Grave War

by Price, Kalayna

  A pale shimmering eyebrow lifted toward his ornate crown. “Of course not. A barbaric form of succession. Leaves the whole court locked down and scrambling for weeks, and then there are all the challengers who think one simply got lucky and that they can take the crown—oh, but you’ve seen all that in winter, haven’t you? How is your little murderous knight? Still managing to hold on to the crown he butchered my dear aunt to gain?”

  I bit my tongue, trying not to rise to the bait, but I couldn’t help saying, “Dear aunt? You made several attempts to kill her!”

  “Touché.” He gave me a nod, but a small smile touched half his lips, pleasure that he’d gotten a response out of me. “But as you saw, a messy way to usurp a throne. No, my lovely mother is alive and . . . ‘well’ is not the correct word, I suppose. She is peaceful, though.” His expression turned into a caricature of thoughtfulness. “She is, perhaps, less conversational, her mental facilities lacking what they once were, but she looks as phenomenal as she ever has and that was always more important to her anyway.”

  “Did you poison her?”

  “My own mother?” His tone was all mock outrage as he again repeated my earlier words. He didn’t deny it, though.

  “What do you want from me, Ryese? Why am I here?”

  “Jumping right to the chase, Lexi? I suppose you want me to tell you all my plans and why I destroyed the doors as well?” he said, studying me with that one clear eye. There was something odd about his stance. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, too distracted by the transformation he’d undergone over the last month. But he was favoring what should have been his good side, using the iron-damaged hand to accent his words, his weight on that side of his body as well. “Oh, dearest Lexi, don’t you know that monologuing is for villains? You heard the troll. I’m the good guy here. The one championing for change in all of Faerie.”

  “I doubt anyone would enjoy suffering under your rule in your reimagined Faerie.”

  A wicked smile spread over his face. “And yet they line up to do so. I’ve never run short of followers.”

  He had me there. In all his schemes, he always seemed to have toadies eager to run around taking the risks and doing his dirty work for him.

  The smile fell from Ryese’s face, his expression shifting to something that looked like . . . surprise? Or maybe pain? I wasn’t sure. The moment after his eyes widened and his lips thinned, he vanished from the mirrors. Light poured from the surface, making me squint as the room suddenly lit up like a small sun had just risen in the center of it. I tried to peer through the light, to see if Ryese was hiding behind all that brilliance, but it was simply too much, too bright.

  I shielded my face with my hand—Ryese already knew I’d gotten free, no reason to pretend I wasn’t. With my other hand I palmed the dagger that had made its way back into my boot. Hopefully the light blinding me was doing the same to Tem—I couldn’t see him to tell. I doubted he knew the dagger had ended up back in my possession, or he wouldn’t have let me keep it. It would potentially be more of a surprise advantage later if I left it in my boot, but there was no assurance I’d be able to get to it later. I could reach it now, so I turned the dagger up, pressing the blade flat against my arm in an attempt to conceal it.

  The light was still pouring from the mirrors. Was more than just light coming through? Was that even possible? I couldn’t help but think of Alice and her trip through the looking glass. That was fiction, of course, but Faerie had a way of making fiction truth if enough humans believed it could happen. So I waited with trepidation, wondering if Ryese would step through the glass. There was certainly enough magic buzzing through the circle that I’d believe it could open a portal. Though Faerie typically required a pretty large price to be paid for wild portals.

  A full minute passed, two. I bit my lip, one hand still shielding my eyes, and considered opening my shields again. I needed to glance through the planes, to see what was really going on. My heartbeat crashed in my ears, fast, erratic. I flexed my fingers around the hilt of my dagger. Waiting. Then I took my chance. Opening my shields a sliver, just enough to take a quick glance across planes.

  Pain sank claws in my brain and vertigo hit me as hard as a train, knocking me off my feet before I even had time to look up. In less than a blink of an eye, I was on all fours, my stomach twisting and threatening to rebel, my dagger flat on the wet stone beside me.

  “Oh, Lexi, Lexi, Lexi,” Ryese’s voice crooned, the light dimming. “Oh, do do that, my dearest. Do open your magic and let my spell in to drain every drop of planeweaving ability from you. That will speed things up quite nicely.”

  I gulped, my head shooting up to stare at the closest mirror. That was a mistake as my vision spun with the sudden movement. So that was what this circle did? It drained my planeweaving? I swallowed, blinking, waiting for my eyes to focus again. When they finally did, I found the mirror empty. No Ryese. Not even my own reflection. I frowned, my gaze cutting to the side. That mirror was empty as well, as was the mirror beside it.

  “Dear Lexi, what are you planning to do with that little dagger?”

  Well, I couldn’t see him, but apparently he could see me. My gaze dropped to the dagger where it had fallen beside my hand. No point trying to conceal it now. I grabbed it, enjoying the familiar buzz against my palm as I wrapped my fingers around it. The dagger liked to be used, it liked to slice through things and draw blood. Unfortunately, it didn’t have anything to attack currently. Every mirror I glanced at was empty.

  Shit, had he really done it? Had he stepped through the glass?

  I needed to get off the ground.

  I shoved myself upward, climbing back to my knees and ignoring the worrisome black dots that crowded in my peripheral as I moved. They cleared after a moment, and I staggered to my feet, the dagger held in front of me in the best approximation of a defensive stance I could remember from Falin’s lessons.

  My gaze scanned the circle, searching. But I was alone with the oddly nonreflective mirrors, except for Tem, who was on his knees outside the circle. Then I caught a glimmer of gold in the corner of my eye. I whirled around and saw Ryese pacing, moving from the surface of one mirror to the next, but still inside.

  Ryese stopped, glancing back over his shoulder. Whatever he saw made him scowl. Then he turned back, his gaze landing on Tem.

  “You brought her here too early, troll,” Ryese snapped, his voice annoyed, censuring.

  Tem shrank from the edge of the circle, his head low.

  “I don’t need her yet, and now you can’t even knock her back out because you’ve already activated the circle.” Ryese’s lip curled in a sneer, and he shook his head, as if disgusted by the entire situation. Then he turned in the mirror to face me. “Lexi dearest, you should probably get some sleep,” he said, his tone turning saccharine sweet and so false I was surprised it didn’t trigger the fae inability to lie. “You and I, we have a lot to do soon. You’re going to want to be well rested.”

  “Pass. Not interested.”

  That only made him smile, and it was a scary expression. The kind of smile that held menace but also an assurance that he’d already won. I wasn’t sure what he planned for me, but I had no intention of making things easy on him.

  “As you wish,” he said, “but you might want to at least conserve your magic. Shielded, you should be able to regenerate your magic fast enough to not end up a worthless husk, but I wouldn’t push it too hard. Brilliantly burning out right now would still give me enough of your magic to accomplish my goals, but I’d be rather sad to lose my little planeweaver. Besides, you deserve to suffer for a very, very long time for what you did to me.” He lifted his hand to the scarred side of his face.

  I bit my tongue to stop the retort that he’d caused all that pain to himself. There was no point in wasting my breath. No time either, as with that, his gaze shot to Tem again.

  “Try to keep her fr
om killing herself while I finish my preparations here. I’d hate for her to miss my big moment.”

  Then his figure faded, the light pouring out of the mirrors dimming. My reflection appeared in the mirror again, dozens, hundreds, maybe even a thousand reflections of myself staring back at me. All with the same stunned expression.

  Chapter 21

  Tem left for a while after the mirrors went dark.

  I paced the confines of the circle. I didn’t dare open my shields again. While it was possible that Ryese had been exaggerating about what this circle did, it fit too well with what happened every time I tried to touch my planeweaving ability.

  I tried slicing through the circle with my dagger—the enchanted blade had accomplished the task before. But Ryese knew too much of my history, and he clearly had caught wind of that particular trick. The magic woven through the circle had been set in layers, like a magical onion. The innermost layer was nothing more than an obstacle, but I had to be able to touch the magic to destroy it, and that meant using my planeweaving. I kept my shields locked, using only the dagger and my innate abilities that made me a nexus point where planes converged, but even that was too much. I made one small slice through the first layer of spellwork and woke prone on the floor some unknown time later.

  When I’d first woken in the circle, I’d slowly grown stronger and more alert as the knockout spell had worn off. Now, though, I could feel the drain on my magic, on my very life force, as time passed. I wondered if Ryese had taken into consideration that even shielded, I always touched the other planes. There was no turning off all of my power.

  Tem returned after what felt like several hours, but he didn’t talk to me, just busied himself with something in the shadows of the room. I watched him a while. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. I had my dagger, my clothes, and pretty much nothing else. Just a wet stone floor in a circle of mirrors.

  “He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you,” I said, my voice more conversational than I actually felt.

  Tem looked up, frowning at me. “What?”

  “Ryese. You’re doing that cretin’s dirty work and he doesn’t even know your name.”

  Tem grunted, going back to whatever it was he was doing. I wanted to get him talking. I was sure I’d read somewhere that getting your captor to see you as a person was the best way to survive. But Tem already knew me, at least a little. I’d only known him a couple days, but I doubted anything I said now would change any opinions of me that the last two days of working at my side hadn’t already formed. Still, I had to try something.

  “You seem like a decent guy, in most ways. You say you want change for a broken Faerie. So what did he promise you?”

  Tem glanced at me, his lips pressed tight around his tusks, making the calloused skin stretch and crack with his frown. But he remained silent.

  “You really think Ryese would make positive changes in Faerie?” I asked, as much to get him talking as to figure out why the hell he was doing this. Why anyone would work with Ryese.

  “Can’t be worse than a High King who never steps out of his golden halls and sees what life is like for the rest of us. One who sleeps through the centuries. Who just doesn’t seem to give a damn what happens to Faerie as long as it keeps existing.” His voice rose as he spoke, building in volume until he was shouting the words. Another time I might have shrunk away, but it wasn’t like he was going to cross the circle I was trapped in.

  “So—what? You guys are trying to get his attention by blowing a bunch of doors?”

  Tem scoffed, the sound ugly and hard. “Doubt it even woke him. You think he cares what happens to the independents stuck on this side?”

  I did. Or at least I hoped he cared. When I’d spoken to my father, he’d said the king had definitely noticed the doors being destroyed and was already working on the issue. But then my father rarely even went to Faerie. And this wasn’t the first time I’d heard fae mention that the High King slept through the centuries. Maybe he was asleep, unaware of the danger Faerie was in?

  Tem looked like he was about to say more, building up to another big outburst, but then metal scraped against stone as the heavy door I’d heard earlier opened. I still couldn’t see the door in the shadows, but I heard the soft slap of bare feet on wet stone as someone entered.

  “What are you doing in here?” Jenny’s sharp voice asked as she stepped into the pool of light cast by the two bare industrial lights. She wasn’t looking at me, of course. She knew exactly what I was doing here.

  Tem’s shoulders hitched toward his oversize ears as he sagged under her sharp tone. For a big guy, he sure seemed to be on the bottom of everyone’s pecking order.

  “I was just keeping an eye on her,” he muttered, tossing whatever was in his hand down.

  “I don’t think he’d like that. You’re far too taken with her.”

  “And what are you doing down here?” he snapped back.

  Jenny flashed a smile full of sharp teeth at me as she approached the edge of the circle. “I brought her dinner.”

  She lifted a small wooden plate. On it sat a dead fish. Not like a fillet of fish, but an entire fish, head, tail, scales, and all. It was clearly raw, and I almost expected its glassy-looking eye to blink.

  “She can’t eat that,” Tem said, his nose wrinkling.

  “Then she’ll go hungry.” Jenny stopped just outside the edge of the circle and placed the wooden plate on the ground. She gave the plate a sharp nudge with one toe, and it skittered across the stone and into the circle with me, the inert wood and dead fish unaffected by the magic in the barrier.

  The plate came to a stop a foot in front of me, the fish traveling several more inches to flop onto the grimy stone floor. At least it didn’t start flapping its tail, but its glassy dead eye seemed to stare up at me, making my gorge rise.

  “Bon appétit!” Jenny called out with mock cheer, turning away with a jeering wave. “Come on, troll.”

  Tem shot me what looked like an apologetic expression, but he turned and followed Jenny without another comment. To add insult to injury, Jenny cut the lights as she left. Metal scraped on stone as the door shut behind them, but just before the door clicked closed, Jenny called out one last departing quip.

  “Try not to die at sunset,” she said, her voice dripping acid. “It’s been killer.”

  Then the door slammed, the metal rattling, leaving me alone in the dark with a dead fish and a spell slowly draining away my life.

  * * *

  * * *

  Sitting in the dark feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to help. The hot tears I felt pricking at the edges of my eyes were no good either. I’d already had my cry today, and while a little voice whispered, Hey, maybe a handsome soul collector would come rescue me if I gave in to my cry, I wasn’t that naive. Maybe someone would show up at the eleventh hour to help, but I needed a plan of my own right now.

  I blinked in the darkness. What did I have going for me?

  Not much. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t use my magic. I was stuck in a circle I didn’t understand. And my life was being sucked out of me by a particularly nasty spell.

  Well, that wasn’t all completely accurate. I couldn’t use my planeweaving.

  I did have other magic. I was a trained witch. I’d never been good enough to get certified, but I’d spent years taking remedial magic lessons at the wyrd academy where I’d spent most of my childhood.

  Experimentally, I reached for the raw Aetheric energy stored in the onyx ring I wore, bracing myself for pain. My magic tapped into the raw energy stored there, but no wave of dizziness rushed through me. I drew a small bit of the energy into my psyche, following the well-worn path I’d used for Aetheric magic most of my life. No pain. No added exhaustion.

  Ryese’s spell only affected my planeweaving. It didn’t touch my witchy magic.

  I released the Aethe
ric energy.

  It made sense, in a way. The fae largely had little to no contact with witchy magic and the Aetheric plane. Ryese had set his trap for a fae, and while I’d blooded true as a Sleagh Maith, I did have some human in me. This . . . was actually helpful. But how would I use it?

  I sat down in the center of the circle, running a mental inventory on all the spells I knew how to cast from memory. It wasn’t a long list, and most of it wouldn’t be helpful. Tracking charms and silence bubbles weren’t exactly helpful in this situation. A disruption spell might work, and I did know one of those, but I couldn’t cast one strong enough to take down a spell like what was holding me. I needed something that would blow a hole in the circle, without killing me in the process.

  That thought tickled an idea, spurred on by Jenny’s nasty little parting quip advising me not to die at sunset, because with the amaranthine tree gone, the fae here were fading fast. And fae magic, well, it wasn’t holding up well. The spell surrounding me was strong as hell, but Ryese had to have crafted it before he blew the doors. That meant it had already been through one sunset and sunrise. Tem and Jenny were likely reinforcing the spells, but at the exact moment of sunset, it would be at its weakest. Maybe weak enough that a disruption charm would create enough of a disturbance for me to slip through.

  Maybe.

  And that was even assuming I could make such a charm before sunset. I couldn’t see my watch in the dark room, but based on the last time I’d looked at it, I was guessing I had maybe half an hour. I also had no materials. Just my dagger and my charm bracelet, but none of the trinkets on my bracelet could hold a spell large enough to bring down the circle around me, even if sunset weakened it to the point of near nonexistence. I needed something big. Something that could hold a lot of Aetheric energy. Maybe I could dig out one of the stones making up the floor or . . . The plate!

  I rolled onto my knees, reaching out with my hands, searching for the plate Jenny had kicked into the circle. My fingers landed on the fish first, and I jerked back from the slimy, cold body. A shiver crawled up my arms, down my spine, but I had to keep searching. The plate had been near the fish the last time I’d seen it. I reached out again, cringing as my fingers traced over the squishy, scaled body, but then they brushed against something hard that wasn’t stone.