by Nunn, PL
Phoebe broke the tension. Clumsily she bounded up onto the pillows and planted herself between them, half lying on Dusk in her efforts to nuzzle Victoria’s face. Gratefully, Victoria held the furry face and pressed her cheek against it.
Whiskers tickled her nose.
“It was not a mistake,” she murmured, with the gulun as a shield.
“No,” he agreed. “It is irreversible. You are safer from me than you were.”
She peered past Phoebe to Dusk’s profile. Before she could think to ask what he meant, the door to her room burst open, slamming back against the wall. Dusk was up in an instant, disrupting Phoebe in his efforts. Victoria only half followed his movements, attention drawn to the figures bursting into her room.
Alkar in the fore, with two younger sidhe she only half recognized behind him. He had a bow and a look of panic on his face.
“Victoria, Ashara summons – “ His message trailed off mid-sentence as his brain finally took in what his eyes showed it. Victoria snatched a sheet to her bosom and glared at the intrusion. Alkar was not looking at her. Dusk had a blade in hand and an expression of cold professionalism on his face.
“Who’s he?” Alkar demanded, as if he had the right to demand anything after barging into her room unannounced. He made to move forward and Dusk tensed.
Victoria bounded up, dragging sheet with her.
“Dusk, no!” she snapped, jumping between them, in the way of any projectile that might happen by.
“Who is he?” Alkar repeated. She sensed magic being used. A probing sort that would register as little on Dusk as her own attempts had.
“As if you have any right to know?” she cried. “You certainly have no manners. He’s a friend!”
“None that I know,” Alkar stated. The panic had changed to alarm and suspicion. With Azeral at their doorsteps nerves were taut as wire.
Dusk had draped a layer of his cloak about himself and stepped around the bed. His color was in fine form. One could almost discern a change with the flicker of the light. Alkar saw too. His eyes widened.
“Night sidhe.” He whispered the word like a curse. Then apparently picked up on another clue. “Dusk? Aloe said Azeral’s Ciagenii was called –”
He never finished. The bow came up, arrow notched. Victoria screamed at him, but the arrow flew. And Dusk stood unmoving, almost as if he wished for the blow to strike home. It might have.
Victoria’s reflexive shield shattered it inches from his chest. His eyes flickered down to the broken pieces on the floor at his feet, then up to her. Disappointment. There was actual disappointment in his gaze. She gaped at him a moment, before turning her fury on Alkar.
“How dare you?” she screamed. “So help me God, if you strike at him again I’ll make you wish Azeral was here right here and now.”
“Woman, do you know what he is?”
“I think I do,” she responded dryly.
He was calling for help, she could sense it. She did not deign to block the summons, but sent one out of her own. She kept her shield up all the same, glaring and disheveled, clad in no more than a trailing silken sheet. Her assassin was not playing by her rules. He seemed more willing to play by Alkar’s. He stepped through her shield as if it were not there.
“She does not,” he contradicted her, every bit as tangled and unclad as she, but possessing more poise than she’d had the whole of her life. The blade came up. Too slow. Even her untrained eye saw the move. Alkar had shields of his own up before it even reached him, and his companions behind him ample time to notch and quick fire bolts. She made to expand her own magical protection but attack came at her from an unexpected direction. Dusk hit her. A hard slam to her shoulder that jarred her off balance and shattered concentration. Her shield wavered. The arrows got through, but between the weakening shield and his move to disorient her one missed totally and the other only grazed his side as he swung back to face them.
She was certain then, that he had every intention of letting them take him. He wanted his death at their hands. He had intentionally provoked them. Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!
Screaming at the top of her mental voice, she urged the only help she knew would be of service to her and only her, to hurry.
~~~
Dusk wanted to commit suicide.
Alkar was perfectly willing to aid him in the endeavor. Victoria wanted to strangle the two of them. She settled for wrapping her arms about Dusk and forcing him back.
He let her, staring past her at the high sidhe at her door. Bows were nocked again.
She knew they were. She thought seriously about turning the arrows into some less flight worthy substance than wood and metal, but she doubted Alkar and his companions would lightly stand by and allow her meddling.
So she settled for keeping Dusk from initiating any further action that might trigger retaliation.
“You’ve lost your mind,” she muttered. “You’re insane. Mad.”
He did not reply to the accusation. He allowed her to press him against the wall behind her bed. Tolerated her nails biting into his biceps with the urgency of her grip. He merely stared at the sidhe with an expression that did not bode well for them. There was blood on her hand, and it was his. There was no healing him. He was as immune to that type of magic as any other.
“Victoria, move away.” Alkar was trying to sound reasonable. She twisted her head to glare.
“So you can shoot him?”
“He is a Ciagenii of our enemy. He cannot be allowed in this keep.”
“It’s not for you to say,” she hissed.
“Or for you,” Alkar shot back in exasperation.
“What goes on here? What are you doing?” A slim silvery form bullied its way through the three young sidhe at Victoria’s door. Alkar made a grab to stop her, but Aloe slipped around him and into the room between the opposing forces.
Her gaze cemented on Victoria and a momentarily docile Dusk.
“What is this?” she asked with suspicion.
“She has brought Ciagenii into this keep,” Alkar burst out.
“I did not bring anyone,” Victoria snapped back. “He came on his own. It’s all right, Aloe. He’s not here to hurt me.”
Aloe’s eyes grew very wide. Alkar made a sound of disbelief behind her. There was the sound of running feet from outside. His reinforcements. Victoria clutched Dusk the tighter, fearing flight or battle, or at worse both.
He made no move to elude her, but his breathing was quick. Too fast. This was all happening too fast. She needed time to think. Time to reason with her sidhe friends. She understood how it must seem.
Azeral at their doorstep and his premier assassin inside the keep, lately in her bed. She just needed to explain that he’d had a change of heart. That he was not here, after all, to fulfill the duties his master had set him to. Sidhe crowded through her doorway.
There were bows and bristling pikes aplenty. She did not put up her shield. There was no use taunting them that way until the need arose. But she kept the thought of its formation prominent in her mind. She ignored the throng at the door. Fastened her eyes on Aloe.
“Please, don’t do anything rash. Let me explain.”
“What is there to explain?” Aloe asked softly, eyes drifting past Victoria to Dusk, seeing God knew what in him. “You harbor an enemy in our midst.”
“He’s not my enemy!” Victoria cried. She twisted her head to stare up at Dusk. “You’re not my enemy?” Softer, hoping with all her heart. He shook his head once.
A barely perceivable motion. She rested her pounding head against him for a moment, and whispered, “Please help me with this.”
There were too many stares of accusation. Even Aloe berated her with her silvery eyes. She felt the warm trickle of tears on her cheeks without even knowing she had started to cry. Dusk moved against her, dislodging her hands, shifting her aside with ease and stepping past her. The whole of the room tensed, bows brought up, pikes clutched a bit more firmly. He held out his hands in
supplication, weaponless, if one counted blade to be his only weapon.
“No harm from me,” he promised quietly. “My word.”
“Trust him not,” one of the original two behind Alkar snarled. There were other mutters of assent from folk who could not have known half of what transpired. This group was all too young.
She should have summoned older, wiser help than Aloe. Help that could have swayed this uneasy crowd with a word.
“Aloe,” she said. “Let me talk with Neira’sha. Ashara. Do nothing until I speak with them.”
The sidhe girl’s brows drew. “We do not have the time for this, Victoria. Not now.”
“You’ll have to make it,” she snapped. “It’s not going to go away and you’ll not harm him.”
Aloe looked from her to Dusk. She finally sighed. “Victoria, your thinking on this subject cannot be clear. You are confused. I cannot trust him in this keep. Can you honestly say that you do?”
“I trust his word.”
Aloe shook her head, not accepting that. Victoria let out an exasperated breath. She did trust Dusk. To a certain extent. She trusted him when he gave his word not to harm them. She trusted that he would do his best to keep that word. She trusted that she was at this moment as safe from him as from the flowers in the garden outside. She did not quite trust, however, his concern for his own safety, or his desire to stay where she wanted him and out of trouble from either the Seelies or the Unseelies who would no doubt find great interest in his refusal to carry out Azeral’s orders.
She fixed him with a calculating stare. “If I go and talk with Ashara on your behalf, will you stay here and wait for me?”
She did not expect an answer immediately and turned to Aloe without a pause. “He’ll stay here. All right? You and I will go find Ashara and everyone else will leave this room.”
“Most certainly not!” Alkar cried.
“Ciagenii will not be left to his own devices.”
Sadly, Victoria turned back to Dusk.
“He won’t.”
Suspicion crept into his eyes. The window was not that far a flight for one of his skills. He could be out it and lost in the shadows before any of them might stop him physically. There were no shields that could hold him. She expected him to be gone anyway, once she left him. She could not allow it. She summoned her will and threw it against the stone walls framing the balcony door. She knew what she wanted and as Neira’sha had accused her magic of doing, cared not how the power went about accomplishing the wish. The stone turned waxen and thinned, melting inwards like a curtain being drawn. It cut off the darkness of night and covered it with a newly formed wall of manipulated marble and granite. It stood smooth faced and immovable in place of the balcony portal. She sensed the surprise from the sidhe, and saw the panic rise in Dusk.
Magic could not cage him in itself, but it could build a cage from the physical world that could.
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
“But you’re a bit too suicidal for my tastes at the moment. This is better for everyone.”
“Victoria, no!” There was real dismay in his voice. She thought it was the first time he had called her by her name. She liked the way it passed his lips. She passed him and he did nothing to stop her.
Aloe ushered the sidhe out. Victoria followed, the last in the doorway. Phoebe twined herself about Dusk’s legs, her purr audible, not at all upset by the machinations of sidhe and human. Dusk, looked absolutely stricken, and no little bit accusatory. She consoled herself with the fact that it really was for his own good.
“Endure it, sweetheart,” she advised.
Then stepped back and did the very same thing she had done with the balcony portal to the doorway. The stone melted over and covered the thick wooden door. It was more armor than prison, she convinced herself. As much to keep him in as to keep the sidhe out.
Aloe did not speak to her the entire way to Ashara’s council room. There was however, a look of speculation in her eyes. Victoria was too flustered to explain. She fashioned herself a dress from the silken sheet, manipulating it much the same way she had manipulated the stone. It bent to her will and formed a simple, trailing gown. She thought she was becoming rather adept at the usage of magic.
They were halfway down the hall leading to the council chambers when the doors burst open and Ashara, followed by several of her advisors, stormed out. Her face, lovely as it was, had the look of unpleasant disposition.
“Mother Earth!” she cried out. “Do you do this on purpose?”
Since it was apparent she was yelling mostly at Victoria, Aloe stepped to the side and left her friend to weather the storm on her own. Victoria winced. It had probably been Alkar’s rendition of the tale Ashara had heard. She wished she could have broached the subject on her own.
“A Ciagenii in my own keep? It’s a wonder all our throats haven’t been slit in the night.”
“He was otherwise occupied,” Aloe offered dryly. Victoria cast her a glare for the support. Ashara ignored her all together.
“How could you keep this from us? What were you thinking?”
Taking a deep breath, Victoria walked to Ashara and met her eye for eye.
“May we please discuss this somewhere other than in the hall? And I would appreciate it if you and I and Neira’sha might talk this over alone.”
The Seelie Lady’s eyes narrowed. Her head went up and her spine stiffened. Her sharp tipped ears were practically twitching. “I have no time to talk this over.
Azeral’s forces are at this grove. I’ve no effort to spare for your reasons. I’m told you at least did us the service of incapacitating the creature…”
“He is not a creature! Damn it, he’s not your enemy!”
“Ashara.” Neira’sha’s quiet voice shattered the indignant ire that was rising in Ashara’s face. The elder sidhe passed Ashara’s other advisors and stood at her lady’s side.
“We can spare one moment to appease Victoria. Let us find out why we’ve a Ciagenii so peacefully in our midst.”
Ashara opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. For a brief moment, the weariness showed in her eyes. The tension and the accusation. Ashara knew who was the cause of this. She finally whirled, stabbing an arm towards the group of the most powerful of her sidhe.
“See to the defenses. You know what needs to be done.”
She stalked back into the council chamber. Victoria stood mutely where she was, cringing at the abruptness, the hostility. Gently Neira’sha took her arm and urged her forward.
“We’ve little time, child. They are at our outermost wards as we speak.”
“Oh God.”
“They’ll hold for a time,” the elder told her. “Then the grove itself will defend us. Tell us what this Ciagenii wants here.”
They were in the chamber, the doors swung shut behind them. Neira’sha’s doing or Ashara’s.
“What does a Ciagenii do anywhere, but kill?” Ashara asked bitterly, standing with her back to them at the tall crystal windows. The night outside seemed so peaceful.
“He was sent to kill me,” Victoria stated. “Azeral told him to kill me if I’d regained the use of my magic.”
“Either you’re a very good liar, Victoria or he’s rather dense for an assassin of his caliber.”
“Neither. He chose not to.”
Ashara turned, both brows arched in disdain. “He chose not? Impossible. You’re being played for a fool.”
“No! It’s true. It’s not in his disposition to deceive.”
“He is an assassin.”
“That’s right. Not a politician. Not a high sidhe lord or lady!”
Outraged silence. Neira’sha broke it. “Why?”
“Oh God, I don’t know why. He doesn’t know. I don’t know if I love him, but I need him. I think it’s the same for him. He came to kill me. He couldn’t do it. He might be gone now if I hadn’t kept him here.”
“He stayed the night with you?”
Neira’
sha had a vaguely suspicious sound to her voice. Ashara merely stared at her.
Victoria nodded. “He did.”
“You joined flesh?”
The blush was inevitable. Slowly she inclined her head. Neira’sha expression remained absolutely unreadable. The elder shifted her gaze to Ashara, whose eyes were widening in surprise. Rather unexpectedly, she laughed.
“He did this,” she inquired with a considerably lighter tone, “of his own free will?”
“Of course he did.” Victoria did not know whether to be offended or baffled.
Ashara laughed again. Victoria was beginning to become annoyed. “I do not see what’s so funny?”
“You do not know, do you?”
Ashara’s mirth was the type that hinted at amusement over someone else’s discomfort. Victoria was not used to such from her. Neira’sha took pity.
“Victoria. He is Ciagenii.”
“I know what he is,” she said sulkily.
“His magic is of a most specific nature. A curse, one might say, or a blessing. He was born with the instinctive knowledge of every creature’s weakness and a natural immunity of all other magics. Whatever power created such a being, such a natural assassin, also built in certain restrictions. Certain fail-safes, you might say. For a Ciagenii to retain his natural skills there must be a certain purity. For the immunity to magic, a purity of body. Nothing can pollute his flesh or mind or the immunity fades. No drug, no wine, no animal flesh. As to the other, the ability to know the weakness of even the most powerful foe, that requires a purity of another kind. A naivety of the spirit. The abstinence of the flesh.”
Sitting down would have been rather nice. Victoria’s legs felt shaky. She stared between them.
“Are you saying – ? He never – he’s not –”
“A rather hypocritical relationship, wouldn’t you say,” Ashara commented.
