The Nightshade's Touch: A Paranormal Space Fantasy (Messenger Chronicles Book 3)

by Pippa Dacosta

  I smiled at my friend, hiding my true thoughts behind the too-bright grin. “Duly noted. Now can we focus on the Faerie map and not Arran’s buns?”

  “Is this a hypothetical question?” Sota asked.

  “No!” I laughed. They were both impossible.

  “So, why am I here instead of your entourage?” Hulia asked again, once we had all settled down. “Icy alone looks like he could stare his way out of an iron box.”

  “Talen destroyed this map on Hapters and I… I don’t want him knowing I have a copy. Kellee and Talen are tight, so it’s just us.”

  “Ah.” Hulia turned serious. “All right.” She silently studied the map. “Well, I haven’t been out of Halow much, but I know for sure that red dot in Sol is on Earth, so maybe the others are all locations in the systems’ major centers?”

  “Close.”

  “What are the red dots?”

  “Unseelie, apparently. Or the location of something that can free the unseelie in those systems. It sounds like Oberon scattered and buried the unseelie throughout the three systems, Sol, Valand, and Halow, but right now, it’s all guesswork. Talen wasn’t specific before he melted the original map and the dark fae escaped.”

  “Talen released the dark fae?” Hulia asked, her singsong voice dropping to its darker tones that could sing a person into a coma.

  I’d assumed the dark fae’s escape had been an accident, but what if he’d known the dark fae were behind the map? He wouldn’t do something so foolish as deliberately free them, would he? He had made mistakes before… This had to be a mistake—one that had cost a community its home, but a mistake all the same.

  “What are you thinking?” Hulia asked.

  “How little I understand all of this.” How little I understand Talen.

  I turned all the things I knew over in my mind. Too many times over the past few days the dark fae had uttered the name nightshade—the prophesized unseelie ruler who was supposed to rise up and lead the dark fae. The dead pilot had used his last words to warn me that the nightshade watches. Talen wasn’t unseelie, but I suspected he wasn’t seelie either, despite the light fae looks. But I’d asked Talen if he was the Nightshade and he’d denied it. He couldn’t lie. Clearly someone or something was or had been the Nightshade, and the unseelie thought it important enough to mention it a few times before attacking me.

  “Hulia, have you ever heard of the Nightshade?” I asked.

  “Unseelie badass. A fairytale told to baby fae to frighten them. You think this map has something to do with the Nightshade?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Well shiiit.”

  “And I think Eledan knew it too. He was here. He spent time on Hapters. He saw the map. He knew the unseelie were here along with whatever magic source is feeding Hapters’s crops, the same source the Hapters people call lumines.”

  “You’re right.” Kellee leaned against the doorframe, arms folded, looking every inch the smart-mouthed marshal who’d been standing there the whole time. Stealthy bastard. He wore all black under the lawman duster and had dug out his gold star. It glinted the same shade of gold as the rings around his dark pupils.

  “Marshal Kellee is here,” Sota announced, five seconds too late.

  “Annndd that’s my cue to leave.” Hulia headed for Kellee, still blocking the door.

  He shifted out of the doorway. “You don’t have to go.”

  She paused and raised an eyebrow at me. “A namu’s gifts are better spent in the pursuit of pleasure, not war play.”

  Kellee gave her a dry look. “We’ve all evolved well beyond our intended design.” He approached the map and looked it over, giving nothing away as though he were admiring a dinner menu. “No namu has ever stabbed the Dreamweaver in the back,” he commented. “Yet, for a pleasure-giver, you managed that pretty well. I also watched you try to slap down a royal guardian. I think I’d rather have you on my side, Hulia, than the snakelike namu of old.”

  Hulia’s shoulders straightened with pride. She loved to be complimented and Kellee had found her weakness. “All right, Marshal. I’ll stay.”

  He nodded once and the matter was settled. When he turned, projected stars speckled on his face. He thumbed over his shoulder at the map. “Knowledge of this map stays in this room. Should this get out, half of Faerie will come after Sota. Your drone’s life depends on it.”

  “What?” Sota balked.

  “The map is safe,” I assured him. “Sota is secure. He can’t be hacked.”

  “Didn’t Eledan do exactly that when he turned Sota against you?” Kellee asked.

  “Eledan is a fae who knows tek. He’s one of a kind. Plus, I deliberately left a programming door open for him so he could find out who I really was. Sota’s databanks are encrypted. Nothing inside him gets out without my permission.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Kellee said. “If anyone learns the map is on him, he’ll be the most wanted piece of tek outside of Faerie, and they won’t be kind in cutting him open.”

  Sota shuddered, rippling the map across Kellee.

  “Understood,” I agreed. “Sota’s got this.”

  “I do?” Sota asked.

  Kellee stepped out of the way of the projection. A silence settled over us as we waited for his opinion. “It’s not a map to the unseelie,” he said.

  “But Talen said—”

  Kellee’s look cut me off. “You need to stop listening to his words and instead listen to his intent. There are things he can’t say, exactly like lies. Listen to what he isn’t telling you.”

  How was I supposed to do that? Talen’s silences were everywhere.

  Kellee sighed and looked through me, gauging my worth. “It’s a map to the fragments of polestar.”

  I frowned. So did Hulia. Sota’s motors whirred in a way that told me if he’d had a face, he’d have frowned too. What by-cyn was a polestar?

  Kellee half-smiled at our collective ignorance. “I forget how young you all are. The polestar is a Faerie artifact, plucked from Faerie’s sky by Queen Mab. Oberon and Mab used its light to overpower the dark fae—the unseelie—and drive them out of Faerie forever. Then, against Mab’s wishes, Oberon broke the polestar into four pieces and scattered them so the unseelie could never be summoned back to Faerie.”

  “Four pieces? Why didn’t he destroy the polestar completely?” Hulia asked. She had moved to a bench and sat down, looking wide-eyed and overwhelmed.

  “It can’t be destroyed, but it can be broken up or altered to resemble other things.”

  “Where was Eledan when this was happening?” I asked, the missing pieces of my puzzle slotting into place.

  Kellee’s eyes darkened at the mention of the mad prince. “History neglects much of Prince Eledan, besides his prowess as his brother’s general. As second in line to the throne, Faerie’s history cares little for the mad prince’s past.”

  “Exactly how old are you?” Sota asked.

  Kellee’s smile twitched. “It was before even my time, but I make it my business to ask questions and always have, long before I became a lawman.”

  Questions he was now answering. What had changed to make him trust me? “And this map shows where the pieces are?” I asked.

  “Considering the targeted locations, I’m guessing so. Halow”—he pointed near Hapters—“Sol, Valand, and there was one on Faerie.”

  “Why have a map?” I asked. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of hiding the polestar to begin with?”

  “We don’t know the map was Oberon’s. In fact, it probably wasn’t. Someone else left it on Hapters eons ago, knowing time would swallow it. They probably always intended to return, but we got to it first.”

  “Someone who controlled the unseelie enough to station them here to guard the map and its fragment?”

  Kellee nodded.

  “The Nightshade?”

  He scratched absently at his neck. “The unseelie had a ruler. Not born royal—the unseelie don’t care for how rich a bloodline is.
Their leader is tested and proven.” He swallowed with a click. “The legend is Oberon killed the Nightshade in his crusade to banish the dark fae. Something or someone left the map there, hiding it long enough for these things to fall into myth. It could have been the Nightshade, if you believe the legends, but it could also have been Mab. She was known to leave Faerie on occasions. She left to forge the peace treaty with the humans during the first war. She could have buried the map on Hapters then.”

  “Would Mab go against her son’s wishes?” I asked.

  “She knew her son’s ambitions. It was a matter of time before Oberon came to reign. This map could have been her backup plan, only she didn’t get to use it…”

  Because I’d killed her. An awkward moment stretched on.

  Kellee cleared his throat and continued. “A thousand years ago, the fae fought with their human experiment.” He turned his gaze back to the map. “Mab formed the peace treaty, giving up Faerie’s sister systems to the humans. The fae withdrew from Halow, leaving their secrets behind. Hapters was settled and farmed, its inhabitants unaware of what lay buried beneath them. I was here for years and had no idea this went so deep. Bits of Faerie are all over Halow. People forget the fae were here first. They were, and still are, the protofae. They were the beginning of everything, the beginning of life.”

  It was a lot to take in, but one thing was clear: Oberon had wielded the polestar. It was a weapon fit for a Faerie king. A weapon fit for revenge. If the mad prince got hold of it, there was no knowing what he’d do, and he’d already been all over Hapters, twisting the planet around his fingers. “If Eledan saw the map, do you think he used it to find the pieces of the polestar?”

  “When Faerie thought him dead, he had a long time to scour the systems for lost treasures. He was here. Yes, I think he saw it and used it. It’s a good thing he’s back on Faerie and far away from all this.”

  I thought of the magic and tek talisman. A trinket fashioned in the vein of Eledan’s new heart.

  I eased down onto a bench. But Eledan isn’t far away… He could be right in the room with us. It was time Kellee heard the truth. “Something happened to me back on Calicto, right before the arena.” I dared not look at Kellee. “I found Sota and tried to fix him, but I couldn’t make him right.”

  The image of the map flickered as Sota cut the projection. He swiveled to face me. “Then how am I here if you did not fix me?”

  And here it was, the moment I admitted just how compromised I could be. “Eledan was there.”

  “Like Devere?” Kellee asked, assuming I’d imagined Eledan.

  I squeezed my eyes closed to block out the memories of Devere and his death. “No, not like that. It was… different. He wasn’t imaginary. He wasn’t physically with me either, but he was there and he knew things. He helped me fix Sota. He was real.”

  “He helped you?”

  I winced at the accusation in Kellee’s tone and met the marshal’s guarded expression. “It’s why I can’t let you tell me about Talen. There’s a risk the Dreamweaver can get inside my head whenever he wants, and I can’t stop him, unless I wear a collar.”

  Kellee held himself still, motionless but for the twitch of his cheek. “How is it possible the Dreamweaver can mentally transcend millions of light years?”

  I stared back, refusing to shrink from his tone. “Where there’s a strong enough font of life magic—his magic—he can find me.” Unfortunately, life magic was abundant in Faerie and apparently outside of it too. Arcon was built on it. It flowed through this ship like blood through its veins.

  “Does he still walk your dreams?” Kellee asked, his tone slipping into the neutral lawman mode like it did every time he wanted to hide his feelings.

  “No.”

  “Have you seen him since Arcon?”

  “No.”

  “I did not detect Eledan after you brought me back, Kesh,” Sota said to reassure me.

  “I know, Sota, but I can’t shake the feeling it was real. I don’t have a good enough imagination to concoct the things he said or the way he looked.” Scruffy, tired… a startling contrast to how I’d known him.

  “Did he say anything we can use?” Kellee asked.

  I’d spent the weeks since Arcon and Calicto trying to forget everything about Eledan.

  I brushed a hand down my face and sighed hard, then looked up at Kellee’s guarded expression. “Just that he was incapacitated, but he could still be anywhere his magic was at its strongest.” And he’d tried to reel me in, tried to make me want to fall into the dreams with him again, fall and dream and dance with the Dreamweaver in the nowhere spaces. I’d been tempted. I didn’t need to say it. From the wariness in Kellee’s eyes, he knew. He always had.

  “We have to assume it was real,” Kellee said. “You should have told me this before now.”

  “Yes, I should have, but you aren’t the easiest person to talk to.”

  His lips twitched. “You could be a spy for Eledan, but you didn’t tell me because it might annoy me?”

  “Back off, Marshal,” Hulia warned in the voice she used to scare angry and intoxicated revelers. “Or do you always blame the victim of a crime?”

  “I’m not blaming her.” He laughed darkly. “But this is about more than Kesh. Knowing Eledan can get to her is damn important. It makes her a liability.”

  Hulia’s laugh came out laced with disbelief. She got to her feet and squared up to Kellee, rising onto her tiptoes to do so. “Doesn’t that star on your chest mean you protect people?” Her third translucent eyelid flicked across her eyes, a sign she was one wrong word away from losing her namu composure.

  Kellee peered down from his vakaru height into Hulia’s narrowed eyes. “No offense, Hulia, but you don’t know all the facts.”

  “I don’t need to. Kesh is my friend and that means I help her, no questions asked. How many friends do you have, Marshal?”

  I loved my friend in that moment.

  She looked at me. “Any time you need me, I’ll be here for you.”

  I nodded, afraid if I spoke it would come out all wrong. She left, leaving Kellee staring at the wall, his cheek flickering. Sota buzzed quietly in what would have been a thick silence.

  “You were right not to ask any more questions of Talen,” Kellee said. “Knowing Eledan can get to you, even here, changes things. I’m not the bad guy here, Kesh. You are and you know it.”

  I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, clasping my hands together. “I wish I wasn’t. I wish I was different.”

  He swallowed hard. “I don’t.” When he faced me, the golden glow in his eyes had died down, leaving him more like his normal self. “I’m hard on you because I want this to work, but every time we get close to something good, something else pulls it apart again. You’re a brave woman, Kesh. You’re not… a nothing girl. Eledan is poison.” Kellee approached the table. “I don’t wish you were different. I wish things were different. This war, and us, all of us… We can make a difference, and that’s worth more than you or me.”

  Oh, I understood that. He had always been good. It was why I was going back to Oberon with Sirius. Would Kellee understand that I was walking away, not for him, not for us, and not for Oberon, but for Halow’s right to be free?

  “If Eledan has the polestar, or knows where it is… there’s no knowing what he’ll do with it. He’ll kill Oberon, but I doubt he’ll stop there.” A thought occurred to me. “Can the polestar be used for good?”

  He blinked, surprised by the question. “It’s a Faerie artifact. Good, bad, they aren’t Faerie notions; they’re human ones. It can be used for anything its wielder desires.”

  “Could we use it to drive the dark fae back into their hole on Hapters or out of Halow altogether?”

  His eyes darted, ideas forming. “Talen could… maybe. But we’re not fae. It won’t respond to us.”

  Weren’t we? Talen’s magic was changing me, and Kellee was two rounded ears away from being fae.

&
nbsp; “On the map, where’s the nearest piece?” I asked, my insides fluttering as a plan formed.

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were the truest shade of green they’d ever been. “Valand,” he said with a growl that failed to hide the fracture in his voice.

  The vakaru home. Kellee’s home. “We should go there.”

  He swallowed and this time didn’t succeed in hiding all the emotion on his face.

  We were going back to where Kellee had been made in search of a piece of the star that could either save us or condemn us all.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for being honest with me. I know it cost you.”

  I tried to smile but didn’t have it in me. “The truth is often painful, right?”

  His expression was haunted. “More than you know.”

  Chapter 18

  The warcruiser didn’t ordinarily have windows, but after Talen had asked Shinj nicely, she grew one so we could view our approach to Valand. Talen hadn’t asked why we had left Hapters or where we were going, but he watched carefully, his secrets and silence deafening.

  Two days after agreeing we needed to go to Valand—days in which I’d spent much of my time checking on Sirius and learning how to swim with Arran while stealing long, lazy kisses in the pool—Kellee grunted at me to follow him to the viewing deck. He stood there now, on a raised platform, facing the window, lit by starlight.

  I drew up next to him, trying not to feel too exposed in front of the great curved window holding back the vacuum of space.

  When I had escaped from Faerie to find Eledan, I’d been so focused on finding the prince that I hadn’t had much time for sightseeing or stargazing. But now, I watched as Halow’s pinpricked black slowly gave way to hypnotic swirls of purples, greens, and golds. It was so beautiful I didn’t have words for it, just feelings. Lots and lots of feelings swelled inside, threatening to bubble over. I wanted to step closer to the screen so I could see how the multicolored stars grew from specks of dust, to marbles, to planets. Some with rings, some peppered in storm eyes, some all purple or green. Each one was a part of Valand.

  Halow wasn’t like this.