by Melissa Marr
He jerked back forcefully, gasping like he was choking.
“Hemlock,” she pronounced. With a visibly unfocused glance, she studied Alkamy and Lily before adding, “He took in the poison when he gave her”—she nodded toward Alkamy—“his air, then?”
Creed nodded.
The sounds of spring seemed to fill the air as the fae woman hummed. “Spider-legs, ash, and air.”
Zephyr wasn’t sure whether that was a recipe or a song. He met Violet’s gaze and gestured for her to stay with Creed. She could inflict damage on the fae stranger if necessary.
As Violet went to Creed, Zephyr walked over to Alkamy and pulled Lily away. He hated that it might make Alkamy worse, that the air she was obviously providing his girlfriend would be stopped. He wanted to let her continue whatever she was doing to heal Alkamy. That wasn’t his right though. Having the heir to the Hidden Throne suffocate in front of him wasn’t acceptable.
“Poison,” Lily said. “She was poisoned.”
He nodded and looked at Alkamy. She smiled at him, but then her eyes drifted shut and she stopped moving.
“Kam!”
The willow woman tsked. “Let her rest. Her lungs must heal.”
She reached out to Creed again, jerked open his mouth, and shoved some herbs and dirt in his mouth. For all her delicacy of form and motion, the willow woman was not gentle. Creed choked, but she forced his mouth closed and stroked her fingernails over his throat to make him swallow.
Once he did, she traced his lips again. “The devil’s blossom is releasing you.”
With a musical clatter of vials and sinuous sway of pouches, she went to Lily. “You summoned, and I came to your aid.” She motioned over in the direction of Creed, who was looking better already. “I’ve undone the poison he took in and fixed his bone.”
Lily nodded and opened her mouth.
Smiling now, the willow woman placed herbs and soil on Lily’s tongue. She hummed as she did so, but she spoke no further words. When Lily closed her mouth, the willow woman stopped humming and nodded once.
Lily swallowed with visible effort.
The faery healer lowered a hand to trace the shape of Alkamy’s lips. “She is un-poisoned, but there are better ways than taking it into yourself.” She met Lily’s gaze and then Zephyr’s in turn before pronouncing, “When you come to the court, I shall expect to be made welcome there.”
“If you do not harm or wish harm to me or mine, you will be,” Lily promised.
“Next time, use this.” She handed Lily a pouch. Then she turned and left in a musical cacophony of vials and spring birds.
“What was that?” Violet asked once the door was securely closed. She shook her head slightly. “I mean, she’s fae but . . . that’s not normal, right?”
Zephyr stroked Alkamy’s face, feeling comforted when she sighed and shifted in her sleep. He had never seen her so ill that she couldn’t stay awake, and the sight of it was far from comforting.
“She’s outside the courts,” Zephyr said, glancing briefly at Violet.
“The fae who delivered this was too,” Lily said from behind him. “Fae-blood enough that he might’ve been able to pass, but . . . she couldn’t have.”
Zephyr nodded. The existence of the fae and fae-blood who refused to live in the Hidden Lands when the courts withdrew always seemed more myth than truth, but now and then, he’d seen one. They hid. They had no court protection, and too often they were the ones captured by the human police.
“Now that Lily’s been found, there will be word of a new heir spreading to the fae that live in shadows or seas outside the regents’ command. Word of Lily will lure them in.”
“And of you,” Creed added, rolling his newly healed wrist as he spoke. “She looked at you too when she asked for court welcome.”
Zephyr didn’t speak, but he didn’t suspect he needed to do so. Creed, even weakened, was observant. For all of his flaws over the years, that was never an area of shortcoming.
The queen had warned him that the acknowledgment of his lineage and LilyDark’s status as heir would draw attention from unexpected quarters. This wasn’t quite what he’d imagined. After a lifetime in service to her majesty’s bloodthirsty orders, he’d grown accustomed to ignoring most of the fears that threatened to pull him into despair. He’d always had the illusion of a safe haven though. He’d had the sense that here at the school or in their homes, all of the diamonds were safe. He’d believed—wrongly or not—that they had space to be freer. Not only had the campus been entered but the club had been torched. Now, Alkamy had been brought down by poison in her suite at St. Columba, a suite shared with the heir. The recent spate of events shook the foundations of his illusion of security.
“How did it happen?” He walked toward the sofa. It was either sit or hover at Alkamy’s side. As he sat, he reached for the sword that was half propped there.
“No!” Lily heaved him aside. Her hand connected with his shoulder, and she shoved hard enough that he fell sideways onto the floor.
“Unless you want to be the next to kiss Creed, don’t touch that!”
“Excuse me?” Zephyr glanced down at the sword. It wasn’t that unusual in appearance. It was obviously well-made, crafted of fae steel with an odd greenish-white cast. He wouldn’t say it was a match to his, but they were obviously crafted by the same artist.
“There’s poison melded to it.” Lily gestured awkwardly at the blade. “Touching it will make you numb or kill you if you’re human.”
“Alkamy was poisoned by that?” Zephyr asked dumbly. Alkamy wasn’t injured in an attack. A gift had resulted in her near-comatose state.
Violet sighed, and when they looked at her, she said, “They never seem to understand that things in this world aren’t like over there. What if the headmistress touched it? Or Lily’s dad? Or”—Violet waved her hand toward the door that led to the hall—“what if we had guests who saw that happen to Kamy?”
Lily lifted the sword by the hilt. It was obviously fashioned for her. There was something inherently right when she hefted it. He could see that the weapon completed her in the same way that the queen’s blade and blood-red armor did for her. It was as if Lily was slipping into her own skin more truly.
“It’s the sword of a queen,” he said. “And tainted for your safety. Obviously, the recent events are making our grandmother anxious.”
His cousin—for that was the word they’d chosen, even though half-cousin was more accurate—startled. “It’s not just that. She’s readying me for the declaration, isn’t she? For the public announcement that I’m not only a fae-blood, but . . . her heir.”
Zephyr nodded, trying not to wonder if his own gift of a weapon was meant for the same thing. He was sworn to protect his family, even as the head of that family was hurtling them into peril.
“Crown and sword,” Lily murmured, eyes still trained on the weapon in her grip. “She’s sent me a crown, and now . . . this. It doesn’t speak loudly of peace. What am I to do? Carry it openly? Here?”
“Her world is different, Lily. The queen of the Unseelie Court has always been a warrior,” Violet said. She shrugged a little as she reminded them. Her own father, Torquil, was a fighter, but he was Seelie-born, and betrothed to the previous heir of the unified throne. Violet herself had always seemed the most war-ready of their group. She’d certainly taken more lives than any of the rest of the seven Black Diamonds.
They stayed silent for a few moments. Zephyr walked over to stand next to Alkamy, who was waking again. She sat up gingerly, and he was torn between helping her and insisting she stay in the healing soil.
“Take me outside,” she half ordered, half asked as soon as she could speak. Her voice let on that she was afraid and weary.
So Zephyr scooped her into his arms. Dirt fell from her body as he lifted her, leaving a trail on the suite floor. “Someone grab the door. We’re going to go soak up the sun.”
seventeen
EILIDH
When Eilidh returned to her glass tower, she was no longer blood- or tear-stained. The sea had washed away the proof of her vengeance and her sorrow. She wasn’t ashamed of either, but showing emotion wasn’t something royals did in public. The sea understood whether she spoke it or not. There was rarely a need to explain anything to the salty waves. Water had rolled over her as she’d been carried aloft. She knew that the earth under her feet understood as well what she had done and what she needed. Her relationship with the Hidden Lands was stronger than she could explain, even now that she was heir no more. The land knew her as if she were an extension of it.
Eilidh’s gait was slow as she walked up the spiral stairs of her tower. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go home. She simply felt weary from the weight of the things she’d done. Being the heir had never been easy, but she expected that once she was freed of it things would be easier. Reality was different.
“It is done then?” Rhys stood staring out the self-same window where she’d stood so many nights. There were no recriminations in his voice, no censure for the blood he knew she’d drawn.
“Three days.”
“Calder lives?”
Eilidh wasn’t sure, so she weighed her words. The sea had taken him, and that was all she could say. She walked over to her Unseelie brother and stood so close that his arm was touching hers. It wasn’t a proper embrace, but it was what she knew he could offer: closeness and comfort akin to what the queen herself considered an “embrace.”
“I woke and came back,” she said cautiously. “When I dove into the sea, the Coire Bhreacain had no body floating in it . . . but there was no prince upon the shore either.”
Rhys didn’t look away from the now thrashing sea. Waves slammed the tower so ferociously that if it weren’t wrought of magic, the glass would shatter. “If you need to rage, I can leave,” her brother said, nodding toward the waves. “I believe they are yours.”
Eilidh sighed, trying to pull anger back inside her skin. “There were no ships. I asked the sea before I gave over my mood.”
He nodded.
“I broke no law,” she said.
Again, he nodded.
“I would like an embrace.” Eilidh spoke the request so quietly that even with fae hearing, Rhys wouldn’t have heard if he’d been a few steps farther away. “If you would allow—”
“Brothers protect,” he said, drawing her closer. “If you’d told me, I would’ve done what you required. I’ve done as our mother has required over the centuries.”
At that, a sob escaped her. He would’ve tortured the king’s youngest son for her. He’d undoubtedly done worse, but that didn’t make it any less kind of him. She wasn’t sure she could ever have asked him to do what was her responsibility. Their mother had, but she’d meted out justice for centuries already. Perhaps it wasn’t any easier to endure after ages; perhaps the Queen of Blood and Rage sometimes needed the respite of sharing the burden.
Or perhaps she was simply trying to be certain that her own children were strong enough to do what must be done.
“The king wouldn’t forgive you, and Nacton would’ve struck you,” Eilidh pointed out. “I can handle my own responsibilities.”
But she rested her head against Rhys’ chest and let herself be comforted as if she were a child. Awkwardly, Rhys put his hand on the back of her head and held her still. He could crush her, and if anyone other than her parents or Torquil had held her thus before recently, she would expect injury to follow. A ridiculous laugh escaped her at that thought. Trust was a new thing.
“Shall I ask why you laugh?”
“Because I’m tired of crying.” Eilidh stepped away from her brother. “I am her daughter, Rhys. I did as our mother would’ve, but I will be forgiven as neither she nor you would because I am the king’s daughter as well.”
“True.” Rhys favored her with a genuine smile. “I would’ve taken pleasure in exacting your vengeance though, and there are laws I could cite to justify it. Remember that should the other son ever require a lesson.”
This time when Eilidh laughed she woke Torquil. He walked out of the bedroom.
Rhys glanced at Eilidh and then at Torquil’s healing abdominal scar. As the Queen of Blood and Rage’s regular sparring partner, Rhys had been cut, slashed, and stabbed enough times to realize that Torquil was more healed than nature would allow. He barely pressed his lips together, but it was reason for Torquil to ask, “What?”
“We were speaking of my brother’s dislike of Nacton,” Eilidh said truthfully, if not completely so. Mildly, she took her betrothed’s hand and led him toward a chair.
“He has admirable qualities too.” Torquil sat, wincing a little less than yesterday when he did so. “Unlike Rhys, however, Nacton has never accepted the unification of the courts.”
Rhys snorted.
Again, Eilidh had to smile. This new, more emotional side of Rhys continued to amaze her. For most of her life, her brother displayed less affect than a stone. Since he’d come to be closer to her, and then discovered that he had a half-human son and a niece, he was softening. In their limited meetings, it had been very clear that neither Zephyr nor LilyDark were at ease with Rhys, but he was going to try with them.
“Could we train tomorrow?” Eilidh asked. “I know I cannot go to the human world to check on our family, but . . . I am vexed and would benefit from the activity.”
“If you can leave that one”—he nodded toward Torquil—“for a few moments.”
Eilidh shot Torquil a fond look before telling her brother, “That one is my betrothed, who was stabbed defending our niece.”
“A lot of fuss for a little wound,” Rhys said lightly.
Torquil laughed, and Eilidh was grateful that he’d relaxed around her brother. Their need to posture with each other had been awkward initially, but over the past weeks as Torquil healed, the two seemed to have found a tenuous peace. She held hope that it would remain so, especially as everything around her was in disarray.
They brought Torquil up to speed, but his only worry was over the half-fae child he’d fathered. “And Violet is also safe?”
“She defended them against the first intruder,” Rhys said. “She is a good fighter. Worthy of training.”
Torquil smiled. There was no kinder thing Rhys could have said. He trained with so few fae that suggesting Violet would be worth training was high praise indeed.
Hours later, after Torquil was resting and Rhys had left, Eilidh curled up in the main room of the glass tower, staring out at the sea as if the waves could wash away the stain of what she’d done. She watched the waves and listened to their symphony until it lulled her to sleep. These moments, these rare times when the world was only theirs, made her often wish they could stay asleep. Torquil’s affinity for dreams meant that they had a level of privacy when they shared sleep that no one else could invade. There were no illusions, no distances, and no reason not to touch as she wished they could in the waking world.
“You worry unduly,” Torquil said as he took her hand and led her to a strange landscape that, as with many dreams since she’d learned that they shared dreamspace, was both delicate and familiar. A moss-covered forest floor stretched out like the finest rug. Her feet were caressed by the soft, stone and twig free, verdant green ground. Trees outlined the edges of a ballroom-sized clearing. Their branches stretched up as if they held a violet, star-scattered sky aloft. Other trees were scattered amongst the sturdiest ones; these had softly swaying branches that were moving in time with a music that only the finest of artists could replicate. In the middle of the clearing was a bed.
When the dance was done, she’d stretch out there with sky overhead and breezes on her skin like the softest kisses, and Torquil would touch her as he couldn’t in the waking world. Here, there was no risk of pregnancy. Here, she was safe from the thing that they would one day struggle about. One day, in the future far from now, she would like to have a child. Not now. Not even soon. If her parents and her beloved had
their way, though, she’d never take the risk of death that childbirth would present.
Eilidh was grateful to avoid that fight—and to avoid the risk for now.
In her shared dream with her betrothed, she danced barefoot on the mossy ground. She spun and dipped, swayed and paused. Torquil led her as they had never done in public. At the faery balls, she was treated as if she were made of the most fragile glass. Here, though, there was no risk of injury. It was but a dream.
It didn’t erase the troubles waiting in the waking world, the unrest of both Seelie-born and Unseelie-born over the new heir. It didn’t change the secrets she’d kept from Torquil. But it did give her a respite from all of that. Here, she wasn’t Eilidh, daughter to the Queen of Blood and Rage and the King of Fire and Truth. She was just a girl in love with a boy who kissed her breathless.
“Make love to me under a rain of falling stars,” she requested when the music started to slow.
And so he did.
And it was perfect.
eighteen
WILL
Will had figured that he didn’t need to go rushing to the Hidden Lands last night. Zephyr had filled his father in on everything. Rhys would tell the princess about the attacks. He’d tell her about the fae-blood attacks.
“Anything?” he asked Erik when he walked up to the table.
“You’re all impossible to sneak up on, aren’t you? I used to plot how to surprise Lily when we were kids.” Erik pulled out a chair as he spoke. As he did, his jacket flapped open briefly, and Will saw the gun holstered there.
Will closed his book and admitted in a very low voice, “The air told me.”
“We should talk before we move on to business matters,” Erik added just as quietly.
Will shrugged. He didn’t see the need, but he wasn’t raised to deal with intricacies in the human world. He was more accustomed to stealth in action than in holding meetings to exchange information.
The waitress was at the table before another word was spoken. Will shook his head, expecting the menu to trip up the human. Somehow, Erik with his well-cut suit, barely hidden handgun, and high-gloss shoes didn’t look like the sort to drink organic fruit smoothies.
