but it didn’t sound like Jenny closed the door behind herself.

  My legs were free and they weren’t even bolting the door? If my hands weren’t bound behind my back, I’d wonder if I hadn’t completely misread this situation. But no, Tem had definitely knocked me out with a spell, trussed me up, and taken me to some creepy underground dungeon. It just didn’t seem to be a particularly secure dungeon. Which was hopefully a good thing for me.

  Assuming I could get past whatever magic I kept catching glimpses of snaking between the mirrors.

  I walked toward the edge of the circle, catty-corner to where Tem still hunched. My pace was slow. I would have liked to claim I was faking casual, pretending to ignore that I was a hostage in some creepy mirror-lined circle, but the truth was that my feet dragged and I had to focus on each step. My heart was racing, though. It thudded hard enough that I thought it might be trying to jump right through my breastbone and drag the rest of me out of here.

  “I wouldn’t get too close to that,” Tem said as I approached one of the mirrors.

  I frowned at him. His tone wasn’t threatening. If anything, he sounded concerned, which was rather ironic since he’d been the one who put me inside this circle. With my hands still behind my back, I couldn’t reach out to the magic physically, but this close, I could feel it thrumming through the circle. I had no idea what the magic did—I’d never felt anything like it—but there was a whole hell of a lot of it. I considered sticking the toe of my boot in the space between two of the mirrors, but this didn’t feel like a barrier spell. Or at least, not only a barrier spell.

  “The last time I saw Jenny, she was working for Ryese,” I said, trying to make my voice conversational even as I tried to wrack my brain for a way out of this mess. “But he’s not a king. So who are you two working for now? Hell, which court even?”

  Tem only frowned at me, then he turned and walked out of sight. When he returned, he held a small orb glowing with silver magic. He touched it to one of the mirrors, and magic sparked, activating glyphs I hadn’t noticed in the frame surrounding the glass. One by one, he walked to each mirror, tapping the backs with the orb and making the glyphs on them shimmer. I assumed this was how he was calling the enigmatic him Jenny had mentioned. The spell didn’t seem to be particularly threatening, and yet I cringed with each glyph that lit up, a cold sweat trailing down my back.

  Once he was done, Tem disappeared long enough to put the orb back where he’d gotten it, and then he walked back to the edge of the circle again, watching me. I backed away from the now-glowing mirrors until I was in the center of the circle again. I stared at the mirro
rs, and they reflected back hundreds of me, my eyes a little too wide and my curls stuck to the side of my head where gray liquid smudged my cheek. I had the ridiculous urge to try to watch all the mirrors at once, as if I expected one of the hundreds of reflections of me to change and prove not to be me at all.

  “Did you mean what you told Nori?” Tem asked, watching me watch the reflections.

  I was trying to focus on only one mirror, because every time I so much as twitched, all the reflections moved as well, making it look like an army was swarming around me. Yeah, it was an army of myself, but given the situation, it was freaky. If the glyphs were a call, whoever was on the other side apparently wasn’t inclined to answer. I could only hope that was good for me. It gave me more time for the spell I’d been hit with to wear off. Not that I knew what I planned to do next, but I wanted to be able to peer across planes again. With my shields locked, I couldn’t see through glamour, and I definitely couldn’t unravel the spell around me.

  “What did I tell her?” I asked, not bothering to look at Tem. I needed to get my hands free. It wasn’t metal binding me, and it didn’t feel like rope either. I was guessing plastic zip ties, which sucked because plastic was a material that broke down slowly, even in the land of the dead. If I could reach my magic without fainting, I could push the bindings over the chasm, but I was going to have to push the plastic deep for it to dissolve enough to break. Or I was going to have to get to my dagger. That would be a hell of a lot more noticeable, but at least I wouldn’t risk passing out again. It would give away the fact that I had the dagger, though.

  Tem studied me, his face drawn tight in contemplation. “That you were planning to negotiate a door, and all the fae, regardless of court, could use it to evacuate.”

  “Of course I meant that. Why wouldn’t I have?”

  “It’s just . . . That’s not done. Courts don’t help each other unless they’ve negotiated some deal that makes doing so beneficial to them.”

  I shrugged, using the motion to cover the fact that I was trying to twist my hands so I could get a finger on the zip tie binding my wrist. I didn’t technically need to touch the plastic, but considering I couldn’t see it and I didn’t want to push all the space around me into the depths of the land of the dead, a touch focus seemed prudent. Also, the tighter my focus, the less magic I’d have to expend.

  “What would you get out of saving a bunch of independents?” Tem asked after a few moments.

  “Uh, a whole bunch of fae who aren’t dead? But I’m guessing you’re working for the person behind the doors’ destruction, so I guess you don’t care about casualties.”

  He grimaced, looking away from me. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.”

  The plastic cut at my wrist, but I managed to get two fingers on the zip tie. I cracked my mental shield, just a sliver. Pain jabbed into my mind, but no dizziness this time, and my legs held under me, so I opened it wider. Then I narrowed my focus to my fingers, and the plastic I could feel through my glove. I shoved at reality, and a wave of dizziness washed over me. Too late now to stop. I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on my tenuous grip on the planes touching the zip tie. This was not how my magic liked to be used. The planes didn’t appreciate being shoved around like this. Pain sliced into my fingers, warmth soaking into my gloves as the tips of my fingers split open. My heartbeat tripped over itself, my breath coming in ragged gulps as if I’d just run a mile. Exhaustion rushed through me, as if all my energy were being drained into the ground around my feet.

  I slammed my shields closed again. Swaying despite my best efforts. This was ridiculous. I’d used almost no magic, not nearly as much as when I’d shoved the bouquet of flowers out of reality. And yet I felt as magically drained as I did after an hour-long session of practicing manipulating the realities stored in my necklace.

  Hopefully that one push at the plastic had been enough, because I wasn’t up for another one. I pried open my eyes, forcing myself to focus on Tem. He was studying me, the skin where his eyebrows would have been if he’d been human bunched tight and a frown tugging his lips down around his tusks. Blinking a few times, I met his gaze, both so that I had a place to concentrate, and to distract him from my actions by keeping him focused on my words.

  “I don’t get you at all, Tem,” I said, tugging at my wrists. The plastic stretched. I’d damaged it, thank goodness. But was it enough? I pulled harder, hoping the strain didn’t show in my shoulders. “I liked you. Of all the FIB agents, you were actually nice. And I saw your face when you were pulling survivors out of the Bloom. Hell, you stuck your arm in a fire spell. Why?” The plastic snapped, breaking with a soft sound, and the pressure around my wrists vanished. I snatched at the broken plastic, holding it halfway in place so it wouldn’t hit the ground and alert Tem to what I’d done. I rambled on, keeping his attention on my face, my words. “How could you have been working for the bad guy this whole time?”

  “I’m not working for the bad guy! I’m working for change!” Tem bellowed the words. “Faerie is broken. The High King sleeps through centuries at a time, or maybe he just doesn’t care about the fae. The courts are all self-serving. The independents are subject to the whims of whichever court controls the territory where they manage to scrape out a life. The whole system needs an overhaul.”

  “You talk too much, troll,” a new voice said, and I jumped. I’d been staring at Tem and I hadn’t noticed my hundreds of reflections fading from the mirrors.

  Now the glass reflected nothing, the surface completely empty aside from a soft glow. The emptiness was even more eerie than the hundreds of versions of me had been. The light in the mirrors grew, until they were almost too bright to look at. Then a figure materialized in the brilliance, and the surface dimmed enough that I could make out a dozen cloaked figures surrounding me, watching through the surface of the mirrors. Or maybe it was only one golden-cloaked figure, the mirrors all showing the same image.

  “You bound her with plastic and thought that would hold her? She’s already free,” the figure said, his voice coming from every direction at once.

  “Ryese,” I hissed, because I’d seen that cloak before, even if it hid his face, and I definitely knew that voice. Then I paused. “But you’re no king . . .”

  A month ago one of his followers had called him the scarred prince, but he held no court. Was he an upper-level minion for this mysterious king Tem had been trying to call? For his part, Tem cringed at my words. Then he dropped to the ground, falling fully prostrate onto the slimy stone. The golden-cloaked figure ignored him.

  I once again found myself unsure where to focus. Twelve mirrors showed the cloaked figure, watching me from every point in the circle. I again had the urge to spin around, to try to watch all of them and figure out which was the real Ryese. Except was this an illusion? A trick of glamour? It wasn’t that one mirror held the real Ryese and the rest were glamour. No, each mirror held the same image of him, all real. And all not. Like a dozen television screens showing the same picture, except this picture was watching me back.

  “Oh, dearest Lexi, it has been a hot minute, hasn’t it,” he said, lifting his hands and pulling back the golden hood. The face below was instantly recognizable, and yet it had transformed since I’d seen him last. The veins of dark scarring from iron poisoning still snaked through half his skin, one of his eyes sightless and clouded over, but where he’d looked sickly a month ago, his complexion gray and sallow, now he radiated strength and inner light. His hair was still short where it had been shorn in his sickness, but even it looked healthy again, once again shimmering like strands of crystals. When he’d moved, he’d used both hands, and while one was encased with a glove, he’d used the hand that a month before had been a shriveled and wasted claw. But most telling was the glowing golden crown resting upon his brow.

  I stared at the intricate—and very large—crown. I knew from th
e brief time since Falin became the Winter King that Faerie always marked her rulers. They could will the crowns to be large and ornate, or simple circlets, but they couldn’t remove them, ever. Most of the fae royalty seemed to keep the crowns simple, but not Ryese. No, of course not. I wasn’t even sure how the cloak had concealed the huge bit of ornamentation on his head. It positively radiated with light, the golden glow permeating the space around him. Every mirror seemed to be filled with a gentle glow—or maybe that was simply the magic he used in this spell. A magic that was the complete opposite of the spell Dugan used when he communicated through a mirror.

  “You’ve taken over the court of light and daydream,” I said, still staring at the crown.

  Ryese smiled. One side of his lips didn’t lift quite as much as the other, but the effect was far less noticeable than it had been a month ago. He was healing, maybe nearly fully healed, from his iron poisoning. I hadn’t thought that was possible.

  “But . . .” I said. “Your own mother?”

  The smile fell from his face. The glare in his remaining good eye should have pinned me in place, it slammed against me so fiercely.

  “And why not ‘my own mother’? She raised me to rule, wanted me to reshape Faerie. She simply failed to see that she would be one of the stepping-stones I’d have to cross. Very shortsighted for a clever woman.”

  I stared at him. There was no regret in his tone. No mourning. Successions in Faerie were rarely peaceful and almost always deadly. But Ryese wasn’t a fighter. Even when he’d been scheming to conquer winter, it had been through underhanded methods. He hadn’t challenged the former Winter Queen, but had driven her slowly mad, poisoning her until she could barely hold the court together.

  “You didn’t win the light court in a duel,” I said, because that wasn’t Ryese’s style, even before he’d wound up crippled from iron poisoning for his treachery in winter.