by Sarah Remy
She found solace now in his levity. Mayhap, she thought, the Mal she’d first met on the Downs was finally beginning to revive.
“What is this place?” she repeated, reclaiming her fingers. She held her torch up until flame threatened to brush the ceiling. “It’s cold.” Colder than the staircase. Close to the curve of the ceiling, droplets of condensation stretched long before contracting into spatters of rain. “Not a sidhe tunnel, though it has the look of one.”
“Nay,” Mal agreed, pacing behind. His mage-light bobbed merrily overhead. “This particular passage was dug out by mortal hands. Craftsman used it for the laying of the castle catacombs, passing blocks of gray stone man to man along the way. See—” He waved his torch to his right. Past the flame Avani caught the impression of a dark archway and another tunnel. “The dungeons are just that way, although no one ever uses that entrance anymore. It’s unpleasant and dangerous.”
Avani refrained from pointing out the catacombs themselves were the very definition of unpleasant and dangerous.
“The beekeeper approached me this morning while I walked in Kate’s garden,” Mal continued. His vocent’s cape whispered around his ankles. “With word of Faolan. She’s a canny one, with designs of her own, and offered me a tidy little bargain.”
“You’d do better on Whore’s Street for that,” muttered Avani. “If you must sample her wares, stick to the honey.”
Mal choked back a laugh. “Not that sort of transaction. Nay, she offered up Faolan’s prisoner in exchange for mine own. And I’ve accepted.”
The tunnel rose abruptly, making Avani’s legs ache with the effort it took to ascend the slope, then dead-ended at another door, this one tidily free of dust. Avani followed Mal over the threshold, wagging her head in resignation when she recognized the drafty hallway and the long line of identical wooden doors, many of them secured with locks both magical and solidly physical. After the blackness of the tunnel behind, the ensorcelled ceiling, higher and much brighter, dazzled Avani’s eyes.
Blinking moisture from her eyelashes, Avani snuffed her torch in a bucket of sand waiting against the wall for just that purpose.
“Ai, I should have guessed,” she said. “All roads lead eventually to your lair.”
“Not every road,” Mal replied. His torch hissed when it met sand. “Despite my efforts.”
Their footsteps rang on the stone floor. Avani tucked her hands in her armpits to keep from shivering. Mal cocked a brow in her direction but didn’t offer the warmth of his cape as once he might have. He’d learned she preferred not to be coddled, just as she’d come to understand that for all his outward austerity he was often gripped with inconvenient empathy.
“If I’d known you’d secreted Faolan in your laboratory,” Avani said dryly, glaring at frost-covered walls while Mal deftly separated two keys from the ring on his belt and used them one at a time to unlock the complicated latch guarding his cold-room, “I would have dressed for winter.”
“Do you always tolerate this one’s insolence?” Cleena asked, materializing next to the door where an instant before there had been only frost and stone. Avani’s teeth clicked together in surprise. “I’d drop her in a deep hole until she remembered respect, were she mine.”
Avani glowered. Cleena smiled, showing pointed fangs that had not before graced the beekeeper’s lush mouth.
She’s clever with a glamour, Avani realized, recollecting the subtle sidhe magic used to cloak barrow around Stonehill. Is anything about her truly as it appears?
Careful, Mal cautioned again, the barest of whispers in the back of her head. Then he opened the door, sweeping Cleena a mocking half bow as he ushered her through.
“They are here,” he said, “and safe, exactly as I promised.”
Chapter 3
Avani had expected Faolan. She hadn’t anticipated five feral barrowmen poised with knives and spears, nor the angry, kilted woman bound wrist and ankle and propped against the foot of Mal’s marble worktable.
The lesser sidhe hissed. The bound woman snarled past a length of dirty fabric tied several times around her mouth. Cleena laughed, delighted. Faolan exhaled painfully as he rose from where he’d been sitting cross-legged on the floor. Avani, seeing the savage red-and-purple mottling his face, winced in sympathy. She slung her pack to the floor, and dug through its contents. The barrowmen quivered and spat.
“Cease,” Faolan ordered. The barrowmen lowered their weapons. The five were different than any Avani had yet encountered beneath Stonehill or outside Wilhaiim, distinctive for their colorful, disparate garb and the ease with which they held their blades.
They regarded Mal and Avani with flat, black-eyed hatred but backed into the depths of the room when Faolan clicked his tongue.
“They are frightened,” the aes si explained. “Trapped here in this largest of flatland cities and in a necromancer’s den, of all places. They are very loyal, but this tests their allegiance to me in ways you cannot possibly fathom.”
“Wicked,” one of the lesser sidhe said in clear king’s lingua. Clawed fingers flexed at its side. “Wicked, wicked spellbinder.”
Mal stiffened. Faolan rubbed at the torque locked around his neck.
“Please excuse Halwn,” he said with weary courtesy. “It speaks out of turn.”
“Halwn speaks so out of anguish,” Cleena corrected, turning to Mal. “We had a bargain. Faolan’s desert prize in exchange for Tadhg. And here is the woman within your den, but where is Tadhg?”
“Patience,” counseled Mal, even as Avani asked, “Tadhg?”
“Halwn’s kin.” Faolan beckoned Avani closer. “The one kept in your dungeon on the king’s whim.”
“Holder’s barrrowman?” Avani narrowed her eyes. “What did you do to your face?”
“You’ll recall the sun dislikes my kind,” Faolan replied with dignity. “Nor was the wind off Skerrit’s Pass gentle.” He touched his cheek. “The bruising was misfortune. I remembered the ointment you carried always on the Downs for similar afflictions.”
“Rose and calendula.” Avani unscrewed the lid of the battered tin. “Calendula for healing, rose for soothing. Take off your headscarf.”
Faolan complied. Avani blanched. The chapping and patches of red that afflicted the aes si’s face continued along his scalp. He’d lost hair in places; the bald skin was blistered and weeping.
“Wind,” Faolan said, watching as Avani scooped a dollop of salve from her tin and warmed it between her hands. “Up in the mountains it sneaks beneath one’s clothes and leaches the moisture from one’s flesh.” He startled when Avani touched his face but sat still while she massaged the cream carefully across his brow.
“I’ll leave this with you,” Avani said, dipping her chin at the pot. “Calendula is not so difficult to come by here in the city as it was on the Downs. I can easily make more. Use it often and thoroughly.”
Faolan’s eyes drooped shut beneath her ministrations. If he were a cat, she thought, he would be purring. The lesser sidhe drifted close, watching with dubious fascination. They, too, had suffered beneath the sun’s kiss, faces burned to peeling, lips cracked. They were a motley bunch, shapeless beneath layers of badly stitched, variegated fabrics. They stank of wet earth.
“They won’t let you touch them,” Cleena warned from across the cold-room. “Nor accept your medicines. Halwn’s kin keep their own healing magics.”
“Black soil,” one of the lesser sidhe acknowledged. It was not Halwn who spoke, but a smaller, dirtier bundle of rag and fur holding a short, sharp blade. “And feathered mushroom.”
Avani finished her ministrations. She wiped her fingers clean on her salwar, sealed the tin, and passed it to Faolan. “I know the mushroom he means,” she said, surprised. “Kate kept bundles of plumed toadstool in stock, for strengthening the blood.”
“They are neither he nor she,” corrected Cleena. “And prefer to be called by name.”
“They speak the king’s lingua,” Avani said, turning
from Faolan to frown at Mal, “are capable of self-identification, and keep healing magics of their own. Did you know this?”
“I had begun to suspect.”
“And yet throughout the kingdom, they are regarded as little more than mute beasts,” accused Avani, “hunted and extinguished like mice amongst the grain.”
“They are dangerous,” Mal returned calmly. “Have you forgotten Stonehill so soon? They would do the same to us here, if they had the numbers and the strength.”
“You are the mice amongst the grain,” agreed Cleena. “But for the iron you wield, we would have our lands back.” The barrowmen shifted restlessly, muttering assent.
Avani was saved from answering by a brisk knock on the laboratory door. At Mal’s urging, Baldebert hastened through, Holder’s prisoner clutched tightly against his side. Baldebert was dressed in his best court finery, head-to-toe emerald velvet and silk. His black boots were buffed to a shine, his golden curls braided into one plait down his back. Jewels decorated his earlobes. True gold circlets stacked his arms wrist to elbow, chiming as he moved. Avani thought he looked quite the harmless courtier, if not for the poniard he kept pressed firmly beneath the barrowman’s chin.
“This had best be worth my time, Doyle,” Baldebert complained. “I was attending important business when your messenger interrupted.” His yellow eyes flicked disinterestedly across the group of sidhe, until they came to rest on the woman sitting bound beneath the vocent’s table. His expression shifted subtly. “Oh,” he said. “Now, isn’t this interesting?”
Faolan stepped around Avani. In a single heartbeat he’d grown somehow more imposing, consumed more of the space in the room than his slight form allowed for. The soft, spelled glow off the laboratory ceiling flickered ominously. Mal’s mage-light, floating forgotten near the door, spat green sparks, disappeared, then snapped back into existence. Mal’s jaw bunched; he lifted a hand.
“I wouldn’t, were I you,” said Faolan. “The stone on your finger is no match for the gem in my collar, and all of you together are of no consequence to sidhe and sidheog, unless you thought to bring your iron blades, which of course most of you did not, being magi and conceited.”
Baldebert showed his teeth. The point of his poniard left a mark on the lesser sidhe’s pale throat. The barrowman shuddered. Only then did Avani notice it was manacled in the old ivory cuffs that Roue had used to subdue Mal.
“Stop,” Baldebert warned. “Happens I came with iron. Give me a reason to use it; I don’t mind.”
Faolan stilled. Cleena said something unintelligible and musical to the lesser sidhe. They, too, froze. From her place on the floor, the bound woman began to make a harsh, breathless sound. It took Avani a moment to realize she was laughing.
“I did what I could to keep the wounds from festering,” said Mal, “while it was under my care. But damaged hands are a knotty problem.” He managed to give the impression of looking down his nose at the much taller aes si. “We found it mutilated so. Can you say the same of yours?”
“It was a matter of honor,” said Faolan dismissively. “We let her live, for your sake. And ’twas not only for my own self I wished Avani’s curative herbs.”
The woman’s harsh laughter muffled to sobs. Avani grabbed up her sack and marched to the table, pushing past lesser sidhe as she went. The prisoner turned her face away, stubborn even as tears tracked along sharp cheekbones. Avani went to her knees on the cold stone floor and held out her hands in entreaty.
“Let me help.”
Face turned into the table, the woman bit her lip until the rosy flesh turned white. She was lithe but not bony, muscular as any warrior. Her dark flesh was marked here and there with old scars, and covered with elaborate tattoos. The snakeskin vest she wore above her kilt was stained with sweat. Her hair was a bird’s nest, long and tangled, her yellow desert eyes bright with fever.
Someone had bandaged her hands, wrapped dirty, makeshift rags around her palms and fingers. Dried blood crusted the bandages. Avani had a healer’s nose. The woman’s hands had gone putrid; the air around her smelled sickly sweet. Her wrists beneath the rope bindings were sticky with blood, old and new.
“Free her hands. I cannot help her like this.”
“Not yet,” Cleena said. Mal shook his head in agreement.
“She’s hostage to the throne,” he told Avani. And then, more gently. “Be patient.”
“Patience is wasted on the desert,” Faolan warned. The aes si did not look away from Baldebert. The amber stone in the collar around his throat smoldered yellow menace. “That one tried to cut Everin’s throat, and nearly succeeded. We would have killed her, but Everin convinced me you would find her useful.” His smile was cold. “Whatever magic you’ve attached to Halwn’s kin, it is nigh wicked as iron. Take them off. At once.”
Mal nodded at Baldebert. Slowly, Baldebert sheathed his poniard. The lesser sidhe did not react. Where sword point had kissed its throat, veins stood red beneath white skin, inflamed.
“Don’t move,” Baldebert advised the roomful of sidhe. “I’ve a volatile nature and a rapid draw.” He reached around, brushing his fingertips across old ivory. At his touch the bracelets split each down the middle. Baldebert snatched at the pieces before they fell, then tied the four slender half-moons to his belt with a piece of satin ribbon.
The freed barrowman swayed in place. Then, with a preternatural speed that made Avani gasp, it darted across the cold-room past Faolan and Cleena, into Halwn’s arms. The lesser sidhe closed around their returned kindred in a protective group, whispering.
She’d not thought to feel sympathy for the barrowmen, not since she’d watch them score Liam’s flesh over and over again with claw and knife. They’d tasted Liam’s blood as they flayed him, and taken feral joy in his suffering. But as she watched the broken sidhe return to the comfort of its kin, she could not help but feel a twinge of compassion.
“They were under your dead wife’s thrall,” Faolan said. “Siobahn compelled them with threats and promises. Do not judge what you cannot understand.”
“Enough,” said Mal sharply. “You have your man, Faolan. The exchange is made. Now get out of my city.”
“Wait,” protested Avani. “What of Everin?”
Mal grunted. “The throne will thank him for his foresight, when next he deigns to show his face. And I’ll admit I’m glad he’s not lying dead on the mountains, throat cut. But that man’s a walking misadventure and I’ve no interest in spending time second-guessing his next folly.” He bowed in Faolan’s direction, chill and correct as the aes si’s smile, then turned on his heel. “Admiral?”
Baldebert did not bother to draw his blade as he approached the weeping woman.
“Servant of the desert,” he said. “Will you walk or shall I throw you over my shoulder?”
Avani jumped to her feet in protest. She stepped in front of the prisoner.
“You summoned me here to help her,” she reminded Mal through clenched teeth.
“I did not. You are here because Faolan asked for succor.”
“She cannot walk! She is feverish and afflicted with wounds gone foul.”
“Not over your shoulder,” Mal ordered Baldebert. “Remember compassion. Snarling at me will not help, Avani. Come, if you want to help—or don’t. It makes little difference to me.”
He strode from the room. Baldebert scooped the desert woman up off the floor, cradling her close. Her head lolled. At some point, as they’d been arguing, she’d lost consciousness. Avani suffered a pang of guilt. Baldebert’s mouth twisted in disgust. Avani grabbed her pack and followed him to the door. She could feel the sidhe’s dispassionate regard like the scrape of a poniard along her spine.
Pausing on the threshold, she glanced around. The barrowmen, intent on reunion, paid her no attention at all. Faolan continued to smile.
“Thank you for the salve,” he said. “You have questions. When you are ready, Cleena will know how to find us. Cleena?”
�
��As you wish,” promised the beekeeper. “When she’s ready.”
“Mal won’t let her stay in Wilhaiim,” argued Avani, “now that he knows what she is.”
Cleena’s dimples flashed. “But he’s known all along,” she said. “He came to me at once, said I stood out: a sun of surpassing beauty against insignificant stars. He’s known since the very beginning.”
They laid her out on Mal’s four-poster bed. Avani upturned her pack on the velvet coverlet. Selecting a pair of small silver scissors from amongst tins and bundled herbs, she began to cut away the woman’s bandages.
Wrinkling his nose at the smell of infection, Baldebert eschewed the bed for the chamber’s mullioned windows. He stuck his head through an open pane, inhaling deeply, before sighing in relief. He turned around, sweeping Mal’s rooms with an attentive gaze.
“I expected more drama and less clutter,” he said then gave the mantel a second glance. “Are those my earrings?”
“Jacob’s a bloody thief.” Mal kindled the hearth with a word before Avani had a chance to ask, setting water from a nearby pitcher to boil in a small pot over the flames. “If they belong to you, take them. Even if they don’t. I can’t move about anymore without tripping over pieces of his stolen collection.”
Baldebert retrieved the golden baubles, secreting them up his sleeve before joining Mal near the mattress.
“Well?” challenged the bastard prince of Roue, looking down on the supine woman. “Will she live? We’ve yet to catch one alive, for all Russel and her friends are wearing themselves to the bone in effort.”
Avani pressed her lips together. “You’re blocking my light.”
