by Nunn, PL
Pushing himself from the wall he leaned against, he stumbled back into the keep proper. The halls were quiet.
Abandoned things compared to the courtyard outside. The servants were all busy preparing field rations, or seeing to their master’s outfitting. He took a curving, architecturally impossible stairway, wanting nothing more at the moment than to find the solace of his rooms.
He almost made it unmolested.
Leanan found him before he could hide behind the insubstantial barrier of his door. Her lovely, fey face was twisted with anger. She flounced into his room behind him, glowering. Very carefully he faced her, blanking his mind of all thoughts of Victoria or Azeral’s deceit.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You look upset.”
“Upset?” she hissed. “What a miraculous ability you have for understatement. The court is being torn to shreds and for what? My father’s foolishness. Chasing after some human girl that he should have killed in the first place. I told him. You know I told him not to trust that creature. Now she’s fled and likely to cause us all ruin if Azeral insists on this lunacy.”
“You’re not going on campaign?”
“Not if I can help it,” she snapped, an injured look crossing her face. “He will not insist. He does owe me that at least. But I might as well go. Everyone else is. I knew I should have taken matters into my own hands.”
He watched her stalk across his room and sensed she wanted something of him.
She was gazing at him with an arched brow, long arms crossed over her breast.
Knowing he was treading dangerous ground, he moved to join her by the window. The sounds of the mass below drifted up even here.
“What will he do?” he asked, wishing the subject to stay far away from Victoria and what he thought of her escape.
“He will crush them, surely,” she predicted. “It’s just such an inconvenience.”
“Oh.”
“He’ll kill her, you know.” Her gaze pinned him without mercy.
He could not quite form the words to agree with her. “But I thought he wanted her alive.”
“With that uncontrollable power of hers? No. She’ll not let him bind her again, I think. He’ll have her dead. Do you regret it, Alex?”
She was in his mind suddenly, with no warning whatsoever. He thought of the ogres in the courtyard and the preparations for war. He fought to keep her away from her shattered control without letting her know he was actually doing it. It required a delicacy of touch that he was not trained to practice. Her mental fingers were long and powerful. Stopping them outright would have been a declaration of war. He had to guide them where he wanted with her none the wiser. He planted a thought.
A lack of concern for Victoria. No particular interest in what was done to her. And a stronger thought. A desire for Leanan. He recalled the last sensuous moment they had shared, let it slide through his mind like bait on a hook. She swallowed it. Her lips turned up in a catlike smile. Her body leaned in against his, her hands active in their pursuit of him. He let her push him down on the sleeping cushions, amazed at just how well he had eluded her original query. It occurred to him that she had not come here with sex on her mind. He had managed to do to her what she regularly did to him.
Guide emotions and instincts to a path different from the one they were taking.
He had overcome her psychic probe.
It was such a shocking victory that he laughed. He lay back and let her have her way and reveled in such an unexpected conquest. It was surely a sign of good things to come.
~~~
The night was alive with voices. Fey lights bobbed through the darkened gardens, the vine-covered walks, the lower halls of the white keep itself. The whispers and speculation abounded over what had happened to have Ashara rushing madly about the keep, opening portals, and bringing back her gravely wounded mate along with an exhausted party of sidhe and the human woman. No one knew for sure.
The rumors had not succumbed to fact. All they could do was murmur in anticipation over the appearance of the battle-marked group, and the alacrity at which the elders spirited them away to conference.
There was something amiss. They all knew that. Their heightened senses tingled with it. Those among them with prophetic tendencies shook their heads with dread.
They hovered in family groups, holding children or lifemates, hoping for dawn’s light to shed some truth to the situation.
The refugees from the frantic forest flight took what rest they could in the round, glass-roofed tower chamber used by Ashara and her elders for council.
They sat alone, nursing steaming herbal tea, waiting for the appearance of someone who might tell them the fate of Okar or what Ashara intended to do for the situation at hand. It was a long wait.
The tea had gone cold, and nerves stretched taut by the time Neira’sha glided into the high-ceilinged room. Two of the elder Seelies followed her, grave and foreboding looks on their ageless faces.
The nausea Victoria had been fighting for the past hour rose to an unbearable pitch. There was no hiding or denying what she had done. At least it was Neira’sha and not Ashara who came to confront them. Neira’sha stopped in the center of the room and stood silently. Her eyes took in every detail. Victoria wanted to shrink in upon herself. If Keirom was nervous he hid it well, but Aloe was pale and fidgety. It was her, finally, that Neira’sha settled her gaze upon. A tremor ran through the sidhe girl before she stubbornly stiffened her back and lifted her silver eyes to meet the elder’s stare.
“You went against Ashara’s wishes,” Neira’sha finally said. “You planned and executed this disastrous effort in disregard of your liege Lady’s desires. You may beg the earth fates to forgive you, but do not expect Ashara’s benevolence.”
Aloe’s lower lip trembled. Her narrow jaw thrust out. “I did not go by myself. And it was not a totally disastrous effort.”
Neira’sha’s gaze flickered to Victoria. Her lips tightened. “No. It was not. You managed to come back with only one casualty. But tell me, my dear child, did you think the Unseelie court would allow you to snatch their guest away with no resistance? Do you expect Azeral to sulk in his keep over a lost opportunity while you merrily return to this one?”
“I never did,” Aloe exclaimed. “But I chose and I’ll live with my decision.”
“Will you?” A new voice entered the fray. A tired, frustrated voice that emanated from the pale-faced lady who stood at the door. Ashara stepped into the chamber. She had changed from her light night robe to a sterner gown. Her eyes were icy. “And will this keep live with your decision, Aloe? If Azeral chooses to take back what you stole from him, how will this keep fare?”
Aloe stared at her, lost for words.
Victoria could stand it no longer, the persecution of her staunchest ally. “Don’t blame her. This is my fault. I caused this to happen. And God, I am so sorry.”
Ashara fixed her with a glare.
Victoria wrapped her arms about her self and shivered. Just shivered and cast her gaze floorward. In a small, helpless voice she asked, “How is Okar?”
The breath hissed between Ashara’s teeth. Her patience was clearly stretched beyond endurance. “Okar is a fool. Much like Aloe. And believe me he will hear every bit of what she hears when he is able.”
“He’ll be okay, then?”
“He will be very, very sorry for some while for this escapade. But I think,” and her voice softened somewhat at the last, “that he will recover.”
A prayer of relief passed Victoria’s lips. Some small bit of the apprehension faded. She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking. Against her will, a tear slid down her cheek.
“Do not mistake my anger, Victoria,” Ashara spoke in a calmer tone. “I rejoice that you are safe and unharmed. But the method this one,” she swept her hand in Aloe’s direction, “and my idiotic mate used to achieve that goal is likely to cause more trouble than this keep can manage.
This is not a court. Thi
s has not been a court for some long while. I employ no troops and my folk are not fighters. If Azeral chooses retaliation I do not know if this keep can defend itself. And worse yet, I have no doubt that he knows this.”
“Maybe he’ll just let me go. Maybe he’ll just forget the whole thing.”
Ashara shook her head sadly. “Azeral has a long memory. He does not forget or forgive.”
Victoria looked about her desperately. At the solemn faces of the elders, at Ashara’s exhaustion. At Aloe’s crumbling determination.
“Then I’ll go back. He won’t have reason to bother you then.”
“Mother Earth!!” Aloe snapped in exasperation. “And you call me a fool.”
There was a moment of silence. Then Ashara threw out her hands and stalked across the chamber. She looked out over the dawn streaked gardens and forests of her domain.
“You are not pledged in loyalty to me or this keep. I cannot demand you to give me the respect or the obedience I might expect of Aloe. I gave you advice once not to seek the Unseelie court. You ignored it. Yes, Victoria, you are the root source of this problem. But you are not the instigator of this particular ensnarement. I do not hold you responsible. You were given little choice in coming to our land, and you have made the best of a bad situation, I think. You have survived. You have the gift of a great power. It is that which Azeral seeks. Going back would achieve little more than your domination by him. It would not alleviate his anger or his greed for power.”
“He took it from me,” Victoria said softly. “He blocked the magic and I can’t get through to it again. If I could, I would help you. I want to help you.”
Ashara turned away again with a sigh. “I know.”
“There are very few spells,” Neira’sha said sagely, “that cannot be broken. Dealings within the mind are particularly easy if worked at from both sides.”
There was hope there, in Neira’sha’s confidence. Hope that she might be able to hold her own again in this world.
~~~
The night had all but fled. Dawn’s light cut through the drape shrouded balcony and cast filtered rays of sun onto the floor. The sleeping chamber was finally a place of solitude and peace.
Ashara had chased the healers away, content to tend her mate alone. She was tired and scared, her frustration worn down to a weary acceptance that what was…was. There was no changing things now. The human girl was back among them, no worse for wear. The fates only knew what might descend upon them to retrieve her.
She did not understand the intricacies of the situation and that ignorance was a seething agitation. Azeral was never so rash. He did nothing without purpose and yet he very apparently had lost his control over a situation of his own making. And for what gain? A mere flicker of human power?
The girl was powerful, granted, but no more so than Azeral himself. Why so much risk for what he already possessed?
Why an interest in humanity after so long an absence from their world? It was for no one’s benefit, surely, but his own. What Victoria said about the overflow of human-bound magic was irrelevant. The humans had never made proper use of their earth power. It had always been a volatile mass waiting across the void. It did no more harm when one really got down to it, to Elkhavah and its domains, than a mid-summer’s storm.
There was something else. Something the lord of the Unseelie court chose not to reveal. It had been long since she had dissected the dark lord’s intentions. It was as unnerving a task as ever it was.
Okar moved slightly on the bed of pillows. Ashara’s tired thoughts snapped instantly to her mate. Hours of intensive healing of the mind wound had only begun the recovery. He had received a traumatic blow. A dagger wound might have been cleaner and certainly easier to tend.
She sank onto the pillows beside him, brushing back sweat-laden tendrils of golden hair. He was cool to the touch. The struggle was a mental one, not physical. It had been a long time since she had tended wounds of such a nature. Wounds dealt in a battle of magic and mental prowess.
Reprising her skill on her mate was not a thing she found comfortable.
Damn Aloe and Alkar for hatching this scheme. And damn Okar for going in place of his younger sibling. His was not a power to trifle with, but he was a fool to test it when he was outnumbered and facing the Great Hunt.
His lids flickered. She held her breath. Blue eyes, clouded with hurt and disorientation stared ceilingward. Reflexive tears leaked from the corner of his eye. Gently, she wiped the trail away. With effort he turned his head to look at her. The confusion on his face made her heart ache.
“Foolish man,” she whispered. “Do you wish to see Annwn so badly?”
He blinked, not quite wincing.
Delicately, she probed the mental scabs left behind from his wounding. His shield was a poor, shaky device, cruelly shattered. Even had he willed it, he could not have kept her out. The healing was a successful one though, progressing to her satisfaction. She pulled away, giving him his mental privacy, physically snuggling against his side.
“I hope you gave as good as you got. You against two. I thought you sharper than that.”
A hoarse breath escaped him. “Not them. Azeral.”
She stiffened.
“Aloe said there were only two.”
He closed his eyes, pain behind his lids. “He used them to get to me. Broke my shield. I was… not prepared… for him.”
She put a hand to his lips, sensing the effort it took to enunciate this information.
The exhaustion was telling. The tremors ran through his body and into her own. Or was it the other way around?
“Shush, love. Later. All that matters is your safety.”
He pushed her hand away weakly.
“No. He’s not behaving as he should, Ashara. He’ll follow her. Me. He wanted me dead.”
“He holds grudges,” she whispered.
Azeral never forgave. How well she knew that.
“For me, yes. But his anger is fresh. I was unlucky enough to be in his path.”
“He is massing forces,” she said dully, feeling her comfortable world slipping away. Feeling suddenly young and inexperienced, as she had been too many seasons ago. Back when she had believed in the unattainable and had it snatched so cruelly from her grasp.
Okar clutched her arm. “By the Four! He’ll come here. We’ve no defenses.”
“No worry,” she soothed. “I’m seeing to it.”
“We cannot defend against him,” Okar protested. “Not here.” He tried to sit up. She pushed him down.
“Sleep,” she suggested. In his state, he had no defenses against her. She slipped inside his mind and sapped his conscious will.
For a long time after his body had gone limp and his breathing calm, she lay and held him. Finally, with determination, she rose. He was right. This keep had not been built with defense in mind. It was up to her to see that it might have some hope of holding out against whatever Azeral chose to throw at it.
~~~
Victoria ceased to be for what seemed a very long while. She sat in Neira’sha’s private chambers, on that lady’s very own sleeping pillows and allowed the shields she had held firm so long to drop bit by bit. She let Neira’sha into her mind. With words of trust echoing in her thoughts she sank into a conscious oblivion. On a deeper level, one she hardly knew existed, there were the whispers of awareness. There were hints of a vaguely familiar entity carefully maneuvering about the foreign web of magic that entrapped her. Occasionally it told her things. To use the force of her will here or there. To probe the foundations of something she could not quite fathom, but knew existed nonetheless. The inner awareness grew.
Her physical senses were blunted to the point of nonexistence, but she found with a gradual awakening amazement, that there were senses that surpassed those of eyes and ears. Senses that traveled the byways of thought and the essence of self.
There was a bright and shining thing within her that she slowly realized was herself. Her soul li
ght, as the sidhe might put it. Its vitality was amazing, its complexity bewildering. It was the unknown weakness that she built her shields around. In her fumbling journey into magic, she had glimpsed bits of sidhe’s interior selves. The outer facade of their most private parts. Never would she have guessed how complex that inner self could be.
She fluttered about in introspection, dazzled by her own energy. Became gradually aware of that other entity encroaching the edges of her self. She reflexively sought to bring her shields up.
A gentle, soothing plea stilled the action.
She knew the intruder. Neira’sha.
Neira’sha who picked at the edges of the imprisoning spell, peeling it back, piece by piece until some small bit of the magic hovering all around them spilled in and widened the gap.
Victoria embraced it. She sucked it in like water, using it to forcefully dissemble the already unraveling spell. Neira’sha guided her erratic power. Victoria let her.
“Open your eyes, child,” the soft voice suggested.
“They are,” Victoria murmured, lids still closed. Freedom washed over her like an uncontrollable deluge. She could not help herself from touching lightly on a hundred other awarenesses.
“Victoria,” the voice urged again, more sternly. A dampening will wrapped it’s fingers about her own. It was not imprisonment, not like before. Merely an older, wiser power reining back on a newborn, ecstatic one. Victoria opened her eyes and looked into Neira’sha’s pale face. There was age there. The weariness and the circles under the eyes made it apparent. The tremor in the body attested to just how long the sidhe woman had sat across from her, working at freeing her mind from the bonds Azeral had placed upon it. The night sky confirmed the fact.
Another day had passed.
“It’s gone,” Victoria whispered needlessly. Neira’sha smiled.
“It was well crafted. Never deny Azeral has skill. No amount of power could have broken it. It was not designed to withhold force, but to divert it and use it to strengthen its own walls. So, so ingenious. Nothing else would have held the power at your beckon.”
