By the Light of the Moon

by Blake, Laila

  “There, there,” he cooed, “you don’t have to cry, child. I only get nasty if you lie to me. Ask your sister. And you wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  “My … my what?” Moira stuttered, too distracted by that claim to consider the rest. “I have a … you know my … ? What?”

  “Oh child, so many confusing things in your tiny little crossling mind,” he chuckled, gently shaking his head. “You should concentrate a little better lest you want me to get cross with you. Now again; you wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  Swallowing hard, Moira shook her head. “No, no. I wouldn’t, I won’t. But … ”

  “Tut, tut,” Brock shook his head, patting her cheek. The first one was delivered gently, the second stung; Moira’s mouth fell open in a moan of pain. “Remember, it is I who is asking the questions here, little one. That little mouth of yours is only for answers now, understood?”

  This time, she nodded and Brock looked reasonably satisfied. He looked her over again, and finally got to his feet. There was an ease of movement to him that surprised her.

  He didn’t groan or pause like an old man, not then. He simply got up and walked easily across to a large desk with various utensils. Moira doubted that even she could have gotten out of squatting for a long time so easily.

  “Brock?” she asked, tremulous and careful.

  “What did I say about questions, my dear?” he asked, but there was an almost fatherly smile on his face when he looked back at her. She couldn’t see what he was doing but his hands were moving, grasping different things, distorted by the dancing shadows in the room. “But why not; you may have one. Ask away, little one, it can be like one of our lessons, for old time’s sake.”

  Her head whirled and she tried to shake it clear of the confusion, the dulling fog that made nothing seem real.

  “Are you … are you Brock?” she asked, swallowing down a hard and painfully dry lump in her throat.

  To her surprise, the man started to cackle. He continued chuckling for a while, pottering about with the various objects but finally, he turned around to her again. He had a cup and a knife that glistened in the firelight. He placed both on the mantelpiece and then pulled a little stool closer to her side.

  “Yes and no,” he answered finally, long after Moira had stopped hoping for an answer. “I am the same man you have known for years, that’s all you need to know now, child. Besides, it is not my identity that is in question here, remember? It is yours.”

  Moira coughed, cleared her throat and shook her head.

  “I don’t know what anybody told you … but I … I am exactly who I am.” She halted, wanted to scratch herself, feel the relief of hard nails across her skin but they were tied behind her back. Instead, she pushed them deep into the flesh of her palms. It offered a minimal relief.

  “And therein lies the problem,” Brock commented easily.

  “Did … O … did the Blaidyn say something to you?” she asked next, her whole body rigid suddenly with fear. Her insides were screaming, begging for him to deny it. She thought she could live through this, whatever he was planning, if only it wasn’t Owain who had given her away, who had brought her into it.

  “Your filthy little pet?” Brock asked with a cold chuckle and shook his head. Relief and anger flooded Moira’s face and Brock smiled. “Oh, I see. It’s love, isn’t it? You know, you’re not the first who mistakes lusting for some savage creature for love; but then, you’re no better, are you? Dirty little crossling that you are.”

  Moira swallowed; what was he talking about? She understood the vague reference to Owain and to his wolf but the rest was frightening. Nobody spoke to like this, certainly not her old Brock. Her face went scarlet at the thought of anyone knowing about her and Owain and what they had done. Did Brock also know how he had turned her down the moment they had finished and everything had felt so perfect and wonderful? She wanted to cry again, wanted to hate Owain and beg him to come and find her; but she knew he was in a cell. Because of her.

  • • •

  “Now, my turn,” he continued simply without giving her the opportunity to contest any of his statements. “Where is your mother and what is she planning with you?”

  “What?” Moira asked, eyes wide. “My … I … ” she shook her head, and then had to swallow against the rhythmically pulsing heart that felt like it had slipped up into her throat. “I don’t … I … never met … do you know who my mother is?”

  Brock eyed her closely, her eyes, the tears glistening there, the very real emotion that at times Fae and Humans could share. He didn’t answer the question, though, however much her eyes were begging.

  “Why are you here?” He asked next, picking up the cup from the mantle.

  “Uh, I … you brought me here,” she whispered and at the clear displeasure on his face, she quickly added; “I don’t know, I don’t know anything, I am here because I grew up here, I don’t remember anything else. My father told me my mother brought me here because I was conceived out of wedlock, that is all I know, I swear!”

  Brock grunted swirling the liquid in the cup with a gentle circular motion of his hand. Finally he moved in and pulled her head back again.

  “Please … what … ” Moira asked but he didn’t give her any time to prepare herself when he pinched her nose close again and started to pour the liquid down her throat. It didn’t taste quite as vile as the last time she remembered and she was too thirsty and too afraid of his glowing poker and his knife to close up to her throat. She drank down as much as she could, feeling some of the sticky liquid pearl down her chin and into her dress. The taste was again of herbs and tea, she thought she tasted some wine, but what else there was she couldn’t say.

  When the cup was empty, she coughed and he let go of her, waiting until she had steadied herself, her eyes swimming and sniffling as she was. She blinked and breathed in hard, trying to fight the sudden nausea. Her stomach revolted, panicked and tried to expel the liquid again but almost gently, Brock cupped the back of her neck and held her nose and mouth closed with an iron grip, forcing her spasming stomach to keep it all, forcing her to swallow it back down, however vile.

  “There, there, you wouldn’t want to waste all my good efforts, now would you, there’s a good girl; swallow. Swallow. Good girl.”

  When he finally let go of her, Moira drew a ragged breath, panting and catching up on the lost oxygen. Her stomach was still hiccupping now and again, but she managed to keep the concoction down, eyes and nose watering instead.

  “What a little princess,” Brock teased, shaking his head at her dramatics. He picked up the knife again, leaving the mug discarded by their side and started to play with it absent-mindedly. He turned it this way and that, letting it glimmer in the firelight, balanced its blade on his finger. Moira couldn’t watch, in the end, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall as she caught her breath and her heart rate began to return to normal.

  When she tilted her head and uttered a little sleepy moan, Brock looked up with a grin.

  “There we go, it usually comes in fast … ”

  “What … what did you give me?” she asked, but instead of the protest she had tried to layer into her voice, she almost purred and smiled a little.

  “Just a basic tonic, child, open your mind up to mine … dirty crossling as you are, you seem to possess a certain power; this makes it less painful.” Grinning, he touched her nose to make her smile again. Just a hint of his blood with the right ingredients and she was his little plaything, any mistrust vanishing.

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked pouting and pushing out her lips as she wrinkled her nose. “I’m clean, I promise!”

  “Oh, you can bathe yourself, I’m sure,” Brock agreed. “But you are the offspring of Fae and Human. And those two should never mix. It’s against everyt
hing we believe in. Nowadays, it’s even against the law.”

  Moira blinked, not quite understanding. What law? How did her wonderful Brock know all of this? She trusted him so much, and he had done so much for her … but how could he know? Had he seen her glow, too? Was this why he called her dirty? Because she disgusted him like she had disgusted Owain?

  “I … I didn’t know,” she finally replied, almost tearfully. “I never … I’m sorry.”

  “There, there … ” he whispered, cupping her cheek. “It’s not your fault. You are what you are. But you have to be honest with me, understand?”

  Eagerly, Moira nodded. She’d do anything he asked without second thought but the very idea of lying to him was utterly insane.

  “Good girl. Now, again … what do you know of your mother?”

  “Father said, that she was a noblewoman who gave birth to me out of wedlock and brought me to him to raise and adopt as his alone.”

  Brock eyed her for a long time and finally nodded.

  “How about your sister?”

  “I … I don’t have … I didn’t know I have a sister but … I would … I would love to meet them. Do you know them, Brock?” The hopeful and innocent tone in her voice made him chuckle quietly and he patted her cheek again.

  “Your mother is a wanted criminal, my dear. And your sister … well, your sister tried to poison you. Remember that.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Iris had walked for as long as she could, had walked against stones and tree trunks and she knew she was bleeding from her forehead. It had felt like a branch at the time, but she couldn’t be sure. For a while, she had felt it dribbling hot down the side of her nose, but now it was frozen like the rest of her.

  Finally, she had given up. There was no honor in it and she didn’t have beautiful words in which to clothe it; she had given up. Her legs had stopped working and she had huddled against a tree trunk, curled herself into the smallest shape possible and wrapped herself tightly in her cloak. Names and faces flashed through her mind; Moira, Maeve, the Blaidyn. In the moments where she felt even more like punishing herself, she tried to work out the likelihood that each of them had of being alive the next day, the next week. She knew her likelihood and it wasn’t good. She was old and weak and she would sit there until the frost would take her; a death as ignominious as the life she’d led.

  One thing she realized was that people were wrong. There was nothing gentle about dying of cold. The frost had wormed itself into every particle of her skin, it had infected her blood, painfully numbing one inch at a time. Her toes went first, prickling and hurting so much she howled into the wind. Where was shame in a dark night far away from anyone to see or hear?

  Her eyes were closed against the cold. There was no difference in visibility one way or another and it hurt less. She could almost imagine she was far away, that she had never come into this cursed fief, had never met her mother, never known she had a sister, never signed her over to death or torture. Absentmindedly, she brushed over the scars of her own ritual again, the fine white line that ran from her wrist along her arms and branched out into every part of her body. Maybe death would be preferable. If it was swift.

  This one wasn’t, she was beginning to understand. It wouldn’t have suited her life, she supposed, if it were.

  She found it near impossible to say how long her ordeal had lasted already. If she hadn’t known with any certainty that the night could not be longer than eight or nine hours, she would have thought it might have been lasting for days, alone in the freezing dark. A nightmare from which she would not awake.

  The wind was the worst, she decided. Not only did it keep blowing her scarf around, constantly finding ways to blow snowflakes against her ears and neck, but it was loud and strange in the trees. It could sound like the cry of an animal or a child’s plea for help. The next moment it was a flute or a harp, or the song she had sung herself to sleep to when she was a little girl, years and years ago.

  It was cruelest, when it sounded like her mother. Iris’s relationship to Maeve had always been difficult; her unsteady Fae nature unable to give a hurt human girl everything she needed. It had never quite stopped. Maeve was never the same place, she was always hiding, sometimes with Iris for a few days but she had never been a steady presence in her life. She existed, she wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t the kind of mother other people had. Over the years, the pain of this had grown into a vague bitterness but sitting there in the snow at the brink of death, even just imagining her voice made her cry and the tears made her face hurt more.

  “Iris, get up!” the voice said again, this time actually forming words. Confused, Iris opened her eyes. Snow had caked her lashes together but when she forced them apart, she could suddenly see. The snow was illuminated in a golden glow, swirling around a solitary figure and a shadow behind her.

  “Get up,” the voice urged again, now reaching for her hand and pulling her to her feet. For a moment, her body found it almost impossible to get back up and out of its curled-up shape, but then Maeve pulled her into her arms, golden and warm.

  “Shhhh, you’re all right. Everything is all right, I’ve got you,” she whispered, kissed her frozen cheek and simply held her skinny and shaking form. Iris, as old as she was, cried again. A mother’s embrace too powerful even then to leave her dry. Sniffing, she shook her head.

  “I thought … I thought Brock … ”

  “Not yet.” Maeve whispered, rubbing her daughter’s arms. “He’s going after Moira first; he knows I’ll come to him then. Come on, we have to get back to the castle.”

  In any other condition, Iris might have refused but her mother was glowing like an angel sent from above to save her and she would have followed her anywhere, even back to the heavens if she so chose.

  “I don’t know if I can walk very far,” she admitted sniffing but Maeve smiled at her, still the angel, and whistled once. The shadow appeared again and when it came closer it was a horse’s nose, nudging Maeve’s shoulder gently.

  “I’ll help you up.”

  There was no shame anymore in being lifted onto a horse by a woman so much younger and softer in appearance than herself. Iris knew the strength her mother possessed by the sheer grace of her kind. The horse was warm around her thighs but Maeve was more so and Iris slung her arms around her mother’s waist unashamedly, leaning her cold cheek against her shoulder.

  “How did you know?” she asked when Maeve was guiding the horse back onto the path and up the hill.

  “You’re my daughter. I know things,” Maeve replied a little louder, tension in her bearing. Even in her half-frozen state, Iris could tell. “I came as fast as I could. We have to hurry, too. He’s got Moira.”

  Iris nodded, trying to breathe. Brock’s warning was deep within her and she shuddered.

  “He has my blood,” she said as quietly as she dared and Maeve didn’t answer for a while until she nodded. “We can … work around that,” she managed and exhaled deeply. “Do you know a way into the castle? I’m sure he has it protected and he’ll know we’re there the moment I use magic.”

  Iris’s head was still sluggish. Her mother’s touch worked but they both knew that a Fae was not as strong in dispensing magic when away from home for too long and Maeve had not been Across in many, many years.

  “Not a secret one,” she offered still shivering. “But the guardsmen know who I am. I’m sure they’d let me back in if I said Sir Fairester sent me back with a message or to retrieve something of his.”

  Maeve nodded. “Worth a try. I’ll have to stop the glow, any disguise that would help. I won’t be able to change it until we’re right upon him.”

  “One of his soldiers?” Iris asked after a while. What else was there? It would make her own story more believable and it might help them move through the castle without much trouble.

&n
bsp; Maeve nodded, gently directing the horse up the serpentines that led to the Keep. Iris realized with a note of dejection that she hadn’t even made it halfway to the village.

  “Do you know the Blaidyn who protects her?” Maeve asked next, and Iris couldn’t help but feel a little hurt again. One daughter saved, and her mother’s mind was now completely on planning Moira’s rescue.

  “The Blaidyn?” Iris asked, shaking her head. “Not really, I stayed away from him. He was the one who stopped Fairester using the draught. They took him into a cell, I think. But we left before … ”

  Maeve cursed.

  “Wha … why?” Iris asked. She sniffed again and her head hurt. She wanted a bed and a safe place to cook a draught to pick herself back up. Instead, she was still in the snow, riding a horse and planning a rescue.

  “We need him,” Maeve explained with a shrug and Maeve whimpered a little when she suddenly turned down the glow and changed in front of her eyes into the towering figure of a soldier. “He’s strong, and he’s sworn to protect her. Plus … ” The Maeve-soldier had a deep voice and swayed his head. “It doesn’t matter, I think there’s more.”

  Even Maeve could see the lit towers of the Bramble Keep now. Unexpectedly, it filled her with a sense of calm and safety. Her feelings couldn’t be more wrong, of course, but it was a building and it had fires and her mother was with her this time, strange as she looked.

  • • •

  With his eyes closed, Owain’s facial muscles twitched from time to time; his nose, his cheeks, his ears, even his mouth. Nothing about it looked human at all, but nobody was watching. Titling his head this way or that, he tried to listen, tried to catch a scent so hard, his ears were ringing with the myriad of other sounds that made up the nightly castle, so intense, he could hardly distinguish between sounds and sights and smells anymore. The scratching of a rat in the corner flashed through his head like bright lightning, the smell of year-old straw he had been able to block out so easily an hour ago was now providing a yellowish hue to everything else he heard or smelled.