‘I don’t know.’
‘Do something.’ Aethan’s face distorted as my eyeballs solidified.
I tried to scream but my mouth froze open in a macabre grimace as the ice continued its path through my cells.
‘What’s going on here?’ I recognised the sibilant sounds of a night faery man. ‘Why are you using magic within our walls?’
‘She broke her hand. I was healing her.’
For a moment I could make out a shadow man peering down towards me, but then, as my eyes finished freezing, even that was gone.
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Normally it is the spell maker that is affected by the punishment curse.’
‘What’s happening to her?’
‘She is dying.’ He didn’t sound at all concerned.
If I had thought the healing was painful it had nothing on being turned into a snowman.
‘Do something,’ Aethan growled. There was the sound of cloth tearing.
‘Release me,’ the night faery snapped. ‘The price must be paid.’
‘We were not warned,’ Isla said.
‘We do not need to warn you oath breaker. It is our home.’
Scruffy let out a bark and I heard the night faery swearing. ‘Get him off me. Stupid dog.’
There was more tearing and then a smacking sound and Scruffy let out a low whine.
He had hurt him. That stupid night faery had hurt my dog. I didn’t care that he was willing to watch me die. That was the sort of behaviour I would have expected from them. But nobody, and I mean nobody, hurt my familiar and got away with it.
I ignored the pain from the ice and concentrated on the white heat of my fury, filling myself with it till I thought my legs and chest must be glowing white. Then I forced it upwards to where the ice met healthy flesh.
‘Help her or die,’ Wilfred growled.
‘Do not threaten me bear. You brought this on yourselves.’
I ignored their fighting as slowly, ever so slowly, I forced the glacier back up towards the tip of my head. I wanted to cry out with the pain of the steam bubbling in my cells, but instead I concentrated on my anger. I would make him pay if it were the last thing I did.
‘What’s happening?’ I felt a soft hand on my chest. ‘She’s warm again.’
‘That’s not possible.’ The night faery sounded torn between disappointment and confusion.
The thought of wrapping my hands around his throat gave me the strength to keep going. Up past my neck, into my face. I wondered if steam was oozing off me. I blinked my eyes as my lids unfroze, and then, as my eyeballs liquefied I did let out a scream. Burning, stabbing, white hot pokers in my eye sockets, but when the pain finally ebbed I could see.
Pushing, pushing, the ice fought me every inch. I knew if I let go, even for a second, I would lose the battle. Up my forehead, to the tip of my head. One last push and with a roar I forced the spell out of me. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to make sure that it never did that to any other person.
I felt the spell fleeing back to where it had come from and I followed it. Down through the walls of the castle we raced. Round and round as we circled deeper and deeper. Tendrils of the spell embedded in the castle ripped out like a weeded creeper. And then we were diving through the floor, to a huge, black gem buried deep within the earth.
Anger and hate pulsed from the stone. I almost gave up as the toxic emotions washed up against my psyche. But then I remembered the feel of it stealing my life away and I poured myself into it.
Jealousy raged inside me, clawing me apart from the inside out. Aethan was mine, mine! The pulsing of the stone grew stronger as it fed off me. It was the cause of the discontent within the land. A parasite. The gem encouraged pain and then fed off it.
No wonder the night faeries were the way they were. No wonder they had changed so much from what they had been. The magic from this stone infused the castle. It was evil. It had to die.
I pushed away my jealousy and concentrated on happy thoughts. I thought about Mum, Grams and Sabby and how much they meant to me. I thought about all my friends within the Border Guards. And then I thought about Aethan. Love filled me till I could feel it bursting out of me. I took that love and I channelled it into the stone.
It fought me, plucking negative thoughts and feelings out of my head and throwing them back at me. But I ignored them, infusing it with love until the black pulsing energy dimmed and slowed and finally stopped. A small crack started in the heart of the stone, spreading out towards the edges like a cobweb. Dark light pulsed one more time and then died, the previously translucent gem now a lump of dead rock.
When I was done, I flowed back into my body. The whole fight had taken no more than a few seconds. Ignoring the residual pain, I sat up on the bed and turned to face the night faery.
‘What did you do?’ The look of shock on his face was priceless. ‘You should be dead.’
I stood up and stalked towards him, grasping his neck with my hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, eyes bulging wide, ‘I couldn’t save you. Once the spell is activated it is unstoppable.’
‘You hurt my dog,’ I hissed, shaking him with each word till his head rattled from side-to-side.
‘Your dog?’
‘My dog.’ I gave him one last shake and tossed him aside. ‘Don’t do it again.’ I pivoted to the side and scooped Scruffy into my arms, placing him on the bed. He looked up at me with his amber eyes and gave my hand a lick.
The night faery man scrambled from the room and pulled the door shut behind him.
I clenched my hand into a fist and relaxed it again. ‘Well that feels better,’ I said, looking at the rest of them for the first time.
Nobody had moved and they were all staring at me.
‘How?’ Wolfgang licked his lips. ‘How did you do that?’
‘Turns out I’ve got a lot of repressed anger.’ I laughed and then punched Wilfred on the arm. ‘What? No wise-arse response?’
‘Still getting over the vision of you turning from icicle to flame.’
‘When you’re hot you’re hot.’ A wave of exhaustion hit me and I sat down on the bed.
‘You need to rest,’ Wolfgang said. ‘It will take you days to get over that.’
‘Perhaps you should stay here tonight,’ Aethan said.
‘And miss all the fun?’ And not see the woman he was to court? ‘Not likely.’ I gave him my broadest smile. ‘Isla will you wake me with enough time to get ready?’ For some reason, I knew in this instance, I could depend on her. The rest of them would probably let me sleep ‘for my own good’.
She nodded. ‘We can get ready together.’
They filed out of my room as I crawled under my blankets with Scruffy. The nice thing was, with the warmth still flickering through my system, the cold from the castle didn’t touch me. I closed my eyes, and had the best sleep I’d had since we’d arrived at the cursed place.
9
Mirror Mirror On The Wall...
When Isla shook me awake I felt like I had slept for days. ‘The banquet starts in an hour. I thought you might want to shower first.’
She was right. I did. I had been sweaty after my fight with Aethan but that was nothing compared with how much I had sweated while I’d slept. The blankets touching my skin felt wet.
When I emerged from the bathroom I found she had laid a dress out on my bed. ‘Thought we should look the part,’ she said.
‘Isilvitania Royal women versus Emstillia Royal women?’
She nodded her head. ‘Round one. Ding ding.’
I laughed and picked up the dress. Sky-blue silk fell to the floor in elegant waves.
‘I thought it would bring out your eyes,’ she said.
‘What are you wearing?’
She pointed to a ruby red dress of the same cut and pulled a face. ’Sorry I only brought two dresses.’
‘That’s two more than me.’
We were quiet for a while as she brushed out my hair. I closed my
eyes and let myself pretend I was a child again. It had been too long since someone else had brushed my hair.
Feeling emboldened by the contact between us I said, ‘Isla, why did that man call you oath breaker?’
The brushing stopped and I opened my eyes and turned towards her.
‘You heard that?’ Her eyes were huge in her beautiful face.
I took the brush from her and started working the bristles through her hair. She stared straight ahead for a few moments and then she let out a sigh and slumped down onto the bed.
‘It was a long time ago. Well before you were born.’
My hand hovered above her head. Before I was born?
She let out a tinkle of a laugh. ‘You didn’t realise how old I was. I guess being brought up amongst such short-lived people, ninety years would seem a lifetime.’
‘It is a life-time.’
‘And yet amongst the fae I am still considered a young woman.’
I commenced my brushing. Something to think about later.
‘This is not the first attempt to bind our people with the night faeries. When I was still a child, my hand was promised in marriage to a night faery.’ She let out a rough laugh. ‘I was so young and naïve. So excited about marrying Arra. He was handsome and charming; everything I thought I wanted in a husband.’ She paused again and for a moment I feared she would not continue. ‘The week before our wedding he came to my rooms and forced himself upon me. He was not so charming then. Every night he came and every time the beatings got worse. He took pleasure in my pain.’ Her voice trembled as she continued. ‘I could not marry him. To commit myself to a lifetime of that? I would rather have died.’
I stopped the brushing and sat on the bed next to her, taking one of her hands in mine.
‘He was so clever. He knew by taking my virginity he had sealed my lips. I was too ashamed to tell anyone. So I ran away.’ She straightened her shoulders and pushed her hair back from her face. ‘It was a total disaster of course. Relationships with the night faeries deteriorated almost to the point of war. I sometimes wonder if that was what he was really after.’ She stared into the distance for a long moment and then shook herself. ‘Anyway that is why they didn’t support us during the Dark Years.’
‘What happened to him?’ Would he be there tonight?
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘he made a better marriage for himself. I have been officially pardoned, if not forgiven. If he had married me, he never would have become king.’
‘King?’ My voice shot up an octave.
She laughed lightly. ‘Silly me. Did I leave that part out? Yes, Arra married the daughter of King Lanon. Strangely enough, all his other heirs died before Lanon did.’
I shivered. This was the man Aethan had to deal with?
‘Come,’ she said. ‘We must hurry or we will be late.’
She expertly twisted my hair up on top of my head, braiding some pieces and leaving others to fall loosely around my face. The braided bits she looped and twirled till my hair was an artwork. ‘Here,’ she handed me a pair of moonstone earrings and pointed to her make-up box before starting work on herself.
Once she had finished her hair she took over my make-up, muttering to herself about how young women these days weren’t taught practical arts. In all honesty though, with how my life seemed to be progressing I was pretty happy I had mastered the sword and not the eyeliner pen. Hopefully by the time I was ninety I would be proficient at both.
There was a knock on the door and then it opened a fraction and Wilfred stuck in his head. He let out a low wolf-whistle as he glanced at us both, but I noted how his gaze lingered on Isla.
‘It’s time,’ he said.
‘Will you do me the honour?’ Isla held her hand out to him.
He swept it up and placed it daintily onto his arm. ‘It would be my great pleasure milady,’ he said in his best pirate-impersonation voice.
I desperately wanted to ask Aethan to escort me, but seeing as how his job that night was to court our future queen, I didn’t think it was appropriate. And of course that thought had me gritting my teeth again. If I could get through dinner without shedding blood I would be doing very nicely.
Wolfgang was waiting for me in the chamber. ‘The others have headed down,’ he said. ‘They wanted to get the lie of the land, or something like that.’ He held his arm out to me and I copied Isla, placing my hand upon it.
Isla and Wilfred swept out of the room and Wolfgang and I followed. Down, down, down we circled until we reached the front entrance. A night faery waiting there directed us outside to the garden.
I could feel some of my tension leave me as we entered the garden. Lamps, hanging from branches, lit our path to a large pavilion. Little lights glowed in the air as if moving gently on the breeze.
‘Garden faeries.’ I was pleased to see something familiar. Holding my finger out, I watched as one of the lights drifted closer.
‘Izzy, I wouldn’t…,’ Wilfred began.
Before he had finished the sentence the light rocketed towards me and latched onto my finger. I let out a shriek as something sharp pierced my skin. Wolfgang grabbed my hand and flicked off the tiny animal.
I stuck my finger into my mouth and sucked off the blood. ‘What was that?’
‘A sprite.’ Wilfred let out a laugh. ‘I did try to warn you.’
‘I’m not going to turn into something now am I?’
‘What?’ Wilfred laughed harder. ‘Like a were-sprite?’
‘Something like that.’ It was all right for him to laugh. His mother was an orc. He’d been a part of this magical world his whole life. There was still so much I didn’t know.
‘Leave her alone Will.’ Isla slapped him playfully on the arm and then in a sing-song voice said, ‘It’s show time.’
She was right. We were almost at the marquee where a welcoming committee waited for us. A group of night faeries, all dressed in black, blended into the fabric of the marquee.
‘They really take the whole night thing seriously don’t they,’ I whispered to Wolfgang.
A smile flashed across his face as he reached out his hand to greet the first one.
I could see Isla’s back getting stiffer and stiffer as we made our way through the throng and into the marquee. We were led to one of the long, low tables where Brent and Luke already sat. Aethan was nowhere to be seen.
‘Well I never,’ Isla sputtered when we sat down.
‘What’s wrong?’ I leant over Wilfred and whispered.
‘Our greeting party was made up of the least important members of the royal court. I fear things will not go well tonight.’ She chewed on her bottom lip, a motion that made her, for the first time since I’d met her, seem uncertain of herself. ‘Perhaps I should not have come.’
‘Why not?’ Aethan slid onto a cushion on the other side of her.
His shirt was of the deepest blue and matched the colour of his eyes perfectly. His dark hair was rumpled up just the way I liked it – as if it were begging me to run my hands through it. The dark stubble on his face highlighted his cheekbones.
He turned his head toward me and my breath caught as he met my gaze. For a few seconds we sat like that, our eyes trapped by each other’s. But then Isla leant into him and started whispering in his ear and he turned his attention to her.
I took a sip from the goblet sitting in front of me while I tried to regain my composure. What had he seen while he’d gazed at me? A young pest of a girl? A friend? Could it be possible that he had seen something else? That desire had been kindling in his eyes?
I took a deep breath and another sip from my goblet. Thoughts like that were not going to help. Especially not tonight. Tonight was about King and country, about the big picture. And where the big picture was concerned, the feelings of one half-witch half-faery didn’t count.
Aethan stood and returned to the milling men, chatting as he circulated the room. I turned to Wolfgang but he was busy staring off into the far corner of the marquee. I fol
lowed his gaze but could see nothing of interest there. Brent and Luke were also scoping the room and I decided to follow their example. I should be doing my job, not mooning over Aethan.
The first thing I noticed was that apart from our party, everybody was wearing black. I wasn’t so surprised about the men, but even the women had on flowing black gowns. Isla and I stood out like peacocks amongst a flock of crows. I was guessing that that had been her intention.
The next thing I noticed was that while the men moved about the room, the women sat demurely on their cushions talking amongst themselves. A lot of the conversation seemed to involve Isla, if the looks they cast in her direction were anything to go by.
‘Lady.’
I jumped in my seat and turned around. A serving woman held out a pitcher of wine. She nodded to my goblet which, apart from the couple of sips I had drunk, was still full.
‘No thank you, I’m fine.’ It would be a big mistake to drink too much amongst this lot.
‘Please allow me to top you up.’
Before I could decline again she leant past me, forcing me to the side so she could reach my goblet. As she stood back up, she pressed a piece of paper into my hand.
‘Thank you,’ I said, trying to keep the shocked expression off my face.
I waited till she was long gone before I glanced down at what she had given me. A small piece of folded paper nestled in the palm of my hand. I looked around the room while I flicked it open with my thumb. I wasn’t very good at subterfuge.
A quick glance down at the paper showed me one word scrawled in a bold hand.
BEWARE
I leant down as if to adjust my slipper. While I was down there I refolded and tucked the piece of paper into my bra.
The message created about a million questions and answered none. Who had sent it? Was it a personal message to me or to the group? Were we in danger or was it about our mission? I felt like screaming in frustration. Surely they could have given me more information than that.
Perhaps I should go after her. I searched the room for her but she was gone.
‘Wolfgang,’ I said, nudging him with my elbow.
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