The Crown of Bones (The Fae War Chronicles Book 2)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “Enough silliness,” I murmured to myself. “Time to truly become the Bearer.” I stepped carefully over a tree’s raised root, sunlight dappling my boots. “Time to put everything else aside.”

  The Caedbranr did not hum its approval or disapproval at my declaration, as I had come to expect. But I shrugged, my new resolve firm, and walked into camp. The protection sigil on one of the trees flared slightly as I passed and I felt an alien tendril of power touch my own taebramh for an instant; and then the sigil faded, satisfied with my identity. I strode across the small clearing, glimpsing a shadow moving through the trees at the edge of the small clearing, weaving between the patches of golden sunlight splashed across the forest floor. A small fire, more embers than anything else, glowed in a ring of stones; Vell sat on her haunches, sorting through herbs with nimble fingers, her healing kit spread out to one side.

  “Come to check on our progress, Lady Bearer?” she said without looking up from her work. The shadow resolved into Beryk, who trotted up to me, tongue lolling. I put out my hand to scratch behind his ears but he shoved his cold nose into my palm for an instant and then walked over to Vell.

  “I’m looking for Murtagh, actually. Merrick said he’s over this way.”

  “He’s been helping to gather what herbs we can find,” Vell replied, picking up a heavy-looking mortar and pestle. The scraping of stone against stone rasped through the air. Beryk sniffed at the herbs, sneezed and prudently retreated a few paces before sitting again, his keen golden eyes observing Vell’s every move. Vell motioned with the pestle. “He said he saw a patch of coltsfoot somewhere over there, and maybe some queensfoil.”

  “Not bad, for woods in the Borderlands,” I commented. “Do you need more help?”

  Vell gave me a considering look. “Luca is a fair hand at healing. We’ve gathered a fair amount, and with what I already have on hand it should be enough for at least three or four days.” Her teeth glimmered in a brief grin. “Hard to kill, we Northfolk.”

  “It’s a good thing, too,” I said.

  She examined the greenish paste at the bottom of the mortar, added some water from a little bronze kettle that I’d never seen before, and stirred the mixture briefly with the pestle. Rising gracefully to her feet without so much as a wobble, she said to Beryk, “Could you please wake up Chael? I have a last dose for him before we prepare to travel.”

  I wasn’t sure whether it would be bad manners to follow Vell as she began walking away from the embers of the fire; I took an uncertain step forward, then muttered, “To hell with it,” and lengthened my stride. “How are they?”

  “Not dead,” Vell replied tersely. Beryk pressed against her knees as she paused briefly. She turned to look at me, her golden eyes serious. “They are alive, and I thank you for that. You did not have to risk your life saving them.”

  “But I did,” I said. “Have to, I mean. I had to because if it would have been Liam, if it would have been my brother that they’d captured—or any one of you, for that matter—I would have fought tooth and nail to get him back.”

  Vell and I gazed at each other for a long moment.

  “Kavoryk died to rescue them,” she said. “We will honor his spirit by fighting just as fiercely for you.”

  “We will all fight against the darkness more fiercely to honor Kavoryk,” I said, my voice hitching slightly at the end of the sentence. I cleared my throat. The loss of Kavoryk felt like a raw wound, just as cutting as the gauges in my thigh that still pulled painfully as I walked after Vell. “What of the Glasidhe?”

  “Our small scouts are out looking at our path ahead,” Vell said. Her boots made no noise as she slid through the woods, silent as one of the shadows. “They’ve taken to the navigator, and he gives them purpose.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Murtagh appeared from behind a tree, his hands covered in dirt. “Queensfoil and coltsfoot, both, and some yellow widowvine as well,” he announced to Vell, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

  “Flowered widowvine?” Vell picked out the golden threads of the plant from Murtagh’s offered palms.

  “No, but almost,” he replied.

  “Better than I expected to find, truthfully.” Vells scooped the plants into her hands, absorbed in examining them in the afternoon light.

  “You look well,” I said to Murtagh.

  “My lady Bearer.” He dropped to one knee.

  “We’ve been over this before, Murtagh.” I raised one eyebrow. “And you look a little ridiculous, being so courteous with mud up to your elbows.”

  “I forget myself sometimes,” Murtagh said, standing hastily and brushing at the dirt on his pale skin. He raised luminous eyes to me. “But I owe you my very life, my la—”

  I cleared my throat. Vell turned her chuckle into a cough.

  “Tess,” Murtagh finished hastily. “I thought my ability Walking was quite a talent, you see, and then you…you transported me here. From Darkhill.”

  “Mab was killing you,” I replied simply. “I couldn’t let her do that, especially since I had a feeling that it was because of what you didn’t tell her after you saw me in the woods. We need to talk about what’s really happening at Darkhill.” I gestured. “Come on then, show me where you found that widowvine. Sometimes there’s lady’s-veil that grows around the same area.”

  Vell slipped off in another direction, Beryk shadowing her footsteps, leaving us alone in the woods. Murtagh led the way, weaving through the trees until he reached a particularly beautiful patch of birch trees. “Are there any tree-nymphs in these?” I wondered, mostly to myself.

  “No,” Murtagh replied with certainty. I looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. “Legend has it that in my bloodline there’s a nymph, many generations ago. My mother thought that maybe that was what gave me my talent while Walking. The invisibility.”

  I smiled a little as I searched the sunny patches near one of the birch’s roots.

  “Anyway, I can feel them, when they’re here. There aren’t nearly as many as there were.”

  “We need to talk about Mab,” I reminded him, glancing up at the slanting sunlight. “We’re going to be on the move again in an hour or so. I need to know what’s going on at Darkhill.”

  “Where should I start?”

  “What happened after you saw us? After you swore your oath to me?”

  “I reported to the Queen, as I was instructed before I was sent out to find you…to spy on you,” Murtagh corrected himself, his russet hair gleaming in the sunlight. I’d forgotten the vibrancy of his hair and green eyes—they’d both been so dull, tarnished by approaching death, when I’d seen him last in Darkhill. His fingers nimbly picked out more widowvine by another tree. “I told her that I had seen you, and you had seen me. She was furious that you’d been bound to the Iron Sword. The Vaelanseld was there, when I reported to her, and I think it was only he that prevented the Queen from stripping the flesh from my bones where I stood.”

  “That’s…pretty angry, even for Mab.” I pulled aside a cluster of purple flowers and made a small sound of triumph. “Lady’s-veil, I knew it!” The leaves were delicate and lacy and almost white, earning the plant its name. I carefully uprooted a few of the stems.

  “So then, the Knight Ramel arrived back at Darkhill with the Vaelanmavar,” Murtagh continued. “The Court was split in our opinions…some of us thought that the Queen would kill him, and name the Vaelanbrigh a traitor. But again, I think the Vaelanseld counseled the Queen that she could not afford to lose any more power by branding the Vaelanbrigh a traitor when he was out of her reach to execute. She could have called him back to her, but there was always the chance that he would resist her unto death, if he put his loyalty to you above her. She still took his power, so she was content to let him continue on as the Vaelanbrigh. The Vaelanmavar she’s imprisoned, and is deliberating on his fate.”

  “Will he get any sort of trial?” I asked, brushing dirt from the delicate spindly roots of the lady’s-veil and laying i
t carefully to one side.

  Murtagh gave a short laugh. “There is no trial but the will of the Queen.”

  “That does make sense. So how did she start draining you?”

  “She chose me. Me and two others—”

  “I don’t want to know their names,” I said quickly. “I can’t. I saved you, and that’s all I could do that night.”

  “You sound as though you’re trying to convince yourself of that,” Murtagh said softly. Then he stiffened. “I apologize, if I overstepped my bounds. In any case, we were chosen and bound to the Queen.”

  “Bound how? Like how her Three are bound?”

  “Hardly, though some thought there was some poetry in her choice of three of us. Three of us to bolster the power from the Three who were failing her.” Murtagh added a blue-green plant that I didn’t know by name to our pile. “It was a one-way bond so that she could access our taebramh. All three of us were Walkers, which might have had something to do with our selection.”

  “Walkers have more taebramh than non-Walkers?”

  “No, because most Sidhe can learn to Walk if they desire. For those of us that do not need to be taught, it is a talent present within us from birth. Some think that our taebramh is more accessible, because we use it so readily and so often.”

  I thought of the pulsing veins in the walls of Darkhill. “Isn’t there taebramh in Darkhill itself? Why does Mab need to drain living Sidhe when there’s veins of the stuff running through the walls of her own palace?”

  “The taebramh in the walls of Darkhill belongs to an ancient power. It is not something that the Queen can command upon a whim. Times would be dark indeed if she were siphoning the power of Darkhill itself.”

  “Right, because sucking the life out of her subjects like a metaphysical vampire isn’t dark enough.”

  Murtagh gave me a quizzical look with his bright green eyes.

  “Don’t look at me like that. Never mind. Continue, please.”

  “I was just going to say that vampires have been extinct for centuries in Faeortalam,” Murtagh said.

  “In…Faeortalam…no. No. You are not going to sidetrack this conversation. We are going to stay on topic here and you are going to tell me about how Mab was draining the power out of you.”

  Murtagh gave a small shrug. “There is not much more to tell,” he said. “She did not much care where we were or what company we kept, as long as we were within the walls of Darkhill. She did not even tell us personally that we had been chosen; the Vaelanseld performed that task, and gave us the binding-potion to drink.”

  “And how fast did it take effect?”

  Murtagh took a deep breath. “Immediately. It was like someone had sliced open one of my veins to drink my blood…but it was from my soul, draining my taebramh.”

  I shuddered. “And here’s the vampire metaphor again.”

  “Ramel and his group took me in,” Murtagh continued, either not hearing me or choosing to ignore my last comment. “Bren came to find me after she heard that I’d seen you. I was chosen shortly after Ramel arrived back at Court with the Vaelanmavar as prisoner. He came to talk to me as well. I already suspected then that they were all part of your army.”

  “Part of my army?” I stared at him blankly.

  “The forces loyal to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I was unaware that I had an army. Please, do tell.”

  “Those that returned from the battle…they were all different. It was hard to tell with some, but it was there. They’d been marked, touched by your power. And they knew they owed their lives to you. But they did a good job of keeping it all quiet.”

  “That seems pretty miraculous, because last time I was at Darkhill the Queen’s subjects couldn’t even think about treason without her knowing.”

  “But it’s not treason to them. And it really isn’t,” Murtagh explained, his handsome face taking on an endearing earnesty. “They think that you are our last and best hope against the Darkness. To serve you is to serve the Queen, because without you we will not survive.”

  “Last and best hope against the Darkness…blonde chick with a shiny sword.” I made weighing motions with my hands. “Sure, seems about equal.”

  Murtagh let himself smile. “Ramel said you had a particularly singular sense of mortal humor.”

  “Mortal humor. Like deadly humor?”

  Murtagh shook his head. “No, as in you are a mortal,” he said, despite my attempt to stop him.

  “Well. First of all, I know what you meant. I was just messing with you. And second of all, I’m not exactly mortal anymore.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it again, but the question was in his eyes.

  “Don’t ask me what that really means. It’s what the Caedbranr told me.”

  Murtagh eyed the hilt of the Sword. “Fair enough.”

  “So it sounds to me like the Court is…divided.”

  “Not openly.” Murtagh shook his head. “None would dare to challenge Queen Mab, even in her weakened state. She is still capable of terrific power.”

  “And terrific cruelty.” I rubbed one hand across my forehead. “Why exactly is she queen again?”

  Murtagh stared at me as though I’d just sworn in church. Which, in a way, I suppose my question was a form of heresy in the world of the Sidhe. “It is in her blood….just as being Bearer is in yours.”

  “Don’t you dare compare me to her.”

  “I mean no offense. I am merely trying to explain, since you seem to have a great dislike for our Queen.”

  “You still call her your Queen, even though she would have killed you?”

  “I had ample time to think about my impending death,” Murtagh said, looking down at his empty, dirt-stained hands. “And I came to the conclusion that it was necessary. Necessary for me to die so that others could live, so that the Queen could protect her subjects against the encroaching Shadow.”

  “But you still used the last of your strength to Walk. To find me, and ask me to save you.”

  The hint of a sad smile touched Murtagh’s mouth. “I suppose in the end I was a coward. I did not want to die, even for so noble a cause.”

  “Or maybe you knew that you didn’t want to die for Queen Mab,” I suggested. “I’m only suggesting a possibility,” I said defensivly at Murtagh’s offended look. “I’m not saying that makes you a traitor or anything—”

  “So I am either a coward or a traitor, or both,” the young Sidhe Walker said, the offended look fading from his face, replaced with a sad sort of acceptance.

  “Stop that right now,” I said, more fiercely than I intended. I saw his startled look out of the corner of my eye as I gathered up the pile of herbs. “No, you are not a traitor, and not wanting to die doesn’t make you a coward.” I looked directly into his eyes. “It makes you a survivor.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Come on then. Time to pack up.”

  “Tess,” he said. “There’s something else I didn’t tell you. It’s just a rumor, I heard it while I was sick and the others were talking…”

  “What is it?” I stopped and looked back at him expectantly.

  “If the Queen executes the Vaelanmavar, there has been speculation as to whom she would choose to replace him.”

  “And?”

  “And the majority of the Court seems to think that she will choose Ramel.”

  I stared down at the plants in my hand, straightening a thin golden strand and swallowing against the sudden burst of fear in my chest. I took a deep breath.

  “Tess? Are you all right?” Murtagh tentatively took a step closer.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I said through numb lips. “I’m just trying to…absorb that last bit. About Ramel being the Vaelanmavar.”

  “Not yet. The Queen would need to execute the current Vaelanmavar.”

  “Right. I know…I…” I shuddered, the image of the last execution that the Sword had shown me rising in my mind’s eye.

  “You do not
want to see Ramel chosen as the Vaelanmavar.”

  “No.” I turned and walked back toward camp. “I don’t.”

  “It is a great honor,” Murtagh said, keeping up with me with little difficulty.

  I rounded on him. “You say it’s a great honor? You’d be dead right now if Mab had her way! For God’s sake, we just talked about that, Murtagh! How can you say it’s an honor?”

  Murtagh winced slightly, just enough for me to catch.

  “Let’s just hope that everyone is wrong.” I turned on my heel and strode back toward camp, willing myself to push away the image of Ramel dying on my bed in Darkhill rather than Murtagh. I wouldn’t let him become the Vaelanmavar, I thought fiercely. I would do whatever I could to prevent Mab from getting her claws into my best friend in the Sidhe world.

  Chapter 25

  “Here,” I said to Vell, laying the bundle of herbs by her healing kit as I passed. “Half an hour.”

  “We will be ready,” she replied firmly.

  I caught a glimpse of Luca kneeling by the side of a tawny wolf with ice-blue eyes. The wolf was huge—it reminded me more of a lion at first glance—and before I could look away, it turned its massive head toward me and fixed me with eyes that seemed to freeze me in place. Luca glanced over his shoulder and broke into a grin. It was the first time I’d seen him truly smile since the night we’d taken the dagger from his hand, and it was like the sun breaking through clouds. I found myself smiling in return. Luca stood and closed the distance between us in two huge strides.

  “Come, Tess, you must meet Kianryk,” he said. He smelled like ice and pine. I nodded wordlessly and followed him.

  “He’s…huge,” I said breathlessly. Kianryk’s head was the size of my torso. I was pretty sure he’d be able to swallow me in one bite, if he wanted. Which I hoped he didn’t. That thought was reinforced when Kianryk opened his mouth in a jaw-stretching yawn, revealing glistening white teeth as long as my entire hand. My eyes widened involuntarily.