“That is impossible,” he said.
“It’s fact,” said Hazel defiantly. “Why not send a messenger and ask him? There has to be a procedure when the Summer Gatekeeper’s life is in danger and the gate is compromised. Otherwise, you’ll lose the gate forever. If you don’t believe the warnings, I can prove that is the truth. I’ve seen it.”
“All messages to the Erlking go through the Seelie Queen,” said Lady Aiten.
“So there is a Queen?” I asked, glancing at Hazel.
“There is,” Hazel said. “But she doesn’t share his power. I don’t think she’s the one who bound the Gatekeepers, but if it’s possible to speak to her, it’d be most welcome.”
“Not to her,” Lord Raivan said. “She has more important matters to deal with than trivial mortal lives.”
Morgan opened his mouth to speak and I elbowed him in the ribs. “If we can speak to her, then it might avert a war. Let us try to convince her.”
“I will send a messenger,” said Lord Raivan. Nodding to Lady Aiten, he wheeled his horse around and the two of them vanished.
“Seelie Queen?” said Morgan. “Never heard of her.”
“They don’t talk about her,” River said. “Because… it’s rumoured that her own power is limited. She carries the title by marriage only, and possesses no powerful talisman of her own.”
“Oh.” I knew how important magic was to the Sidhe. More than anything else. From what I knew of faerie customs, marriages were almost always for power and nothing more. As immortals, they didn’t even technically need an heir, though they’d have to change that soon. Most Sidhe had one or more partners for a few decades, then got bored and moved on. Marriage for love was unheard of. If they did have children, those children then claimed their own territories and intermingled with other families. The Sidhe bloodlines were a tangled mess, which was why I hoped someone else was tasked with finding the actual heir, when it came down to it.
If the Erlking had picked a partner who possessed no powerful magic, maybe he actually loved her. Though I didn’t think the Sidhe were capable of love in the human sense. They sure seemed to like making fun of our fragile little human emotions, anyway. But maybe they judged one another in a similar manner.
Lord Raivan appeared again, so suddenly that all of us jumped. “No humans are to enter the Court, by the order of the Seelie Queen herself.”
My heart plunged. “Now? It’s urgent—I didn’t lie. Our gate’s already been taken, and our mother—”
“If you were idiotic enough to lose control of your magic, then it’s your job to retrieve it.”
“Someone in your Court took my magic,” said Hazel. “It’s never happened to any of the past Gatekeepers, so can’t you make an exception?”
He cocked a brow. “Really? What is it that makes you children so certain that nobody before you has ever suffered misfortune?”
“That’s not what I said,” Hazel told him. “And you wouldn’t know anything about misfortune, because your magic protects you from getting so much as a paper cut.”
“You even fucked up your own realm so nobody would ever have to die,” said Morgan. “That’s not just unfortunate, it’s plain sad.”
Anger flashed in the Sidhe’s eyes. “If you had the slightest comprehension—”
“Your head’s too far up your own arse to see the daylight.” Morgan gesticulated at the blazing sun. “Even that’s probably fake. You’re living on borrowed time, and you can call us stupid little mortals all you like. You’re doomed.”
“Too far, Morgan,” Hazel said out of the corner of her mouth. “So, if you don’t mind, we’re planning on saving your ungrateful necks. Let us speak to the Erlking’s representative. If they want to strike us down, that’s their prerogative, but I’m not moving from here. And you know what it will cost you if you take my life. Assume the same is the case if you attack my family.”
“Lord Raivan, allow me to handle this.” A hard-faced silver-haired Sidhe warrior strode up to us, talisman in hand. Like River’s, it was carved into the shape of a sword, bright with runes and radiant with power. “I couldn’t help overhearing that this little band of mortals would like to speak with the Seelie King.”
He turned on us. I froze a little inside. You’d think seeing one Sidhe would neutralise the effects a bit, but if anything, the impact of each Sidhe’s appearance was worse. His stare was pure malice, weaponised against us. Thorns twined around the talisman in his hand.
“And you are?” asked Hazel.
“My name is Lord Daival,” he said, his gaze travelling across our group. River gripped his own sword so tightly, his knuckles turned white. “As one of you once employed by the Summer Court knows well.”
“Actually,” River said, “I’m still in the employ of the Summer Court, as it wasn’t I who broke the law.”
“There is no law against showing mortals their place,” said the Sidhe.
An icy pit formed inside me. He’s the one who kept humans prisoner. And River freed them. The magic surrounding Lord Daival told me that he was more powerful, and had more authority, than any of the Sidhe I’d met so far. When River had said he’d made a calculated risk in freeing the humans, I hadn’t quite grasped just how badly it could have gone. Worse, Lord Raivan had disappeared, leaving us alone with him.
“The Court begs to differ,” River said. He didn’t sound terrified, but he must be. Nobody could look at that Sidhe and not feel mortal fear. I did, and I carried the freaking death book in my hands.
“I’m the one who wanted to speak with someone who has access to the Erlking’s inner circle,” said Hazel. “If not the Seelie Queen, then someone else.”
“You dare to ask to speak with the Erlking?” he said.
“Yes, I do. I’m Summer Gatekeeper. Her heir, anyway. It’s urgent—”
“As far as I am concerned, you’re nothing more than a filthy mortal who doesn’t know their place,” said Lord Daival softly. “All of you.”
“Oh, you’re talking about me?” Morgan said. Was I the only person here who felt a normal amount of trepidation towards antagonising the walking nuclear weapon in front of us? Antagonising him was like squirting a water pistol into a troll’s eye, or setting a dryad’s tree on fire.
Thorns lashed from Lord Daival’s weapon, wrapping around Morgan’s legs. He swore loudly. “Get off me, you bastard.”
“Let go of him,” Hazel. The thorns twisted in the air, wrapping around her legs, too. This isn’t how it was meant to go.
River stepped forward, his talisman gleaming with green light. No. He was going to retaliate, and then they’d kill all four of us.
“Let her go!” I shouted at the Sidhe. “Hazel and I are in your service—our family is bound to yours for life. You kill Morgan and Hazel and you violate your own treaty.”
“Would you prefer to add to your own criminal record, Lord Daival?” River enquired. “The Sidhe won’t forget what you did. Killing the Gatekeeper won’t do anything but cause more trouble for you and for your Court. It’d be a poor way to repay the Lynn family for their services.”
As Lord Daival’s attention shifted from me to River, I stuck my hand in my pocket, and grabbed the book.
Power roared through my veins, a wave of cold energy. I shouldn’t feel it so strongly here. The light brightened, and Lord Daival turned on me, his eyes widening. I didn’t have a clue what I looked like to him, but it frightened him, and that was enough. In the realm of light, I shouldn’t be able to sense death’s touch, but I did. It lay everywhere, beneath the bright magic, beneath it all. It was all fake. I saw the hole of empty darkness where I’d sent those wraiths—
Magic exploded from Hazel’s hands, pushing the vines away from her. Her forehead glowed with green light once again. I dropped my hands, and the cold magic faded, even as its ache remained in my chest, insistent, angry.
“You mortals are a disease that must be wiped from existence,” said Lord Daival, in a quiet, deadly voice.
“Same old,” Hazel said. “Also, you forgot this place gives my magic a boost, too, even now someone’s draining it away. You gave me this power. If you want to retract your gift, you have to deal with the fact that Winter will have a representative on the human side to protect you from the evil death faeries and you won’t.”
“We are perfectly capable of protecting ourselves.” He wouldn’t look directly at me, and hadn’t addressed what I’d done. Had I terrified him that much? “Luckily, it’s not up to me whether you keep your position or not.”
“But it is up to me.” A radiant figure with flaxen hair spun with wildflowers appeared from the trees, like a fallen sunbeam given flesh. She smiled, and the world stopped. The last of the thorns faded as her magic whispered through the meadow, a soft caress on my neck. Comforting, and chilling, because now I’d seen that cold emptiness beneath this realm, I knew what shadows lay beneath that beauty and magic.
“May I speak to them?” she enquired. “I rather think I might be of better help for their purpose, Lord Daival.”
“Your majesty,” he said in a tone suddenly deferential, worshipful.
The Seelie Queen. I should probably curtsy or something, but my legs were frozen, and so was my whole body. The others remained similarly immobile. If the other Sidhe could strike us down, this Sidhe could rend us to pieces without moving an inch.
“That’s enough toying with the mortals, Lord Daival,” she said, and the spell broke.
“Your majesty,” said Hazel. “We didn’t want to intervene, but there’s something really important we need to tell the Erlking. I’m the Summer—”
“Gatekeeper’s heir. Of course you are. I’d know the mark anywhere.”
She knows. It might even be her that our family’s magic was bound to, because she certainly held a shit-ton of power of her own, talisman or none. I kind of hoped she’d thwack Lord Daival on the head to get him out of the way, but instead, the scene changed subtly, and the five of us stood in an empty field. Lord Daival was nowhere in sight.
“Much better,” said the Seelie Queen. “I haven’t spoken to a Gatekeeper in a long time.”
“So you didn’t speak to Mum, then?” asked Hazel. “She… well. She’s in a lot of trouble, and so is the Court. There’s a traitor, but I guess you already know that. They’re working with Vale outcasts.”
“There are always traitors,” she said. “Always. Where there is power, there’s ambition, the desire for more power. Many will violate the laws of the Court to seize it. Many others will put on the appearance of serving while planning to undermine everything we are. We forget our past so easily, caught in an endless present.”
I blinked. She’s a little more self-aware than any other Sidhe I’ve met. Didn’t mean I had a clue what to say to her. She was so terrifying… and when I put my hand in my pocket for the book, it… stuck.
The book didn’t want me to show it to her. That meant she couldn’t have been the one to bind it, right?
“So you’re married to the Erlking?” asked Morgan. “Why not take the throne? He’s been half-dead for decades, they say.”
Hazel winced, but the Seelie Queen merely smiled. “Ruling isn’t what it appears to be. I rather think the whole system needs an overhaul… new blood, as the humans say. If you wish to speak with the Erlking, I do think you’ll be disappointed. You’re right in thinking he hasn’t been coherent for years. But I may be capable of helping you myself.”
Hmm. Her words made sense, delivered in her all-too-melodic voice… but the false modesty, the all-too-clear awareness of the flaws in the Sidhe’s system… it didn’t ring true to me at all. Like a glamour, I saw beneath. She had power. She wasn’t trapped. She was here on purpose—and nobody else was within sight.
“Guys,” I said quietly. “We need to move.”
She smiled her pretty smile at me. “Don’t you want to talk to the Erlking?”
“You said he can’t talk to us,” I said. “You have four mortals here in the most secure part of the Court, yet you haven’t checked us for weapons. You haven’t taken away our iron, and you never even asked what I did to Lord Daival.”
“This isn’t the Erlking’s territory,” said River, gripping his sword. “Who are you really?”
“I am exactly who I said I was,” she said, her voice soft, her smile pleasant. Cold fear took root inside me.
“What do you want with our family?” asked Hazel.
“Want? Nothing at all. The Gatekeepers are irrelevant, and I’m sure you’d be happier never to set foot in this realm again, wouldn’t you?”
Hazel shook her head. “Happier? Sure. A lot of people would also be dead. And if you’re really the Seelie Queen, you should know we’re tied into a vow with your Court through our very bloodline.”
“I hold as little power as any who doesn’t rule, and more than most.” Magic thrummed in her gaze. “It’s time for a change of leadership in Summer. And it’s time for you to leave. I hope the Vale is kinder to you than its other inhabitants. You’re human, which should work in your favour. Good luck.”
The trees faded out, and so did the meadow. The last thing I saw was her brilliant smile before nothing but grey remained.
13
The Grey Vale’s paths stretched out endlessly. Coldness permeated the air, not the freezing atmosphere of Death but the absence of life energy and warmth.
Oh, damn.
“Anyone have a map?” asked Morgan.
“I don’t believe this,” said Hazel. “I can control this place. Right? I should be able to find our mother in here.”
“Perhaps,” River said. “The Vale doesn’t follow a fixed map, and anyone with Sidhe magic can arrange the environment according to their own needs. That includes me, and possibly you as well, Hazel. It’s usually just Sidhe, but you probably have enough magic for it to work.”
But not me.
Morgan gave me a sideways look as though the same thought had occurred to him. “Great. We’ll skip along at random and hope we don’t fall in a pond.”
“We’re in better shape than most outcasts,” River said. “They’re generally stripped of their talismans before being kicked out.”
“Can that thing open a way out?” Morgan asked, eyeing the book’s shape in my pocket.
“No,” River said. “Ilsa…”
“I’m thinking,” I said. “I can only hop over between realms as a ghost, and I probably won’t be allowed to take you guys with me.” I pulled out the book despite myself, but it didn’t light up with helpful information. The Grey Vale, I thought clearly, skipping to the back. “Nope. Great. I can travel as a ghost. No clue how to get out otherwise.”
“Isn’t this a dead end?” said Morgan. Before I could stop him, his body froze. I switched on my spirit sight and saw greyness, but no different to the way the path looked to begin with.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “You can’t move on here if you die. Those half-bloods were stuck here, that’s why they agreed to help out the enemy. Ideally we need to find the enemy, and get back into the land of the living. Relatively speaking.”
The spirit sight switched off, and the scene didn’t change at all.
Morgan shook his head. “I can probably run for miles as a ghost, but it all looks the same.”
“If I have control, so does Mum,” said Hazel. “Right? River, where was she when you last came here?”
“I met her at a house near a lake, but that was weeks ago,” he answered.
“What does she think this is, a holiday?” asked Morgan.
“A house near a lake?” said Hazel. “Walk with me. If she was there, it’s got to be safe, right?”
“I didn’t stay long enough to determine if that was the case,” River said. “Wait—this isn’t the place to make hasty decisions.”
The path ahead flickered, a lake appearing and disappearing again.
“Stop that,” Hazel snapped at River. “If we both try to affect the path at once, it’ll get confu
sed. Stop—”
She broke off. Cold water flowed over my feet, without warning, and when I took a step, my shoe sank into marshy ground. We’d landed in the marshes at the edge of a vast lake, surrounded by trees. Even the water was the same muted grey colour as the trees.
“Thanks a bunch, River,” said Hazel.
River twisted to glare at her. “Magic can’t get confused. This was deliberate. Someone else is here.”
A chill ran down my back. Someone else… with magic? Nobody appeared to be around, but splashes came from the water, and there didn’t seem to be a path leading away into the forest. Not without skirting the lake.
“Is that the house?” asked Morgan.
There was indeed a hut on the river, but it sure as hell didn’t look like the sort of place Mum would pick to stay in. Ramshackle and tilting at an angle, it looked like one wrong movement would send it plummeting into the lake.
“Mum.” Hazel took a step forward. “Damn. I’d normally sense her, but faerie magic doesn’t work here—Morgan!”
He swore and pulled his leg free from where it’d sunk into the marsh. “Well done,” he said. “Mum isn’t here. This is faerieland, everything here wants to eat us—”
Several greyish heads poked up from the water.
“Merrows,” said River.
“What in hell is a merrow?” asked Morgan.
“Think mermaids, but less nice,” River said.
“Mermaids are dicks,” Hazel said. “Great.” She took a step backwards. “Get away… why isn’t my magic working?”
“I told you,” River said. “We’re on someone’s territory. Their magic is keeping us here.”
“Then we’ll go back—”
Grey hands grabbed my legs. I swore and kicked out, seeing the others were similarly ensnared. I grabbed the jar of iron filings from my pocket and threw some of them at the muddy ground, but the iron simply sank into the mud. No use using iron when I couldn’t even see my opponents. The hands were buried beneath the mud, pulling me deeper along with them.
The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy Page 55
