by Jocelyn Fox
“Tess,” said Ramel in a quiet voice that still somehow conveyed his usual flippant humor. “How nice of you to join us.”
“I thought I could help,” I said.
“You can. Don’t think we forgot about you,” replied Ramel with half a grin. “This is Eamon, one of our healers.”
Eamon nodded gravely to me. “We could use a pair of hands that can touch iron without injury.”
I held up my hands for inspection. “Then I’m your girl.” I smiled, and was rewarded by a tired smile from Eamon. He motioned to the chairs grouped loosely around a plain table. I sat down, Eamon on one side of me and Ramel on the other. Finnead remained standing. Ramel glanced at him but said nothing as Eamon spread the contents of his bag on the table, all glinting instruments and white cloth.
In the next hours, Eamon taught me the basics of doctoring the Sidhe wounded, showing me how to use the tools in his healing-pack, educating me on the signs of iron poisoning in the Fae. For the Sidhe, their skin took on a gray pallor, and their lips slowly turned blue. The flesh around the wound, if there was enough iron, began to turn black, reminding me of the grisly war-time photos of gangrene in textbooks about the Civil War. The sliver that had been extracted from Merrick was apparently a very small shard, and that was one of the only reasons a Sidhe soldier as young as Merrick survived an iron wound.
“He’ll still have a nasty scar,” Eamon explained, “as the iron residue still affects the healing flesh. But he’ll no doubt use it to his advantage with the ladies of the Court.”
“Chicks dig scars,” I agreed gravely. Ramel chuckled and Eamon looked slightly puzzled for a moment but then he continued on with my education, glossing over my reference in favor of using our time efficiently. Every quarter-hour or so he paused, walking up and down the row of cots, kneeling here and there to check a wound or lay the back of his hand against a fallen soldier’s brow. I counted the occupants of the infirmary: eleven, all said and done. I saw Merrick, still in the same bed, but with a healthy color to his skin, sleeping peacefully with a bandage still wrapped around his bare chest.
Finnead stood slightly apart from Eamon, Ramel and I, making rounds as Eamon continued to teach me. Every so often, I caught him looking at me, and the look in his eyes startled me. Exhaustion showed on his face as well, though he carried it more stoically than Eamon; and when his gaze settled on my face a peculiar sadness crossed his beautiful features. Still listening to Eamon, I observed him from the corner of my eye.
His gaze traveled from Eamon’s face as he listened to the healer’s explanations, to my face—that strange pain twisting the blue of his eyes—then onto Ramel. And when his eyes reached Ramel a shadow fell over his entire expression. Once or twice I saw his throat working as he tried to control that unfathomable emotion.
After a good two hours of instruction, Eamon made me practice stitches on a piece of cloth. I’d never been very good at embroidery, and at first the stitches were large and uneven. Ramel left to go check on the sentries, and Finnead remained a silent shadow lingering by the edge of the table. Under Eamon’s patient tutoring, I managed to produce an acceptable row of stitches binding two edges of the white cloth together, the silver needle glimmering in the dim light. When Eamon began to explain the different depth of stitch needed to close different edges of wounds, comparing the clean cut of a sword wound to the ragged puncture of an arrowhead, I had to swallow against the sudden bitter taste in my mouth. Using a needle and thread to stitch together cloth was all well and good, but the thought of piercing skin with the needle made me a little sick.
“You look a bit…unwell,” Eamon observed, his voice kind.
“I don’t really like the idea of sticking a needle into someone,” I confessed quietly, frowning as I started another row of stitches. “But I want to help. I don’t just want to sit around waiting for something to happen.”
“Why do you not like the idea of closing wounds with stitches?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just…it’s one thing to put a bandage on someone, but sewing them up with a needle and thread…that hurts them.”
“Sometimes you have to hurt to heal,” Finnead said quietly from over my shoulder.
I glanced up at him. “I believe I was talking to Eamon.”
Eamon looked startled at my rudeness to the Vaelanbrigh. More annoyance prickled my spine. They treated Finnead like royalty, and I supposed he was an extension of Mab’s power, being one of her Named Knights; but in my book, that didn’t give him an excuse to be sulkily silent throughout a conversation and then jump in whenever it pleased him.
Finnead gazed down at me expressionlessly, and I coolly met his eyes with my own deliberately calm stare. “If you’d like to join the conversation,” I continued smoothly, “feel free to take a seat, instead of hovering over our shoulders.”
Ramel chose that moment to come walking jauntily up to the table. “Sentries are secure,” he announced quietly, a wink accompanying his words and conveying the clear message that he was restraining his usual exuberant self only because he was in the infirmary. He slid into the seat next to me and leaned in close, inspecting my stitches.
“Not bad, pretty one,” he said approvingly, giving my shoulder a brotherly squeeze. “You’ll soon be master of fighting and healing!”
“I look forward to patching up the people I take apart,” I replied drily.
Ramel shook his finger. “No, no, no. That’s not the point. You shouldn’t ever patch up the people you take apart. Unless of course, that person is me, and in that case patch away.” He grinned.
“I heard,” Eamon said offhandedly, “that Lady Tess came very close to taking you apart the other evening when you crossed swords.” He glanced at me and then at Ramel, keeping his face carefully blank.
Ramel shook his head and pretended to be offended. “Only because I let her score a few points. You know, have to build up confidence before battling some real creatures.”
Even though Ramel’s tone was light, I bristled a little at the words. I had battled some real creatures—even if it had been when I was only half-real. But I kept my eyes on my cloth, drawing my stitches tight, trying to make them tiny and even.
“I believe you’ll be ready to help when the next casualty arrives,” Eamon commented as he wet a cloth with a sharp-smelling green solution. He wiped each of his instruments with the cloth from hilt to tip.
“Well,” I said, “hopefully that won’t be for a long while.”
“Not now that you’re here,” Finnead said.
Ramel cleared his throat suddenly, looking up at Finnead.
“What do you mean?” I said, looking up at Finnead. I stood when he remained silent. “Tell me.” I glanced down at Ramel. “Please.”
“We believe Malravenar knows about Molly,” Finnead said finally, drawing his gaze away from Ramel. “But he does not know when she is coming, or where, or even how powerful she may be.”
A sneaking suspicion crept around my back of my head. I remembered what Vell had said about the dark forces looking for something when they attacked.
“We think that he suspects Molly already knows where the Iron Sword is hidden,” Finnead continued.
“But she doesn’t,” I said, too quickly. I cursed silently and tried to keep my expression blank under the sharpened gazes of both Finnead and Ramel.
Finnead’s blue eyes darkened and he crossed his arms across his chest, the shadow of a scowl lingering on his brow. “No,” he said slowly. “We don’t know where it is hidden, or the Queen would have sent the fendhionne to the Deadlands by now.”
“Right, as your sacrificial lamb,” I said. The bitterness in my own voice surprised me: Molly didn’t remember me, and I hadn’t seen her in weeks. But it only took the memory of hurriedly eating melting ice cream cones in the shade of the spreading oak to ki
ndle a spark of indignation and anger.
“She will be armed with the most powerful weapon in our world,” Ramel pointed out. I noticed that Eamon was trying very hard not to show his interest in the conversation, and I wondered how much the rest of the guards and knights knew of Molly and the Sword. But keeping secrets wasn’t my concern.
“A weapon that’s going to kill her,” I pointed out.
“Sometimes one must be sacrificed for the good of many,” Finnead said, his quiet voice steely.
“Damn all that heroic talk,” I hissed. “It doesn’t do anyone any good to be called a hero when they’re dead.”
“I would think you would be more accepting of glorious death, considering your brother’s profession.” Finnead’s eyes smoldered with a quiet, hard anger.
“Leave Liam out of this,” I snapped, a crackle of fear whipping up my spine at the thought of my brother coming home in a flag-draped casket. I clenched my hands into fists to ward off the image.
“Calm down,” said Ramel from behind me, and I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to Finnead, or me, or both of us.
Finnead shook his head slightly, brows drawn down over his eyes. “Why do you want to protect this girl so? She doesn’t even remember you.”
“I know that. And that’s also because of this war of yours,” I snapped, only just remembering to keep my voice down. “But you know what? Just because she’s forgotten doesn’t mean I have, and that’s enough for me.”
Finnead shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t know. She cares nothing for you anymore. It seems foolhardy to try to protect her when she wouldn’t do the same for you.”
I clenched my teeth against a wave of pure, unadulterated anger. If we hadn’t been standing in the infirmary, I would have unleashed a tirade of curses at Finnead. As it was, I barely swallowed the scathing words. And then an idea blossomed suddenly in the very center of my mind, so quickly that it washed away all my anger and I felt a steady cool calm descend over me like a veil. Ramel stood, too, and he moved between Finnead and I. When he saw my serene expression he glanced at Finnead.
“Sometimes loyalty isn’t about expecting anything in return,” I said, serenity enveloping me softly. “And it doesn’t matter anyway, because Molly won’t be carrying the Sword.”
“Tess,” Ramel said. “This isn’t something that you can stop. You can’t just forbid Molly to carry the Sword.”
I turned and looked at my teacher and friend. “Yes,” I said. “I can stop it. Because Molly can’t carry the Sword if I already have it.”
As Ramel stepped back, stunned, Finnead took a step forward just as quickly, his eyes suddenly blazing. “No.”
Raising my chin slightly, I looked him in the eye. “Why not? It all makes sense, don’t you see? I have Gwyneth’s blood. She was the last Bearer.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what happened that she lost the Sword, but it fits that I should be the one to make it right.”
“You’ll die,” Finnead said fiercely, leaning slightly toward me with the fervor of his emotion.
“It’s not a certainty,” I said. The weight of responsibility that necessarily followed my decision settled on my shoulders like a mantle and it felt good. It anchored me against Finnead’s anger. “It’s near enough a certainty that Molly will die when she uses the Sword against Malravenar, because of her Fae blood.” I spread my hands. “I’m mortal. One-hundred-percent pure-bred. Gwyneth’s blood is just a bonus.”
“You will not die because of the Sword.” Finnead half-turned, looking away from me. “You will die because a mortal girl has no chance against the evil that is Malravenar.” There was something like bitterness in his voice.
“Tess,” Ramel said. “How about we go and, ah, get some sword practice in, and then we can talk about this—”
“Why not?” I demanded, taking a step closer to Finnead. “Why don’t I have a chance? I have more power than any of you, maybe even more than Mab and Titania. Why do you think I don’t have a chance?”
“Tess,” Ramel said warningly.
Finnead turned back to me. “Because I have faced him,” he said in a low, deadly voice, his blue eyes boring into mine. “Because I barely escaped with my life, and that was two hundred years ago, before he came into the full of his power. Before he passed fully into shadow.”
In a flash I understood. “The scars on your back.” And as soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t uttered a word. Finnead went pale and still, his eyes burning darkly. “I…I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I saw it…in a dream, and I didn’t think they…it…was real.”
Finnead clenched his jaw. He glanced up at me, then turned suddenly, striding toward the door. I moved to follow him, but Ramel caught my arm in an iron grip, pulling me back toward the table and tugging me down toward a chair. He sat in the chair next to mine. Eamon had abandoned all pretense of preoccupation with his tools. He was too polite to stare, but he kept darting intrigued glances at me.
Ramel sighed heavily and raked his fingers through his hair. “I have to say, you know how to get under a man’s skin.”
“I didn’t mean to upset him,” I said guiltily. “I shouldn’t have said that about the scars, should I?”
“No, that was something best kept in your thoughts,” Ramel said, a bit harshly. Then he shook his head. “Sorry. But you must understand, there are only a few of us who know about the Vaelanbrigh’s scars.”
I thought of my dream, of the image of Finnead slowly lifting the edge of his shirt, revealing the thick, rope-like scars marring the flesh of his back. “Are they really from Malravenar?”
Ramel nodded slowly. Then he looked at Eamon. “Not a word of this leaves the room, healer,” he said sharply. He glanced over at the nearest beds; they were far enough away that the occupants, if they were awake, would hear only a murmur of voices, if we spoke softly.
Eamon nodded. “On my healing oath, I swear it. But it may be best if you tell the rest simply to the lady.” And with that, he gathered his tools and stood, walking toward the nearest bed to begin his rounds.
Ramel rubbed his eyes with his palm. “You really dreamt that?”
“Well,” I said, considering, “it was probably more than a dream. A vision. Or a mix between the two.”
“You certainly are the girl from the blue rose garden.” Ramel sat back in his chair. “It is a deformity that the Vaelanbrigh does not carry lightly.”
“Deformity?” I said indignantly. “It isn’t his fault that he has scars!”
“He sees them as a mark of shame,” Ramel explained quietly. “Two centuries ago, Finnead had just finished his years as a squire, and he was a young knight eager for his task. He told me the story himself, when I was his own squire, because back in the merry days when we held tournaments, a squire helped his lord don his armor, and I would’ve seen the scars anyway.” Ramel paused reflectively. “Finnead’s task, set before him by the Queen, was escorting the Princess on a tour of the Unseelie lands.”
“Princess?” I asked. “I didn’t know Mab had children.”
“She does not,” replied Ramel. “The Princess was her younger sister.”
“What was her name?”
He shook his head. “Her name cannot be uttered, even now. Finnead was one of the escort, and it was a task that should have been easy. Even then he had caught Mab’s eye, and there was even talk that he might wed her younger sister.”
“Did he…love her?” I asked softly, hating the tremor in my voice.
“He thought she was beautiful, and probably in time he would have loved her. But they didn’t have that time.” Ramel took a breath. “The murder of the Princess served as Malravenar’s coronation.”
“He captured Finnead?”
“Yes. Out of the eight knights escorting the Princess and her three ladies, three survived the i
nitial attack, along with one of the ladies. Finnead was the only one who managed to escape entirely, but he gave himself up when it was promised that the lady would be set free.”
I sat back in my chair. “And the lady wasn’t set free,” I guessed.
“No, she was,” Ramel said. “Back at the beginning, even Malravenar still bound himself by the code of chivalry.”
“Who was the lady?”
“Guinna.”
I tried not to look shocked and failed. “That must have been…hard for her. She saw the Princess murdered?”
“The Princess, and five knights and the two other ladies, one of whom was her own sister.”
I silently tucked this information away, storing it for when I might need anger to use against Malravenar.
“In any case, Finnead was the youngest of the captured knights. One of the knights was the Vaelanbrigh of that time, and made Finnead promise to return the Brighbranr to the Dark Lady. He was killed slowly, tortured in front of Finnead and his companion. And then the second knight sacrificed himself, creating time for Finnead to escape but losing his own life.”
“So Finnead brought the Brighbranr back to Mab?”
“Let me tell the story,” Ramel admonished me. “Finnead made it far enough away from the encampment to hide the Brighbranr. And then they recaptured him, and…tortured him.” Ramel shook his head. “I was a boy then, and I remember that he was counted among the dead. A company of knights destroyed the encampment where he had been held, and found the Brighbranr.”
