Daughter of Light and Shadows

by Anna McKerrow

  Faye saw Rav’s back and shouted his name, but the music was too loud. Turn around, please turn around and see me, she willed him, but Rav was utterly lost in the panic of the dance. Some kind of troll was laughing, pulling at Rav, trying to trip him up; on his other side, a bare-breasted faerie with beautiful blue wings and violet hair floated in front of him, laughing when Rav pulled away as she tried to kiss him.

  She could no longer see Finn at all. She had no way of knowing whether he was still there, whether he had seen her, or if he had left the ball. She stopped, resisting the push and pull of the faeries around her, and craned her neck, looking for him. The rose petal was limp and hot in her hand, and she knew that if any of these creatures jostled her, she would drop it.

  Suddenly, Faye thrust her hand up into the air and launched the petal as hard as she could, not expecting it to go any further than dropping on the floor, it was so light. And as she let the petal go, she shouted the words Moddie had just moments before in the labyrinth, hoping for the best. Tar a thighearna… Tar a thi!

  The rose petal floated upwards, growing in size.

  The music continued and the dance spun Faye around, but the petal spread wider and wider above them until it covered the whole dance, hanging above their heads like a silk barrage balloon. Some of the faeries stopped and looked up, but most were too lost in the dance, and the ones that had stopped were in danger of being trampled.

  Tar a thighearna… Tar a thi! Faye shouted again, and the petal split into a million pieces, falling onto the dancers like rain.

  The dance stopped, and every single faerie was frozen to the spot. Only the humans left among them moved; some cried out, but most of them slumped to the ground in exhaustion, their faerie captors no longer whirling them around. One girl, trapped in the frozen arms of her toad faerie suitor, screamed to be let go, but the man-sized toad’s legs grasped at her greedily even under the enchantment.

  At the other side of the hall Faye saw Finn, rooted to the spot, his gaze trained on her. She halted in fear for a moment, heart beating wildly. Finn’s eyes watched her keenly but he didn’t move. He can see. He knows I’m here, she thought. Faye remembered his anger, even though she knew he had masked its true force. She had betrayed and disobeyed him, and his eyes burnt with fury. I have made my choice, she thought, and met his gaze. The fury in his eyes was far from the adoration he had shown her before, and it awoke her like a sharp slap. She didn’t love Finn; now that she could see him without being under his control, she knew it was not love. It had never been love, and he did not love her. Finn Beatha did not love anyone; he took who and what he wanted and used them until they had nothing left in them.

  Faye pushed through the inert bodies, through the strange, gnarled limbs and the ripped wings, to Rav, who had dropped to his knees and was cradling his left arm. Pain was written across his face.

  ‘Rav!’ she cried, and knelt down in front of him, wanting to hold him. His eyes widened in disbelief.

  ‘Faye? You’re here? How?’ he stammered. The sheen of faerie was in his eyes; his pupils were dilated and sweat was pouring off him. Faye could feel Finn’s stare burning her back.

  ‘Never mind. I’m going to get you home,’ she said.

  She helped him up. With Rav half-leaning on Faye, they staggered through the ballroom, edging past yellow-skinned goblins, diminutive flower faeries and beast-like creatures for which Faye had no name. She turned her eyes away from the humans that lay here and there; bodies that had slowly had the life trampled from them.

  They passed a girl who was still alive; her skin was sunken, barely even covering her bones. Too weak to raise an arm, she made a pleading noise as they stumbled past.

  ‘We can’t leave them like this.’ Faye stopped and held out a hand for the girl; the change in her stance tripped Rav, who stumbled and steadied himself on a pillar. Faye crouched close to the girl, cradling her head on her lap. Faye couldn’t carry her as well as support Rav, and the girl was so frail, so thin, that Faye felt she would break if she touched her at all.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asked the girl softly, her heart breaking. She felt a rush of anger at Finn: how could he do this to anyone? And then she was angry at herself, too. For not seeing. Her feet might have trampled this girl as she danced with Finn, heedless of the horrors that lined the great hall. She had been seduced. She had been stupid and powerless. No more, she vowed to herself, angrily.

  ‘Kill me,’ the girl whispered, her voice a rasp of desperation. ‘Please.’

  ‘No! I can’t leave you here. I’ll find a way. Just stay with me, all right?’ The girl’s eyes fluttered closed; she was barely conscious. ‘Stay with me! Come on,’ Faye cried, but the girl whispered something; Faye had to put her ear to the girl’s lips to make it out.

  ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘This is the kingdom of faerie. This is…’ The girl coughed and Faye reached for her hand and held it, feeling powerless, hopeless. ‘I stayed longer than I should…’

  The girl coughed again, and Faye knew she was already too far away.

  ‘I’ll stay with you, then,’ Faye said, but she could see some of the faeries beginning to break free of the magic she had cast. There were too many of them to be held off for long.

  Faye remembered Grandmother telling her: The fae have their own ways, and it’s not for us to judge. But it was impossible not to judge Murias as she looked at the bodies of humans, twisted and injured, around her. I am part of this. I am half-faerie, half of these shadows are mine, she thought, and she felt a terrifying guilt consume her. She hadn’t brought any of these men and women here, and she hadn’t tortured them. Yet the faerie blood beat in her veins, and she knew what it felt like to revel in the seductive cloak of magic. That made her an accomplice to their suffering.

  Rav coughed and Faye looked up; he was pale and she knew he needed her.

  ‘He will die if you keep him here much longer,’ the girl said, opening her eyes slightly.

  Faye took in a ragged breath.

  ‘Leave me,’ the girl repeated. ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  Faye still had the bag of herbs she had gathered at the coast slung across her body. She opened it and rummaged around, watching as the faeries started to move slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, getting up and placing the girl back on the floor as carefully as she could. She opened the girl’s mouth and placed a few flowers onto her tongue.

  ‘Swallow this. It will… ease your journey,’ she said, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks.

  ‘Faye, please, I…’ Rav cried out in pain, and she turned away from the girl, her heart hollow.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘Where are you going?’

  The imperious voice filled the long hall, ornately covered in gold carvings, and Faye froze.

  ‘You seem to have a human man with you, sidhe-leth.’ The voice laughed lightly, and the echo resonated in the quiet. ‘That stunt in the Great Hall – it seems that you have learned my magic all too well.’

  Glitonea stepped forward from a dark doorway and dropped her cowled hood. She was wearing a dark blue robe which covered her almost entirely. She seemed unaffected by the spell, but, as the holder of the magic of Murias, Glitonea was most likely able to release herself from spells easier than anyone.

  Faye felt relief that it wasn’t Finn appearing as if from nowhere, but Glitonea was still a faerie queen, and loyal to her brother. And Faye was aware that they only had moments before her spell released all the faeries, and they would be caught.

  ‘Your brother kidnapped this man and brought him here as a punishment. If he wishes to punish me for being unfaithful to him, then I will stand his punishment. But Rav is blameless,’ she argued. Glitonea arched a dark eyebrow.

  ‘What makes you think that I will let you go? What makes you dare to ask me to ignore my brother’s wishes?’ she intoned, and Faye felt the ice in her voice fill the hallway; the temperature dropped and Faye felt she could see i
cicles start to form at the edge of the windows, the glass frosting with an iridescent blue-white covering. Nevertheless, she refused to drop the faerie queen’s gaze.

  ‘You thought that because I have taught you, that I have begun to show you the ways of the faerie realm of water, that I am your friend,’ she answered crisply. ‘Do not make that mistake. I am not.’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘My brother brought this one here for his own reasons. He will stay here until my brother sees fit to let him go.’

  ‘Since when do you let your brother rule you?’ Faye faced Glitonea, who returned her gaze steadily.

  ‘Finn Beatha is Faerie King of Murias, just as I am Faerie Queen. I do not expect him to find fault in my actions, and so I do not criticise his.’

  ‘We made a bargain. I am your weapon against Lyr, when you need it,’ Faye countered, slightly panicked; Rav slumped against her.

  ‘I do not see Lyr anywhere? And I have taught you magic in return,’ Glitonea glared at Faye.

  ‘Please.’ Faye could hear movement in the great hall. ‘I’ll do anything. But I have to get Rav home.’

  Glitonea looked away and pursed her lips.

  ‘You love this man?’

  ‘I care for him, and I don’t want him to be tortured by Finn for something that isn’t his fault.’ Faye looked down the hall, at shadows flickering wildly in the dim light.

  ‘If you have a great passion for this mortal man, then I do not hear it in your voice,’ the faerie queen sneered. ‘My mortal lovers look at me as a queen should be regarded; they love me more than their own beating hearts, as the woman above all women. Yet you do not even know if you love this one.’ She nodded to Rav, who was slipping in and out of consciousness. Faye was holding him up now, and he was heavy and cumbersome. ‘Why should I help you? Your bargains are for naught.’

  ‘But you will let him die, eventually, your lover – the one I saw you with at the dance?’ Faye argued.

  ‘A faerie lover is worth dying for.’ Glitonea smiled faintly, and Faye remembered the first time she had been at the faerie ball. It had looked so different when she had been in Finn’s arms; the dresses were beautiful, the fae had been masked with glittering feathers and jewels. There were no starved, exhausted bodies swept along in the chaotic and relentless tide. And Glitonea had been dancing with a handsome young man. Faye remembered him well.

  ‘Don’t you love him?’ Faye asked, desperately. ‘He’ll die if you keep him here.’

  ‘The fae have a different way of loving than humans do,’ the faerie queen said, dismissively. ‘And I can keep him with me, alive, beyond his years. There are magics that can do that. Time can be manipulated here; it runs differently to your world.’ The queen smiled. ‘So you see, Faye Morgan, you have nothing to bargain with, and I will not allow you to leave. Unless…’ Glitonea looked appraisingly at Faye and held out her hand. ‘There might be something. But you will not like it.’

  Rav slumped in Faye’s arms; faerie soldiers pounded towards them.

  ‘If this is the only way, then I’ll do what has to be done,’ Faye answered grimly. ‘Will you help us get home? If I agree to your bargain?’

  ‘Of course.’ Glitonea’s smile twinkled brightly.

  ‘What is it? What do you want in return?’ Faye took Glitonea’s hand, and the queen waved her other hand at the soldiers; they slowed as if they were running in syrup.

  ‘Something you can make but I cannot. A child.’

  Faye frowned in disbelief.

  ‘What? No! That’s… inhuman.’

  Glitonea laughed.

  ‘I am not human,’ she agreed.

  ‘Why… a child?’ Faye stammered.

  ‘I would have a sidhe-leth heir of my own. I have observed you; the power you hold from both realms. It is full of potential, but it needs teaching from birth. Lyr has his by-blows, and they give him power. I would have the same.’ Glitonea regarded Faye impassively. ‘Or, I can wave my hand and they will take you. And they will put you and your lover in the darkest place in this castle and leave you to rot there. It is your choice,’ she smiled icily. ‘And believe me, sidhe-leth, the dungeons here are very dark and filled with horrors you cannot comprehend.’

  ‘It’s no choice!’ Faye cried. ‘Please don’t ask this of me.’

  ‘Another plea. You humans are full of wants, and yet when your pleas are answered, you do not like the solutions,’ Glitonea snapped. ‘You are human. You can have other babies; as many as you wish. You will not miss one. And I assure you that it will be well taken care of. It will live as a Prince or Princess of Murias.’ There was no compassion in Glitonea’s eyes; no understanding that a baby was anything other than a possession or a pet. ‘Choose. Quickly.’

  I managed to get Rav away from Finn, Faye reasoned. So I can make this right, too. For now, this is what has to be done.

  Glitonea smiled.

  ‘You will have to leave a different way than you came in,’ she called over her shoulder as she hurried along, pulling her cloak around her. ‘He is watching the labyrinth.’ She stopped suddenly and opened a golden door in the wall where none had been.

  ‘Through. Quickly,’ she chided. Faye carried Rav’s inert body over the bottom step of the golden door, and out onto the narrow ice walkway to the crystal castle.

  Glitonea raised her arms over her head and called out something in the language of faerie.

  There was a ripple on top of the blue-black water, and the head of the black kelpie Faye had only half believed was real emerged from the water. Though she had ridden it successfully once before, and felt her power merge with it, now the creature terrified Faye. It had taken Rav from her; it had been Finn’s creature as easily as it had been hers.

  ‘Now. There is no time,’ Glitonea reprimanded. ‘Do not be afraid. It will do as I command.’ Full of misgiving, but knowing she had no other option, Faye climbed on the kelpie’s back and pulled Rav on with her.

  ‘Put the kelpie scale over the man’s nose and mouth,’ Glitonea called up to Faye. ‘It will enable him to breathe underwater.’

  ‘What about me?’ Faye shouted down from the kelpie’s back; it was rising up out of the water, readying to dive down in to the blackness again.

  ‘You are a sea witch, sidhe-leth,’ Glitonea replied, unsmiling. ‘You will breathe without it.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The last of the midsummer sun caressed the stage, casting its twilight warmth onto the audience. Some in the crowd held up their palms to the shafts of twinkling softness that spread over their heads like a cast spell, stroking their fingers through its sparkle. They were chanting, waiting for the headlining band to come onstage: Dal Riada, Dal Riada…

  Finn Beatha strode onto the stage, stripped to the waist; his swirling tattoos and the symbols on his warm honey skin were painted over with blue paint, like woad on Scottish warriors going into battle. The side of his face he wore his radio mic was painted in the same blue, from forehead to chin; on the other side the audience close to the stage could see a fierce twist to his mouth. Yet, as he bowed to them, the last rays of the setting sun landed on his dark blonde hair, giving him a kind of angelic aura.

  The first ten rows closest to the stage erupted in a kind of madness: screaming, crying, reaching out for him. Several women sat atop their friends’ shoulders, reaching for him; one tore off her t-shirt immediately and threw it at the stage, exposing her bare breasts. He took the shirt from the stage, straightened up, smiled at her and stroked the shirt over his chest, then threw it back. Two young men, probably in their early twenties, also sat on their friends’ shoulders; WE LOVE YOU FINN was painted across from one’s chest to the other. Finn blew them kisses which they grabbed excitedly from the air.

  ‘Abercolme. Finally we meet!’ Finn drawled as the rest of the band took their places alongside him. The crowd roared. ‘We’ve waited so long to be here. And what finer evening to watch the sun set over the sea than at Midsummer?’

&nb
sp; He walked from one side of the stage to the other, cupping both of his hands in front of his face, blowing something from them into the crowd. You had to be very close to see the glitter on his hands; the front row reached out for it.

  ‘Blessings of faerie be upon you all!’ Finn cried out, and the crowd laughed and cheered as the first fast riff began, and the music of Dal Riada reached out for them.

  Aisha stood in the wings of the stage, her heart in her eyes. This was what she’d been waiting for, what would make all the spreadsheets and phone calls and social media promotion worthwhile. This close, she could see the gold glitter and the braids in Finn Beatha’s hair; she could see the rough texture of dark interweaving checks in his kilt. She could hear his sweet, rough voice in the second before the mic picked it up, sense the easy strength in his languid pose; this close, he was wild, raw, otherworldly.

  As she watched Dal Riada spin, scream and weave their first song for the crowd, Aisha felt the same hypnotic effect she always did when listening to them. It was like finding the lull between sleep and dream, where she was still in the real world but somehow the normal rules didn’t apply. The familiar songs made images in her mind; of long, twisting paths through a forest, of gilded corridors, of a dance that went around and around without ever stopping. She closed her eyes and let the fast melody enchant her body. She was dancing now, around and around, spiralling deeper and deeper.

  She felt her breasts swell, a strange sensation of them being full and aching for release; as she danced she opened her eyes and watched Finn, imagining kissing him and touching his warm skin. Her body filled with a deeper sweetness; she remembered every moment of making love to him, taking him inside her. It had been unlike anything else she had ever known; even though she was a virgin when she came to him for the first time, she knew it was different than anything she could expect from a mortal man.