Cage of Thorn (The Blackthorn Cycle Book 2)

by L. M. Hawke

  Right. So no more Otherworld goodies.

  Una clasped her hands in her lap and stared accusingly at the Seelie food. Bracken had intentionally fed the stuff to her, hadn’t she? That pale-haired wisp of a traitor had drugged Una on purpose, intending to trap her in her own mind and hold her against her will.

  Only because the Seelie are desperate, Una thought reluctantly. Desperate… and your own kin.

  What had that prince Dax said about the Seelie court’s need?

  My blood, Una remembered. They need my blood.

  With a shiver, turning her head away from the blood-red fruits in the bowl, Una remembered Dax lifting Ailill’s hand to his lips, tasting the garnet droplet on his fingertip.

  They can’t have my blood to drink, the bastards. She would fight them first. She would…

  Una pressed her own fingertips to her lips in a shock of sudden realization. It wasn’t her literal blood the Sidhe wanted. What they sought was her bloodline. They wanted Una to give them the next generation of magical beings.

  They wanted her children.

  For a long time, Una sat stalk-still in her chair, except for the fits of trembling that wracked her body. It was an appalling thought, to be bred like some ewe in a field. Yet that was clearly the fate the Seelie Court intended for their long-lost cousin. That was the only way she could help them—the only service she could offer her last living kin.

  The Seelie wine was still in her stomach, still threading its insidious way through her veins. Half of Una’s mind seemed to nod in acquiescence, accepting without challenge this strange fate.

  The other half of her screamed defiance from deep within. Una was not opposed to having children, but she’d be damned if she would do it like some poor sod in a Margaret Atwood novel. Cousins or no, the Seelie couldn’t just take her and breed her like livestock.

  And yet… Una’s eyelids grew heavy; she nodded where she sat. Her hand shook, longing to reach for the goblet of wine. And yet, it would be so easy to do as the Seelie wished. So easy, so good, so helpful. After all, if Kathleen was right about Nessa Teig’s journal, then the Seelie royalty was Una’s own family. Didn’t a person have an obligation to look out for her own flesh and blood?

  Una’s eyes snapped open. She sat upright in her chair, all her shivering gone. Kathleen. That was the red-haired woman’s name. Kathleen had warned Una… had told her the Otherworld was dangerous.

  And Una knew next to nothing about where she was now, what the Otherworld held in store.

  If she was to find Ailill and bring him back from… wherever he was being held… then Una must know more about her predicament.

  It took every ounce of willpower she had to turn her back on the Seelie food and that cup of sweet, warming, comforting wine. But, gritting her teeth in a fearsome grimace, Una pushed herself up from the chair and forced herself to cross the great chamber.

  She hesitated at the door. Would here be guards outside? Would they try to keep her imprisoned?

  It didn’t matter. She had to try. If she gave into their enchantments and remained complacently caged, then both she and Ailill were surely doomed.

  Una pushed the door open a crack and peered out into the corridor. There was no one standing in front of her door; she pushed it open a little wider, wide enough to poke her head out into the hall and peer from side to side.

  The vast white corridor was empty. Una slipped from her room and hurried away down the hall.

  4

  Una moved as swiftly down the corridor as she dared. The long runner rug was soft beneath her feet, but still she feared that if she ran, the Seelie would somehow hear it, or sense her urgency some other way, and descend upon her, putting a stop to her wandering. Besides, she knew that expending her energy more rapidly would only lead all the sooner to insatiable hunger. And she must avoid eating the Seelie food again, if she could.

  She found a large side door—bigger than the one that had led to her personal chamber, bigger than the others she’d passed. It might let out into that garden, Una thought. The one I could see from my window. It was worth a try; Una glanced both ways along the hallway, then, satisfied that no one was nearby to witness, she pushed the door open.

  Una had been right: the doorway led to a roofless atrium, green, spacious, and netted with crisscrossing, white stone paths. The sky above was deep violet, speckled with pale stars. Night had come to the Otherworld.

  She shut the door behind her and ventured out into the garden, but right away she almost wished she hadn’t. Amid the lush, damp-smelling garden beds, fruit trees stood, holding their silvery branches up toward the open sky. The boughs drooped with fruits Una could not name—heart-shaped green ones, oblong fruits as long as her hand with furred skins like peaches, and round, yellow fruits hidden in papery shrouds, not unlike gooseberries, but much larger. The sight of so much food, and the sweetly ripe smells that pooled in the still air, made her stomach rumble and ache.

  I won’t be able to avoid eating their food forever, Una thought practically. And even that thought took real effort, for although she was slowly breaking free from the honey wine’s enchantment, she could still feel that sluggish presence bogging down her blood.

  Walking seemed to help, though, as did the outdoor air, despite the garden’s temptations. Una breathed steadily and threaded her way along the paths, stewing in the few clear thoughts she could muster, wracking her brain about what she ought to do next.

  She picked a white, trumpet-shaped flower from a round, glossy-leafed bush, and sniffed the blossom absently as she strolled. The smell was citrusy and refreshing; it seemed to help her reclaim a little of herself.

  I must find Ailill quickly, Una decided. Quite apart from the warning Kathleen had given her about the Otherworld—who could say how much time had elapsed back in the human realm?—Una would simply give in to hunger and thirst, sooner or later. Kathleen and the Seelie might insist that Una was part fairy, and maybe she was… but at the same time, she was only human. She couldn’t stave off the needs of her body forever.

  I wonder, she thought uneasily, is the effect of fairy food cumulative? If I eat more of it, will it grow harder to shake off this fog? If I eat enough, will I be lost for good?

  The thought was almost too much to bear. It sent a nasty shiver up Una’s spine; she shuddered and wrapped her arms around her body as she walked. She was desperately tempted to label her situation “hopeless.”

  You can’t allow yourself to think that way, Una scolded.

  Ailill had stepped up for Una. He had taken her place when she had foolishly called for the Fair Folk; he had gone into this strange, haunting realm in her stead. She owed it to him to keep on fighting, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

  You’ve got to stay calm and collected, Una told herself. What you need now is information. How can you expect to get out of this mess if you don’t really know the first thing about where you are?

  Una rounded a bend in the garden path. She checked at the sight that greeted her, stumbling to a halt on the white stone pavers. She had found a little grotto of sorts, tucked into a secretive grove of fruit trees and carpeted with thick, springy moss. Walls of stone had been piled up between the trees, screening the place from view, except from the one path where Una now stood. In the center of the grotto, sunk into the mossy earth, was a perfectly round pool, lined with colorful tiles. It was the pool that caught Una’s attention so completely. She had seen it before; she was certain of that.

  But where?

  The pool seemed so significant to Una that at first she didn’t even notice the woman who knelt at its edge. But at the sound of Una’s stumbling, the Seelie looked up, and Una blinked hard, struggling to focus on the woman’s face. It was nearly impossible to guess the age of any given Seelie—Una certainly had no idea how old Bracken or Dax might be—but something about this one gave Una the impression that she was quite young, barely having reached maturity. Perhaps it was the wide-eyed startlement Una noted in her eyes,
as she peered from behind the hanging curtain of her copper-red hair. Perhaps it was the pale-green, starry flowers braided into some of her locks—such decorations seemed too frivolous for the Seelie Una had met so far. Whatever it was, even through the trailing mists of wine-enchantment, Una felt certain that this member of the Seelie court was little more than a child.

  Her first instinct was to rush toward the young Seelie and demand help, information—answers. But she couldn’t afford to seem too aggressive. If she remained in control and proceeded with caution, then this young woman might give Una the answers Bracken and Dax had been too canny to supply. So she forced herself to walk slowly to the pool, fixing a friendly smile on her face.

  The young Seelie rose gracefully from her knees. She looked Una up and down, taking in the blue gown made of the soft, flowing cloth. Then she grinned widely. It was the first unrestrained display of emotion Una had seen on any of these people. She couldn’t help but grin back.

  “You’re properly dressed now, Cousin,” the young woman said approvingly.

  Una lifted the edge of her skirt and gave a little twirl. “Do you like it?”

  “Now you nearly look like one of us, through and through. I could almost be fooled into believing you’re of the purest Seelie blood.” The young woman blushed, her finely carved face turning almost as red as her hair. “That was ill said; I am sorry.”

  Two things struck Una as odd about the girl’s reaction, registering in her mind through the clinging film of enchantment. First, Una hadn’t known the regal, icily possessed Seelie could blush. Second, she gathered that whatever these beings might say to her face—talking up her value as a carrier of the royal genetic heritage—the Seelie court held an instinctive bias against all those who were not “pure.” The information might be useful to her later. Una kept the smile on her face, and even managed a light laugh at the woman’s comment.

  “The garments you wore before were so strange, Cousin,” the girl went on, recovering from her embarrassment. “I saw you in the throne room. Everybody was there; once we felt you enter our realm, and Bracken went out there to guide you to the Court, we all gathered at the throne room to greet you. We were all very tense, waiting to see if you would make it back to the palace, or if the Leanan would scoop you up, like she did that other human. So, I saw you first thing, when you came in. That strange, stiff hose you wore on your legs—”

  “Jeans,” Una said. “In my world, we call them jeans.”

  “Do you wear them when you ride? Here, we only don such things for riding.”

  “You have horses in this world?”

  After she had spoken, Una realized with a shiver that she might not want to contemplate what mounts the Seelie might ride, if they didn’t have horses. Perhaps they had some stranger beasts—creatures that might be dangerous for a mere human.

  But her apprehension was replaced with relief when the Seelie girl said, “Oh, yes. We have always had horses. I have never been to your world, of course, but I’ve heard the stories passed along by those who have, so I know that our horses are much the same as yours. Many of our other animals are the same, too… more or less.”

  In her curiosity and eagerness, he Seelie girl had come quite close to Una. Her high, sharp cheekbones were tinged pink with excitement, and her brilliant green eyes sparkled with interest. “It’s so lovely that you’ve come to live among us, Cousin,” she said rapturously. “This will solve everything, won’t it? Now we have a future to look forward to, and everybody has been so dreadfully sad for so very long. That’s the best of it—that we can be happy again. But also…” she leaned a little closer and whispered, as if she feared someone might overhear their discussion, even isolated as they were by the garden and the grotto. “I do want so much to learn all about your world. Once our power is restored and we can range about again, as we did in the long-ago days, I intend to visit the human world as often as I can. You must tell me everything about it.”

  Una couldn’t help but smile, and this time it was genuine. The young woman was so sincere and warm that Una simply had to like her. She didn’t have the heart to say that there was no chance she would remain here, to be bred like stock and put out to pasture. Una had work to do, and the sooner she did it, the faster she could return to her proper realm.

  “What’s your name?” Una asked.

  The Seelie opened her mouth to spill out her name in her own tongue, which was no doubt an endless mouthful, quite impossible for Una to manage.

  She held up a hand to forestall the girl. “I mean to say,” Una amended, “what can I call you? Something in my tongue, if you would be so kind. I don’t know your language yet.”

  The Seelie tilted her head to one side, considering. “What do you call the tiny blue flowers that bloom in spring? The ones that grow on thread-thin stems, and have yellow centers?”

  Una thought about it for a moment. “Forget-me-nots. Your name is Forget-me-not?”

  “I suppose it is, in the human tongue.” She grinned again. “And you are Una Teig. All of the court know about you, Cousin.”

  “Yes, but you don’t need to use both names. That’s not the custom in my world. Just call me Una, please.”

  “All right… Una.” Forget-me-not tucked away a stray lock of hair. As she did so, Una saw that her ears were long and pointed.

  “So we are cousins?” Una asked, glancing rather uneasily as Forget-me-not’s exposed ear. It was hard to imagine she was related at all to such a strange being.

  “Well…” Forget-me-not blushed again, turning away with a tiny, self-conscious laugh. She drifted back toward the round pool. “I am a lesser member of the Seelie royal clan. I am not placed as near to the throne as some others. I will never inherit the throne, of course. Perhaps that makes us… hardly cousins at all. I apologize if I have given offense.” She bowed deeply.

  “Don’t,” Una said hastily. “I’m not used to people bowing at me.”

  “I apologize if I have given offense,” Forget-me-not repeated, and bowed low again.

  Una stifled a sigh. “It’s all right. You’ve given no offense.”

  She stepped closer to Forget-me-not and the pool; they both stood quietly for a moment, gazing down at the still, purple water.

  Una blinked, struck suddenly by another pang of memory. The colored tiles around the pool’s edge… the reflection of Forget-me-not’s face in the water’s surface. That red hair…

  A face I know, looking up at me from the purple water….

  Why did Una remember this scene? Why did the pool still pull at her mind, speaking to her clouded subconscious with insistent tones? If only she could concentrate fully, and shake off the clouds of enchantment. She felt she was nearly back to herself, nearly freed from the snare of wine and bread. But not entirely… not yet.

  Why do I know this place? Una demanded of herself. And the faintest whisper came back to her: The dream…

  Yes, the dream! There, she had first seen Dax and Bracken—in the dream, the Seelie prince had called for her—Cousin! Cousin!

  Was this the same pool she had found in her dream? And if so, what did all of this mean? Why should a circle of colored tiles and a bit of water be so important to Una now?

  Information. That is what I need. She cast a sidelong glance at Forget-me-not. I may as well start gathering it now; whatever bits and pieces I can find.

  “What is this place?” Una asked off-handedly, doing her best to mask her urgent need to know—to know anything about the Otherworld—with idle curiosity.

  “It’s a gazing pool,” Forget-me-not said. “Don’t you have them in your world?”

  “I don’t know,” Una said. “Perhaps we do. We certainly have ponds and pools in our gardens. But does it mean anything? Is it significant?”

  Forget-me-not shrugged, and even that casual gesture was impossibly graceful, coming from one of the Seelie. “Not especially. We only use them to see into other worlds; that’s all.”

  Una goggled at Forg
et-me-not, but the Seelie returned her stare with innocent neutrality. Forget-me-not was serious, Una realized. Peering into other realms via magical puddles was so much a part of Seelie life that it seemed as ordinary to this young woman as a smartphone was in the human world.

  “Well, that’s… that’s very interesting,” Una said, hoping she sounded suitably cool and detached. “We have ways of looking about in our world, of course, but not with pools.”

  She doubted whether any of the live-chatting apps were in the same league, or whether they would impress a Seelie. Video calls were hardly on par with gazing through the barriers that separated parallel realms.

  “How does it work?” Una asked.

  “Oh, it’s very simple,” Forget-me-not said.

  She sank to her knees on the moss; Una joined her. Together they leaned over the tile edge and looked down into the pool. Stars surrounded both their reflections with a spatter of silver light.

  “You just look into your own eyes—right down into them. And you concentrate on the thing you want to see, whether it’s a person or a place. If what you’re seeking is anywhere near a still body of water, you should be able to see it.”

  Una was silent for a long moment. She concentrated on Ailill and stared at her reflection, directly into her own eyes. But whether it was the remnants of her wine fog, or lack of practice, or simply her human blood preventing her, she never saw anything but her own face frowning up at her.

  Perhaps Forget-me-not would have better luck. Una turned to her. “Can I see what you see? That is, if you look for someone, will I be able to watch what happens in the pool?”

  “Oh, yes,” the girl said. “As long as you don’t look into your own eyes. Then you will see only your vision, not mine. But as long as you watch elsewhere in the pool, you will be able to see what I see clearly enough.”

  “And can the gazing pool look within the Other—I mean, within this realm? Or will it only give us a view into neighboring realms?”