The Shattered Mirror (Winter's Blight Book 4)

by M. C. Aquila

  “Because it is simple!” Deirdre laughed. “This is important to me, but I only have this chance because of you.”

  He admired the way she looked at things, but there were complications to their relationship she had not yet considered. Or perhaps did not want to consider.

  For now, all she needs to worry about is passing Titania and Oberon’s challenge. The rest we can figure out afterward. Once this war is over and once she knows what she wants. In the meantime…

  He wanted to kiss her, and his heart jolted at the realization. Has she ever been kissed before? What if she’s not ready? Okay, maybe I’m not ready either… Suddenly he felt as nervous as if it would be his first time too, because no one else had ever looked at him like how she looked at him, like she saw the best in him.

  Slowly, with control, Iain reached up and cupped her face, then waited for her to react. When Deirdre placed her hand over his, Iain leaned in, his nose brushing her cheek, and planted a light, lingering kiss on her forehead. For a moment the only sound was their faint breaths and the rustling of the trees above.

  When he pulled back, the faery looked a little confused, maybe a touch disappointed he hadn’t gone for a proper kiss, but she was still grinning.

  When it was time for him to head to the training grounds again to meet with Cai, Deirdre held him back a moment. Reaching into her shirt pocket, Deirdre produced the handkerchief she had embroidered and given to him before. She had kept it with her since Mum used it to help set her ankle.

  Placing it in Iain’s hand, Deirdre said with a teasing giggle, “A token for my champion.”

  “None of you are ever going to let me live this champion thing down, are you?”

  “Nope!”

  Iain had been training with Cai at the Eniad grounds for several hours in preparation for the Wild Hunt that night. Near the end of the session, Iain glanced around, waiting for his brother to arrive. The knight gently pointed out his distracted state by thwacking Iain in the shoulder with the blunt side of his blade.

  “Pay attention, champion,” Cai taunted, smirking as Iain rubbed his stinging shoulder. “This sword is special. When this blade breaks the skin of an enemy, the wound never fully heals.”

  Iain’s mouth fell open. “And you’re using that sword to spar with me? That doesn’t seem fitting for training. How do you get a sword like that anyway?”

  “I warned you to pay attention.” Cai spun the hilt in his hand with ease. “So what’s got you distracted?”

  “Nothing.” Sighing, Iain sheathed the practice faery sword he had been using and wiped the sweat from his brow. “I was just hoping James would come; I offered to teach him what I’m learning. I know I asked for you to keep an eye on him, but now I’m thinking I should trust him, yeah?”

  “So you don’t want to know where he’s been and who with? Because I’ve had a Dryad tailing him.” The old knight was grinning, his blue eyes glinting with mischief. “He’s been very busy with a certain someone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Iain asked a little brusquely, crossing his arms.

  “Haven’t you noticed how your brother and that half-elf gal have barely parted since we came here? James gets up early before everyone else to go meet her. They’re courting, clearly. He’s probably spending time with her right now.”

  As Iain just stared, slack-jawed, a confusing mix of emotions hit him—proud and slightly melancholy that his little brother was growing up and then a touch fearful and protective when he thought of his own dating experiences when he was that age.

  Alvey can be a little, er, strange, but she’s a sensible, sharp gal. And I know at least that James will treat her right. But they are still way too young to date… aren’t they?

  After a few seconds of this, Iain let his worries roll off his shoulders like rain. “Well,” he said, shrugging, “I guess they’re pretty suited for each other. They’re both—”

  “Annoying?” Cai smirked.

  “Eggheads.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Cecil dragged himself inside the manor the next morning after a long night spent on the moors, soaked in blood and terribly chilled. After his conversation with James in the ebony forest, where the boy had almost died, the Cait Sidhe’s magic finally overtook Cecil at his weakest moment. He had no choice but to tear across the vast, lonely landscape and hunt until the beast inside was satiated or risk killing his thralls and making an absolute mess of the manor.

  After cleaning himself up, Cecil sat in his armchair in front of the fire with a book in his hands, wrapped in his most fluffy, plush robe. He glanced at his fingers gripping the pages—the nails of which were in the process of shrinking down from the Cait Sidhe’s sharp, hooked claws. He had torn the corner of a page. Shifting into a human form again was taking longer than usual.

  “Perhaps the claws are here to stay.” He turned his hands over, smiling. “No reason to fret. I eventually grew fond of the gold eyes in place of the blue. Though it’s a shame I’ll never be able to take up knitting.”

  There was a bit of blood he’d missed under one nail—he felt some crusted behind his right ear as well. He wasn’t certain just how many creatures he’d slaughtered on his rampage, and he decided to ask the thralls about the rumors the next time one of them visited town. The villagers’ favorite pastime was swapping Moorland Beast legends over drinks.

  “Of course,” Cecil mused softly, his eyes narrowing on the black claws, “I doubt James would approve of these little reminders of what I’m capable of.”

  He shifted in his seat, picking absently at the blood stubbornly caked under one nail, and thought of James’s reaction to learning he had led the Unseelie Wild Hunt against the thralls in the past. The disappointment in the boy’s green eyes was visceral, burned into his mind like a brand.

  Not that it matters in the slightest what the boy believes about me. He is simply… naive. Once he expands his worldview, learns more, he’ll no longer think in such black-and-white pictures. When you’ve been alive as long as I have, you learn that nothing really matters—least of all morals.

  Faint footsteps shuffled in the room behind his chair as a thrall entered with an armful of firewood—a hunched, guarded, blond young man. He was one of the newer arrivals to the manor, whose bargain for a few years of fame in exchange for his servitude to the Winter Court had run out.

  Cecil stood and made his way over to the thrall with his book in hand. “Put those logs by the hearth, pet,” Cecil told him gently.

  The young man tossed the firewood to the ground carelessly in front of the fireplace, then made to leave the room, but Cecil halted him by stepping in his path. “What do you think?” he asked, holding up one hand and wiggling his clawed fingers. “I’m debating whether I’d like to keep them or not—if I had a choice. Tell me they look sharp.”

  The thrall blinked dully at him, his eyes dead and glazed. “They look… sharp.”

  “Ah, that’s clever of you.” Cecil chuckled. “And of course, you don’t count what I’ve done against me, do you? What’s another body or two in the service of the Winter Court? It’s nothing. Say ‘it’s nothing.’”

  “It’s… nothing,” the thrall repeated, parroting him without feeling or recognition.

  “See, you understand the way the world works.” Cecil threw his arm around the young man, laughing. The thrall was stiff and unresponsive. “Do you like to read? I could let you borrow this book, and then we could discuss it. Oh, I long for that magical back-and-forth, firing off ideas between chums!”

  The thrall stared, confused, even as Cecil held the book out to him. There was no interest in his gaze. No spark. If James were there, his eyes would light up and he would fire off a million questions at once, stumbling over his own words in excitement.

  Cecil waved his hand dismissively and said, “Go stand in a corner somewhere. I don’t care.” But when the thrall stood in the nearest corner, he rolled his eyes and specified, “Stand in a corner where I cannot
see you.”

  As the thrall wandered away, Cecil headed to his room to prepare. He was expecting a scrying call from Raisa soon, and he would have to explain what had happened to his magic. His nail beds ached as the claws slowly receded. He let out a relieved breath as his blunt, human nails returned. “Not yet then.”

  Cecil was standing in front of his mirror, dressed in his old black Unseelie Varg uniform, waiting, when Raisa’s ghostly face appeared in the reflection. He chuckled in exaggerated relief as he said, “Oh, it’s only you, Raisa. For a moment I feared someone had cast a terrible curse on my appearance.” He grinned, showing too many teeth.

  They had a delightful rivalry—a wonderful animosity, Cecil thought. Raisa was far too annoyed to play along, as usual.

  The Winter Queen truly lived up to her name as her cold, feminine voice pierced the room like a deadly sharp icicle shattering. “One day you will cross one line too many. And when you do…” She trailed off, smiling to herself almost wistfully, as if daydreaming. “I can only hope that time has come now, as you have claimed there to be an issue with the Winter King’s plans, mangy cat.”

  Mangy? Cecil mouthed, glancing down at himself, offended. He straightened his shoulders, standing with his arms behind his back with the bearing of a soldier. “Honestly, I have had a setback while fulfilling the Winter King’s orders, my darling queen. I will be unable to join the Varg ranks in the coming battle—”

  “Have you broken a nail?”

  “Not even a claw.” Cecil smirked. “However, after James had a mishap in the Seelie realm, I had to drain the last of my magic to save the boy in question from dying. So, in a way, I was still ensuring the Winter King’s plans would succeed…”

  The Winter Queen let out an extended sigh, her delicate fingers gripping the twisting branches of the arms of her throne. “In other, fewer words, you will be unable to complete your task.”

  “Not quite. I can still do as I was asked. I only need to borrow a pinch of that beautiful magic from the Winter King.”

  “I will ask him this favor,” Raisa said, nodding. “But why not simply command the boy to do as you say like any other thrall? Why must everything with you be an extended and theatrical stratagem?”

  Barely refraining from clenching his jaw in irritation, Cecil slid his mask of indifference into place. “Well, it’s a great deal of fun, for one thing… A game.”

  Though James was not strictly his thrall, the boy’s fracturing confidence would make it easy for magic and suggestion to slip through the cracks and take hold. He could even trick him into a new deal. But the thought of James’s brightness and sharp mind being dulled by magic, wandering, aimless and subdued, through the manor like the other thralls—

  It’s too ghastly a thought. Such a waste of potential! Cecil shook his head. He has to come home on his own. That’s the only way this ends happily, with our family whole again. But to do that…

  “Our objective remains the same even if the methods have shifted,” Raisa continued, folding her hands primly in her lap. “To exact the most fatal, precise blow to the barrier and the security of the realm, Sybil must be eliminated. To that end, Bleddyn will enter the realm—”

  As if having been listening in to their entire conversation and waiting for the perfect moment, Bleddyn, the commander of the Unseelie Varg forces, charged into the room from the shadows. He was a broad, muscular Unseelie. Cecil never could decide what species the faery was, with his tall stature, thick white hair that also grew in furry patches on his forehead, forearms, and face, in lieu of a beard. With his long nose and too-close eyes, he looked like a werewolf yet had no trace of humanness.

  Bleddyn’s mouth split open like a wound, revealing his sharp, wolflike fangs. “You summoned me, my queen?”

  “Ears like a dog, this fellow,” Cecil said, snickering as he appraised his old commander. “Face like one, as well. I always said it was a shame. At least you have your radiant smile.”

  Turning to Bleddyn, Raisa said airily and with mock regret, “Sadly, our Court emissary is not strong enough to participate in the coming battle.”

  “You shall miss all the glorious carnage.” Bleddyn closed his eyes and breathed deeply, exhaling in a wicked grin like he could already taste the blood in the air. “Imagine an army of twenty thousand men, marching to the Seelies’ door. When the barrier falls, the one thousand our Unseelie forces I’ve gathered will swarm the Seelie army, tearing at the wounds in their defenses.”

  He turned and paced back and forth behind Raisa’s throne like a restless animal ready to bolt away for the hunt. “The humans will be willing targets for the Seelie Fae while my magic ensures the monsters can travel as quickly as shadows and collect in the surrounding fog. Goblins, hounds, Red Caps, and dwarves… all will serve our cause for the reward of blood.”

  “Oh, and what will you be doing while this fighting takes place? Gnawing on bones in your den like a dog, I imagine?” Cecil let out a shrill laugh, which was like the verbal equivalent of swatting Bleddyn with his paw. “As I recall, you prefer to stay back and let the underlings shed blood in your place.”

  Bleddyn’s teeth snapped as he snarled and lunged at Cecil’s reflection, grabbing the edge of the scrying mirror. “I have begged the Winter King to let me skin you on more than one occasion, cat. Perhaps he will relent eventually. I will keep begging.”

  “Bleddyn, I honestly do not know what to say to this sudden admission.” Cecil twirled a long, loose strand of hair around one finger, meeting the creature’s eyes. “I had thought you were indifferent toward me at best. That amount of hatred requires passion.”

  “Passion? No. That would be wasted on the likes of you.” The commander gave him one last snarl and stepped back, continuing with a growl, “While my monsters fight the Seelie Fae at the barrier, my pack and I will slip inside unnoticed and strike true at the heart of the realm. Lonan would be an ideal target, but he is much harder to kill than Sybil. We have limited time to fatally wound the barrier before the Seelies find a way to strengthen it again. I will hunt Sybil.”

  “I’m certain Lonan always fighting beside Oberon and Titania has nothing to do with it,” Cecil said brightly. “I’m not suggesting you would cower with your tail between your legs if you faced the king and queen, but…” He shrugged.

  Before Bleddyn could snap back at him, Raisa scoffed, waving both of them away. “I have heard enough from both you beasts,” she said. “Cecil, do what you must to obey the Winter King’s orders, and do not let your game with the thrall deter you again.”

  “Of course, darling.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The evening breeze carried the luscious scent of bonfire smoke: warm, sweet, and earthy. As Iain, Cai, and Kallista walked through the forest to the clearing, led by the flames dancing high above the trees, the heat of the tallest fire in the forest was intense but not oppressive. Seelie faeries of all types and stations were flitting about—bird faeries were flying overhead as large fire salamanders basked in the flames, glowing like embers.

  A group of twenty or so Noble Seelie faeries were present, armed with various weapons, Roshan standing out among them with his torch on his back as he faced the flames. The moment Iain and Cai stepped into the light of the fire, Roshan turned to greet them with a smile.

  “Iain Callaghan,” Roshan said as Iain bowed his head, “arm yourself and prepare to leave shortly. As my guest of honor on the Wild Hunt, your steed of choice will be bound to mine though you will stay near the rear. Remember: part of our objective is to prove or disprove your claims—as well as giving you the chance to prove your mettle.”

  “But I’m—” Iain thought of all the things he wasn’t that these Noble faeries were. But he stopped those thoughts in their tracks, raising his chin and straightening his back. “I will do my best.”

  “That is all I ask.” Roshan’s eyes flicked to Iain’s chest where the amulet rested and glinted faintly in the orange light. “What an unusual trinket. I sens
e Water Magic strongly within it. Where did you get it?”

  “It kind of found me, yeah? I picked it up in this Unseelie dwarf’s cave when it called, er, to me.” When Roshan did not even blink at that or think it was strange, Iain continued with ease, relaxing in the prince’s company, “It shows visions sometimes, yeah? It belonged to Sir Cai, the knight traveling with us. Before that, it belonged to King Arthur.”

  “Then I see it does not choose its owners lightly. Take heart in that truth on the hunt tonight.”

  Iain nodded, smiling despite his nerves. When the faery prince walked away to speak with Nikias, he turned back to Cai and Mum. Mum stepped toward him and gave him a quick embrace.

  “I will be praying the whole time,” she said, her smile bright but sad. “I know you’ll be looked after—if not by the faeries, then by a higher power. We have not come here and made it this far for no reason. Keep that in your mind, yes?”

  “All right, Mum.”

  Iain turned to Cai and asked wryly, “Sure I can’t tempt you to join me?”

  The old knight chuckled. “I’m not as crazy as you are. Besides, I’ve seen enough wild faery magic in my day to last a few lifetimes.”

  When Alvey and James appeared in the clearing shortly after, side by side, Iain went over to them. His little brother opened his mouth to speak but closed it again, as if unable to find the words he needed.

  “James,” Iain said, forcing cheer into his voice, “I was hoping you would have some tips for me. I know you’ve got some research about this in that egghead brain of yours. You and Alvey are probably the most knowledgeable ones here, yeah?”

  “Well,” James said, “time, uh, works differently on the Wild Hunt. In my research, different areas all over the UK and Ireland have claimed to witness the hunt in the same night.” When Iain just scratched his head, his brother rolled his eyes and explained, “That means you could travel all over in one night. The laws of space can shift.”