“Dion ferch Ywain, what have you been getting up to?”
Dion, still very pink, allowed the smaller child to climb into her lap and curled her arms around him while he continued to stare unblinkingly at Aerwn. “I got married.”
“Yes!” spluttered Aerwn. “I gathered that!”
“Actually, I seem to have um, got married twice,” admitted her sister, the colour deepening in her cheeks. “It’s a long story.”
Aerwn threw back her head and laughed. “Yes! Five years long!” She wriggled back on the mildewed bed-covers as if no time at all had passed; as if it was just she and Dion talking before court sessions again. “I’m comfortable. Take your time.”
End of Book Three…
…officially, that is.
Turn the page for a special scene that I wrote for those of you who (like some of my beta readers) need a little more in the way of closure for Dion and Barric.
Then turn another page, and another, because Carmine and Fancy didn’t want to leave without a short story of their own…
The silence was perhaps the thing Dion most loved about Faery. Not the silence of bird and beast, but the lack of babble; of human rush and tumble; of confusion. Like Barric’s silence, it was calming and precious. Dion had been in Faery three years, and the peace of it still caught her by surprise. Barric had brought her high into the mountains of Faery shortly after the Binding, their journey sober and silent through the whispering forest. Dion, her scarlet bands tough and light, had walked beside him; lifted over tree-trunks and tossed up high, steep embankments as the wind grew colder and more incisive. And when they arrived at a grim, stone mountain-face, he had opened an impossible stone door at the base of it and ushered her into a steep corridor of stairs.
There was a castle hidden in the mountain, its ramparts the jagged stone and its turrets the rocky outcrops. In Dion’s first few months she thought there was only bare stone beyond the beautiful interior, but she was very much confined to the interior for those first few months. First by unexpected sickness and then by a startlingly swelling stomach– which both culminated, a little less than nine months later, in a tiny waif of a girl child with the bluest eyes Dion had ever seen. With her Unseelie heritage it was perhaps unsurprising that little Aoife didn’t find nights in Seelie Faery as dark as she would have liked. There were many nights that Dion found herself walking the halls to rock Aoife to sleep beneath the faint gleam of the stars, and as she explored the outdoor walkways and curved parabolas open to the sky, she began to discover the stone carvings that were etched into every part of the castle. Her favourite, a stone eagle taking off into the sweeping void below from a stone pelmet on the balustrade, became the meeting place where she sat with Barric every evening after Aoife finally began to sleep through the night. Together they watched the evening fade from blue-edged pink to dark lavender, which was as close to night as Faery came in its slightly more Seelie environs. Someone had moved a velvet-covered sofa onto the parabola when it was noticed how often Dion stood there, and Barric and Dion shared it; Barric’s long legs propped on the stone balustrade and Dion curled up beside him, leaning into his warmth.
They sat so again tonight, Barric’s head arched back to catch a glimpse of the faintly glimmering stars and Dion frowning down at her scarlet-bound wrist where her wedding bands glowed softly in the mauve half-light. The season was turning. As high in the mountains as they were, the turn of the season meant heavy snows and many hours indoors before the massive fireplace that was big enough (or so Valance, the dourest of the Guardians Dion had yet met, said) to roast an entire human. The turn of the season also meant that Barric would soon be gone for three months. Dion had begun to dread that time more and more as it approached each year; the day that Barric would be gone once again and the sofa cold and empty beside her. The castle halls were peopled by Guardians and other Fae, but although Dion had made tentative friends with some of them, none of them were quite capable of filling the huge void left by Barric’s absence. Even Aoife was unsettled and inclined to whine when Barric was gone, prone to an otherwise unusual irritability. Dion was never exactly sure what it was that Barric did while he was gone: she had the impression that he was still quietly moving things around Faery in accordance with the Guardians’ plans. Whatever it was, she grudged the time he spent away from her as bitterly as Aoife did.
The glint of lavender must have caught Barric’s eye, because Dion saw his eyes flick down at her wedding bands.
“Do you still think about him?”
Dion’s hand dropped at once, tucking beneath the folds of her skirt. She said quietly: “Sometimes.” She would very much have preferred Barric not to catch her looking at the bands. Of late there had been a small, delicate idea in the back of her mind that she had curiously examined in the silence and privacy of her own thoughts. It said that Barric was perhaps fonder of her than he had ever acknowledged. Dion, who had known the sudden brilliance of giddy young love with Padraig in a dream long ago, had found herself not quite certain of her own feelings.
No: she was certain of them. But they had grown so softly and slowly, and rooted themselves so deeply in her heart that it had taken her far too long to realise what they were. It occurred to her that perhaps she had been blind for too long; that Barric’s continued silence meant he had ceased to hope for more from her than their daily companionship. Over the last few weeks Dion had tried to convey, as clearly as someone so shy could convey, that she would welcome more than friendship. She couldn’t convince herself that it had had any effect: Barric had been as kind, thoughtful, and gentle as ever, but he hadn’t shown any sign of taking advantage of her tentative advances.
It was possible, thought Dion, her thoughts an uncomfortable mix of uncertainty and slight embarrassment, that he hadn’t even noticed them. She didn’t think she was particularly good at hinting. Or making advances, if it came to that.
She said now: “It’s– it’s part of me now, but it’s not all of me. It doesn’t eat away at me anymore.” She turned her eyes on him as she spoke, hoping to show him by the clarity of her expression that the past had lost its power to influence her, but Barric’s eyes were dwelling meditatively on the stone eagle.
A shadow passed behind them, and Dion, looking instinctively over her shoulder, caught the cold, unfriendly glance of Valance as he passed the stone-hewn window that framed their parabola.
“I don’t think Valance approves of me,” she said, willing to turn the subject. Valance’s disapproval wasn’t the gut-wrenching thing it had been when she first arrived in the mountains, but it still made her uncomfortable.
“It’s me that Valance doesn’t approve of,” Barric said coolly. “He doesn’t approve of me keeping company with a human. And he doesn’t approve of the Broken Sword keeping company with a mere Guardian.”
“But–” Dion found herself stifling a giggle. “But that means he’d disapprove no matter what.”
Barric nodded, smiling faintly. He seemed preoccupied.
Dion, after a brief moment of silence, said quietly: “I suppose you’ll be gone tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Barric’s eyes met hers for a fleeting moment before they went back to the eagle. “I’ve arranged something for you while I’m gone.”
Dion said curiously: “Arranged?” Barric, as well as failing to acknowledge her advances, had been less present than usual over the last few weeks. Was this what he had been up to?
“I’ve been trying to resurrect an old piece of magic,” he said. “Yesterday, I succeeded. Do you remember the mirror?”
Her gasp was a hint of vapour on the cold air. “You– you made it work again?”
“Your thread of magic was still running through it. If Aerwn is there, you’ll be able to talk to her. It’s best not to hope too much, but–”
“She’ll be there,” Dion said, with certainty. If she knew her sister, it would sooner or later occur to Aerwn to put the mirror put into her own chambers on the off chance that one day
communications would be resumed with Faery– if only to thoroughly eviscerate Barric verbally for her sister’s death.
“It’s ready now,” he said. “I’m content. Go and see your sister if you can.”
Dion looked up at him through her lashes, but didn’t move. “When are you leaving? Tonight?”
“Yes,” said Barric.
“I’ll try to see Aerwn tomorrow,” she said. Her heart was beating a slightly faster rhythm. It was now or never; because Barric would be gone tomorrow and if she didn’t say it now she would never again have the courage. “Back there,” she said, her hand flicking vaguely. She always seemed to call the human world ‘back there’, as if it wasn’t quite real any more. Perhaps it wasn’t quite real any more. “I told you I loved you.”
Barric smiled down at her. “I remember.”
Dion drew in a breath, her heart ticking in her ears, faster and faster. “Well, I still do.”
“I know,” said Barric, his large hand covering hers and pressing gently.
“No, you don’t,” said Dion, her tongue tied and her face growing warmer. “I mean, it’s different. It has been different for a little while now. That is, it– it c-can be different. If– if you want.”
Barric, as still as she had ever seen him, didn’t reply. Nor did he look up from his rather frozen study of the eagle pelmet when she leaned up to kiss his cheek. Dion stood abruptly, with the sickening thought that she had been entirely mistaken, and hurried away across the parabola to hide her burning face in the welcome shadows of the stone halls.
She didn’t hear the step that fell, but she knew the familiar warmth behind her before Barric turned her around, his hands on her shoulders and then cupping her face. His dark eyes were glowing with a soft, triumphant light, his chest rising and falling just a little too quickly. She had seen that look from him before: the day of the Binding, when she had come back from the dead. It was a look that said something else had come back from the dead tonight.
He lowered his head and kissed her, his fingers threaded through her hair, then pulled back to smile at her. “I knew I had to wait, but I didn’t know how long. I didn’t mean to make you unhappy.”
“I thought it had taken me too long to understand,” Dion said, her relief bright and warm. “I thought you might not love me anymore.”
“I have loved you,” he said. “I will love you.”
“I’ve loved you, too,” said Dion, her hand rising to touch his cheek. Barric kissed her fingers, his eyes still on her face. “Though I didn’t know it until a little while ago.”
The night was cool and the velvet of the sofa was warm, and when Barric led her back out onto the parabola, Dion didn’t object. They sat together contentedly in the crystal air of Faery night, and she said: “Does this mean you’re not leaving tonight?” She couldn’t keep the hope from springing up, as vain as she knew it to be.
She saw Barric smile, his eyes warm. “No. It can’t be avoided. But I will be quick.” He kissed her, sweet and lingering. “I will be very quick.” Another kiss, and an almost crushing hug. “And when I get back, we will talk.”
A Tale of Carmine & Fancy
Somewhere in the depths of Faery, rather more to the Unseelie than the Seelie, there was a moderately sized castle. Despite its modest size it was about as ostentatiously gilded as is possible for a castle to be whilst retaining some semblance of believability as a fortified dwelling.
In the depths of that castle was an equally ornate suite, and in that suite was a beautiful room with a great, round, starry portal of crystal open to display the perennially moonlit Unseelie Sky. Below the portal was a massive bed with cool silk sheets, a fat swansdown duvet, and more pillows than could possibly be said to be practical. The owner of said castle, suite, room, and bed was fast asleep on top of the duvet as if he’d thrown himself there, careless of the richness of his surroundings.
Within the circle of the room a clock was chiming twelve bells. Despite the chimes, the Fae on the bed showed no signs of stirring, but his stillness now seemed to hold more of an attitude of determined, rather than actual, somnolence. When the last chime had sent its golden tones through the room, the door to the bedroom opened. A tall, straight figure swept through the door in a businesslike manner, her skirts whispering against the floor, and the Fae on the bed stiffened.
“It’s time to get up, my lord.”
A groan.
“It’s no good sulking about it.”
Another groan.
“And it’s no good refusing to speak, either: I know you’re awake.”
A tousled head emerged from the depths of the mounded pillows. “Who told you,” demanded the lord of the castle, “to wake me up at this disgustingly early hour?”
“Actually, it’s past noon,” said the lady, her calm unimpaired. “And your visitor told me to wake you. A rather large gentleman with an even larger sword.”
The lord’s eyes narrowed on her. “I believe I told you to kick Barric out if he ever came back.”
“You did, my lord,” agreed the lady.
“Then why did you let him in?”
“For one thing, he’s much bigger than I am,” said the lady, with a touch of pink to her cheeks, “and for another, I couldn’t get the door closed quickly enough. He told me to tell you to guard your own door next time. Oh, and he mentioned that if you’re not down in ten minutes, he’s going to come up and fetch you.”
She swept to one side, neatly avoiding the lord’s frantic leap out of bed, and serenely remained where she was while he frantically searched the cluttered room.
He growled: “Help me, Fancy!”
Fancy cleared her throat. “My lord?”
He looked up wildly, his eyes falling on the shirt that dangled by its collar from Fancy’s forefinger. “You were hiding that!”
“I don’t have to hide it,” said Fancy. Her eyes flicked up and down his bare chest in a manner sufficiently governessy to make the lord’s eyes flash dangerously. “You hardly ever wear a shirt: I’m surprised you even know where they’re kept. This one needs washing, by the way.”
“How can it need washing if I never wear it?” argued the lord. “It will certainly do for Barric, however. What do you think, Fancy? Shall I comb my hair, or is artfully rumpled a look to be desired?”
“I think that if you’re not downstairs in half a minute, Barric will be coming through that door,” said Fancy.
The sound of explosive muttering filtered through the lord’s shirt as he struggled into it. Fancy didn’t so much as blink: she merely held open the door to the suite so that his lordship Carmine Nightshade, lord of Glasslight Canton and Duke of the Wandering Hollys, could stumble through it with his head still stuck in his shirt.
Carmine had managed to emerge from his shirt by the time he reached the grand stairs. That was possibly just as well, since the grand staircase was an exercise in the most whimsical of Fae architecture: a series of floating steps in crystal as clear as the dawn, suspended by nothing and supported by nothing but the most unnoticeable of magics. Still, he paid the treacherous stairs as little heed as if he had still been struggling within his shirt, causing Fancy, who was following behind in a much more sedate manner, to flick her eyes toward the ceiling and sigh. No one, looking at Carmine, would have guessed that he had had to be picked up from the bottom of the stairs several times this cycle already. Carmine took very good care that no one did, either. As much as the stairs, was Carmine an exercise in the most whimsy that Faery had to offer.
Now, ignoring the last few steps and leaping lightly down to the main hall, he threw a look that was as wary as it was comprehensive, around white-marbled area.
“Carmine,” said a deep voice, in greeting. The door to the drawing room was obscure with shadow. That shadow resolved and solidified into the form of a very large, dark-skinned Fae, the double-grip of his greatsword rising in an inky blot over his left shoulder. He had to duck his head to fit beneath the lintel of the door.
/> “What have you been doing to my Fancy?” demanded Carmine, trying to pretend he wasn’t out of breath. “She was ruffled. Fancy is never ruffled.”
“I picked her up,” said the other Fae.
“I won’t have you picking up my servants willy-nilly,” said Carmine. “Especially Fancy. She’s the only one I’ve got who has her feet on the ground and I won’t have her corrupted.”
The other Fae shrugged. “She was in the way and I didn’t want to hurt her.”
“You didn’t have to hold me quite so tightly,” said Fancy’s voice. She was still descending the stairs in a carefully lady-like way.
The huge Fae gave her a considering look that, to Carmine’s obvious annoyance, made her blush faintly. “I didn’t want you to hurt me, either,” he said.
“What do you think she was going to do?” demanded Carmine. “Scold you into submission?”
“Would you care for tea, my lords?” asked Fancy, coming to a deferential halt at the base of the stairs. She seemed not to hear Carmine’s remark, but one long finger tapped against her leg where it was hidden in the folds of her skirt.
“Good heavens, no!” said Carmine. “Champagne, of course. Barric?”
“Tea, thank you,” said Barric. He bowed to Fancy, and she swept him a brief curtsey in return before disappearing down the great hall.
Shards of a Broken Sword Page 41
