The Realm Rift Saga Box Set

by James T Kelly

  She smelt of jasmine and rich, dark earth.

  “The sight of you,” he murmured with some effort, “is like breath to a drowning man.”

  She smiled. It was perhaps darker than he’d remembered, yet he relished it all the same. “We had forgotten your silver tongue, sweet Thomas.”

  Her breath was sweet, like cherries. His heart hammered in his chest.

  Her smile vanished and fury blazed in her eyes as she looked behind him. She rose to her feet and Tom followed her gaze to see that Neirin was standing too.

  “Queen Maev, I am Lord Neirin, Shield of the Eastern Angles.”

  “You dare to stand before us?” Maev hissed.

  “I beg you, Lord Neirin, kneel.” Tom waved Neirin back down. “Pray forgive him, my queen.”

  “I have called this audience,” Neirin said, in his best pompous and lordly voice. “I have come here to discuss matters of import.”

  He had been told what to do. How to behave. How dare he blunder into Faerie and embarrass him like this? He threatened everything, the pompous, smug and superior fool.

  “Kneel, Neirin, now!”

  The elf met his gaze with cold anger. But, after a moment, he relented, kneeling in a rush and a huff.

  “My apologies, my queen,” Tom said from behind gritted teeth, “for my companion’s ill manners.”

  “We will accept your apology, Thomas,” she said. “Though we are disappointed in the company you keep.”

  “As am I.”

  “Be sure to remind your lordly friend that he is in our realm.” She was a tower of anger, magnificent. “We are monarch here. We will be accorded with the respect due to us if he ever wants to see his Eastern Angles again.”

  “I will.”

  “Hmm.”

  She stepped past him and he felt bereft. She wandered amongst those knelt before her. “An elf who cannot hold his tongue. One who ought to. One who masks brilliance out of fear. One who fears anything less than perfection. And this.” She knelt beside Katharine, who did not look away from the ground in front of her. “This is the woman, is it, sweet Thomas?”

  “Katharine Delham, my queen. A Pathfinder and a friend.”

  “Something more than that, we hear.”

  He could not deny it, although he wanted to. Maev considered Katharine then stood. “Begone. All of you. This audience is over.”

  Neirin looked up. “Queen Maev, my petition has not been heard.”

  Again. Tom opened his mouth to rebuke Neirin but Maev had already flicked a dismissive hand at the elf. “Do not insult us by presuming we are ignorant, little lord. You come to our realm, begging for a sword. We will speak to Thomas alone. Then we will decide what to do with you.”

  Neirin’s scowl was black and he turned it on Tom. Tom glared back. Perhaps once that scowl might have meant danger. Now he saw it as a child’s tantrum and to be rewarded as such.

  “Queen Maev, Thomas Rymour does not speak for the Eastern Angles.”

  “And you speak for it rather too much.” Maev swept back to her throne though she did not sit. “We would counsel you to silence. Thomas can tell you what a gift it can be.”

  Tom turned back to Maev and bowed his head.

  “Now get out.”

  Tom stood, head still bowed. “Thank you, my queen, for this audience.” He didn’t move until the others were gone.

  “Come with me.”

  By the time he looked up she was gone, willow branches swaying behind the thrones. He pushed through and saw that the chamber backed onto another forest. This one bore autumnal leaves in bizarre, serrated triangular shapes. Handfuls of them had already fallen to the ground and Maev swept through them. He watched her walk for a while, laying gentle hands on the trees and whispering a few words, catching a falling leaf and contemplating it. She spent a lot of time in consideration and others mistook it for aloof. But he knew her better than that. He plucked a blade of grass and placed it to his tongue for a moment. Sweet, fresh, and left the tongue tingling. Something else he’d missed for a long time. Maev turned and flashed him a brilliant smile and he dropped the grass and followed her.

  “That is not your place anymore, sweet Thomas.”

  He realised he was walking in his old, familiar position, behind and to one side, attendant. “Apologies, my queen. Old habits die hard.”

  She smiled at that. It was a fond smile, a loving smile. It was the smile he’d travelled miles to see. “We know.” She touched his cheek with a single finger and caressed his jawline. He wished he’d shaved. “And we are alone. Do we need formalities?”

  He swallowed. “No, Maev.”

  Her smile broadened. “Good.” She dropped her hand and resumed her walk through the forest. He could not help but watch her. “We missed you, Tom.”

  “I missed you too.”

  “We have not seen you for seven years.”

  “I would have returned sooner.”

  “Yet you did not.” She looked hurt. “You made no attempt to come back.”

  “I’m sorry.” He stepped closer but stopped short of touching her. “You must believe me.”

  “Do you love us, Tom?”

  “You know I do.”

  She smiled. “Yes,” she murmured. “We do.”

  She cupped his cheeks and lowered her face. Her lips tasted rich and dark, chocolate and bitter valerian. The throb of magic in the air raised to a roar in his ears and made him bold, putting one hand in her hair and another on her waist. He pulled her close and luxuriated in the feel of her soft yet firm body against his.

  It lasted forever and just a moment. She pulled away with a naughty smile. “My my, sweet Thomas. You have missed us indeed.” She rearranged her hair.

  His heart hammered and his breath was short. What could he say? What could he do to make her come back?

  “So your friend wants Emyr’s blade?”

  He didn’t want to talk about that. He didn’t have long until Calgraef. Then she would become Mab. Still beautiful. Still his. But darker. More cruel. “He does, my queen. But I have a petition of my own.”

  “We know you do.” She stroked his face again. “And we will grant it.”

  “You will?”

  She nodded, then laid at the base of a tree. She stretched, showing off all of her curves. The split in her dress invited him. He lay down beside her and she cuddled up to him, one bare leg over him and a hand on his chest.

  “What of your friends? Shall we keep them here too?”

  He didn’t want to share this place. Not now. “They would prefer to leave.”

  She laughed. “They are not like you.” She rested her thigh on top of his groin.

  “No.”

  “Shall we give your little lord what he wants?”

  “If it is my queen’s wish.”

  She slapped at his chest. “Now, Tom, we do not want formalities. We want our sweet Tom. Shall we give him Emyr’s blade?”

  He sighed and ran his fingers through her hair. “He wants to use it in some petty mortal war.”

  “A sword is a petty mortal thing.”

  He shrugged. “Then it sounds like they are made for each other.”

  She turned serious. “You do not believe in what he is doing?”

  “Neirin wants to stop the Western Kingdom conquering all of Tir. I can sympathise with his cause.”

  “But you do not support it.”

  “My Tir is long gone.” He lifted her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “This is all I care about now.”

  She smiled. She was pleased. And that pleased him. She moved her thigh and he dropped her hand and caressed that instead. Her skin was cool, almost cold. “Perhaps we should ask the owner of the blade?”

  Tom frowned. “He might not appreciate that.”

  “Perhaps not. But if you cannot advise us then he can.” She stood and left him cold and uncomfortable. He rearranged his clothes and stood too. “But let us attend to more important matters first.” She waved a hand at Tom
, looking him up and down. “If you would stay with us, we will not have you looking and smelling like a pig farmer.”

  Tom blushed. What had he been thinking, coming here like this?

  “We will wash you and groom you and dress you, sweet Thomas.” But she used her royal voice; there was no intimacy in the suggestion. “Then we will take you and your friends to see King Emyr.”

  Chapter 14

  Tom felt like a new man. Maev had summoned a piskie called Lull, who had stripped him and washed him in a warm stream while Maev watched, eyeing his naked body with a suggestive smile.

  “We’re used to washing mortals,” Lull had said. “Though you’re a little older than our usual charges.” Lull was the Faerie nursemaid, charged with looking after any mortal children kidnapped from Tir. It was one of the habits of the fay Tom was least comfortable with and so he had always tried to avoid her. As she scrubbed his skin, he tried not to think of mortal parents waking to find their baby gone.

  “Gracious,” Lull said. “He is a filthy one.”

  “Indeed?” Maev grinned a wicked grin and Tom couldn’t help smiling back.

  Lull slapped his chest.

  “Ow.”

  “Less of that,” she said, then scrubbed him even harder. Then she shaved him, cut his hair and presented him with new clothes. Soft like silk but as strong as leather, a scarlet shirt with black trousers and boots.

  “You made these?” Tom asked.

  Lull nodded as she dressed him. “Our queen asked us to.”

  “How did you know my measurements?”

  Lull tutted. “Silly boy.”

  “You sleep, sweet Thomas,” Maev said. “We do not.”

  Lull perfumed him and admired her handiwork. “There. Quite handsome.”

  “Marvellous work, Lull,” Maev agreed. “You have made him quite dashing.”

  Tom smiled. He liked the idea of being dashing.

  “Here you are.” Lull handed him a leather satchel. Tom opened it and saw more clothes inside, of the same cut and material but different colours.

  “These are for me?”

  Lull tutted again. “Older than our usual charges,” she said. “But not much brighter.”

  Maev laughed a bright, girlish laugh.

  “What am I to do with them?” Tom asked. There were no homes in Faerie, no private spaces or sanctuaries. Where was he supposed to keep them?

  “You could try wearing them,” Lull said as she tidied up around him. But Maev understood the question. He could see it in her eyes. She understood and had no interest in the answer. It was a mortal problem. He began to remember how lonely Faerie could be.

  No. Don’t think of that.

  So he carried the satchel with him when they went to find the others. When he saw them he saw too the gulf that already existed between them and him. They were tired, bedraggled, unsettled by this place. He was at home, dressed by the fay and smelling like one too. They were mortals in Faerie. He was something else. Something that belonged.

  “Tom.” Neirin had nodded a greeting. “You have not looked so fine since Cairnagan.”

  “Thank you, Lord Neirin.” Tom had smiled, genuinely pleased. But he avoided Katharine’s eye. He knew how this looked. And he knew she would be unhappy. The others seemed unfazed. Brega didn’t care. Siomi gave him a curious look. Six took it in his stride. But Draig pulled him to one side.

  “You have a face of decision.”

  “Yes.”

  Draig shook his head. “Please, do not do this. I like you, Tom. You are good man. This place is not for a good man.”

  “This is where I belong, Draig.”

  “No.” He looked over at the others, feeding the horses or feeding themselves. He placed a huge hand on Tom’s shoulder and pulled him away a few steps. “Once I love a girl. She lives in village away many miles. So to her I walk every day. Sun, wind, rain, hours I walk. We were little, you say children, so we hold hands, kiss. To me she shows her face.” He smiled and gazed away over the plain, into the twilight sky. “Beautiful, a perfect thing, I think. I make plans. Move us to city, open shop. For her little jewels, for me swords to sell.”

  Draig fell silent, lost in memory. It felt rude to say anything but eventually Tom said, “It sounds like a nice plan.”

  “Yes.” There was hurt in his voice. “One day I go to her. It is raining season, I am wet foot to top of my head. I knock on door and her mother answers. And she says, ‘I am sorry, Draig.’ And I say, ‘why?’ She has a face of bad things happening. And she says, ‘our daughter is shame to us and bears child.’ And I am thinking this is not a thing that can be, we kiss only. And she says, ‘we know it was not you, you are good boy and you would have been good with her.’ I say ‘can not I see her?’ and she says ‘no, we have sent her away.’ She says again ‘I am sorry’ and closes the door.”

  The hurt in the elf’s eyes was still fresh and real. Tom reached up to place a hand on the elf’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  Draig shrugged and smiled. But his eyes were still sad. “It is way. I am thinking she is my love. Lies she tells to me, is not true to me. She was bad elf.”

  Tom nodded. “What happened?”

  “I walk home. I cry, I hurt. I give up plan and become soldier.” Draig shrugged again. “Broken is my heart. It makes me different person.”

  Tom nodded. “I remember people telling me that only time could mend a broken heart.”

  “It is not true.”

  Tom laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. “No. It isn’t. Broken hearts don’t mend. You build another one from memory. But it’s a poor copy. It’s missing parts and it’s not as strong as it used to be.”

  Draig nodded and gazed over the plain. His thoughts were in his past. Tom allowed his to drift into his future. There was a woman, of sorts, in that plain who could perhaps make it better.

  “Why did you tell me this, Draig?”

  Draig took hold of his shoulders and looked down at him as if he could stare his words into Tom’s thoughts. “Some people do not deserve our love.”

  But Tom could see in his face that he still cared for that elf. “But we love them all the same.”

  He could not argue with that. “Perhaps.” He searched for words, as if words could change the truth. “But we should not let them hurt us.”

  Then Maev had told them all she was taking them to see Emyr and Tom had gone to her side. But Draig’s words followed him. Lies, disloyalty. An uneven amount of love on one side. Despite what he wished, he knew that was what existed between him and Maev. He was devoted. She was not. She could pick him up and put him down as she willed. She had lied to him in the past to manipulate him. She had gone back to her king, Midhir, or even taken other mortal lovers. Yet he still felt like just one thing needed to happen to change that. Some single act or word on his part could make her see what she meant to him, what she could have in him, and then she would love only him.

  We should not let them hurt us.

  They walked along the shore of the Glittering Sea and the Hooper hooted a greeting at them. This fay was nothing more than a light masked by a blanket of cloud. Tom had never seen the Hooper without that cloud and no-one would tell him what the fay looked like. He waved back.

  “The Hooper tells us a great fleet of ships crossed the Lannad Sea,” Maev said.

  “Yes, my queen. The Western Kingdom attacked Erhenned the night we came to Faerie.”

  Maev nodded. “The Hooper warned the fleet of a great storm. It would have sunk dozens of ships.”

  Dozens of ships. Hundreds of soldiers would have died. And how many humans would have escaped as a result? Tom found himself wishing the Hooper had stayed quiet.

  “Erhenned is under Western rule now,” she said.

  “Already?”

  “Indeed. There isn’t much resistance against a flock of dragons.”

  A flock. One had been enough to almost kill him. His neck ached at the memory of it. Tom imagined dozens of them burning tow
ns and villages and people. “Did Erhenned surrender?”

  “No.” How could she smile? What did she find amusing? “They just ran out of people who could fight.”

  Tom wondered what had happened to Duke Ria. Had she been killed? Captured? Executed? He could imagine her in captivity, still stoic and proud. Right up until the end.

  They turned from the shore and Maev led them through small grassy hills. She called them barrows, but Tom could not see how that was true. The fay could not die. So whose bodies could be buried there? The hills forced them through a twisted, convoluted path, almost like a maze until, with no pomp or ceremony, they came to a small clearing.

  He did not seem to have changed. He still lay on his white stone bier, comforted only by a cushion under his head. He still wore the same clothes, fine royal silks under heavy armour. The armour had been removed from his torso and his clothes torn open to reveal the ragged wound in his gut, still bleeding after all these years. The blood dribbled down his flanks, dripping onto the white stone. He stared into the sky, his breathing strained and his face pale and pinched. He was still in such pain. The wound should have killed him. But he couldn’t die here. Nor could he live.

  A white-robed fay named Ankou drifted around the bier, cleaning, tending. Two human-looking arms reached out of the sleeves, its skin so pale that you could see the blood and bones beneath. Its face was never seen; its hood was pulled too far forwards. Robin Goodfellow had once told him that was just as well, for Ankou’s face was enough to kill a mortal stone dead.

  “A moment, Ankou,” Maev said, and the fay drifted aside. Then, with a smirk, she said to them, “Honoured guests, may I introduce to you mighty King Emyr of Tir, Scourge of the East, Tamer of the West, Builder of Peace, Guest of the Fay.”

  It was enough to stir Tom. He stepped forward and knelt. “My king.”