‘What do you mean? How can she…’ But Faye’s words trailed away as Finn drew her to him. Being this close to him was like a drug; something raw and wild swept through her. She felt, suddenly, as though nowhere else in the world existed, and as if she herself was changed: her old self was sloughed away, and some new yet original, as yet unknown self, remained.
‘I will answer all of your questions, Faye Morgan,’ he said, quietly. ‘But first, follow me. I will show you this great land of mine.’
He released her from the embrace and took her hand. There was a part of her that knew she was being entranced; that this was a strange place where she very well might get lost. Faye fought it as hard as she could, and, just for a moment, as she focused hard on Mistress of Magic and on the rain on the windows and the leaping firelight, she felt her own power return a little. She pulled her hand away from his, concentrating on the vision of the shop to steady herself, but he took her palm in his again, chuckling in amusement, and Faye lost what brief advantage she had gained.
His hand was warm in hers; though she was walking, she hardly heard what he said. All she could focus on was the energy coming through his palm and into hers. It was a tingling wave of headiness she’d never felt before, and it surrounded her, circled her, so that she felt she was walking in a cloud. They walked through room upon room filled with tapestries and treasures; each one flickered with that strange candlelight, and hummed with a distant music – sometimes like a lullaby, sometimes a fast reel that made Faye’s feet want to dance and tap.
He told her of the faerie realm. Old stories about this castle, where he and his royal family resided.
‘Your court?’ she asked, noticing that the noise – clapping, laughing, and the wild music – was growing louder.
‘Yes.’ He smiled at her; his eyes were like warm sapphires.
‘You are a… king?’
‘A faerie king. My sister is the queen of this place. Murias, the Castle of the Cup. The Palace of Water.’
‘How long have you been here?’ she asked wonderingly. Grandmother had told her that the fae were as old as the world itself.
‘As long as the moon, perhaps longer.’ He smiled, raising her hand to his mouth and kissing her palm. ‘I was a child once, but long ago, in your eyes. We do not age as you do in the human realm. I played here, with my pets and the other faeries of the court until I grew to be King. When we could not sleep, my sister and I, the faery pipers played us lullabies. When our hearts were broken, in the days when we were foolish in our love with mortals, they played to cheer us and mend our sorrows.’ He smiled at her expression. ‘You do not think our hearts can be broken? The fae creatures have suffered much at the hands of humans.’
‘I… I don’t… I mean, I didn’t…’ Faye shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I’ve only ever heard about faeries enchanting humans, not the other way around.’
‘Well, sidhe-leth, believe me: it can happen.’ He gazed meaningfully at her, and Faye had the same sense of disquiet as before.
She pulled her hand away from his. Immediately her head started to feel a little clearer; she looked around her at the room they were in. It was as grand as the others, but when she looked harder, she could see that the walls and the floor had shadows of tree roots within them.
Faye peered at the scene on the tapestry that hung closest to her. Like the others, it had figures that appeared to be dancing, in the midst of great revelry. Yet when she really looked at it, she realised that several figures hung upside down, hung by ropes attached to their ankles, their faces obscured. And, under the feet of the revellers, there were skulls and bones.
‘Am I dreaming?’ she asked him.
‘You are not dreaming,’ Finn’s voice pulled her gaze from the tapestry, back to him. He reached for her hand again, but she refused him and held it to her side, suddenly unsure.
‘What is this place?’ she demanded, fighting the sleepy desire that had come over her. A part of her remembered that being in the faerie realm was dangerous and that she should be on her guard; she looked back at the tapestry, as if looking at it was an act of self-preservation. It was a reminder of danger; a reminder that she shouldn’t forget she might be in peril. ‘I… I shouldn’t be here. I want to… I think I should go.’
There was a knock on one of the doors to the room and, frowning, Finn stalked across the room and flung it open. Some of the rooms Finn had led her though had had many doors in and out, and some just one. It made her think of the castle like a maze itself. She had found her way through the labyrinth outside, but could she leave this one, now that she was inside? She realised that Finn had led her through many rooms and she didn’t know the way back out.
‘What?’ he demanded as he opened it; his demeanour had changed, suddenly, in a fraction of a moment; there were edges now, where there had been none before, and Faye felt wrong-footed.
There was a murmured conversation which she couldn’t really hear; Faye stepped quietly towards where Finn stood, curious to see who he was talking to. In the shadow beyond the tall, carved wooden door, she could see there was a tall figure standing in a corridor. Dim candlelight flickered in the hallway; there was just enough light to ascertain that whoever it was, they were dressed in some kind of reflective material, a little like armour.
‘I don’t care. Just do it!’ Finn barked at the intruder, making her jump. He slammed the door and stood with his back to her for a moment, tense; Faye didn’t know whether to ask what was wrong. She felt confused again; it was so changeable here. I should go home, I don’t belong here, she panicked. What am I doing?
Finn turned to her, scowling, and, without warning, reached up and tore the tapestry she had been staring at off the wall, letting out a shout of frustration as he did so. Faye, startled, shied away from him. He glared at her fiercely for a moment and, in that brief second, all his former warmth was gone. His deep blue eyes narrowed.
Faye ran to the other side of the room and tried the door.
‘This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have come here,’ she muttered. ‘I… this isn’t right, I…’
But before she could open it, his hand was on her shoulder, and sweetness began to suffuse her whole being again.
‘Forgive me, Faye,’ Finn’s voice was honey again. ‘It was bad news. I apologise if I made you feel uncomfortable.’
She was still tense; despite his soothing presence, her body had kicked into fight or flight response. Finn stroked her arm.
‘You… startled me,’ she protested, pulling away from him.
‘Please accept my deepest apologies, dear Faye. I would never intend to alarm you,’ Finn’s tone became urgent, his eyes full of anxiety. ‘My kingdom is in conflict with Falias, the realm of Earth. The faerie realms are often at war with each other. Boundary disputes, that kind of thing. But I should not have let it affect my time with you.’ He clasped her to his chest in a hug that felt tinged with desperation. ‘I’m sorry. Dearest Faye, I should never have lost my temper. I know I am… difficult, at times. Please forgive me.’ He sounded as if he was on the edge of sudden tears, and Faye wondered at his changeable mood.
‘It’s all right. You frightened me, though.’ She felt as though her apology was required by him, and that it would be politic to give it whether she meant it or not.
Finn released her from his arm and, reaching past her, gently opened the door she had been struggling with. Immediately, a blare of music pierced the room.
Faye looked down from a balcony onto a large, ornate hall below where a party seemed to be in full swing. Faeries of all kinds sat at long tables which were piled with food and drink, and a band played on a raised circular stage in the middle of the room, which Faye recognised as the music she had heard distantly all the way through the castle.
It was a little similar to the music Dal Riada had played that night in the bar: a kind of fast, folky music with fiddlers and flutes, but this was performed on unusual instruments: Faye leaned over the balcony and pee
red hard at the players, trying to make it out, but she couldn’t tell what they were exactly, only that they were made of wood and branches and other woodland elements.
The music, also, was faster and louder than Dal Riada’s, and the dancers that circled around and around the stage were frantic and crazed. There were no dance moves that she could discern in particular, just fierce running, jumping, skipping and howling along with the music. As she watched, one slight-looking female faerie fell down as she skipped wildly to the music and was trampled by at least ten others before she got raggedly to her feet again. Faye’s eyes widened in amazement.
‘Come,’ Finn, watching her face, took her hand and guided her to the top of some golden stairs which led from the balcony to the hall below. He was not barefoot, as he had been onstage at the gig, but wore some kind of gold slippers on which he walked soundlessly.
‘Oh, no. No, I couldn’t,’ she murmured, and stepped back into the room, but Finn held onto her hand.
‘Will you not take a dance with me in my own royal hall?’ he asked and, as he touched her again, that golden lightness entranced her, and the music outside filled her with a wild delight. ‘And I will answer all your questions. I promise.’
At that moment, the musicians stopped playing one song, and, after a brief pause, launched into something slightly slower. Faye certainly had questions, but her body had caught the rhythm of the new tune and she felt herself nodding.
Hand in hand, they descended the golden stairs and reached the ballroom. Finn bowed and clasped her around the waist and swung her into the outer throng of dancers that had formed around the wildest ones, closest to the stage. Rather than join the running, trampling faeries that seemed possessed with a kind of fury, Faye followed Finn’s lead in a much more stately fashion, though it still made her dizzy.
The other dancers made way for them as they circled and dipped around the room, and Faye saw that many of the fae nodded and bowed as they spun past.
‘What were you doing in that bar, in… in the real world? Your band. If you are… what you say you are?’ Faye asked him, trying to follow his lead.
‘You can hardly doubt that I am anything else,’ Finn replied seriously as they danced. ‘But you are correct. The fae sometimes go forth into your world. Not very often, now. Once, human and fae intermingled happily. It was a golden age; I remember it with such fondness.’ He sighed. ‘Now, everything is different. Everything is wrong, out of balance. We all mourn the passing of that time in the human world, where your kind knew us and honoured us. Even though we dance and laugh, sadness is in us all.’
The pipers and drummers paused again and commenced a much slower song. Finn smiled, and put one hand on Faye’s waist.
‘My grandmother told me old tales of the faeries. She said we had a house faerie called Gussie, who kept the hearth swept for us and the milk fresh, but he was very particular about how we honoured him. As a child I left a bowl of the creamiest milk and a slice of bread out for Gussie every night, but one night I wanted to put out a scone. Grandmother said no, Gussie would take that as an insult in the same way as if no offering was left at all,’ she said, feeling a blush come on her cheeks as she looked up into Finn’s strange eyes. He was disquietingly beautiful. His hair was a dark gold in the light of the ballroom; when she had seen him onstage with Dal Riada, and in her shop that day, it had looked darker, more of a dirty blonde.
‘Your grandmother was a wise woman,’ Finn smiled. ‘The fae have their ways that humans used to respect. Now they have all but forgotten us and built upon many of our dwelling-places.’
Faye blinked hard. Finn’s comment had made her come out of her faerie dream a little again and remember Rav’s house which had been built on the faerie road, the path that led here. It was very easy to forget the real world completely and she reminded herself she was not a faerie; that she had to keep her wits about her here. She also had no idea if she was, perhaps, dreaming especially vividly, and might wake up in her own bed any minute.
‘She was a witch. She taught my mother the old ways, and they taught me,’ she said. They danced slowly now, and the rhythm of the tune patterned her heartbeat in a delicious, sensual repetition. Finn’s face was close to hers, and their breath met between them. She was aware of breathing in when he breathed out, he following suit as she exhaled in an intimate synchronicity of air between them.
‘Yes, I know.’ He smiled around them at the many dancers that called out a blessing or a greeting to him.
‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘I didn’t?’
‘About why you play music to humans. In the band.’
He gave a little laugh.
‘You are persistent.’
I’m not nearly as persistent as I should be just now, Faye thought. Her head was spinning.
‘Hmmm. Well, perhaps I like the audience.’
‘You have all the audience you need here, surely?’ The hall was full of hundreds of faeries feasting and dancing.
He raised his eyebrow and smiled. ‘Quite so. Well, then. Perhaps it is that we need humans. We need your attention to survive. We need your love,’ He smiled, looking at her deeply, and she felt her breath catch. ‘We were banished from your world, or near enough, when you stopped paying us our due. As the spirits of the land. As the ones that should receive offerings so we would give you good luck, help you, keep your babies healthy. We didn’t ask much, but it was too much for humans in the end, and it broke our hearts. Now, we are mostly confined to our own places. But as I am king, I can choose whether to go forth into your world or not. And I choose to be loved again, and give love. It is no more than an act of a broken heart looking to be healed, my time with Dal Riada.’
Faye didn’t know what to say in reply; Moddie and Grandmother had told her as much in their stories – that the old spirits of the land had been forgotten by most; made fun of, ignored and maligned. That was the explanation they gave to the young Faye for why she couldn’t see faeries in the garden and under the stones on the beach she so assiduously turned over, from one end of the dark sand to the other.
Finn nodded to another couple that danced next to them. The woman – or, as Faye corrected herself, the faerie-woman – was dressed very grandly in a violet and silver dress with a bodice and full skirt very reminiscent of fashion from many hundreds of years ago. She wore red roses in her dark golden-blonde hair, which was plaited intricately around them. Her partner was, as far as Faye could tell, human – a dark-skinned young man with a dazed expression who couldn’t take his eyes from the faerie queen in his arms. The faerie queen was high-cheekboned and full-lipped, and her eyes had the same oddness as Finn’s; as if they were made of jewels that held great depth but still remained somehow impassive and cold.
‘Greetings to you, sidhe-leth.’ The woman nodded imperiously to Faye, and her human partner smiled briefly before he swung the golden-haired beauty away.
‘Who was that?’ Faye murmured to Finn, though she was having trouble focusing on anything apart from Finn and the music which had entered her blood; it felt as though it was powering her actions from inside a formerly hidden part of herself. A part of herself that was as wild as the trees and the rivers, and wanted to sing and dance and – most of all, as Finn pressed her against his firm, well-muscled chest – kiss this beautiful faerie king.
Their faces were so close together now that their lips almost touched; Faye’s awareness of the dancers around them dimmed so that it was only she and Finn moving as one inside the music. If she inclined her head less than an inch, her lips would meet his; the idea thrilled her more than she had ever thought possible.
‘My sister, the Faerie Queen Glitonea, Queen of the Powers of Water,’ he breathed.
‘And the… the person with her?’
‘Her lover.’
‘Is he human?’ she murmured. ‘Like me?’
‘Yes.’ Finn smiled, and traced the line of Faye’s cheek with his fingertip. He did it lightly, bu
t the trail of his fingertip felt like a pleasurable fire that lit her whole body up in desire for him. She sucked in her breath. ‘But not like you.’
‘Are you… close to your sister?’ Faye was curious about the faerie queen, and Finn’s relationship with her. His eyes had glowed when they met hers, and Faye had felt something pass between them: an unspoken understanding, a deep connection.
‘Of course. She is Queen, I am King,’ he replied, dismissively, but on seeing Faye’s expression, he softened a little. ‘She is made of the same stuff as me; the same as all faeries, just as other humans share much in common with you. But she and I are of an old, old family: our forebears are the spirits of the first oceans. What is between us cannot be between anyone else – it is impossible for you to understand, as you are not like us. We are Murias, and Murias is us. This is one of the mysteries of my kingdom, Sidhe-leth: it would take you many more lifetimes than the one you have to understand.’
‘What is that name? Sidhe-leth? I have been called that by many of the… fae here.’ Faye resisted the impulse to say people, where they were most certainly not.
But instead of a reply, Finn brushed her lips with her fingertip and, gently, kissed her.
Chapter Eighteen
It was like being underwater, but being immune to drowning.
Faye’s eyes fluttered closed, and she was subsumed by the kiss; pulled under into tumultuous waves.
Behind her eyes, she saw nothing but the ocean, lit by the full moon that shone its reflected light down onto black-and-green waves; she looked back at an unfamiliar horizon that ended on a distant silver beach.
Daughter of Light and Shadows Page 12
