The Lethe Stone (The Fae War Chronicles Book 4)

by Jocelyn Fox

  Just like you to give me a vision that explains absolutely nothing, she said to the Sword a bit grumpily.

  Perhaps it will teach you patience, the Sword replied serenely.

  Tess snorted slightly. Fat chance.

  The Sword chuckled in its sheath. Now, we must focus on this council, my Bearer.

  A cold wind suddenly shoved its fingers into the pavilion, snapping the banners and twisting the gauzy curtains. The sunlight emanating from the dome overhead wavered, storm cloud darkness curdling at the edges of the sky illusion. Titania turned to face the eastern entrance to the pavilion, standing regally with her Three ranged in a crescent behind her. The Seelie Queen motioned with one hand – a small motion, barely more than the curl of one finger – and the sunlight from the dome strengthened, the blinding blue of a cloudless noon sky pushing away the lurking thunderheads at the edges of the pavilion.

  Tess felt the Sword coil watchfully. She stepped closer to Vell, who stood off to one side, hand casually resting on the hilt of the ceremonial dagger at her belt. Gray looked bored. Finnead watched without any sign of interest, his handsome face perfectly unreadable. Out of the High Queen’s Three, Liam seemed the most engaged, but he’d never witnessed a meeting between the Seelie and Unseelie Queens.

  “I thought that perhaps this was happening,” murmured Vell without turning her head.

  “Thought what was happening?” Tess asked, sliding her words back toward the Vyldretning like smuggled coins.

  “The makings of another war,” the High Queen said in a low voice.

  A chill ran through Tess as Vell’s words echoed in her head. She drew back her shoulders and forced herself not to show her horror at the thought of a war between the two Courts. There was no love lost between she and Mab, but she still had friends in the Unseelie Court. And just because they were Mab’s subjects didn’t mean that they deserved to be thrust into a needless war, not to mention the cost to the Seelie. Where would the Vyldgard fit into a war between the Sidhe? Goosebumps raised the skin on her arms as the cold in the pavilion deepened from a chill to a biting wintry cold. The curtains tangled about the pillars, and the wind whipped froth into the sea illusion on the silver floor beneath their feet. Tess looked away before it could make her dizzy. Her breath plumed in a frosty cloud. The Seelie Three and their Queen seemed unaffected, and the High Queen and her Three still held their looks of casual observation.

  Mab strode into the pavilion in a swell of icy wind, the stars in her diadem shining coldly. At the edge of her senses, Tess heard the crashing waves and baying hounds that had once overwhelmed her in Darkhill. Mab had raked through her mind on that first meeting, rifling through Tess’s thoughts and memories with her cruel touch. The Sword’s power expanded in her chest, warming her ribs and sending a comforting tendril of power down her war markings. Tess raised her chin. Vell stood perfectly still, her golden eyes shifting between Mab and Titania.

  The Unseelie Queen wore a gown as dark as night, the skirts embroidered with gems that pulsed like miniature stars. Her Three wore all black, and Tess noted with another chill that they all wore breastplates that did not shine with a gloss or lacquer like those of the Seelie and Vyldgard, but rather seemed to suck the light into them with a dark hunger. She thought that it had been agreed not to wear armor to this council. Ramel walked at Mab’s right hand, half a pace behind the Unseelie Queen. His green eyes, usually flashing with humor, were cold and hard when he glanced at Tess. The change in Ramel shook Tess more deeply than the iciness of the air. Donovan, anointed as the Vaelanmavar during the battle in the courtyard, walked at Mab’s left hand, and her Vaelanseld stood behind her, as if guarding against an attack from the rear. All of Mab’s Three wore their swords. Finnead stiffened slightly.

  When Mab stepped onto the silver floor, its surface darkened to the steely gray of a stormy sea. The hint of a smile touched Titania’s lips. Tess forced herself not to grip the hilt of the Sword for comfort as the air in the pavilion hummed with tension. The roiling thunderheads gained purchase again on the eastern edge of the pavilion, pushing into the bright noon sky, a midnight darkness cloaking the ceiling behind them.

  “Crown Sister,” said Titania, her mellifluous voice somehow still beautiful but hard as steel.

  Mab said nothing in reply, striding across the floor until she stood opposite Titania, her Three standing closer to her than the Seelie Three. At closer range, Tess noticed the change in Mab’s face: sharper angles and a darker fire in the eyes of the Unseelie Queen. Mab didn’t acknowledge Titania, but rather turned slightly to Vell and said without inclining her head, “High Queen.”

  “Queen Mab,” replied Vell, still perfectly neutral. Somehow, Tess realized, Vell had positioned herself exactly between Mab and Titania, standing at the seam between the two Sidhe Queens yet still maintaining the distance of a few paces. Tess stood closer to Mab, though she was clearly within the High Queen’s radius. She wished she’d positioned herself on the side closer to Titania as glacial cold seeped into her boots from the floor. Then Vell made a small motion, similar to what Titania had done, and the cold receded. The frost creeping across the tempest tossed gray floor met an invisible wall arcing around Tess and the High Queen’s Three. Tess thought she saw a small smile lift one corner of Vell’s mouth, but she wasn’t entirely sure. The Sword prodded her, and she turned her attention back to the Sidhe Queens.

  “This is not a council of war,” Titania said, locking gazes with Mab. The enmity between them crackled through the air like a fork of lightning.

  “I cannot be sure of my enemies in these days,” replied the Unseelie Queen, her beautiful cold voice echoing in the pavilion.

  Titania arched an eyebrow even as her Three took a step closer to her. “You believe me to be your enemy?”

  “We have long been enemies, you and I,” said Mab.

  “Yet not a sennight ago we fought in the Dark Keep together.” Titania remained serene. The storm clouds reached the center of the pavilion’s ceiling, and there they stopped their advance, roiling higher but leaving the sky over Titania and her Three untouched.

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Mab. She turned slightly toward Vell again. “Is that not the mortal saying, Lady Bearer?” The word mortal sounded like the worst kind of insult from Mab’s lips.

  Tess clenched her jaw, meeting Mab’s eyes. She let a moment of silence hang suspended in the pavilion, and then she said calmly, “Yes.”

  Mab waited, as though she expected Tess to say more, but then she turned back to Titania. “Now the enemy is vanquished, and there is no need for the pretense of any love between us.”

  Titania laughed, the sound as lovely as a brightly chattering waterfall and the chimes of delicate bells. “There was never any pretense of love between us, Crown Sister.”

  Tess couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw Mab whiten further at every mention of the word sister. Was Titania deliberately baiting Mab? She felt like she’d stepped into a whirlpool and couldn’t stop herself from careening toward its center. The vision of the woman in the scarlet dress had knocked her off balance, and now she felt that she couldn’t recover.

  Then Vell spoke before the Sidhe Queens pressed further with their veiled threats. “If you wish to hold a council of your two Courts, by all means you may, after we have concluded this council of three.” She gestured to the table, around which were ranged four chairs. “Let us sit and hold council, as is our purpose here.”

  “By all means,” murmured Titania, her eyes never leaving Mab.

  “As the High Queen requests,” said Mab, her voice a low and deadly purr.

  Mab and Titania swept over to the table, taking seats opposite each other, leaving Vell and Tess to sit between them. Tess took a breath and sat down, Titania on her right and Mab on her left. The tension in the pavilion hadn’t lessened.

  “I shall open this council with discussion of its most pressing matter,” said Vell without preamble. “We wish to open a Gat
e into the mortal world.”

  “You and the Lady Bearer wish to open this Gate,” said Titania, making it more of a statement than a question.

  “Yes,” replied Vell. “Three of our warriors were lost through the portal opened by the breaking of the Seal during the battle in the Dark Keep. We wish to open a Gate in order to search for them.”

  “They are most likely dead. Why should we waste our effort?” said Mab, looking at Tess and smiling. Tess clenched her jaw so hard she thought that her teeth would break, and she knew in the back of her mind that she was glaring murderously at the Unseelie Queen, but she didn’t care.

  “Because it is what is owed to our warriors,” said Vell, her voice slightly louder. The scent of snow and pine slowly drifted around the table.

  “They are not my warriors,” Mab said silkily.

  “Merrick was, once,” said Tess, the clipped words escaping before she could contain them.

  “And so was your Vaelanbrigh, once,” replied the Unseelie Queen, shifting her gaze to Finnead. “Or do you go by a different title at the High Queen’s side?”

  Tess frowned slightly at Mab’s venom toward Finnead. He’d rescued the Crown Princess in the battle, and he’d already spent countless hours in the Unseelie camp trying to find a way to mend the Princess’s broken mind. Then she realized that Mab blamed Finnead…perhaps even considered him a traitor.

  Vell raised her chin slightly. “If you have any quarrel with one of my Three, Queen Mab, you shall address it to me.”

  Mab’s gaze slid to the Vyldretning. “You have been crowned over us,” she said in a low voice, “and you steal our warriors away from us to create your own Court.”

  “You are approaching treasonous words,” said Vell calmly. “I would tread carefully, Mab.”

  “So we must bow and scrape to you now, even as you pick away at our courts to feather your own nest?” said Mab derisively. She smiled coldly. “I will not bend the knee to a Northern wilding brat barely off the teat.”

  Tess tensed as Liam, Finnead and Gray took a step forward. Rage flickered behind Liam’s eyes, and Gray looked as though she wanted to leap across the table. But Vell tilted her head, considering Mab as she took a long breath and let it out slowly. Then the High Queen smiled a dangerous, unsettling smile and her power burst through the room in a silent explosion, shattering the illusion of the sky overhead and the sea beneath their feet, sweeping away the evidence of the struggle between the two Sidhe Queens in undeniably spectacular fashion. The diaphanous white curtains suddenly dripped scarlet, as though blood poured from the ceiling. The frost disappeared, wiped away neatly. Tess felt Vell’s power rush around her without touching her. It felt like standing on a rock in the middle of a frothing river. She saw Titania pressed back into her chair, and Mab whitened even further, but both Queens maintained their calm expressions despite the power crashing over the pavilion.

  Then Vell took another deep breath, and her power receded, gone as quickly as it had appeared. She looked hard at Titania and then at Mab, keeping her gaze on the Unseelie Queen. “I shall assume your…rudeness is sparked by the unfortunate circumstances of your younger sister, for which you have my empathy. I have lost a sister and found her again, only to have her taken from me.” Vell paused. Tess couldn’t help the small smile that stole its way onto her lips at her friend’s magnificent handling of the Sidhe Queens. “Now, I have had enough of the posturing and insults. We shall discuss the Gate now.” The Vyldretning looked again at Mab and Titania. Titania managed to nod gracefully, but Mab merely stared at the High Queen with hooded eyes. Tess thought that perhaps this was the first time in a long time that Mab had been effectively reduced to a bully.

  As the scarlet drapes rippled slightly in the breeze, Vell continued. “I believe it is in our best interest to open a Gate to the mortal world. The balance between our worlds was long kept by careful maintenance of the Great Gate. Both your Courts and my people have benefited from our interactions with the mortal world, though the good that came of it might be easily forgotten over the centuries.”

  “Centuries are not so long a time,” said Titania in a quiet velvety voice.

  Vell acknowledged Titania’s words with a slight nod. “I propose that we construct a warded, mobile Gate. Travel into the mortal world and returning to this world will be restricted, the list approved and amended in subsequent councils or by another method upon which we agree.”

  “And you will force us to help you in building this Gate?” Mab’s words contained a hint of sulkiness.

  “I would not force you,” replied Vell. “I am not a tyrant. But I ask you to consider it, and I am willing to hear requests for aid in kind.”

  Tess kept her face carefully smooth even as her heart rate increased: Vell had just laid the bait. Now they had to see if Mab would take it.

  “I need no aid in kind to assist the High Queen if she asks it,” said Titania, smiling beatifically at Vell. “I shall assist in the creation of this Gate. I give my word.” The smile faded from her face as she stared across the table at Mab, her eyes challenging the Unseelie Queen. Mab ignored her and looked at Vell.

  “If you truly offer an…exchange,” the Unseelie Queen said, “then I take it.”

  Tess held her breath.

  “I would not say it if I did not truly offer it,” replied Vell, arching one eyebrow. “What exchange do you propose?”

  “There is an object of power,” said Mab. Tess felt her heart hammer against her ribs. “Perhaps the last of its kind, and perhaps the only solution to my sister’s…pain.”

  “And what is this object?” asked Vell, though she knew perfectly well. She had been the one to send Haze into the Unseelie Court, planting the seed of this idea. Wisp’s cousin was not so well known as a Wild Court messenger, and he had clearly succeeded in his task.

  “A Lethe Stone,” said Mab, and Tess pressed her lips together, swallowing down the hot triumph bubbling up in her chest.

  “Lethe Stones are outlawed by every code in both our Courts,” said Titania.

  “So are mortals, and yet one is standing behind the High Queen as one of her Three, and one sits between us as the Bearer of the Iron Sword,” replied Mab smoothly.

  “I believe neither of us is quite mortal anymore,” Tess said lightly, “but I would like to hear more about your request for this Lethe Stone.” She leaned forward, clasping her hands together on the table and looking at Mab. “What exactly is a Lethe Stone, and why was it outlawed?” She forced herself to hold Mab’s narrowed gaze. She was the Bearer, and Mab could no longer dig her claws into Tess’s mind to ascertain the truth of her words. But all the same, a tiny thrill coursed through her when Mab leaned back slightly and began speaking.

  “A Lethe Stone holds the power to erase memories.”

  “And why was it outlawed?” asked Tess when Mab fell silent.

  The Unseelie Queen gave her a humorless smile. “Because it was dangerous for anyone to have the ability to wipe clean someone’s mind. Memories make us who we are, do they not? If we do not remember our past experiences…have we lived?”

  Tess pressed her lips together. “So if it is outlawed, why is there even a Lethe Stone that still exists? Weren’t they all destroyed?” All hollow questions, adornment of their carefully laid trap. But she wanted to hear Mab’s answers.

  “I believe there is a sorcerer who bore one of these Lethe Stones in the service of Malravenar,” said Mab. “Not all of Malravenar’s servants were laid waste at the Dark Keep.”

  “What do we know of this sorcerer?” Vell asked.

  “I would think you would be most familiar with his work,” said Mab. “He was the architect of the recent harrowing of the North.”

  If Tess didn’t know that Vell had already known, that they’d done their own painstaking research and reconnaissance, she would have thought that Vell’s indrawn breath and the slight flicker in her golden eyes were real signs of surprise or distress, or both.

  “I beli
eve he is a bone sorcerer,” continued Mab blithely, “making him especially suited to wield the Lethe Stone.”

  Vell had explained to Tess that bone sorcerers were a particularly nasty breed of Dark mage, versed in using blood and bone to weave their spells.

  “A bone sorcerer roaming our lands is cause for action in itself,” murmured Titania.

  “Oh, he is not in our lands,” replied Mab. She looked at Tess, a predatory glee spreading over her beautiful face. “He is in the mortal world.”

  Tess didn’t have to feign shock. Mab’s words hit her like a punch to her stomach; she hadn’t known this. All their preparation hadn’t revealed that vital piece of information.

  Or Vell hadn’t told her. She raised her eyes to her brother, who stood behind Vell dutifully. She couldn’t read Liam’s expression. Had he known too? Tess swallowed and the Sword’s power expanded, filling her bones, fortifying her. She looked squarely at Mab. “Then as the Bearer, it is my duty to travel into the mortal world and kill this bone sorcerer.”

  “Another dangerous quest for our intrepid Bearer,” purred Mab.

  “One that requires a Gate to the mortal world,” replied Tess steadily. She’d been prepared for a lightning fast mission into the Northern wilds or the far reaches of the Deadlands; she’d even talked to Calliea about using the Valkyrie. They’d been prepared to hunt and destroy this sorcerer with all the might of the Vyldretning and perhaps the Seelie Queen behind them. Now…now Tess thought of returning to her old world to battle an enemy she knew nothing of, in a world where she didn’t know how her powers would react, and her stomach curdled. She forced herself to think of Luca. This was the only way to save him.

  “You shall have your Gate,” said Mab, “but you must bring me the Lethe Stone that this bone sorcerer bears.”

  “I cannot agree with this exchange,” said Titania. “The Lethe Stone must be destroyed with the bone sorcerer.”