by Jocelyn Fox
“We must watch,” Vell replied simply.
So I stood and watched, unable to cross the circle scratched in the earth, its power prickling across my skin in occasional gusts, like goose-bumps from a spectral wind. I stood and watched for what felt like hours, but was only minutes, as Finnead’s skin turned ashen, his black hair still gleaming like a raven’s wing through the haze of smoke. I watched Donovan and Ramel, the grimness on their faces and the pain they strove to hide in their eyes—but I could see it, because I felt it as well.
There was no sound under the oak save Eamon’s murmured incantation and Finnead’s harsh breathing. He swayed again, clenched his fists, caught himself. I felt myself clenching my fists with him, as if that would give him some of my strength. A cloud passed over the sun, the golden afternoon light dimming, giving over the ground beneath the oak tree’s spreading branches to shadows. The flame shone brighter in the darkness, twisting and dancing like a living creature. I wanted nothing more in that moment than to quench that fire, but I could not cross the circle without breaking the rite, shattering all that had already been done into unusable pieces. My hand went to Gwyneth’s pendant of its own accord. The slight cool weight of it pressed familiarly into my palm, calming, like the soothing touch of a mother.
“First a circle to keep us in, and now a circle to keep us out,” I murmured.
Vell said something softly under her breath in her Northern language, her golden eyes fixed on the four Sidhe beneath the oak. Beryk whined low in his throat, looking up at Vell. He shifted from paw to paw restlessly, his uncannily intelligent gaze lingering on Vell, then on Finnead. He turned his head to look at me and then whined again.
“What exactly does the rule say, about the wounded standing on their own?” I asked Vell quietly.
“No man or woman may help them,” Vell replied. She glanced at me. “There’s no loophole for us, if that’s what you were asking…” Her words trailed into silence as Beryk whined again, pulling slightly against our fingers in his fur.
Vell and I looked at each other for a long moment. I broke the gaze and looked back at Finnead. The puncture wounds from the creature’s claws split open, bubbling dark blood. His face was ashen, his lips tinged with blue—whether it was the blue of the smoke coloring his skin, I couldn’t tell.
“He brought me back from the gray cliffs,” I said quietly, urgently. “If he hadn’t spent all that energy on me, he would be strong enough to do it on his own.”
“He still has that gash in his side from the battle, too,” Vell replied, her face taking on the appraising expression of a healer evaluating a wound. She looked down at Beryk. “We don’t know whether this will ruin the whole thing.”
“If he falls, it’s ruined anyway,” I said, watching tensely as the Vaelanbrigh clenched and unclenched his fists, still fighting the smoke. A tremor shook his entire body. The claw marks bubbled and hissed. “If he dies,” I continued, the words bitter in my mouth, “then that’s a blow to Mab’s power. We can’t afford for the Unseelie Court to fall as well. We need him to come with us to the Seelie Court.”
Vell gave a slight smile. “I’m not arguing with any of that, Tess. I just needed a moment to make sure I was remembering the lore right.” She stroked Beryk’s head. “For both our sakes, let’s hope I’m right.”
She released her hold on Beryk, sending him off with a sharp Northern word. He bounded forward the instant he was free from our grasps—and not a moment too soon. Finnead’s knees began to buckle, but suddenly there was a black wolf the size of a small horse standing next to him, leaning against him slightly to help him regain his balance. Donovan’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but I caught the slight smile that passed over Ramel’s mouth, and Eamon continued his low murmured incantation without any hesitation. Finnead drew back his shoulders, blue-tinged lips set in a determined line. Vell watched, golden eyes inscrutable.
Finally, after what seemed hours, the flames on the silver dish began to flicker and dim. The last of the blue smoke gathered itself into a thick cloud, coalescing in the space between Eamon and Finnead. A low growl trickled from Beryk as an outline emerged in the smoke, taller than Finnead, long-limbed and menacing. Ramel and Donovan tensed as the figure of the syivhalla—I found myself using Vell’s word in my head—emerged from the smoke, insubstantial yet still threatening, still terrifying with its too-long face and dark, inhuman pits where eyes should have been. In one swift movement it lashed out, claws plunging into Finnead’s shoulder as the wounds sizzled and smoked. His entire body arched backward. The smoke-syivhalla hissed, wrenching its claws deeper into the Vaelanbrigh’s flesh. Beryk snarled at it, pressing against Finnead’s legs. Finnead reached for Beryk with his good hand, clutching at the wolf’s black fur.
Then the flames flickered low in the silver dish, and died. Eamon took hold of the hilt of the silver dagger and plunged the blade through the spectral form of the syivhalla—right into Finnead’s shoulder. The smoke-specter vanished with a hiss at the touch of the silver blade. Finnead’s flesh smoked, and his knees buckled; but when the last of the smoke dissipated in a blue curl beneath the leaves of the oak, Donovan and Ramel leapt forward as one, Donovan seizing Finnead’s good arm and Ramel steadying him with a careful arm about his back. Beryk kept his station, leaning slightly against the front of Finnead’s legs.
Eamon watched Finnead’s shoulder intently. Wisps of black smoke crawled from the wound. When only deep blue blood trickled down Finnead’s chest, Eamon drew the dagger from his flesh in one quick, sure movement. He laid the blade across the silver dish and dipped his thumb in the still-smoldering ashes. I closed my eyes and swallowed, and when I opened them Eamon’s hand was stained with blue blood, and ashes covered the wound in Finnead’s shoulder.
“He has to do that with all four marks?” I whispered to Vell, not trusting my voice.
She nodded grimly.
“I understand why they didn’t want us to watch,” I said with a shiver. But I took a deep breath and watched as Eamon used the white-hot silver blade on the four marks on Finnead’s back, and then covered each in turn with ash. And then, with a note of finality, Eamon pressed the silver dagger into Finnead’s hand. Ramel and Donovan carefully released their hold on him. Beryk remained by his side, within reach of his free hand. He took three swift steps, amazingly sure on his feet after the ordeal he had endured; he paused, took a deep breath, and took another three strides, and he stood before the pale gleaming skin of the oak where its bark had been stripped away. He raised the dagger, its blade thick with his blood, and carved the sigil into the wood of the tree. When he finished, a ring of wind swept outward from the tree, breaking the earthen circle and whirling away the prickling feeling of power, combing sudden fingers through my hair and bringing with it the scent of fire and ash.
Eamon carefully took the silver dagger from Finnead. He knelt before the lacquered box and gently cleaned the blade with the black cloth, and then swaddled the dagger once again in its black robes before placing it back in its box. Finnead raised his hand, pressed it to the sigil, stood for a moment with his head down. Ramel moved close and spoke to him in a low voice.
Beryk watched the Vaelanbrigh for a moment, and then shook himself thoroughly from nose to tail, a very dog-like gesture. I felt a small smile tugging at my lips despite the grave mood. The black wolf trotted back over to us. He sat in front of Vell, gazing up at her solemnly. Was looking into each other’s eyes like looking into their own eyes? I wondered suddenly, watching the wolf and the woman. Vell went to one knee in the long grass and pressed her forehead against Beryk’s, her hands sliding behind his ears. If he had been human, she would have laid her palms against the side of his face. I heard her murmur something to him in the language of the North. Then her air of solemnity dissipated and she hugged the wolf fiercely. Beryk squirmed slightly in her arms but his tongue lolled pink over his white teeth. He looked at me over Vell’s shoulder. I quirked an eyebrow at him. When Vell released him, h
e leapt over to me. I roughed his neck fur and then tugged playfully on one ear. “You did good, fur-face,” I told him. He grinned wolfishly.
“Fur-face is hardly a dignified name to call a herravaldyr,” Vell commented as she took a cursory inventory of her weapons, checking to make sure all her sundry blades were intact, as though the ritual could have somehow displaced them. I touched the hilt of the Sword out of habit.
I glanced at Vell, and then back to Beryk. The black wolf was fully absorbed in scratching industriously at his ear with his hind paw. “Well,” I said dryly, “does that look very dignified to you?”
Vell crossed her arms. Beryk looked between the two of us and promptly stopped scratching his ear, gathering himself into his best statue-still pose, eyes fixed straight ahead and paws neatly arranged, like a soldier standing at attention. I chuckled, then sobered, looking back to the oak tree. “So what happens now?”
The North-woman shrugged. “I do not know. It is not a Northern ritual.”
The Sidhe had disappeared to the other side of the oak. I curbed my desire to stride over to the tree and was rewarded for my self-restraint when Donovan appeared and strode toward us.
“What’s the verdict?” I asked.
“The cleansing looks to have been effective,” Donovan replied.
I waited for him to elaborate, but the Sidhe wasn’t forthcoming.
“I’m going to go saddle up,” Vell said.
“Hold on a minute,” I told her. “Do you think it’s smart to start out right after the Vaelanbrigh went through the ritual? Beryk had to help him—”
“And that I will not forget,” Finnead interrupted me smoothly, striding with cat-like grace from behind the trunk of the oak tree. He wore a clean white shirt, and I glimpsed the edge of a bandage near his neck. Eamon and Ramel followed him, Eamon carrying the lacquered box as carefully as a newborn child.
A smudge of ash highlighted the paleness of Finnead’s face. “I agree with the Northerner,” Finnead said with a slight nod to Vell.
“I have a name,” she replied with the barest hint of a growl in the back of her voice.
“We all have many names,” Ramel said, “some that we like more than others.” He looked at me as he said it.
“Don’t you start with that nonsense too,” I told him wearily. I sighed and rubbed at the scar on my nose. Glancing up at the sun, which balanced on the grasping hands of the tallest trees of the forest, I looked back at Vell. “We have enough time to make a good start?”
“Our mounts are sure and fleet-footed,” she replied.
“The Dark creatures will have sensed the ritual,” Ramel added. “They are drawn to power, and blood-magic will call them.”
“Will you start for Darkhill then?” I asked him.
“With the Vaelanmavar,” he agreed.
I nodded, thinking. “It would be best if he were taken back to Darkhill as fast as possible.” I looked at Ramel for a long moment, searching his eyes. “Do you think that Queen Mab will recognize his treason?”
It was Finnead who answered. “Whether the Queen likes you or not, you are the Bearer of the Iron Sword, bound in blood to the only weapon that can bring victory to us in this War of Shadows. She will have to recognize you as an equal.”
I snorted. “That doesn’t seem likely. She sent a spy to look in on us this morning.”
“I never said she would trust you,” Finnead pointed out in his calm, cool way.
“Right,” I said. “So, the Vaelanmavar tried to kill both me and Molly. That’ll be enough?”
“I cannot predict the Queen’s judgment,” Finnead said.
“You’re a Named Knight. Don’t you have some sort of link with her?”
“Only as much as she allows.”
I waited, but that seemed to be the only information that Finnead was willing to offer, so I turned back to Ramel. “Eamon will be with the wounded?”
“Yes,” he said, “most likely in a second group, if they can’t keep the pace.”
I didn’t like the idea of splitting the already small number of Sidhe into two groups, but I held my tongue. Ramel had hundreds of years more experience than me in the matter of traveling and fighting on the road. So instead I said, “Be careful.”
“As you command, my beautiful Bearer,” Ramel replied with a grin. Donovan rolled his eyes and Vell made a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort.
“Come on then,” Vell said. “We can be on the road in less than an hour.”
I nodded and turned to follow her to the stables.
“Tess?” Ramel said.
I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. He closed the distance between us in two long strides and enveloped me in a bear hug before I could protest.
“You be careful, too, little sister,” he said as he held me at arm’s length.
I chuckled, ignoring the tight feeling in my throat. “You sound like Liam.”
“Well, someone has to look after you,” Ramel replied reasonably.
“I’m sure he’d appreciate it,” I said. I gave him another quick hug, he ruffled my hair despite my noise of protest, and then I turned away quickly, clenching my jaw and swallowing hard. I strode quickly after Vell, trying to ignore the feeling of dread uncoiling slowly in my stomach as I walked away from Ramel.
The warm air of the stable flowed around me as I stepped inside. Beryk sat calmly by one of the stalls as Vell selected tack from pegs on the wall.
“Doesn’t he spook them?” I asked, walking over to find my own saddle and bridle—or the Sidhe version of them.
“They’re used to him,” Vell replied. “And Fae mounts don’t spook nearly as easily as your mortal horses. Or at least that’s what I’ve heard.”
“It makes sense. A normal horse would have gone mad with some of the creatures that I’ve seen in Faeortalam.” I turned back toward the stalls, saddle and bridle in my hands. Kaleth whinnied at me in greeting, stretching his neck over the stall door. “Seems like you’re ready to get going too,” I told him as I flicked the latch of the door and slid inside the stall. He blew out a breath of air and bobbed his magnificent head in agreement, pawing at the dirt floor with one forefoot. I patted his smooth, cool neck—Fae mounts were decidedly less warm-blooded than mortal horses, something having to with a legend about dragon-blood in their heritage.
The stable door opened again, and Merrick slipped inside. The three of us worked in silence. I checked and double-checked every strap on my gear, tugging on the leather to test its strength. The last thing I needed on the hazardous journey to Brightvale was a snapped strap on my gear. It would most likely leave me with a snapped limb, an injury I couldn’t very well afford when I was supposed to be fighting the greatest evil Faeortalam had ever known.
Kaleth shifted restlessly, muscles rippling beneath his blue-gray coat.
“We’ll be on our way soon enough,” I murmured to him. He turned his head and watched me checking my straps for the third time. Then I took Emery’s sword—my sword, now—and fastened the scabbard to the side of the saddle, allowing me to ride without having the blade hitting against my leg at every step while still giving me access to the weapon.
“I think your straps will hold,” Vell commented as she led her small black mount toward the door. Merrick, following her, hid a smile.
“See how you like it when one of your straps break,” I called after them both. After one more check, I led Kaleth out of his stall and toward the door, though with Fae mounts it was always more like a suggestion rather than a command. His ears swiveled forward and he tossed his head as we emerged into the clearing.
Finnead was already there somehow, riding a steel-gray mount. He, too, had a plain blade strapped to his saddle, and now he wore the Brighbranr on his back. His scabbard, though, was much more ornate, with silver tooling and sapphires near the hilt of the blade. Anyone looking at the scabbard would know that it sheathed an important weapon. If robbers chose between the Brighbranr and the Caedbranr, ju
st based on the look of the scabbard and the sword, they would most likely choose the Brighbranr.
Suddenly I realized that our small travelling party was not alone in the clearing. The remaining Sidhe stood silently before me in loose ranks, Eamon, Donovan and Ramel in the front row.
“You have more need of these than us,” Donovan said, and they handed each of us a neatly wrapped bundle.
“Arrows and a bow for those that didn’t have them,” said Eamon. “A kit of basic healing supplies in each, and a good blanket for during the night.”
Vell industriously strapped the bundle behind her saddle. She took mine from me and did the same.
“And,” said Ramel, “these.”
Four of the Sidhe brought forward cloaks. I still had my old cloak from Darkhill, and the extra shirt and trousers. But these cloaks were finer by far than any I’d seen in Faeortalam. The fabric was thickly woven yet still soft, and as I took the cloak I noticed a silvery sheen as light moved over it. The hood was lined with some sort of incredibly soft gray fur.
“They’ll stand up to the worst rain-storm,” Ramel explained, “and they’ll keep you warm or cool, whichever you need.”
My cloak was a deep emerald green. I glanced over and saw that Finnead’s cloak was sapphire blue, and Vell’s was black as Beryk’s fur. Merrick’s cloak was a deep red.
“How did you even get these?” I wondered out loud.
Ramel raised his eyebrows. “You seem to be forgetting, my dear, that we are Sidhe. We accomplish many inexplicable feats.”
I smiled as I fastened the silver clasp of the cloak around my cloak and settled it about my shoulders. “Right. How could I forget?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Ramel replied seriously, only the glimmer in his eyes betraying his amusement. Then he shifted his gaze to Merrick. “You have the maps?”
“I know the route,” Merrick replied with a firm nod.
“Then let’s not stand around palavering all day,” Vell said, hooking her toe into a stirrup and mounting with fluid grace.
