The Tainted Web (The Godhunter, Book 7)

by Sumida, Amy

  “Sure,” he grinned at Kanaloa. “Beer, wine, soda, or water?”

  “Beer, bruddah,” Kanaloa grinned back and took a seat at the dining table.

  I shook my head, smiling. I guess they were good friends now that Kael was captured. Kael, who I avoided looking at, as I made my way past him and down the hall to my bedroom. Every time I saw his face, I saw my death, my drowning in that dark water. Kelpie hair flowing past me as I struggled to free myself from his horse's back and the hollow sound of watery oblivion in my ears. I swallowed past the fear and anger as I closed my door securely and turned on the a/c. I needed some cool air on my suddenly heated skin.

  I sat down in the opening at the foot of the wedding bed, the carved walls emitting a light sandalwood fragrance that instantly soothed me. I'd taken off my sandy boots at the door but I still had my socks on and I quickly took those off too, digging my toes into the plush Oriental carpet. I just needed a second to ground myself, take a few breaths. It felt like I'd been hunting, without pause, for weeks.

  When I felt steady enough, I got up and went to stand in front of my antique dressing table. It was made of warm mahogany with a light gold wood inlaid into patterns of flowers, and had a triple mirror, a central panel bordered by smaller panels angled in. I pulled a handful of eyebright out of a pouch before it and rubbed it over the mirror in the center.

  “High King Cian, of the House of Spirit,” I called out and the mirror misted over.

  “Queen Vervain,” Cian was speaking before the mist even cleared completely. “How are things in the Human Realm?”

  “Interesting,” I grimaced. “It turns out that it wasn't Kael we killed during the Hunt, but his sister. She broke him out of your prison and helped him escape to the Human Realm before killing the pixies to make us think Kael was still in Faerie.”

  “Mordag,” Cian frowned, his enraged expression at odds with the bright room behind him. “We should have kept an eye on her.”

  “Well, she's dead now,” I sighed, the memory of the Hunt was becoming easier to bear but it still creeped me out and I was still undecided on what I was going to do about Arach. Now that Kael's spell was broken, I could think clearer but as far as Arach was concerned, I was still confused.

  “Wait,” Cian's golden eyes went wide. “You said she helped Kael escape into the Human Realm. Do you need assistance to hunt for him? I can send knights immediately.”

  “No,” I smiled grimly, “we've caught him, thanks to the help of a new friend.”

  “Well done,” his face relaxed. “I knew Faerie made a good choice when she made you Queen.”

  “Faerie?” I frowned. “It was Arach who made me Queen.”

  “Was it?” He grinned mischievously.

  “This god who helped me,” I evaded that line of conversation. “His name is Kanaloa, he's a sea god and he would very much like to visit the Water Kingdom. I promised him that I'd try to get him entrance in return for his capturing Kael. Do you think King Guirmean would allow it?”

  “A sea god, you say?” King Cian perked up. “I think King Guirmean would be delighted to host him.”

  “Oh good,” I heaved a relieved sigh. “I was going to bring Kael into Faerie for justice, would it be alright to bring Kanaloa with me as well?”

  “Of course, Queen Vervain,” Cian smiled. “You know you may bring whomever you wish into Faerie. You're a Queen and have proven yourself to me. I know you wouldn't bring anyone here that would harm us.”

  “Well, not intentionally,” I frowned. “I just met this god today but I don't believe he'll bring harm to Faerie. Besides, I think Faerie can take care of herself.”

  “That she can,” the High King chuckled. “Bring your new friend to the Castle of Eight and I will look after him until King Guirmean can come to collect him. You can take Kael to King Arach and have another lovely Hunt.”

  “Yes,” I felt my smile crack a little. “A lovely Hunt. That'll be loads of fun.”

  “We'll look forward to your arrival,” his eyes twinkled. “I must say that I'm excited to meet a god of the sea. With the time difference, King Guirmean will probably be here waiting for you by the time you arrive.”

  “Good,” I nodded and smiled. “I'm not sure I can stay for the Hunt, or even see King Arach, though. I was intending on using the ring to travel back to the moment I left him. I don't know what kind of effect that will cause.”

  “It will confuse things a bit,” King Cian agreed, “but not horribly. Remember, the ring was made for faeries to view their past as well as the past of other times. You can be in the same time as another version of yourself, you'll just merge with her.”

  “Maybe it would be better if I just sent Kael and Kanaloa to you, and King Arach could come and get Kael.”

  “Is there a reason you don't want to see your husband, Queen Vervain?”

  “No, of course not. I'll mirror King Arach and tell him. I'm sure he'll agree with me,” I huffed out a laugh. “I'm probably already with him and I'm sure I'll agree with myself.”

  “Yes, well,” Cian looked away briefly, “you must do what you feel is best.”

  “Thank you, High King,” I smiled but internally, I wondered at that avoiding glance. “I'll see you soon.”

  “We look forward to seeing you again, Queen Vervain.” The mirror misted over and then returned to normal, showing a very concerned expression on my face. I wasn't sure if I was ready to face Arach just yet, even if it was just through a mirror.

  I reached for another handful of eyebright and rubbed the surface of the mirror again with a resigned sigh.

  “King Arach, of the House of Fire,” I called.

  The mirror misted once more and then slowly cleared to reveal Arach's grim face. I straightened in surprise, taking in his dull eyes, sunken cheeks, and disheveled hair. He had on a pair of loose black trousers and a black shirt, open down the front. I'd never seen him so bedraggled.

  “Vervain,” his voice was rough, as if he hadn't used it in awhile, or overused it.

  “Arach,” I frowned at the state of him. “Is everything okay?”

  “It's as always,” he looked me over and frowned, his eyes getting slightly sharper. “And with you? What has happened?”

  “We didn't kill Kael,” I paused to let that gem sink in. “It was his sister, Mordag, glamored to resemble him. She was the one who broke him free of prison and then she helped him enter the Human Realm.”

  “She what?” His face went slack, his eyes focusing even more sharply.

  “He's been giving me a lot of grief, which I won't go into now, but it culminated in him trying to kill me again. He actually succeeded in drowning me this time,” I shivered. “But as you know, I recover fast, and I came back.”

  “From death?” His face had gone pale. “You can come back from death?”

  “It wasn't really death for me,” I shrugged, trying to make myself feel as nonchalant as I was acting, “just a pause to recuperate.”

  “I'll leave immediately,” he growled as he started to throw off his shirt.

  “No, no,” I held up a hand. “We've apprehended him. I'm sending him to the Castle of Eight, along with a god who helped me catch him. Kanaloa will take him there and you can go and pick him up for another Hunt.” I swallowed hard under his piercing glare.

  “I can go pick him up?” He snarled. “You don't even wish to see me?”

  “I don't want to interfere with time,” I shook my head. “You already have me there, I don't want to jump into another version of me.”

  “I already-” his jaw dropped and he stared at me in shock before he recovered. “Vervain, you're not here. I haven't seen you for months.”

  “What?” I took an involuntary step back. “But I was going to return to the moment I left.”

  “That's what I believed as well,” his face grew concerned.

  “What would have prevented it?” I looked away from his beautiful face, his eyes were unsettling me.

  “I thought
you'd made your decision,” he said softly.

  “You thought I had abandoned you, you mean.”

  “Yes,” he lifted his chin. “I thought you'd chosen your gods over your fey.”

  “Arach,” I whispered, my chest tightening against the pain I saw in him, now that I knew what I was looking for. “No. I'd never just leave you without word. That's cowardly and cruel.”

  “So what then?” He took a deep breath and seemed to grow taller, color coming back to his skin rapidly. “What would keep you away from Faerie, away from me?”

  “Death,” I whispered in dawning horror. “Only my death would stop me from returning.”

  He paled again, his hands clenching at his sides before he seemed to pull himself together to respond. “Then you must double your vigilance in whatever you're trying to accomplish there, A Thaisce. I would tell you to return here and give up on this mission of yours but I know you will not do that, so please, be wary.”

  “I will,” I whispered again and then cleared my throat and raised my voice back to normal. “I will and I will see you soon if you wish to meet us at the Castle of Eight.”

  “I'll be there,” he raised a hand and touched the mirror like he was touching my face. “Vervain,” his voice broke and he swallowed hard.

  “I'm so sorry, Arach,” I touched his hand back. “I had no idea you were waiting for me.”

  “Don't apologize, just be careful. I... you know I'm not like your gods, I don't think like them or feel things like they do, but I do love you. I love you as fey love, I can't love in any other way.”

  “I know, and I wouldn't want you to love me any differently,” the trauma I'd held him responsible for, slipped away under his earnest gaze and I realized how stupid I was being about us.

  “I'm glad,” he interrupted my thoughts, “but I don't want you here if you can't accept our people, Vervain. It hurts to be apart from you, thinking I'd lost you has nearly broken me, but I made it through and I will again. My people must come first and I will not have a Queen that is repulsed by them. Not even if she is the last female dragon-sidhe in existence. Not even if I love her more than my existence.”

  My heart was firmly his then. Funny how sometimes you don't realize how much you love someone until they tell you they can live without you. I know, it doesn't make sense, but Arach's determination to do what was best for his people, our people, was more admirable to me than if he'd fought to have me beside him no matter how he believed I felt toward the fire fey. This was the man I had hoped was beneath the arrogance, the passionate man who ruled with his heart along with his fist. This was the man I loved.

  “It's been shocking,” I smiled gently at him, lowering my hand from the glass. “I admit that I've been confused over what to do about you and our fey.”

  “Our fey?” His gaze narrowed.

  “Arach, it took time for me to understand them but I finally did. I do. The Wild Hunt showed me things I wasn't ready for, things in both our fey and in myself. Things that my human family would find horrifying. To understand them, to accept those urges and needs, means that I must accept that my foundational beliefs, what I believe to be right and wrong, are no longer what they were. That I'm no longer who I was. I've gone through a lot of changes, becoming a lioness, a goddess, but this change goes deeper and is much harder for me to accept. This is a change of my very being, not of what I am but of who I am. Does this make any sense to you?”

  “Yes,” he smiled, his eyes going soft around the edges. “You make sense to me. I know what you've done, Vervain. I've held you in the night when your mind fights against those deeds because it believes they were wrong.”

  “They were wrong, Arach,” I sighed, thinking about the nights I'd awoken in his arms, shaking against the strength of his chest. “I killed gods in their sleep most of the time, beheading them without giving them a chance to defend themselves.”

  “Because you believed that you couldn't face them fairly.”

  “Is that really a good enough excuse for murdering someone in their bed?”

  “When that someone murders your people just as underhandedly?” Arach shrugged. “Then, yes.”

  “Ah, but there's the rub. I know now that not all gods are evil. Those gods I murdered may have been innocent.”

  “May have?” His brow lowered. “Have you no way of finding out the truth, now that you know the gods?”

  “I've never tried,” I looked away in embarrassment.

  “You don't want to know.”

  “I'm afraid to know for certain. To know that those acts weren't just wrong but evil.”

  “There are casualties in every war, Vervain,” his gaze was penetrating. “Whether those gods were innocent or not is irrelevant. You acted on behalf of your people against a perceived threat. You made choices with the information you had at the time. It's all any of us can do.”

  I thought through his perspective, weighed his words against my guilt, and found my guilt lacking for the first time. Maybe it was my fey nature surfacing, the change I was telling him I'm trying to accept. Maybe I just needed another person's opinion. Whatever it was, I felt the weight of guilt lift.

  “You have it in you to be a great Queen,” he continued. “Don't let human morality cloud your judgment.”

  “Human morality,” I sighed. “This is why I was so torn. Everyone wants me to be fully one thing or the other. You think I'm pure sidhe, that I should accept my nature and think like a faerie. Trevor and Kirill think I'm a goddess, that the magic I've taken and the immortality I've accepted has made me like them. Odin thinks I'm his wife, human even though my fey blood was suppressed, so human that I refused his offer of immortality once. The only one who hasn't made a judgment on what I am or should be, is Azrael. If I didn't love you all so damn much, I'd move to Heaven with him and tell the rest of you to go to Hell.”

  “So you do love me,” he smiled smugly.

  “Really?” I laughed at his ego. “That was the only thing you took from all of what I just said?”

  “I understand you feel-”

  “No,” I cut him off. “You don't understand what I feel. None of you do and that's the problem. You see, I can't think like any one of those things. I can't be just one of them, because I'm all of them and I'm all of them completely.”

  “You're right, I don't understand.”

  “Remember after the Hunt, you told me to connect with Faerie?” I waited for him to nod. “I did and Faerie showed me something that I haven't truly comprehended until now. My soul is sidhe, my body is goddess, and my blood is human, but my mind rules them all. That's why I've been so confused. You all expect me to think as if I'm only one of these things and that's impossible. To even try would be like lobotomizing myself.”

  “Lobotomizing?”

  “Cutting a piece of my brain and turning me into someone else.”

  “Who does that?” He asked in horrified shock.

  “Humans used to.”

  “And they call us monsters,” he shivered.

  “Yes, well, there's that,” I couldn't disagree with him.

  “So you're saying that I can't ask you to give up your human morality because to do so would change you into someone whose brain has been cut?”

  “Basically,” I gave a little huff of a laugh. “You spoke to me about acceptance but you weren't accepting me for who I truly am. The funny thing is, Faerie does. She loves who I am, a unique creature in her eyes, and she wants me to love who I am too.”

  “Faerie told you this?” He drew so close to the mirror, he was in danger of bumping his nose.

  “Yes. It frightened me a bit, the strength of the desire I felt from Faerie for me. I wondered what lengths she would go to, to have me there but now I realize, she wants me as I am, complete, and if she tried to take me away from the God Realm or the Human, I wouldn't be the same person anymore and I wouldn't be as attractive to Faerie.”

  “Vervain, why didn't you tell me about this?”

  “
I wasn't sure how I felt about it at first,” I shrugged.

  “But Faerie spoke to you!”

  “What's the big deal?” I frowned, this so wasn't how I expected this conversation to go. “You're the one who told me to talk to her.”

  “No,” he looked like he wasn't sure if he wanted to throttle me or kiss me. “I told you to feel the magic of Faerie, I didn't say anything about speaking to it... her. You say she spoke to you, with actual words?”

  “It was words, I guess,” I frowned, trying to remember. “It was like a combination of words and images that created feelings. She showed me how she had protected me. She kept the knowledge of my immortality away from Dubheasa and made sure there were other royalty present when I needed their help to pursue her. I just got the sense that Faerie liked me.”

  “Liked you?” Arach's mouth dropped open. “Vervain, Faerie hasn't spoken to anyone for millennia and when she did, it was only to High Kings or Queens. I, for instance, have never heard her voice. Yet you stand there and say you think she likes you?”

  “A millennium is a thousand years,” I whispered. “Millenia is multiple thousands.”

  “Yes, Vervain,” he shook his head and laughed. “Very good, did your human schools teach you that?”

  “But... that's...,” I waved my hand as if to brush it away. “I can't deal with this now, I've got to get Kael to Faerie and try to figure out a way to not die.”

  “Ok, A Thaisce,” his eyes went soft. “We'll talk more when you get here.”

  “Okay,” I swallowed hard, “and Arach?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “Vervain, every time I think that my world has gone insane, when it feels like I've lost control and it's all spinning about me wildly, you do something or say something that brings it all to a halt and I'm left standing here, staring at you, knowing that my world is not my own anymore and feeling absurdly happy about it.”

  “So that's what it meant,” I said softly.

  “What?”

  “When you said I stopped your world,” I had no idea the dragon could love so sweetly. “I've wondered about it.”