The Prince of Secrets

by A J Lancaster

  She felt the last light extinguish, somewhere deep in the estate. The cold dawn spread over the land, so diffuse through the snow-laden sky that it was impossible to accurately locate the sun. She took a deep breath and drew upon her magic, wondering just how she was supposed to explain to Stariel what needed doing.

  But Stariel needed no explanation. It knew exactly what was required of it, and it grasped hold of her like a parent drawing a child to the correct path. She could only follow, the magic spooling out, through her, and into the land. She breathed in her people, their lives so small and fragile, all of them reaching out for her in return. It was eerily similar to the small flares of acknowledgement from Stariel’s fae denizens the previous night. It should have shaken her, to realise how many lives she was responsible for, but instead something inside her steadied.

  All over Stariel, the fires rekindled, symbolising the return of the sun, that they had passed the darkest hour and yet lived.

  she sent out into that great web, knowing that no one would probably hear it, but needing to say it in any case. It wasn’t an especially elegant promise, but she’d never meant anything quite so seriously before in her life. She met Wyn’s eyes across the circle and saw his eyes widen. He, at least, had heard her sentiment if not her words. It came with that same deep feeling of possessiveness the starcorn had woken, a powerful urge to protect that which was hers.

  24

  Lord Featherstone

  The day after Wintersol, Wyn sat in his office, where he and the head ranger were keeping track of all the roads that needed clearing. Hetta could prod Stariel into doing it, but she needed to know where to prioritise her efforts; they’d learned that the land didn’t much like interfering with natural processes. Hetta had so far coaxed Stariel into shifting the snow off the main roads, but the smaller tracks to the outlying cottages still needed attention. Villagers had been traipsing back and forth all morning, and Wyn now had a fairly accurate idea of what was needed where. He’d already sent down extra heatstones to the most vulnerable cottages, though thank the stormwinds his insulation spells were still mostly intact. Fae magic was less efficient than human technomancy for such things, but also far less expensive. He’d nearly repaired all the shredded spells in the house, and though he’d felt Stariel lurking over him, the faeland had so far left them alone.

  The snow had given him a brief stay of execution, but he’d agreed to let Hetta try to summon Gwendelfear tomorrow, to try to find out DuskRose’s motivations in all of this. It would give them a stronger bargaining position when it came to ThousandSpire. Guilt and fear needled around his rib cage, but Hetta had promised him, he reassured himself, even if it already felt too late to pull out of the dive.

  He paused, pen poised over the map of Stariel. That just left the Valstars and the secret of his identity. But Hetta was right; that secret was already creaking at the edges, especially given what Marius had reported of the reaction at the bank. Further rumours were no doubt already vining their way across the countryside in the wake of that.

  Anger, blooming between heartbeats, and not his own. Stariel’s anger, surging over him. The pen went clattering across the desk, and he clutched wildly at the wooden surface, seeking an anchor as the world shook with snow, pine—and coffee. For once, the hostility wasn’t directed at him; this was a directionless echo of its lord’s emotion, the faeland’s focus far from here. The tremor passed as quickly as it had come, and Wyn could abruptly breathe again as the leylines steadied. Whatever had occurred, Hetta had quickly damped Stariel’s reaction after that initial jolt of alarm. Which meant she wasn’t in immediate danger, at least.

  He looked up to see the head ranger frowning at him. Wyn had missed what he’d just said.

  “You all right, Mr Tempest?” The disturbance had occurred only on the magical plane.

  “I am well,” Wyn assured him, retrieving the pen. Ink had splattered across the map’s surface, though fortunately not on any crucial details. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began to dab the worst of it away.

  The ranger raised an eyebrow at the inky mess. “Not like you to be clumsy. Your arm still paining you?”

  Wyn shrugged. “A momentary lapse.” What had prompted Stariel’s roll of sudden rage? Hetta had gone with Aunt Sybil to meet Lord Featherstone at the station.

  He froze. Lord Featherstone. Stormcrows, he was so stupid sometimes, and Rakken’s sense of humour so warped. How had he failed to make the connection? I shall look forward to seeing you again, he’d said outright!

  “All right, then,” the ranger said. He sounded as unconvinced as Clarissa had earlier in the week, though the similarity wasn’t surprising. The couple had been married longer than Wyn had been at Stariel.

  Wyn tried to shake off the dread seeping into his bones, or at least to hide it. If he was to face his brother, he needed to be in control of himself.

  “Where were we?” He put the handkerchief to the side and tried to concentrate on finishing the map. But his senses stretched southeast towards Stariel Station and Hetta, and he struggled to make meaning of the inked lines in front of him. Minutes—or possibly years—later, his ears pricked at the faint but unmistakable sound of the kineticar on the gravel of the driveway. He excused himself, and the ranger gave him a look that said his distraction hadn’t gone unobserved.

  Heart hammering, he made his way through the house, struggling not to break into a run. Would Rakken truly dare such an entrance? Uncle Percival startled as Wyn passed him in the corridor, and he knew he’d moved a little too swiftly to be quite natural. He tried to slow down, to move at a more human pace, but he could not find the correct rhythm, not with apprehension swelling in him like the sea in storm. He careened out the front door, down the steps, and skidded to a halt just as the kineticar swept around the last bend before the house.

  Heads turned towards him, wordlessly querying his frantic entrance. A small knot of Valstars were waiting, including Jack, Marius, and Caroline, huddling against the chill wind. The wind had flung Caroline’s bright red hair into disarray. Jack had his arms folded and was clearly impatient to be off doing something more useful than greeting titled guests. Aunt Sybil would of course have requested her son make an appearance in the welcome party.

  Wyn jerked his head, unable to explain, torn between reassuring them and telling them to flee, now, before Rakken arrived. But Hetta rules here; she can protect them, if need be. He tried to will calm into himself. Calm; he had to be calm.

  Marius frowned at Wyn. “What—” But the car pulled to a stop with a crunch of gravel, distracting him.

  Hetta got out barely a second after the engine turned off, haste making her clumsy. She met Wyn’s eyes with a grimace, and the word Sorry blazed across the space between them, nearly audible in its force. Aunt Sybil emerged next, blissfully oblivious to any undercurrents. She seemed happy, or as happy as Aunt Sybil ever really got. And then…

  He was a decade and a thousand miles away, except that the memory of Rakken then jarred with the sight of Rakken now, in mortal form, on mortal soil, the two worlds surreally colliding. Rakken’s ears were human-round instead of coming to points, the angularity of his usual fae features subtly softened. And strangest of all—no wings. It was as if someone had made a good but imperfect facsimile of his real brother, and for a wild moment Wyn thought it possible he was merely having a particularly vivid dream.

  His brother wasn’t quite as graceful as he should have been getting out of the car—as Wyn knew well, it took time to accustom oneself to the lack of wing-weight at one’s shoulders. Standing, Rakken scanned the crowd with a careless smile. For the merest instant, his gaze met Wyn’s, and his smile sharpened before he passed on, pretending he hadn’t yet seen him. His face might not be the one Wyn was used to, but that fleeting expression—that mixture of arrogance and sardonic enjoyment—was so familiar it carved furrows in his chest.

  “Lord Featherst
one, this is my son, Jonathan,” Aunt Sybil said, waving at Jack. But Rakken ignored her, meeting Wyn’s eyes again, this time with a deliberate and exaggerated double-take.

  “Brother?” he said with deliberate surprise.

  A frisson of speculation shot through the crowd, and everyone turned towards Wyn. He froze, and his mind went utterly, unhelpfully blank.

  “Whatever are you doing here?” Rakken pushed his way through the crowd as Wyn stood paralysed, scrambling to find his place in this new script. Rakken appeared every inch the delighted relative, unexpectedly reunited with someone he’d thought long-lost. Concern warred with relief in his feigned expression, playing to his audience, but Wyn knew the glimmer in Rakken’s eyes for the tell it was. Rakken was enjoying the fruits of his manipulations. At least Wyn hadn’t lost that, the ability to read his brother despite his many masks.

  Rakken didn’t actually think Wyn would let him embrace him, did he? But apparently, he did, for he approached Wyn with that intent clear in his movements. Sheer distaste at the prospect broke Wyn’s immobility, and he moved, evading the gesture. Rakken gave him a stage-perfect hurt expression.

  “What, no hug for your big brother, Hollow?” he said in a tone too low to be overheard by non-fae. “Haven’t you missed me?”

  Hollow. The nickname rang strangely in his ears. With a distant jolt, he noticed he and Rakken were now precisely the same height. Would Rakken notice? Why did it matter if he noticed? Of course Rakken would notice; he wasn’t an idiot. But Wyn couldn’t help wondering if their wingspans would match now too.

  “You…know our steward, Lord Featherstone?” Aunt Sybil said after a beat.

  The crowd’s silence deepened, forming an expectant vacuum.

  “Your steward?” Rakken blinked between Aunt Sybil and Wyn with wide, puzzled eyes. “But how can that be? This is my youngest brother, lost to us for years.”

  “I thought that Lady Featherstone’s youngest lived on the Continent…” Aunt Sybil said uncertainly.

  Rakken shook his head and sighed, as if preparing to reluctantly unbury old hurts. The stormwinds take Rakken and his play-acting!

  “I’m afraid the case is more complicated. Wyn and our father had something of a falling-out that caused him to depart abruptly without notice. We spent years looking, but we had all but given up hope of ever finding him again…”

  Everyone was looking at Wyn expectantly, and all Wyn could think was how strange it was to hear his assumed name from his brother’s lips. None of Wyn’s family had ever called him that before, which was precisely why he’d chosen it.

  He swung to Hetta, seeking he wasn’t sure what. One of her hands still gripped the driver’s door, and her eyes blazed with anger on his behalf, but she, too, was waiting for his direction. His glacial thoughts stuttered back into motion. Stormcrows, he didn’t want to dance to Rakken’s tune—but what was the alternative? Even knowing that Rakken intended to come across as the gracious one here, the dutiful older brother set against the rebellious black sheep, it was difficult not to reinforce that narrative. He felt rebellious, off-balance, as if Rakken’s presence had made him a child once more.

  He straightened and met his brother’s eyes. He wasn’t a child, and Rakken was the one on unfamiliar territory here, not Wyn, even if he’d caught Wyn unprepared. Ride the winds that are, not those you wish for.

  “I did not expect to see you here…brother,” Wyn said stiffly.

  There was a collective intake of breath. The Valstars hadn’t believed it, quite, without Wyn’s confirmation.

  Aunt Sybil looked at him as if he’d sprouted wings and horns there on the front steps of the house. “You are Lord Featherstone’s brother?”

  “I am his brother,” Wyn said, indicating Rakken with a nod. “Forgive me for deceiving you.”

  Hetta slammed the car door and took charge. “Well, this seems something that the two of you will need to discuss. You must both come up to my study. I’ll see the rest of you at dinner.” And she marched purposefully into the house before any of her relatives could object. Rakken raised an eyebrow at Wyn but obediently followed her.

  Wyn looked helplessly around at the Valstars’ mixed expressions, incredulity being foremost among them. “I…will explain later,” was all he could think to say before he turned and scrambled back into the house after his brother.

  Hetta was stalking up the entry stairs as if she held each one personally responsible for the situation. Rakken walked a step behind her, and Wyn had to strangle down panic to see him so close to Hetta’s exposed back. It was irrational—Rakken would not break guestright after going to such lengths to get himself into Stariel under a mortal alias—but Wyn still had to swallow the urge to throw himself bodily between them. Focus! He could not be this panicked, flighty creature.

  “A fine old house,” Rakken remarked as they passed the painting of Hetta’s grandfather, Lord Marius II. The old lord stared imperiously down at them. Both Hetta and Marius-the-younger had inherited his long nose and piercing grey eyes.

  “If you say absolutely anything else before we get to my study,” Hetta said without turning around, her voice low and furious, “I’ll singe your dashed eyebrows off!”

  Wyn’s heart jerked. Would Rakken take offense? But Rakken’s mouth curved in amusement, and Wyn nearly sagged with relief. Rakken’s anger was harder to provoke than Aroset’s, but it was as cold and implacable as mountains. Ironically, at court, people often assumed Rakken was hot-headed simply because of the contrast between his manner and that of his more taciturn twin sister, Catsmere. They were wrong; it was yet another mask.

  No one spoke until they reached Hetta’s study. Hetta jabbed a finger at the seat beneath the window. “You,” she said, glaring at Rakken. “Sit. Explain your little display out there. I thought the entire point of this guestright business is that you do no harm to me and mine.” She threw Wyn an apologetic glance. “Sorry, Wyn. I was sorely tempted to reveal him for what he was down at Stariel Station, but he said he could see you free of your oath and…”

  She hadn’t wanted to out him, hadn’t wanted to rob that choice from him.

  Rakken folded himself onto the seat, languid as a cat. “You should be thanking me, Lord Valstar. You’ve been searching for a way to legitimise your affaire with your servant lover to your family without revealing his true nature, and I’ve just handed you a neat solution, don’t you think?” A quick flash of teeth. “I scarcely think I harmed you and yours; rather the opposite. And, technically, he’s not yours. Not yet.” He shrugged. “Besides, you yourself noted the apparent similarity in our appearances. How else did you propose to explain that?”

  Hetta thought he and his brother similar? Did she think Rakken was attractive? Wyn couldn’t help recalling how in ThousandSpire Rakken’s lazy sensuality had drawn lovers as effortlessly as a flame draws moths. Why on earth was he worrying about such a petty thing? Focus, he told himself sternly.

  Hetta collapsed into the chair behind her desk and crossed her arms. “It wouldn’t be necessary to explain anything at all if you hadn’t seen fit to smuggle yourself into my house under false credentials. And don’t say I invited you, because I’m not in the mood for fae technicalities.”

  “These negotiations should prove interesting, in that case.” Rakken stretched an arm along the back of the settee, utterly relaxed. “But you should be thankful I represent ThousandSpire’s interests in this. Hallowyn’s death profits me nothing, and I cannot say the same for the alternative ambassador you might have had in my stead.”

  “Instead of Aroset, you mean?” Hetta said flatly. Rakken inclined his head.

  Negotiations. Wyn went to stand beside Hetta after an internal struggle. It was irrational, but it was still reassuring to be between her and his brother.

  “What do you want, Rakken Tempestren?” he said, putting a touch of emphasis on his brother’s name. It wasn’t a threat, not really. More a reminder to them both that Wyn wasn’t some lesser fae to be com
manded. He might not be all that he should be, but he wasn’t a youth anymore either.

  Rakken smiled, showing teeth rather than mirth. “So you do have a backbone after all, Hallowyn Tempestren.” Power shivered lightly over Wyn’s skin as Rakken named him.

  He smiled, with a similar lack of mirth. “Tacky, Rake, to copy my posturing.”

  Rakken’s eyes gleamed. “Poor-spirited, Hollow, to plead fatigue when you started the game.”

  “I admit I’ve not much taste for such things.”

  “So impatient, little brother. Running to mortal time, are we?”

  “If it has escaped your attention, let me remind you that Stariel is a mortal faeland. We all run to mortal time here.”

  Hetta glanced between the two of them, a V forming between her brows. “Are the two of you quite finished?”

  “I do not know,” Wyn said. “Are we done, brother? Or shall we find further irrelevant tangents to bat back and forth between us?” He put a hand on Hetta’s shoulder and she covered it with her own.

  Hetta smiled up at him. “Remind me never to fault you for your lack of plain-speaking again; I can see you’ve vastly improved on your upbringing.” There was a question in her eyes: Was he all right? He squeezed her hand in silent reassurance. Rakken’s abrupt arrival might have knocked all his previous plans out of alignment, but of one thing he remained sure: he would not let Rakken harm Hetta or Stariel. That thought steadied him.

  “You are fortunate that I’m in a tolerant mood, Lord Valstar,” Rakken said. “Or I might choose to be insulted. You’ll note that I did apologise for my stratagems in advance. That, to my mind, is good manners.” He observed the interplay between Wyn and Hetta with interest, trying to judge how entangled Wyn’s emotions were. Wyn knew Rakken; his brother’s hypothesis would be that Wyn had seduced Stariel’s lord to further his own position. Should he reinforce that idea? It would be safer for Rakken to think he had no emotional stakes in this, even if Wyn rebelled at the prospect.