The Exile: Book One of the Fae

by C. T. Adams

  “You’re assuming,” Kenneth said, “that she knows about Brianna’s exile. It only just happened.”

  “I think”—Mei bared her teeth—“that Valjeta knows everything that goes on in Leu’s court.”

  Brianna looked pensive. When she spoke, her voice was calm, controlled. “Mei, what day is it?”

  “Monday the twelfth. Why?”

  “It’s three in the afternoon on Monday. Maxine should be here. Where is she?”

  34

  BRIANNA HAI

  Riding in Sophie’s silver BMW was like being carried by a cloud—a fast moving, silent cloud that smelled faintly of leather and Chanel No. 5.

  The seer was patently unhappy to be taking Brianna to check on Maxine. There had been no message from her calling in sick, and she hadn’t answered either her cell or land line when Brianna tried to call. Under the circumstances, Brianna had insisted on going to check on her employee—despite the fact that Sophie and Mei had both said it wasn’t safe.

  Safe or not, Brianna was going. Maxine was her employee and her friend. She needed to be sure that Valjeta hadn’t harmed her. So, she’d left Kenneth with Pug at the shop and drafted Sophie into driving her to Maxine’s. Mei was flying up separately.

  Despite her worries for David in his interview, and for Max, Brianna couldn’t help but be curious about the woman behind the BMW’s wheel. She’d heard a lot about Cephia, back when she was in the guards, from her mother, and of course from court gossip. This woman had given up a position of power to save Brianna’s father—and had been exiled as a result.

  “Before you ask,” Sophie said, without turning her gaze from the road, “I loved Leu. I also love Faerie. I believed … I still believe … he was our best hope. I don’t regret what I did. In fact, I’m proud of it. Valjeta had to be stopped.”

  “So you and Fate…”

  “Two of her aspects, anyway. Atropos wanted no part of it.” Sophie’s voice changed to an impersonation of the crone’s voice, “All things end. Everything dies. Including Faerie.”

  “And you couldn’t accept that.”

  “Of course not,” Sophie snapped. “Could you?”

  Brianna considered that for a moment. Even with everything that had happened, could she just let Faerie cease to be, doom her people to die or live in permanent exile here among the humans?

  No. She couldn’t. Damn the cost. She’d save them if she could. Just as Sophie had.

  “I’ve made a good life for myself on Earth,” Sophie continued. “But I still miss Faerie. Every single day.”

  Until that moment Brianna hadn’t noticed any resemblance between Sophie and her grandchildren. But in sadness she could see it, a cant to the eyes, the curve of a strong jaw. David had those, as did Nick.

  Thinking of them made Brianna’s stomach knot with nerves. The police were investigating a murder and she and her friends had been dropped right into the middle of it. Fury tried to rear its ugly head, but she fought it down. Emotion would only cloud her head, and she needed to be clearheaded.

  “My father met with Fate the other night.”

  “Did he?” Sophie smiled. “That must have been interesting. What did they tell him?”

  “I don’t know. He’s not spoken about it much.”

  “Your father always did know how to keep a secret. He’s a canny one—and clever. We chose well.”

  Brianna didn’t know what to say to that, so she remained silent, watching the scenery pass swiftly by.

  “Tell me, have the aspects changed positions yet?” Sophie asked. “Atropos had been in her role a long time even back then. Has she stepped down and moved on?”

  “If she has, I haven’t heard it.”

  Sophie shook her head. “Stubborn old hag.”

  It was another statement to which Brianna could make no comment. She had never met any of the aspects of Fate. She wouldn’t know. Still, she recalled her lessons. Fate was unique. She had three distinct personalities, three souls, sharing a single body. When the aging aspect, Atropos, chose to move on, stepping back onto the wheel of life and death, Lachesis moved to take her place. Clotho replaced Lachesis and the two elder aspects sought a new soul from among the dying to become the youngest aspect.

  Once, long ago, Brianna’s tutor had forced her to memorize the original names of every woman who’d assumed an aspect of Fate. But that had been a long time ago. She couldn’t remember any of them.

  They were getting close now; their exit was just ahead. Brianna closed her eyes and muttered the words of a spell before sending her power outward, seeking.

  “I’m surprised you can do that in a moving car,” Sophie observed.

  “You need to take the next exit,” Brianna said, then added, “My human mother’s blood helps me. I’m surprised you can drive a car.”

  “My talent isn’t so much active magic as an altered state of being. Humans can come close to it with the right drugs—but they usually overdose when they try.”

  Brianna’s power returned in a wash of warm air.

  “Well?” Sophie asked.

  “Go left. Max is home, and she’s in trouble.” Her expression grew grim.

  A few more directions had Sophie pulling the BMW into the driveway of Maxine Taylor’s suburban, split-level house.

  “Where’s Mei?” Sophie asked, looking up through the windshield. “Flying, she should’ve been here before us.”

  “I’ve no idea, but I’m not waiting for her.”

  Brianna was out of the car before Sophie could respond. She hurried up the sidewalk, past beautifully tended beds of orange and yellow flowers and brightly painted lawn gnomes scattered among chunks of sparkling quartz, climbing up to the front step.

  Despite its pale yellow walls, white trim, and forest green shutters and door, the house looked grim. Every window was shut, the curtains pulled tight. Brianna could feel darkness and despair radiating outward and thought she heard whimpering coming from inside.

  Tears filled Brianna’s eyes. Closing them, she extended her hands, using her power to check the wards that should have protected Maxine’s home and finding only shattered shards of disintegrating power, melting like icicles in the sun.

  She knocked firmly on the door, calling, “Max, are you in there? It’s Brianna, and I’ve brought David’s grandmother with me. We’re here to help.”

  “Go ’way. Can’t talk.” The whisper grew panicked. “Can’t, can’t, can’t. Mustn’t tell.”

  “We’re here to help.”

  “She’ll be so angry!”

  “Max, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Not you. The other one.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Max, I promise. Just let us in and we’ll take care of it. Trust me.”

  After a long, tense moment, Brianna heard movement behind the door, heard it unlock and Max scurry away again. Sophie pushed the door open and gestured for Brianna to precede her.

  The place was dark. No hint of light leaked in through the drawn drapes, and none of the lights in the house were on. Once Brianna’s eyes adjusted, she looked around for Maxine, normally a large, no-nonsense, earth mother type who kept her iron-gray hair in a single long braid that hung past her shoulders and whose makeup was always understated but perfect. She generally wore loose, flowing cotton skirts and plain T-shirts in various shades of brown and green. She kept her person, and her home, neat, cheerful, and comfortable, which made the change in her all the more shocking.

  The woman curled in a ball in the darkest corner of the living room had wild, red-rimmed eyes. Her hair stuck out around her head and her filthy nightgown was pulled over her knees so that only the tip of her manicured toes peeked out from beneath the fabric, their perfect red polish oddly incongruous with the wreck of the rest of her appearance.

  She saw them looking at her and covered her face with her hands, whimpering piteously.

  “I’ll call an ambulance,” Sophie said.

  “Wait,” Brianna answered, cho
king out the word past the lump of anger in her throat.

  “It’s gone too far.” Sophie shook her head sadly. “She needs more than magical help.”

  Brianna was furious. Someone had used and abused her friend, leaving her mentally and emotionally damaged. Brianna would dearly love to get her hands on them, deal out a little retaliatory abuse of her own. But now was not the time. Max needed her.

  Moving slowly, she approached the whimpering woman with the care she would use for a frightened child or a wild animal. She whispered soft, reassuring words as she knelt before Max and began gathering her will until her entire body sang with power. When she was sure Max wouldn’t bolt, Brianna laid a gentle hand against the bare skin of her friend’s ankle.

  There was a sound like a sonic boom and a flash of pure white light bright enough to blind. Brianna spoke firmly: “Let her go!” Her voice had an odd, echoing quality that filled the room like water fills a cup.

  “She is mine!” A second female voice came from everywhere and nowhere. With each word, the temperature in the room dropped, until their breath misted in front of them and gooseflesh crawled across exposed skin.

  “She is her own. You cannot have her.” Brianna’s voice was harsh now, grown rough with pain and exertion. Every inch of her body was straining, the cords of her neck showing stark against the skin.

  A cold wind, smelling of fresh snow, blew through the closed room. Maxine’s teeth began chattering and the tears on her cheeks began to freeze.

  “A quaint conceit, little one. I take what I want, unless someone is strong enough to stop me. You shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”

  “The hell you say,” Brianna shouted in defiance, her features twisting in a feral smile. “Bring it on, bitch.”

  She knew she was being stupid, knew she should be afraid. She’d been injured more than once in the past two days. It didn’t matter. The enemy was here, before her. All the anger, hurt, and pain of the past few days hardened into raw determination. She would bring this creature down, punish her for the harm she’d wrought. Once a guard, always a guard. Brianna had worn the uniform. She was a protector of her people, all of her people, on both sides of the veil.

  The smell of putrefying flesh began to fill the room, thick enough to coat the tongue and make Brianna gag. Darkness swirled, beginning to take form—a woman’s form, and one Brianna recognized.

  “Valjeta!” Sophie’s voice was a perfectly timed distraction.

  The woman turned, hatred twisting her features. “You.”

  It was the perfect opportunity, perhaps her only chance. Brianna kept her right hand pressed against Max’s skin, keeping the link to Valjeta open, while her left moved with practiced speed to the hilt of the dagger tucked into the top of her boot. She shifted her grip until only the tips of her fingers touched Max’s ankle and used the knife in her left hand to slice open her right palm.

  Blood flowed over skin and Brianna began to chant. She flung the bloodied knife, point-first, into the wooden top of the nearby coffee table. As the words built, the power growing with them, stars swam in her vision. Her ears popped as the air pressure in the room became a crushing pressure.

  The smell of death began to recede, then grew even stronger. Darkness and light swirled about each other. Maxine gave a long, piteous wail. Brianna continued to chant, heading toward a crescendo. She reached into her blouse and yanked at the crystal she wore on a chain around her neck.

  Darkness surged forward, trying to swallow her whole. For a single, terrifying moment Brianna couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but hopelessness and death. She fought off the despair, refusing to let anything interfere with the spell she was casting. Blind, gagging, with a last, triumphant gasp, she finished.

  At the same instant the chant ended, the chain broke and the rose quartz talisman lay free in her bloodied palm.

  It was a good thing that Brianna was kneeling, for she would surely have fallen down as the stone inexorably sucked both her light and Valjeta’s darkness into its depths. The air pressure in the room plunged, leaving her ears aching from the need to pop.

  A shriek of rage and pain tore through the room. The darkness pulsed, then shattered with a crash like breaking glass, and the light broke right along with it.

  Brianna had nothing left. She toppled sideways into a graceless heap onto the floor with barely enough energy to breathe.

  35

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” Sophie said. “No arguments.” She rose to her feet a bit shakily, then crossed the room to pick up a telephone.

  Brianna wasn’t going to argue. She didn’t have the energy.

  Her hand was throbbing in agony. The quartz, formerly a lovely pink and white, had turned a dull black, laced with pus yellow and green. It was abnormally heavy, and hot to the touch. It was a struggle to find the strength to stuff it in her pocket. When she did, immediately her hand felt better.

  So much power jammed into such a small bit of rock. Some of it was hers, which explained her terrible weakness. But most had come from Valjeta. Brianna had hurt her, no doubt about it. And while she felt a certain grim satisfaction at that, she also knew that she’d made a powerful and ruthless enemy utterly furious.

  “You should have killed her.” Max’s voice was a bare whisper, her gaze intent despite the tears that traced steady lines down her cheeks before dropping, unheeded, onto her nightgown.

  “I wasn’t strong enough.” Brianna didn’t like admitting that, but it was the truth. “She had too much power. And it felt strange, wrong somehow.”

  Sophie returned to Brianna’s side, squatting beside her. “The ambulance is on its way,” she announced. “It’s not a surprise that she was too strong for you—it wasn’t just her own power you were fighting. Valjeta has murdered many humans and stolen their abilities. You weren’t fighting one woman, you were fighting a legion.”

  “I’m amazed that you survived. I’m even more amazed that she hadn’t already murdered your friend here.”

  “She was saving me.” Maxine’s voice was a little stronger and saner than it had been. Maybe in time, with the right treatment, Brianna’s friend would recover. “She said that when the time came, she’d use my magic and the gargoyle to break the spell.” Her eyes locked on Brianna’s. “I didn’t … don’t want to help her. She’s going to do something terrible.”

  “I’m sure you’re right about that,” Sophie said, and Maxine wept harder, probably in response to the conviction in the older woman’s voice.

  * * *

  A doctor in green scrubs stepped through the patterned cloth curtains that offered Brianna a semblance of privacy. She was hooked up to IV lines that were feeding her antibiotics and pain medication. Very good pain medication apparently, since her hand was no longer screaming in agony and the world was starting to have lovely soft edges. Sophie was sitting beside her bed.

  “The receptionist tells me that you came in with Maxine Taylor.” He looked at each of the two women in turn.

  “We are,” Sophie agreed.

  “Which of you is Brianna Hai?”

  “I am,” Brianna said.

  “Ms. Taylor signed a HIPAA release and asked that I let you know what was happening.”

  Brianna nodded.

  “I’ll step outside for a moment if you like,” Sophie offered. When the doctor nodded, she got up and walked away, her retreating footfalls sounding a staccato beat on the floor tiles.

  When he was certain she was out of earshot, the doctor began briefing Brianna on her friend’s condition. “I’ve had to give Ms. Taylor a sedative. She was quite agitated—terrified that someone was out to harm her.”

  “She has been in actual danger,” Brianna told him, trying to figure out, between the pain meds and the basic unreality of the situation, an explanation that would be palatable to the doctor. In the end, she said, “She has a stalker.”

  “I see,” the doctor said grimly. “So it’s not just paranoia.”

  “No,” Briann
a said firmly, “it definitely isn’t.”

  “Well, we’ll be transferring her to our mental health facility on a forty-eight-hour hold as soon as we can get the paperwork finished and arrange for transport. It’s a secure facility. She’ll be safe there while we determine the extent of her psychological problems. I have to tell you, I’m quite worried about her. I think we need to keep her under close observation so that she doesn’t harm herself.”

  Brianna nodded, feeling grim. Magic might have caused Max’s condition, but though the doctors’ treatments might be hindered by their lack of belief in magic, they should still be able to do her some good. Hopefully the facility’s security would be good enough to protect her, at least from most human threats.

  There were all sorts of things Valjeta could still do to Maxine if she put her mind to it. But while Brianna was badly injured, she was sure that Valjeta hadn’t escaped unscathed. She might still come after Max, depending on how important the woman was to Valjeta’s plans. But that might not be Valjeta’s next course of action.

  Damn it! Brianna wished she knew what the Sidhe was planning. She already intended to change the wards on the shop so that Max wouldn’t be allowed in. But what did Valjeta really want?

  “Pug.”

  “Excuse me?” the doctor asked.

  Brianna blinked stupidly. She’d forgotten he was there. The drugs were definitely having a major effect on her.

  “Sorry. It’s the medicine.”

  The doctor picked up her chart and checked it before putting it back on the counter and coming to look at her hand.

  “You should have come in sooner,” he said severely. “The infection in your hand is quite advanced. I don’t think we’ll have to amputate, but if there is bone involvement, that might become a possibility. I’ve sent the nurse out to arrange with surgery for a consult, just in case.”

  “I’m an excellent healer. Give the drugs time and I should be fine.” Brianna smiled up at him. Actually, the drugs might not be enough. But she wasn’t giving up her hand. Besides, the Fae had healers that could do amazing, miraculous things. One of them would be willing to help her, even in exile … for a price.