Rogue's Pawn

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Marquise and Scourge’s castle where I’d stayed these last months seemed so small from the outside, glowing with a sick, greasy light and utterly still. As we rode away, I took a long look at my tower room. Then turned my back on it.

  As good as it felt to be released from captivity and my lovingly cruel masters, a spinning sense of panic swirled through me. Agoraphobia, a clinical part of my brain informed me. I seemed to be filling up with thoughts again, an empty well slowly adjusting to a new water table after a long drought. I let the thoughts rise up again behind my tightly controlled wall, presenting my null demeanor to the world. Never would I go back to Marquise and Scourge.

  Whatever it took.

  I tamped down the anxiety, contenting myself with holding my left wrist in my right hand. It appeared as though I was steadying the hand holding the reins, but it also let me feel my pulse. I was both alive and relatively free. I had things to do.

  A battle to win. And not for Falcon.

  How easy it had been for Rogue to show me exactly what he wanted me to see. How he’d suckered me in and had me dancing to his tune. He was involved with bringing me to this place. Faerie, I decided to call it, now that I had freedom to think again, to observe and assimilate. Parallel universe, underworld, alternate dimension—the exact definition no longer mattered.

  I knew now, better than ever, that power was the only thing that mattered in this world. Magic would give me the power I needed to make sure I never went through anything like that sadistic bootcamp again. Rogue thought to use sex against me, but I wouldn’t allow it. Sex was my power to use—I’d learned that much. I’d serve the rest of my sentence and then find my way home. Rogue would never get his baby—I had over six years to make sure of it.

  Lord Puck reined up beside me. I cast my eyes down submissively, habitually.

  “We’ll keep today’s ride short, as I imagine you are still…tender.”

  I said nothing. I didn’t have to unless he asked me a direct question. Wisdom lay in saying less.

  “We’ll stop at Castle Brightness, the ancestral home of Lady Blackbird’s family. They’re the last decent lodging we’ll have for some time. After that it’s tents as we travel to the battlefront. You’ll see battle within the week, Lady Gwynn, mark my words!” Enthusiasm made him bounce in the saddle.

  Darling sent an image of fat mice waddling slowly through golden rooms, accompanied by a lick of pleased anticipation. I sent him back a smile. At least he was excited about our destination. He also wanted a new name but preferred that it emerge in battle. These ideas were accompanied by an image of himself straddling some limp misshapen form, while his own fur dripped blood of the enemy, tail bristling in defiant delight. I didn’t point out that his cat body looked more mountain lion-sized in these fantasies.

  “You’ll understand soon,” Lord Puck said, making me start in my skin. “Why Falcon had us do it the way we did. One doesn’t cross the Great Lord Falcon, you know.”

  I slid my eyes carefully up from the brown mane of my horse, to observe his profile through the filmy white scarf covering my head. Lord Puck looked cheerful, as if he might start whistling. Perhaps he was also relieved to have my training done with, and not just because he now could bring a new weapon to the front. To give him a little credit, he’d blanched at my appearance when he came to fetch me. He also stayed far away from Marquise and Scourge, his lighthearted thoughts skittering away from their thin smiles. He didn’t know, really, what all had happened inside that castle, had never had a clear idea of what he’d delivered me into.

  Unlike Rogue, who’d given me that searing look of regret and warning, then tossed me at Lord Puck and walked off to while away his time dancing while I went through the fires of hell.

  Not that I was bitter.

  “Lady Gwynn, we ride out in a new day. Your dark time is past. I won’t say I’m sorry for my role in it, because it was necessary. However, know this—you may be bound by a debt of service, but you are no slave. Just do your duty by Lord Falcon and take pleasure in your life where you can find it.”

  I found my voice, so little used lately. “You surprise me, Lord Puck.”

  “Do I?” A pleased grin flashed across his face. “Good! Living is about surprises. A life without fun isn’t worth living. Here.” He sidled his horse nearer to mine, fished a little golden bell out of his pocket and affixed it to my horse’s bridle. It hung there, jingling with each footstep. “Now you’ll arrive with bells on!”

  He cocked his head to the side, like a little boy trying to catch my eye. I watched the foolish little bell.

  “I’m not sure what to make of this personality change.”

  “Not a change—just situation-appropriate. We all answer to someone, lady. Inciting merriment among the merry-less is one of my own callings—I take it very seriously.”

  “Odd that you go to war then.”

  “Oh no, not at all—it’ll be grand fun. You’ll see!”

  Darling agreed, sending an image of a spiked collar with a brass breastplate for my consideration. Puck launched into a song that seemed to be about apples and pigs, but made no real sense to me.

  I let my heart unclench a little.

  Castle Brightness did indeed shine brilliantly. Fairy-tale turrets gleamed golden against the emerald hills and verdant apple orchards below. It was the first building I’d approached while conscious in this world. I’d never even seen Rogue’s fortress from the outside, and I’d been at Marquise and Scourge’s for who knows how long before I saw anything but that tower room.

  Taking Puck’s advice, I soaked in the view as our horses stepped lightly on the winding road down the hill. I still couldn’t put my finger on that deeper quality to all the colors. It was like a plasma-screen version of the world, with just a little more contrast, composed of cells of light. Rather than reflecting light here, everything seemed to just glow. A kind of otherworld phosphorescence.

  Bright trumpets signaled our arrival, flushing flocks of blackbirds from the orchards. They swirled, glinting, a living cloud of mica, then added their fluting calls to the heralds, as they dove around the fluttering pennants on the towers. Everything seemed suffused with a dreamlike quality, as if I was still suffering from the soul-killing timelessness of Marquise and Scourge’s world. As if I’d never fully wakened. I pressed more firmly on my pulse. It was solid and real, echoing the soft thuds of my horse’s hooves.

  A group of people assembled in the wide and gracious courtyard before the castle gates. Darling jumped down as soon as we reined up, flicking his tail in a casual goodbye, sending me a little reminder image of a golden floor littered with bloody mice.

  And, surprise, there was Lady Blackbird, calling a hello to Darling and flashing an amused smile when he ignored her. Then with a delighted greeting she was at my stirrup, waiting for me to dismount.

  Which was, indeed, quite painful.

  “The first day riding is always so difficult,” she tutted, embracing me.

  I tried not to wince when she touched my back. I would be grateful when I finished healing. Puck’s people had offered me a healer’s services. I had declined.

  “I didn’t expect you here, Lady Blackbird?”

  She folded her hands with a pleased look. “Lord Rogue let me return home, as part of your boon to me.” She patted my arm. “Lady Gwynn, may I present to you my daughter, Starling.”

  “Greetings, Lady Starling.” I nodded gravely to the brown-haired woman who stood eagerly at her mother’s side, surveying her through the veil. She seemed to be a little older than a teenager, but hard to say what that meant here. If the fairy stories were at all true, these people were immortal, forever youthful. I had yet to see anyone elderly, but there was certainly a maturity difference between Blackbird and Starling.

  “Oh not lady, just Starling,” she said. “I’m a half-br
eed, you know.”

  Interesting. Her limbs did lack that slightly out-of-proportion look. Her cheekbones were more flat, with a scattering of Lucy Liu freckles beneath eyes that matched the snapping dark gloss of her mother’s.

  “Lady Gwynn,” Lord Puck called, “I see the ladies have you in hand. Do what you like this afternoon. We’ll see you for the evening meal.” He ambled off with a laughing group of men.

  With an apology, Blackbird excused herself to see to the feast preparations.

  Starling offered to show me to my room. “You’ll change out of your traveling clothes and we can have cocktails!” she enthused.

  Cocktails—how funny that her word for wine, which I recognized by the sound, translated as “cocktails” in my head. I hadn’t had a drink since that sickly plum wine at Rogue’s banquet. Talk about enforced rehab.

  “I’m afraid I’m a bit of a charity case,” I confessed as we walked through the gleaming hallways. “I’m wearing all I have.” Though I’d have just loved to ditch the shapeless traveling robe, in my adopted oatmeal color, it was certainly better than what I’d barely been wearing recently.

  “Oh, didn’t Puck—I mean, Lord Puck—” Starling glanced around to be sure her mother hadn’t heard her slip, “—tell you? Since my mother is your seneschal-in-absentia, she took care of assembling your wardrobe.” She grabbed my arm excitedly. “All new clothes!”

  “Seneschal?” I asked.

  Starling did a little dance around me, her filmy gown flaring—she had an enviably slender figure. Of course, I was likely gaunt as a skeleton now.

  “Yes! Since you gave her your gratitude, Rogue made her your seneschal. So she’ll take care of your business from here until you get your own castle. Or whatever. If I could conjure up anything I wanted, I think I’d have a little place by the sea—who wants more fortresses?”

  “You have a point there.”

  “Here we are.” Starling opened doors into a sun-filled room all in whites and golds with a row of windows that overlooked the orchards and the green hills beyond. She skipped across the room to an armoire and flung open the doors to a garden of outfits. “See!” She practically squealed. “You can try them all on. See what you like best. I’m very good at helping decide what looks best.”

  Hesitant, I pulled out something in a pretty jewel-green. It looked reasonable—neither convent nor Frederick’s of Hollywood.

  “Mother said you prefer brighter colors,” Starling said. “I’m calling for cocktails.”

  I flipped through the gowns, some with divided skirts for riding, all bright jewel tones, all of similar weight. Was it always the same season here? No, couldn’t be—not with apples growing outside. Unless those weren’t really apples. Ah, well—it was easier to assume normal rules of biology applied. Apple trees were deciduous and required a cold season to fruit. Therefore there must be seasons, right? Though, so far, every day had been the same sunshine, the same clear skies. Bemused, I listened to the roll of my thoughts, more popping up all the time.

  “What do I do if there’s colder weather?”

  Starling returned from the hall, trailed by a young page pushing a sort-of tea cart laden with decanters and a pair of crystal glasses that grabbed the sun and threw shards of light around the room. Starling shooed him out and closed the door, leaning back against it, looking surprised. “I thought you were a sorceress. Can’t you just zap yourself warm?” She wiggled her fingers like lightning strikes as an example.

  A laugh escaped me, which felt odd. A crack in the granite. “Probably, but wouldn’t it be easier just to wear a coat?”

  “Unglamorous, if you ask me.” She shrugged. “Look in that trunk—I think those are cold-weather supplies. Now do you want honey wine, plum wine or sweet nectar? Or there’s this whiskey.”

  “Whiskey? You have whiskey?”

  “Yes, it’s common, but Daddy keeps it on the cocktail cart. I don’t know why.”

  “Yes, please, to the whiskey.”

  She generously filled one crystal goblet and I choked at the sight.

  “That much will take all afternoon to drink.”

  “Good thing we have all afternoon!” Starling poured herself some pink stuff that had to be the nectar and flopped on a white velvet fainting couch. She pointed imperiously at me. “Now start trying on clothes. I’ve been waiting and waiting to see them. We thought they would never let you out.”

  Me, too.

  “What about the color thing?” I asked, grasping at the memory.

  “Color thing?”

  “You know, if I wear this color, I’m allied with that person.”

  “Oh tish tosh.” Starling shooed away so much nonsense. “The only ones who believe that are the old-fashioned old-fogies. Wear what you like and screw ’em if they can’t take a joke, I say! Only,” she added, glancing at the closed door, “don’t mention to Mom that I said so. Now get started already!”

  The feel of the glass in my hand, the sun streaming in the windows, the taste of whiskey in my mouth—not quite Jameson, but wonderful in its own way—helped settle me back in my skin. Taking my glass with me, I grabbed the green dress and stepped behind the lacquer screen that shielded the chamber pot. Starling didn’t need to see the state of my body. I didn’t need to answer questions about it.

  I nudged the pot aside with my foot, balanced my glass on a little ledge built into the screen and shrugged out of the oatmeal traveling thing. I tossed the robe over the top of the screen.

  “Bravo!” Starling called. “Let’s just burn that, shall we?”

  “Fine by me, but let’s make sure at least one of these fits first.”

  “Oh they’ll fit. Mother never misses.”

  Fortunately I hadn’t been wound into one of those mummy-corsets since that long-ago night of the banquet and only wore what the Elizabethan novels probably meant by chemise. Just a fine sheer cloth nightgown-style, except the skirt was divided and sewn, so I could ride. I pulled on the green dress, which felt like satiny heaven sliding over me.

  Starling gaped at me when I emerged from behind the screen. Her expression made me think I might not be a vision of loveliness.

  “Blessed Titania, what happened to your hair?”

  I put a hand up to my head. How utterly surreal that I could have forgotten. That I could have pulled off that headscarf with the oatmeal dress and forgotten. I wanted to dash back behind the screen, somehow hide and still pretend that we were having a girlish afternoon trying on clothes.

  But I was a deer frozen in the road. Locked in place by Starling’s horrified gaze.

  She set down her wineglass and edged up to the end of the chaise. She had kicked off her flats and tucked one petite bare foot up under her. Now she folded her hands in her lap, a gesture of her mother’s.

  “Fix it,” she said.

  I just stared at her, one hand still on my bristly, scabby scalp.

  “Fix it,” she insisted. “You’re graduated now, right? Free to do whatever magic you want to? And don’t tell me it would be easier to wear a wig.” She reached back to grab her wineglass. “Now’s your opportunity. What kind of hair did you always, always want when you were a little girl? Me? I wanted golden hair. There was this neighbor girl—full breed—like dew-on-the-morning-grass gorgeous, eyes blue as the sky, floating golden hair, delicate pink butterfly wings. Titania, I hated the little bitch.”

  I laughed, a little. Such a frivolous conversation. Her words eroded my numbness.

  Starling leaned forward. “Lady Gwynn—it’s hair. Just fix it. Make it what you want.”

  “I always wanted long black hair.”

  “Oh, and that would be great with your green eyes, though I imagine you could change those, too, if you wanted to. Do it!”

  She was right, I could do this. I was the dog so used
to being beaten that I wouldn’t leave the yard even though the gate was open. And I needed to practice a great deal, to perfect what I knew and to explore the possibilities. Of course I should do this.

  “Is there a mirror?” I asked.

  Starling gestured to an alcove. She followed me, avid interest on her face, wineglass in her hand. “Is it okay if I watch? I almost never get to see real magic being performed. Mother doesn’t want me getting ideas.”

  “I don’t mind. Just be very quiet and don’t distract me.”

  I focused on my image in the mirror and tried not to flinch. I looked like Sinead O’Connor after a bad acid trip…and a bar fight.

  I should have looked at myself before now. One thing I’d learned—painfully—was that if you were going to muck about with the state of reality via magic, you’d better have a firm grip on what really existed in the first place. There was no room for kidding yourself about what was real. No cutting yourself slack that, oh, you didn’t really mean that nasty thought about such and so. Because meaning it, intending it, was what connected the idea to the spark—and it became real like a bomb exploding.

  I could be taught.

  So first, I had to see my hair as it was now. The old stories had it right, that facing yourself in the mirror as you truly were was the ultimate test of character. Not just to recognize the ugliness, but also the beauty. Everything in its balance. I carefully built the image in my mind of what I wanted and searched my heart for the emotion to make it real. What I wanted.

  Then I waited.

  The magic didn’t happen immediately, like in a Las Vegas stage show, with a flash of light and a puff of smoke. No. Real magic flowed on its own timeline.

  And there it was. My shaved scalp with its scabs, stubble and awkward bristles was gone as if it had never been. Now shining black hair waved gently around my face, flowing down my back. I’d fixed the bruises on my face while I was at it. I’d fix what I could of the rest later, when I had the leisure to strip.