by Jocelyn Fox
Not entirely, the Sword whispered into my mind, the words barely more than a suggestion; but it was enough to stem the rising tide of despair welling from my morbid thoughts. Not entirely, I thought again, sitting up a little straighter on my mount. The slight movement quickly illuminated my stiffness, and my leg began to ache, a dull pain that hovered at the back of my consciousness like an annoying insect. I glanced up at the sky: barely lighter than twilight, but I was sure it had been at least an hour since the darkness began to lift. My mount shook his head as if trying to shed the lingering night chill. I rubbed my own arms and then habitually checked for my weapons: knife in my boot, plain sword lashed to the saddle, the Sword in its beaten scabbard across my back, natural as one of my own limbs. My hands went to check for my bow and quiver before my mind remembered that they’d been lost at the cliff with Kelath. I swallowed and took a deep breath. At least Vell still had her bow and quiver, and she was a better archer than me, I thought.
Finally, at some unspoken signal, all the faehal drifted to a halt. I wasn’t sure the forest could be called a forest anymore: gray trunks clustered here and there, with enough room to see the weak daylight between them, their branches bare of leaves. On the ground, a few stunted bushes with half-dead leaves struggled to survive. The only living thing that seemed to thrive were thorny briars that snaked along the ground and up the trunks of the bony trees, creating thickets of bony vines and wicked-looking thorns.
“The Shadow’s minions dislike the day,” Finnead said. “We should make camp.” The ulfdrengr regarded him silently, Vell sliding sinuously to the ground from behind Murtagh, standing beside Luca, who had emerged silently out of the trees. Chael still sat astride his mount.
“We should press on,” Vell said, her voice low and steady.
A peculiar tension tightened the air, and not for the first time I wondered what Vell and her wolf-warriors weren’t telling me, what backstory existed between the ulfdrengr and the Sidhe. Murtagh and Merrick looked on silently. Rialla appeared on the other side of Finnead, her amethyst eyes gleaming in the half-light. Beryk ghosted out from the trees beside Rialla, his midnight-dark fur rippling with blues and purples and greens. Kianryk stood solidly by me, but his sharply intelligent gaze rested on Luca. A thought entered my mind, no more than a hunch, but I reached my hand down, slowly, and brushed Kianryk’s fur with my fingertips. A shiver coursed through me, and a power that felt akin to static electricity played about my skin. I knew the wolf felt it too: his great muscles tensed, just slightly, and he lifted his great head. One of his expressive ears twitched toward me, as though he was listening for me to say something.
“We cannot continue to travel without rest,” Merrick said, reining in his mount beside Finnead, his tone conciliatory.
“Do they not teach you any endurance during your training, pup?” Chael said, a barely concealed sneer in his voice.
Merrick looked slightly wounded. Finnead’s face went cold and still as marble at the veiled insult. The young navigator glanced at me, and then said, “It’s not to say that we couldn’t press on, it’s just that we must ensure we have the strength to fight whatever it is we encounter on this perilous road.”
“Perilous,” Vell said under her breath. “You have never seen anything truly perilous, Court-bred.”
“Hold now,” Murtagh said, even as the aloof irritation in Finnead’s eyes burst into a controlled blaze of anger. “Not two days ago, we rescued your kin, and now this hostility?”
Vell laughed, a cold hard laugh that sounded foreign coming from her mouth. Her gaze was hard and flat as a golden coin, tempered by a strange anger that reached deeper than this petty argument. “You did not rescue my kin, Murtagh. You were busy letting your so-called queen drain your power to protect your own gates.” Her face was white with fury now, and the marks of the White Wolf blazed silver from her neck.
“Do not speak of our Queen in that way,” Finnead said.
“She is no longer your Queen, if I understand it rightly,” Vell spat back at him. “You had to die to escape her murderous clutches. Just as she let our people die rather then send us aid.” She spread her arms to include Chael and Luca. Together they looked like a trinity of Viking dieties: Vell a goddess of vengeance with her beautiful face cold in fury, Luca standing behind her right shoulder, his gaze impassive; and Chael, his scars only illuminating the perfection of his beauty, his single eye fixed on Finnead with ruthless intent, a god of cold revenge. “We are all that is left of the ulfdrengr, a people that defended the North from the Shadow as was our charge and our sworn duty.” Vell took a step forward, her voice rising inexorably with her fury. “We discharged our duty, Knight, even unto the death of all our kin! But when we called for aid, when we warned that the Shadow was rising in the Borderlands, what help did your Queen send?” Her question arced through the air like an arrow. Merrick flinched. Murtagh lowered his gaze. Finnead, still astride his faehal, looked down at Vell impassively, the flash of anger in his gaze carefully covered. He was once again the untouchable Vaelanbrigh.
“It is not for us to know the inner thoughts of our Queen,” he said, echoing the sentiment I’d heard so many times at Darkhill. Murtagh couldn’t raise his eyes. Merrick seemed to be have trouble finding somewhere to look.
“Your Queen is responsible for the annihilation of my people!” Vell hissed, taking another step forward.
Why was this happening now? Why in the middle of this perilous dead forest was Vell confronting something she must have known….coldness gripped my stomach. Vell hadn’t known what had happened to her people, not really. Not until we’d separated Luca from the cursed dagger, and freed Chael from his torment in that camp of horrors. Not until we’d opened Chael’s mind and seen ulfdrengr’s heads speared on stakes, gore-streaked and staring. With a jolt I remembered Vell saying that her sister’s eyes had been cornflower-blue. I tried to call up the grisly image from Chael’s memories, but my mind rebelled. Had Vell seen her sister among the dead in Chael’s memories? She must have had other family too, a father and perhaps brothers, a mother…the thought of seeing my own brother in such a state made me feel sick.
“The might of Darkhill, too, has suffered from the Shadow,” Finnead replied. He sounded so cold, so unfeeling. I wondered how I’d felt anything like love for someone so detached and aloof.
One of the wolves growled, long and low. The sound drifted along the bare ground. Vell took another step forward, her two warriors echoing her movement. Luca stared intently at Merrick, and Chael’s gaze was locked on Murtagh. Vell’s eyes never left Finnead. I realized that if I didn’t do something, the Sidhe and ulfdrengr would be at each other’s throats, and though the Sidhe’s skills were tremendous, I wasn’t sure they were a match for the raw fury emanating from Vell. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Forin and Farin’s neon trails overhead. Either they didn’t know what side to take—Farin, after all, was exceedingly fond of Beryk and Vell, and I’d seen Forin talking seriously to Luca in the previous hours—or they’d decided that the most prudent course of action was to stay out of range until everything was decided.
“Suffered from the Shadow,” Vell echoed. “Oh, I am sure you have suffered, shut behind your walls with your glorious feasts and jousting matches and all the trappings of a false Queen leading a failing kingdom.”
As I saw Murtagh’s jaw tighten and Merrick raise flashing eyes, I reached down, gripped Kianryk’s ruff and said loudly, “Enough.” My voice resounded with the barest hint of power, cracking like an ethereal whip through the tense air. A jolt of power shivered up my wrist from Kianryk’s fur and Luca’s eyes snapped to me. I held his gaze for a moment, then switched to Finnead, who looked at me impassively. Finally I looked at Vell. She stared at me, at my hand on Kianryk, something like disbelief etched on her face.
“You would compel an ulfdrengr?” she said in a strangled voice. “One of my warriors?”
“I was unaware that Luca was your warrior,” I replied. “And I only
sought to stop this unnecessary conflict.”
“Unnecessary?” Vell stepped toward me now. I tightened my grip in Kianryk’s fur as I tasted snow and pine needles, Vell’s power sending tendrils toward me.
“We are not playing this game of power. Not here, not now,” I said firmly, creating a sort of wall between myself and Vell with my own power. It was like glass, and her power hit it and fathered downward, spiraling like mist toward the forest floor. Leaves curled with frost where her power touched it. Vell showed her teeth in a flash of white.
“You know, Mab likes to turn things icy too,” I commented casually, raising my eyebrows slightly.
And with that, the tension broke. I felt Vell let go of her stream of power as suddenly as if she’d released a bow-string. Chael put a hand on her arm, his one eye still blazing angrily and fixed on Finnead.
“We shall press on,” I said, stroking my fingers through Kianryk’s long fur as I released my grip. I saw Luca take a deep breath, his broad shoulders rising, and I wondered suddenly if the wolves and their warriors shared any feeling. Had he just felt my fingers upon his skin in a caress as I’d drawn my hand over Kianryk’s pelt? I pushed the line of thought away as I felt my cheeks heat.
“But, my lady, aren’t—”
I cut off Merrick with an upheld hand. “For goodness’s sakes, I’ve told you more than once not to bother with silly titles. And I’m fine.” I’m fine, I repeated to myself, trying to convince my mind to forget my aching legs and back, and the pull of the claw-marks still healing in my thigh. “We must make best speed to Brightvale.”
“Then we shall press on,” Finnead said.
“Vell, will you ride beside me?” I asked.
“I will not ride with him again,” she said, looking at Murtagh.
So we had to reconfigure the riding arrangements. If I hadn’t been so relieved that the argument hadn’t turned into a brawl, and so sore, I would have found it comical: Vell, eyes blazing, still sliding venomous glares at Finnead, and Murtagh, looking a bit put out that he wouldn’t have Vell as his passenger again. In the end, I offered Vell my smaller mount, which she accepted, and Murtagh, in an act of gracious concession that made me respect him even more, gave his mount to me with a glance at Luca.
“If we are to press on, I will take my turn on foot,” he said.
I hoped that my face didn’t betray how appealing I found the idea of riding while nestled against Luca’s broad chest. I carefully arranged my features into what I thought was a neutral expression. “My legs are sore,” I admitted with a rueful smile. “Luca, would you mind riding with me to make sure I don’t fall off?”
“I doubt you would fall, Tess,” Luca replied, “but if you ask, I shall ride with you.”
He offered me a stirrup made from his hands as I prepared to mount the much-taller, brawnier Northern mount. After delicately handing me up, he swung up behind me with an eminently masculine ease, so different from Finnead’s cool cat-like grace. My insides shivered.
Power attracts power, the Caedbranr inserted into my mind devilishly.
Quiet, you, I thought at it.
Vell rode on my mount, Murtagh was now on foot, and I was riding with Luca. Merrick raised an eyebrow at me. I raised both of mine and added an innocent shrug in answer: What? This was the only logical arrangement.
“I’ll take the lead,” Finnead said coolly, leaping lightly back into the saddle. Forin streaked ahead, his aura less distinct in the watery light. Farin hovered at eye-level.
“Lady Tess, would you mind if I rode with you as well?” she asked mischieviously.
I ignored her inflection. “Of course not, Farin, as long as you don’t call me ‘Lady’ again.”
The Glasidhe settled onto my shoulder and swung her legs around so that she faced Luca. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I wish to ask you, wolf-warrior, a few questions.” Her last sentence dipped into dulcet tones. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Luca’s shining masculinity.
“Of course, my lady Glasidhe,” Luca answered seriously.
I smiled a bit, gathered the reins and nudged our mount back onto the trail, Kainryk padding beside us, and so we continued on the perilous path to the Seelie Court.
Chapter 28
As the day wore on, the light changed very little. I began to feel the effects of traveling all night and then pressing on, as I’d known I would. I tried to fight the heaviness weighing down my eyelids, and succeeded only in scaring myself a few times by half falling asleep and then awakening fully with a jolt, not quite remembering where I was or why I was astride a horse or why I had a gorgeous Viking astride my horse behind me. Finally Luca touched my arm—a bit tentatively—and said into my ear, “It is all right, Tess, you can go to sleep. I will stay awake. I will make sure you do not fall.”
After a moment of hesitation, I nodded. Farin squealed gleefully into my ear when I rearranged the Sword so that I could settle back against Luca. I winced and swatted at her half-heartedly as she spun in circles around my head. “First you make me deaf and now you’re making me dizzy,” I complained at her. She only gave a trilling little laugh and twirled a few extra times right in front of my eyes.
Now that I was nestled against Luca’s broad chest, it was easier for me to talk to him. “Was what I did earlier…was that taboo?” I asked softly, leaning my head back against his shoulder. He arranged his arms carefully around me, clearly trying not to seem forward with his placement of his body against mine. I smiled a little. For a Northern warrior, so ruggedly handsome and skillful with a sword as well as banter, Luca was, when it came down to it, a bit shy around women.
“If you mean when you touched Kianryk and reached through our bond to break through the anger…no, it was not…taboo, as you say. It is just…unusual. I have not known anyone who was not a herravaldyr to be able to reach through bonds.”
“Hm,” I commented sleepily. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
“Oh, you are trouble,” Luca said into my ear, his voice low, breath brushing my neck.
Suddenly I wasn’t so sleepy anymore. I felt every place our bodies touched acutely. “You know that…the Vaelanbrigh…”
“I know that there was something between you, and perhaps there still is,” he said. “But you are something like herravaldyr, and in our world, herravaldyr women always have many suitors. Some even fight to the death for the chance to be her mate.”
“Well, I don’t want anyone to fight to the death over me,” I said quickly, but something about the idea tugged at a primal part of me. “What about Vell? She is a herravaldyr.”
“She will make her own choice,” Luca said unconcernedly.
“And anyway…this is silly talk, with a war going on,” I said, clearing my throat and trying to ignore the heat rushing through my skin at the feel of his torso pressed against my back.
“War and love often go hand in hand,” Luca replied.
“All’s fair in both,” I agreed in a murmur, mostly to myself.
Luca’s low laugh rumbled through me. “I like that,” he said, his Northern accent pronounced. “All’s fair in love and war.”
“It’s from one of our mortal poets,” I explained.
“You still lay claim to mortal poets?” he asked light-heartedly. “You are the least mortal-seeming mortal that I have ever met.”
“I’ll bet I’m the only mortal you’ve ever met.”
“That is true as well, but from what I have been told, most mortals cannot do what you can do, Tess.”
That surprised a quiet laugh out of me. Merrick, riding in front of us, looked over his shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised again. I gave him the same both-eyebrows, shoulder-shrug answer.
“He shines like gold, even in the dimmest light,” Farin whispered into the curve of my ear. I took that to mean she approved of Luca.
“You shouldn’t be taking sides,” I murmured at her.
“I have been messenger for the Dark Court but that does not mean I o
we them my loyalty,” Farin said. “In any sense,” she added wickedly.
“Hush,” I admonished, a smile in my voice. I tipped my head back slightly and watched the arching arms of the trees overhead, their bareness stark in the grey-washed light.
“The forest is dying,” Farin said, loud enough for both Luca and I to hear.
“Or it is already dead,” Luca agreed in somber tones.
“Do you feel it, Tess? Do you feel the difference?” I felt Farin shift on my shoulder, her wings brushing my neck and fanning my hair.
I paused and took a deep breath, settling into the state of awareness that let me feel through my taebramh. Normally when I sent seeking tendrils of power afield, I felt some sort of response from the veins of taebramh that ran through the earth of Faeortalam like veins. Sometimes they were deep beneath the earth, inaccessible, but I still felt them. Here, in this skeletal forest, I felt nothing from the earth and trees. I sensed the glowing pulses of the Sidhe, and amongst the trees there were the three wolves, twining fluidly together and then separating, already running as a pack. But I couldn’t feel any life in the earth of Faeortalam itself. It was like shouting into silence and hearing only your own echo. I felt my own returning power, but no more. “Yes,” I whispered, chilled. “I can’t feel any…any pulse. There’s no power at all, none in the earth or the trees.”
“No nymphs,” Farin said sadly.
I felt her tiny hand stroke the soft flesh of my earlobe; whether it was for her own comfort or for mine I couldn’t tell. I shivered, the grey landscape taking on an even more alien cast as we plunged deeper into the dead forest. “I’m not very tired anymore,” I said, feeling a spike of anxiety. What creatures roamed these woods that I couldn’t sense? Shadow-wraiths, gore-crows, some other monsters of the Shadow’s creation? I shivered and felt the pull of the claw-marks in my thigh.
“We will be through this forest soon enough,” Luca said. “In the meantime, you should at least catch rest while you won’t fall off your mount.” He tightened his hold on me slightly to emphasize his point.
