The Frey Saga Book IV Page 10

  His mouth turned down in disapproval.

  “Don’t expect me to play nice here. Don’t think I don’t know how this works.” I pointed a finger his direction, stepping forward without intending to do so. I could feel the power boiling within my palm, wanting to strike. “Don’t think I don’t know that you were aware of what was happening this entire time.”

  He waited for the anger to simmer down, watching me with more patience and less of that usual suggestion of fascination or annoyance that seemed always on his face. We had no audience here, there was no need for a show.

  I was just a broken girl now, like my mother, and hers before. This was how it started. Emptiness and despair.

  Everyone knew how it ended.

  “As such,” he finally answered, “I trust that you will allow me to reveal what it is that I want.”

  “A bargain,” I said flatly.

  He smiled. “I do not assume you would fall so easily into that trap.” He gestured toward the basin. “I only hope to appeal to the virtues that have allowed you to take rule. If you’ll permit it, I believe there is good cause to share this truth with you.” He let out a deep breath, and his eyes swept from the dirty slash on my forearm to my face. “As I said before, I would like you to consider this a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

  “Does it involve the release of myself and my Seven?”

  His gaze rolled toward the ornate high ceiling. “I’m afraid it may.”

  I stopped before a reply could come, the words frozen in my throat.

  “It won’t be easy,” Veil told me. “But the best rewards never are.”

  “You’re lying.” My voice was low, tremulous. I wouldn’t let myself believe. It was always a trick.

  It had to be a trick.

  Veil laid a hand across his chest, inclined his head. “I will do my best to be honest with you, Lord Freya. Lacking that, you’ll still have the use of your own eyes”—his gaze met mine once more—“if you will allow it.”

  “Where?”

  He straightened, his smile thin. “Just beyond the trees.”

  * * *

  After I’d rinsed my wounds and cleaned the blood and mud from my face, Veil had pasted syrup-soaked leaves over the deepest of my wounds. I didn’t trust him or his remedies, but if he’d wanted to poison me, he’d had ample chance.

  And then we were flying, Veil in the lead while I was escorted by his heliotropes. A band of shadow stalkers were not far behind and I wondered if they’d seen their brethren, the wounded soldiers who had stood waiting for my message to Veil. I had sliced their hands from their arms. It had been brutal, violent. It seemed necessary to take those actions, every time I did. And then here, in the too-bright sky, the politics of it were far away.

  They were creatures, not so different than my birds.

  I shook my head, forcing the thoughts away. I didn’t like this, didn’t like any of it, and being so near the heliotropes was wearing on my ability to stay sane. I needed my feet beneath me, the ground. This was not like my birds.

  The forest passed below us at dizzying speed, its color so lush and green it made my time in the village seem like standing in a bed of dying weeds. The woodlands eventually fell into sparse patches of trees, the earth covered in brush and vines and everything green. The massive exotic leaves and the unusually-colored plants were gone here, but it still resembled nothing I’d ever seen. The land lacked the roll of small hills, the cut of a curving stream. Despite the greenery, it was flat and lifeless, devoid of stone or the feel of fauna. I didn’t think I’d ever been this far out into fey territory, but it didn’t look as if they wandered out this way much either.

  It felt abandoned. Or like something was missing.

  “What is this place?” I said to Flora where she held me at one side by the leather straps crossing my torso.

  She didn’t respond, but at my other side, the corner of Virtue’s mouth turned down. Veil slowed, his gaze taking in the horizon, practically scouring it before meeting his heliotropes’ eyes. Some unspoken message was exchanged, and the fey women lowered me to the ground.

  My feet sank into soft, dry moss.

  Flora and Virtue released their grip, and I straightened out my clothes as they returned to the sky with the dark-winged shadow stalkers. I felt the weight of them gone, as if I were lighter on my own two feet. I didn’t want to fly, not like this.

  There was still something not right about the ground. The undercurrent of the power that ran through the fey lands changed here.

  Veil was at my side. “Come,” he told me, his voice too low, somehow cautious.

  Unlike him.

  My knees locked.

  “We mustn’t waste time,” he said. “The fates wait for no one.”

  The fates would dance at the fall of tomorrow’s sun. This was the last of my time. This was wrong. “I shouldn’t be here,” I said.

  “Indeed, but you are.” He touched my elbow, careful of the remaining metal that had not been ripped from my armor during the battle. “Come with me now.”

  And I did. Despite all the reasons not to, despite that my time was coming to an end. Despite that there was nothing to be done about any of it.

  We walked carefully over land that seemed untouched by fey hands, the vegetation wild and undergrown. Moss bled into low grass, small field mice and bugs skittering away from our boots. I hadn’t seen any larger animals, but there would be birds now, in the low trees ahead. Unfamiliar birds that might be harder to find, but birds nonetheless. I reached out for them, hesitant, unsure of the hold I had on that magic that seemed so intrinsic to only me. I had to correct myself though, because it wasn’t only me. It was Junnie. It had been my mother, my aunt, all the women in my family.

  “You understand why you’re here, don’t you?”

  Veil’s words startled me and I nearly stumbled on a vine before my eyes went back to the ground to ensure my footing.

  I didn’t understand, not truly. His tactics, yes, but never Veil. I answered anyway. “Because of my power. If one of your kind is going to take me, you must take me first.”

  He couldn’t allow an enemy to have that kind of supremacy. In spite of everything I’d hated about Asher, I couldn’t say using the same methods in Veil’s position was wrong. It would destroy his realm. That I did understand.

  I glanced over my shoulder, the lithe forms of Flora and Virtue nowhere in sight. “But not everyone approves.”

  Veil’s eyes softened, the late summer light giving them a honeyed amber glow. “You know how we feel about your kind.”

  “Right,” I said, annoyed despite myself. “So why warn me about Rowan and the threats against me seasons ago? Why not just let them take care of it for you then?”

  “The fey don’t want any of Asher’s halfbloods on the throne. You,” he said, “are simply the lesser of his evils.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Be pleased I intervened at all,” he told me. “You and I both know what would have happened if a full-blood fey took that throne.”

  “And what’s to stop it from happening now? In three days—” No, it was two, I reminded myself. I had wasted one solid night doing nothing, waiting for it to come. I looked at Veil.

  “It won’t,” Veil answered. “That’s why we are here.”

  “Where?” I asked him. “Where are we?”

  His breath was like a sigh, long and full of sorrow. He turned to the trees and gestured for me to lead the way.

  A long line of braided trees marked the edge of a clearing, and the whisper of Veil’s steps halted behind me. I kept walking, half-dried leaves crunching beneath my boots. I should be searching for birds, should be scanning ahead for signs of whatever trap I could be walking into. But the earth felt wrong here, not fey enough. And then I froze, my heartbeat stuttering one-two thumps before powering into thunder.

  The high fey lord stood silent behind me, but I knew Veil could see the panic. He waited, watching.

  All I ma
naged was a breathless, “No.”

  21

  Liana

  Liana cursed that wretched elf girl to the hills of the ice lands and back. Thea, the girl’s tone echoed in her mind, that sharp and pointed argument coming back again. You should know my name, she’d said. Well, yes, now Liana did. And she would remember it.

  Thea should have been the one to heal these elven guards, not run off with the key to Liana’s plans, her fey bargain. Liana had more important tasks to take to hand, things that must be done before the dying light.

  “Aaah,” the dark-haired man beneath her palms said, and Liana drew her claws in as she pulled the bandage tight.

  “You’ve been stabbed,” she told him. “I would tell you not to jostle about, but I’m certain you’ll be headed into battle and will ignore my advice.” She twisted his arm with one hand and pressed against his chest with the other to make certain the muscle wasn’t too badly severed. “You are fortunate nothing is broken, but it was the blade of a spelled beast, and that magic will be crawling about in you for some time. Drink a bit of this.” She handed him a bowl that burned even her accustomed senses. “Likely it won’t cure the matter, but it will keep you from noticing the effects as badly.”

  “What happened?” the man—Rider, she thought—asked his brethren.

  She knew the other’s name, Grey. He mattered. Not to Liana so much, but certainly to Liana’s plan.

  “It was a trap,” Grey told him. “Though I suppose you’ve gathered as much.”

  She had done what she could to heal Grey first, his burned skin now glowing beneath two layers of salve. There wasn’t much else she could offer for it; burns like this were a nasty sort. Keane had merely been toying with Grey; if he’d wanted him burned through, he could have done it in the blink of an eye.

  Liana had lived many, many years, and that had only taught her the importance of exactly how swiftly it might happen. With a high fey of Keane’s power, a mere thought could break you. It was why she’d had to resort to such underhanded tactics to get what she wanted. There were far more powerful fey afoot than she cared to tangle with. But she wasn’t alone now, and she refused to let her prize head to court without her. No matter what he’d said.

  “There,” she said, pressing the last of the bandages into place. “Now, let’s get to this.”

  Grey ignored her, continuing his explanation to the other man. “So Frey is with Veil, Steed and half the sentries are en route to what we assume is a plan to secure help from Junnie and her new Council, and we have until sundown tomorrow to make a deal with the fey.”

  “Rhys and Ruby?” the man asked.

  Grey held the man’s gaze, but shook his head. No one had heard news of the two since the raid on the castle, not even Liana’s collection of feylings.

  Liana pushed the man to standing. “As he says, we’ve not much time.” She glanced at Grey. “And what of Chevelle’s plan?”

  Grey shot her a glance that told her he didn’t appreciate her single-minded motivations. He was the fool then, because Liana had far more than one incentive driving her.

  “You’ll hear it from his own mouth, if he deems you worthy to know.”

  Liana doubted Grey knew himself, despite the heated exchange the two men had shared earlier. Chevelle had a plan, though, she was certain of that. And he’d shown more confidence in his possible success in the last moments she’d seen him than all along.

  “I’ll ready the horses,” Grey told the other. It wasn’t phrased as a question, but Liana recognized the pause afterward. He was waiting for confirmation that the other man planned to come along. She could tell there was no way he intended to stay, but she wasn’t sure if it was for his brother or his duty to the crown.

  It didn’t matter to Liana. “None for me, thanks,” she quipped. “Now, if we could just get going…”

  Grey turned to snap a retort, but it was broken when a soft thud sounded on the long wood table between them.

  Liana froze. For a moment, she could only stare. Her words would not come to her, could not be formed in order to spell them to life.

  She knew the key they needed—the diary of the high fey who had been Ruby’s mother—was with the Summit boy. The halfling would have never entrusted it to anyone else. And yet here, among these herbs and potions on the scarred mahogany, lay a book marked with that same power signature that only one particular woman, powerful fire fey that she was, had carried.

  “What shadowed sorcery is this?” Liana hissed.

  Chevelle had thrown the book there, his mouth curving into what was nearly a smile as he watched her. He said, “It will suffice, then.”

  Liana began to reach for the book, drew her fingers back. “Is it spelled?”

  He shook his head. “The mark is authentic. The rest, we’ll have to leave to chance.”

  She forced her gaze from the book to stare at Chevelle. “How could it possibly be?” Everyone had seen the fire fey’s death. That part at least couldn’t have been a ruse. Not only was the woman renowned, her end had come by legendary means. Every detail had been told and retold, not only by fey, but by all kinds. She’d been gone for so long, there was no fathomable way this book could exist. And still…

  “Not the fey your lore is so fond of,” Chevelle answered. “But one who also bears her mark.”

  Liana stared in bare shock. Ruby, a halfling who lived among the elves, who shunned her own kind in favor of unforested mountains and the rule of a crown. That she had the capacity to create the mark of a high fey so powerful— “That’s not possible,” Liana insisted.

  Chevelle smirked, gestured toward the book, obvious evidence to the contrary.

  “I refuse to be taken in by your trickery,” Liana demanded. “This is more than ridiculous. She could not have hidden so much power.”

  Chevelle’s long arms crossed over his thick-armored chest as he straightened. “If that’s so, then why do they want her so badly?”

  “You know why,” Liana snapped.

  “And still you can’t believe her capable of a simple mark?” He leaned forward again, pressing his palms onto the very table where that book rested. “Or is it that you underestimated her? That she outwitted you by putting this second key into play before you even knew we’d need it?”

  Anger boiled through Liana, but she caught herself before the room was destroyed. She needed them, she reminded herself. Needed them all for now. She grabbed the leather-bound book from the table, flipping the pages open to reveal not the short, sharp marks of the fey, but loose elven scrawl.

  * * *

  The elders were a different story altogether. My father had given them orders to protect me and the child, and even though they followed through with them, they persisted in chattering about their concerns. The humans frightened them unreasonably. They constantly fretted, wanting to keep her, and me, from contaminating anyone else.

  I attempted to reason with them, but they turned on me. “You don’t understand, you never will! They will consume you. The humans will consume us all.” Their hands shook as they spat out the words.

  I didn’t argue after that. I wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the castle anyway. Besides, it kept her from being paraded in front of so many visitors.

  * * *

  Liana’s hand came up to cover her mouth, returned to hover over the text, and then turned another page.

  * * *

  My Freya has grown into a stubborn and willful child. She’s prone to fits of screaming or crying. The emotion frightens the elders. It comes from her father, yes, but I can’t see how it will harm her. The humans seemed to live their lives fine, controlling it well enough.

  * * *

  She went to turn the page again, but Chevelle snatched it away from her. Liana knew what was coming though, knew the story by heart. There would be more humans. There would be a massacre.

  She barked out a laugh and the room went still. She scanned the faces of this Freya’s high guard, clearly unamused desp
ite the utter thrill of it.

  “Don’t you see?” she asked them. “Your halfling fey has a stake in the game.” She gestured toward the diary in Chevelle’s hand. “When did she mark this? When did she know that this end would come?”

  Chevelle remained silent. She could see his defiance, could see his doubt. But she also saw his hope. Even if they only had a decoy, they had created a chance.

  Their Ruby had created it for them.

  Liana grinned. “Well, then, I accept this challenge. What is your plan, Vattier?”

  22

  Frey

  Veil let me stand at the edge of that clearing for a long, painful moment. I had to force myself to breathe, to take in every single sense of them. I had been near one, yes, but this… this was something different.

  This hurt.

  “You can feel them, can’t you?” he asked me.

  He knew I could. He had to know.

  He had brought me here on purpose. I didn’t know when Veil had moved, but the weight of him was behind me, suddenly steadying instead of anything it had ever been.

  “Why?” I choked out. “Why this?”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder, careful of the metal bands that crossed my armor, the chains that tied shoulder plate to broken strips of mail. “You know why this,” he answered. “Despite all Asher had planned, there was no keeping this secret from my kind.”

  “It wasn’t—” I stuttered. “I didn’t—” My stomach turned at the image my mind had created from my mother’s diary, throngs of them, slaughtered for Asher at Council’s hand. “I can’t do this. Whatever it is, whatever you want…”

  Veil’s grasp on my shoulder tightened, and I knew the metal was starting to burn. “The fates,” he reminded me. “This is your only chance.”

  My hands were shaking, sweat-slicked and unsure what to do. Action, my body told me. Fight.