“My guards tell me you’re running from your families.” Lady MacDonald’s voice—it had to be Lady MacDonald—carried the same soothing quality as waves lapping at the shore. It was the type of voice people wanted to listen to. “And there are two distraught men in my courtyard who claim you’re a witch who’s cast a spell on him.”
Gavran gave the kind of awkward smile that was the only appropriate response to something horribly embarrassing.
Ceana felt her own face freeze into a matching smile. One of them had to tell her the truth. She flicked a glance to Gavran, but he just stood there, following her firm insistence from when they were first tossed in the cell that she wanted to be the one to speak. She should have remembered to retract that order.
“My priest will wed you.” The corners of Lady MacDonald’s eyes crinkled. “I hope you’ll share the story behind that accusation with me during your stay.”
The words played hide-and-seek with her tongue. She closed her eyes against the immensity of it. The wrong words and Lady MacDonald would send them away. But what words could convince a highborn lady, even one rumored to have had dealings with the fae in the past, that she spoke true about her curse?
Gavran nudged her.
She forced her eyes open. Both Gavran and Lady MacDonald watched her.
All signs of mirth had vanished from Lady MacDonald’s face. She swept her hand toward a doorway behind her. “It seems I need to hear the story now.”
They entered the room as directed, followed by Lady MacDonald and the two guards.
“Sit,” Lady MacDonald said.
Ceana obediently dropped into the nearest chair. After so long not speaking of her curse, to have to share it with Gavran and a stranger who could decide her fate in such a short period of time left her backbone feeling a touch wobbly. She swallowed until the dryness in her throat eased. “I’m not a witch, but I am cursed by the fae.”
“I understand how confusing it can be if his family has told him you’re cursed in order to keep you apart.” Lady MacDonald’s voice took on that exhausted, longsuffering tone of a parent explaining something to their child for the tenth time. “The fae meddle in human affairs far less often than people believe. I assure you that most so-called curses are superstition and nothing more.”
Just once she’d like someone to believe her—believe in her. “Why is it everyone thinks we’re daft?”
Gavran glanced at her with a look that said he wasn’t sure whether she was asking him or Lady MacDonald, but that she might, in fact, be daft for snapping her tongue at a lady.
She folded her hands in her lap. She had to keep this in perspective. What Lady MacDonald thought of her, or of them, or of anyone else didn’t matter so long as she helped them in the end. And she had at least admitted that some fae curses were real. That meant they simply had to show her they weren’t like all the other people who, based on her tone of voice, had come pounding on her door claiming fae troubles. “We don’t wish to marry. My curse is no mere superstition.”
In as balanced a voice as she could manage, she explained how the fairy pulled them from the water and the condition of the wishes. She included every detail she could remember, including how the fairy’s touch felt like sand draining through her fingers. No telling what piece of information might make the difference. She took the story right up until they found out the truth of her brother’s condition.
“I don’t know where my brother is or if he has enough food to fill his belly. I can’t find him and care for him with the curse of the wishes blocking everything I try to do.”
The expression on Lady MacDonald’s face was too controlled, like she was listening out of politeness. “That is a sad tale, but I’m uncertain what you want from me.”
Gavran leaned forward. “We heard you’d had dealings with the fae in the past. We need your help to remove the curse.”
“Even if you have a real curse, you’ve been misled.” A muscle in Lady MacDonald’s cheek pulsed, then stilled. “I’ve no special powers to remove it.”
The floor seemed to drop out from under Ceana. She grasped the arms of the chair to keep from tipping forward. That was the end of it, then. If Lady MacDonald wouldn’t believe them and couldn’t help them, surely no one else could.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been of more help,” Lady MacDonald said.
Gavran rose and lifted Ceana to her feet. Lady MacDonald turned from them and headed for the door.
Gavran tilted his face close to Ceana’s ear. “I think she’s lying. Is there anything else you can tell her?”
She’d given Lady MacDonald all the facts. She shouldn’t have bothered. She’d known this was futile. She ought to have died in the streets of Dunvegan rather than allowing Gavran to drag her halfway across the isle.
“Something in her face when she said she can’t help.” His lips were back by her ear, insisting she listen, insisting she focus. “She can help us, but she doesn’t wish to. Or she’s afraid to.”
Lady MacDonald seemed like many things, but afraid wasn’t one of them. Gavran had always been able to see things in people that she hadn’t, though.
Fear was a powerful force. Logical arguments and simple pleas for help were no match for it. Only eliciting another, stronger emotion, like love or empathy, might have a chance.
She couldn’t make Lady MacDonald love her with a few words, but she might be able to make her desire to show mercy and compassion.
She pulled away from Gavran’s hold and grabbed for Lady MacDonald’s arm. “Wait.”
The pointy-faced guard snapped a hand around her wrist before her fingers could so much as brush the fabric of the lady’s sleeve and yanked her to the side. He flicked his free hand in Gavran’s direction and the other guard drew his sword and laid the tip against Gavran’s chest. “We’ll toss them out, my lady.”
Ceana squirmed in his grip so she had a clear view of Lady MacDonald’s face. Let the guard kill her for it if he must, but she couldn’t lose this chance if Gavran was right. “I could handle the hunger and the pain. Saint Paul did. But what it does to you inside—you start to forget why you did it in the first place. You forget what it felt like to believe the Almighty hears you when you pray. It makes you forget who you are. And you are completely alone, unique in the worst possible way. Without hope that anything you do will matter.” She struggled against the guard’s hold, but he hauled her farther back. “Help us. Me. Help me.”
“I’m truly sorry.” Lady MacDonald shook her head, but the movement looked painful. “I cannot.”
“What would you have us do with them, my lady?” the pointy-faced guard asked.
“Take them back to the dungeon for now while I decide whether to turn them over to his family or set them free.”
Chapter 14
Salome MacDonald reached into the recesses of her soul, searching with her mind for the well of inner peace that used to be her birthright. Like so many other things she’d lost when she traded her immortality for a numbered human existence, her peace was gone. She’d rarely faced a dilemma serious enough to need it since she’d made her decision to become human. And she, as yet, had no idea how to function without it.
She eased open the door into Ihon’s study. He leaned over his desk with a piece of parchment spread out in front of him. A goose quill pen swung from his fingers like a pendulum. He dipped the end of the quill into his ink pot and touched it to the paper. The earthiness of the soft scratching wrapped around her like an embrace but couldn’t quite chase away the unease that held her mind captive.
He glanced up but didn’t stop writing. “I’ve bad news. Hugh sent word he’ll be joining us for an extended visit no later than week’s end.”
She rubbed at a knot of tension in her shoulder. Hugh’s visits were unwelcome enough when she didn’t also have a nuckalevee and a new potential problem to cope with. Now any decision they made would need to be made under the pressure of his impending arrival. “I’ve placed a couple unde
r watch in the dungeon, my lord husband.”
He grunted. “I’ll have the captain of the guard see they receive the appropriate punishment.”
She would have Ihon’s full attention once he knew the extent of it. They rarely spoke of her past and what she truly was. Only her doctor knew she’d once been fae, and they couldn’t risk a servant overhearing. Even though she was now human and most of the powers she once had were gone, many would still try to use her.
She let him finish writing his current sentence so he wouldn’t forget whatever was of such great import. “They might be unseelie.”
His quill slipped across the page and left an unsightly black blotch where it landed. His body went still.
“The girl asked me to remove a curse and described a seelie fae more accurately than any mortal should have been able to.”
She’d also described Salome’s feelings—nearly unconscious until she’d heard them spoken aloud—about the decision she’d made. Almost as if the young woman sought to make her recant.
He let the quill fall and swiveled in his chair to face her. “A dungeon won’t hold unseelie fae.”
“I’ve set it as a test.” She reached for the well of peace again and hit only emptiness. She would have to figure out how to make decisions without direction from the Lord God, without certainty that the choice she made was right. “I’ve had them placed in the cell nearest the smithy. With so much iron nearby, they won’t hold their human form for long. If they’re unseelie, they’ll need to leave or, by tomorrow morn, be exposed for what they are.”
“We should execute them now. We’ve been patient enough, letting the nuckalevee stunt our crops and spread the plague. I won’t have more unseelie invading our very home.”
She rested a hand on his arm. His solution was tempting, but the deal they’d made to allow them to be together forbade her from interfering in the war currently raging between the fae seelie and unseelie courts or from directly attacking another fae, even if that fae were an unseelie bent on harming humanity like the nuckalevee. In forsaking her spot among the seelie fae, she’d lost the right to involve herself in their affairs.
She’d lost much more than she realized she would. “We don’t know yet if they’re unseelie. If they aren’t, we would be unjust, and if they are, executing them would violate the agreement we made.”
“And you’re certain confining them overnight will show their nature?”
“Patience and discipline aren’t qualities of the unseelie. Their frustration at their failure to bait me into making them a promise would make it difficult for them to maintain enough control to hold their human forms even without the iron. We’ll know with certainty by dawn.”
“Isn’t the nuckalevee enough?” Ihon scrubbed at the bridge of his nose. His voice was low and tired. “Why would unseelie come here with this ruse?”
“I assume as another attempt to draw me out since we haven’t reacted to the nuckalevee’s presence. The unseelie don’t know for certain how much or how little of my power remains to me. They can’t know I’m unable to remove a curse. Had I made a direct promise to remove the curse from them, the unseelie could have argued to the seelie court that I’d broken the agreement and should suffer the consequences.”
Ihon clenched the arms of his chair. “The seelie court demanded a steep price in exchange for allowing us to be together.”
“Nothing with the fae is ever free.” She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Ceana Campbell’s words still sang a cadence in her head. You start to forget why you did it in the first place. You forget what it felt like to believe the Almighty hears you when you pray. The girl could have been talking about Salome rather than herself. “Do you think the price too steep?”
He took her hand in his, kissed each of her knuckles in turn, and shook his head. “But it pains me to have to watch our people suffer. At least they don’t recognize the cause. Knowing a monster plagued them would only create panic and false accusations.” He squeezed her hand. “If you’re not sure they’re unseelie, why lock them up? Why not send them on their way, unseelie or not?”
“They claim a fairy cursed them.”
“What did they do to provoke her?”
“Nothing, so they say.” She told him the story Ceana had told her.
Ihon frowned and rose to his feet. “They must be lying. Fairies are seelie, aren’t they?”
So much knowledge that she took for granted that humanity as yet didn’t share. “Not all. It’s extremely rare, but some have fallen from grace. Those that have are the most dangerous, for they’re like the Deceiver, able to disguise themselves as angels of light.”
She moved his quill from the parchment and cleaned off the ink that had leaked out to cover the staff. She hadn’t yet become comfortable with writing the human way. Teaching her hand to hold the quill correctly and draw the tip along at the right speed and pressure to form words, it was all so difficult compared to etching a message into stone with nothing but a thought or signaling an event of great import in the sky with the stars. When she struggled, Ihon tried to console her with the idea that human women rarely knew how to read or write, but she couldn’t bear the thought of not being his equal as she should be.
She laid the clean quill next to the ink bottle and capped the bottle to prevent a worse spill. She kept her back turned to him. “If they speak true, however, it means the war escalates. The seelie should have removed the wishes and the curses that came along with them within minutes. These two should have woken thinking it’d all been but a nightmare. That they did not means other, more serious things occupied the attention of the seelie court.”
They’d suspected the same thing when the nuckalevee appeared weeks ago and was allowed to roam unchecked, but it prevented her from traveling to reach her contact. She had no way of confirming what was happening or of letting the seelie fae know so they could balance the scales. Even alerting the seelie fae to the nuckalevee could have been construed as violating her agreement, but her contact was an old friend who valued the spirit of the law over the letter.
Muscular arms wrapped around her and drew her into an embrace. “It’s beyond our control.”
She drew in a deep breath of his scent, like saltwater and wet sand. Like home. “What of the man and woman in our dungeon? If they prove to be human rather than unseelie—”
“You can’t help them. We’ll give them whatever physical aid we can, food, money, but that’s all we can do.”
She was helpless to personally remove the curse from Ceana, but perhaps they shouldn’t send them away, either. She, better than anyone else, knew how Ceana felt. In a way, they were kindred. It was possible a deal could be the solution to both of their troubles. “I believe we can help each other. I’ll tell them I’ll introduce them to one who has the power to help them, but that they need to kill the nuckalevee for me first.”
Ihon’s arms tightened spastically around her middle. “Nae. I won’t risk losing you. You can’t be involved.”
“I won’t be. They’re not in our employ, and I won’t be the one lifting the curse from them.”
“Still. Two untrained peasants against a monster…”
She could almost hear him thinking should we trade two lives to try to save two thousand? From his perspective, it would seem like a direct trade.
It makes you forget who you are, Ceana had said. And you are completely alone, unique in the worst possible way. Even with all she’d told him, Ihon still couldn’t grasp exactly what was at stake in the war between the seelie and unseelie. She’d almost allowed herself to forget. She’d almost wanted to forget. “It may be the only chance we have to rid ourselves of the nuckalevee.”
And strike a blow against the unseelie court.
“In truth, what help could you offer them?” he asked. “We can’t in good conscience ask them to risk their lives if we have no reward to give should they, by some miracle, succeed.”
Ihon was right. Even fifty trained m
en would be unlikely to slay a nuckalevee. Yet perhaps she’d still be doing at least Ceana a kindness. A true fae curse was a harsh burden. Better she die quickly from the nuckalevee than suffer for years to come.
“I can have my contact lodge a petition with the seelie court.” She couldn’t guarantee Eliezer would take her request to the court, but Ceana and Gavran had no other option. No one but the seelie court could annul the wishes and the curse that came with them. All the cures sold by humans for supposed fae curses were nothing more than poison or smoke and empty promises. “The court may choose not to act on it, but it will be more to hope for than what these two will find anywhere else.”
Ihon kissed her neck and released her. “At the very least, we’ll need to train them before sending them out.”
“It will need to be you. No one else can know. If it’s to be done, it must be done quickly and quietly before the unseelie court has a chance to catch word of it. And before Hugh’s arrival complicates matters further.”
Chapter 15
Gavran leaned back against the cold stone of the cell and scrubbed his hands through his hair. Nothing he did reached Ceana. She’d lain on the damp floor all night. Red ringed her eyes, but she hadn’t cried. In fact, she hadn’t done anything. Or said anything. He’d promised to help her find her freedom, and they’d ended up in a different cage.
The door at the end of the hall rattled, and light washed down the corridor. The door to their cell creaked open next.
Lady MacDonald and her two guards entered.
On the floor at his feet, Ceana’s head shifted, just enough that he was sure she saw Lady MacDonald but not enough that it couldn’t have been a mere reflex. Then her body curved in on itself. It reminded him of the roly poly bugs, so vulnerable when stretched out but absolutely impenetrable when they curl into a ball, only their solid shell exposed to the world.
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