“That’s not what I meant,” Arthur says, looking pleadingly at Lady Vivian.
But Lady Vivian is already gone, leaving Puck behind.
“Any other insult you might want to throw at me?” I ask, picking the hobgoblin up to stop him from chewing on my boots.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “I mean no. What I meant was…about Agravain. I wanted you to know I’ll make sure he receives the appropriate punishment for what he did to you.”
“Don’t,” I say, tickling Puck until he starts snorting convulsively. “It’ll only make the division between you guys bigger, and I don’t want you to blame me for getting kicked out of KORT.”
“His actions speak for themselves,” Arthur says, piqued. “And attacking my squire is insult enough.”
“Then stop adding fuel to the fire!” I exclaim. “The school’s already weak enough, and though I hate to admit it, it’s best for everyone around if you’re President instead of that vile pack of flees.” Puck clucks his tongue questioningly at my heated tone, and I pat his round belly to soothe him. “Not you, silly,” I tell the hobgoblin with a smile.
“I can’t let him parade around school as if nothing happened,” Arthur says. “Not when it puts you in danger.”
My breath catches in my throat at his ardent tone. Slowly, I raise my gaze to Arthur’s stern face. Despite the shadows, his eyes hold an intensity that makes me squirm. I clear my throat self-consciously, when we suddenly hear the angry rumble of voices outside our room.
“You are the last person I want to see near that demon!”
The tone is so virulent I have a hard time placing the speaker, but there’s not a trace of doubt in my mind as to who this ‘demon’ is, and that kind of reduces my choices.
“Out of all the knights out there, you should be showing me the most loyalty,” Jennifer continues, her voice filtering through the closed door like it’s made of paper.
“I did not think my actions put my loyalty in question,” Lance says.
“I already have to give way to your relentless pursuit of glory in the name of your dead brother,” Jennifer snarls, “I don’t want to have to place a changeling ahead as well.”
“You don’t,” Lance says curtly. “And do not speak of Gale like that. He was worth a thousand of your ruling families put together.”
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer says, so softly I’m forced to lean forward to hear her. “I didn’t mean to. You know how I hate having Morgan hovering around you, it’s already bad enough Arthur’s picked her as a squire.”
I look over at Arthur—though I’ve known about Lance and Jennifer getting together behind his back, I’ve never dared mention it to him. But Arthur catches my worried look and sets his index finger over his lips conspiratorially.
“You knew all along!” I exclaim, shocked out of my wits.
Outside, the voices grow quiet. Arthur expels a deep sigh and pulls the door open to uncover the quarreling pair. If it weren’t for Lance’s stricken look, I’d relish Jennifer’s utter consternation the whole second it lasts before it dissolves at my sight.
“What were you two doing in there?” she asks, her brow furrowed.
“Training my squire,” Arthur retorts. “I would ask you the same but you’ve already made it abundantly clear.”
My gaze sweeps around the trio uncertainly.
“The more you associate yourself with that tramp the more you’re tainting your blood, Arthur,” Jennifer says.
“You should know a man’s worth isn’t linked to his blood,” Arthur replies calmly. “After all, our families didn’t start at the top, did they?”
Jennifer grinds her teeth together. “Is that what you tell yourself to excuse your incompetence?” She points at me. “If it weren’t for that piece of trash right here, KORT wouldn’t be in shambles right now.” She looks straight at me then, her pale blue eyes filled with so much loathing I’m momentarily left winded. “I wish you’d sat in the Siege Perilous instead of that stupid boy.”
The slap comes quick and loud like a gunshot.
Jennifer remains stunned for a moment while the imprint of Arthur’s hand blossoms on the ivory of her cheek.
Lance places himself before Arthur, shielding Jennifer with his strong body. Not a word passes his lips but it’s abundantly clear he will not let anyone—not even the KORT President—hurt his girl again.
“You’ll be sorry for this, Arthur,” Jennifer says, angry tears pooling into her eyes. “We’ll see how you react when the Board arrives tomorrow. As for you”—she trains her eyes on me like a pair of machine guns—“you better stay out of my sight or, mark my words, I will have your stain removed from the face of the earth.”
With all the dignity she can muster, Jennifer hurries away down the long corridor where the sounds of firing furnaces and cooking orders can be overheard.
I groan inwardly. First Agravain and now Jennifer have both vowed to kill me off in the span of one evening. I look up to the ceiling, wondering if any more turds are going to fall on me tonight.
“Everyone’s waiting,” Lance says, back to business mode now that Jennifer’s gone.
I raise a questioning eyebrow at Lance, surprised at his ability to dismiss what just happened as if it were a pure figment of my imagination. But Arthur claps him good-humoredly on the shoulder.
“Let’s get going,” he says, walking off briskly.
“Where are we going?” I ask, following the two knights down the hallway in the opposite direction from the kitchens.
“To have a word with the Watchers,” Arthur says.
My footsteps falter as I recall the strange blind Fey who somehow keeps appearing before me whenever bad things happen.
“Why?” I ask, unable to hide my discomfort.
Both Arthur and Lance give me the same look of surprise.
“To get some information, of course,” Arthur finally says.
“Do you, uh, think they could have something to do with the attack?” I ask.
“Of course not,” Arthur says as we turn into a small passage leading downward. “They never interfere with anything, they just observe events unfold.”
“And what about the Siege Perilous?” I ask.
“What about it?” Arthur asks back, looking baffled. But he never saw that Watcher standing at the KORT room’s entrance when Owen was sucked into the Siege Perilous, and I’ve never mentioned it to anyone.
“Don’t you think it’s strange you have something so dangerous hanging out here for anyone to just sit in and get swallowed up by it?” I ask, shaking my head to dispel the memory of Owen’s frightened look. “What if these creepy Watchers put it there to lure innocent knights to sit in it?”
I’m rewarded with another look of utter confusion before Arthur bursts out laughing.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I say, annoyed.
“The seat is part of the school’s legacy,” Lance says. “It has always been here. In fact, the school was built around the Siege Perilous, which itself is the center of Avalon.”
“What?”
“Avalon doesn’t start at the forest,” Arthur says, “how else do you think this school can exist under a lake?”
I ignore him and instead fall into step with Lance. “So you guys stole this school from the Fey and then kept their chair of doom?”
“It’s not a chair of doom,” Lance says, steering me around a corner into a darker part of the tunnels.
“Actually,” Arthur says, sidling in between the two of us, “we’re not quite sure what its use is. Only that there’s a spell on it that prevents anyone from sitting in it. Why, we don’t know, but it’s certainly too dangerous to leave it to the Fey.”
“That’s pretty hardcore of them to curse anyone who happens to sit on their stuff,” I say. “I suppose it’s a great anti-theft device though.”
To my utter surprise, Lance bursts out laughing, and I find myself staring at the knight, blinking furiously as if I’ve been looking directl
y at the sun for too long.
“So, uh,” I say, my brain fried, “are we going to, uh, ask them about it?”
“No,” Arthur snaps, pulling me roughly after him down a narrow staircase.
“There ya are!” says a moody Percy, lounging against a large archway, Gareth and Gauvain brooding next to him.
Across from them are Hadrian and a very sour-looking Keva, who seems about to topple over under the weight of a ginormous pile of books.
“We’ve been waitin’ for hours in this rank place,” Percy adds.
“They’re just tunnels, Percy,” Arthur says, handing Milites Fabulae to Hadrian who sets it atop the pile of books held in Keva’s already shaky arms.
“Do they know we’re coming?” I ask, uneasy. I may be part-Fey myself, but my history with that side of creation isn’t stellar.
“They always know what’s happening,” Gauvain says.
“Kano,” Percy whispers, and a series of small orbs of light blinks into existence above us, dancing in the air like a bunch of obese fireflies.
A large iron door comes into view within the archway’s deep recess, its surface inscribed with strange glyphs. Arthur places his hand over a large, grey stone where the doorknob should be, and a red light blazes beneath his fingers. There’s a soft click and the door swings open without a sound.
One by one, we silently file inside the dark chamber. It takes a while for my eyes to adjust to obscurity, but when they do, I find myself wishing I’d remained oblivious to the strange, swaying shadows that dwell within the vast hall.
As I follow the knights, I catch wisps of a strange litany ebbing and flowing from the shadows, and hug myself as I recognize its narcotic rhythm—it’s the same voices I heard during my attempted escape from jail.
One of Percy’s floating lights settles on one of the shadows, briefly lighting a pale face, dead of all emotion or movement except for the lips mouthing the words of the chant.
Something shifts in the air, and I instinctively yank Arthur backward.
“Stop being so jumpy,” he whispers.
But an eerie hiss rises before us and we look down to find a snake slithering away, its dark scales occasionally reflecting Percy’s fiery orbs. The other knights suddenly fan out around us, their fingers twitching by their weapon-heavy belts.
“And so the chosen finally deigns to come,” a sultry, if sardonic, voice says.
A tall, lithe woman steps forward, then kneels down to let the snake wrap itself around her forearm. As she stands back up, a ring of light falls upon a pair of almond eyes set in a dark face, a scar over the left eyebrow marring otherwise perfectly symmetrical features.
“Chosen one?” Arthur asks guardedly.
“There’s no such thing, Sameerah,” another voice says behind the tall woman.
I shiver as I recognize it—the blind Watcher.
“No one’s fate is pre-determined,” the blind Watcher continues, “least of all that of humans’. It is, after all, the idea behind free will.”
Sameerah smiles, and in the semi-darkness she looks particularly predatory. “Perhaps not,” she says. “Yet even you must admit some are more predisposed than others towards certain… undertakings.”
As if to corroborate her statement, the snake on her arm hisses.
“Come closer, Gibborim,” the blind Watcher says.
I shiver at the strange word, the same he used with me before the school’s invasion. What kind of information can he give us that’s worth having all these strange Fey live beneath us? They’re morbid, cryptic, and probably half-insane from what I’ve already seen.
“Have you any news?” Arthur asks immediately, as if he too doesn’t like to be down here longer than necessary.
“I assume you mean about the corrupted one,” the blind Watcher says. “No, all we can do is follow the path of the plagues.”
“Thought ya were all on top o’ things,” Percy drawls. “What with bein’ Watchers and all. But seems to me y’all are always just one step behind, like everyone else.”
The Watcher inclines his head. “We unfortunately cannot be everywhere at once,” he says. “And it’s been a long time since the Dark Sidhe have cut themselves off from us, which makes them harder to track.”
“What does that even mean?” I blurt out.
I can feel more than see the Watcher’s blind eyes settle upon me. “The Dark Sidhe are like us,” he says, “but they have fallen further from the path, rupturing their connection to the Aether, and thus to us as well.”
I cock my head questioningly. Why the hell does everyone keep spewing the same chemistry term today?
“I’m afraid we have more bad news for you,” he says. “We’ve lost all trace of your fellow knight.”
“Kaede?” Arthur asks, his voice strained.
The Watcher nods.
“So she’s gone up the flume26 then,” Percy says sullenly.
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” the Watcher says. “We have simply lost her trace.”
“Probably another victim to the geas,” Sameerah says lightly.
“K would never have performed another blood oath,” Gauvain says, “she’s sworn to our Order!”
“But the Dark Sidhe have,” Sameerah retorts, petting her snake fondly, “and they better keep to their end of the bargain if they don’t want to become prey themselves.”
The knights shift uncomfortably on their feet, and I’m suddenly too scared to ask what they’re talking about.
“What about Carman’s other sons?” Arthur asks hesitantly.
“Darkness and Evil are present everywhere,” the Watcher replies, “and thriving in our midst.”
“An answer that ain’t no answer,” Percy says dourly.
But the Watcher’s words remind me of what Elias once said about them, and I wonder if this doesn’t confirm both of Carman’s sons are out there, wreaking havoc with the others.
“Can we put Carman back in her prison?” Arthur asks next, as if he’s used to getting these enigmatic responses from the Watcher. “If we were to reform past alliances—”
Sameerah lets out a soft, chilling laugh. “What makes you think we’d allow the same thing to happen again when you were the first to break the alliance by creating your foolish Order?”
“But would it be possible?” Arthur insists.
“I counsel you to seek that answer elsewhere,” the Watcher says with a sad smile, “for we do not have the power needed ourselves to accomplish such a feat. All we can do is report what we have witnessed.”
Sameerah slips behind me so fast none of us have a chance to stop her. Her long-fingered hand comes to rest upon my shoulder and I feel something smooth and cold brush against my cheek. I freeze, scared to take another breath, as her snake slowly glides across my clavicles.
“Besides,” Sameerah coos, “perhaps your little project here wants to join with Carman too. They are, after all, of the same ilk.”
The clear ring of a sword being drawn echoes in the chamber and Arthur’s well-sharpened blade comes to rest above my shoulder. “Take. Your hands. Off her.”
Sameerah lets out a low laugh as her hand tightens around my throat. I gulp, feeling the latent power behind her fingers—a small squeeze is all she would need to snap my neck.
“Sameerah,” the blind Watcher says calmly.
The Fey’s hand lifts from me as if burned, then, in the bat of an eye, she’s back at her post behind the blind Watcher.
“I apologize for her impropriety,” the Watcher continues, “as well as for our inability to help. However, there is something we can do to be of service to you. You see, Danu’s envoy has requested the child’s protection, and Sameerah has generously accepted the role.”
“What?” I ask feebly, for the Watcher’s blind eyes are fixed upon me once again.
Sameerah’s pupils contract until they’re but pinpricks in the silver of her irises. “Trust me,” she says, “it doesn’t please me either, pinky27.”
“Nor I,” Arthur says. “Morgan’s safe enough with us.”
Both Sameerah and I snort back a laugh of derision, and Arthur glares at me, offended.
“The request was clear and we will abide by our instructions,” the blind Watchman says. “Sameerah will be responsible for Morgan’s safeguard.”
“I thought you guys didn’t interfere with anything,” Arthur says.
“Exceptions can always be made in extreme circumstances,” the blind Watcher retorts evenly.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’ find your words reassuring,” Arthur says.
“Yeah,” Percy adds, “that Fey there looks ready to eat her up more so than doin’ any sorta protectin’.”
“The plan is to keep her out of the Dark Sidhe’s clutches,” Sameerah says, “as well as those of your precious Board.”
“The Board wouldn’t dare!” Hadrian exclaims.
“The Board has dared,” Sameerah retorts.
Hadrian steps forward, his sword halfway out of its scabbard, and Sameerah’s snake straightens up in the air between them, ready to strike.
“One more inch and you’ll get the kiss of death,” Sameerah hisses.
“Remember yourself, Sameerah,” the blind Watcher says.
With another hiss, the Fey woman shifts back, though I can still see her snake jabbing at the air, as if angry at having its prey taken away.
“I need your word she won’t attack one of ours,” Arthur says after a moment’s consideration. “And that she’ll take over Morgan’s training.”
“What?” I yelp. It’s now my turn to glare at Arthur.
The blind Watcher closes his eyes in thought. “That goes against our vows,” he says at last, and I allow myself to let out a sigh of relief.
“So you’re sayin’ Sameerah’s not really goin’ to protect Morgan then,” Percy says, “but be more like an alarm system?” At Sameerah’s growl, he adds, “A mighty pretty one, but useless nonetheless.”
“Fine!” Sameerah snaps. “I’m not going to supervise the pinkie’s training, but I’ll make it a pleasure to protect her properly should the occasion arise. I’ve broken plenty of vows in the past, what’s one more? Besides, when the command came, there was no mention as to how I should accomplish my duties.”
Rise of the Fey Page 22
