Rogue's Paradise

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “I’ll do it,” Rogue said. “It will discharge my debt to Fergus for his role in the rescue. If that’s agreeable to you.”

  “Agreed,” Fergus cheerfully replied.

  “I’m not going to be dependent on you,” I interrupted.

  “No,” Rogue said to Athena, ignoring me and stopping her from unstrapping the scepter, “I don’t need that.” His hand absently tightened on my waist as his magic gathered around him and he focused his gaze into the far distance. A trick I’d love to learn. “She is on the Pink Candy Islands.”

  “Much obliged,” Fergus tipped his hat and turned a bit of a wistful gaze on Starling. “Care to come with me, Little Bit?”

  She shook her head immediately, the thick paintbrush sweep of her blond hair swinging with the vigorous motion. “No, Daddy. Give Mother my love. My place is with Lady Sorceress Gwynn.”

  “At least I’ll know where to find ye. Fare you all well!” And he galloped off.

  “I suppose we might as well eat, since we’re stopped,” Starling said and Larch began unpacking picnic supplies. Darling Hercules jumped down to explore and, as soon as he moved away, my hands began throbbing with fierce and disconcerting pain.

  Time to see just how bad they were.

  I claimed the excuse of answering the call of nature and took myself off into the woods. Being on my own two feet again, I wobbled, brain-stunned from the fever, my legs weak.

  Alone, I settled my back against a tree, wearied from the short walk, also a bad sign, and sat with my mittened hands in my lap. I really didn’t want to look, especially with my head pounding and stomach queasy. The fae seemed to have something of an idea of infection, but they never disinfected anything. Of course, they also never seemed to become ill, and some of the higher fae were even immortal, so it likely just plagued us fragile humans.

  Screwing up my courage, I made a careful wish for the bandages to relocate to the leaf litter next to me. Easier to wish them back on again that way. I let myself close my eyes until I was ready.

  Then I looked.

  And swallowed hard on the bulge of nausea.

  Damn. They were bad. The feline claws, curved and with a razor inner edge, extended from the second knuckle, seemingly made of some metal. I would have called it platinum, if that wasn’t physically impossible. Nothing remained of my fingertips, except shreds of flesh, blood-caked and oozing pus. Only this pus glowed an unnatural green, like antifreeze. I imagined whatever opportunistic microorganisms existed in Faerie would curdle my blood if viewed under a microscope. My immune system stood little chance against them.

  The great drawback of magical anesthesia: the vague and transient pain had let me procrastinate far too long and gangrene had set in. Worse, telltale red streaks of blood poisoning ran up past my wrists.

  Miserable, pitiful and afraid, too weak to hold my shit together, I started to cry.

  No no no. I choked the tears back as best I could. I needed to concentrate and try to wish the infection away. I’d done a bit of healing on minor wounds I incurred before. Surely I could fix this myself.

  Trying to form a coherent wish for this seemed beyond my reach. I needed to be very precise. No blanket wishes like wanting my hands to be as they were before. I’d risk having two appendages that appeared to be hands but didn’t have the internal structure. Sure, I’d trained in physiology and had been a professor of neuroscience, but details from anatomy classes had blurred over time. Carpals, metacarpals and phalanges. Mainly I remembered that our hands were the most intricately and densely innervated parts of our bodies.

  I really didn’t want to fuck mine up.

  More than they already were.

  Despair and terror didn’t foster clear thinking. Unbidden, an image rose in my mind of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, with her hands cut off, bleeding freely from the wrists. Not a productive idea.

  One of the terrifying truisms of Faerie, always be careful what you wish for—even as a passing thought.

  Not thinking about things in the first place was an excellent preventative measure, and I was trying to wrestle that one down when I heard footsteps in the dry and fallen leaves.

  Rogue, walking toward me through the trees. His black cloak streamed around him, inky hair lifted by the breeze. But for his inhumanly long limbs and that alien thorny pattern climbing over the left side of his face, he could be the hero from some gothic novel.

  He sank down, straddling my outstretched legs, and took my face in his hands. “Gwynn.” His voice was stern. “I heard you loudly from the clearing. You must get a hold of yourself. Don’t you dare spin out of control. You know the consequences.”

  To my utter horror, I burst fully into tears.

  I’d always hated how easily I cried, and being sick just made it worse. I sobbed, all the grief, worry and pain pouring out of me, running down my face, and I couldn’t even wipe it away. Rogue had seen me weep before—and had always seemed vaguely perplexed by it—but nothing compared to this complete meltdown. That I did not do often or easily.

  Once he’d tasted my tears and pronounced them bitter.

  This time, he sat beside me and pulled me onto his lap, careful of my awful hands, and just held me, stroking my hair, whispering words of comfort. Gradually my shudders subsided, the rhythm of his alien heart more soothing and familiar than it should be.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally got out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “You’ve gone through more than most humans could bear. Don’t apologize for that.”

  “Do remember the first time we met, when my throat was injured?”

  “How could I forget?” he replied in a wry tone, slipping the image into my mind of me, bound in silver to the bed in his castle, looking like a hot mess. “You were brave then too.”

  “I was terrified. And you were an ass.”

  “And yet you survived both. You’ll survive this too.”

  I surely hoped so. “Can you heal my hands—even a little?”

  “No. The damage is too great and that is, as you know, the least of my skills. Lady Healer is still in residence at my castle, and she will be able to.”

  I decided not to comment on my feelings about the fae noblewoman who’d healed me that time, when I’d been bound to that bed, and who then exacted an extraordinarily high price for it. I hated to think what I’d have to pay this time. Good thing my firstborn child had already been bargained away. I would have to deal, if I wanted to survive this. Pride goeth before amputation, after all. “How far is that, at our current pace?”

  “Days, I imagine. I never go by horseback.”

  “I think we need to find a healer sooner than that.”

  “Why? Are you in pain? Darling Hercules Goliath can—”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m sick, Rogue.”

  I sat up so I could look into his face. His eyes were intent, concern swirling in the depths. Absurdly I wanted to kiss him. Because I could, I did kiss him—something I’d rarely, if ever, done of my own accord. And more for comfort than for anything else.

  He hummed in his throat, returning the kiss with interest, then pulled away, frowning. “Your skin is very hot.”

  I nodded. “Fever. It means infection. See the red streaks going up my wrists? That’s a...poison from the infection traveling inward. If it gets too far, I’ll die.”

  He looked stricken, the lines on his face shimmering, nearly coiling on their own, as they did when he was upset. “I won’t allow that to happen.”

  My favorite megalomaniac. I forged on, hoping that his fervent determination came at least partially from care for me and not just the embryo growing inside me, that selfsame firstborn child he’d won rights to in a complicated exchange.

  “I know you can’t take me with you when you poof yourself, but maybe you could go and find someone—Lady Healer, maybe—and bring her back faster than I can get there?”

  He was already shaking his head. “I won’t leave you again.”

&nb
sp; It was less romantic this time. “Rogue. I’m seriously afraid I’m going to die. Or lose my hands forever.” I gave myself credit for saying this in a steady tone. I had grown up a child of technology. Of all the strange, unsettling and downright terrifying aspects of Faerie, the lack of actual medicine bothered me a great deal. Magical healing was all well and good—except when it landed you with life-debts, like mine with Rogue.

  I’d listed that for him once, as reason three of five that I did not want to have his baby. Being cornered into agreeing to give him my firstborn—and letting him sire it—had determined the course of my recent life. Giving birth in what amounted to a Third World country just exacerbated a bad situation.

  I couldn’t think about all of that at the moment. My current problem demanded attention or the whole giving-birth problem would be well and truly moot. “I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, hating to throw my fate any more in his lap—literally and figuratively—than I already had. I’d meant it when I said I didn’t want to be dependent on him. Still. “I need your help.”

  That changed something in him. In me. The shift thrummed between us and he bowed his head, as if acknowledging a new agreement.

  “Then you shall have it.”

  “What do I have to give in return?”

  “We can decide later.”

  Having an open-ended bargain with a fae led to dire consequences—hence aforementioned firstborn child—but I couldn’t muster the energy to insist on setting terms. Which showed how bad off I was.

  “We will fly.” He stood, uncoiling and bringing me with him. I almost protested that I could stand, but in truth my limbs felt weak and weary.

  “Can you call the dragons then?”

  “Don’t be foolish—dragons can’t be called. Besides they don’t give rides.”

  “One gave us a ride when I asked.” I sounded loopy but couldn’t help myself.

  He pinned me with a penetrating look. I’d surprised him, not easy and always delicious, even as terrible as I felt. “It seems you did many things while...we were apart.”

  “Believe me, I have stories to tell.”

  “I want to hear them all.” He brushed my mouth with a tender kiss. So odd, this moment by moment exchange of caresses. I wasn’t even entirely sure which bargains still stood between us. Though Rogue would know. He probably had a lobe of his brain dedicated to exactly that purpose. Another thing I’d have to set straight later, when I could think.

  He carried me back to where the others were lunching in a clearing. Well—Starling and Athena were eating while Larch stood guard, scanning the skies. Darling Hercules came leaping through the yellowing grasses, projecting images of himself as a forest cat.

  Starling stood, when she spotted us, “Lady Gwynn! Is everything all right? We—oh dear sweet Titania.”

  Her gaze fell to my hands and I realized I’d forgotten to replace the bandages in my feverish fog. I’d never seen someone turn green before, but she did, pressing her fingers to her mouth.

  “I’m taking Lady Gwynn to a healer,” Rogue informed her in a crisp tone. “Prepare her things.”

  I would have told him not to order her about like one of his magicked-up dummy servants, but she snapped to attention from long habit, bobbed a curtsy and scurried to do as he said. Better for her than worrying about me.

  Athena stood on tiptoes to peer at my hands. “Those claws are wicked cool. Going to keep them?”

  I choked a little. Tried to make it a laugh. “I’d rather not.”

  “You should.” She flicked a wink at Rogue. “I bet none of his other women have that.”

  I loved her for being a smart-ass. And Starling for her steadfast loyalty, not wanting to leave my side. Yet I would be leaving them behind. “Rogue—we can’t leave them here.”

  “We’ll be fine, Lady Gwynn.” Starling bustled up with a bag of my few supplies, soft brown eyes still wide with worry, the blond of her hair dulling with it. “Don’t you give a thought to us. We’ll see you at the Castle of the Dark Gods before long.”

  The name rattled me and not only because of the ominous overtones. I obviously didn’t speak the fae language—sometimes I suspected each variety had their own dialect—and instead I telepathically understood the intent behind their words. Which was why they could all reference Titania, because they used euphemisms so as not to speak her name aloud.

  The way this title translated in my head recalled what that innkeeper at Devils Tower had told me back in my world—that the Native American name meant place of the dark gods and it was the white settlers who figured that had to be the devil. Maybe the fever just had me confused.

  “We’re going to where again?”

  “My castle,” Rogue said in a dry tone.

  Of course it was. “You never told me the name.”

  “You never asked.”

  “Oh yes, because you answer all of my questions.”

  “Hush, or I’ll have Darling Hercules Goliath put you to sleep.”

  “You wouldn’t dare. Besides, he’s my Familiar and he, at least has to come along.”

  “Agreed, if only to help you with the pain.”

  “But the others—what if they’re attacked again?” I fretted over it. Now I did want him to put me down. I needed to do something to see they were taken care of. But Rogue held me in an implacable grip, staring into the distance.

  “Be still. They’re nearly here.”

  Who was nearly here? But hoofbeats echoed over the meadow before I could form the question.

  Out of the woods, a phalanx of black horses and armored riders appeared. At first I thought the soldiers wore helms, but as they drew closer it became clear that their heads were the helmets—uncannily reminiscent of Cylons. The horses moved in perfect synchrony, also automatons. I shivered at the sight, which became a full-out shudder racking my body. Just how high had my fever gotten?

  Rogue studied my face, answering my unvoiced question. “Reinforcements. They will convey your companions to my castle in the best safety I can offer. Acceptable?”

  I nodded. “Though they’re creepy. Did you make them?”

  “Yes. I anticipated you would not care for them.” His mouth twisted in a self-deprecating smile. “See? I begin to know you.”

  Oh yes, he did. Possibly better than anyone ever had. How that could be when we weren’t even the same species and came from such wildly different worlds, I didn’t know.

  “Because some connections go deeper than the limits of flesh,” he murmured for my ears only. “And here comes our ride.”

  A whoosh of air made the grasses wave wildly and sent another chill through me. I ducked reflexively, then opened my astounded eyes to the extraordinary giant white bird with trailing wings now standing before us, regarding me with dove-gray eyes that sparkled with intelligence.

  “Is that...” I trailed off in the face of the impossibility.

  “A Liralen. She’ll take us there.”

  The surreality of it all welled up. Perhaps I was hallucinating, trapped in a fever dream. “It can’t be a Liralen. That was in a book. Not real.”

  “It’s only the name you give it, my Gwynn. Nothing more.”

  Oh yes. If I concentrated, I knew the sounds that came out of his mouth were different. Not really a Liralen. Just to me. Which was enough.

  “What is her price?” I asked. In the book, the Liralen’s price had been very high—fearlessness—something I could not offer. Especially now. Fear riddled me, maggots chewing holes and leaving me a fragile creation of lace that could shatter with careless handling.

  “I will pay it.” Rogue sounded grim. Could he afford it either?

  “No, I don’t want you to—”

  “Let me do this for you.” He glared down at me, demanding and maybe a little angry. Under it, that wild regret seethed. “I owe you this much, at least. You asked me to help you—something you’ve never done, I might point out—let me do it.”

  A little shocked, I agreed. Ha
d I really never asked for his help before? Possibly not, because it always came with a price. And I never liked to ask for help from anyone. It just figured that it would take fear of my imminent death to bring me to it.

  “I’ve lost track of what I owe you and what you owe me.” I registered vaguely somewhere in my addled brain that I shouldn’t have told him that.

  “Your thoughts are quite porous at the moment. I would have known it anyway. Don’t worry. Rest and let me take care of you.”

  The Liralen arched her wings and bent down. Rogue, with the same lithe strength, held me tight as he mounted her like a horse but under the vast expanse of her trailing wings. Darling Hercules Goliath leaped onto my lap, laying his soft and purring self over my hands, taking the pain away.

  The great bird surged up into the bright autumn blue, making my stomach drop. We rose into the sky, the jeweled Technicolor landscape of Faerie spreading below us. Craning my neck, I took in as much as I could, plotting in my head the location of the Glass Mountains, glittering black and filling the horizon behind us. Beneath us, forest unrolled, tossing like a sea of gnarled branches that seemed to move of their own accord.

  I wanted my grimoire, where I kept all my notes, to sketch the map of what I could see, since the fae had no concept of such things. But then, I couldn’t write, could I? The thought filled me with black despair. This part of my old self that I’d clung to could also be lost. Athena had no idea what she’d asked me, thinking I’d want to keep the claws that destroyed my first and best tool, my hands.

  Rogue slipped a comforting thought into my mind, like lacing his fingers with mine, and the simple gesture held me steady. I needed it, because this was one battle I would not lose. I might be pregnant with Rogue’s baby, but I refused to be dependent on him.

  I’d die first.

  Chapter Three

  In Which I Return to the Castle of the Dark Gods

  The landscape of Faerie seems barely more fixed than its denizens or the flow of time. Sometimes I think there are no maps because they would be obsolete in a day.