Truthseeker

by C. E. Murphy

  Hell unleashed itself.

  The sky above Lara tore, wings and claws coming from the darkness, fiery eyes stealing the color from the stars to shoot bolts of heat at her. She screamed, flinging herself toward the door, but even as she did so its golden frame shattered under the weight of night. The space she pitched herself through held only nighttime and trees, no safe passage home. Momentum carried her forward into a dive, dew and grass staining her shirt as she skidded across the slippery meadow.

  Dafydd bellowed in a language she didn’t recognize, warning clear in his voice. Thunder clapped in the clear air, carrying his shout far beyond the strength of an ordinary cry. Lara twisted back toward him, her fingers digging into the dirt, fear a painful thing clawing at her chest in an attempt to escape.

  Lightning came on thunder’s call, shards of electricity shattering the night and briefly—mercifully briefly—illuminating the shadows that poured from the darkness. Lara had no name for them: demons were creatures of substance, not the wraith-thin shadows whose wings swallowed the lightning’s brightness. They were barely more than wing and tooth and claw, a mockery of bats, black skin stretching from jaw to wing to foot, all distorted with each beat of the monstrous wings. One dropped its mouth open to gout flame and Lara screamed again, meaning it to be a warning to Dafydd.

  He flinched, but didn’t lose ground, only lifted his hands as if he held a sword. Lightning gathered between his palms, a blade of jagged brilliance cutting apart the horror’s flame, splicing it to either side of him. His blade lasted no longer than that, fading as quickly as its element did, leaving him empty-handed once more. His voice, though, remained steady, almost cajoling, and Lara lurched to her feet, scrambling for the narrow window of protection offered by the Seelie prince’s form. The breadth of his shoulders suddenly seemed much greater than it had in the confines of her home, his elfin delicacy abruptly filled with all the strength and confidence a warrior could need. Perhaps it was the same difference she’d felt in herself on stepping through to Dafydd’s world: a completion that had been lacking in her own.

  Lightning streaked the sky again, tearing Lara from her brief contemplation of Dafydd’s shoulders. One of the monsters darted to the side too late, blue power exploding through its black form. It screamed, a birdlike sound of rage, then was gone, nothing more than a handful of sparks drifting toward the damp grass. Beneath the scream’s echoes, Lara heard Dafydd’s voice, soft and steady, making liquid words that meant nothing to her.

  The air flexed around them, as if responding to Dafydd’s calm speech. Another nightmare dove down, claws extended. Lara flung her hands up in a panicked attempt to protect her face. She only half-saw the monster bounce back with the same force it had attacked with, just a few inches away from Dafydd and herself. Dafydd staggered with the creature’s impact, and the shoulder of his suit jacket dimpled, as if claws had hooked into it without managing to touch him.

  Silence rose up, shocking as the screams had been, leaving nothing in the night but stars and moonlight. Lara dragged in a breath and stumbled from Dafydd’s side, staring at the sky. “What the—”

  “Lara!” Despair shot through Dafydd’s voice and caution flared too late. Winged darkness fell from the sky again, red gaze searing into Lara’s. Instinct went to war in her, the struggle between fight or flight leaving her frozen. Death awaited her in the clutches of vicious black talons, and even as she threw off paralyzing fear she knew she’d hesitated too long, that she could never move quickly enough to escape the nightmare. The admission rang with truth even inside her own mind, even barely made into words, and she thought she might be able to die well, not screaming.

  Dafydd smashed into her, knocking her aside. Lara screamed after all, more surprise than terror, before horror tore another raw sound from her throat. The nightmare blackness didn’t care which target it hit: Dafydd howled as its claws slammed into his ribs, ripping his clothes, tearing his skin. Lara closed a hand in the wet grass, furious that she found no fallen branch or stone to use as a weapon there, and surged to her feet, white rage replacing her fear. She tackled the nightmare, knocking it free of Dafydd. The world became pounding black wings and the scent of ashes in the back of her throat. She rolled with the monster, both of them trying to gain the upper hand.

  She was somehow astonished when the winged blackness came out on top.

  It slammed forward, jaw gaping, and she strong-armed it, driving her hand into what passed for the thing’s throat, holding it back from tearing her head off. It was far more solid than she thought it should be, and much smaller when she had it in hand than it had seemed. From jaw to wing tip, from wing tip to clawed feet, it was less than the length of her arm, but she trembled holding it away from herself. For all its small size, for all that it looked like little more than a sheet of blackness cut away from the night, it had substance, a demon after all. It shrieked and swept its wings in, clawing at the ground around her, unable to gain purchase in her flesh with her hand at its throat.

  Chimes sounded in the back of Lara’s mind, clarifying and ringing together until they became the deep continuous toll of church bells, carrying with them a memory and an unquenchable sense of truth.

  “I exorcise thee, unholy spirit.” Lara could barely hear her own whisper beneath the captured demon’s screams, but it flinched at the words. Confidence shot through her, strengthening her voice. She shoved herself forward, moving the devil’s weight, and shouted, “I exorcise thee, unholy spirit, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

  The thing caught in her hand went first, an explosion of sparks that left behind a keening that raised hairs over Lara’s body. From there light shot out, pure and white and hard, turning the trees to bleached daytime colors, it seared the nightmares, then faded again, leaving Lara blind in the wake of the banishing. Silence reasserted itself as her vision worked its way back to normal, before a new sound cut through the quiet, so rough and dry it took Lara a few seconds to recognize it as laughter.

  Dafydd’s laughter.

  “Dafydd, oh my God, are you all right?” Lara slid across wet grass to his side, holding her hands above him uselessly. Another dry chuckle escaped him.

  “An exorcism. I’ve brought a Roman Catholic among us.” Dafydd laughed again, his forehead wrinkling with pain. “Someone’s had a nasty shock. How wonderful.” He took a careful breath, opening his eyes to study Lara in the moonlight. “How did you know what to counter the spell with?”

  “I … I remembered the baptism ritual, the casting out of demons. They seemed like demons.”

  “They weren’t,” he assured her on a breath. “But my people, Lara … we don’t bear the name of your creator easily. You couldn’t have chosen a better counter to the attack.” He hesitated, then said, delicately, “It would be easier on me if you didn’t invoke that particular trinity again. The nightwing attack was quite enough. Staggering under the weight of your white god’s name is more than any Seelie, prince or not, should have to face in a single night.”

  “Nightwings?” Lara’s voice shot high with fear and confusion even as she recognized that she was focusing on one bewildering thing over another. She could hear the truth of what he said in Dafydd’s voice, but his half-wry plea to keep her from repeating the name of the Trinity went beyond bizarre. Easier to focus on the monsters, on the brief battle. “Is that what you call those? What were they? Why did they attack me? How could they know I was here?”

  “They didn’t.” Dafydd’s reply was low with pain. “They couldn’t have, Lara. The spell was set to detect my presence, not yours.”

  “But—” Confusion wrinkled Lara’s forehead so hard her head began to ache. “I thought you were a prince. Why would anyone attack you?”

  “Why would anyone murder my brother?” He reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips and imparting comfort when, Lara realized sharply, it should be she who offered kindness. Dafydd was injured while protecting her, and her thanks was to hu
rl questions so frightened and bewildered they verged on accusations.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted, but he shook his head, accepting her apology but waving it off.

  “Time in the Barrow-lands doesn’t move the same way it does in your world. I told you I’ve been searching for you for a century. That’s true. In your world, it’s true. But in mine, I’ll have been gone—ten days, perhaps two weeks, no more. The wounds of my brother’s death are still fresh, and someone has a secret to protect.”

  “But why attack you? Why set a-a spell to sense your arrival?” Lara stumbled over the concept even as she understood that it was a true one; she’d seen magic used repeatedly in the last few minutes, alien but real.

  “Because whoever is behind this has to know I wouldn’t return without a truthseeker,” Dafydd said quietly. “Because my return sets into play events that someone wishes not to see explored. Now.” He took a cautious breath, tightening his hand around hers. “Now, if you’ll help me sit up, and forbear from repeating that phrase again, I think I can take the edge off these wounds.”

  “That phra—you mean the Fa—”

  Dafydd gave her such a sharp look that Lara clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “What does it … do to you?”

  “You saw what it did to the nightwings.” Dafydd grunted as he sat up, strain making his hand tremble in Lara’s. “I have thought, substance, presence that they do not. It might take a full exorcism to obliterate me. I’d prefer not to find out.”

  “But why?”

  Dafydd lifted his gaze to hers, eyes weary in the moonlight. “Because I enjoy living, Lara.” Amusement creased the corners of his eyes at her obvious exasperation, and more carefully he said, “Our courts, our people, are effectively immortal. We can die through violence but not through age. The—” He drew a breath through his nostrils, sweat against his cheeks, and Lara realized that as he spoke to her he was carefully exploring the edges of the nightwing-made wound against his ribs. “The price we pay for that,” he said tightly, “is a lack of a soul, as your people see it. It makes the name of your creator painful to bear in the best of circumstances and deadly in the worst. Forgive me,” he added, and ceased explanations to whisper again in the liquid tongue he’d used before.

  Firefly sparks of gold glimmered and gathered with his words, until they seemed to reach a critical weight and dove beneath his clothing. Lara held her breath, leaning in to catch a glimpse of torn and bloody skin weaving itself back together under the light’s guidance. Long moments passed, injury mending before Lara’s eyes. Then Dafydd took a deep breath, straightening. “Better, I think. I’m sorry, Lara. I—”

  Lara leaned forward and stopped his apology with a kiss.

  Ten

  Surprise widened Dafydd’s eyes before they closed, before the light touch of his hand brushed Lara’s jaw. It was long moments before she broke away, retreating only a few scant inches to gaze at him. “Have I earned this,” he murmured, “or is it merely a human response to danger? It’s not—”

  A mix of amusement and chagrin coursed through Lara, ending in a smile. “Dafydd.”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.”

  “That,” he said, “I can do.”

  Her shyness fled in hunger’s wake, and her tailor’s hands were sure of themselves as she pushed his jacket from his shoulders. It was easy to open his shirt with quick twists of the buttons, though Lara knew, if she let herself think, that she was behaving more like Kelly than herself. Kelly would revel in high emotion and the passion of a moment, and understand what the tightening around her heart meant when she saw Dafydd’s injuries. Kelly would know why watching Dafydd’s miraculous healing sent fire burning through her body and desire riding every pulse of blood. Kelly, not Lara, would act the impulse to kiss the Seelie prince.

  Kelly, Lara thought as the cool taste of Dafydd’s mouth overwhelmed her, would be proud of her. And then she stopped thinking of Kelly at all as urgency swept her, fingertips exploring the newly healed gashes over his ribs. Heat emanated there, the warmth of accelerated healing, and he hissed a low sound at the comparative chill of her touch. She drew back and he caught her wrist, shaking his head. “It’s all right. Your hands are cold.”

  “Your skin is hot,” she countered with a tiny smile, then pushed him onto his back, dew soaking through his suit jacket and shirt almost instantly, and lowered her mouth to kiss the still-reddened injuries on his torso.

  He was beautiful. She lowered her mouth to kiss the welts that had moments earlier been slashes in his skin. From so close, she could study the lines of his body without seeming to stare, exploring with fingertips and lips. Long, strong muscles under her touch, sensually male without being overdone. His stomach jumped beneath her kisses, just as a human man’s might.

  A sudden crescendo of certainty suffused Lara, bringing with it a reminder of the impulse that said Dafydd ap Caerwyn, human or not, was home. That he, among all the men she knew, was the one she belonged with. Smiling, she pushed up his body to find his mouth with hers again, and skimmed a hand to his waist, tugging open the button of his pants with ease.

  His brief laughter made her hesitate, finding his gaze with her own and discovering a smile in it. “Not so fast,” he murmured. “You have me at an advantage here.” Humor lit his eyes, though an undercurrent of desire darkened amber to gold. A shiver of hope ran through Lara, an anticipation of seeing that controlled strength unleashed not in battle but with passion. Feeling its release, not just seeing it. He slid his fingers to the collar of her blouse, unfastening buttons, his gaze never leaving hers. She swallowed, trying to catch her breath, then offered a tiny nod that was all the permission Dafydd needed. Her blouse and bra disappeared so quickly it might well have been magic, and Dafydd pushed her back until she sat above him, darkness swallowing the gold in his gaze as he studied her.

  “Dafydd?” Her voice trembled, jitters resurfacing in the face of his intense examination.

  “We have so little time, Lara—”

  “Then maybe we should make the most of it.” Lara touched her lips to his again, hopeful.

  Dafydd groaned, then caught her again and rolled in the grass, putting himself above her. “You make an excellent argument. Lara, I—”

  “Merrick ap Annwn lies dead and you dally with mortals in the glade, Dafydd?” A cold voice, sharp with disapproval, snapped through the darkness to drown Dafydd’s words. Dafydd dropped his head, teeth bared as Lara stiffened and stifled a shriek.

  “Some things,” the voice went on, “never change.”

  “Please.” Dafydd spoke through his teeth, eyes on Lara’s. She glanced away, understanding his anger was for the rude interruption, not her, but still unable to hold his gaze.

  He lifted a hand to touch her jaw, gentleness in the gesture making it an apology. Lara glanced back at him, then offered a feeble, embarrassed smile. Dafydd’s answering smile was a grimace as he lifted his head to respond. “At least do me the favor of counting my crimes correctly. I’ve never before dallied with mortals, Emyr.” He drew Lara’s bra and blouse across the grass, returning them to her as he got to his feet, and made a barrier of himself so she could dress with some semblance of privacy.

  The men and women beyond him were a dozen strong and mounted on white horses made blue by night shadows. They were armored, all of them, riders and horses alike. At their head was a man who could have been cut of moonlight, his gaze cool and sharp as the stars as he looked on Dafydd. “Have the years in mortal guise left you with no remembrance of how to greet your king?”

  “My lord father.” Dafydd bowed deep and low, dragging his fingertips across the clothing-littered grass and coming up with his own shredded shirt. “Forgive me. Crossing over was something of a trial.”

  The king’s pale gaze slid to Lara, a smirk twisting his mouth. “So I see.”

  Discomfort more profound than embarrassment shivered over Lara’s skin at his pointed sarcasm. There was no lie
in his words, only a thick mockery, so strong as to set untuned chords pounding in her head. She tugged her shirt on as she climbed to her feet, still half-hidden behind Dafydd, and muttered, “There’s no need to be nasty,” as she buttoned it. Emboldened by being more or less dressed, she looked up to find the king’s cold gaze on her.

  Had Dafydd not called him father, Lara would never have guessed the relationship. Dafydd was golden where this man was ice. Straight silver hair poured over his shoulders, and his eyes were so pale blue as to be white in the moonlight. There was no gray in him, no warmth, and the angles of his face seemed blade sharp. Cold and cruel, Lara thought; not the kind of man to go to for comfort. His needle-straight posture and the arrogant lift of his chin warned even the attempt away.

  Resplendent armor doubled his cool inapproachability. The breastplate and cuisses shone in the moonlight, so delicate and beautifully worked it hardly seemed they could protect the wearer from harm. He carried a helm tucked under his arm, though it had left no mark on the straight fall of his hair, and the sword he wore was unsheathed, ready for war. Beneath the armor he wore garments that might have been woven of newly thawed water, so fine that Lara studied their make with longing despite the man’s arrogance.

  “Dafydd is my son, and this my domain,” he said. “I will be … nasty … where I choose.”

  Lara tasted pleasure in the absolute truth of the words, and astonished herself by sniffing dismissively. “Not if you want me to help you figure out who killed your son.”

  The harshness of her own response struck her too late, but the king seemed a far cry from a father in mourning. His regard snapped back to Dafydd, who was beautifully composed, in spite of being barefoot and shirtless in the grass while his father rode in resplendent garb. A smile pulled at Lara’s mouth, then fell away as the monarch spoke.