by Dean Murray
The suits I was looking at now had joints too—they had to have joints in order to move—but there weren't any gaps. Instead, it was like there were articulating layers of metal that slid around in such a way that there was never any exposed flesh, no matter how the wearer moved. None of the suits I was looking at were sized for someone like me, and even if they had been, amping up my strength still might not have made me strong enough to move around inside of something that heavy, but I still found myself wishing that I could put one of them on.
A second later we all arrived to the edge of the small platform the throne was built on, and the time for sightseeing had passed.
"Thank you for seeing us, your majesty."
She inclined her head. "What brings you to my court, Jace?"
"As I'm sure you know, my brother Kyle has launched an offensive designed to take control over the entire world. Byron sought us out to report that his pantheon, a group of two dozen Awakened, was destroyed in a surprise attack. Kat and Selene were attacked by an Unseelie fairy in Denver and then chased by two Awakened as they fled the city."
"I'm aware of Kyle's plans. In fact, as I recall, the last time we encountered each other I was inclined to bring down Kyle's wards and end the threat he represented. Tell me, do you remember who convinced me not to follow my instincts on that occasion?"
My throat had gone dry. I wanted to hide behind Jace and the others, but I knew that wouldn't win me any points. The last few days had shown me that we desperately needed allies if we were going to survive what was coming, so it was time to take my lumps.
"It was me, your majesty. I was the one who said Kyle had good inside of him, that he could be saved."
"Yes, Selene, that was you. You told me to stay my hand, that you believed in him, and yet here we are just a few weeks later and not only does he have Excalibur, he also has a second artifact, the Brísingamen necklace. Combined, those two artifacts make him nearly the equal of any two of your kind."
I bowed my head, unsure what to say, but she wasn't done.
"Tell me, young one. Are you ready to acknowledge your mistake? Are you ready to admit that your words have led us all into ruin?"
I wanted to open up a hole in the ground and crawl inside, but something made me look up and meet her eyes. The Lady didn't have the same inhuman air that Intravil had displayed, but there was a force of presence there that demanded I give her what she wanted. I opened my mouth to do exactly that, but the words that came out weren't what I was expecting.
"I acknowledge that I was wrong about what Kyle was going to do, but I stand by my statement that it would be wrong to kill him before he'd done anything wrong."
"He had done things in the past that were wrong. He agreed with Mephistoles to not interfere while your pantheon was hunted."
"You knew that?"
The question burst out of me of its own accord, and for a moment I was convinced that I'd made a terrible mistake. The Lady's face went cold and distant.
"I know most of what happens in our shared world. Sometimes not until much after it's occurred, but sooner or later everything makes its way back to me."
"Yes, Kyle stood by and let Mephistoles and Sandra kill me, but that's not the same thing as murder. He told me that he didn't think there was anything he could have done to save me, but even if that wasn't the case, he at least partially atoned for that when he saved Kat, Ari and me from Fenrir. Kyle wasn't perfect, but killing him before he'd had a chance to do all of the terrible things that he's done over the last few days would have been nothing less than murder.
"I think that you're better than that. I know that I am."
For the briefest of moments I thought she was going to physically lash out at me. I felt tension slither through the room as my friends tensed up and the Seelie warriors around the perimeter of the room prepared to do battle.
"Leave us. I want everyone but Byron and Selene to leave. Not just the room, I want you all out of my home."
"We're at the highest state of readiness we've seen in the last thousand years, your highness. Is that prudent?"
The warrior who'd spoken looked like a male version of Intravil, just much bigger. He had the same perfectly straight red hair and unnaturally gray eyes.
"Wait in front of my house. If a call for help arrives you'll be placed to intercept the messenger and go to their aid. You'll have to do without me for a time if the worst comes to pass."
I thought he was going to protest again, and a new kind of tension filled the room. I'd thought that the weight of her gaze before had been tremendous, but it was nothing compared to what she leveled at him. Eventually the pressure became too much—even for him—and the Seelie warrior dropped his gaze and started towards the exit.
As soon as her people started moving, the Lady turned her attention back to me. It took several seconds for the fae to leave, and the Lady stared at me the entire time. I was so focused on not looking away that I didn't realize my friends had remained behind until Jace stepped up to my side.
"I want your promise that you're not going to hurt them."
"I told you to leave, godling."
"We aren't leaving until you promise that you aren't going to harm them."
Jace's voice was remarkably even, and hearing him stick up for us—for me—made me want to cry. I knew it had to have been hard for him to hear me defend Kyle, for him to be reminded of the faceoff outside of Kyle's wards only hours after I'd kissed his brother. Despite all of that, he was willing to stand up to one of the two or three most powerful beings in the world.
Maybe someone else would have attributed Jace's strength of will to having lived for so long, to having more than a hundred years of memories anchoring him, but I knew it was more than that. Jace was standing up to the Lady because it was the right thing to do and Jace was one of the few people out there who always did the right thing.
"Them, or Selene?"
It was a shrewd question. It gave both the Lady and Jace a chance to back down without losing face. It was shrewd, but it was also unworthy of her. She knew that Byron had only recently joined our pantheon. She knew that it would be easy for a lesser man to rationalize sacrificing Byron if that was what it took to get the rest of us out safely.
I turned and looked at my friends and family. Sandra was halfway to the door, but that wasn't much of a surprise. She didn't understand why she hated me so badly, but she did and it wasn't like she would be any good in a fight even if she did stay.
Dad and Ari hadn't moved though, and neither had Kat. All three of them stood behind us. They all looked terrified, but they hadn't moved.
Bethany currently stood on Kat's shoulder, almost as though she'd been forced backwards by the Lady's order and only managed to stop herself from leaving at the last moment. Despite that, she seemed to be psyching herself up to return to my shoulder. Even Kregor, who'd never said more than two or three words to me at one time, was waiting half a step behind Jace.
I already knew that Jace had stepped forward, risking the Lady's displeasure, but I was most surprised of all to see that Byron was facing the Lady without any trace of fear. It was possible that he'd stayed just because she'd ordered him to, but I didn't think so. He appeared ready to back Jace and me up—with his life if necessary.
"Them. They are both part of our pantheon and I'm not going to walk out of here until you've promised them safe passage back to the real world."
"You had that promise when I agreed to let you all visit me here in my home, Jace. That has always been the case."
"I know, but these aren't normal times."
"Even in my anger I would not violate those laws, godling. You have my promise that your pantheon is safe here. Now please leave us. I have things to discuss with these two."
Jace reached over and cupped the side of my face before nodding and turning around. At his nod they all left, everyone but Bethany, who returned to my side. The Lady cocked her head to one side and considered the tiny fairy who'd spen
t the last two decades looking for me.
"You need to go, little sister. I'll return Selene to you none the worse for wear in a few minutes."
I half expected Bethany to spout off something about holding the Lady to her promise, but apparently even Bethany had her limits, and she'd pushed the ruler of her people as far as she was willing to.
I wasn't sure what to expect when it was just the three of us, but when the Lady turned to Byron he didn't seem surprised by how things had developed.
"What is it that you want, Byron? Vengeance? Safety?"
"If I wanted safety then I wouldn't be here talking to you—we both know that."
The Lady actually smiled at his frank response. "Why then?"
"You know why I'm here. We are headed to a crossroads. If we don't all combine our efforts, Kyle will soon control everything."
"You're sure of that? Many of my strongest warriors are of the opinion that we are safe here. Unlike your Camelot, there will never be anyone strong enough to bring down our walls. We could easily retreat inside of these walls and let the Awakened and the Unseelie fight among themselves."
Byron sighed and looked back in the direction we'd come from. "That has the sound of an argument that has been dusted off thousands of times just over the last century."
"It probably sounds that way because it has. The Seelie fae have been fighting this war longer than any of you Awakened remember. I cannot count the number of times that it seemed our defeat was certain, but each time the other side started fighting with each other and we've always been able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat."
Byron looked back at her and shook his head. "This isn't like those other times."
"How do you know?"
"Because during those other times Kyle wasn't leading the enemy."
That drew a small smile from her. "You're awfully sure for someone whose current incarnation is less than six hundred years old, someone whose memories can't extend back for more than two or three hundred years. I've learned over the last several thousand years that things move in cycles. Very little I see is actually new. Technology, yes, that changes, but people—especially the Awakened—remain the same."
"You're not any less practiced at misdirection than you were the last time we met. What you're saying may be true, but you and I both know that Jace and Kyle haven't been around long enough for the darker of the two miracle brothers to have been a threat the last time you faced an army. Things are different this time."
I got the feeling that the Lady was enjoying the discussion with Byron. It wasn't that she was failing to take the situation seriously. It was more like she'd…missed…talking to him. Like nobody else was willing to contradict her like he'd just done.
"You may be right about that one aspect of this situation, but that isn't going to be enough to convince many of my people. There is a growing pressure from my people to pull back inside the Court and seal the portals to the outside world. There is a strong belief that once we are no longer a threat, the Awakened and the Unseelie will turn on each other and then we'll be free to swoop in and pick up the pieces."
"Those people are wrong. Kyle is one of the best researchers to ever live. Just because no Awakened has ever managed to create a portal here doesn't mean that it's not possible. If you leave him free to expand his power unchecked he will someday open a rift into this place and you will be faced with a fight that you can't win. Cowering behind sealed portals isn't the answer!"
Between one heartbeat and the next, the Lady's hand shot forward and grabbed Byron by the neck. It shouldn't have been possible. I could tell by the way he was moving that he was amped up even more than I was. He should have been faster even than the most powerful fae, but he wasn't faster than her.
"Be careful, Byron. I've always allowed you a certain degree of latitude, but you are the last one who should be lecturing me about the danger of choosing a defensive strategy.
"You were to recruit and hole up inside of your precious Camelot until you were needed. If you'd held to your side of the agreement we wouldn't be in this mess. Rather than trying to scrape together an effective force from the dregs of your kind, I would have the single largest pantheon in the history of the world at my beck and call."
I wasn't sure what I should be doing. The two of them obviously had history together none of us had suspected. I had no way of knowing who was in the wrong, but I didn't feel like I could just stand there and let her kill him.
I loosened my sword in its sheath, but I couldn't quite bring myself to actually draw it and attack her. For one impossibly long second we all stood there frozen and then she released him with a push that sent him stumbling away from her.
"Almost, you make me forget myself, Byron. Nobody else could have sparked my anger like that."
"I did not violate our agreement. I went back to my pantheon and told them your terms. We agreed unanimously to accept your proposal and, as you know, I cast the foundational ward for what would someday become Camelot."
"Yes, and my people and I stepped up patrols in that area, buying your ward time to crystalize before it was challenged. Without my help your ward wouldn't have lasted a day."
"I know. We lit a bonfire that was visible from half a continent away at a time when we didn't have the strength that would have been required to stand off dozens of our kind eager to bring down our defenses and plunder the riches they assumed had to be hidden there.
"We owed you our very lives and every single member of my pantheon knew that, but once the wards were up and we began living inside of the bunker we'd built, the tensions inside that closed system quickly became unbearable. The majority took the view that while we'd agreed to serve as a strategic reserve for you, there had never been a definitive requirement to remain hidden away from the world altogether for hundreds of years."
The Lady sighed. "Your people reasoned that it was acceptable for them to leave Camelot and recruit others, therefore it was also permitted for them to live outside of Camelot."
"Yes—they felt that our discovery that it was possible to suppress our signatures by refusing to use our abilities gave us a chance to live outside in the world while still remaining hidden and able to intercede when you needed us."
"And you, Byron? What was your opinion?"
"I felt that we were not living up to the spirit of the law, but I was worried that allowing our group to splinter into smaller factions was an even larger danger. I'm sorry. Hindsight has proven that to have been the wrong decision."
My mind was whirling with new information. "Wait, the two of you worked together? What were you thinking taking so many of the good guys out of play like that? That's just asking for the bad guys to get the upper hand. Do you realize how much of the bad in the world can be traced directly to the two of you?"
Byron stepped toward me with a pleading look on his face. "You have to understand, Selene. The Seelie fae aren't wrong when they say that the Unseelie have always spent at least as much time fighting against each other as they do fighting against this court. We Awakened are no different.
"Someone like you or me is much more likely to die at the hands of someone like Mephistoles than at the hands of someone like Jace or Kat. The same can't be said for them. Ultimately Mephistoles and Sandra were both defeated in large part because of Kyle's help. By pulling the good Awakened, the people who were able to work towards something other than just their own selfish hunger for power, out of the fight, we were preserving them. We were making sure that they wouldn't die and then return in an incarnation driven by negative emotions."
It was all suddenly clear to me, and I was shocked that I hadn't been able to see it before that. "You wanted them to kill each other off and then you would grab them when they came back better than they'd been the last time around."
"Yes, very much like what you're trying to accomplish with Sandra."
I turned to the Lady. "What did you get out of this?"
"What makes you think that I didn
't just do it out of the goodness of my heart?"
"Call it a gut feeling."
Her smile wasn't the cold thing it had been earlier. "I'm the leader of the Seelie fae. Even when I believe in a cause I still have to make sure that my people benefit from any agreements I sign. Believe it or not, the idea of having a sizeable group of decent people like Byron who owed me a favor was very nearly enough all by itself."
"Very nearly is the same thing as just not good enough."
"Indeed it is. The truth is that the wards around Camelot were always going to be an incredible danger to my people. I knew when Byron first approached me that what he was proposing would create something that both sides would want for themselves. At that point there was no member of either court with even close to enough power to bring down that powerful of a ward—there still isn't."
Byron nodded. "But as long-term as the plans of the Awakened tend to be, that's nothing compared to the timeframe the courts both deal in. We both knew that eventually someone would become strong enough to bring down the ward I wanted to erect. If that was someone—preferably the Lady—from the Seelie Court then the good guys would have a real advantage."
"Assuming that they were able to hold off the Unseelie Court for long enough so she could drain them."
"Yes. Assuming that."
I looked back and forth between the two of them. "I don't know enough to understand what you're getting at. I can feel that the pieces all fit together somehow, but I'm still missing most of the important ones."
Byron cleared his throat. "Most Awakened don't ever pull their wards down. Even if they move on to another location, they tend to leave their wards up because that means they'll always have a safe spot to rest and recover in if they are on the run in that area. Of course there's never any guarantee that a ward will still be up when they get there, but most of us would rather know that there's a chance our sanctuaries will still be there when we need them."
