Song of the Fairy Queen

by Valerie Douglas

  His fingers moving, Haerold traced a sign, a little glyph, in the air above her heart.

  Kyri’s throat tightened. Fear turned her limbs to water.

  With a wave, he turned to his Queen. “Elissa, my dear?”

  It took everything Kyri had to hold still, to show nothing as the woman walked up and repeated the gesture, but she could feel herself pale.

  Harold gestured again and pain bored into her. The wizard Queen did the same. Like the long ago arrow had, it pierced her, impaled her. She closed her eyes against the outrageous agony, her heart pounding.

  “Tell us where Morgan is and the pain stops,” Haerold said.

  Kyri knew that was when the pain would truly start.

  “I don’t know,” she said, “nor would I tell you if I did.”

  “So you know,” Haerold said, gesturing, “We’ll ask again. And again. Until you do.”

  The wizard Queen snapped her fingers and light gushed from Kyri’s chest. Haerold did the same.

  Pain exploded through her, as light streamed out of her.

  “Little sips, my Lord,” Elissa said. “Savor it. Quality matters, not quantity, or you’ll waste it.”

  Basking in it, they shivered a little with pleasure as they drank her in. Pleasured themselves with her. Now Kyri knew why the Queen had reminded her of a tick, or a leech….as did Harold now as well….

  There was a terrible sense of draining, of something being drawn out of her and the pain.

  “It will stop, just tell us where they are,” Haerold said.

  Kyri stayed silent.

  “No more than we expected,” Haerold said, eyeing her speculatively. “There’s a great deal of power there, though. Enough to share.”

  “There is,” his Queen said, gesturing to the guard at the door, “if used carefully. And we shouldn’t waste it, or the opportunity.”

  Kyri’s heart pounded as the guards opened the doors and more wizards came in. Magic whispered over her skin.

  With a gesture and a nod to one of them, Elissa walked closer, eyeing Kyri curiously.

  “Take just a little, Barlow.”

  Pain lanced through her.

  Kyri had been watching the wizard Queen and not the wizard. Her breath locked in her chest as agony speared through her, the wizard’s expression blissful as light streamed from her and he soaked it in.

  With an impatient glance at the next, the wizard Queen eyed her.

  Another tap opened within her and Kyri shuddered, pierced and invaded once again, light pouring out of her. It became difficult to think.

  “How many can she take?” Haerold asked speculatively.

  “We’ll find out,” Elissa said, gesturing to the next.

  “The Fairy Queen herself,” Haerold said. “She should last quite some time.”

  With satisfaction his Queen nodded and said, “Quite some time, managed properly. And so long as she lives, there will be no other Queen or King of the Fairy.”

  Another glyph, another tap, another bright stream of light flowing, another drawing from her as pain impaled her.

  Kyri felt the drain of life force, a drawing-off, as their faces reflected their ecstasy and her back bowed. Agony flooded her. Her heart thudded in her breast.

  Elissa ran her hand down the Fairy Queen’s flank as she trembled, eyelids fluttering, the sea-colored eyes beneath them hazed with pain, but still aware.

  Perfect.

  Elissa nodded to another of the wizards and this time the Fairy Queen couldn’t keep from crying out as Elissa petted her idly, the Fairy’s body tightening as another stream of light spiraled from her.

  She was beyond knowing she screamed.

  The dungeons had been dark, but now light filled them, flickered and danced over those who stood there.

  Her body trembled helplessly.

  “Enough,” Elissa said. “Patterson. When she wakes? Pain only. Keep bleeding to a minimum. Don’t injure her wings, under any circumstances, they’re mine. When she outlives her usefulness, I want them.”

  “Morgan will come for her,” Patterson said.

  The wizard Queen smiled. “We certainly hope so.”

  With a sigh of satisfaction, Haerold nodded. “She serves us, one way or another.”

  Chapter Sixty One

  If anything, the cheap taverns in the lower sections of the city had only become more noisome in the past few weeks or months. The squalor was incredible. A strong stench of urine arose from the ditch that passed as a gutter, from men who couldn’t be bothered to find a better place to empty themselves of the cheap ale they’d drunk.

  This tavern was no better, dark, dingy, grim. Slipping through the door and keeping to the shadows, Morgan looked around. Had it only been a few months since he’d been here last? So much had changed and so much might be lost… Fear and worry plagued him but he couldn’t afford the distraction. Not here in this place, not with Kyri’s life in the balance.

  Jacob sat at the back, his head against the wall, playing a desultory game of cards with another couple of men. His eyes looked too bright and his color was bad.

  There was no choice, Morgan had to take the chance.

  His hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, Morgan stepped up to the table.

  “Jacob,” he said quietly, the brim of his hat pulled low, grateful the light was dim. “We need to talk.”

  Jacob’s card partners looked up with vague curiosity.

  With Morgan’s hat shadowing his distinctive eyes and covering his fair hair, his hand on his sword, his mouth grim, radiating danger from every solid muscle, he was the kind of man neither wanted to mess with.

  He didn’t even glance at them, a clear warning for them to go away.

  Raising his eyes, Jacob looked beneath the brim of the hat and saw the gleam of pale blue eyes, the familiar tight jaw.

  There was no mistaking that low, deep voice either.

  Jacob was surprised to see him, for more than one reason.

  “Go on, boys,” Jacob said, “Got business to do here. Have a seat, Jack.”

  The two men sidled away nervously.

  As much as Morgan hated to sit with his back to the room, there wasn’t much choice there either. He sat, looking at Jacob.

  If anything, Jacob looked even worse up close.

  His skin was grayer, his eyes red-rimmed. He’d lost weight and muscle. It was like looking at a shadow of the man. The ghost Jacob hadn’t yet become.

  Looking up at Morgan, Jacob didn’t even wait for him to ask. He didn’t need to, there was only one reason Morgan would be here, only one reason he would take the risk of talking to the man who’d betrayed him once before.

  “Yes, she’s here, they brought her in a little while ago by portal, they’re going to announce it in the morning, tell people they have her, show her to the crowds. She’s alive. They don’t know you’re here yet, or they’d have been here asking. I doubt they epected you to find out so soon or get here so quickly.”

  Jacob had tried to get a message out, to let someone know, but – unsurprisingly – no one trusted him anymore.

  “Morgan,” Jacob said grimly but as kindly as he could, “just so you know, they plan to hang her. She’s to be hung, drawn and quartered.”

  The news went through Morgan like a knife, at the thought of it… seeing it too easily.

  “They’re already building the gallows.” Surprisingly, Jacob’s voice was gentle.

  Jacob looked at Morgan’s familiar face and a thousand memories chased through his mind.

  Once he and Morgan had been friends, very good friends. They’d trusted each other. There had been a lot of good times and a few damn scary ones, but not as scary as they’d been since Haerold.

  Jacob remembered the night he and Morgan had raided Caernarvon, their first run-in with the Hunters and the brilliant flash that had been Kyriay, Queen of the Fairy, coming between Morgan, him and sure death from the Hunters, giving Morgan time to kill the thing and taking another herse
lf.

  Perhaps it would have been better if she hadn’t saved him that night.

  Rumor had had it for a while that there had been something between Morgan and the Fairy Queen, before Joanna, and it looked as if it was true again.

  Morgan closed his eyes, his stomach twisted.

  Alive. Kyri was alive, though and here, not in dark, terrible and distant Caernarvon. It rang through him, some little consolation. Very little and it was bad enough that she was here, remembering what that wizard had done to her.

  But still, she was alive. There was a chance.

  ‘I’m coming, Kyri,’ he thought, shouting it as loud as he could in his head.

  He looked at his old friend.

  “Do I have to worry about you, Jacob?” Morgan asked quietly.

  Morgan didn’t have to say it, but it was there all the same. The only question that mattered.

  Would Jacob betray him again?

  It went through Jacob like a knife, piercingly, but he knew to his shame that he deserved it.

  He took a breath and looked at his old friend steadily. Looked into Morgan’s blue eyes..

  “No, Morgan. Not anymore.”

  For a moment their eyes met and held.

  There was something, some trace of the old Jacob, in those dark and reddened eyes. Morgan would have to trust it, he had no other choice. He nodded.

  Laying his hand on the table, Morgan got up.

  Then he offered that hand to Jacob. To the man who’d once been among his closest friends.

  Surprised, for a moment Jacob could only stare at it. His eyes burned, his heart twisted. Looking up at into those clear blue eyes, Jacob nodded and took it. Held tight, nodding once and then releasing it.

  It was goodbye and he, they, both knew it.

  Grief pierced him sharply, for the friend he’d lost and for what he, Jacob, had done to him.

  Jacob watched Morgan go, his long powerful strides and those sharp crystal blue eyes clearing the way in front of him.

  On the table was a gold piece.

  Enough and more than enough to keep Jacob going for a while. Even with all he’d done…

  Jacob wanted to swear. And he wanted to weep. He bowed his head, briefly.

  Instead, he signaled to another man across the room.

  The man came over smiling. They knew each other well, too, of late.

  Jacob hated him, hated the need.

  “How much will this buy me? “ Jacob asked, holding up the coin.

  It would be enough.

  Jacob remembered Morgan as the Bliss took him, all the times Morgan had stood at Jacob’s back and the times Jacob had stood at Morgan’s. Sweet Joanna. And the lovely little Fairy Queen with her golden hair, her incredible wings and her warm and impish smile.

  Morgan wouldn’t have to worry. Jacob made sure of it.

  They came an hour later, Haerold’s men, and spotted Jacob in his usual place in the back corner with his head back against the wall.

  He was smiling as they walked toward him and they smiled back.

  And then they swore.

  He was no longer really there.

  Chapter Sixty Two

  The man’s name was Hart and he was sympathetic to their plight. After all, he was in much the same position, he had someone in the dungeons, too. All he’d been missing was the manpower to do the job quickly enough. Now he had it, in spades, but still…

  Every other day the sluices from the cisterns on the roof of the castle were opened to clean the channels in the walls for the privies throughout the castle or after a while they stank unpleasantly. The water then ran down into the moat, effectively rinsing it as well, sending the filthy water into the river.

  “We can only get in when the sluice gates are open and the water passes through from the cisterns on the roof,” he explained. “Even then we’ll have to work fast to get the gates blocked so they don’t close on us and we have a way back out again. We’ll still have to get through the wall between the chambers.”

  Which was why he’d needed the manpower, the strength. He’d been chiseling at the mortar for months but it would take brute force to hammer the stones out of the way. “To do that, we have to wait for the gates to open.”

  The Guard would have noticed a constantly open gate. Then he would have had to wait before starting all over again and so he’d had to let it close before too long.

  It had been nerve-wracking work to get as far as Hart had, for one had to keep an eye on the Guard on the walkway above, then scramble across the moat while they weren’t looking, keeping pressed into the shadows along the wall until the sluice opened, waiting until the flow had passed, then to block it enough to squeeze through but not look visibly opened and then walk up the channel. The only advantage had been that the houses built next to the castle had their backs to the fetid, foul-smelling moat and cast their long shadows over it for most of the day. Those shadows provided decent hiding spots and odor kept away lingerers.

  “That won’t happen until late morning. There’s nothing that we can do.”

  Impatience worked at Morgan, but he could do nothing save wait in the shadows.

  They all heard the trumpets blare, but they couldn’t hear the crier’s words, just snatches of it.

  All of them could see.

  They brought Kyri out on an open wagon, slumped on the floor, her shining wings drooping over the sides.

  Kyri.

  Morgan’s heart ached to see her.

  The sun. Warmth and light. It was nearly blinding after the dark of the dungeon. It poured into her through her open wings. Even as it warmed her, she sensed Morgan as well, somewhere close, his pain so acute and so close she nearly wept. He could see her. Somehow, she knew he could see her.

  She opened her eyes.

  Her whole body ached, muscles she hadn’t known she owned burned. Every nerve seemed abraded, seared. Her cheek and mouth throbbed and breathing was difficult.

  There were blessings. At least her arms were down, for all that they were chained to the tumbrel, her wings were free and that was wonderful, however much they ached. The sun soothed her sore muscles. Only her wrists actively hurt where the cold iron encircled them, burning.

  A dozen guards surrounded her. Above her were archers.

  There would be no rescue that way.

  It was a scene was all too familiar from the day of Philip’s potential execution. So much so she instinctively looked up to make sure that there wasn’t a gallows and noose hanging above her head.

  Not yet.

  The sense of Morgan’s eyes on her was heartening, although she dared not turn her head to look for where he might be, knowing they might be watching her for some such sign.

  Still, she couldn’t lay there looking as she did, sensing his pain, although she’d to be careful not to let Haerold and his Queen see how much stronger she really was. They had made a mistake, bringing her out into the sunlight, although they didn’t know it.

  For Morgan’s sake, though, she had to give him something.

  Still, it was nearly as agonizing as her morning. They’d sent the wizards to her again…

  With the iron on her she could do no magic, but the sunlight poured into her through her wings, restoring the strength they’d taken from her.

  A little off-balance from the shackles on her wrists, Kyri struggled to her feet, swaying slightly. Automatically, her wings extended to help her maintain her balance and the crowd below her sighed with wonder as light sparkled brilliantly on them, casting rainbow shimmers around her and then she flipped them neatly closed against her back. That, too, was a relief, to be able to fold them.

  Everything ached, although the warmth baking on her shoulders helped ease that a little. It did nothing for the sharp pain in her ribs, but she couldn’t have everything. She raised her face to the sun, half closing her eyes, letting out a sigh of relief, turning her head from side to side as if to ease the ache.

  It was only a quick glimpse, but for he
r it was enough.

  There in the shadows, his fair skin and hair a slightly lighter shadow against the darkness.

  Morgan.

  Crystal tears pattered even as she tilted her head back and smiled, letting out a breath.

  The sluices opened, catching Morgan’s attention. When he looked back, Kyri was standing, her lovely face tipped back to the warmth of the sun, her golden hair streaming and rippling down her back, her wings extended and then they folded, fluttering a little as they always did to settle the feathers – an automatic gesture he’d always found oddly endearing and amusing.

  What he didn’t find amusing were the marks on her, clearly visible on her pale skin.

  There was bruising, a dark splash of blood on her temple, more on her swollen lip and the way she stood told him something pained her.

  If he found the man who’d laid hands on her, he would kill him.

  She was still beautiful, so beautiful. And alive.

  I see you, he thought, loudly, remembering her admonitions not to shout. I see you and I’m coming.

  Tears fell even as she smiled, to know he was so close. She bowed her head so that those who watched couldn’t see the little sparkles of crystalline tears.

  Her head lowered a little more so her golden hair was a curtain swinging to hide the far side of her face from watchers but Morgan thought he saw her smile a little and nod.

  I know.

  Chapter Sixty Three

  They brought Kyri in out of the sun, but they’d given her no water and now her thirst was raging. That was tolerable, but Haerold and his Queen followed, with Patterson at their heels. Kyri fought back her fear at the thought Elissa might discover what the hours in the sunlight had brought her besides thirst.

  Patterson wasn’t unexpected, either. They wanted answers and they were determined to get them, one way or the other. She remembered what Morgan had said after they rescued him and the damage his jailors had done to him.

  Her stomach quivered a little as they fastened the chains to her shackles, cranked it to pull her arms and legs up and out, until she was suspended.