by Karen Chance
The pain made it difficult to concentrate, but some things you just don’t miss. Like Caedmon trapped behind some kind of ward, throwing his body against it uselessly. Like the fact that we were in a huge cave, like football-field huge, with a long slit of an entrance providing a vista of snow-covered peaks that went on for miles. And like the fact that a mass of what looked like the rock monsters the fey made were headed this way, only they’d gotten an upgrade.
In spite of everything, I just stared. They were shaped like manlikans, but the size . . . I had no idea how large they were, but if they’d been standing still, I would have mistaken them for mist-covered mountains. Mist-covered mountains with a tiny man—or fey, I guess—riding on the shoulder of each of them.
It was completely bizarre and strangely intimidating.
And then things became more so.
A woman turned to look at me from across the expanse of the cave, her diminutive blond beauty on display in a gossamer white gown. It blew in the breeze coming through the crevasse, like her long, unbound hair, perfectly complementing the snowy mountains and brilliant blue sky behind her. My thoughts screeched to a halt and then fell all over one another, like a multicar pileup.
Because that . . . wasn’t Alfhild.
I stared at Efridis, Caedmon’s beautiful sister, and wondered how we got it so wrong.
And then Louis-Cesare appeared, jumping through the portal, and I realized: we hadn’t.
There were two of them.
My brain went blank.
“I thought you said you could handle things back there,” Efridis said.
“I can.” It was strange to see such an expression of contempt on Louis-Cesare’s features.
And even more to feel his boot slam down on my neck.
“Then what is she doing here?” Efridis regarded me mildly. There was no contempt on her features. There was no anything. Somehow, that was more chilling than Alfhild’s open hate.
Efridis did not hate.
Efridis was indifferent.
Like her voice when she said, “Kill her,” and then turned away again.
“No!” Caedmon yelled, but nobody listened.
And then Louis-Cesare’s sword was coming down, hard enough to bisect stone—and flesh and bone and everything else. . . .
Only, it didn’t. It bit into the rock close enough to my back to slice through my little black dress, but didn’t touch actual flesh. For a moment, I just lay there, in a crumpled heap, barely conscious because of blood loss, and not even daring to breathe.
But there was no second stroke. Louis-Cesare walked off, his eyes on the vista outside and the giants headed our way. I stared after him, through half-closed eyes, and tried to think past the agony in my leg and my steadily slowing heart rate.
Louis-Cesare might have distracted Alfhild long enough to spare me, but I was going to bleed out in a minute anyway.
Maybe less than a minute, because the pain was already diminishing, and a pleasing feeling of warmth was spreading through me. I’d heard that people felt that way when freezing to death, mistakenly believing they were getting warmer, when the opposite was true. And although I knew the stone was bitterly cold against my wet clothes, it didn’t feel that way. Not that I was complaining.
Death was nicer than I’d thought.
And then somebody had to ruin it.
“Dory!”
It was barely a whisper, more a susurration of breath than anything else, but it annoyed me. Like a buzzing insect that wouldn’t go away. I wanted to swat at it, but for some reason I felt like I shouldn’t move. Why shouldn’t I move?
I couldn’t remember.
And then that warm feeling was back, only with a vengeance. It wasn’t warm this time; it was hot—to the point that I almost yelped in pain as what felt like a miniature lightning bolt went through me. And jolted me out of the fugue I’d slipped into.
I blinked around in confusion.
And saw Caedmon staring at me.
Okay, that explained why I hadn’t bled out, I thought. And then I realized that he was whispering something. I tried to pay attention—I tried hard—and it gradually got easier.
“—by the wall. Preferably more than one.”
I squinted at him. And finally realized that he was waiting for an answer. “What?”
He looked frustrated. “I know you’re in pain, and I am sorry for it—truly, I am—but I need you to concentrate. Please.”
“Okay.”
“There are crates of weapons—do you see? Along the far wall?”
I gazed around. I saw the crates—our missing weapons, I guessed. But they were dwarfed by piles and piles of bones. There were thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands. I stared at them blankly, wondering how I’d missed that. And why I felt so sick.
“Dory,” Caedmon said, very clearly and deliberately, “I need you to get to one of the crates and find something to destroy this ward. Can you do that for me?”
I looked at him. I looked at the crates. I looked back at him.
“No.”
“Dory, you must!”
“I . . . don’t have a leg.”
“But they do,” Caedmon whispered furiously.
I followed the direction of his gaze, to where a handful of trolls were staring at the approaching giants—including the two who had killed Olga’s nephew. They had their backs to us; I couldn’t see their faces. But those physiques were memorable.
And then a random troll wandered away from the rest, to relieve himself in a corner, and Dorina grabbed him. Near-death experiences were freaky, I thought, because I could almost see her, a dark shadow crouched on his shoulders, riding him across the room.
Had anyone been paying attention, the jig would have been up pretty much immediately, because the guy looked like he had palsy. He was jerking and shivering and staggering about as he tried to fight her off. But the giants in the mist were holding everyone’s attention.
I looked at Caedmon. “What are you doing here?”
“My sister.” It was vicious. “She met Alfhild at the consul’s home and they joined forces. She tricked me into coming here by telling me that she’d heard her husband talk about strange weapons being developed in the mountains—which I believed because we’d heard the same.”
“That’s what you wanted Claire to help you find.”
He nodded. “We’d heard rumors of Aeslinn establishing laboratories outside his capital, away from the prying eyes of any spies I may have been able to suborn. But it’s becoming harder to scout out his territories; his sentries are . . . formidable.”
Caedmon’s eyes found the walking mountains again.
Yeah, I guessed so.
Dorina’s troll lurched into some stacks of crates, spun, and lurched the other way.
Caedmon sighed.
“So, Efridis brought you here because?” I asked.
“She told me what I wanted to hear, that she was finally willing to give over her husband, and help us in the war. She told Aeslinn the same thing in reverse: that she’d only betrayed him in order to gain my confidence, so that she could deliver me to him. She knew it was the only thing that would get him out from behind his palace walls: the chance to kill me personally. In reality, she intends to blow us both up, leaving the throne of each kingdom vacant.”
“So her son can take over.”
He nodded. “We are not easy to kill, Aeslinn and I. But this”—he glanced around—“will probably do it.”
“And Alfhild gets revenge for what your ancestor did to her.”
“Yes. It seems they found common ground in my death.”
Great. Good to know. I wondered if it was a bad sign that the hard stone beneath me was starting to feel good, comfortable even. I closed my eyes, just for a moment. . . .
“Dory! Don’t go to
sleep!”
“Yes, don’t nap now. You’ll miss it,” Efridis said, turning around. She had to be thirty yards away, but I suppose those ears are good for something. And then Dorina was flying back to me, as the troll took a knife in the gut courtesy of Louis-Cesare.
Like I was about to.
“Stop!” I said desperately. “Stop! You—you’re killing your own brother, because you want your son to rule? Why not just wait?”
“Wait?” She paused politely.
“Æsubrand said he’d challenge for the throne when Aiden grew up! Your son is far more experienced, far more skilled—he ought to have a clear advantage. Or are you so sure that you birthed a weakling?”
And, suddenly, there it was, the flash of anger I’d seen on the stairs back at Claire’s, when I’d spit in the eye of the manlikan that I guessed Efridis had been controlling.
“My son is quite capable of defeating the half-breed,” she snapped, “were he on his own. But he won’t be on his own, will he?” Her eyes slid to her brother. “If you want someone to blame for your death, for the child’s, for all of this, look to—what do they call you here? Caedmon?” Her lip curled. “Great King. Even in your human name, you reveal your ambition!”
“Ambition?” I looked from her to Caedmon. “What is she talking about?”
Caedmon didn’t answer; he was too busy glaring at his sister.
“Poor, deluded fool,” she told me. “You don’t even know why you’re dying, do you?”
“Why . . . don’t you . . . enlighten me?”
It was becoming harder to think, harder to breathe, not that it mattered.
“She’s stalling,” Louis-Cesare snarled, and started forward.
But Efridis caught his arm. “A moment. I’m going to enjoy this.” She looked back at me. “My brother and I both grew up with the same ambition: to see Faerie united under a single crown. One king, or . . . one queen . . .” She smiled.
I suddenly wondered how much power her son was actually supposed to have in this new order.
“Our plan was to end the constant bloodshed!” Caedmon erupted. “We were supposed to end the perpetual warfare that has torn our world apart!”
“Oh, I will, brother,” Efridis assured him. “As soon as you are dead.”
“I . . . don’t understand,” I said. Because I really didn’t.
“My brother and I chose different paths to power,” Efridis informed me. “I joined ancient bloodlines through my marriage, ones that had long been kept apart by old quarrels, and produced a son who controls all four elements. I brought together the complete spectrum of our greatest powers in one prince, who every member of the Light Fey has reason to support.”
Her eyes slid to Caedmon. “Every member except one.
“My brother tried something similar, but his marriage to the queen of what you call the Green Fey was a signal disaster.” She laughed. “It produced no sons, or children of any kind, nor did any of the concubines he took thereafter. How it must have galled you, brother, to see me succeed where you had failed—”
“I have a son!” Caedmon snarled.
“Yes, a half-breed! A mongrel half-human disgrace that you would set before—” She caught herself. “My brother,” she continued, more calmly, “knew the Light Fey forces were almost certain to rally to my son—enough of them, at least, to make his rule inevitable. So he tried a new tactic. My child combined all strains of royal Light Fey blood in one person, but my brother would go a step farther. He would go where no one had ever dared, would do the unthinkable, would create an abomination—”
“The only prince who can rule all Faerie is one who embodies all of it!” Caedmon exploded. “Not just the parts you feel are worthy!”
“There, you see?” Efridis asked me. “I did not start this conflict, dhampir. The birth of the polluted prince did that. The one who combines both Light and Dark Fey blood in a single person, and not just any Dark Fey blood. My brother somehow found a scion of one of their ruling families living here on Earth, away from their oversight. For they, too, would never have allowed such a union. But they didn’t even know she existed, the product of some tryst by one of their princes, and by the time they did—”
“Aiden.” I felt my heart sink.
She inclined her head.
“A prince who combines the blood of all faerie could one day raise a Dark Fey army, combine it with my brother’s forces, and defeat my son. But that will never be. This ends tonight.”
“And with it, any real chance for peace,” Caedmon said, his voice ringing out across the cave. Because he was talking to the trolls, I realized. Our only hope for allies.
“She will betray you,” he told them. “No matter what she has promised. Has she told you that you will rule over your own lands? That she only cares about the Light Fey? Her ambition will never allow her to stop short of taking all Faerie! As the humans say, she’ll create a wasteland and call it peace! Whereas I—”
Efridis cut him off with a gesture and a line of liquid syllables I didn’t understand.
I guess the trolls didn’t, either, because they just stood there.
“Oh, allow me to translate for your friends,” Caedmon told her viciously, but looking at them. “She said: ‘And you would give Faerie over into the hands of savages, under a king as unclean as they are!’”
“You lie!” Efridis said. “You always—”
“I’m not the one planning to consolidate power and use it to destroy them! You will never obtain peace this way—none of us will!” he told the trolls. “Don’t be foolish!”
But it was too late. The troll leaders had made their decision. They were gambling on the power and wealth Efridis and her ally had promised. And without them, we had no friends in the room.
“I thought you said you’d never follow another fey king?” I reminded them desperately.
“She no king,” Gravel Face rumbled, and I contemplated banging my head into the ground.
Efridis glanced at Louis-Cesare. “Finish this.”
I looked at Caedmon, who looked back at me. And for the first time, I saw something other than perfect self-assurance in those green eyes. For the first time, I saw something that looked a lot like panic.
And then shock, as another voice rang out across the room.
It was as loud as someone using a megaphone, and so startling that I jumped, and sliced open my back on the sword. While Louis-Cesare stopped his run, halfway across the huge space, staring around in confusion. But not for long.
“Alfhild!”
Louis-Cesare’s face abruptly turned gleeful. “Mircea! Come to watch your daughter die?”
And then, out of the side of my eye, I saw a hazy version of Mircea shimmer into existence. I could see right through him, out to the snowy mountains beyond. He looked like a ghost, so much so that I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.
Until I realized: he was in our heads.
“Your head,” he told me. “I am transmitting this through my link with you.”
So I was Wi-Fi now? I took a look at the twelve-inch-long dagger in Louis-Cesare’s hand, and decided I didn’t mind so much.
“I came to bargain,” Mircea said, and Alfhild laughed.
“There is nothing you have that I want!”
“Isn’t there?” He held something up.
Something familiar.
“Keep it,” she snapped, looking at the little ivory casket that had once held a potent magical shield. “Consider it a souvenir of your failure!”
“Oh, it’s already a souvenir,” Mircea said mildly. “One the consul took the night she visited your palazzo, all those years ago. I thought it in poor taste at the time, but I’ve since learned that she has excellent . . . instincts. As soon as I heard who we were dealing with, I took a ley line to Paris, in order to retrieve it.”
Louis-Cesare’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? If you think—”
“What I think is that you’ve never asked yourself an obvious question: what happened to your bones, Alfhild?”
There was a sudden silence. For a moment, all I could hear was my heartbeat and the wind whistling through the cave mouth. And then—
“You’re bluffing!”
Mircea’s ghostly form opened the little casket and snapped something. And Louis-Cesare jerked, as if he’d been stabbed. A dark eyebrow rose.
“Believe me now?”
Alfhild snarled. “If you had what you say, why not destroy me?”
“I told you; I’m here to bargain.” He looked down at the contents of the box. “And to make a solemn vow, to return your bones to Faerie where you can be reborn among your own kind. A peaceful sleep, and then a new life. Your exile undone, your past forgotten. Or . . .”
“Or what?”
Mircea’s voice changed. “Or you might want to recall that we have portals, too. And a new alliance with the demon lords. I’m thinking of a very nasty hell region, where little creatures play among the acid pools. Creatures that other demon kind come to that world to feed upon. Think of it, Alfhild: an eternity of living in a hellscape, only to reincarnate, over and over, because you can’t die. An eternity of being born to live a short, terrified existence, until you become prey for some stronger being. An eternity of never knowing who you are, who you were, anything but pain and fear and death, and all of it on endless repeat—”
“You don’t have the guts! I’d find a way back—”
“I don’t think so.”
Mircea’s head came up suddenly. And I blinked, because I’d seen a lot of expressions on his face, but never that one. It was . . . frightening.
“And if you did, I’d be waiting. I had the ‘guts’ to defy you when I was newly turned, with barely any power at all. I am not a powerless boy now, Alfhild, groveling at your feet for scraps. And even when I was I beat you. And will again, unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
“Unless you kill her.” He looked at Efridis. “Right now.”
“Bravo,” I heard Caedmon whisper. And then, before I could quite process what was happening, the room was filled with two clouds of power, like the ones I’d seen at the consul’s, only not. Because these were stronger, thicker, sparkling bright and white on the one hand, and a furious reddish black on the other. They clashed in the air overhead, like a thunderstorm had blown up inside the cave, something that would have held my attention more if Louis-Cesare hadn’t started toward me again.
