Warrior Tithe: Faerie Tales

by T. J. Deschamps

  Warrior Tithe

  Faerie Tales Series

  T.J. Deschamps

  Edited by

  Van D Vicious

  Edited by

  Rhiannon Rhys-Jones

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely a trick of the fae and not the author’s intent. Any faerie queen’s slandered in this story was done by someone else. Please don’t curse me, Mab. I’ll eventually tell your side.

  ©T.J. Deschamps 2021

  Edited by Van D. Vicious

  Proofread by Rhiannon Rhys-Jones

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my editor, Van D. Vicious, for working with my funky stories and for forgiving me for cliffhangers.

  I’d like to thank editor Rhiannon Rhys-Jones for saying yes for a final proofread before I launched my book-boat to sail the Amazon.

  I’d like to thank my fellow authors in Speculative Twist and GrottoGarden for all your encouragement and support.

  I’d like to thank Emily Paper for joining me for daily write-ins via Zoom in lieu of the coffee shops we frequented in the Before Times.

  Thank you to all my friends, family, and fans for buying a copy!

  But, most of all, I’d like to thank my husband and kids. Okay, okay, I finally wrote a story you can read and tell your friends about. Go Tiktok it or something. College is expensive.

  Prologue

  Fergus laid flowers on the dual gravestone, dry-eyed. He’d see the fool again in twenty or thirty years—new body, new name, same Tamlin. Mab didn’t let go of her grudges so easily that he’d be allowed the peace which follows death. One betrayal, and he would pay eternally.

  Fergus and his precious wife, Aoife, had been paying for their part in aiding Janet and Tamlin. At least Fergus didn’t have to kill him this time.

  A loud wail pierced his thoughts. Aoife stood by the recently turned earth. A black kerchief in her hand matching the head-to-toe widow's ensemble.

  “Show is over. There ain’t a soul left to hear yer blathering.” Fergus gestured to where the departed mourners had stood.

  “It’s the only time I’ll ever get to be a young, pretty widow.”

  He grunted.

  Aoife wiped her tears with the back of her hands and beamed a brilliant smile at him no movie star could match. Fergus’s heart still warmed at the sight of that smile. It had given him purpose when he once had none.

  She gestured to the gravestone. “This reincarnation was lovely up until he thought I was his nurse, not his wife. He was a grumpy old codger once he couldn’t get it up anymore.”

  “Ye weren’t his wife but on paper.” Fergus sighed. “He has but one wife. One of these iterations will remember it, say he’s sorry for betraying his promise, and we’ll stop having to do this.” That old helpless feeling returned. The weight of living eternally but in service to someone he despised.

  “Maybe she’ll let him rest.” Aoife got that romantic, wistful look in her eyes that made her seem younger than her years, like the kelpie maiden he’d met so long ago.

  Fergus snorted. “Yer sister has a better chance of stealing the Tear and becoming Queen of the Sidhe than Tamlin has of resting. The man promised Mab forever, and forever she’ll have.” He shuddered inwardly, remembering his own hasty oaths as a youth.

  Aoife threaded her arm through her husband’s, warming the sudden chill setting in. “Maybe we should help Niamh in her caper.”

  “We’d make better partners than that damned dryad,” Fergus agreed, laughing and honestly warming to the idea. He was tired of Mab making his sweet wife pay for having a kind heart.

  If it weren’t for Aoife’s love, he’d have died cold and alone centuries ago...

  1

  Aoife

  The clang of metal meeting metal clamored in Aoife’s ears as Cu Roi Mac Daire’s sword clashed with hers, the shock of his brute strength reverberating up her arm. She spun away and took a running leap onto higher ground—crates piled in the arena for such purpose.

  Her head filled with images of him mounting her in this arena in front of the entire court of her father, Mannan mac lir.

  In Roi’s fantasy, the Folk of the Sea cheered him on as he drove himself inside her. Worse, the pervert imagined her enjoying such a degrading act, submitting to him, calling him her master.

  The sorcerer king’s full mouth spread in a wicked grin, obviously reveling in her reaction. He appeared as if he’d won the match and her hand already. “Ye do possess the sight!”

  Her head flooded with new images of Roi, gaining in power with her as his queen and crushing his enemy. Aoife recognized the image of the legendary warrior king Cuchulainn. With the image her heart chilled. The sorcerer king had wooed her into this trial: a match for her hand, not because he loved her as he’d claimed. Roi wanted to use her.

  He was handsome with his locks of gold and aquamarine eyes. His brawny build and humanness had intrigued her, as all comely mortals intrigued fae, but she’d never let him best her in this fight, and she’d never be used for her sight.

  “I was born free and I’ll die as such. I’ll never be yer queen.”

  In a lower, guttural tone, he replied, “The promise was already made. If I win, yer mine, and I fully intend to win.”

  Aoife cursed herself for ever desiring the man. He’d kept his thoughts close before now or she’d never have accepted the challenge to fight for her hand. Roi saw her as a prize—a warm body to give him pleasure and secure his rule, not a person with a heart and love to give.

  “Ye don’t want a queen. Ye want a servant. Why try to woo me?”

  “Because wedding ye is the only way I can be yer master.”

  He leapt onto the crates. The wood groaned and trembled under his weight. Her erstwhile intended was a beast of a man, brawny and filled with magic, sword at the ready.

  Aoife squatted and pushed with her feet, arching her back as she flipped backwards off the mound. The whine of his blade slicing the air sang above, just missing her.

  He dismounted with more grace than a man of his size should possess.

  She needed to come up with a plan, but swordplay was not where her strength lay. In her kelpie form, she could devour him. She’d accepted the match knowing he could best her without magic, wanting him to best her to prove to her father that Roi was worthy of her. She’d been a fool.

  On the ground again, their bodies thrust back and forth, striking and blocking, circling each other—the deadly dance of swordplay. She put distance between them, using evasive maneuvers to tire him out. He may have magic, but Roi was only human, whereas Aoife gathered strength from the sea, from her father. All she had to do was outlast him and make her move when he was too exhausted to fight back.

  Roi charged. Aoife spun out of the way—except she didn’t. She’d meant to, but her boots would not move. The soles were magically sealed to the ground. She narrowed her eyes at the cheating mortal. Using magic was against the rules of the match—Roi had to best her physically.

  Facing his hefty form hurtling toward her, Aoife had no time to cry foul, but she did have time to shift into kelpie form. If Roi was going to use magic, so was she.

  S
moke curled around her. A storm of power rippled through her body as every bone, sinew, and tendon remade itself. She was small in her fae form, easily crushed by a man as big as Roi. However, as a black mare, a kelpie, she outmatched the brute in weight and height.

  The sorcerer king had no time to change course. His body slammed into her flank. He ricocheted backwards just as forcefully. Arms spinning in the air, eyes wide with shock, Roi crashed into the ground. Dust billowed around him. His sword flew free from his hand, skittering across the compact dirt floor of the arena. He shook his head, dazed.

  She nickered in her kelpie form, laughing at the fool. In the stands, the Folk of the Sea laughed too, mocking the human king who dared to believe he was a match for one of Mannan mac lir’s daughters.

  Roi’s mouth quirked. Glee lit his slightly dazed eyes. He did not resemble a man defeated as his hand raised slowly, finger pointing at Aoife. “Forfeit! Use of magic is a voluntary forfeit!” A slow, cruel smile graced his lips. “Behold! My bride.”

  Deafening silence followed.

  No!

  Aoife tried shifting back to her fae form so she could speak and acquit herself. She could not, no more than she could get her boots free. She swayed her head back and forth, looking for a way to prove her condition. She nickered and whinnied, backing away to demonstrate her boots were fixed to the ground. To her horror, one of the boots unsettled with the movement—her proof gone.

  Her father would not meet her gaze. Surely, the great sea god would understand there was foul play afoot here. Her sisters dropped to their knees pleading with their father. Aoife could not hear what they said, but they would not want to be parted from her. Niamh wailed. Aoife and Niamh were beloved by all of Emain Ablach and the Folk of the Sea.

  Mannan stood. Instead of looking upon his daughter, he locked eyes with Roi. Panic shot through her when he did not kill the mortal.

  Realization dawned and her heart sundered with the knowledge. Roi had not acted alone. The two must have come to some sort of agreement.

  Her father opened his mouth to speak. Whatever he said, she would be compelled to obey because like all Folk of the Sea, she was bound to Mannan’s words. Contrarily, if Aoife were not in earshot of her father’s decree, she would not be bound by it.

  She bolted for the exit. Guards stood in the way of the gate. She galloped in another direction, guards on her heels.

  Soon she was flanked by kelpies, black mares with glowing scarlet eyes like herself. Her sisters. There would be no telling Mannan’s daughters apart in this form. They turned on the guards, chasing them, and stampeded the gates.

  She and her sisters escaped the arena, trampling through the island city ruled by their father until they reached the sea. There, they split, swimming in different directions. Niamh caught up to her.

  Aoife knew it was Niamh because the kelpie showed her an image of a castle. The Sidhe were ruled by a queen and bound to the goddess Danu, not Mannan. As the ambassador for the Folk of the Sea , Niamh had been to the castle before. She showed more images: faerie circles, landmarks in both faeries and the mortal realm, a mental map of how to reach the entrance of the Sidhe queen’s land. There was an entrance in Ireland, but Roi ruled over those lands. Aoife would have to cross the sea, emerging in Alba.

  Niamh shared one final image of something similar to what the lesser fae and the nobles did for Mannan: a tithe to be paid for the queen’s protection. Plan relayed, Niamh swam in another direction, leaving Aoife on her own.

  2

  Fagan

  Fagan woke with a fierce pain in his ribs. The culprit, his brother Cuilén’s elbow. Without a drop of fat on the waifish lad, his joint was as sharp as a dirk. Sitting up, Fagan rubbed the sleep out of his bleary eyes. The soreness went away as he rubbed his side, but another ache sat deep in his belly that he couldn’t rub away and his tarse grew painfully hard with the urge to piss.

  There was no going back to sleep. He glared at his sleeping brother. Oh no, Cuilén wasn’t going to laze all day while Fagan hunted and scavenged for the two of them.

  “Wake up. The peat for the fire won’t dig itself.”

  Cuilén didn’t so much as mutter an excuse. He lay there as dead to the world as a corpse. Fagan shoved Cuilén’s offending appendage aside as he exited the pallet. His brother rolled onto the floor without so much as a grunt. The sparse light revealed the odd way Cuilén’s body didn’t relax into a more comfortable position as a living body should.

  Fagan knelt next to his brother. His long black hair curtained his view as he bent over Cuilén and placed his palm against a cheek. Cold. At least the boy’s eyes were closed, but his waifish body would stay curled in sleep forever more.

  Fagan didn’t bellow, wail, or gnash his teeth the way he had when his parents had died of plague or when their other four siblings, including the wee bairn, had come to the same demise as his last. A single tear slid down his cheek, cooling as he gathered stiff remains of his brother. Fagan pushed to his feet and went outside.

  His breath clouded the chill air as he trudged past the barren field. The crunch of snow was the only sound as he passed the framework of what used to house the chickens, livestock, and horse. He’d used the rest of the wood to warm soups made of the bones of the last of the livestock—including the farm’s horse—long after the meat filled the bellies of his siblings.

  Fagan had loved that old horse, loved the way he felt riding into the village with his father. Like he was someone who could ride above it all, better than those who didn’t have such luxuries. That was before the plague had taken his father and his mother.

  It was best they’d eaten the horse anyway. They’d had nothing to feed the livestock for a while now. Plague had taken the nearby farmers. There was no grain to be had when there were no farmers to sow and reap the harvest. It wasn’t like there was anyone left to impress anyway. Plague and invaders had taken the coastal village.

  Knees buckling and head dizzy with hunger, Fagan laid Cuilén in the snow next to the cairns of the rest of his family. Straightening, he stumbled a respectable distance to take a piss. He placed a hand stiff with cold against a tree for balance as he fumbled with his aching erection.

  Fagan reckoned he should feel sad or angry or something of the like. Cuilén had been his favorite brother despite the six-year age difference. He felt nothing, numb as his cold-desensitized fingers. After he finished his piss, he went to the ruins of the stable and gathered the rocks he’d been collecting. Three days ago, Fagan had shown his brother the pile, thinking it’d be him.

  “I cannae bury ye,” Cuilén said, blue eyes just like Fagan’s shimmering with tears.

  “Then boil me bones in a stew and live for a few more days, ye daft bairn.”

  “How can ye say such a thing? Has yer heart frozen with the winter chill?”

  Fagan carried an armful of rocks, believing his heart may have frozen. He felt neither joy nor sadness, only the hunger gnawing at his insides. Looking over his brother’s body, Fagan briefly considered doing exactly what he’d proposed Cuilén do. The younger boy had grown so thin, he doubted it was worth suffering in Hell for eternity. The Christian Lord of their da’s religion wouldn’t forgive him for such a thing, even if Cuilén, who knew the suffering of slow starvation, might.

  As he built his brother’s cairn, Fagan wondered if there was such a place as hell, heaven, or purgatory for that matter. The priest had died along with the rest of the village. Pagans had killed them all.

  The bairns, including himself, had all been all baptized, but his ma had never believed in Da’s Jesus. She said the saints were nothing but fae and Jesus himself was probably the king of the faeries having himself a laugh. Da would get angry when she blasphemed like that, but Fagan saw no harm in it. The Christian god had shown himself and gave nothing but some advice as far as the young man knew.

  “At least faeries would make a bargain with ye,” he said out loud, setting the last stone on the cairn.

  After
burying his brother, Fagan took the last of the stacked peat and piled it in the hearth under the pot hanging over it. His gaze landed on the ladle on the mantle, remembering how Ma had snuck him sips of stew while the others weren’t looking. The hearty aromas of carrots, onions, and herbs from her garden and the weight of it all in his belly, warming him. His ma’s conspiratorial smile. The sound of his siblings’ banter. The memory stood in sharp contrast to the ache in his gut and the empty cottage.

  In that moment, the notion Fagan had nothing to live for and nothing to look forward to came into sharp clarity. He supposed he should feel something about it, but his head and gut ached too much. He sipped some water from a jug that he and Cuilén had collected from the river the day before, pouring the rest into the pot.

  “Best to get a fire started to heat the water,” Fagan said out of habit; there’d always been someone around to hear him. “If I am to find anything in the traps, I am keen to skin and boil whatever I find right away.”

  Ignoring that only silence responded, Fagan busied himself starting the fire. Once he got the peat smoldering and then at full flame, the dense earthy smoke burned low. Peat didn’t give off as much heat and light as woodfire, and it had a denser smoke, but his ma had insisted they not cut the trees because there could be dormant faeries among them.

  She’d also leave out a bit of cream to appease the faeries and keep them from playing tricks. His da had turned a blind eye to such doings, but he’d forbidden her from teaching their children about the old gods. In his mind, they were demons, not tricksters and favor givers. So, Fagan’s ma would talk about her beliefs in the form of stories. Fagan and his siblings cut their teeth on tales of wild shades, pixies, faerie queens, and kelpies.