by Jocelyn Fox
Guinna nodded, a sudden look of worry passing over her face. “They’re sacred, especially sacred to the Small Folk. They are their homeland, their sanctuary, their place in the world.”
“The Three Trees were attacked. Burned to the ground.” I watched Guinna for a reaction, but she gazed at me silently, waiting. “Wisp came to me and asked for sanctuary for himself and six of his companions.”
“Who exactly are these companions?” Guinna asked carefully.
I cleared my throat. “Well, apparently one of them is a princess. I asked her,” I continued quickly, “if she wanted some sort of audience with the Queen or something like that but she seemed to think that they wouldn’t…see eye to eye.”
“Where are they now, Tess?”
“Why?” I asked, looking at Guinna. “You’re not going to have them…I don’t know, arrested or something, are you?”
“Of course not. But if you want me to speak to Queen Mab—which I assume you do—about the plight of the Glasidhe, and the burning of the Three Trees, I need to know where I can find them, if I need to speak to them.”
“I can bring them to you,” I said. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I told them that I was the only one who would know where they are. I guess I don’t want to make them feel like I betrayed them, or exposed them.”
Guinna nodded once. “If you gave your word then I cannot compel you to act differently.”
“Thanks, Guinna. But you’ll talk to Queen Mab, tell her that the Three Trees were burned, probably by Malravenar’s forces?”
“Yes. I am surprised that none of the patrols…” Guinna stopped, brow slightly creased in thought. “Have you been studying your maps, Tess?”
“Yes,” I replied. I tried to understand why she would bring up geography. And then the answer lit up my brain like a stroke of lightning. “The attack on the Three Trees and the attack on the patrol…you think they were connected?”
“I will have to check, but I believe that the patrol traveled very near to the Three Trees. The attack was closer to the Queen’s Keep, though.”
“The fuglies could have trailed the patrol, or split up. Half for Three Trees, half following the patrol.”
“Fuglies?” Guinna wrinkled her nose. “I am unfamiliar with the word.”
I stifled a sudden chuckle and made it into a hiccupping sort of cough. “Um. It means bad guys.”
“Ah. Well then, it is entirely possible the…fuglies…could have trailed the patrol back. I will look at a map, and propose this theory to the Queen as well. Or perhaps I shall talk to the Vaelanbrigh about it when he returns.”
“That’s a good idea. Finnead will know what to do.” I shifted. “Well. I should probably get back.” I stood.
“You must be tired,” said Guinna softly, standing along with me. She looked at me seriously. “Ramel and Finnead are both gone. I would lock your chamber door tonight.”
I nodded. “I will.” I tapped my dagger handle. “And I’ll probably sleep with this underneath my pillow just for good measure.” I smiled.
“You look slightly like a wolf when you smile like that,” Guinna said. She tilted her head slightly. “I’ve seen that look in a mortal’s face before.”
“Yeah? And who was the mortal?” I asked, half jokingly.
“Her name was Gwyneth, and she was a very powerful priestess. One you might call a sorceress.”
“Well,” I said, sobering, “I guess I’m honored to be compared to her.”
“Come to think of it,” Guinna continued, “there’s something of her about your eyes…and your limbs. She was tall, just as you are, and she could handle a bow like no other mortal I’ve seen.” She smiled slightly. “Then again, that was at least five hundred years ago, in your time.”
“I thought you were Bren’s age,” I said in surprise. We started walking back toward the doorway of the garden.
“When I was Bren’s age,” replied Guinna, “I was running about on the moors of Ireland wearing very little clothing, inciting the local women to join me in bacchanals.”
We reached the doorway and before I had time to break my stunned silence, Guinna pointed.
“Two lefts and a right, past the kitchens and then on the left hand side that will be your chamber.” She flashed a rare grin at me, then disappeared in the opposite direction, full skirts swirling about her small frame.
“Well,” I said to myself, “I guess it is true that you learn something every day.” I shook my head and pointed my feet in the direction of my chamber, looking forward to some well-earned rest.
Chapter 18
When I opened the door of my room, the Glasidhe didn’t hide. They were all sitting very still and silent on my desk in a loose semicircle with Lumina at the forefront and center. I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me, drawing the bolt as Guinna had advised. I looked at them expectantly, and when they said nothing I walked over to my desk and sat down on the chair facing them.
“Well,” I said, “I talked to Guinna, one of the Queen’s ladies. She thinks that the attack on the Three Trees and the attack on the Sidhe patrol may have been related.”
“You know of the Sword, Tess,” said Lumina without preamble, as if I hadn’t spoken.
I blinked in surprise, trying to focus my tired mind. Then I shrugged and nodded. “Yes. A few of my Sidhe friends told me enough that I pieced it together. It was in a book in Molly’s room, and then I asked them about it.” I licked my lips. “I know that it—or the allegiance of its Bearer, I guess—was given to the mortal Queen Elizabeth. When that Bearer died there was some sort of falling-out between Titania and Mab, and then the Sword was lost.”
The other glows remained silent and grave as Lumina spoke again.
“The Sword was never entirely lost,” she said softly in her bell-sweet voice.
“But if the Sidhe knew where it was, they wouldn’t be wasting time looking for it. They don’t know where it is,” I said.
“The Sidhe do not know where it is,” replied Lumina.
“The Sidhe have an irritating tendency to underestimate the Glasidhe,” said Flora from behind the princess.
“We know things that they have forgotten,” said Forsythe from beside Flora.
“We know things that they have never known,” said Flora.
“And we know things that they desperately wish they knew,” said Galax from his post slightly behind Lumina.
“Things that they desperately wish they knew,” I repeated softly to myself. My mind suddenly snapped into sharp focus. “Are you saying, Princess Lumina,” I said in a careful, quiet, almost breathless voice, “that you know where the Iron Sword is hidden?”
Lumina looked gravely up at me, and for a moment I saw every feature of her beautiful heart-shaped face distinctly as her glow faded, then flared again. When she spoke, she spoke in a voice reminiscent of the terrible, spell-binding voice of Queen Mab, and I understood at last that even though she was small, Lumina was a very powerful being in her own right. “Yes, Tess. The Glasidhe have safeguarded this knowledge for hundreds of years, since it was lost to the Sidhe.”
I stood up so quickly that I almost knocked over my desk chair. “I have to go find Guinna again, or Bren, or maybe I should wait until Ramel returns,” I said breathlessly, my words tumbling over one another, my voice riding a swell of triumph that rose within me like an ocean wave.
Lumina leapt off the desk, faster than I’d ever seen her move. “No, Tess! You cannot!”
I turned, already halfway back to the door. “Why?” I demanded. “I can’t stand by knowing that the Sword isn’t lost, letting my friends go and risk their lives fighting against Malravenar. The patrol that’s out there right now, they could be attacked and killed!”
“They might be,” said Flora, “but we do n
ot know whom we can trust.” She hovered behind Lumina, one hand caressing her bandolier of throwing-daggers.
“The Unseelie Court, they are closest to the night, and the darkness spreads more easily to them,” Forsythe explained gravely. “Malravenar’s evil is a poison seeping out from the Deadlands. Here, in the Queen’s Keep, most are still untouched…but the Queen’s power is waning.”
I thought of the grand feast to celebrate Molly’s arrival at Court, and the feeling that it was all a magnificent front, a façade to hide the desperate state of the Unseelie Court. And maybe I’d been able to hide my knowledge of the Weakness from the Queen because of her diminishing power. I shivered at the thought of Mab at the height of her glory.
“I have been trying to help,” said Lumina quietly. “She knows I am here. She feels my power.”
“Help with what?” I asked.
“There are many other defenses besides those in the physical plane, even in your world. I have been trying to help the Queen and her Knights with the defenses. That is why at least one of the Knights is here, always, because Mab draws upon their power.”
“You do know an awful lot about what goes on around here,” I said with a small smile.
Lumina inclined her head. “Wisp has always kept me informed of the doings of the Unseelie Court.”
“Do you have any eyes in the Seelie Court?” I asked curiously.
“Of course, although one of my sisters usually handles the Seelie Court envoys.”
“Can I ask then…I don’t really know anything, but I had a dream before I first woke up, a dream that didn’t really feel like a dream. I saw a Sidhe woman that I think could have been Titania…and she was in what looked like a prison cell.”
Several of the Glasidhe murmured in apprehension.
“I mean, like I said, it could have just been a dream,” I clarified hastily.
Flora stood up and began pacing. “I knew we should have sent a guard with Trillow, Majesty.” She unsheathed one throwing knife and tossed it from hand to hand in agitation. “If there is an attack, she and the others will be left on their own to fend for themselves.” The knife flipped between her hands faster and faster, like a small silver star in its own orbit.
“Trillow and Pan and Zara can take care of themselves,” said Forsthe gently.
Flora went very still and then suddenly threw her knife down into my desk, her arm arcing in a smooth violent motion, the small blade flashing for an instant before burying itself to the hilt in the wood. Forsythe stood very still, watching Flora as she quivered in rage.
“Just like the others who could take care of themselves?” Flora demanded, facing Lumina. I sat silently, watching the small rebellion unfold.
“Flora,” said Forsythe quietly, a subtle warning in his voice.
“We all mourn those we lost in the Three Trees,” said Lumina gently.
“We mourn but we do nothing,” spat Flora bitterly.
“Then what do you suggest we do?” rumbled Galax, just behind the princess.
Flora looked at Galax, and then at Forsythe; and after a moment she stalked over to her dagger, pulling it out of the wood savagely, her wings quivering.
“Please,” said Forsythe—either to me or Lumina, or both of us—“excuse Flora. She is distraught over the loss of kin and kith.” He bowed politely to me, then to Lumina, and took Flora by the shoulders, escorting her to the opposite edge of the desk where they sat and began to talk in quiet voices.
“So, Tess,” said Lumina, turning back to me, “you would have me give you our greatest secret and our best hope, so that you may give it to the half-blood.”
“What choice do we have?” I asked, spreading my hands. “Molly is already unbound, and even though she won’t remember me I still trust her. She’s still the same person she was before.” My voice sounded defensive even to my own ears. “We have to tell them where the Sword is, so that Molly can use it against Malravenar.”
“Tess,” said Lumina, “have you not thought about why you are here?”
“Of course I have,” I said. “Finnead brought me through the Gate because I saved his life.”
“He brought you through the Gate because he saw something in you,” Wisp said. “The same thing that I saw in you even when I first came to you.”
“Malravenar’s evil is strong,” said Lumina, “stronger than any evil we have ever known.”
“Are you saying that Molly won’t be strong enough to defeat him?”
“Not necessarily. I do not know. She might prevail in the end. But everything happens for a reason. She has forgotten her mortal life, and so she has become…less mortal.”
“She’s still half mortal. You can’t become less than what you really are.”
“But she’s had half of herself missing for all her life. That half, her Fae half…”
“It’s strong. I know. Guinna told me that too.” I paused. “Her mother was mortal. Who was her father?”
“That is not for me to say,” said Lumina carefully.
“Is he still at Court?” I asked.
“No.”
“He’s dead, then?”
Lumina looked away from me.
“Lumina. Is Molly’s father dead?”
“We do not know.”
“Who was he?”
It was Forsythe who answered me. “He was the Vaelanmavar’s brother.”
“Molly is the niece of the Vaelanmavar,” I breathed to myself, pushing down the revulsion that overpowered me at the mention of the knight. “Well, that would explain why Mab was all right with binding Molly instead of killing her, if Molly is connected to one of her knights.”
Lumina shook her head. “It was a prophecy that stayed her hand, not her own mercy. She would have killed her. She is Queen, and she was bound to uphold the High Code.”
I shuddered. “She really would’ve killed Molly?”
“Her power rests on the laws. If she does not obey them, then how may she expect her Court to obey them? The Vaelanmavar’s brother broke the Code, but most thought it was fate, and forgave him for it. He paid a terrible price, but he was not banished or beheaded.”
“Fate.” I shook my head. “I don’t think I believe in fate. I’m pretty much a mistake, being brought here.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” Lumina said fiercely.
I looked at her in surprise.
“It is all a delicate series of events,” she continued. “Don’t you see, Tess? You meeting Molly, becoming friends with her, trusting her even when she seemed to be making up fantastic stories….and you possessing the courage to kill the garrelnost. It all could have ended in that instant. Malravenar would have extinguished the hope of our world, but because of you…”
I shook my head. “Wisp told me what to do. I’m no hero.”
“But you are, Tess, you just have to learn to believe in yourself,” said Flora. “You are strong, and braver than any mortal I’ve known. You think you are ordinary, and not equal to the Sidhe just because they possess more skill than you in swordsmanship and such. But you possess things that they cannot learn, no matter how many years they train in their long lives.”
I smiled. “Thanks for the speech, Flora.” Then I sighed. “All right, I won’t tell anyone that you know where the Sword is, but you have to promise me that you won’t hold it from them for too long.”
“When the time is right, we will reveal it,” agreed Lumina. “Thank you, Tess.”
“I’m just too tired to absorb all this right now, or I’d have thought of a better argument,” I grumbled as I unbuckled my sword-belt. I drew my dagger from its sheath and set it on my nightstand.
“There is blood on your dagger!” said Flora. She and Forsythe were by my side before I had time to blink, much
less explain myself.
“Must I teach a rogue a lesson?” Forsythe demanded, drawing his own sword with a metallic hiss.
I shook my head tiredly. “No. I took care of the lesson myself.” I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off my boots, too exhausted to care that I had to retell the story. “I ran into the Vaelanmavar on the way to talk to Guinna. He…was very rude to me, and I had to use my dagger.” I grimaced, rubbing my sore feet. “He’ll probably be wearing an eye-patch for a while.”
Flora made a small sound of disbelief.
“Do Sidhe’s eyes regenerate, if they’re cut by a normal blade?” I asked, addressing the room at large.
“Sometimes, if the wound isn’t too grave,” replied Wisp from the desk. “You put out the eye of the Vaelanmavar, Tess?”
“Not intentionally. I slapped him across the face with the flat of the blade, and it just…happened.” I pulled my hair from its bun, separating it into three strands so I could braid it.
“Don’t feel bad,” said Wisp. “The Vaelanmavar is a very nasty sort of Knight. I’ve never liked him,” he added.
“Good to know you approve,” I said wryly, stifling a yawn.
“He treated you with disrespect?” asked Forsythe, still brandishing his sword.
“Yes. But I’m too tired to care anymore, Forsythe. Thanks for your concern, though.” I smiled at him as I tied off my braid. “I need some sleep. I don’t mind if you keep one of the lamps on low, or talk, or do whatever you want. I’ll sleep through it.”
“We will not disturb you, Lady Tess,” said Forsythe, bowing slightly and holding his sword out toward me.
I opened my lips to correct Forsythe—just Tess, I meant to say—but my eyes drifted shut inexorably as I lay back in my bed, and I finally surrendered to sleep.
Chapter 19
I awoke from sleep with a start, sitting up and rubbing one palm against my eyes, trying to brush away the haziness from my mind. But then I looked around, and saw that I wasn’t in my room at Darkhill anymore. I was sitting on a grassy knoll in the warm sun, and I wasn’t in my nightgown, either, instead wearing soft tawny leggings and a brightly colored tunic, blue as a robin’s egg. I rubbed the soft fabric between two fingers, resisting the urge to pinch myself to see if I really was still dreaming. I stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of my tunic, checking my belt for a dagger that wasn’t there. But despite my dagger’s absence and the lack of my sword’s comforting weight against my hip, I only felt a twinge of concern instead of panic. That was how I knew I was still somehow dreaming.
