by Amanda Fleet
Faran nodded warily.
I squared my shoulders. “Then my guess would be that Aeron invited him into The Realm because there was a higher probability of there being three Guardians, some swords, those special daggers and Realm soil here than there would be Outside and more chance to kill him if he was weaker. Maybe you’re so angry because Aeron demonstrated more intelligence and bravery than you. Aegyir was defeated after all.”
Faran’s gaze scorched me.
I shrugged. “I’m just trying to give you a different perspective. How would you get Aegyir into The Realm unless he thought it was to his benefit? Who were the three Guardians who surrounded Aegyir? Who stabbed him? Who decapitated him?”
“Me, Father and you. I decapitated him. You and Father did the rest.” He tilted his chin towards the stump on my right hand. “What happened to your hand?”
“Aegyir cut my finger off. This morning. He was threatening to cut my hand off and took my finger off to make a point.”
He flinched. “I’m sorry that happened to you. You might find it harder to wield a sword now.”
I snorted. “A sword? Not really part of my day-to-day life.”
A frown creased his brow for a moment. “Father’s called a Council meeting to decide your fate. If you’re not Aeron, you’ll be taken back to the portal and forced to leave The Realm. Father said that you claimed to have turned Aegyir to smoke.”
“Mm.”
“But Outside, not in The Realm? And there was only you?”
“It might have been on Realm soil. I think I’d been given a bag of it.”
“By whom?” His voice was clipped again.
“I don’t know. The same person who gave me the daggers, sword, pot and a book of instructions. Instructions that failed to say there had to be three Guardians.”
“You had a vessel?”
“Yes. But I didn’t get Aegyir into it. I got thrown through the portal before I could.”
He fingered his brow, his shoulders tense. “Then he’s not trapped. You may have dispersed him but he’ll still be free Outside. If you’re banished, he’ll kill you. And unless he’s defeated, he’ll chase you from body to body through time.”
I blanched. “He said that he couldn’t kill me.”
“Not if you’re a Guardian. Not until he’s very strong. But he’d torture you until you did his bidding. The loss of a finger would seem trivial in comparison. If you’re not a Guardian, he could kill you easily.” My breath rasped in my chest and Faran’s face softened. “But you’re Aeron. Returned.”
“What happens to me if everyone here believes I am Aeron.”
Faran drew in a long breath. “You could be hanged, but there’d have to be proof of further treason. Or you could be re-admitted. Father favours banishing you again though.”
“Is he the one who gets to decide?” None of the options filled me with joy.
“No. The Council decides. He can advise them, as can I.”
“And what will your advice be?”
He nibbled his bottom lip. “I would advise the Council to re-admit you.”
“Why?”
He paused. “Because if Aegyir is free and you’re banished, he will torture you. And The Realm will need every Guardian it has to defeat him. Come. You need to make yourself presentable before you go before the Council.”
“Presentable?”
He waved his hand over my face and body. “The metal, the paint. I don’t think we can do anything about the clothes, however.”
I bristled. “What’s wrong with any of it?”
He half laughed. “The Council will take one look at you and decide to hang you. Come. I’ll take you to our rooms.”
He banged twice on the door, turned, and held his hand out to me. I stared at it. I wasn’t about to hold hands with him.
“Do you prefer to be cuffed?” His eyes flashed warnings. I shook my head, and he held his hand out further. Grimacing, I slid mine into it and he snorted, amused. His grip was firm but not painful.
The door opened and Faran led me past the four guards in the hallway outside the cell. One opened his mouth as if to protest but Faran fixed him with such a basilisk stare that the guard shrank back against the wall.
I wondered what awaited me. Hanging? Banishment? Or to stay here as Faran’s wife?
3
Faran led me through a series of near-identical corridors until we reached a solid-looking wooden door with deep carvings covering its surface. The patterns reminded me of the ones on the pot of magic ointment – knots and entwined serpents; animals biting each other’s tails; ravens and runes. He opened the door and ushered me in.
The door closed with a solid thud and I peered around the room, my heart in my mouth. Little furniture graced the room – just a well-stuffed leather sofa, a couple of tub chairs, a low table, and a desk and a hard wooden chair against one wall. As in the large hall, light flooded in from the glass ceiling and the floor comprised sanded boards. A second door led off the room, opposite the entrance. Faran went through and I followed, to find an equally starkly furnished bedroom with a bed, a chest of drawers and a closet for hanging clothes. I stepped back to the doorway, unwilling to be in a bedroom with him.
“Faran, what will happen at this Council meeting?”
He turned. “The Council will need to decide whether you’re Aeron or an Outsider. It should be easy to persuade them that you’re Aeron, as long as you don’t continually deny it. You crossed the portal, and I’m assuming no one invited you here. Once the Council has agreed on that, it might be more difficult. Father will remind the Council of your original treason and advocate that you’re hanged. I’ll remind him that there’s no evidence of any new offences against The Realm and that therefore by law, the options are limited to denying your request for re-admittance and banishing you again, or accepting your return. With conditions. My counsel will be to allow you to remain. The Council will vote. It will split along predictable lines of allegiance but will probably be carried in your favour. You’d then have to swear the oath of allegiance to be re-admitted to The Realm.”
“As Aeron? Your wife?”
He inclined his head. I couldn’t read his expression. “As Aeron. My wife. Unless you are married Outside?”
“No. What would happen if I was?”
“I would have to renounce you and you would probably be banished to go back to him.”
“Oh. Why do you want me to stay?”
He sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Because however much you hurt me and however much you betrayed everyone, I don’t want you to get tortured by Aegyir.”
“That explains why you don’t want me to be banished. But why would you want to be married to me? And don’t I get a say in it?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, he screwed one side of his mouth up. “If you’re Aeron, we’re married, whether I want that or not. I could renounce our marriage if there was new evidence of treason or if I thought there were irreconcilable differences between us…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Aeron, you must realise that my father hates you? If he can find a way to hang you, he will. He can’t forgive you for what happened. I don’t want you to get hanged any more than I did before. And the only way I can protect you is as your husband. If I renounce you, Father would find a way to get rid of you.”
He raised his brows, his teeth catching the edge of his lip.
I swallowed, my chest trembling. “You said I’d be allowed in with conditions. What are they?”
“That you swear the oath. That you’re faithful and loyal to me and to The Realm. Nothing hugely onerous. Though more than you’ve managed in the past.” His gaze swung up to the sky before dropping back to me. “You need to convince my father that you’re not a threat to The Realm.”
My stomach lurched. “How do I persuade him?”
“Well, it would help if you looked a bit more like a Guardian and less like an Outsider. You also need to show contrition and respect. Address my
father as Lord Eredan and nothing else. The other Council members are also the most senior members of their houses and so are called Lord or Lady then their name, but you won’t have to address them as it’ll be my father leading the meeting.”
Thank God for that, since I had no idea who anyone was.
“How do I look more like a Guardian?” I plucked at my black jeans. The cut of his jacket made him look like an escapee from Henry V’s time. Mine was a black biker jacket with a lot of zips.
“You need to wash your face and take all the metal out.” He indicated a door leading off the bedroom. “There’s soap and water there. I’ll wait in here.”
I inched past him into the bathroom. A large, pale beige stone sink stood against one wall with simple lever taps above it and a mirror. To the left lay a toilet and to the right, a shower tiled in the same stone as the sink. A rack of glass bottles – toiletries? – clung to one wall of the shower. A glass screen separated the shower from the rest of the room and in the centre of the wall emerged a single lever. I turned it experimentally, keeping back from the showerhead above me. Water gushed out. There didn’t seem to be any temperature adjustment, simply an on-off lever, but the water was the perfect temperature. I turned it off again, aware of Faran in the bedroom behind me. The hot water at the sink was exactly the same temperature. The cold tap drew ice-cold water forth. In a niche above the sink sat a bar of soap and to the side, a stoneware beaker held Faran’s razor and toothbrush. Like everywhere so far, all the light came from above.
I washed my face, stripping back the heavy eye make-up and stained lips until I was scrubbed clean. I also realised how much I stank – the exertion of the fight with Aegyir had mingled with the sweat of fear. Glancing behind me to check that Faran was still in the bedroom, I peeled off my top and began to wash. I would have loved a hot shower, but there was no way I was getting completely undressed in front of Faran, and there was no lock on the bathroom door.
When I looked up into the mirror, Faran was lounging against the door-frame. His gaze caught mine in the glass and he marched over and tugged at my arm, exposing the large birthmark next to my left biceps.
“Do you have any other birthmarks?” He didn’t appear to have noticed I stood there wearing only my bra and jeans.
“Um. Yes. On my leg. Here.”
I turned slightly and placed my palm over the inside of my right thigh. His shoulders relaxed.
“Aeron has the same marks. What’s that on your arm?” He pointed to the Celtic knot tattooed around my right biceps.
“A tattoo. Decoration.”
He seemed about as impressed with this form of decoration as he had with my studs and make-up.
“Who did this to you?” He indicated the bruising staining my torso.
“Aegyir.”
His mouth twisted. “I’d give you salve, but it won’t work after such a length of time.”
I dried off and raised my brows. “Do I have any clean clothes to wear here?”
He eyed me for a moment. “No.”
I wanted to ask more, but his expression pushed my questions back down my throat. I pulled my stale top back on and then turned back to my reflection to remove all of my studs. They clinked on the stone sink surround, forming a small pile.
“Are you ready?” asked Faran, pushing himself away from the door.
“No. But I’ve finished removing all the decoration I can.”
I’d never needed the mask of them as much as I did right now. And the only man I wanted near me was a six-foot-three blond Irishman. But he was dead.
Faran straightened and cocked his head towards the hallway outside. “Come.”
***
The Council had gathered in the large hall where I’d met Lord Eredan. The room was now laid out with serried rows of people – the Council I assumed – sitting on tiered seating on one side of the room. All told, about twenty severe-looking men and women stared at me. Lord Eredan stood to the side of the room, his lips pinched, his jaw tight. Faran ushered me to stand at a bench directly opposite the tiered seats and took a place on the front row of the Council seats.
“Don’t sit,” he whispered.
I stood behind a single beam of polished wood supported on two metal legs. My fingers gripped the surface, and I scanned the faces opposite. Most of the Council members were middle-aged – like Lord Eredan – but a scattering was of an age with me and Faran. In the seat almost immediately behind Faran, a slim woman in her early twenties languidly flipped her long, black hair over her shoulder, giving me a thousand-yard death stare. From about three yards away.
I turned my attention to the other Council members. Men outnumbered the women by about two to one. All of them looked tall and all of them had black hair and fair skin. Only the colours of their clothes differed – some in a dark brown, some in black, some in grey or taupe. All of their clothes appeared to be made to the same pattern – snugly fitting, with a stand-up collar. Buttons, not zips. A broad belt with at least one dagger in it. None of the women wore make-up. None of the men had facial hair. Were they all clones?
Lord Eredan strode to the centre of the area between me and the Council members. He turned and faced me. “The Council wants to decide whether you are an Outsider, or if you’re here seeking re-admittance. Or are you here as Aegyir’s vassal?”
I wasn’t entirely convinced I was here for any of these reasons but I said nothing.
Lord Eredan narrowed his eyes. “The first matter to settle is whether you are an Outsider who has stumbled into The Realm, or if you are Aeron. Faran. You speak for this woman?”
The woman sitting behind him turned her death-stare to him. Faran moved to stand at right angles to me at a side bench. He cut a striking figure, inches taller than everyone and exuding confidence. A man brought him a card and Faran held it in his left hand, his right palm over his heart.
“I swear that my testimony is true, to the best of my knowledge, and that if I give false testimony by design, I will accept all consequences.”
I locked the phrase in my memory.
He handed the card back to the man. “Lord Father, this is Lady Aeron. She is seeking forgiveness and permission to return to The Realm.”
Was I? I kept my mouth shut and my face neutral.
Lord Eredan scowled. “Even if this is Aeron, she has no title until she is re-admitted and swears allegiance. What makes you believe that she is Aeron? She looks like an Outsider.”
Faran inclined his head. “Lord Father, I believe that this woman is a Guardian, as evidenced by her ability to enter The Realm and because salve causes pain and rapid healing. I also recognise my wife.”
Mirth rippled around the room, but I didn’t find this amusing. Faran returned to his seat.
Lord Eredan scraped his palm along his jawline and turned to me. “Aeron. Your oath.”
The man who’d taken the card to Faran, scurried across and handed it to me. As I’d feared, the words on it were written in the same runic script used in the book I’d been given. I copied Faran’s posture and recited the words he’d said, praying I’d get it right. I stole a glance at Faran as I handed the card back and his brows weren’t furrowed, so I didn’t think I’d got too much wrong.
“On your arrival, you claimed to be called Reagan Bennett. Correct?”
“Correct, Lord Eredan.”
“Why?”
“I believed that to be my name.”
“And yet you ask admittance as Aeron.”
I bit my lip. How did I convince him I was Aeron when I didn’t believe it myself? “Lord Eredan, I’ve been called Reagan all my life. I think it’s only within The Realm that I’m called Aeron.”
“Do you have any memory of The Realm, or its people?”
“No, Lord Eredan. It resembles dreams that I’ve had, but I’ve not been here before. Not in the life I know.”
Lord Eredan indicated Faran. “Do you remember your husband?”
“Not really. Only from dreams.”
Faran winced.
“Can you present any evidence to support your claim to be Aeron?” Lord Eredan said, a strange light in his eyes.
I paused, my heart fluttering. It didn’t feel as if this was going my way, despite Faran’s belief that this would be the easy part. Several of the Council members wore extremely smug expressions. I wondered if I should cite the birthmarks. What if they wanted to see them? Did I really want to have to drop my trousers in front of everyone? Would anyone other than Faran have even seen them?
Lord Eredan chivvied me for an answer.
“No, Lord Eredan.”
He turned to face the Council members. “Does anyone have evidence to support the claim?”
No one spoke.
I coughed lightly. “May I ask something, Lord Eredan?”
Lord Eredan spun back to me, his posture stiff. He twitched his hand as if to say I could speak.
“Do you believe that I’m Aeron?” I said, my heart racing.
A wry smile crossed his mouth, vanishing almost immediately as gasps rang round the room. A man to Faran’s left muttered, “Oh, that’s Aeron, all right.” Faran tried and failed to hide a smile, dipping his head.
“I’m beginning to be convinced of it,” Lord Eredan said slowly. It didn’t feel like that was a bonus. “You have various qualities that would mark you as a Guardian. You resemble Aeron, though with your hair and clothes, it’s hard to tell. And if you fear me, you don’t show it, which is consistent with Aeron.”
Did I see a begrudging respect in his eyes as he said the last part?
A man towards the middle of the seats stood. Lord Eredan turned. “Lord Sondan. You wish to speak?”
Lord Sondan was about the same age as Faran – mid-twenties. Like everyone else here, he wore a well-fitting, medieval-style leather jacket and trousers and was tall with dark hair. I searched his face to find something to distinguish him. A flash of white striped his hair at the front, making me think of Cruella de Vil.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, a hand on his hip. “Lord Eredan, if Faran recognises this woman as his wife, and if she has qualities that only a Guardian possesses, and the only Guardian not accounted for is Aeron, can we please move to accept her as Aeron?” He sighed. “There are other, significant matters to discuss.”