by Renee Peters
Still, the farm had given up its crop, and the eight years spent there had been bountiful. Winds would roll between the hills, drying out the mud left by the rains, and whipping hair across the faces of the family who lived there. The only thing able to tame unruly locks were bonnets. But when the child who lived on the farm would not accept the headpiece, her mother had taken to weaving the girl’s hair into a braid.
She could still feel the softness of Marjolaine’s curls between her fingers.
Joanna opened her eyes and lifted her fingers to brush the black ribbon she wore around her throat.
Her daughter’s ribbon.
Age had taken its toll on the accessory. Stitches and mismatched black fabric were all that held it together these days.
Dropping her hand back into her lap, the woman let her gaze flicker across the other bodies who occupied the carriage.
Seated side by side next to Joanna on the bench was a young-looking couple.
Noelle was the first who had shown her kindness, and little had changed about the girl in the passing years. She had freckles and auburn hair that she had curled into the style of the day. The soft blue pelisse she wore was likewise the year's spring style.
The dark-haired Garrett, her bond, sat beside her. Unlike Noelle, he favored a gray and black palette, and though he was as young faced as his chosen, his eyes were heavily lidded. It gave him a sullen cast to his expression that rarely changed. Joanna had only seen him lulled from his gloom by Noelle’s cheerfulness.
Across from their bench, Ayla sat with her hands folded and her gaze set on the book in the lap of her seat-mate Raewyn, Anowen’s resident librarian. Though both Ayla and Raewyn had ebon hair and pale skin, Raewyn had mounds of curls and possessed a petite frame and plump figure at odds with the towering strength of the High Queen. Yet, despite their differences, they were as close as any sisters.
Perhaps they had bonded over a love of books before Ayla had been silenced.
The High Queen spent the trip reading over Raewyn’s shoulder, and their librarian had obliged her by waiting to turn the page until Ayla tapped a gloved finger against her arm.
“You know, Ayla, it would be easier to borrow the book from the library after Wynnie is done,” Noelle’s voice lifted from the gloom within the carriage. “I don’t know how you manage not to get sick with the rocking. I dare say I’m queasy just for looking at you.”
Her fingers reached out to pat Garrett’s thigh reassuringly. “But not to worry, love. I shall not cast up my accounts into your lap before we reach town — I have not actually eaten today.”
Garrett lifted his fingers to pry open the window, and a fresh breeze rolled into the carriage, along with the scent of farmlands. He turned his head to nudge a kiss to Noelle’s temple. “Does that help? Not too cold?”
Raewyn lifted her head, a twinkle in her eyes. “How kind of you to worry, Garret. It is almost as if you have forgotten that our Noelle is not nearly as fragile as she appears.” There was a quiet tease in her tone. “It is Joanna for whom we should be concerned.”
Her gaze turned to rest on the Frenchwomen and gentled. “You are quite comfortable, dear?”
The blonde flashed a small smile and bowed her head. “I am not so fragile, either… Thank you, Raewyn.” But she turned her face back to the window. The scent on the air and memories it stirred made her flute song drop by an octave, slurring on its way.
The queen frowned and pressed her hand against her forehead. She could feel Raewyn’s lyre plucking an attentive melody through her blood as the librarian studied her.
The music was growing too loud.
Joanna shook her head. “Perhaps… only a head pain.”
Raewyn’s brow furrowed, and her expression shaded thoughtful. Of a habit, she turned toward Ayla and her lips parted to speak, only to fall closed again.
“Go on, Wynnie,” Ayla said. “We shall not get to the next page before we reach the city center if you do not speak up.”
The librarian shifted, suddenly restless in her place, and a gloved hand came to rest on the fullness of her bosom. “It is only… something is not right with the music.” Her brows stitched again. “I mean, it is right — good — but it is not as it should be. It grows louder… as if Lian had….”
Noelle’s eyes widened slightly, and she turned a look toward Garrett. “Is that why of late you’ve had all the patience of a wounded bear? I confess I probably have not kept silence long enough to notice a difference in the music.” The coven’s airy chatterbox was shameless in owning her distractibility.
“I could not bear this castle if you were silent,” Garrett offered, leaning his head against the glass. “But it only comes and goes. It is not as it was when he….” The lord trailed off, before finding his tongue to continue. “When he brought Joanna home.”
The Frenchwoman’s stomach was threatening to turn again. She did not remove her hand from her brow and instead turned deeper into the carriage corner as if she might disappear between the bench and the door.
She remembered when she had been brought to the castle.
Joanna had been the reason their symphony had been lifted out of the numbness of unfeeling quiet that was their sire’s grieving shroud. The awakening that her living heart and song had caused in the weave had been like a plague for the rest of the family.
The decades of pent sorrow that had been unleashed by their mourning hearts had infected her in turn.
Her fingers slipped lower, curling around her ribbon.
“Is there another song?” Ayla asked.
Raewyn sat straighter, as if the posture might make it easier to hear or feel as silence settled over the carriage.
“No….” Uncertainty laced through the librarian’s tone. “Lian’s music is… different. Warmer and louder, but there is no one else. It makes little sense.”
“Perhaps he is hunting again — I do not think he was feeding nearly enough, locked away in his hole,” Noelle offered. “I always feel better after a hunt.”
At her side, Joanna heard a shuffle of fabric and sensed a shift in weight on the bench as Garrett leaned against his bond. She did not look their way again or pull her gaze from the window once the lamp lights of the city began to shine down on the carriage.
Her silence lasted through the confused chatter that filled the carriage as her siblings discussed the possibilities.
It was not a subject she cared to dwell upon.
When the carriage rolled to a stop, Joanna was the first to slip down into the arms of their young warden. Departing from the group to see to her own hunt, she had nothing but the quietly concerned refrains of their music growing louder behind her.
Chapter 3
Dorian Vaughn, a High Lord and Elder of House Anowen, sat in the plush interior of his heralded carriage with one leg crossed over the other. He found himself to be surprisingly content that evening; so much so that the shine of his evening shoes beat an idle time to a rhythm inaudible to his driver.
It was the rhythm of the music that sang through his blood — the symphony of the family he was bound to — accompanied by the lazy drift of his sire’s piano song.
Dorian’s thumb grazed the engraving on the surface of his pocket watch, and his study lifted to settle on the man who sat across from him. Lian Redmond, Arch Lord of Anowen and Sovereign of Britain’s Aegean Immortals, was a father and brother both to the Castilian he had gifted a second life.
And tonight, uncharacteristically inclined to a mood to be social.
They had, in the centuries of their Immortal existence, carved out a niche for themselves among the humans. But where Dorian, the Conde de Castile, had little qualms about enjoying the offerings of mortal society, Lian as the Earl of Rosse was content to be a hermit.
They were a study in contrasts.
Dorian’s Castilian heritage lent a darkness to his features, complemented by the warmer palette he wore. The Earl of Rosse was everything of the Celt he had been in another lif
e with blond hair and pale skin, and a penchant for wearing cooler colors.
Despite Lian’s anti-social ways, it was a rare occasion that the Elder would deny Dorian his invitations into the public eye. It was rarer still of late, to hear the warm plinking of his sire’s piano keys. The change was enough to coax the Castilian’s violins into a subtle crescendo.
The Conde glanced down at his pocket watch as the seconds ticked closer to the hour the drinking houses would close.
“If your singing is because of your satisfaction for having cast a blight on my evening, brother,” he said, “I stand ready to remind you that eternity is a long time in which to serve up a cold meal.”
Of revenge.
Lian would no doubt expect it. They had been at their game for too long for the Arch Lord to accept anything but that Lord Vaughn would return fire when his brother had won an advantage.
Dorian leaned back in his seat. “Though I must admit as a performance it is much preferred to the death march you were caterwauling when last we had occasion for such a ride.”
“Ms. Prichett seemed nice,” Lian offered idly, and did not open his eyes.
If it were not for the rigidness of his posture, he might have seemed to sleep. “There was little to interest her in my person, in any event. I am already married. If you would care to attend to your duties, I might be less inclined to encourage bachelorettes your direction to cast blights on your evening.”
Dorian winced internally for the hit. Touché.
The High Lord was past due for his selection of a bride among the sisters of his House for the sake of settling the affairs of his mortal estate. That Lian had chosen his first born Queen and bond, Celia, for his mortal wife in name had come as no surprise — even if the Sovereign had seen little of the inside of Anowen’s walls or his bonded family in quite some time.
“It would seem by your contentment that your hiatus from attending your own duties as Arch Lord is paying dividends,” Dorian murmured. “Though if you do not hang up the mantle of the Earl of Rosse to poke your head above ground again for your children, you will no doubt pay dearly for their curiosity.”
The blond made a quiet sound like a huff of breath but gave no answer beyond a flicker of a sidelong glance the Castilian’s way before looking out the window.
“Your Queen is of a mind to know when next she should expect to be graced with your presence,” the Castilian pressed.
“I am sure those were her precise words.”
Dorian exhaled and tucked the watch into his front breast pocket as the carriage began to rumble into a stop.
Their driver, Dorian’s butler, William, appeared and with him came a roll of cold, night air. Politely announcing their arrival at their intended destination, William stepped out of the way. Lian eased his way down first, and Dorian descended after him with a light hop to the ground.
He had not made it farther before the Arch Lord lifted a gloved hand to signal him to wait.
A glance of idle curiosity flickered Lian’s way, before shifting to the streets.
He heard her flutes before he saw a flash of skin as pale as moonlight, and the golden shimmer of a braid that betrayed Joanna’s presence on the hunt. In a jade pelisse, she seemed all of a mortal Lady of means walking alone despite the illusion of perfection granted by her curse.
It had fooled at least one other in the darkness: some young man with a slight stumble to his step who followed at a careful pace. A hitch in her walk betrayed the moment she noticed the Elders, and her head lifted as if she meant to look their way before she stopped herself. Her shadow likewise halted and shuffled back into the darkness beyond the streetlamp.
For a moment, Joanna remained still, as if the intrusion had caused her to lose track of her thoughts. She turned a glance behind her before picking up a quicker pace that became a run once her shadow had made it clear he remained intent on following her into the cover of an alleyway.
Dorian’s song spiked into a discordant ripple that betrayed an unexpected undertone of worry. With his brows furrowed, he clamped down on the rise of emotion and distracted himself by straightening his clothing.
When he caught Lian watching him, the Castilian spoke idly, “I must admit that I will never quite get used to the women hunting alone. Call me indulgent or over-protective, but I rather miss the old days when we were of a number to hunt as one.”
“You are indulgent and overprotective,” Lian replied with a shrug. “But you have always been. I might not know what to do with you if you were any other way.” He spared the Castilian another look that lingered. “Joanna is more than capable of attending to her needs without such a peal of concern.”
If Dorian had intended upon a reply, the approaching harmony of an airy flute and oboe stopped him before he could plan a response. Lian heard them too and was already turning to face the approaching queen and the lord in her shadow.
“Lian!”
The delight that suffused Noelle’s expression was enough to earn a sideways look from her bond, and Dorian felt a smile tug at his lips. The former barmaid who had been rescued into their family all but broke into a trot in their direction around the tangle of her skirts.
“But truly, it is almost as if you heard us talking about you! Perhaps we should have done so sooner. Do your ears burn?” She skittered to a halt. “Not that we haven’t been talking about you too, Dori. But Lian has been the greater mystery,” she said it kindly, as if in fear of hurting his feelings.
Dorian scarcely heard her. It was less for the fact that his ears had grown used to tuning out his sister’s chatter, and more for his awareness that he was searching for the sound of Joanna’s flutes across their weave. He managed a casual look toward the alley she had disappeared into.
Lian reached out to tug lightly on one of the queen’s curls, and his expression gentled by degrees. “I imagine I could guess at the subject, Noelle,” he said, and smiled Garrett’s way. “But you cannot have been on your hunt long enough to have claimed a meal. I would not wish to distract you so.”
Dorian’s brow stitched.
He could not hear the French queen’s music.
Noelle’s lips curved downward, but the pout that threatened disappeared almost as quickly as it had surfaced. “Indeed. I think Garrett might be inclined to starve himself were it not for my campaign to see him fed.” Her expression turned solemn. “Men are quite stubborn, you know.”
She took a step back to spare a look between the Elders, and Dorian felt the ripple of her sorrow along the threads that stretched between them. It distracted him briefly from his attention to the blonde lost from sight.
It had been longer than he cared to remember since he had tasted the pain of grief in his family’s music. He had no pleasure for experiencing the melody again.
But where the devil was Joanna?
She should have emerged from the alley by now.
“Say you will visit soon, the both of you.” Noelle’s voice interrupted the darkness of Dorian’s thoughts.
Lian drifted nearer to the auburn-haired queen, leaning in to touch a kiss to her cheek. Garrett likewise suffered the touch of the Arch Lord’s hand against his head to draw him in near enough for a kiss to his crown. Though the younger lord pulled a face, his music betrayed his pleasure with a lighter turn of notes.
“It will be a few weeks yet before I am able to keep such a promise,” Lian murmured. “But given at least one half of you is prone to starvation, it will not displease me to accompany you on your hunt. Dorian has doubtlessly found his own distraction for wanting to chaperone, anyway.”
The Castilian considered offering a denial to the charge, but instead lifted his shoulders in a shrug. He could not deny his nature and it had only gotten more pervasive with the losses the coven had suffered once. That was surely the best explanation for the almost irrational draw he felt to protect their fledgling queen.
It could not possibly be anything else.
Not for the infant who had
chosen to lose herself in Anowen’s shadows.
“Be safe on your hunt,” the Conde offered, almost cooly to his family gathered.
Then, with a lightly sketched bow, the High Lord turned on his heel and moved away toward the alleyway with purposeful steps.
Chapter 4
There was an urgency to Dorian’s stride as he moved through the darkness — one that he could not quite understand. Lian had teased about his compulsion to chaperone, but Dorian had only ever failed to trust his instincts one time. The price of that failure still resonated with him.
They should have left that night.
The night that Anowen had fallen, only to rise again from its own ashes. The draw on his soul toward the darkness of the past was as unwelcome as it was untimely. Their growing family had been counted among the Freeborn then; unprotected exiles deemed unworthy of existence when their sire refused the patronage of a recognized Aegean House.
They had paid a price in blood, and the intended decimation of his family had only been halted by the claim that had eventually secured Lian's Crown and Anowen's legitimacy.
Dorian had sensed it that night — the darkness approaching their gates. But he had not done enough to urge the departure that could have saved them. There was nothing he could do to bring back those they had lost. But he’d be damned if he ever lost another for not acting on his intuition — an intuition that was screaming now.
Something was not right.
That it was their fledgling queen raising his alarms only served to sharpen the knife.
Joanna’s was the music that had pierced his armor of shadows over a century ago. Her flutes had been a harbinger of a pain his family thought buried and yet — somehow — a pinprick of light that had quieted him whenever she was near.
A shelter in the storm of her own making.
