Queen of Song and Souls

by C. L. Wilson

  Magic gathered at his fingertips. Sensing it, Love screeched like the possessed and struggled out of her pouch. Needle-sharp claws dug into Gaspare’s side as she scrambled up his torso. When she reached his shoulder, she launched herself, claws bared, fur standing on end, straight into Lord Bolor’s face.

  Bolor gave a shout of surprise and stumbled back, flailing as the crazed cat clawed at his face.

  Gaspare could feel his strength draining away. His hands gripped the hilt of the blade buried in his belly and yanked it free. A dark jewel, glowing deep red, topped the end of the wavy black blade. Clutching the hilt in one hand and his bleeding abdomen with the other, he staggered into the road that ran alongside the river. “Help,” he cried weakly. “Help me.”

  In the alley, Love gave a mighty screech. Gaspare glanced back to see Lord Bolor peel the kitten off his face and fling her to the cobbles. Love landed hard, but on her feet, and arched her back, hissing and spitting. A ball of glowing blue-white light formed in Lord Bolor’s palm. Gaspare had never seen Mage Fire, but he’d heard about it and seen depictions of it in the war paintings hanging in the National Museum of Art.

  “Run, Love!” he cried as Bolor flung the ball of deadly magic at the kitten. Gaspare still clutched the Mage’s knife in his hand. He threw it at Bolor with all of his rapidly dwindling strength. The blade fell short of its mark, but the distraction was enough to jar Bolor’s aim. His Mage Fire hit the side of the building, a bare handspan from Love’s head. The brick wall of the building simply…disappeared.

  Love screeched and skittered away, darting around the corner of the building.

  The Mage whirled on Gaspare, his snarling face hatched with bleeding furrows. A fresh ball of Mage Fire gathered in his palm.

  Blood poured from Gaspare’s wound, soaking the fine wool of his trousers. His mouth had gone dry, his knees weak. He knew he was dying. Even so, when the Mage drew back his hand to launch his lethal magic, Master Fellows knew that was not the way he wanted to leave this world.

  The ball of blue-white light came roaring towards him. Gaspare did the only thing he could: He turned and dove for the Velpin.

  Nour cursed as he watched Gaspare Fellows disappear over the stone embankment lining the river. He dabbed at his bleeding face and hissed at the resulting stab of pain. Darkness take the meddling little rultshart—and that demon-spawn cat of his, too.

  Celieria’s Master of Graces had made a regular nuisance of himself, always showing up at inconvenient times and ruining Nour’s plans to ingratiate himself with Celieria’s queen. And now this. That Mage Fire would bring every Fey in the city running.

  Nour spun swift weaves to erase the signs of his presence, then ran across the road to finish off what ever was left of Fellows, but when he peered over the embankment to the river below, there was no sign of the Master of Graces.

  Pounding bootheels on the cobbles and the sound of shouting voices told him it was time to go. Nour snatched up his Mage blade, pulled the hood of his cloak up over his face, and ran into the alley.

  He couldn’t go back to the palace with his face in shreds, so he headed for the boarding house near the wharf district. He would hole up there while he summoned a hearth witch to repair his face, changed out of these blood-soiled clothes, and tried to find a way to turn the murder of Gaspare Fellows to his best advantage.

  He hadn’t thought to plant a Fey blade at the scene to throw suspicion on the Fey or dahl’reisen, and he couldn’t very well go back now to leave one. But perhaps he could still sow the seeds of doubt in Annoura’s mind. Perhaps this was just the foothold he needed to gain her trust. After all, when it came to politics, didn’t most leaders follow the ancient Merellian maxim: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

  The scorched scent of Mage Fire still hung in the air when the Fey arrived at the riverside, but of the Mage who’d spawned that Fire, there was no sign. The warriors searched the roads, alleys, and buildings in a three-block radius, but they couldn’t even find a witness who had seen what happened. The Mage had covered his tracks too well.

  “Well, my brothers, he was here, without a doubt, but he’s gone now.” Ilian vel Taranis stood near the top of the stone steps leading to the river landing where boats could moor.

  A feline howl rose up from the stairwell, followed by the sound of claws scrabbling on stone. A small white cat shot out of the stairwell like an Elf bolt and raced down the street.

  Ilian would have dismissed the animal as one of the many feral cats that prowled the wharf except for the distinctive flash of Celierian blue around its neck. A bow. A blue satin bow, to be precise.

  White cat. Blue bow. Bad temper.

  What in the Bright Lord’s name was Master Fellows’s spoiled princess of a cat doing alone by the city wharf?

  “Vel Mera, catch that cat!” he cried to the warrior standing in the white kitten’s path.

  Rorin vel Mera flung a net of Earth magic around the cat, and the kitten went into a frenzy, hissing, spitting, and clawing like a mad thing.

  “Scorch me,” Rorin muttered. “This little beast can Rage like a tairen.”

  “You frightened her.” Ilian frowned at his blade brother, then knelt beside the terrified cat and attempted to soothe it. “Here, now, kit. Here, now. Las. Las. We’ll not harm you.” He reached for the kitten and got four bleeding furrows across the back of his hand for his trouble. He persisted despite the wounding, and a few chimes later, he rose to his feet, Master Fellows’s white kitten clutched to his chest.

  “You think Master Fellows could be our Mage?” Rorin asked. The Master of Graces had made a nuisance of himself with stories of Mages attempting to harm the queen, and though the Fey had dutifully investigated his every claim, they’d found nothing to substantiate his fears.

  Ilian held up his unscratched hand—the one now smeared with the still-damp blood spattering the white kitten’s fur. “I think it’s more likely Master Fellows was following his Mage, hoping to find evidence enough that we would believe him. And from the looks of it, he got caught.” With a sinking sensation in his stomach, he said, “Let’s search the river. If the Mage Fire didn’t get him, he might have jumped for it.”

  They fanned out and began searching, calling more Fey to aid them.

  Ten chimes later, they found him, two tairen lengths downstream, tucked into a culvert that fed the runoff from the city’s storm drains into the Velpin. He was soaked in his own blood and hovering on the cusp of death.

  Elvia ~ Elfwood

  The Fey and their Elvian escort stopped to rest and eat at midday. After a quick meal, Ellysetta’s quintet gathered off to one side to practice their swordplay. Ellysetta watched them, laughing as Gaelen amused himself by taunting his brothers and trying to goad them into foolish attacks.

  “That was so slow, vel Sibboreh, it was nearly decrepit. An old mortal could move faster than that.”

  Tajik was too smart to take the bait. He just laughed evilly, flipped back his red plaits, and said, “Aiyah, and you should know, vel Serranis. You’d already seen well beyond your first five hundred years before I was even a glow in my gepa’s eye.”

  “Ha!” Meicha scimitars drawn, Gaelen suddenly lunged for Tajik. The former commander of the Fey’s eastern army brought his own weapons up to block, and twisted lithely out of the way, then spun around to attack Gaelen’s unprotected back. Anticipating the move, Gaelen ducked, rolled, and came up with his blades in a blocking position so that Tajik’s swords landed harmlessly on gleaming steel.

  “Not bad for an old Fey,” Tajik told him with a grin.

  “You should know,” Gaelen retorted. “As you are one yourself.”

  Ellysetta laughed at the verbal skirmish. Their taunting exchanges had begun to lose the curt hostility that had marred their relationship. She had started to hope that Tajik’s initial distrust of Gaelen might even eventually change from grudging admiration to cautious friendship as Gaelen continued to teach the others the weaves and battle skills
he’d perfected during his centuries as a dahl’reisen.

  A short distance away, Rijonn, Bel, and Gil practiced hitting distant targets with their Fey’cha, striving to achieve the blurring speed with which Gaelen could so effortlessly launch his own daggers.

  Ellysetta watched them and within a few chimes found her hands reaching for her own Fey’cha. “Can you teach me how to do that?” she asked.

  Gil and Rijonn looked at her in surprise.

  “You wish to learn the Dance of Knives? But why?” Surprise and disapproval mingled in Gil’s starry eyes. Fey women didn’t learn weapons skills. Their empathic sensitivity made them incapable of taking a life without losing their own.

  But Ellysetta wasn’t like other Fey women. “Because we’re going to war, and at the very least, I should learn how to defend myself.”

  “Defending you is our job,” Gil said.

  “And if you’re wounded—or dead? If I’m sel’dor-shot like Rain was and can’t call my magic?” She shook her head. “I should at least know how to protect myself.”

  “Teach her,” Fanor said quietly when the Fey hesitated. Everyone turned towards him. “I do not know all the verses of her Song,” he told them soberly, “but those I have Seen are fraught with peril. The gods did not intend her for a path of peace. The kindest service you could offer would be to prepare her for that purpose. She will need all her strength and skills to meet what lies ahead.”

  The quintet looked to Rain for direction. He turned to Ellysetta.

  “I need to do this,” she told him. “I cannot stay helpless.”

  “You are far from that.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  His sigh spoke of fear and regret mingled with grim acceptance. “Teach her,” he said. “Teach her to fight. Teach her to defend herself, and teach her to kill. The five of you must be her chatoks in the Dance of Knives. Teach her as you have taught no other. Give her everything. Hold nothing back.”

  “Rain…” Bel murmured, his eyes troubled.

  Rain waved off his unspoken objection. “She is a Tairen Soul, and we Tairen Souls were born for war. I may not like this path the gods have set before her, but Farsight is right. I must do everything in my power to ensure she is prepared to walk it.”

  “Fey’cha,” Bel explained, “are weighted in the center to ensure a perfect circular arc as the blades travel through the air. The most basic grip—the first a chadin learns in his dance of knives—is the takaro, the hammer….” He showed her how to grasp the knife with her fingers and thumb curled around the hilt. “Your stance gives you balance and adds strength to your throw, as does the manner in which you draw back and release your blades.”

  He demonstrated the slightly crouched stance—right foot forward, left foot back a pace—that would give her arm the most power for the throw. “The first throw all chadin learn is an overhanded throw called Desriel’chata—Death’s Bite. You pull your arm back like so.” He bent her arm at the elbow and guided the hand gripping the knife back over her shoulder. “Then, when you are ready to throw, you snap the arm forward and release your grip no later than here in your swing.” He raised his forearm to stop the slow downward motion of her arm.

  “Watch. See the knot in that silverfir tree there?” He pointed to a tall, broad-trunked fir tree a few man lengths away. “I will use that as my target.” Using the same grip and stance he’d just shown her, Bel drew a black-handled Fey’cha from his own chest harness, cocked his arm, then threw it in one smooth whip of motion. The blade flew from his hand in a blur and it thunked home in the tree trunk moments later. “Any questions?”

  Ellysetta shook her head.

  “Kabei, then you try. Take your stance.” He nodded approvingly when she positioned her feet and crouched as he’d shown her. “Get a good grip on your blade. Aiyah, just like that. Now, draw back your arm. Keep your eye on the target.”

  Ellysetta drew back her arm and fixed her gaze on the dark knot in the silverfir tree. The world narrowed down to a slender, focused tunnel and she could almost see the line that her blade would need to take to hit the target. The grip didn’t feel comfortable in her hand, so she moved her thumb parallel to the knife blade, pressing lightly on the spine.

  “And now throw,” Bel said.

  Her arm snapped forward. The blade left her hand and cartwheeled through the air in perfect silver circles. It thunked into the exact center of the tree…several handspans below the knot that had been her target.

  The miss surprised Ellysetta more than it should have. Once she’d changed her grip on the blade, she’d been so sure she understood the angle, the throw, the blade’s trajectory. As if she’d thrown the same blade a thousand times.

  “Don’t look so disappointed,” Bel said. “The throw itself was well-done. We just need to work on your aim.”

  Rijonn walked over to the tree to extract the blade. “You had decent strength in your throw, too,” he announced. “The blade sank two fingerspans deep into the tree.” He pulled the blade from the tree and sent it spinning towards Bel with a flick of his wrist.

  Bel snatched the Fey’cha out of the air with casual ease and handed it back to Ellysetta, hilt first. “Try again, kem’falla.”

  She waited for Rijonn to clear out of the way, then sent the next dagger spinning towards the tree. Once again it sank, quivering, into a spot below the knot she’d been aiming for.

  “Well, you’re consistent, at least,” Gil said with a grin.

  He tossed back the blade, and Bel handed it to Ellysetta again. “This is why chadins practice for so many years. Give it another try.”

  She threw the blade a third time, and a fourth and fifth. Always, the result was the same: She consistently hit the center of the tree, but below her target.

  “Throw again,” Gaelen commanded, his eyes narrowed slightly. “But this time, don’t aim for the knot; aim for this.” His hand flicked out. Green magic swirled from his fingertips, and a red circle appeared on the tree above the knot.

  Ellysetta took aim, cocked back her hand, and flung the Fey’cha at the red circle on the tree. The dagger cartwheeled through the air and struck the tree dead center in the middle of the knot she’d missed every other time.

  She gave a rueful laugh. “Now I hit it.”

  “Kabei. Now, try this one.” Gaelen spun Earth again and another red dot appeared on a tree much, much farther away. “Do you see it?”

  “You’ve got to be joking.” The tree was at least two tairen lengths away.

  “Can you see it?”

  Ellysetta squinted. “Barely.” The new target was little more than a pinpoint of scarlet against the distant tree.

  “Kabei. Now try to hit it.”

  “Gaelen, don’t be a dim-skull.” Bel scowled at his friend.

  “Shh.” Gaelen put a finger to his lips. “Kem’falla? Take aim and throw your blade.”

  “It’s too far,” Bel protested. “If she can’t hit a larger target at a third the distance, how do you expect her to hit a pinpoint at two tairen lengths?”

  “Humor me. Teska, Ellysetta, take your stance.”

  Bel rolled his eyes but stepped back so Ellysetta could take clear aim at her target. She set her feet and drew back her throwing arm.

  “Concentrate,” Gaelen advised. “Calculate the distance, the force you will need to throw so far. See the blade’s path in your mind. Do you see it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then throw.”

  Her arm whipped forward. The blade whirled through the air in a swift, blurred arc. It hit the target tree dead center…but again well below the red dot.

  “Well-done, kem’falla,” Gaelen praised. “Well-done indeed.”

  She scowled. “Well-done if you want me to hit consistently below my target, you mean.”

  “Nei. Your aim was perfect. You hit a target the size of a sand fly from two tairen lengths away.”

  Bel gave a disbelieving laugh. “I think you need the Feyreisa to chec
k your eyesight, kem’maresk. She missed that tiny little red dot by two handspans, at least.”

  “The red dot wasn’t the target.” A slow, satisfied smile spread over Gaelen’s face. “’Jonn, go inspect her blade. Tell me what you see.”

  The Earth master shot forward with a speed that seemed incongruous with his great height, and his exceedingly long legs crossed the distance in no time. “There’s a second target,” he called, “and she hit it dead-on. Gil, come look at this.”

  Curious, the black-eyed Fey leapt off the fallen log he’d been sitting on and ran to join his friend. After a brief inspection and an exchange of words Ellysetta couldn’t hear, Gil yanked the blade from the tree and he and Rijonn came running back.

  “There was a second target.” Gil held up the Fey’cha. A small circle of brown leather was pinned to its tip.

  Rain, who had hung back with the Elves to observe Ellysetta’s lessons, stepped forward. “Let me see.” He held out a hand for Ellysetta’s Fey’cha. The brown leather circle at its tip had been sliced almost in two—dead center, just as Gaelen had said.

  “I wasn’t aiming for that,” Ellysetta confessed. “I never even saw it.”

  Gaelen’s smile grew wider. “I know, Ellysetta. I made the real target brown specifically so you wouldn’t see it. But I put it where your blade would hit if your aim at the red circle was true.”

  “I don’t understand.” She took back her Fey’cha from Rain and returned it to its sheath. “How can you say my aim was true when I missed what I was aiming at?”

  “Because your aim was true. It’s your reach that is lacking.”

  “Explain,” Rain said.

  “It’s actually easier to show you than tell you. If you would indulge me?” He waved Rain and the others back. “This will require a little room.”

  Ellysetta had turned to watch Rain back up a short distance, when suddenly Gaelen called, “Ellysetta, bote hamanas!” Hands at the ready!

  That was all the warning he gave her before one of his own black-handled blades flew through the air straight towards her.