“That…” Claire expelled a sudden breath of mingled outrage and laughter. “I suppose that’s fair enough.”
The silence that fell between them felt more comfortable than Claire could have imagined possible.
The firelight glinted on the king’s bare arms, on the fine pale hairs standing up with chill. A ragged scar arced across his left forearm. It was so pale she hadn’t noticed it before, the white of the scar blending with the white of his skin, but the combination of firelight and rainwater washing away the dirt and blood made the edges more visible.
“How did you get that scar on your arm?” she asked.
“Cockatrice.”
She stared at him. His voice held no inflection, no interest in the question at all.
“Cockatrice? When?”
“Years ago.” He frowned faintly at the fire.
“Do you remember…” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Do you remember anyone else there?”
He glanced at her, one blond eyebrow lifted in gentle confusion. “I am not myself. I am hidden. There was water and blood. One, two! One, two! And through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!” His thin lips lifted in a sly smile. “He did not expect that. He saw only a small girl child, not a king, but though I too was small, the heart is what matters.” He looked back at the fire.
Claire closed her eyes, remembering the fear in the boy’s face as he shoved her into the water. Saving me.
“Why did you save the girl?” she whispered.
He looked at her sharply, as if he doubted the sincerity of the question. “Because I could.” His nostrils flared. “What other reason is necessary?” He frowned, his expression distant for a moment. “But I was there because… she had called me. And she was there because… I had called her?” He blinked, as if his own question had startled him. “But, she wasn’t the right person. Yet?”
She shrugged, and he kept his eyes on her suspiciously for a moment. Holding his gaze was terribly uncomfortable; lightning seemed to flash through her veins, flooding her with shame and desire and a strange, unfamiliar sense of compassion that seemed entirely different than the pity that she’d felt earlier.
Then he looked back at the fire. He covered his face with both hands. “If only I could think,” he muttered. “I am hidden and cannot find myself.”
Claire almost reached out to touch his arm again, to offer whatever scant comfort she could. But she held back, too frightened of… what? Not exactly of him; the boy who had saved her was a king who had saved her again. Perhaps she was frightened of the feelings that arose when the firelight caught the faded scar on his arm, or the way his eyes drifted across her face, looking for something he could not find. Perhaps it was how, even when his eyes were empty and uncomprehending, there was the memory of sharp intelligence both alien and familiar.
His face held the memory of who he had been. His body remembered the predatory feline grace of his former self, the villain who had so terrified her and the nightmare king who had stalked her dreams.
Every bit of him, every image of him in her head, was frightening. And yet… and yet. He was danger but he was not dangerous to her. Perhaps he never had been.
“The heart is always what matters.” The king said it suddenly, as if he had come to some momentous decision of which Claire remained unaware. He glanced at her, and a faint smile flickered around his lips. “Why do you think you are stuck here in this place you despise?” A bleak despair flickered in his eyes, and he added, “Your heart drew you against your mind’s will. You wished and repented of the wish but the wish was made and could not be taken back. I don’t think you even wanted to take it back, not really.”
Claire stared at him. “Which wish are you talking about?”
He pressed his palms against his temples, his eyes closed. “I don’t remember.” He dug his fingernails into his scalp, pressing so hard that Claire sucked in a breath.
“Stop!” she whispered. “Please stop.”
He let her pull his hands away from his head, relaxing slowly to let his head hang down between his gaunt shoulders.
The distant patter of raindrops had fallen away, leaving no sound but the crackle of the fire. The silence was eerie, and Claire found herself listening for any sound of approaching danger. The thought of pursuit by Unseelie armies made her nervous and twitchy.
But even the constant tension could not keep her awake and alert forever. Despite the chilly dampness of the air, her shivers slowly subsided. She blinked awake, imagining that the king was asleep and she should keep watch. What she would do if something terrifying appeared was a question she deliberately did not consider.
Exhaustion eventually began to get the upper hand, and she fell into a kind of half-doze.
The king rose to his feet, and the movement jerked her back to wakefulness, despite his uncanny silence. The motion was unsettlingly graceful, an unnerving reminder that he was not human.
He appeared to be studying something across the clearing from her, his blue-gold-silver eyes intent and more focused than she had seen in… well, since she’d come to Faerie. He took a soft, careful step sideways, then spun and lunged into the brush behind where he had been sitting.
A grunt and several thuds followed, then the king emerged from the bushes holding a man by the throat. As he thrust his captive toward the fire, the man changed shape into a snarling wolf snapping at the king’s face, then a bird caught by the throat crying piteously, then a flapping fish, then a creature Claire could not identify, then a panicked buck struggling to escape the king’s grip.
The illusion disappeared. The man stumbled backward and would have fallen into the fire but for the king’s steely grip on his throat. Then he stood still, head thrown back, green eyes wide, nostrils flaring as he tried to breathe. His hands clawed helplessly at the king’s wrist.
The king let him go suddenly. “Silvertongue?” he said, as if surprised.
The man turned his face away from the king, and the light fell on his features.
Claire cried out in horror.
Dark threads stitched the man’s lips together. Dark blood crusted each hole, and fresh blood dripped in thin tracks from several of the wounds.
Besides the wounds, the man was handsome, though in a way entirely different than the nightmare king. The king was starlight on snow, his beauty cold and clear and sharp as glass. The stranger, Silvertongue, was golden. His skin was sun-kissed gold, his hair fell in flaxen curls, and his eyes were an unnerving shade of gold-green.
He was filthy and too thin, and his clothes had apparently been worn for at least weeks, perhaps months, without washing or mending.
I’ve seen you before. The thought slithered through Claire’s mind, and she studied him surreptitiously. But where? You weren’t in the Fae court when I was sent out. We’re very far from there, anyway.
“Finally said too much?” The king studied the stranger without moving.
Silvertongue nodded sharply, just once, as if there was an infinitely complicated story that he did not wish to tell.
“How long?”
Silvertongue shrugged one shoulder, and the king raised one elegant eyebrow at him. His golden head drooped a little, and he held up three fingers.
“Three days?” Claire guessed.
He gave her a withering glare, and she subsided.
You winked at me in the Unseelie palace. Her eyes widened as she recognized him.
“Months?” suggested the king, his eyes sweeping over the man’s form again.
Another sharp nod.
The king gestured gracefully at their little camp, at the tiny fire and the folded-leaf cup that held a few ounces of water. “I welcome you, Silvertongue.”
The man studied the king with narrowed eyes, and then gestured at Claire questioningly.
“A friend,” said the king easily. “Her name is Claire.”
Silvertongue’s green eyes turned toward her with a startling gleam.
“Do not e
ven consider it, Silvertongue,” the king murmured. “I will make you wish the Unseelie king had you back in his dungeon if the thought dares cross your mind.”
The gleam faded, and Silvertongue bowed to Claire carefully, then looked back at the king.
Claire had the strange feeling, as she studied his profile, that Silvertongue had merely been going through the motions of appearing lecherous.
The king sat down. “I would that I could remove the stitches.” His long, thin fingers rubbed his jaw, then absently began to draw patterns on the fabric of his trousers.
Silvertongue flopped to the ground beside him, the movement almost graceful until he lost control at the last moment and sat down heavily.
“How much longer?” the king asked in a low voice.
The golden man held up two fingers and nodded when the king asked, “Days?”
“Who is he?” asked Claire softly.
The king looked back at her, his strange eyes blank, as if he couldn’t remember who she was. “A liar prince who once set the world aflame.”
The green-eyed man’s eyes gleamed with what Claire imagined was gratitude. He lowered his head toward the king in respect.
“I’ve seen you before,” Claire said murmured. “You knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, didn’t you?”
Silvertongue glanced at her, then away, as if the conversation did not interest him. Then he winked at her, green-gold eyes glinting in the lamplight. The skin around his mouth tightened a little, as if he would have grinned at her but the stitches prevented it.
The king’s eyes turned toward the loam in front of his crossed ankles, and he drew a finger through the dirt in a curling pattern that circled back upon itself over and again, like smoke rising from a forgotten ember.
Silvertongue’s hand shot out to catch the king’s wrist, and the king froze.
“What are you doing?” Claire’s fear made her voice squeak.
“Nothing,” breathed the king.
Silvertongue’s green eyes flicked to Claire with a frisson of fear, which made Claire’s fear turn cold in her stomach.
The king shuddered, as if Silvertongue’s fear had passed to him as a chill. “Nothing,” he repeated. “I’m fine.” He smiled, and the smile was like a mask, his blue-gold-silver eyes empty and emotionless.
The flames died, and the king made no move to build the fire up again.
“Is Faerie always this cold?” she grumbled.
The king glanced at her, his eyes almost sparking with understanding for a moment before they became blank again. His words came out of the darkness. “No. It is cold because the world is ending. Though we are close to the border, we are on Unseelie land. It is not kind to humans, nor to my kind.”
“What do you mean ‘the world is ending’?” Claire said. Her voice sounded harsh with fear, and she cleared her throat. “Are you being literal or figurative?”
“Yes.”
She glared at him, and he seemed not to notice.
“Time grows short.”
Silvertongue caught her eye from where he sat, his eyes bright with worry.
He reached forward to touch the king’s wrist lightly, fingers just brushing over the torn skin. The king looked up at him, his expression confused for a moment as if he couldn’t remember who Silvertongue was or why he was with them.
Silvertongue wrote in the dirt with one finger, the letters all curls and swirls, layering over each other. The language was not English, but even if it were, Claire wondered whether she would be able to read quickly enough to follow what he said.
The king snorted softly. “No wonder he was angry,” he murmured.
Silvertongue’s eyes glinted with a hard light, and he continued writing.
“Come to my court, Silvertongue. I offer you refuge as a friend and ally.”
More curling words in the dirt. Silvertongue’s shoulders drooped a little, and he glanced quickly at the king’s face before looking back at the ground.
The king’s frost-colored eyebrows lowered. “That is vile, Silvertongue, and you will not speak so of yourself in my presence. Chaos follows you, I will not deny that, but you have never belonged in Taibhseach’s court. Your heart is Seelie, through and through, and the offer stands.”
Silvertongue took a deep, shuddering breath, his nostrils flaring.
The king lowered his voice further. “I regret that you have suffered so long under him, but the choice is, and always has been, yours alone. Yet I would not have you think yourself friendless. I trust you.”
The golden Fae made a strange noise deep in his throat and pressed his hands to his face, hiding his eyes.
The silence pressed upon them, unnatural and oppressive, broken only by the distant creak of the trees in the cold and the soft crackle of the fire before them.
Finally, Silvertongue glanced up, his eyes flicking from the king’s face to Claire’s and then back. He wrote in the dirt again. For an instant Claire thought it was not English, then she thought it was, and then she realized it was not English after all, but that Silvertongue was making it so that she could understand it somehow. The letters and words made sense, unless she focused on them, which made them resolve into swirls and loops she could not understand. He wrote quickly, erasing the words as rapidly as he wrote them.
Claire has been watched from the time she entered Unseelie lands. The dark lord, whose name I will not say, is interested in her. She moves through the land with confidence, desperation, or perhaps utter ignorance; they have been unable to determine which. She bears some power the dark lord does not understand but desires for himself, but she does not seem to be using it. This frightens them.
Silvertongue glanced at Claire.
They saw that you easily defeated the kelpie. They did not see all that happened, but they did see that you were merciful. This implied that your victory was easy and that you had reason to be friendly with the Seelie, though you did not appear to be Seelie yourself.
You are strange. Human, perhaps, but not a typical human. You seem to be heroic and dangerous, and you carry something beneath the surface. Potential, perhaps? If it is the foinse cumhachta, you have not used it. You do not radiate power as one bonded to the foinse cumhachta would. Perhaps you are a powerful hero merely carrying the foinse cumhachta to His Majesty so he could use it to escape.
The skin around Silvertongue’s eyes crinkled in what might have been a smile if he had been able to move his lips. Claire wondered if he realized how absurd the theory sounded, and the almost hidden impudence in his eyes made her suspect that he did.
Perhaps you don’t have it at all.
Now she was sure he was mocking her, and she glared at him. His eyes glinted, and he inclined his head toward the king.
The guards surrounding your prison were meant to prevent your rescue by Seelie forces, but their more important purpose was to alert the dark lord if you escaped or were broken out of imprisonment by means of the foinse cumhachta. A stealthy rescue was impossible; breaking the spells imprisoning you would be impossible without the power of the foinse cumhachta except by the dark lord himself, and I dare say it would strain even him. Perhaps, if the cell itself were physically destroyed, a group of Seelie strong in magic might do it in concert, but I doubt it.
They were warned that if you were somehow able to break yourself free, or if a single individual or small group attacking openly managed to break you free, that such a one almost certainly carried the foinse cumhachta, else it would be impossible. They were not to attempt to apprehend you again; it would be impossible. You would destroy them. Instead they were to notify him immediately and fear no punishment, because the dark lord wants the foinse cumhachta even more than he wants you.
“So the king was bait?” Claire glanced at the king to see if he was offended, and he smiled as if the question amused him. Silvertongue’s eyebrows drew downward.
His Majesty, King of the Seelie and Lord of Dreams, was no mere bait. Impudent human child! If the dark lord
got his hands on the foinse cumhachta, he could rip the world apart at its seams. By imprisoning His Majesty, the dark lord not only hoped to draw out whoever might possess the foinse cumhachta, but perhaps to prevent it being used at all.
“I hid it,” the king murmured. “He will never find it.”
Silvertongue glanced at him. Where?
The king gave a soft bark of laughter. “I don’t know. I forgot.”
The golden Fae frowned worriedly. They are searching for you now. They know not how you broke the bonds, but that you did so indicates that somehow you accessed the power of the foinse cumhachta. They believe you to still be helpless, and even if somehow you have obtained the foinse cumhachta, the dark one believes he can capture you before you reach Seelie territory.
If you have it, the dark lord will rip it from you and use it for horrors I dare not imagine.
Without the foinse cumhachta, even your freedom is of little consequence to him. The invasion will merely proceed as planned.
“Indeed,” murmured the king.
A distant cry made Claire’s blood freeze in her veins.
The fomoiri were hunting.
The morrigan’s scream of rage carried through the still air, calling the fomoiri closer.
The king closed his eyes and let out a soft, despairing sigh, and began to stand. Silvertongue caught his wrist, and the king stilled. For an instant, their gazes met, and then the king sat again.
“What are we doing to do?” Claire breathed.
The king said, “Trust the liar, Claire.”
The first fomorach bounded by them.
Without the morrigan’s illusion, Claire could see it clearly. It had two legs, and it was approximately the size of Feighlí, or whatever his name was. The formorach’s skin was pale and waxy, with a faint, greasy gleam that made Claire’s stomach turn. Needle-like teeth protruded from its small mouth, and its eyes gleamed with malice.
Another came into view, jogging rather than sprinting; Claire imagined it could maintain the gait for hours, if not days. It stopped only a few feet away and looked around, nostrils flaring as it sniffed.
The Lord of Dreams Page 18
