by Ron C. Nieto
“What do you mean?” Lily frowned. “And what were you talking about, if not the bargain?”
“Kelpie does not strike bargains, for his kind have one use, and one use only, for mortals. Troy has only ever struck the one, and even then it was a life debt recognized. That is what I meant. As for what I referred to, well. Not a one in this Hall would allow a mortal to challenge them, and not a challenge would go uncontested.”
“It wasn’t a challenge. It was just a question.” Perhaps with a tad of reproachfulness in it, but a question anyway.
“A question regarding his actions. Would you not agree that is the very same thing as ‘questioning his actions?’ And is that not an apt definition for ‘challenging?’”
Lily opened her mouth, closed it. She forked another pastry and stuffed it into her mouth, just to have an excuse not to speak while her brain went into overdrive. Marast is right, isn’t he? Intent doesn’t matter, the words mean what they mean, and the faeries will construct the situation as best fits them.
“Come, Marast,” Troy cut in, while Lily swallowed and tried to find words. Right words. Uncompromising words. “I believe you agreed to let me play the game with her?”
“I did.” The Royal Hunter leaned back as the host of servants retired the plates and brought new ones. “You should note I was not a player myself. Indeed, you could say I but enabled you to play, for what sort of game would our dear Herald be without a few pointers?”
“A game of her own making. I would not trust where your pointers might lead.”
Marast raised his cup and his lips seemed to offer a smile, returned by Troy’s easy smirk.
“I didn’t know you were friends,” Lily said, looking from one to the other.
“We are Unseelie fay,” they said, echoing one another.
It didn’t confirm or deny Lily’s comment because it meant they were rivals from the same side, so she turned to Troy.
“I’ve seen you with other Unseelie faeries. You were always more guarded, even with Glaistig.”
He shrugged. “You will recall I was attempting to obtain something from Glaistig. The game had to be played. As for the other fine examples of this court, I should hope you would understand they were of a different caliber.”
The goons and the lackeys to the sidhe gentry. Got it.
“The answer lies in understanding, Herald. Your Troy and I find common ground in the hunt, for the title might be mine, but that does not change his nature. There is a certain purity to the act, and it is easy to let our daily interactions be infected by it.”
Lily felt Troy’s eyes on her when Marast explained, but she focused on her plate and refused to acknowledge the piercing weight of his full focus. The Royal Hunter had pointed out something she had almost forgotten, and she didn’t want to meet Troy’s gaze while the horror at his nature swam in hers.
Yes, Troy had helped her beyond his obligations. Yes, he had been nice and attentive, in his own twisted way. Yes, he made for a gorgeous man, and yes, he had looked at her with a certain hungry curiosity that very same evening.
It didn’t change a thing. He still was a hunter, and mortals still were his natural prey. He still killed humans, and he still ate them.
Ate them.
She couldn’t afford to forget that.
Pushing her food around, Lily waited until she felt Troy’s attention slide off her, requested by some other guest who asked nonsense, and then she forced her shoulders to relax, her hand to stop shaking.
She wouldn’t forget who or what he was, but neither would she forget she needed him.
C H A P T E R XI
Sometimes, Lady Luck hated Lily.
The feast, of course, took an inordinate amount of time to be over. Then, as the host of servants cleared the floor, a string quartet began to play from a hidden alcove, and dinner became a soiree for mingling and playing the game.
Lily was terrified the first time a sidhe courtier made a show of very pointedly not approaching her to engage in conversation, and she kept her mouth firmly shut while he glided away to find a better partner.
“Well done,” Troy crooned, close to her ear. “Give them no words, appear as uninteresting as possible, and you shall win your very first play.”
“Nodding through pinched lips feels rude,” she complained in a whisper. “Specially when they’re going out of their way to be polite.”
“They are not doing any such thing. It is just the politeness of the shepherd when he leads a lamb to the slaughter, and you need not give them any weapons to bleed you dry.”
“I know that. It just doesn’t feel like it.” She looked around and managed to locate Marast standing in a cluster of similarly-attired sidhe, but she saw no trace of Hevana or of the Queen. “Will the party go on for much longer? It looks like the Queen has retired, and I’ll be a lot more comfortable the moment I can go back to the guest rooms. This place is too open, and everyone is looking at me. Even when they aren’t looking.”
“Especially when they are not looking, Lily,” he said. “Her Majesty has not officially retired yet. The Court will be notified of her absence, just as her presence was made known, and foregoing the merry-making without her leave would be a foolish notion. However, you may wander if standing under such scrutiny becomes too trying.”
“It became too trying ages ago,” she mumbled. “Aren’t you worried I’ll get in trouble?”
“So I see.” Troy skimmed his palm up her arm, leaving a cool, fresh trail that helped to ease the unforgiving grip of nerves in her stomach. “And no, I am not. You appear to have understood the value of remaining silent and of weighting your words, and I should hope you have learned from your mistakes and will refrain from rushing off in a scandalous fashion. Beyond that, you shall be fine. Do not cross any closed door, and you shall not trespass where you are not meant to.”
“And no one will try to eat me.”
“I thought we had ascertained they would not.”
Lily tried a small smile and looked back over her shoulder into Troy’s eyes. “Be a little reassuring?”
“No guests will attempt to eat you.” Troy sighed, a tiny glint in his expression belying his bored tone. “You are an unknown, and they shall attempt to figure you out before they decide whether to bring you harm.”
“That’ll do, I guess.”
Taking a deep breath, Lily tried to do as the other guests did—move slowly, aimlessly, while making her way to a very particular spot. She wasn’t sure she managed to fool the courtiers into mistaking her open retreat away from the High Table and toward the darkest, quietest corner of the Great Hall for anything else, but the nagging doubt didn’t keep her from trying.
When she reached the wall and put it to her back, she dared to look toward Troy, still up in the dais, surrounded by small clusters of faeries that chattered to him and around him. His eyes found her for a moment across the Hall and the crowd, and the next instant he was once more focused on the game being played under his nose.
She couldn’t decipher the meaning of that brief look—and really, how could she have expected to? The distance was far too great, even if she felt like she should be able to read his silent messages with a single look. And one of the many things her strategic retreat had given her was the ability to look at him at her leisure.
He’s wearing dark clothes, she realized.
Of course she knew it. She had certainly paid attention to him at the start of the event, and his figure was not one to go unnoticed. At the time, she had only thought him striking in what she had come to think of as his colors. She had only remarked on how very well black and dark green suited his pale skin, raven hair, and emerald eyes. However, watching from the distance as he mingled and weaved around the assorted courtiers, she could appreciate something else.
Troy was the only faerie wearing dark clothes, and the only one not flaunting embroidered and flowing finery.
Is it because he doesn’t own anything else, and so he must rely on
whatever is lent to him as he did in the Summer Court? Is it because he knows how amazing he looks in black?
Or is it because he knows he’s different, and he displays it proudly as both a shield and a weapon?
He didn’t look tense, not like he had in the Summer Court, but he wore a smile tinged with mockery instead of the smirk full of mischief that belonged on his features.
No, he isn’t tense, but he’s different.
A faerie crossed Lily’s line of vision, her hair a bit too dark and her figure a bit too slender to be a sidhe but lacking any attributes that might give away her nature, and the next time Lily caught sight of Troy she understood.
He’s not really Troy. Right now, he’s walking the edge between Troy and Kelpie. He’s both, and they’re both different things entirely, and he’s been trying to tell me, hasn’t he?
A comment here or there, yes, nothing Lily could recall right away, but he had implied a difference between Troy and Kelpie.
So had Marast, when discussing bargains during dinner.
In more general terms, they both had addressed it before arriving at the Winter Court, when they had asked about her name and wondered whether she would claim Herald for her own.
Names are important for faeries, right?
Yes, they were. They could use a True Name to command someone, and they could be commanded by their True Name in turn. Names had power.
The strange faerie wandered again in front of Lily, closer this time, and she realized the woman—faerie, whatever—was trying to engage her.
Fleeing from the raised dais had bought her some time of privacy, but she still was a novelty for the Unseelie, and she was moments from being cornered. And Troy still stood at the place of honor, so she couldn’t hide behind him.
“Blimey,” she muttered, pushing all thoughts of Troy from her mind. A quick glance around confirmed the faerie was circling her, ready for the strike, but she spied an escape route just beyond a column, no more than three or four yards away.
It led to a corridor, but there was no door and Troy had told her she would be safe, as long as she avoided opening and crossing closed doors.
She waited for the faerie to complete a round, and when she stood farthest away, Lily scurried along the wall and slipped into the corridor.
No door. An archway doesn’t count. I’m safe.
She walked briskly, just in case, hoping to find a way to double back and return to the Great Hall after having lost the faerie she-vulture.
She didn’t.
She found a garden instead.
A garden in the heart of Winter was as incongruous as it could get, more so when it was a warm, quiet, delicate and elegant thing, but still it somehow fit the Unseelie Court. The light spilling from the corridor fell upon a low hedge that delineated a path of fine, sparkling gravel. A sweet scent floated in the air, and Lily could imagine tiny blue flowers adorning the hedge if she squinted just right. Beyond, there was a thick carpet of grass and a hint of a sculpted tree peeked from the shadows.
It was beautiful. Magical.
Lily took a step forward, almost without realizing, and a faint light shimmered some fifteen paces ahead. The glow was soft, providing as much illumination as one might get on a night of a half-full moon, but it was enough to reveal the labyrinthine intricacy of the sprawling path. It went on, twisting and turning, always chased by the thick hedge as it found private nooks surrounded by fragrant greenery and impossible flowers.
The light also revealed that the sculpted tree was laden with roses and twisted into the elegant shape of a woman. Whoever had tended to it had done so in a way that made the branches seem the limbs of a regal dancer, while the flowers trailed her body like a dress and adorned her head like a wild mane of hair.
Lily stepped closer, and another faint light came to life, about ten or fifteen paces beyond the first one, illuminating the left fork of the path.
No doors. No trespassing. I’m safe, right?
Her dress swept over the fine, fine gravel as she followed the winding path. Another light came on ahead, its light reflecting in the mirror-like surface of a still pond, and yet another illuminated a cluster of white bell-like flowers, dew glistening in their petals like crystal tears. Just as she reached out to touch them, light flared up ahead and picked the razor-sharp contrasts of a huge topiary elk, gazing majestically at her. The form was so perfect, the foliage so thick, it seemed as if it were about to start gliding down the path.
Something moved on the edge of the light, a flutter, and Lily forgot the flowers to see what it was.
One more light appeared when she reached the elk figure, dissipating the edge of darkness into translucent gloom that caught the fluttering movements in sparks of sapphire fire.
Butterflies. They were butterflies, at least a dozen of them, drawing lazy circles in the air. The illumination appeared to bother them because they began to flock their way onward, following the path like tiny blue cinders carried by an invisible wind.
Lily hesitated and looked back. One orb of light floated behind her, but the rest had puffed out of existence, sinking the garden in the deepest night. She didn’t know whether it was a trap, or whether the lights would come on again when she approached, just as they had before. She didn’t care. She couldn’t bring herself to, even though part of her knew she should.
Instead, she reached out, running her fingers over the low hedge and feeling the fresh coolness of the greenery on her skin as she followed the butterflies down the path.
Light came and went as they ambled on, twisting left and right, passing by nooks and crannies that hid impossible flowers or incredible topiary sculptures, until suddenly the hedge that chased the path raced left and right upon reaching the center of the labyrinth. The gravel disappeared here and the floor became a delicate mosaic, the pieces shining like gemstones in blue, green, white, and every shade in between. The design was—
Lily frowned and began to circle the mosaic, almost afraid to step on it. There was something in there, some image that she couldn’t quite grasp floating at the edge of her consciousness. As she walked, the design became a flurry of snow, then a shard of ice, then a gale of wind. Her head began to pound, and the butterflies fluttered under her nose.
Reaching out, she allowed her fingers to trail through their pattern . . . and she gasped.
A drop of blood bloomed on the back of her hand.
“Beauty always hides danger,” said an echoing voice.
Lily twirled toward the sound and froze.
The Unseelie Queen stood at the edge of the mosaic, tall and imposing, the faint illumination of the garden making her shine like diamond, mother-of-pearl, and all the things pure and infinitely beautiful.
Infinitely dangerous.
“Your Majesty,” Lily said, attempting a curtsy and hoping it would turn out a bit more graceful than her last one.
The Queen acknowledged her greeting with a nod. “The last mortal who set foot in my gardens has been lost to time and history, even his memory overrun by the ravages of time.”
“I’m—” No apologizing. Not even to royalty. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
She laughed, and it was a strange and magical sound, timeless and old at the same time. “You would not have found the gardens if you had not been meant to do so. Now come, Herald, walk with Us. We are . . . curious.”
Lily swallowed. The Queen passed by her side, the flowing trail of her gown cascading over the mosaic, and Lily forced herself to follow her without displaying her fear. The situation must have amused the Queen because her ethereal features showed a hint of a smile as she guided them down a different path, back into the labyrinth.
The moment they stepped outside the maze’s heart, a shallow light flickered on and Lily saw the butterflies again. They had woven themselves into the Queen’s hair and over her gown, so still that they seemed nothing more than jewelry.
Their wings were metallic and the blue-fire sheen caught the razor-sharp edg
es.
“You come to Us bearing a purpose.”
It was not a question, so Lily didn’t answer. As Troy had said, she had learned the value of silence, and the faeries didn’t seem to take offense. The Queen nodded.
“You are but a mortal child,” she said. “Yet, you pledge your mouth and eyes to a cause you know nothing about. When the moment comes for you to speak on behalf of the Wild Hunt, what will you claim?”
“I don’t think I’ll have much of a say,” Lily replied, thinking over her words and hoping not to make a mistake. “I was just meant to bring the Horn here.”
“Perhaps such was your intent. However, We understand you have claimed the name of Herald as your own.”
“I needed a name, and Doctor was already taken.” Lily doesn’t want to ask, but she does anyway. “What’s it got to do with my purpose?”
Again, the Queen laughed. “But what is a name, Herald, if not your purpose? For what defines a being if not their goals?”
“I chose Herald because it was an okay name. It seemed to fit while I had the Horn,” she tried again. “I’m here. I’ve delivered it. That’s all.”
“Such might have been you intent at the start. However, a Herald must speak for their liege, and a name cannot be easily shed.”
“I have no liege. I’d know—there are vows involved, and I haven’t sworn anything.”
“Fight it as you will, if you must.” The Queen stopped and turned to Lily, her perfect lips tilted in a smile. “You are entwined to the Wild Hunt now, and it is Our will that you appear before Us in the morrow, as We discuss in council the many happenings in the mortal realm.” The metallic butterflies took to flying once again, and the Queen reached out a hand amid the fluttering of wings to grasp Lily’s chin. “We see the roots of Winter in your heart, Herald, and We approve of your presence in Our Court. What comes next should prove . . . intriguing.”
Ice traveled down Lily’s spine. Whatever intrigues a faerie, it can’t be good.
“How can a mortal be part of Winter?” she asked instead. Focus on one terrible revelation at a time or be overwhelmed.
