The Mad Queen (The Fae War Chronicles Book 5)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “When you say it like that, it sounds much more…warlike.”

  “Was it not warlike?” Luca asked.

  Tess thought of the raiders dressed all in black, runes at their throat to disguise their voices and at their wrist to draw shadows around themselves. “It…was.” She took a breath, resisting the urge to surrender to sleep against Luca’s warm body. “But we all discussed it. We all decided. It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  Luca remained silent for a while. Then he finally said, “The Vyldretning did not decide. Her Vyldgard acted without her.”

  “Well, does she want to be like the Sidhe Queens, digging into her Court’s heads and watching their every action?” Tess retorted.

  “Of course not. She is herravaldyr. She wishes to bring part of our culture to the Vyldgard, but in a pack, the wolves do not act without the consent and leadership of the herravaldyr.”

  Tess yawned. She let the conversation die into silence because she didn’t know what else to say. She felt herself drifting into sleep. “Stay with me?” she murmured.

  Luca’s arms tightened comfortingly around her. “Always, if you ask it of me.”

  When she woke again, she thought for a moment that Luca had slipped out of bed, and her stomach curdled with disappointment. But then she saw his massive shoulders on the other side of the bed, the light from the dimly glowing embers of the fire silhouetting his long form. Her mouth curled in an involuntary smile as she slid toward him and fit herself into the hollow of his arched body. She wondered idly how long she’d been asleep, what day it was, if Mab had tried to strike back against the Vyldgard for the attempt to free the Unseelie Princess…A knot of anxiety tightened in her stomach, and the Sword stirred, unfurling its power behind her breastbone. She tried to slide back into the contented relaxation between sleep and fully waking but sighed when it became very clear that she wasn’t going to be able to stop the thoughts ricocheting through her head.

  Luca stirred. She froze, suddenly guilty at waking him, but he rolled over and opened his eyes anyway.

  “I can tell when you are worrying,” he murmured.

  Tess smiled and pressed her hand against the warm plane of his chest. “You’re entirely too perceptive sometimes.”

  His brows drew together. “Or perhaps not enough. I was surprised when I heard of the action taken without the Vyldretning.”

  She shifted. “We already went over this. The Unseelie went to collect their wounded from the healing ward, against the advice of Healer Maeve. It got confrontational, though we were able to mostly talk everyone down.”

  “Talk everyone down?” repeated Luca questioningly.

  “Convince them not to kill each other,” she rephrased. “Quinn smashed a stool into Donovan’s face. He’s Mab’s Vaelanmavar now, you know.” She paused. “I feel bad for him.”

  “Because he is bound to such a cruel mistress?” ventured Luca.

  She nodded and pushed herself up onto one elbow. “How long did we sleep?”

  “Only a few hours.”

  “I should go check on Calliea,” Tess said, pushing back the furs that covered the bed.

  “Or you could stay here with me,” offered Luca, stretching his arms above his head. The sight of his bare torso, muscles rippling in the dim light, arrested Tess. She paused, sitting on the edge of the bed. The spark of desire in Luca’s eyes told her that he very well knew his effect on her.

  “Blackmail,” she accused playfully, though her voice went husky with want. “You can’t make an offer like that with all that on display.”

  “Come here and I’ll show you even more,” he offered, arching an eyebrow.

  She grinned and advanced on him. He watched her slide across the bed and held still as she straddled him and kissed him thoroughly.

  “I take it you are feeling better,” he murmured into her neck as they both paused to take a breath.

  “Oh, yes,” Tess replied with a wicked grin, turning her attention to pursuing another kind of feeling entirely.

  “Now I really should go and check on Calliea,” she said a good while later after both their appetites had been satiated…for the moment. Her entire body felt lighter, her limbs tingling with a strange combination of pleasurable tiredness and afterglow.

  This time, Luca followed her lead as she got out of bed and padded over to her wardrobe. He retrieved his clothes from the floor and pulled them on without even an attempt to shake out the wrinkles. She put on a bright blue shirt and black trousers. For some reason, she felt that perhaps Calliea would appreciate the cheery color of the shirt, so similar to the Valkyrie’s brightly enameled breastplate.

  “I’m surprised Vell hasn’t come to talk to me,” she commented, sliding the strap of the Sword over her head.

  “She visited for a few moments when you were sleeping,” said Luca.

  “What? And you didn’t wake me?”

  He shrugged. “You needed rest more than you needed the tongue-lashing she wanted to give you.”

  Her chest warmed as she realized that as much as Luca professed his understanding of her warrior nature, he still protected her in small ways, and her irritation melted away. “I guess it’ll happen one way or another.”

  “Perhaps not. It seems as though the consequences she anticipated might not come to pass.”

  “What do you mean?” Tess finished pulling on her boots and turned to face Luca.

  He looked grave. “Mab does not suspect the Vyldgard. She has turned her fury on her own Court. Something about a second rebellion.”

  “Maybe she is really going crazy,” said Tess. “I mean, she was crazy in one way before, but…” She swallowed and thought about all her friends still in the Unseelie Court. True, she hadn’t talked to them or spent much time with them since she’d left Darkhill, even in the journey across the Deadlands to the battle at the Dark Keep. But she still had fond memories of Bren and Guinna, Ramel and Donovan and Emery. Her chest tightened as she remembered belatedly that Emery had died in the courtyard of Malravenar’s stronghold.

  “This is something different,” said Luca in quiet agreement.

  “How did the…well, whatever it was you were doing out in the wilderness…how’d it go?” said Tess, stumbling over her attempt to change the subject.

  “I think perhaps we will need to find more wolves,” said Luca. He touched the silvery marks on his throat where the White Wolf had taken his throat in its massive jaws. “Make new wolves as the first ulfdrengr did.”

  Tess thought over that enigmatic answer. Did that mean that the mating hadn’t worked? Or perhaps Rialla couldn’t bear pups because of the toll to her body in the captivity of Malravenar? She felt a blush rising to her cheeks as she thought of it, so she cleared her throat and walked toward the tapestry. “Are you coming to the healing ward?”

  “Yes,” Luca said, following her into the passageway.

  Tess couldn’t think of anything else to say as they navigated the ever-changing layout of the Vyldgard stronghold, but the silence wasn’t uneasy or tense. Luca walked beside her with easy grace. She let herself admire the way that he handled his large body. He reminded her of a large predator, powerful but silent.

  As they neared the healing ward, Tess took stock of her own physical condition. She certainly felt much better after her rest with Luca, but tiredness still lurked behind her renewed energy.

  “Where did Kianryk go?” she asked Luca. They walked through the imposing doors of the healing ward. Tess noticed that carvings of winged faehal adorned the panels of the great silver doors. She paused. One of the riders of the faehal looked like Calliea, wielding her bow from the back of her mount.

  “To hunt,” replied Luca.

  Tess heard his reply, but she stepped closer to the doors. “Did someone put these carvings in recently?”

  Luca took a stride toward the door as well, his gaze sharpening. “I do not remember your brother speaking about any work on the doors.”

  “Oh. Right. The re
construction teams,” she said. Her mind dredged up the details of all Liam’s responsibilities now that he was one of Vell’s Three.

  The style of the intricate scene on the door felt archaic to her somehow – she didn’t remember seeing anything like it before in Faeortalam, not in Darkhill and not at Brightvale, though the Seelie Queen’s Court had been first eerily deserted and then later tumbling down around them, destroyed by the power of the Crown of Bones and Vell’s coronation as the High Queen. Yet somehow the stylized art struck a chord of memory. She looped a finger through the pendant at her throat, but it remained cool beneath her touch. Apparently, Gwyneth and the other Bearers who sometimes spoke to her through the pendant had nothing to say on the subject.

  “I do not remember these,” said Luca thoughtfully.

  Tess reached out, wanting to run her fingers over the delicately embossed designs on the silver surface, but she thought better of it. Touching strange and possibly enchanted objects never ended well. Her bond with the Sword and subsequent use of it to vanquish Malravenar was the exception to the rule. The Caedbranr vibrated on her back as though it heard her thoughts about it. She waited for a moment, but even the laconic Sword had nothing to say about the sudden appearance of the carvings on the silver doors. After resolving to thoroughly inspect them on the way out, Tess set aside her curiosity and walked into the healing ward.

  Maeve sat at her desk at the front of the ward, a taebramh light casting a gentle glow over a clay tablet. The white-haired healer referred to a parchment pinned under her elbow every now and again as she carved precise letters onto the clay with a silver stylus. No visible sign remained from the confrontation that had overturned Maeve’s table, shattered her other clay tablet, cost the healing ward a sturdy stool and very nearly started a battle between the Unseelie and Vyldgard.

  Maeve looked up from her work. Tess half-expected the head healer to be wearing reading glasses just so that she could peer sternly over them, but of course the Sidhe didn’t wear reading glasses. The amusing thought helped to counterbalance the embers of anger beginning to glow again at the memories of that tense, violent stand-off that had ended with Donovan injured and Quinn lucky to be alive.

  “Lady Bearer,” said Maeve with a nod of respect, rising from her desk even as Tess motioned for her to stay seated. She gave a second, shallower nod to Luca. “Ulfdrengr. What brings you to my ward?”

  She approached them with sure, confident strides, emanating authority in spite of her small, slender stature.

  “I was hoping to visit Calliea,” said Tess.

  Maeve stopped in front of Tess and made no attempt to hide her frank evaluation, the healer’s sharp gaze sweeping from Tess’s head to her feet and back up to meet her eyes. “I am glad to see you look only a little worse for wear.” A stern note entered Maeve’s voice. “You could have killed yourself, Lady Bearer, trying to heal Calliea with your own taebramh.”

  Tess opened her mouth to say that she hadn’t been trying to heal Calliea, she’d just wanted Calliea not to die, but she realized that she might be painting herself into a corner, dancing around the edges of admitting necromancy, so she pressed her lips together and nodded. “Luca has already told me that it was irresponsible, and I’m sure Vell will have words for it as well.”

  “Oh, I am sure,” said Maeve dryly. “Try not to raise your voices, though. Some of those under my care do like to sleep now and again.”

  Tess frowned. “What?”

  “The Vyldretning is sitting with the Laedrek for the moment,” Maeve said, briskly returning to her post behind her great desk and taking up her silver stylus again. She pointed it at Tess. “No yelling. Is that clear?”

  “I – um,” Tess felt her mind scrambling to catch up.

  “It is very clear,” Luca answered for her, ushering her with a firm but gentle hand toward the two rows of the healing ward proper.

  When Tess finally understood the implication, they were already a quarter of the way down the rows of beds. “Maeve thinks Vell is going to yell at me?” Her voice squeaked.

  “I think Vell is going to yell at you too,” Luca replied.

  She hit his arm lightly, but he didn’t smile.

  “She went hunting with Beryk after she heard the news of the raid from the Glasidhe messenger,” he said. “Killed two deer. She might have killed one herself with her bare hands and a knife.”

  Tess felt like she was walking into a trap, but she drew back her shoulders and took a deep breath. She was the Bearer of the Iron Sword. She wouldn’t run away from the consequences of her decisions.

  One of the consequences of your decision was very nearly Calliea’s death, a small voice whispered in the corner of her mind.

  She rubbed her arms against a sudden chill and wished the Sword would say something. She knew better than to think it would say anything comforting, but perhaps its androgynous voice would drown out the hissing words of her own self-doubt.

  She saw Vell before Vell saw her, giving her a moment to take in the sight of the High Queen with her boots kicked off and her legs tucked under her on her chair, engaged in animated conversation with Calliea. The Laedrek looked pale, as though her golden coloring had been painted on over her grayish skin, but she sat up with several pillows propped behind her. Calliea wore a kind of open-fronted smock that tied in the front but still allowed the healers access to her side when necessary.

  Both of the women gestured to something on the bed, on the other side of Calliea’s legs. As Tess neared them, she saw that several different styles of knives lay glimmering on the quilt. Vell pointed to one and made a throwing motion. Her words became clear: “…this one, the weight’s distributed differently between the handle and the spine of the blade, makes it more balanced for throwing and knife fighting.”

  Then she stopped and looked up, her golden eyes flashing instantly from enthusiasm to a molten anger. Tess steeled herself. Calliea sucked her lips over her teeth and looked down at the quilt, picking at a loose thread as Vell stood and stalked toward Tess. Even Luca stopped half a step behind Tess. At least she felt like he had her back, she thought ruefully as she watched Vell’s wrathful advance.

  “First,” said Vell, emotion crackling through the gold of her eyes like flames, “what were you thinking? Supporting a raid into Unseelie territory after the confrontation here? It could have started a war!”

  Tess took a breath. “I understand your view…”

  “No,” growled Vell, “you don’t talk until I’m finished.”

  Tess opened her mouth and then closed it again. She saw Calliea abandon the pretense of examining the quilt’s stitching, staring at Vell in transfixed awe mixed with a little bit of morbid interest, as though she were watching a hunting hound corner its prey.

  “Second,” continued Vell, “what did you think you were going to do if you did get the Princess here? Put her in another dungeon again? Keep her in chains? I wasn’t even here to use the Lethe Stone!”

  Tess pressed her lips together and bit her tongue lightly to keep herself from saying anything. Words buzzed in the back of her throat but she swallowed them. She forced herself to focus on Vell’s statements, evaluate them and acknowledge them. Vell halved the distance between them. Tess felt like she was staring down a wolf.

  “And third, don’t ever, ever, pour your taebramh into a wounded fighter like that again. I don’t care who it is. I don’t care if it’s me, I don’t care if it’s Luca, I don’t care if it’s Liam,” said Vell hotly. She paused, and the fire in her eyes cooled infinitesimally, replaced by something that almost looked like sadness. “Our world can’t afford to lose you, Tess.” She halted again and raised her chin. “We’ve only just regained a Bearer. We can’t afford to lose you and the Sword.”

  Tess nodded, even as she heard the words that remained unsaid. Her heart squeezed at Vell’s tacit admission that she, the High Queen, couldn’t afford to lose Tess…the Bearer. Her friend. She waited for a few moments to make sure that Vell was f
inished. The Vyldretning stared at her and Tess thought she saw Vell’s lower lip tremble, but that might have been a trick of the dim light.

  Tess cleared her throat. “You’re right.” She pressed her lips together and then nodded again. “There’s not much else to say other than that.” Her eyes drifted over to Calliea. “But I can’t say I won’t do it again. Even if I promised, even if I swore an oath, I think I’d break it.”

  Vell crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re impossible.”

  Tess shrugged. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

  Then the Vyldretning sighed and her shoulders softened as some of the tension drained from her body. “And probably not the last, either.”

  Luca chuckled and moved past Tess to appropriate a pair of chairs from a few of the empty beds.

  “There are a lot less beds filled than I remember,” said Tess as she carefully sat on the edge of Calliea’s bed. She picked up a long, slender knife and peered down the length of its spine appreciatively.

  “It’s a good thing,” replied Vell, folding one leg underneath her as she gracefully settled back into her chair. She looped one arm over the back of the chair, her eyes restless.

  “I’m sorry if I interrupted your conversation about knives,” Tess said.

  Calliea chuckled and then winced, one hand twitching toward her side but not quite touching it. “No reason you can’t join it.”

  “I was never very good at throwing knives,” she replied with a hint of ruefulness.

  Luca returned with two chairs, set them both at comfortable intervals along Calliea’s bedside, and sat down in one himself.

  “Or we could talk about what you really want to talk about,” Tess said to Vell, raising her eyebrows and waiting until Vell looked at her sharply. She smiled.

  Vell shifted, leaning forward and putting her elbows on her knees. “Even though I don’t approve of the decision being made without my input, I understand why you did what you did. Or the raiders did what they did.” She glanced at Calliea, who merely grinned. “But now we may have touched a flame to the fuse of a powder keg. On the one hand, it’s a silver lining that Mab didn’t capture one of you, and doesn’t even seem to suspect that the raid came from the Vyldgard.” Her mouth hardened. “On the other hand, my sources in the Unseelie Court have told me that the raid seems to have hastened Mab’s downward spiral.”