His new memories also helped him understand and appreciate why Gus gave him the last name of Waldman instead of Silberman. Waldman was the only word he had been repeating when they found him.
All these years, I thought Gus was reluctant to give me his last name because I wasn't his blood, but it was just the old man's way of allowing me to retain a sliver of whatever I had when he found me!
The revelation brought a balanced sense of wholesomeness to him, he would never again question his father’s love!
As Shay lay crying on the floor before him, Leon did his best to swallow down the acrid taste of pity forming in his throat. Despite his newly found sense of belonging, he also felt the need for justice. He stood to his feet and drew his Blade. He squatted down next to Shay and held the Blade to her neck. “The woman who killed my parents, who is she?”
Shay ignored his threat, answering through gasps of agony, practically oblivious to the Blade’s proximity. “My sister!”
He watched her sobs a moment longer. The pity was gone, but he needed more information.
“Don’t test my patience, lady. I’m well beyond half-measures here! My mother, Airrene. Was she someone you knew as well?” There was cold danger lurking in the tone he used to frame the question.
Shay looked up at him. Her tear-streaked eyes were back to a more natural shade of green. “Airrene was my sister too, Leon. My oldest sister. She was the rightful queen of the Fae!”
Guards came running into the room, silently drawing their swords and surrounding Leon, but Shay waved them off and stood on shaky legs. Her voice steeled and a commanding presence took the place of a grieving sister when she addressed them, “You return empty-handed?”
The lead guard narrowed his eyes at Leon as he answered his sovereign, “Yes, my lady. We just learned your nephew and over a dozen of his people have left the compound. Shall we attempt to pursue?”
“No! Continue your departure preparations as planned but assemble my personal guard. Tell them we will be moving out very soon. Now, leave us.” she said.
The guard immediately left the room. Shay turned back to Leon. She was still breathing hard, but color gradually returned to her face. She placed a hand on Leon’s shoulder.
“I swear to you, we will find retribution for your parents, for my sister. But that outcome requires we walk a slippery rope between tall trees. First things first, take me to those stones.”
Chapter 28
Leon left the Fae compound with Shay and twenty of her guard. When Sved saw him walking together with Shay, he was startled to say the least. Leon told him that as part of the agreement they made for Reed’s release Shay and her people would accompany them all back to where the stones were being held. He would just have to wait to relay the whole story.
Word reached Haberkorn Market ahead of their return. As they slipped into the maze of tents, it was like everyone knew the negotiations to recover the remainder of Haddie’s party had been a success. The Otterkin all appeared eager for a reason to celebrate. There was celebration and dancing in the streets. Smells of delicious foods and exotic spices encircled their party on all sides.
Leon left Shay's side to catch up with Reed. "How are you, bud?"
Reed gave him a tired smile. "Happy to be free? I hear Haddie made it to safety as well."
"She should be around soon."
Reed just nodded with pursed lips.
Leon didn't know what else to say to his friend. He didn't want to push Reed, and he didn't want to leave him alone either. Reed seemed to be holding up pretty well considering all that had happened, but slavery wasn't something a modern-day American mind could easily grasp, and Reed had suffered greatly under its weight.
"How about you take your bird back?" Reed motioned to his shoulder where Westley sat.
"That's your owl, Reed. He's all grown up! He's actually a really smart bird."
"Even more reason for you to take him back. Rezz told me what happened to Olwena the night the slavers caught us. I won't be able to care for him and not think of her. Please, just take him." Leon saw a fragile hurt in Reed's eyes that hadn't been there before. He held out his arm and Westley hopped off his shoulder perch.
When they reached the center market, Haddie came barreling through the maze of tents to find Reed. Reed dutifully embraced her, but Leon could tell there was something forced in the way his arms held the small woman. Leon sighed. There wasn't anything he could do to help the two of them, they would have to figure things out themselves.
Kyra wasn’t far behind Haddie. Her appearance was a bit more subtle, although her relief was just as palpable. He could tell by the way she wrapped him so tightly in her arms just how worried she had been over his visit to the Fae. He had to cry uncle when her hug nearly cracked a rib.
The whole group filed into the big tent, and to his relief, Leon saw that Ferschall was back. The initial reception of the guests was cordial, but Leon could tell Shay was nervous. She kept glancing toward the exit and made more than one comment on their need to finish their business. But Madam Hazzle would have none of it. She made an appearance and gave a proclamation, “Any royalty to arrive at Haberkorn Market must be treated to the fullest of Haberkorn hospitality, yes? Please, enjoy dinner!”
She then proceeded to clap her hands. The candlelight somehow dimmed, lyrical music filled the void of silence in the background, and the resulting stream of waiters bringing in trays of food and drink quickly produced the most decadent feast Leon could ever imagine, considering his vision of a decadent feast prior to that point involved a prolonged relationship between an outdoor smoker and a brisket.
If Shay ran low on patience, she didn’t show it. Though a few of her guards participated in the meal, his aunt mirrored his earlier reluctance for food or drink. Instead, she plastered on a smile and made small talk with his eclectic collection of friends. Though those friends were all a bit cold toward the leader of a people who had been so cruel so recently, no one was outright disrespectful.
Finally, Shay raised her hands. “On behalf of the Fae court, I thank you for this feast, it is second to none. However, I really must insist Leon and I conclude our business.” She tilted her head to Madame Hazzle. “With your permission, might we find a quiet place to complete our transaction?” The old woman smiled back at Shay and acknowledged her request with a dip of her head.
Leon brought Kyra, Reed, and Sved along with him. It took Reed a moment to unlatch himself from Haddie’s hip, but he managed to follow along. Rezz refused Leon's offer to join them and Dimples was nowhere to be seen as he had opted to leave with the animals, to another room, before anyone arrived. Leon knew he wasn’t much for celebrations.
Shay seemed distraught when his three friends followed them into a small room with a large table, further back down a hall from the main area.
# # #
“Shay, I didn’t get a chance to properly introduce you all earlier. Sved is one of my closest friends, and I trust him completely. Reed comes from the same world as me…” There were gasps from his friends that he had conveyed this truth to Shay, and there were gasps from Shay over the fact she sat next to another one of the remnant. Leon quickly continued before questions came, “And this is Kyra. Kyra is my fiancé, and my trust in her goes without question.” Shay’s brow lifted at the revelation that the beautiful girl before her was, in fact, Leon’s fiancé.
“Everyone, this is my aunt, Shay Softfoot, Royal Princess of the Fae throne.” The gasps from before were replaced by stunned silence.
Reed asked first, “Leon, you want to bring us up to speed here?”
Shay interrupted, “Leon can fill you all in later, but I’ve stayed here long enough, I need to see the remaining stones and get back to my people. We leave with the sun.”
Leon lifted the box from a pack at his side and placed it on the table. When he opened the lid, Shay gawked.
“Now tell me, Shay, what’s the mystery here?”
“It's one thing knowing
these were here, it’s another thing to see them sitting before me. These aren’t mere stones, Leon. These are the highest form of imbued stones. They can only be used by those of us with Fae blood.” Her eyes were as large as one of Ferschall’s plates.
“You mean those of the Fae tribe?”
“No, I mean only a child of the Fae, no matter the tribe, can use one of these stones.” Leon could see the question in her eyes.
“So, I can use them as well?”
Shay picked up the book and thumbed through the pages, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I’ve never seen a Bladed person attempt to use a Fae stone, much less one of these. I’m not sure you can.”
“What do they do?”
Shay glanced up. “For a natural Fae? An imbued stone generally reduces or reverses the process of aging, depending on the strength of the power in the stone.”
“You capture that power in the stones you throw, when using your powers, don't you?”
She nodded and continued turning pages like she was intentionally looking for something. Her answer came when she paused, “But these are different. These stones are all amber-colored. An amber sheen is a sign of the strongest imbued attribute.
"It means those stones were used on Fae and not just any Fae, they were used on Bladed Fae.” She paused to look at each of them in the eye, “We don’t have many laws where I come from but using a stone on another member of the Fae Kingdom is strictly forbidden, even for the few who are Bladed within our forest, killing any Fae citizen in this manner isn’t allowed. Such an act is always met with a swift and immediate response. Death. There is no tolerance.”
“Yeah, well, that didn't stop them when they were trying to kill Reed, Olwena, and the rest of us with stones like these during the wild hunt.”
She nodded. “That would have been the only exception to the rule. You all trespassed into Fae territory and Reed is not of the Fae kingdom. I understand Olwena turned traitor and forfeit her protections. It would have been justified.
"Long ago, all Fae outside the kingdom, especially those that were Bladed, were hunted without mercy, precisely for the attributes these stones provide. While other stones fade away if not used in a few months and the effects from other creatures or people are only small, temporary enhancements, these stones never fade, and the attributes received from touching such a stone are not only able to reverse aging and add years of youthful vigor to a life, but they also grant permanent physical enhancements like strength or beauty or any number of other perks.”
“Why carry them around then? Why didn’t Dirk simply touch them all and absorb their power.”
She shivered at the idea “Doesn’t work that way. Touching more than one stone with less than a year to acclimate to the enhanced power you receive between each dosage is dangerous. The body can't handle such focused power. It was what killed many Fae during the times of the original Wild Hunt.
"Even worse, if you touch too many enhanced stones, over time the powers begin to bend the mind, similar to what happens to day-changing rogues who experience sun sickness. It isn’t pretty. People who abuse the stones stay young well beyond their time, but not one of them has ever lived a life of sanity beyond a normal lifespan - it is the fate of the Ageless, both a gift and a curse.”
“So, the Wild Hunt was started back when Fae hunted their own kind, yes?” Sved said.
Shay nodded.
“Dirk came to the convergence when the queen heard there was a Fae who could potentially fail the test for entry into the kingdom?” Leon added.
“I believe that’s right. My sister, Queen Constance, was never the strongest or smartest of any of the three of us growing up. Yet she has matured into a fearsome dictator who has ruled the Fae kingdom with an iron fist. Despite our natural proclivity to despise authority, she has cast down two open rebellions and survived multiple assassination attempts on her life. I never even considered a possibility like this, but I feel I now know how she has managed to stay above the fray all these years.
"Ah! Here it is, on this page here!" Shay interrupted her train of thought while pointing down at a page in the Fae book which she had been casually flipping through, "This is the queen's journal. It looks to contain a consolidation of her research regarding how to most efficiently capture Fae Stones, but that's not what I was searching for." She traced a finger across a few lines, "None of you read Faye Skrill, do you?"
Everyone shook their head.
"It talks about some forest ruins north of the Northern Pass. It mentions a tree of power that steals the souls of those who enter. And just below that, here, it talks of how she found and touched her first Fae Stone. She was at least smart enough to leave out any mention of what became of my sister." She looked up, and her eyes met Leon's.
"Leon, I believe Airrene touched you with a Fae stone, and then sent you through the tree, perhaps to disguise and protect you."
"When was the last time you saw her?”
"Airrene? She went missing over twenty years ago, while our father was still king."
Shay’s explanations helped clarify so much for Leon. It finally made sense that his body started changing earlier than most skin-changers his age. He was at least two years older than he looked when Gus found him!
Could it also be why I was always so scrawny growing up?
Shay continued, "She had this crazy notion to search out the lost cities of the Bladed ancients, even crossed the mountains in search of clues. She wanted to prove all tribes were factions of one people in a bygone era."
“So, back to the queen. She's been touching Fae stones imbued by the deaths of Fae people? How? You said this is outlawed, and that there aren’t any Fae left elsewhere in Fayden,” Reed asked.
“Yes, I don’t think she could have pulled this off in our kingdom, but perhaps…perhaps there are more like Reed out in the world somewhere?” She paused to think. “We have a pact with the Vindarri. Very few know of this, but the queen takes Dirk and a few personal attendants to visit the Vin once a year. I’ve always stayed behind to oversee things in her absence. Now, it makes me wonder…”
"Why did Dirk have all of this on him?"
A lightbulb came on in Shay's eyes, "I just remembered something! This is the end of the summer season. The queen always makes a trip to the Vin this time of year. Only, with word of foreign armies and mountain spies this year, she was forced to send out a small contingent of diplomats to parley within the Quiet Forest in her place. I ignored it like I do every year. Most Vin I've ever met are self-righteous twits, I could never see the benefit in relations with them.
"Dirk was tasked to accompany the excursion. The queen must have sent word to Dirk of the presence of Reed before he made it home. I bet he split off from his party in an attempt to capture another amber stone! In his arrogance, he carried her most precious secrets off to be recovered by you, Leon." Shay laughed darkly. "The young fool could have never guessed that things would play out the way they did!"
# # #
Madam Hazzel and Ferschall burst into the room. Leon had not once seen the old matriarch ruffled in the least, until now. Her voice quivered when she spoke, “The Fang Guard is searching our Market. They claim to be seeking a Fae traitor in possession of an extremely powerful artifact of Fae Royalty. I have word the accusation is backed by both the Fae and the Vin delegations! Sved, tell me you haven’t gotten us mixed up in this, no?”
“It isn’t how it looks. We have to get Shay to safety,” Leon responded.
The woman ignored him and continued to look at Sved. Ferschall waited quietly at her side.
The little man gave a nod of agreement. “There is more here than we have time to pour over, but Leon is right, it isn't how it looks. It’s time we left anyway mother. The true invasion is coming. Any hope for a unification of the Fayden Kingdom has dissolved. There is nothing more we can do here, yes?”
“And what of them?”
&nb
sp; Sved shrugged. “We bring them along?”
“Even her?”
Sved turned to address Shay, “Do you request the protection of the Otterkin Kingdom, and do you promise to, in no way, seek to undermine our authority or rule of law?”
“Yes.” She didn’t skip a beat.
Everyone stood up as Sved responded, “That’s settled then, we flee Hollinger on the Brindle, yes?”
Kyra nudged Leon. “So, we’re going to run from the wolves into the arms of the northern invaders?”
Sved chuckled at her. “Kyra, you’ve never been to visit the Otterkin have you?”
“No, why?”
“There’s a reason why Fayden’s smallest tribe in stature has never once been conquered, yes?” He proudly glanced at the faces around the room and sighed at all the owlish expressions looking back at him “Our kingdom is a network of islands in a land of swamps, continuously fed by hot springs and snow melts. Even in winter, our waters never freeze. And while they have never gone dry, us Otterkin are all very good swimmers! Even giants can drown in the byways of our swamps.”
Kyra’s shoulders relaxed. “Good! I’ll get the others.” She gave Leon a soft kiss on the cheek and hurried from the room.
Shay, too, left to inform her guard of their change in plans.
Leon pulled out Gus’ medallion. Only Ferschall and Reed were left with him. He looked to Reed. “There’s something else I need to tell you. I saw Shana and Cooper the day you were sold at slaver’s port. They were staying with Ben and his remaining men. I think they were there to free Slade.”
“Well, where are they now?”
“That’s the problem. Ben is now allied with the Vin! I nearly killed at least one of their escorts trying to free them and even cut the fingers off another, then Shana flat out told me to get lost. They claim the Vin know of a way to get them home, I’m guessing they know the location of one of the remaining two Royal Trees.”
A Choice of Blades: The Blade Remnant, Book One Page 35