by Blake, Laila
The admission hurt as much now as it had the first moment she’d seen her young sister do it; the hallmark of a Fae — the nightly glow. Iris herself couldn’t glow. She had been cast aside as too human to be allowed back Across.
“But I suppose it was close enough. Crossling energy.” Iris shrugged and felt a little warmed by the distaste on her mother’s face.
“You know I don’t like that word.”
Iris shrugged. She finally let her hands wander over the careful braid in which she had coiled her silver hair and sighed.
“His words,” she explained and pulled up her shoulders defensively. She had grown thin in her old age and felt a lot more fragile these days than she had in the capital. There, she’d had a reputation, her home, her own little area of influence. Here, she felt like a pawn between greater powers.
“So, if I understand you right,” Maeve tried to make sense of her daughter’s words after a long pause. “This Brock has been stationed — or stationed himself — at the Bramble Keep, following the Rochmond’s fortunes … ”
“And influencing them, as far as I can tell. He seemed to have plans of his own for Moira’s wedding.”
“He told you that?”
Iris nodded. The rest of her tale was still complicated but she finally finished telling her about her lie, about the potion that was supposed to make the girl fall in love with Fairester and Brock’s warning not to attempt anything upon his charge without his permission.
Moira sighed and scratched her head.
“Could the girl be his spy; the consort?”
“I doubt it,” Iris answered skeptically. “Devali — that’s her name — she is just a girl who worked for him back in his estate in Lauryl.”
“Fae think ahead,” Maeve interjected, shaking her head. “Especially the ones stationed Lakeside. They are trained to. I have to get close to her. Did he say anything else about Fairester?”
Iris hesitated, but finally shook her head. “He thinks him a little stupid. Beneath the girl, if anything. He doesn’t know he has crossling blood in him. And honestly, I don’t know if that is good or bad.”
Maeve thought about this too and finally pulled up her shoulders.
“At least he cannot guess our plan that way. You didn’t tell him anything? Nothing at all?”
“Nothing.”
Finally, Maeve rubbed her face and sat down. The afternoon was not going to her satisfaction at all. She needed time to think, more than anything.
“What do you think it was?” she said finally and Iris wondered about the hint of melancholy in her mother’s voice.
“What triggered the glow?” she checked and then shrugged herself. “The moon? Fairester? All the magic around her? I don’t know.”
“Fairester is the variable that changed but how could he have triggered it without displaying any magic himself?” Maeve shook her head. She hated being dependent on her daughter who was so much weaker than herself. But if she went to the castle and Brock recognized her … she didn’t even want to entertain the idea.
“She doesn’t seem to be taking to him anyway,” Iris said, her tone rather hopeless now. “Doesn’t that make it even less likely?”
Maeve nodded, and again she looked sad. Across, it was usually a mother who triggered her daughter’s first glow, through love and care and training. She had never been able to help Iris achieve it and now her youngest, Moira, the little girl she had left behind in Rochmond Castle all those years ago, had done it all by herself — or so it seemed.
“We have to try to get this Brock out of the castle. At least for long enough to keep her safe … if she glows again … ” Maeve shook her head but then steeled her face. “I’ll figure out how the consort fits into everything and if nothing else works, I’ll show myself by the lake … if he’s as ambitious as you described him, he won’t resist the chance to try and bring me in.”
Iris shivered. She wanted to disagree, wanted to say the girl wasn’t worth that, but then she couldn’t. Her own resentment toward her mother seemed to lie deeper than she had thought and in the end, she just brushed her fingers over her dress in a nervous gesture and nodded. “I’ll try to stay close to her, find out her trigger … try to help her avoid it.”
“And brew the potion if you have to. At least if she goes with Fairester, she will be away from here. Away from that Brock and his plans for Rochmond, for a while at least.”
Iris hesitated even though her mother looked resolute as she poured herself a glass of water and closed her eyes for a long moment, going over the plan again. It seemed then, that she had utterly forgotten her elderly daughter who was still standing there, watching her for the moments her eyes could linger on the pure Fae nature of her before she blinked, looked away for a heartbeat and then continued her examination of her features and her resolve.
“What is it?” Maeve finally asked not without a note of distracted impatience. It made Iris less willing to speak up but after another pause, she raised her brows anyway.
“You would put your life on the line for hers? She doesn’t even know you exist.” In her mind, she was thinking of her own life as well, but politeness kept her from mentioning that one aloud. She knew, deep down, that as much as her mother loved her — or tried to love her as best as she could — they weren’t the same. Iris’s life would end. In ten years, maybe even five; just a blip, the beat of a wing, just one intake of breath to a Fae’s endless existence. It wouldn’t surprise Iris, if to her mother’s people, ten years of an old woman’s life were easily traded for forty or fifty years of a younger one.
Besides, Moira — her little sister — Moira had glowed. Within her shone the spark of creation, the pure magic of life. It wouldn’t be a mere forty years for Moira, maybe not an eternity, but to a Fae, Moira’s life had to count for more than the wretched last years of an elderly witch, full of aching bones and weaker senses. In the end, as much as she resented all of it — her mother, Fae, their Land Across and Moira most of all — deep down even Iris knew that it should have been an easy trade. An old woman dies, a young one lives. That was the nature of life.
“Fae don’t kill for punishment,” Maeve answered slowly even though she eyed her daughter with a deeper sense of understanding. “And I’m quite good myself. He can try and if he beats me, it will be up to you to hide her, to keep her safe.”
“She’s a brat.” Iris couldn’t help but utter. She would do it and they both knew that, but that didn’t mean she liked it. Maeve gave her a patient look, the maddening one that made Iris suddenly feel like her child; an old woman, chastised by this glowingly fresh thing that to most onlookers would look like her grandchild.
“If that is so, blame me,” Maeve said, her tone infuriatingly gentle, “for the choice of parents I made for her.”
Iris didn’t answer but she looked at the ground and exhaled a sigh. She was beaten and she knew it.
“I should go back, I’m sure he’s watching me … wouldn’t look good to be away for too long.”
Maeve nodded and gave her daughter a rare, tight embrace before she kissed her sallow, wrinkly cheek.
“It will be all right.”
Almost motherly, Iris thought.
Chapter Fifteen
The castle wasn’t deserted when they walked through the drawbridge, over the courtyard and the entrance hall. Moira and Owain kept a few feet of distance between them at all times, the guard walking behind his high lady, who, hair slightly repaired and no more tears on her face, set one foot before the other. At the staircase, they looked around for onlookers. There was a cleaning maid in one corner, kneeling on all fours and scrubbing the dusty stone.
Moira exhaled and blinked. She wanted to say something so badly, she thought her chest might explode but instead, she just gave him a courtly little smile. It was the one she had been tra
ined to deliver, the one that staff received and it ached to move her lips for him that way.
“Thank you for escorting me back,” she said and cleared her throat, trying to dispel the intimacy and longing she wanted to imbue in every word. Instead, she stayed cool and collected. She waited for his bow and then made her way up the stairs, heart hammering excitedly in her chest. She didn’t want to say goodbye to him. If it were up to her, she would have spent all day in his presence, his healing, calming warmth. But even so, there was nothing that could take from her what had happened on the way back, not the kisses or the promises, nor the way he had looked at her and called her Momo.
Momo. She’d never really had anyone call her anything but her name or the formal terms of endearments of her parents. It was a thrill she couldn’t quite define, but just repeating it in her mind made her stomach tingle so much she had to press her palm against it when she entered her room, locked the door behind her and threw herself onto her bed.
She couldn’t remember a time in her life where she had smiled so much, or for such a long time. Just an hour or two earlier, she had been at the end of her rope and her strength, but then Owain had picked her up in his arms and her strength had returned. In fact, she felt better now than she ever had; she felt understood, liked, but more than that, she felt normal. Not in her entire life had she ever felt like any other ordinary girl. There was always something wrong with her, something off, something ghostly and strange. Others had felt it, but so had she herself. She knew that most people enjoyed laughing with others, and their company. That they invited touch and conversation. And all she had ever wanted to do was to shut herself into her room to be alone. Nobody had ever really understood it and nobody had ever made her able to change.
Now, however, while she still knew she wouldn’t enjoy dinner with her father and her suitor, she didn’t dread it in the same way. She knew she could get through it because afterwards, she could sneak up onto the battlements or into the garden and Owain would find her. He would put his arms around her again and in his presence, she would feel better. Her body would stop shaking and she would be able to breathe him in deeply as her lungs relaxed.
Now, she was a normal girl; not in all ways, but in one; she was in love with a man who made her dizzy with longing. If she’d had friends, she could have whispered about him and his large tender hands or his lips. She could lay in bed all day, thinking about him, could dream of becoming a wife. The dreaded nightmare of marriage or sharing her life with someone was now, suddenly, tantalizing and beautiful.
She couldn’t marry Owain; she knew that. She knew this fantasy would end. But for the moment, he was still there and so was she. He was a floor below in his room, waiting to be summoned, thinking of her. This she knew without needing to be told. For once, she had something instead of nothing. A dream, even an impossible one, was better than no dream at all and only nightmarish visions.
As such, the day passed slowly. When Bess entered, unsurprised at the state of her mistress’s hair or clothes, Moira found a way to stop smiling. But when she sat down in front of the bleak old mirror and Bess gently started to comb out her hair, she closed her eyes and thought of Owain. He’d run his hand through her hair before, like the comb did now. It wasn’t hard at all to bear it then.
“Not … not the gold one,” she instructed, a little haltingly, when Bess returned with a jeweled broach to pin her hair up with. “I like the silver one … ”
Bess didn’t comment, even though Lady Cecile had explicitly instructed to use only the finest jewels, gold and emeralds. Silver was not a metal with which to display splendor and affluence. But then Moira rarely commented on her jewels and Bess was used to doing as she was told. She picked up a silver and pearl-encrusted comb instead and gently coiled the strands of hair around it.
Dinner passed without any major incident. She was seated next to Deagan Fairester who spent an extraordinary amount of time asking her about her well-being and repeatedly expressed his concern and apology for shooting her horse. She wanted him to stop talking. It brought the images back, and the blood and the flecks of bone and brain matter had looked all too much like the steak and potatoes she had on her plate. She tried to remember each of her lessons; kept sitting straight, kept nodding and curling up the corners of her lips when he said something sympathetic. She didn’t talk much, but as this was what everybody expected of her, it didn’t cause any lags in conversation.
Her father took some minutes to regale the guests with a tale about the fragile constitutions of women and its positive effect on child rearing. After all, they were the gentler sex. And so it continued until Moira couldn’t look at him anymore, hating how it was her collapse that had caused the topic of conversation and continually gave everybody reason to think her weak.
Was she weak? In some aspects, she knew she was; others could see blood easily or withstand conversation. At the same time, when she was really fair with herself, she thought she was strong anyway. None of them could even imagine what she went through anytime she sat at dinner like this or the effort it took to swallow down a piece of steak while Deagan continued to talk about her horse and the hunt and how much game they had ended up shooting.
She thought she was strong in overcoming herself and her weaknesses but that didn’t count. Not in the real world.
She remained calm, drank more than she ate and managed to wash some bite-sized portions down that almost got stuck in her throat. She didn’t even shake, not much, and she knew there was only one reason. When it became too much, she closed her eyes for an instant, and visualized Owain sitting across from her instead of Deagan. He would smile and dine and they would look each other in the eye, with no need for discussing anything. Dinnertime conversation, it seemed — Moira had observed this more and more — didn’t really seem to stimulate the mind, nor did it teach the party something about the speaker. Its only goal seemed to be holding the silence at bay that Moira relished so much and that others feared. Maybe in that way, all of them were weak and she was strong.
They discussed topics they had talked about many times before, nothing anybody said was surprising or interesting and Moira could easily drift away into a fantasy of dining with Owain without missing much. She smiled when someone’s voice rose in a question, nodded when their face seemed to indicate they were expecting the affirmative and then went back to thinking about Owain. Sometimes, the idea, the feeling, the sensation of a kiss slipped through. Then, she touched her bottom lip, for a second a smile reached her eyes and she quelled the image again before she longed for it so much, she wanted to leave the dinner table then and there.
When Deagan bid her goodnight — once again explaining his lack of choice when it had come to her horse — he kissed her cheek and touched her hair. The shiver that ran down her spine was nothing like the ones Owain caused. This one felt like wondering whether a spider had crawled into her hair or the way a cold drop of water could fall down the nape of her neck, roll into her dress and down her spine if she stood too close to the roof surrounding the garden after a rainy day.
It seemed to satisfy Deagan, though, and he strutted back to his wing with a spring in his step. That, too, gave Moira a bad feeling. Now, however, she had a way to make those manageable.
Back in her room, she stood by her window. The sun had set already but the moon hadn’t quite risen high enough yet. It was still dusky outside, the castle alive with people, conversation, candlelight. The wait was agonizing, almost more so than it had been before. Then, she had needed an escape, a moment of freedom, a way to breathe. Now, she was looking forward to moments of bliss in the arms of the man she loved, who made her feel weak and strong, and beautiful and wild. To Owain, she was different, too. But that difference was what made her beautiful to him; it was the first time in her life that she could truly see something good in being strange and unlike anybody else. Now, it was what drew him to her, what made hi
m put his lips on hers and pull her close.
Her body tingled at the very memory.
When the moon stood high enough in the sky, Moira was still pacing up and down the room. Her whole body was in a state of excitement and joy, almost glowing with desire as though it was the golden nectar of the gods than ran through her veins instead of her ordinary old blood, through her ordinary old body.
She had picked up her lyre a few times but had been too distracted, too fidgety to actually play, and she didn’t quite know how she passed the time at all without bursting somehow.
Finally, she thought she could risk it, carefully opening the door and peeking out into the deserted hallway. She breathed a sigh of relief, but before she could actually leave the room, she stilled, spying something in the distance. It was glinting a little above her eye line. It only took her a second before she smiled.
“Come where I can see you?” she asked softly, barely a whisper but just as he had eyes that glowed silver in the dark, he had ears that heard more than anyone else she knew. His steps were almost silent, too. Moira only heard them because she knew he was walking there, could see his eyes come closer. Slowly, he materialized out of the shadows, tall and broad, his hair a little messier than it usually was.
“Good evening,” he said when he stood barely a foot away from her, close enough to feel his breath on her face. He was smiling and there was something else in his voice, a tantalizing quality that made her want to throw her arms around him.
“I was about to … go somewhere, go find you,” she uttered, only a hint of nerves left now that he was actually standing there.
“I’ve been hearing you … pacing around,” he informed her, grinning, “so impatient, my little Momo.”
