Darrow gestured through the tress behind him. “There’s a river this way where you can clean yourself up.”
Translation: I wouldn’t have time to go back to the training base to change into more sensible attire before my meeting with Lord Kerien. Great.
Coral caught up with me as I made for the river. “I’m sorry, Hazel. I didn’t know what the task involved.”
“I’m supposed to be meeting with one of the Sidhe after this and I’m not even wearing shoes.” I didn’t have any of my weapons either, so I’d better hope the Erlking’s killer didn’t revisit the crime scene while I was snooping around. Assuming Lord Kerien didn’t mistake me for a swamp monster and try to slay me. “Everyone knows not to go into the water in Faerie, so I’m not all that keen on bathing in a river, either, to be honest.”
“It’s perfectly safe.” She reached the riverbank and dove into the clear waters, her cape shimmering behind her. I watched from the bank, curious to see her shift. Selkies could only speak in their human forms, as far as I knew, but could otherwise live in and out of the water.
“Hazel,” Darrow said from behind me. “I need to talk to you.”
I wheeled around and was greeted with the view of a half-naked Darrow removing his trousers. Oh… my. Don’t look any further south, Hazel… too late. “Jesus. Warn me next time you start stripping in front of me.”
His brow wrinkled. “You humans have odd ideas about modesty.”
“I’m from Scotland,” I told him. “You’re welcome to try walking around the Highlands in the nude if you want to see why we don’t do that sort of thing over there. Even wearing a kilt would run the risk of your balls turning blue and dropping off.”
Actually, I thought he’d look damned good in a kilt, but you couldn’t pay me to say that aloud. He looked smoking hot out of one, for that matter, if you liked pretty silver-haired faeries with lean muscles and striking-coloured eyes. I could admit that and still keep my eyes on his face and not on his sculpted chest.
“You passed the test,” he said, entirely ignoring my comment. “I’ll escort you to meet Lord Kerien in ten minutes.”
Was that an attempt at an apology? To be honest, his comment about my so-called reputation still rankled me more than today’s task did. I wouldn’t trust Lord Niall’s opinion on anything except the finest brand of elf wine.
“Fine.” I waited for him to leave before removing my muddy clothes. He might find my reluctance to bear my naked skin in front of an audience weird, but if Aila made another comment about my plain human appearance, I’d punch her in the nose.
The clean water came as an immense relief after my unintended swim, and I fully submerged my head to remove the clumps of mud from my circlet.
When I emerged, I found Coral treading water nearby, her cape billowing around her. “Do you wear that circlet all the time?”
“It’s more or less magically attached to my skull.” I usually removed it when I slept, but not here in Faerie. Certainly not after the Erlking’s murderer had stolen his crown. “Even a Sidhe would be hard-pressed to knock it off.”
“Nice.” She pulled at the edges of her cape. “Same with this. Okay, not quite the same, but male selkies think it’s funny to run contests where the first to steal my skin gets to give me a kiss. It’s supposed to be a game.” She pulled a face. “Selkie males are so immature.”
I snorted. “And Willow? You two seemed to be having a good time at the party.”
She flushed bright red. “I was trying to find out who was her noble Sidhe parent, but we got distracted…”
“Distracted.” I made quote marks with my fingers, and her flush deepened. “It doesn’t matter who, right?”
“She’s from the Court, so possibly, yes,” she said. “I’m only in Summer for as long as this job lasts, and then I’ll have to find another one or go back home.”
“The Sea Kingdom’s off the coast of Scotland, right? Near Skye.”
“Yep.” Her cape swirled. “Okay, I’ll shift. I can tell you’re curious.”
“I’m not—” But before I could finish my sentence, she wrapped the skin-cape around her body and shifted into a seal. Her selkie form was grey-white and spotted, and her dark eyes twinkled with mischief as she splashed me with a flipper.
With a flourish, Coral turned back into her human form. “You did a great job passing the test, despite Aila and her sick sense of humour.”
“I knew the goblin was her idea.” I ran my fingers through my hair to untangle my matted curls.
“Yeah, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said. “The Trials are intended to test your skills, not your morals. That’s what Darrow said, anyway.”
I made a sceptical noise. “He doesn’t like me much. How long have you worked with him?”
“Since he took over as head of Gatekeeper training,” she said. “He’s not much of a talker, but don’t forget most people who work in the Courts have to hide their true motives. He can’t show favouritism, especially towards you.”
No kidding. Most people in the Courts wore masks, but I’d never been a fan of duplicity. I was usually good at making judgements, too, but Darrow was hard to figure out.
“I tried to get him drunk last night,” I said. “Get him to loosen up. He told me I have a reputation. Any idea why he’d care?”
Her brow crinkled. “No. Says who?”
“Lord Niall, apparently.”
“Oh, him.” She snorted. “Reputation? He’s the guy who threw a party in which three people drowned in a single barrel of wine.”
“I take it that wasn’t the permanent kind of death?”
“Keep it down,” she said in an undertone. “The Sidhe still don’t like people talking about… you know.”
“Death.” Up until the Sidhe’s immortality had come crashing to an end, they’d been free to risk life and limb without any fear of repercussions. Yet for many, their first impression of what awaited after death had come during the wraith attack at Lord Niall’s revel. Hell of a wakeup call.
“Yeah. That.” Coral swam to the bank. “I’m heading back to the training grounds. Darrow’s just over there, waiting for you.”
Of course he is. I checked the last of the mud was gone, then swam to the spot where I’d left my clothes.
The problem was, they were no longer there.
Great. Normally, I’d draw the line at walking into the scene of the Erlking’s death with no clothes as well as no weapons, but it was typical of the way my luck was going today. I raised a hand, conjuring a glamour that covered me from head to toe in a mirror of the outfit Darrow had put on me before my arrival at the training grounds. As long as he didn’t try any of his glamour-breaking tricks, I’d be fine, but Darrow didn’t seem to care about my dignity.
He waited for me a short distance away in his black-and-green ensemble, which might be glamour for all I knew, and frowned when he caught sight of me.
“What?” I said. “Some dickhead stole my clothes. I didn’t leave a gap in the glamour, did I?”
“No, but I think these would work better.” He handed me a pile of clothes, and I blinked, startled. He’d even included shoes. That was unexpectedly kind. And suspicious. Maybe he thought the Sidhe would be annoyed at him if I flashed the entire Seelie Court.
Ducking behind the bushes, I examined the plain trousers and shirt. They weren’t Darrow’s, but they were designed for someone three inches taller than me and considerably smaller in the chest. I’d have to go through the forest wearing what amounted to a corset and hope that my boobs wouldn’t pop out in the middle of the site of the Erlking’s murder. Oh, and in front of Darrow, whose brows rose when I stepped out from behind the bushes.
“What is it this time?” It wasn’t like I had anything he’d never seen before. Frequently, if he’d lived in Faerie a while. It seemed I’d been wasting my time trying to get him drunk last night when I should have worn a corset instead.
“Nothing,” he said, several seconds too lat
e.
“Uh-huh.” I grinned. “C’mon. Lord Kerien will be waiting.”
8
Lord Kerien waited for me at the border north of the Blood River. Despite the name, the waters shone like liquid crystal, without so much as a drop of blood in sight. He wore plain dark clothing rather than his usual green and gold armour, his glamour toned down so thoroughly that my gaze passed over him twice before I spotted him among the trees.
He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “I’ll take her from here.”
“Are you certain?” Darrow said. “The Gatekeeper is my charge. I’ll be displeased if anything happens to her.”
Yeah, right. More like he wanted to know what our secret meeting was about.
“I will keep her safe,” said Lord Kerien. Since he couldn’t lie, it seemed he meant it.
“Very well.” Darrow turned to me. “You may go home after your task is complete. I will call you back when it’s time for your next training session.”
Hmm. He didn’t sound like he resented me going to the crime scene. Maybe I’d guessed wrong about him after all. He hadn’t alluded to knowing what the Erlking’s talisman was capable of, but then again, I hadn’t known Lord Kerien had seen it, either, much less that he was involved in the murder investigation. Like most Sidhe, he hadn’t set eyes on the Erlking in decades.
I turned to the Sidhe lord as we walked. “I didn’t know you were a detective. Or that you knew the Erlking personally. What brought this on?”
His lips compressed. “After his wife’s attempted coup, the Erlking fired his entire team of advisors.”
Whoa. “Seriously?”
“Yes, of course, mortal,” said Lord Kerien. “He jailed anyone who conspired with the Seelie Queen. Those who were left, he dismissed on the grounds that they could no longer be trusted, and started afresh.”
“And hired you,” I surmised. “Before then, you didn’t know why he kept everyone in the Court at a distance. Everyone thought he was sick. That’s why some of them aren’t surprised he died.”
I’d worked that much out. Only the people who’d been closest to the Erlking knew the truth about why he’d isolated himself, but I hadn’t realised the Erlking had hand-picked a new security team prior to his death.
“Correct,” he said. “He chose a small number of us to confide in about his situation. Perhaps he saw an attempt on his life coming.”
It wouldn’t surprise me if he had. It did surprise me that he’d readily shared the details of the talisman’s power with anyone at all.
“So do you think one of the other new advisors might have been the one who betrayed him?” I asked.
“Perhaps,” he said, “but we have searched the whole of Summer for any traces of his talisman and found no traces of it. Nor the crown.”
“What about the heir?” I said in a low voice. “I know you can’t choose his successor without the Erlking’s crown, but perhaps it’d stop the general panic if you nominated someone as a temporary replacement.”
“The Erlking was clear that he alone would choose the heir,” said Lord Kerien. “We have searched his territory extensively, and evidence of the Erlking’s choice has yet to be found.”
You might know it. Then again, if he’d sent anyone else a personalised note, they’d probably be compelled not to speak to anyone else about it. The bloody Sidhe just couldn’t make anything simple.
“All right,” I said. “Forget the heir, then. Was anyone else known to be near the Erlking when he was murdered?”
“No,” he said. “He used trolls to guard his territory, due to their resilience. That… staff of his caused adverse side effects in anyone who went close to him. His personal sprite delivered messages to his advisors.”
That sounded like an impractical way to do business. Granted, he’d once trusted the Seelie Queen to take messages for him and she’d responded by conspiring with Lord Daival behind his back. As she was the only person in the Court unaffected by the talisman, she could stand at his side without being harmed, so perhaps he’d felt he had no choice but to trust her. They must have had had one hell of a weird relationship. Trapped alone in a forest with someone you hated made my family’s curse look like a relaxing weekend at the beach.
“Can you tell me who the other advisors were?” I asked. “I know he fired Lord Daival, since he helped the Seelie Queen with her attempted coup.”
“He didn’t tell any of us the identities of his other advisors. I have my suspicions, but we’re vow-bound not to share that information even with the other Sidhe.”
Figures. The Erlking hadn’t trusted a soul after his wife’s betrayal. “You used to handle petitions from mortals. It’s quite a step up from that to working with the King of Faerie himself.”
“Yes, it is,” he said. “I confess, it seems unclear to all of us what his motives were. It may be that he was losing his grip on his sanity, which is what most of us once believed to be the reason he kept his distance.”
I was more inclined to think of his actions as the result of understandable paranoia, but he’d seemed intelligent and calculating when we’d met. And it wasn’t necessarily strange that he’d want every trace of his wife wiped out of his Court after her attempt to take his throne.
“In any case,” he went on, “I do not believe a Sidhe committed the murder.”
“What, you don’t?” I blinked. “You think it’s more likely that a human or half-faerie got in?”
“Not alone,” he said. “But I have seen things, mortal, in recent times, which show that nothing is as immutable as we once believed. I have seen humans wielding our talismans. I have seen half-bloods enter our territory and trick their way into power. I have watched our eternity cast in doubt, and our allies’ minds poisoned. And I have no doubt that what stole our king’s life was as a force as unnatural as any of those.”
Unnatural force? The Erlking’s staff was pretty damned unnatural in its own right, but the guy must have fielded hundreds of assassination attempts in his time on the throne. Why had this been the one to kill him?
Lord Kerien turned a corner and halted in front of a set of gates. A staff appeared in his hand, and he pressed its glowing tip to the spot where the two gates touched. The glow spread through the gates, to its edges, and they opened without so much as a whisper.
“That’s not your talisman,” I observed, eyeing the staff.
“No,” he said, tucking it into his belt. “It’s a security talisman which only opens this gate and is the sole method of gaining access to the Erlking’s territory. There are a small number of them dispersed among the Sidhe by the Erlking himself.”
“How could they have accused me of committing the murder?” I asked. “I didn’t even know to steal one of those, let alone how.”
Lord Kerien flashed me a sharp look. “You met the Erlking once before.”
“I used the Gatekeeper’s vow to transport myself directly in front of him to warn him of an impending coup. Why would I then turn around and use the same magic to take his life?” It had been the only way to warn the Court of the Seelie Queen’s betrayal, since the Erlking held the highest authority and none of the other Sidhe had believed me. I never would have guessed that decision would implicate me in his murder.
To my surprise, lush forests greeted us on the inside of the Erlking’s territory. A short distance in, we passed by the wide grounds of an elegant estate.
“That’s not the Erlking’s home.” It couldn’t be. I’d seen the clearing where he spent his time, and not a living thing had survived the staff’s touch.
“This is the house where the Seelie Queen lived.”
That explains it. “I know she hardly saw her husband. Didn’t she get lonely?”
“She brought her lovers through the gate, but she required no talisman to get in.”
Oh. That meant if she’d sent someone to kill her ex-husband, they couldn’t have broken in without assistance. “Are you absolutely certain she hasn’t left the jail?”
In my view, prison was too good for her, but the usual punishment for betrayal was exile. Since the exiled faeries were the ones who’d attacked Earth just over two decades ago, there’d been little doubt exile would allow her to continue her scheming in the realm of the outcasts, and the Sidhe had agreed.
“She has not left the jail,” said Lord Kerien. “She may have had a hand in this, but not in person.”
The forest grew more tangled the further we walked. Sidestepping a husk of a dead oak, we came to a mass of fallen trees. Blood spattered the wooden trunks. Not human blood. “Is that where…?”
“That’s where the Erlking’s security beast was killed.” Lord Kerien led me around the wreckage to a spot where the living trees turned to dead ones, forming a clearing as stark as a vicious scar on the otherwise living forest. The Erlking’s throne sat in the centre, formed of entangled tree roots. Grey and lifeless, they sat frozen in time, surrounded by decay.
An image burst into my mind—a man wearing a golden crown decorated with thorns, holding a carved staff which brimmed with power. He’d sat on that throne for centuries, yet no traces remained of his legacy but the trail of lifeless trees his talisman had left behind.
I stopped inches from the throne, taking in the faint traces of drying blood. “And he died… here?”
Lord Kerien had halted at the edge of the clearing, as though he didn’t want to tread too close to the place where his king had perished. “Yes, he died inches from his throne. A single arrow to the forehead killed him instantly. By the time anyone reached the scene of his death, the staff and crown were gone.”
I turned the information over in my mind. One shot meant an uncommon skill with a bow and arrow, for sure. The killer would have needed to stand far enough away not to be affected by the staff’s magic—not to mention spotted by the Erlking himself. I took a step back, mentally calculating the distance across the clearing. This couldn’t be the extent of his territory, surely. He didn’t sleep in his throne, right? Okay, I wasn’t sure the Sidhe actually needed to sleep. Not like humans did. If they wanted to, they could party for days at a time or go for months without rest.
The Gatekeeper's Trials: The Complete Trilogy Page 8
