Realm of Mirrors (The DeathSpeaker Codex Book 3)

by Sonya Bateman

  “Hold on.” I pushed myself up and tested my leg. At least it didn’t try to fold instantly beneath me, so that was an improvement. But Uriskel didn’t look even a little better. “Why aren’t you healing?” I said. “Is your spark drained or something?”

  He frowned. “I’ll survive.”

  “You’re barely standing. Maybe we should get you into moonlight, and—”

  “My spark is sufficient, thank you,” he said brusquely, and then looked away. “I’ve no healing capabilities.”

  “You don’t?” I said. “I thought all the Fae did. Why not?”

  “Because I can fly.” He rolled his eyes. “Generally, all Fae have one or the other. Healing is far more common—but believe me, I am not pleased to be unique in this regard.”

  Sadie gaped at him. “Holy shit, you can fly?”

  “I can,” he said. “Not much use to me when I’m bleeding all over Creation, though. A state I find myself in frequently, which flight does not alleviate.”

  “Well then, I’ll heal you.”

  I started for him, but he held a hand out. “I sense that your spark is low,” he said. “You’ll need to conserve it, in case we meet up with more wild ones.”

  I shook my head. “You’re just as stubborn as my brother. But I’ve got this.” I gestured at Sadie. “I can use the moonstone. Don’t worry, you won’t have to take it off.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said with a smile. “It enhances your spark, right?”

  Uriskel flashed an exasperated look. “Fine. But only because you should discharge the stone’s energy, so it will continue to absorb moonlight.”

  “Got it. Definitely not because you need help,” I said, with just a touch of sarcasm. “So I’ll heal you, and then we keep going. I’m up to around a fast limp right now.”

  “Actually, we cannot continue yet.”

  “Now what?”

  He gestured at the scattered bodies. “The Redcap knew something of Moirehna’s plans, or he’d not have sought you,” he said. “We must learn what he knows. DeathSpeaker.”

  Oh. That.

  CHAPTER 26

  I was a little concerned about trying this. Nyantha’s sister might have been stubborn and annoyed with me, but she wasn’t evil, and she really hadn’t fought too hard. I had a feeling this guy would—and I had no idea what would happen if he got away.

  I’d healed Uriskel and managed to upgrade my leg from savaged to sliced, and now we stood over the desiccated corpse of the Redcap. “What happened to him, anyway?” I said. “I mean, all I did was burn his hat, and he went instant mummy.”

  “Redcaps thrive on the blood of their enemies,” Uriskel said. “They soak their caps in it with every kill, and their own blood dries as the cap dries. If the cap is destroyed…”

  “All their blood goes with it,” Sadie murmured. “I’d heard about it, but I’ve never seen it. Jesus, look at his eyes.”

  “Yeah.” I tried not to remember watching that happen. I’d be happy going the rest of my life without seeing someone’s eyes boil out of their head again. “Okay, so let’s do this,” I said. “Um…you might want to stand back.”

  I took a few steps back myself. Sadie shot me a puzzled look, and Uriskel said, “What exactly does speaking to the dead involve?”

  “Well, it used to involve voices in my head, and a lot of pain and nosebleeds. But Nyantha taught me a few tricks.”

  Sadie knew what it was always like for me. She’d seen me drive myself to the point of blacking out—and she’d been the one trying to stop me before I got there. “So you can do it without hurting yourself now?” she said.

  “Kind of.”

  “What do you mean, kind of?”

  “You’ll see.” I hope.

  I could’ve cheated. The body was right in front of me, and it would’ve been easier to just touch it and go from there. But I figured Nyantha was right. I’d never learn if I didn’t practice.

  Besides, I really didn’t want to touch that shriveled, bloodless corpse.

  Since it helped the last time, I closed my eyes. The surge of energy happened almost immediately—some part of me reaching out, rushing through the cool air. And then the sensation of my fingers brushing against a dry, leathery surface. Just as awful as I’d expected physically touching him would feel.

  Which was saying a lot, considering all the corpses I’d handled over the years.

  The invisible rubber band snapped back into me. And the pain was so intense, it almost drove me to my knees.

  I gasped and opened my eyes as the angry soul bashed around in my mind, screaming with wordless rage that felt like ice picks through my brain. Should’ve planned this out a little better. I had to get him out of my head, fast. And the closest thing to project him onto was his own dead body.

  “Shut up,” I murmured, shaking with the effort to focus. “You want out? Here you go.”

  This time it happened a lot faster, and not the way I expected. The corpse plumped out and twitched once—and the dead Redcap shot to his feet. Stiff and semi-transparent, with glowing red eyes instead of holes in his skull. I could feel the unseen string that still connected me to him.

  Apparently, it was a lot easier projecting a soul onto its own body.

  “Oh my God!” Sadie said breathlessly as she whipped the gun back out and aimed at the apparition. “How—”

  “Don’t. He’s still dead,” I rasped. The pain was slower to fade this time, but it was already bearable. “It’s just a glamour.”

  She lowered her arm. “You glamoured a corpse?”

  “By the gods,” Uriskel whispered. “In all my years, I’ve not seen such power.”

  “Yeah, well it’s not—”

  The Redcap snarled and lunged at me, driving a spike of pain through my forehead.

  “Ah, Christ, that hurt!” I glared at the ghostly son of a bitch. “Seabh’fóhs.”

  He stopped moving.

  “You can spell the dead?” Uriskel practically stammered.

  “I guess. First time I ever tried it.” But I’d worry about that later. Right now, I wanted to find out what he knew and shove him back to the land of the dead—before something went wrong that I couldn’t fix. “Hey. Lucky. Got some questions for you.”

  “How have ye done this, boy?” Pure fury rang through the hollow voice. “Ye’re naught but a halfling!”

  Sadie shivered beside me. “Jesus, I can hear him. Gideon…”

  “Later.” I didn’t even want to try explaining this yet. Even though he wasn’t moving, there was constant pressure on the connection, and if he got away I’d have to drag him out all over again. I decided to skip the name test. “Why were you trying to bring me to the Unseelie Queen?”

  The pressure increased. “I’d fallen out of favor with the Court,” the Redcap said, biting back every word. “She wanted anyone who’d come for the whore’s body, and ye’d have restored me to her grace. Especially now she knows who ye are.”

  “That whore was my mother, you bastard,” I said in a low voice. “Call her that again, and I promise your dead ass will regret it.”

  “So ye are Lord Daoin’s child.” The Redcap grinned. “Oh, but she’s such plans for ye.”

  “Yeah?” I smiled back coldly. “What are they?”

  “Bastard!” he panted as the tugging strain surged again. “She means for Daoin…to watch ye die. As she failed to do with the…human.”

  “She tried to kill my mother?”

  “Aye, but Daoin refused to give up the wh—the one he’d taken up with. She could not break him, and so she banished him.” The apparition frowned, and then his red eyes flared. “DeathSpeaker,” he said in a voice like breaking glass. “Ye cannot be.”

  “Well, look who’s caught on. Took you long enough,” I said.

  I felt his fear as he tried again to break free.

  “Calm down, Lucky. Soon as you answer my questions, I’ll let you get back to being dead.” The effort of holding him was making me sweat a
little, but at least it didn’t hurt so much. “Why did the Unseelie Queen want to kill my mother?”

  He stopped struggling. “She wanted Daoin for herself, and he refused her.”

  Christ. I guessed royalty took rejection pretty hard. But I had to stop interrogating him about the past, and find out what he knew about the present. “Okay, listen,” I said. “I can keep asking you questions and making you answer them all day, but I’d rather not. I’m sure you don’t want to hang around here, either. So you tell me everything you know about what the Unseelie Queen is doing right now, and I’ll release you.”

  The Redcap managed to look suspicious and scared. “What she’ll do to me for talking,” he moaned. “Pain ye cannot imagine. She can stretch it out for centuries—”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you’re already dead, then,” I cut in. “She can’t touch you now. But I can. So talk.”

  His image shivered. “She does much. What do ye want to know?”

  “Daoin. Taeral. Reun. Anything about them.”

  The Redcap bowed his head. “The Seelie noble, she’s stripped him of magic and set him to…entertain the Court. As a colhí daorii, a—”

  “Yeah, don’t finish that.” A hard shudder wracked me as I understood the words. Sex slave. Uriskel’s grimace said he caught it too, and Sadie looked horrified enough without knowing what it meant. “And Reun…agreed to this?”

  “Aye, he did. She’d not relinquish Daoin, but she claimed she’d set the young lord free in exchange for the Seelie’s…service. Of course, she lied. He remains in the dungeon with the cáesdhe.”

  Torturers.

  I couldn’t even look at Sadie. I knew she’d heard enough with dungeon. “And Daoin?” I managed through the hot lump in my throat.

  “She’s brought him to her chambers. None have seen him since.”

  “All right,” I grated. “Is that all you know?”

  “Wait.” Uriskel took a menacing step forward. “Ask him how she knows of your presence here. What she knows of you.”

  “Since he’ll only force me to, I’ll answer ye,” the Redcap said. “She’d not known Daoin had two sons, until the Guard brought him in screaming that she’d never have them. That ye’re in the Unseelie lands, she’s only guessed, and she’s put out a call to her loyal subjects to find ye. The child of Daoin—not the DeathSpeaker.” His transparent features grew solemn. “Yet even now, the cáesdhe attempt to learn what the young lord knows of ye.”

  I had to close my eyes briefly. “Anything else I should know?”

  “Aye. Ye should leave them for dead and return to the human realm, dearie,” he said. “For if she takes ye, death will seem a great comfort by comparison.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said. “Goodbye, Lucky.”

  I yanked him back, ignoring the pain as his soul crowded into my head. The apparition folded to the ground and reverted to a lifeless corpse, and I released him to whatever the world of the dead had in store.

  Here in the land of the living, I had some friends to save.

  CHAPTER 27

  Under different circumstances, the small, crackling fire might’ve been cheerful.

  We’d been walking through the woods for hours, not talking much after the Redcap’s gruesome confessions. At least there hadn’t been any more attacks or creepy orange eyes staring down from the trees. Uriskel had finally called a halt, allegedly for the night—though it wasn’t any different than the day. Same moon, same unsettling dark light. While I was visiting Nyantha, he’d prepared and packed meat from the animal we’d hunted, so we warmed some up and ate what we could.

  No one had much of an appetite, though. Not even Sadie.

  I stretched and wiped my greasy hands on my pants. Didn’t really matter, since all of us were covered with varying degrees of grime and blood—though Sadie’s wasn’t visible on the glamour clothes. I’d recast the spell a few hours ago when it started to fade. “So,” I said. “Aren’t we giving away our position with the fire, or something?”

  Uriskel started, like he was coming back from somewhere far away. “More likely we’d be noticed without one,” he said. “Fires are common here. We’ve a lack of central heating in Arcadia.”

  “Right. I guess I’ve watched too many movies.” More than usual lately, thanks to Daoin’s obsession. That hurt to think about. The idea that the Unseelie Queen was doing God knew what to him, the way he was now…childlike, easily confused, and probably terrified. He wouldn’t understand why any of it was happening. And what she’d done to Taeral and Reun was just as unspeakable.

  Sadie stirred and looked across the fire. “Can I ask you something, Uriskel?”

  “I suppose.”

  I glanced at her uneasily. She hadn’t said a word about Taeral since the Redcap, and I was worried she’d ask his opinion on our chances. They probably weren’t too high—and he wouldn’t hesitate to share them. But she frowned slightly, and said, “I’ve been thinking about something you said that doesn’t make sense. Something about having two hundred years of hatred, and a deck of cards?”

  He sighed. “I did say that, didn’t I. How foolish of me.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain,” she said. “It was just…weird.”

  “Aye, it is a strange tale.” He paused, and then dragged his pack beside him and took something out of it. A weathered, battered leather case about the size of a pack of cigarettes, with black scorch marks along the edges. “I’d been thrown in gaol,” he said, turning the pack over slowly in his hands. “For…something I’d done. But gaol here is not like your jails in the human realm.”

  “Yeah, I could’ve guessed that,” I said. “You have dungeons.”

  He smirked without looking up. “The Seelie dungeons might’ve been preferable,” he said. “A gaol is a covered hole in the ground, which you’re forced to dig yourself. Prisoners are fed and given water once a day…if the guards remember, or bother. There is no light, no sound, no contact with anyone.” He stared into the fire. “They left me there for five years.”

  Jesus. I couldn’t imagine anything that sounded worse than a dungeon, until that.

  “The prince, Braelan—at the time, he’d not known we were brothers. In fact he despised me. He’d been raised in the Summer Court, trained to hate and fear the Unseelie. The King encouraged him to treat me as he did. Like a vicious dog who might turn on its masters at any moment.” He opened the pack slowly and drew out a deck of cards. They were ragged, faded, and very old. Smaller and thicker than modern cards, and simply designed, like something out of an Old West saloon. “Even the prince felt sorry for me, and they’d told him my sentence was only one year—twice as long as the maximum six-month sentence the Court usually hands down. And so, he gave me these to occupy my time.”

  “You spent five years alone in a hole?” Sadie shuddered. “I knew the Seelie were cruel, but that’s just…above and beyond. Deck of cards or not.”

  Uriskel nodded once and replace the cards. “I did deserve it,” he said hoarsely. “Perhaps not five years of it, but…at any rate, I spent all that time enchanting the cards. I’d nothing better to do. And now, each one is a spell far more powerful than I’m capable of casting with raw magic.”

  Somehow I doubted he’d deserved a punishment like that, but I wouldn’t mention it. I knew he’d only brush me off, and whatever it was obviously still hurt him. Instead I said, “So you’ve got something that’ll help us against the Unseelie Court in there, right?”

  His smile was gentler this time. “Aye. A few things.”

  “Like, stripping someone’s magic?” I said. “The Redcap said that’s what the Queen did to Reun. If you can do that, and maybe tell me how…”

  He was already shaking his head. “You’d not be able to learn,” he said. “Only those with full royal blood can deny another Fae’s magic.”

  Well, that sucked.

  Then I thought about what he’d actually said. Not that he couldn’t do it—only th
at I wouldn’t be able to learn. And he said ‘full royal blood.’ If the Seelie King was his father, and he was half Unseelie…

  I tried to piece together what he said to Cobalt, when I couldn’t understand enough Fae. The angry, disgusted words that made Cobalt grudgingly change his mind about him coming here. One of the words was Moirehna. It meant nothing at the time, but now I knew who he’d been talking about. Táe mihc Moirehna, amain oídreh riicthaiorn. Cuimmáihg, daartheír?

  I am the son of Moirehna, the sole heir to the throne. Remember, brother?

  And I knew why Cobalt said that Uriskel might have a way to get us out.

  “Holy hell,” I said. “The Unseelie Queen is—”

  “I’d greatly prefer you did not mention that,” Uriskel growled. “There are few who know, and I’ve no wish for it to become common knowledge.”

  “All right,” I said carefully. “Consider it not mentioned.”

  “Thank you. Now, I suggest you both rest while you can. We’ve still quite a journey ahead of us.” He stood, grabbed his pack and walked a few feet away, then sat down with his back turned.

  Sadie stared at me. “What the hell was that about?” she whispered.

  “I guess he’s got some family issues,” I replied in kind.

  “Yeah, join the club.” She shrugged and stretched her arms over her head. “Maybe we should get some sleep,” she said. “Or try to, anyway.”

  Unfortunately, I doubted that was going to happen.

  A few hours later, I was unhappy to learn that I’d been right. No way was I getting to sleep.

  I sat up slowly from the ground, trying not to disturb Sadie. At least one of us was resting. Uriskel was stretched out at a distance. I couldn’t tell if he was asleep, but he didn’t seem to notice when I stood and walked slowly away from the fire. Or maybe he didn’t care.

  Good thing I knew he wasn’t as heartless as he wanted everyone to think, or I would’ve been pissed.

  We’d passed a small stream just before we made camp. I headed that way, thinking I’d get a drink and try to wash up a little. Maybe the filth helped us blend in, but I wasn’t in the mood to be this…wild.