A Curse of Blood and Power: A Chronicle of Fanhalen

by Viviene Noel

  She blinked, and she felt herself back entirely. If Emmerentia was getting her out of this situation—which half of her wanted to push through whilst the other sang thanks, then there must be a valid reason. Mahena whirled her eyes back to Adam’s, as mortified and embarrassed as she could will it. ‘I should go with her, make sure she does not fall over and break her neck.’

  Mayfair bore his eyes into hers once more and the lapsing part of her brain wondered what it would be like with him. ‘We will finish this later.’ It was a low snarl.

  Emmerentia tensed.

  He waved them off.

  The weight of his stare as Mahena casually walked back to her friend almost crushed her spine. But the tickles on her skin were no more, the heat close to choking her throat was a bad memory and the smouldering smoke in her brain dissipated. Mahena shook her head as she grabbed Emmerentia’s arm and placed hers around her waist, helping her straight.

  They had to get out of here.

  The portraits still emanated a strange scent as they casually walked back to the ballroom—that Mahena somehow remembered the way back was a surprise on its own. She didn’t dare speak to the twin, only pretended as best she could to be carrying her unstable friend back to the party. The hallways were empty, and she did her best to focus on the path ahead instead of looking at the paintings hanging on the walls.

  What had happened with Mayfair? Why was it gone? Why was her blood still humming a sweet song although the smog had vanished from her mind?

  Magic was gone, wasn’t it? Everyone sure as hell claimed it loudly and bitterly. Maybe it was her body’s reaction to a new atmosphere?

  It must be—purer air, different food. That could mess with her internal clock and functions, couldn’t it?

  Mahena settled on that.

  Music and noise filled the air again, laughs and life bringing her out of her thoughts and back to reality. The dance floor was still buzzing with women being lifted in the air, strong hands holding their tiny waists, their hair and makeup so unwaveringly extraordinary.

  And a part of her wanted to melt in the crowd and never leave it.

  B

  Fàaran slipped his hand around Emmerentia’s waist as soon as the girls reappeared in the room—at least the drunken act was on point. Mahena tensed as he glanced at her, and he saw the sense of urgency creeping all over her. Good, at least she wasn’t oblivious.

  He didn’t dare say a word, didn’t dare even hiss a whisper beyond a slight jerk of his chin to the main entrance. The girl barely released her hold on his sister, and the latter kept weakly wobbling on her legs—just enough to appear normal.

  This house was just...not as it seemed.

  At least, no one else seemed to pay them much attention as they found the door to the garden and to their carriage waiting outside, at the exact same spot they left it in.

  ‘We are leaving this town now,’ Fàaran whispered as they opened the doors.

  ‘What is it?’ Mahena whispered.

  ‘I…I was told it was safe.’ Gods above, what an idiot he had been. Trust no one. ‘It appears I was misinformed.’

  The barkeep—he’d rip her throat out with his bare hands if something happened to them upon her advice. ‘There is a town not far from the coast in Hondora, you can safely, but discreetly, pass through.’ He should have trusted his guts last night and left in the morning instead of grappling for more. It hadn’t been a bad idea, but—

  Fàaran shook his head as he, as normally as possible, thrust the girls inside the carriage.

  44

  The tension was ripe as they packed quicker than ever before. Emmerentia had lost the drunken act as soon as they stepped back inside their room and locked the door, a wide-eyed and confused Mahena in tow. To her credit, she did as they ordered.

  ‘Fill me in?’ the girl asked as Emmerentia shoved her satchel into her hands. She caught the lingering haze in her eyes, like she was still under some spell.

  ‘I know who that family is. And we are not extending the invitation.’

  Mahena inclined her head. ‘He’s a wolf, isn’t he?’

  Emmerentia froze at the words, at the tone, the softness and safety in it. She felt the breathing of her brother do the same. How does she know?

  As though she’d understood their silence, she continued, ‘He showed me. I don’t know how, but he showed a moment of his past.’ She drew the scar across his face.

  ‘What do you mean he showed you?’ Fàaran frowned, his voice as cold as ice. ‘Magic is gone, they can’t turn.’

  Mahena passed the strap of her satchel over her head. ‘At the party, I had a vision, or whatever you want to call it. He told me to stop playing games and asked what I wanted.’ She turned to Emmerentia. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘A brutal family. They were known to gouge eyeballs out and serve them as dishes, amongst other delightful things.’ Emmerentia looked over at her brother who had removed the sheepskin from the window and stood grim-faced at the door of the room, ready to run.

  ‘He didn’t threaten me,’ Mahena added, something like pleading in her voice. ‘But he said things that make no sense, like the items originally imbued with magic in his house came to some sort of life for me.’

  Fàaran cut in, ‘What items?’

  ‘The portraits. The private room you found me in. The walls were covered with genealogical trees from a lot of kingdoms, which apparently hasn’t appeared to anyone since magic vanished.’

  She breathed out, seeming to brace herself for some reaction. ‘There was a connection between the two of us, so overwhelming I felt I wasn’t in charge of my body anymore.’

  Emmerentia snapped her head to her brother, ignoring the sharp tug of something in her guts. They nodded at each other. ‘We are leaving, and then you will explain all of it.’

  Mahena looked to Emmerentia, supplication in her eyes.

  Fàaran exited first, going for the stables.

  Emmerentia sat silently on the bed, counting seconds. It felt like ages, and the urge to look through the window made her throat itch. Mahena moved and knelt next to the twin, and she turned to face her.

  Clasping her hands, Mahena said, ‘I want to stay. I want to hear what that man has to say.’

  The words jumped from Emmerentia’s memory and hit her like a war hammer. ‘Trust the wolf.’

  But noises and voices pierced the frozen silence, coming from the street below—deep voices and shouts. Emmerentia was through the door in an instant, her fingers laced through Mahena’s as she dragged her along. She forced herself to remain neutral as they passed the reception and headed towards the stables.

  The voices reached them again through the thick veil of night. Emmerentia drew her dagger, catching Mahena doing the same. Her heart raced against her chest—a strange, familiar sort of eagerness. They rounded the corner of the building, the discussions growing louder, stronger, and a hell of a lot angrier.

  If it hadn’t been this house, this family, if the reputation of the ruling pack hadn’t been so beaten into her education—how had neither of them clicked with it earlier—she would be leaping into the fight. But here, with them, and with this inexplicable urge to protect her, she wouldn’t dare be as brazen as she once had been.

  Emmerentia held her hand up to signal a stop and she felt Mahena peer over her shoulder as she scanned the entrance to the stables. Three men visible. One of them was the butler, murmuring into the darkness beyond him.

  ‘We are leaving.’ Her brother’s voice was lethally quiet, a whisper into the foggy night. ‘We meant no disturbance and are only passing through.’

  Mahena murmured in her ear, dragging a slow shiver along her neck, ‘I can’t see Mayfair.’

  The butler’s voice droned, ‘Is that so?’ His head angled in such a horribly preternatural way, Emmerentia almost lunged for her brother. ‘
Then why are you leaving like thieves when you settled for an extra night?’

  Shit.

  Mahena’s swallow was as loud as a roar.

  Then, a honey-dipped voice intervened, ‘Excuse my friends, they often lack manners.’ A figure slipped from behind a pillar near the stables a few feet away. As Mayfair emerged, a devouring smile plastered on his ageing face—gods, how old was he? Wolves weren’t immortal, but their life span outlived humans by decades at least.

  He purred, ‘That being said, I will kindly require the question answered.’

  Emmerentia felt her entire body lock up at the tone. Mahena, now subconsciously pressed against her, relaxed.

  ‘We miscalculated our itinerary. I believe you understand these errors happen,’ Fàaran replied coolly.

  Emmerentia calculated the amount of weapons strapped to her body, the ones on Mahena she could use. Two flying daggers would find their marks in the friends’ necks before they understood what was happening. The surprise would give her brother time to react. But—she’d never fought a werewolf.

  ‘He wants me. He thinks I have magic,’ Mahena whispered again.

  Emmerentia slowly craned her neck. ‘No one has magic.’

  There was no conviction in her voice. And that sent a punch to her own guts.

  ´We can do this the nice way,’ Mayfair crooned, ‘or the way where you scream, and I still get my answers.’

  The words hadn’t left his mouth when he turned his head—to the pillar a hair’s breadth away, where a knife was now embedded. The three men whirled at an unnatural pace, and it confirmed all of them were indeed wolves, and might have conserved their speed. A snarl, deep and vicious, rattled the trees.

  Adam’s head whipped to face where she and Mahena stood. ‘How rude to throw daggers at your host.’

  Emmerentia snickered, loud and untamed, ‘I don’t like strangers threatening my family.’

  But before she had a chance to throw herself between the males and her twin, Mahena side-stepped her, and walked into the circle of torchlight.

  Emmerentia watched her wide-eyed, her heart suddenly leaping out of her chest. She swallowed a raspy breath down and closed the few steps to stand beside Mahena once more.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Mahena said, her arms crossing on her chest—a sign of defiance, but Emmerentia knew it was to hide her trembling limbs.

  Mahena seemed to stiffen and loosen at the same time—as though she knew she should be scared, but her body told her it was unnecessary.

  ‘A bodyguard, I see,’ Mayfair retorted, his lips twitching upward in a smile that stripped his face from any human emotion—a predator assessing. He didn’t bother removing the dagger, or answering Mahena’s question.

  ‘As my friend said,’ she continued, somewhat of a snarl in her soft voice, ‘we must be on our way.’

  Fàaran shifted his feet, his hand lazily hovering over the dagger at his belt.

  ‘You invited us, as I recall,’ Mahena added. A slight wind arose, nothing more than an innocent breeze. But it sent Mahena’s now unbound hair waving in the direction of the wolves, and the underlings sniffed the air between their alpha and her friend.

  ‘Trust the wolf,’ The rasping voice of The Rockery whispered at the back of her head.

  ‘I will have a word with you, Lady Ahra,’ Mayfair ordered. He extended his hand to Mahena, and Emmerentia’s senses screamed to drag her far, far away. Before she could act on that urge, he gave her a deadly, pointed look. ‘Then I will decide the course of action.’

  B

  Emmerentia’s usually steady voice somehow trembled behind her, ‘You don’t have to.’ And Mahena knew, from the calculating fire in her eyes as she looked over her shoulder, that she meant it. Whatever Emmerentia was before they met, this kind of situation seemed to be a repetition to her. And somehow, maybe it was pure folly, maybe all bravado, she thought they would get out of it.

  Mahena stepped forward, squeezing her friend’s arm before letting go, packing up all the courage inside of her. Two months ago, she would have run—so fast, so far, without a question, squeaked in fear before such threatening men.

  She represented something to the man standing before her, and if he wanted her to stop drawing breath, she’d be in a coffin already. If he had questions, then he might also have a trove full of answers.

  No one moved as she neared the party, her feet seemingly moving on their own. When she reached him, they walked a little bit further ahead to keep out of hearing range.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Mahena asked again, bluntly and dryly, the little thing inside of her twitching in silence. ‘I have lost all memory of this world, so torture me all you want but answers won’t come.’

  Mayfair studied her frankly for a second, that strange alchemy slowly flowing back into her veins. Something like belief flashed in his eyes. There was something in there he wasn’t telling her. ‘Do you feel it, the flow of warmth?’

  Mahena nodded warily. He meant her no harm, she repeated to herself.

  ‘I am old, girl,’ he continued, ‘even for my kind. Magic has deserted these shores and dragged with her all abilities we were once blessed with.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But you feel it.’

  Mahena raised a brow.

  ‘There is an ember of magic flowing in your veins powerful enough to awaken mine and the energy kept in my home. I cannot recall meeting any creature capable of that since the fall of magic. Who are you?’

  Mahena blinked, her head slightly bobbing back, not quite believing how quiet she felt as he asked the one question she didn’t prepare for. She’d thought it out, the potential fight she’d have to get out of regardless of the necklace staying cool on her skin. The twins talked so viciously of the family, of the leader before her, when she only perceived a man yearning for understanding.

  ‘My reputation precedes me, I see.’ He cocked his head to the side. ‘Good. You then know I take care of my own.’

  He reached for her hand.

  Mahena pulled it away instantly.

  ‘I sensed the magic on you the first moment I spoke to you, and I have since deliberately shown you an episode of my life. Is that not enough to earn your trust?’

  ‘How would I know it is real and not one of your skills?’

  Adam straightened. His face suddenly became cold as ice as he bore his green gaze into her face. Silently, he grabbed her hand again and she let him hold onto it this time—a vision engulfed her once more.

  The sun shone through the thick branches of the full trees throughout the valley. The river before her was bordering the ridge from the late rains, and the fruity, sweet smell of blooming offrays tickled her nose pleasantly.

  She turned on herself, trying to place her surroundings. And then she saw the two figures down by the river, standing tall and alone in the midday light. Mahena peered down, wind on a wing once more, a simple spectator of a story now past.

  Their conversation reached her first. The man spoke softly, a genuine gentleness in his voice she rarely heard, ‘I am offering you all you ever desired for yourself, all your family will never let you even glimpse.’

  The woman knelt to the water level, her face hidden from Mahena, her breath heavy. The man was Mayfair in his early youth, she assumed, the features of his face surprisingly soft, smoothed by the power of youth. His eyes remained just as striking, that fierce evergreen gaze that told a thousand tales.

  ‘Make your own destiny, Briar. Run the plains by my side.’

  The young woman lowered her face to the river. She cupped some water and delicately splashed it on her face. Gracefully, she stood up, facing the man who seemed to be asking her hand in marriage. ‘My parents and the council will never allow our union, and I am their heir. My duty comes ahead of my person. The sole reason yours would accept me is for the stre
ngth it would bring to the pack. They will see me as a political gain, and you are perfectly aware of that.’

  Adam grabbed the lady's hand, a flicker of hurt, so fast almost unnoticeable, flashing in his eyes. ‘I see your heart and the force of nature you are. I would spit on your title for all I care about it.’

  She gently pulled away and raised her hand to cup his face. ‘You and I are prisoners of our birthrights, my love.’

  Her voice was so delicate, so full of sadness and surrender, yet determination. Above them, a falcon screamed his freedom, piercing the utter silence surrounding them. A reminder that life continued, that it only belonged to them if they dared break the rules.

  Mahena tried to move around to see the face of the woman who had loved this strange man years ago. She was stuck in one spot, all she could make out was her golden hair, shining like the sun against her lilac gown. They conveyed such a powerful energy between the two of them, an almost tangible flow of power. Was that the mating bond the twins explained some beings developed? A deep sadness settled in her heart at the scene, the expression on Mayfair's face crumbling as his assumed lover pulled away. She kissed the air in between them in farewell.

  Where a woman stood a second before, now remained only her sweet scent, a strange melange of everything and nothing, and the sound of flapping wings high above.

  Mahena lingered for an instant as a howl, piercing and terrifying, shook the valley. A moment later, a magnificent golden wolf ran off.

  Mayfair stepped back, restrained tears and rage in his eyes. ‘Would I lie?’

  Mahena shook her head, drowsy and feeble, setting a hand on the wall to stabilise herself.

  ‘Who was she?’ she rasped.

  Her thundering heart threatened to break through her rib cage, echoing in her ears, that sound still ringing as though her own.

  It was love, and pain, and passion, and agony—pure and undiluted.

  Mahena felt the silver line her eyes before she reined it in.

  A blink was all the hurt Mayfair allowed himself to display. ‘Her relation to me bears little importance. She was the last known heir to the Castellain line, and you look dangerously alike for it to be a mere coincidence.’