Etiquette of Exiles (Senyaza Series Book 4)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  We were far beyond Jen’s land when Gold Horse finally stopped. His sides heaved and we were both sweating in the night air. He stretched his noise to the wind, flicking his ears back at me. They never had this.

  “They?” I asked, confused. I was still thinking of Yejun and the ghosts and Brynn’s weird concern for them.

  Our previous masters. They never ran on the earth of Creation, felt the mortal wind, or tasted true rain. They flew on wings of power and hunted in dreams and devoured souls without ever really experiencing the world they were first bound to protect.

  “Oh.” I slid off the stallion’s back and moved so we could see eye to eye. “Why do you keep getting between Yejun and me?”

  Gold Horse had topaz eyes: almost the same color as my father’s, but so different in shape and wisdom. For a moment I wasn’t sure he was going to answer, but then he heaved a dramatic sigh. You are part of the same chain, the two of you. If you make a loop, the chain will eventually knot and warp and you too will lose the feel of the wind through your mane.

  “Uh. You think if Yejun and I see a movie together, we’re going to end up just like the previous Wild Hunt?”

  Gold Horse’s skin rippled in an eloquent shrug.

  “What about Cat and Jen?” I demanded.

  Earth Horse and Sunset have their own burdens, although there are differences…. Golden Horse’s mental voice was delicate.

  “This is really stupid,” I complained hotly. It wasn’t like the horses could stop us from… forming a loop. Not really. Could they?

  “I’ll be careful.” Then I blushed, because that sounded like I was talking about something I knew I wasn’t ready for. “I just want—”

  You want what mortals have, said the horse gently. Find it with mortals. Stay connected to the world, and keep our bonds pure.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said slowly.

  When we went home, I passed Yejun walking along the side of the road by himself. He had a hunted expression that made me think he’d been having a similar conversation with Black Horse, and when he saw me, he waved before looking down.

  I took the hint and didn’t stop to talk. I wasn’t sure Gold Horse would have let me anyhow.

  That night, I slept like a log. A log filled with wormy nightmares and burrowing bad thoughts with chitinous wings of horror that flickered in the spaces between deeper darkness. I woke surrounded by my dogs, my face pressed against Grim’s chest, Heart on my legs and Nod at my back. I ached like I had after one of my father’s gentler training sessions.

  Gold Horse was probably right, I realized. If all I wanted was a movie and to get to know Yejun better, there was no reason to put the trappings of romance onto that. And workplace romances were the sort of thing you were supposed to avoid, right? Yejun was a coworker, in a way. I had to keep that in mind.

  But I spent a while thinking about him anyhow because it was a lot better than thinking about what else had happened the night before. It was the ghost lovers that had consumed my dreams, mingling with my vague feelings for Yejun and drifting into other, uglier things.

  My father had wanted me to mate with somebody, had hoped that my children, taken from me at birth, would be easier to mold than I’d ended up. I’d been afraid of any relationship: a kind boy would have been destroyed, one way or another, and one of my father’s servants would have been… worse. Yejun was just as safe from my father as I was now, which was one reason he was so attractive to me.

  But if it did go bad between us—what would happen? Would we twist the whole Wild Hunt around us? The horses’ concerns weren’t stupid. Even mortal love, without law-breaking power behind it, could warp the world. It made sense to be careful.

  When I finally rolled to my feet to get dressed, I felt like I’d made a decision. I couldn’t really bring myself to think about a mortal boy, but Yejun and I could, at the very least, wait a while. I just hoped he’d understand.

  I worried about that as I ate my bacon and eggs. Jen sat across me, eating a bagel and some melon, and staring into the depths of her coffee. She was just as shocked as I was when Brynn walked out of Jen’s office, looking rumpled and determined.

  “Hey!” said Brynn. “It turns out I can summon myself to the Horn. Can you get the others here, please? We have to talk.” She thought. “I’ll go get Amber.”

  “No need,” said Amber creakily from the staircase. “I got back the hard way at midnight. You show me what you did, right now. I really hate that drive.”

  Jen put her phone to her ear and said, “Brynn is here. Yes. Why don’t you come over with Yejun?” Then she put her phone on the table, folded her hands in her lap and stared fixedly at Brynn.

  The burning determination in Brynn’s eyes didn’t flicker as she stared back at Jen, and I started to get a bad feeling that slowly grew to overshadow my worry about talking to Yejun. When he and Cat arrived, I barely glanced at him.

  “AT, where’s your mom?” asked Brynn, once the guys had settled themselves around the kitchen.

  My hand was already closed over my mother’s pendant. I tightened it protectively. Then slowly, I took it off and held it out to her.

  Brynn took it gently, cupping it in the palm of her hand. “Denise,” she said, and her voice had a sweetly commanding echo I’d never heard before.

  My mother’s ghost shimmered into existence around the pendant. She looked to me first, the usual anxiety on her face. Then she looked around, saw the others I’d introduced her to so many times before, and her anxiety faded. Finally, she looked at the girl who had summoned her and said, “Hello, Brynn. Thank you for being my daughter’s friend.”

  “Thank you for having such a brave, wonderful daughter,” she said gravely.

  My mother smiled. I scrubbed at my eyes and wondered what Brynn was doing.

  “What can I do for you, Brynn?”

  “You’ve already done it, Denise. Thank you.” Brynn held the locket out to me and I snatched it back, bringing my mother back to me. She looked a little puzzled, but brushed her hand through my hair comfortingly as she faded away.

  “She remembered me,” said Brynn. “She didn’t any of the other times. They aren’t stuck eternally.”

  Oh. This was about last night’s Hunt again. “Sometimes they are. I’ve been talking to ghosts a lot longer than you have, Brynn.”

  “How many corrupted ones have you met and talked to before destroying them forever?” she shot back.

  I pressed my lips together and looked away.

  “Maybe they couldn’t have been redeemed,” said Brynn, her voice softer. “My point is that we didn’t even try. We didn’t talk, we didn’t investigate. We swept in like… like they were prey, and we ended them.”

  Nobody else said anything. I had to really listen to hear the others even breathing; it might have just been Brynn and I in the kitchen.

  “Fine. Maybe you’re right,” I snapped, then winced at my own tone of voice. “But it’s done. We destroyed them like monsters and, you know, I am—”

  “Stop that,” said Cat, his voice an unexpected rumble.

  “Stop it, yeah,” said Amber, almost at the same time. “Don’t say that about yourself.”

  “I just don’t know what the point of talking about it now is,” I said, pacing in a frantic little circle. “This is it, this is our life, we accepted this; I don’t know what she wants us to do.”

  “I want us to do it differently next time,” Brynn said. “That’s all. We’re not predators. We’re… executioners, but there should be, like, a trial and an investigation and stuff first. Or something. I’m not going to trust some hunk of metal left behind by a crazy violinist to tell us if a soul is irredeemable. If it’s supposed to be like that, why should there be people involved at all? It’s important that we’re mortal, I know it is.”

  “That makes sense,” admitted Yejun. I glanced at him and he gave me a familiar half-smile.

  I remembered what Gold Horse had said about mortality. I was only half
-mortal myself, stuck between two worlds. Balanced? It didn’t really feel like it. I looked at everybody else bound to the Wild Hunt. They all had their own seesaws they tried to manage. Brynn had been the most human of all of us before our binding, and it was she who carried the horses.

  Investigating future ghosts would mean I’d screwed up last night: screwed up and destroyed souls, because I wanted the inconvenience of their curse to stop messing up my attempt at a normal life. My stomach twisted in a knot that exploded out of me in a sob, and I turned away, hanging onto the counter like I’d fall without it.

  Yejun was beside me in a flash, his hand on my shoulder. I shrugged him away and hunched over. A moment later, Jen’s hand touched my arm instead. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. It wasn’t an apology to her.

  She understood. “We’ll investigate in the future,” she said. It was both a decision, and an attempt at comfort.

  I nodded. It didn’t really help the twisting of grief and self-hatred, but it was the only thing that might. Eventually.

  Brynn came up on my other side. “We’ll do better. It’ll be okay. We’re still learning, right?” She seemed so young to me suddenly. She was so far from the world I’d lived in my whole life, and she could worry about it with an outsider’s eyes without being hurt by what she’d done. Innocence.

  I reached over and hugged her, then hugged Jen, too. Then I turned around to where Yejun leaned against the table, watching me.

  I took a deep breath. “Okay. Brynn is right. Next time we get called, we do everything we can to sort it out without destroying the ghost first. I’m on board.”

  “All right,” said Yejun.

  “Fine with me,” said Amber, and Cat nodded.

  And that was that. We were the Wild Hunt, we were executioners, but we would investigate first. There’d be something like a trial. I had no idea how that would work, but we’d figure it out. And that did help, a little. I wasn’t a ghost. Change was a lot easier for me, for us. Time to take advantage of that.

  My phone buzzed, interrupting my thoughts. Mundane reminders. I glanced at the clock. The calls of a mortal life. Balance.

  “I’m going to be late for school. Uh, Yejun? Walk me to the bus stop?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  A few minutes later I’d washed my face and grabbed my book bag, and we were on the roadside.

  “So,” I said. “Those horses.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I never wanted to rush you, anyhow.”

  “I’d still like to see the movie. As friends, yeah?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Shall I invite Amber? Or Brynn? Ooh, or both. That’d build up my reputation in this little town real fast.” He smiled at me.

  I smiled back, relief and pleasure washing through me. He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t even hurt. But he still seemed to care. We could be friends, nothing just about it. It was wonderful.

  “How about Cat?” I suggested, and we argued about it all the way to the bus stop.

  When Yeracha Trembles

  William dropped down on the rise to where one of his brothers lay on his belly in the lush, green grass, looking through some binoculars at the field of fading flowers below. “How is it, Harold?”

  Harold looked through the glasses for a moment longer before pulling them away and rolling down the hill just enough to sit up. “Not good, boss.” The other changeling twisted his spine, stretching the kinks out, because even immortal bodies could cramp when they held one position too long. “Take a look for yourself.”

  William did so. A hazy figure moved in the field of flowers, outside a small cottage made of crumbling brick, or a giant tree stump, or maybe a weathered giant’s skull. The figure was as hard to make out as the cottage: a small, dragonfly-winged girl, a silver-skinned creature of gears and steam, a column of white flame. But the location was what mattered. William was in the right place, so he knew he was looking at Yeracha the Sprite.

  The sprite was hanging laundry out to dry and it wasn’t going well. Clothespins snapped at her fingers. The wind gusted, tangling the laundry around her head. A bird flew through a carefully hung sheet and dragged it off. William could tell from the sprite’s jerky motions that she was getting more and more angry. She said something with the tonal quality of a curse and stomped a delicate, bare foot. The entire field of flowers shivered.

  William put the glasses down and rubbed his eyes. Staring at the sprite was painful; Harold had been specially modified to endure it. “How long has this been going on?”

  “She was picking berries earlier,” Harold said glumly. The sound of spritely cursing rose again from below. “She kept getting pricked by thorns, and half her berries were rotten. She almost started crying once. I wanted to go down and comfort her.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Harold.” William took a closer look at his subordinate, noting his reddened eyes and ears. “Should I swap you out? You deserve a vacation.”

  “I’ll be getting one soon enough. I’m not going to stick around once Miss Yeracha loses her temper, believe that.”

  “All right. You’d know best when that’s going to happen. I’m going to report in. Stay in touch and run before she trembles.” William rose to his feet and went back down the slope, walking until he was beyond the range of the cursing.

  Then he closed his eyes and opened himself to his master, calling for him silently.

  Instantly, Tarn, Duke of Underlight, was in his head. What have you learned, my William?

  It is as you suspected, my Lord. The sprite is getting cranky, and the mortal world will notice.

  For a moment there was silence. Then William felt the soft brush of Tarn’s sigh. I wish we could soothe her, stop this from happening.

  William scowled, glancing over his shoulder at Harold’s silhouette. Underlight will be much stronger after Yeracha has her tantrum. And she is too powerful to approach, even via Harold. You must stop making him soft, my Lord. It will only hurt us all.

  Tarn’s laugh tickled William’s spine. My stern William. Very well. You must go to the mortal land where Yeracha’s stomping will be heard the loudest, and warn their ruler when and where.

  William didn’t say anything in response, and Tarn’s voice became coaxing. It would benefit us all if they learned we aren’t always an enemy. You can see that.

  Yes, said William slowly. But that foolishness at the Thanksgiving holiday, between Honeychord and Winterwhen. Their stupid game. The mortals do not allow any of us near their white palace now. How should I deliver this message? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply announce the information publicly?

  Easier but not better. Trust me as I trust you, my William, and find a way to whisper the message in his ear.

  William blew out his breath and bowed. Yes, my lord. May I return home first?

  With a fond mental flick against William’s hair, Tarn said, Time is short. Come home after, to a well-deserved reward. Then his presence vanished.

  William pulled his mouth to one side, annoyed. The ground vibrated behind him, and Harold called, “Better get moving, boss. I’d guess less than a day left.”

  “It will be sufficient.” William strode down the hillside to the road, bending the landscape around him as he did. As it was, the road would take him back to the ruins of Underlight, but his destination was a different part of the mortal world, and he didn’t have time to enjoy the sights. So he’d have to push the flexible fabric of the Faerie worldscape so that he rejoined the road at a more useful place.

  Bending the landscape was dangerous, but he had strong motivation. That would help. The predators of the uncharted lands were drawn to distracted dreamers and casual explorers, leaving the secrets of the Faerie land to the obsessed and the soldiers. Even so, there were dangers still.

  The ground and the sky, the night and the road: all were more than just elements of the landscape. They were specialized creatures in their own right, nailed to the Backworld to create the foundations of Faerie. And, like any creature of Faerie, th
ey were prone to making mischief when they had an excuse.

  The terrain changed under him, the hills becoming gentler and the grass changing. The distant road became a shimmering haze of faraway water. After a moment of walking, William heard the sound of the village where he’d been a child, hundreds of years ago and a world away. He didn’t go to see, even when he heard his father’s raised voice, calling for him as he’d crept among the sheep. He’d given all that up willingly when Tarn asked; he’d outlasted all his people by half a millennium, and he did not regret it.

  The sound of the village faded, but the hills stayed the same. The road stayed no more than a faraway glint between slopes. William concentrated, placing his feet deliberately as he walked, hunching his shoulders as if he walked into a cold wind. After a moment, groaning came from beyond the hill.

  His regular pace skipped and faltered. It was the sound of dying men and he wondered—

  Yes. He heard the silver bells and the distant murmur of Tarn’s voice. It was an inspired lure: all he had to do was go over the hill and he could watch Tarn save him and his men by transforming them into his servants. He’d like to see the procedure from the outside. He remembered the odd tenderness on his lord’s face as he cradled William in his arms. It was a peculiar intensity that the Duke rarely displayed: when he and a mortal mingled their essences in an intimacy that mere sexual relations could never match. That expression had earned Tarn William’s limitless loyalty.

  Oh yes, he was tempted to go and see it again.

  But if William did that, he’d be giving control over to the land and its tricksy dreams. It might take him days, or the aid of his master, to find his way free. Either way, Tarn would be disappointed and that possibility was the antidote to any temptation.

  He picked up his pace again, pressing his mind against the land. Finally it sighed, the grass flickering across a green rainbow, and the road appeared between two hills. As soon as William stepped on the road, he relaxed his focus. The rules that regulated the road were far more restrictive, but as long as he followed them it would take him where he needed to go.