Veil of Shadows

by Lindsay

  That was too close to the subject they had not spoken of since Cerridwen had woken the first time, and she took a shaking breath.

  “I"m sorry. I don"t know why I said that.” Trasa stood and went to the bed, straightened the covers needlessly.

  Cerridwen was grateful for the space between them. She was not used to being so close to Humans, with their uncanny ability to say the wrong things, and the too-right things, and their strange concept of forgiveness. She leaned her chin on her hands and gazed into the flames.

  Trasa suddenly darted to the window.

  “What is it?” Cerridwen stood, pressed her hands together in front of her mouth. She hoped it was the bull, back again, feared it might be the Humans again.

  “Someone is coming,” Trasa said, waving an urgent hand at her. “Cover your wings, quickly!

  And your—” She gestured frantically at her forehead.

  Cerridwen pulled down her hair to cover her antennae, and folded her wings tight to her back, flipping the back of her robes down.

  Whoever had approached rapped urgently on the door. It did not seem likely that the Humans, with their brute weapons, would not have simply used force to enter.

  “It is Amergin, son of Míl! I must see the Queene.”

  Cerridwen"s spine straightened from the mere mention of her title, though she knew she must look ridiculous and very un-Queene-like in her plain robes and bandages, with her hair matted into ropes around her head.

  Trasa hurried to open the door, unhooking the small iron latch that would never keep anyone truly determined out. The strange mystic who had helped her out of the tunnel when she first arrived those endless days ago entered, fairly trembling in his urgency.

  “It is a cold night,” he said, by way of greeting, before making a quick bow. “Your Majesty.”

  Cerridwen nodded to him. He had found her, and brought her here. She thought she should thank him, then wondered if Queenes thanked anyone. Trying to remember if she had ever heard her mother thank anyone, she missed what the Human had said.

  Trasa had not, and she insinuated herself angrily between Cerridwen and the Druid. “She is not yet recovered. And why should she care for his troubles? You saw yourself what he did to her!”

  “What did he say?” Cerridwen shook her head. “Amergin, what did you say?”

  “Cedric needs our help.” He pushed past Trasa and dropped to one knee before Cerridwen.

  Like a knight in a storybook, she thought, and she almost snickered at how ridiculous that imagery was, considering her own state and the strange clothes he wore.

  What he said next, though, killed all the humor in her. “Danae put him under a spell. That is why he did what he did to you.”

  The tears were so sudden that she could not guard against them. They rolled down her face in twin rivulets, and she thought it undignified to brush them away. “I do not understand.”

  “What spell?” Trasa demanded. “What magic could Danae have that would be so great as to make a Faery kill his mate?”

  “Corpse Water,” Amergin answered without hesitation. “She poisoned him with Corpse Water, and sent him to do her bidding.”

  “She did it at the feast,” Cerridwen realized, a stone of unease settling in her gut. “What is Corpse Water?”

  “Water used to wash the dead,” Trasa supplied slowly. “It is very powerful.”

  “Plainly, it made Cedric her puppet. Whatever she told him to do, he was forced into.”

  Amergin paused. “He did not want to harm you. He is in agony. He believes that you are dead.”

  “You have seen him?” Cerridwen"s heart pounded, but she could not let herself believe, not yet. “And you did not tell him I survived?”

  Amergin"s compassionate gaze lowered. “I feared he would reveal it to Danae, through no fault of his own. I feared the Empaths might recognize new, hopeful emotions in him.” He looked up again. “He loves you. So much more than I would have expected a Faery capable of.”

  Cedric had not wanted to hurt her. Memories fell into place as though they had been held back before, simply because she had not been able to make sense of them. He had tried to give her time to protect herself. He had tried to let her get away, since he was incapable of stopping himself. He had done what he could.

  “Your Majesty?” Amergin"s gentle voice brought her out of the horrors of the past. “We must act quickly. Danae had a spy in your camp, a servant girl. She was under the effects of Corpse Water, as well, and she will undoubtedly reveal to Danae that I am aware of her plot.”

  “But she does not know that I live.” Cerridwen dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “I am in no danger.”

  “Cedric will be,” Amergin said softly.

  Something fierce clenched in her heart. She tried to imagine being forced to harm him, wanting to warn him, and being completely powerless. The result was that she wished, more than anything, to put Danae through that pain. Vengeance was not an elegant concept, but she did not care for elegance now. What enveloped her was primal fury, a wish for an appropriate, unending torment for Danae to endure.

  “I have to go to him, then.” There was a calm about her that she did not feel, and that struck her as unnatural.

  Amergin and Trasa exchanged glances, and Cerridwen braced herself for what would come next. They would speak to her slowly, as though she were a child, and look at each other, worried, when she argued with them. She had played this game far too many times to have patience with it.

  “I beg Your Majesty"s pardon, but…we have no proof to offer the Court that she has done anything to force Cedric"s hand.” Amergin gave her a long, sympathetic look, giving her time to work out the problem on her own.

  Gods, was there some instruction that she had missed growing up in which she would have learned to treat younger beings as though they were simpletons? “Is my word not good enough? If I say I trust Cedric, will not the rest of them?”

  Trasa shook her head. “I am sorry, but the mood in the village is not sympathetic toward Cedric. You might return and claim the throne, but they have seen Danae publicly mourn you, and Cedric imprisoned for your murder. You will have a difficult time convincing them of Danae"s guilt after the grand spectacle she has put on in your absence.”

  “Is there nothing you can do?” Cerridwen asked Amergin. “You are ancient. The Humans worshipped you as a God, though you are not one.”

  “That is true, although Your Majesty embarrasses me by mentioning it.” But he did not look embarrassed. He appeared pleased that she would speak of him so. “I have lost much of that esteem. Danae has painted me as an ineffectual jester in her Court.”

  “That will end when I hold the throne.” Cerridwen chewed on her thumbnail, eyes staring at, but not seeing, the floor in front of her. “There must be some way we can trick her into revealing what she has done, then.” Her gaze shot up, found Trasa"s. “You could! If we had some more Corpse Water, you could poison her! Then, we could make her admit everything.”

  “It"s not a bad idea,” Amergin said slowly. “You do have access to Danae—”

  “I cannot do something so low and cowardly.” Trasa"s face contorted in shock and outrage.

  “It would be a slight against Our Lady to use trickery, rather than strength.”

  “Strength will not work in this case,” Amergin argued. “There must be some exceptions to your Goddess"s commandments, else she is no better than the One God.”

  “She is nothing at all like the One God!” Trasa snapped. “Beloved Morrigan wishes for us to call upon courage at such a time, not fall to the same level of deception to which Danae has stooped.”

  “But if you were caught,” Cerridwen began slowly, praying silently that she would choose the right words, “you would be punished. Severely. Put to death, if I am not overestimating Danae"s temper. Would the Morrigan believe that such an action was cowardly, if you undertook it knowing the full consequences?”

  Trasa considered for a long moment. “I fe
el you are manipulating me to your own ends. I don"t like it.”

  “You don"t have to like it,” Amergin said cheerfully. “But you have to admit, she has a very good point.”

  Cerridwen chose to focus on swaying Trasa, rather than reprimanding Amergin. “Please. If you do this for no other reason, do it because I am in need, and no one else can help me. I know that you have already done much to help me, at great danger to yourself. My respect for you will not fade if you do not undertake this task. But you are, truly, the only person in this room who stands a chance of saving Cedric and restoring the rightful Queene to the throne.”

  Trasa squeezed her lids shut tight, deepening the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her shorn head sagged on her neck, and she sighed. “Let me pray on this, and seek the guidance of the Morrigan.”

  “We haven"t much time,” Amergin protested, but Cerridwen warned him into silence with a glare.

  “Do what you need, in order to decide with your conscience"s guidance.” Though she was as impatient as Amergin to know the answer, Cerridwen recognized the danger in pushing.

  Trasa looked up then, tears shining in her wise eyes. “I will go walk, and think on this. Please know that I do not take this decision lightly.”

  “I know,” Cerridwen assured her, and watched with a heavy heart as she left.

  “You could have ordered her to do your bidding, Your Majesty,” Amergin said, softly breaking the silence that followed Trasa"s departure.

  With a weariness that plagued her bones, Cerridwen shook her head. “No. No, I could not have.”

  For the first time, no mist shrouded the clearing in Cerridwen"s dream. Between the tall crowns of the trees, the stars shone down from the blue-velvet sky; they showered over her like crystal raindrops. She captured one, and it glittered in her palm in the shape of the three-pointed symbol she had seen in her dreams before.

  Out of the darkness lumbered the same blinding-white bull that had met her in the cottage yard, but this time, on its back perched the Warrior Goddess. Her three faces gazed serenely as she rocked and swayed with the bull"s movements.

  “I know this animal,” Cerridwen said, her voice unintentionally loud in the quiet of the forest.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Have you heard tales of the Connacht Queene, who started a war by coveting such an animal?” The Morrigan hopped down from the bull"s back and caught it by the ring at its nose to lead it.

  The tapestry from the Great Hall flashed through Cerridwen"s mind. “That was a red bull.

  This one is white.”

  The Goddess"s triplicate mouths bent in wry smiles. “The symbol remains the same. This animal is strength, and power. His white hide is for purity. He was fashioned to send a message to your enemies—you are stronger than them, and more worthy. This will not be lost on the Faery Court you seek to claim.”

  “I could do without the Faery Court,” she said with a sigh. “I want my mate, and to see justice done for him, and that is all.”

  The Morrigan cocked her head. “You wish for revenge. We do not approve.”

  “Then you will not let your follower do what I have asked of her?” Cerridwen felt her disappointment rise as a phantom promising harsher despair when she awoke.

  “My expectations of her are different. She will do this thing that you ask. But you must not act toward Danae as you have acted toward your enemies in the past. You have ended their lives without honor.”

  “What should I do, then?” Cerridwen knew, in a sort of far-off way, that she should not speak to a Goddess so plainly. “Am I to fight her? I will lose. I have never fought anyone before, and she is a warrior.”

  “A true warrior knows when it is best to fight, and when it is best to give order to a situation and leave the fighting to others.” The Morrigan took Cerridwen"s hand in her own and pressed her palm around the golden ring in the bull"s snout. “Take him. He is a gift.”

  Cerridwen stared down at her fingers wrapping the gold, looked up into the bull"s red eyes, which seemed more intelligent in her dream than they had during her waking hours. “What am I supposed to do with—”

  She jolted awake to rough hands shaking her. Trasa gripped her shoulders, pulled her to sit up.

  “I thought the Morrigan said it was all right to help me,” Cerridwen managed through the fog of new wakefulness. The light in the cottage was too bright for early morning. Trasa should have left hours ago.

  “I did help you,” Trasa said quickly, grabbing a pair of boots from beside the bed and stooping to force Cerridwen"s feet into them. “I went into the Palace this morning, early, and found Danae"s Corpse Water. I put it in her breakfast. But we must act quickly. I could not afford to arouse her suspicion by commanding her, already, before we were placed to act.”

  “Why?” She rubbed her eyes, thinking vaguely that she should be more excited at this development, that she should spring into action. Her exhausted limbs would not oblige her.

  “Does it wear off?”

  “Because she is going to have Cedric put to death tonight!” Trasa"s knuckles were turning white where she clenched her fists around the laces of the boots.

  Cerridwen"s heart stopped, then started again with a fearful lurch. Cedric, put to death? As a possibility it was one thing, to know a date was set and her mate"s life was now an hourglass draining away was quite another. Death—she could not let that happen to him. Nor could she let herself dissolve into hysterics, as she so desperately longed to do. “Find Amergin, tell him what has happened. I will dress and we will leave immediately.” Noting the Human"s flushed cheeks and the grim set of her mouth, Cerridwen asked, “We can reach him in time, can we not?”

  “We might,” Trasa said, a note of hysterical uncertainty. “Your Majesty should fly.”

  Cerridwen tested her injured wings, tried in vain to open them. “No. That will not be possible.” She swallowed down a panicked sob. “Go. Find Amergin. We will do what we can.”

  Only when the holy woman had gone did Cerridwen allow herself a moment of fear. Then, the moment passed, hardening into a promise that beat in her chest.

  She must save Cedric. Against all odds, she must save him.

  Sixteen

  S he dressed herself in the white gown that Danae herself had given her, the one that Cedric had torn apart in his passion and stained with her blood under the witch"s spell. She did not leave it in tatters as it was, though. She ripped the bodice free from the skirt, used the sleeves to knot it about her neck and tied the gaping front closed. She wrapped the ruined skirt around her waist and knotted it, approving of the mud that stained it, and the browning slashes of her blood that remained there.

  It was somehow a more fitting ensemble for her purpose, as it displayed Danae"s cruelty with every crease and tear like a badge. She wore the pendant of the Morrigan"s symbol like a shield.

  She pushed the door open just as Amergin and Trasa returned, their expressions grim with determination. They stopped and gaped at the sight of her.

  “Your Majesty might also remove the bandages,” Amergin offered as he came closer. “It will show them, undeniably, the hardship that you have endured.”

  She nodded and unwound the gauze from her arms. The scabs beneath crackled on her withered, damp skin. “Let us go, then, before it is too late.”

  They let her lead them, marching down the hill toward the gap in the wall. They had nearly made it when a noise behind them, the droning bellow of an animal, stopped them.

  “By the Gods,” Amergin said with a laugh. “Look at that!”

  The white bull loped down the hill, as though it would bowl them over. It came to a halt before them, lowing impatiently.

  “I saw this creature in my dreams,” Trasa said, eyes aglow with wonder.

  “As did I.” Cerridwen approached it confidently and gripped the ring in its snout. It followed her as she turned back toward the forest. “I saw it yesterday, as well, though no one believed me.”

  She cl
ucked to the animal as she lead it over the gap in the fence, and looked back, with no small amount of satisfaction, at her two companions, who stared, openmouthed, after her.

  Regarding the last war between the Humans and the Fae, Mabb had often remarked at how bloodthirsty the enemy mortals were, how very primitive and foul their desire for destruction was.

  As Cedric listened to the cheering of the Faeries gathered outside the Palace, the ones calling for his blood and eagerly anticipating the sight of it being spilled, he regretted not arguing with her then. The Fae, Humans, all living beings, contained a seed of cruel destruction within them.

  The night had fallen, and the old crow had not brought him water or food. He would go to his death on an empty stomach, which seemed fitting, going from one emptiness to another.

  Danae had not come to him to gloat, either. He assumed she saved that for the moment he laid his head on the block. It would add the dramatic touch she craved.

  The flap in the fabric wall moved back, and a guard entered. One of their former Underworld guards, he realized with a shock, dressed in the rough uniform of Danae"s soldiers. “It is time, Cedric.”

  “I never thought to see you change your allegiance so quickly.” He did not condemn him for it. How could he, now?

  The guard shrugged. “I never thought to see you executed for treason against our Queene.

  But here we stand.”

  “Here we stand,” Cedric echoed, struggling to his feet, hands still bound behind him.

  The guard came forward and cut the ropes, helped Cedric get his footing.

  “This is embarrassing,” he said, to himself, though the guard could undoubtedly hear. “I will not have the dignity of walking unassisted to my own death.”

  His feet came out from beneath him, pushed by the ankle of the guard who stood over him, fists clenched. He struggled to keep his hard expression, but it faltered, assailed by unmistakable sadness. “Why should you have dignity?” the guard asked through tightly clenched teeth. “Did she die with dignity, alone in the forest?”