Katarina was developing biceps.
Lats, too.
She stared in disbelief. Delicate, serene, empathic Katarina McLaughlin was living at Chester’s, deep underground, molding herself into a warrior? How had she persuaded one of the Nine, especially the legend that didn’t speak, to teach her anything? Did Ryodan know she was here?
Of course he did. They were his monitors.
Her scowl turned thunderous. Kasteo was training Kat, yet Ryodan refused to teach her a bloody thing. She was far better raw material than cautious, slender Katarina McLaughlin. She was a freaking Valkyrie, forged of steel with the sword to prove it!
“You are so on my shit list, Ryodan.” She was abruptly in exactly the right mood to cut off his head without puking, without regretting it one bit. Maybe even enjoying it. Hacking it off over and over again until he agreed to set her up with her own trainer.
She punched another button. Watched. Inhaled sharply and punched that one off. Level 4 was no place to get distracted by right now. But she’d just glimpsed up close and personal one of the Nine she’d encountered only a single time before and from a distance—the day Barrons had brought his men to the abbey to bust Pri-ya Mac out. The day all Nine of them had stalked in, some heavily hooded, others bareheaded with burning eyes, all toting automatic weapons.
She pressed another button.
And froze.
She wouldn’t have thought anything could stun her more than the oddity of Kat with Kasteo, but this new vision shocked her into muteness and immobility.
When she finally managed to unfreeze her tongue, she whispered, “Holy leaping Lazarus—he’s alive?”
And no one had told her. How was this even possible? Just whose body had Ryodan sent home to the Highlands to be buried?
She narrowed her eyes. Christian was with him, a tall, dark shadow, wings furled, standing a dozen feet away. Christian knew. Who else? Everyone but her?
The door whisked open and Barrons stood in the opening, with Mac at his side, Fade and Lor behind him.
She stood instantly, easing the panel closed with her thigh, counting on them being too preoccupied to glance up at the monitors. Few people looked up. Most people tunneled blithely through their days, noticing only what was at eye level.
“Dani,” Mac said with a faint smile. “It’s good to see you.”
Once she’d called Mac TP, short for “that person,” because each time she’d said or even thought her name, her heart hurt. But last night they’d talked like they once used to, like peas in the Mega Pod, almost like sisters. Mac had forgiven her, sacrificed herself to save her, and the block of ice around her heart had begun to thaw.
“It’s Ja— Hey, Mac.” Really, what did it matter? Not only was it inefficient to constantly keep correcting her, Mac knew she was different now and had accepted that. The primary reason she’d rechristened herself Jada was to encourage sidhe-seers who’d known her as a troublesome teen to accept her as their leader; a thing they’d never have done if she’d introduced herself as the girl they so recently knew as the swaggering, cocky, insouciant Mega.
“Dani, honey, turn off the monitors,” Lor said tightly.
Her nostrils flared and she shot him a frosty look. They should have told her what was going on, and Mac had a right to know, too. Either they were a team or they weren’t. Clearly, they weren’t. “I didn’t say you could call me Dani. Or honey. Only people who don’t keep secrets from me get to call me those things. It’s Jada to you.” Then she turned the warmth back on and said to Mac, “Are you okay?”
Scowling, Lor stalked to the desk, punched buttons, slammed the panel closed then moved back to the door, where he stood, legs wide, powerful arms folded across his chest.
“Been better,” she said with a note of weariness in her voice. Her gaze dipped to Jada’s cuff as she moved into the office and joined her near the desk. When she reached for her, Jada stiffened, but Mac only caught a stray curl of her hair and smoothed it behind her ear. Then she said, “I missed you.”
Jada shifted uncomfortably. “Dude. Space. You just saw me last night.”
A slow smile curved Mac’s lips. “I never thought the day would come I’d actually be happy to have you ‘dude’ me. I meant before that. I’m glad you’re back. Glad we’re back. I missed us,” she said simply. Her gaze dropped to the cuff again. “The ZEWs are still out there and so is the Sweeper. The cuff’s what keeps them from being able to track you. Don’t take it off.”
Jada nodded.
“And listen to Barrons. Do what he says. He’s got a plan.”
Jada inclined her head.
“And for heaven’s sake, try talking to Ryodan sometime. Have an actual conversation. I think he’d do anything you wanted, if you just asked him. Nicely. Barrons is the same way. Difficult to manage, yet manageable if you know the right buttons to push.”
“Barrons is right here, Ms. Lane, and Barrons doesn’t have buttons,” Barrons said stiffly, and Lor snickered.
Jada glanced at Barrons, wondering if he’d told Mac what they were planning to do. Or were they supposed to take her by surprise? She discarded that possibility. Barrons would have already given her one of the stones, if that were his intention.
From the way Mac was doling out the big sister advice, she suspected she knew, but said anyway, “You’re on board with this?” as she searched Mac’s gaze.
Green eyes darkened to pools of obsidian. “Not a fucking chance in hell, you stupid cunt.”
And Mac vanished.
AOIBHEAL
Her name was Zara.
His was a symbol too complex for her mind to absorb.
She was one of her race’s revered healers.
He was a god-king, half mad from long solitude.
Tethered to something much vaster than mere rock and soil, acolyte to the great, wise Soul-Thing that pervaded the universes, Zara was connected to all, bound to none.
She was wild and free, a powerful witch of the forests and stars and seas, her every breath filled with joy. Her name was a prayer, uttered by her people in times of need.
She always came: a fevered child to be tended, a wounded animal to mend, a tree damaged by storm. She healed, nurtured, repaired, and, when necessary, helped those whose time it was to become the next thing. Death was but a doorway to another life. She could see the souls of the living, their colors, shapes, and sizes, ailments and strengths. She could feel the soul of the All. Everything fit precisely where it was, had been, and was going.
And if being bound to none was sometimes lonely, on nights when she peeked through windows as her people nestled down and made love, and children and futures, and mating season came for the animals she protected, being connected to the All made it worth the price.
Or so she thought.
Until he came.
Aoibheal shook her head sharply, splintering ice with the motion. It tinkled like shards of broken glass when it crashed to the floor in the king’s black velvet darkness.
“No,” she whispered.
The moment she’d stepped into the mirror, it seemed to absorb her, drawing her into a memory bubble planted deep within its silvery interior, and suddenly she was somewhere else, racing through a misty, triple-canopied forest, laughing, and being chased by a flock of brilliant, winged, inquisitive T’murras, darting through the leaves.
Somewhere she’d known.
Somewhere she’d rued ever leaving.
She’d recognized the place with the fundamental essence of her being. She’d been born there. Fashioned from the elements and minerals and waters of the planet itself.
The king had brought the T’murras to her world, the first gift he’d ever given her.
Had he chosen anything else, she’d not have been so easily disarmed. There’d been no material goods for which she’d hungered. But he’d selected brilliantly winged living creatures, birds with crimson and gold beaks that were wont to echo odd words and phrases, sometimes stringing them together in
ways that seemed to almost make sense, and sang an exquisite melody—but only at sunrise and sunset, as if they, like her, saluted the morning and welcomed the night.
Impossible for one such as she to resist.
She’d been touched, beguiled, delighted by his gift. She’d thought he chose them for her because he, too, loved the small things of the world.
“Zara,” she whispered, cracking the ice again.
She glanced around the vast starlit chamber that was twice the size of an ancient Roman Coliseum, its floor scattered with exotically spiced, velvety dark petals. Tiny black diamonds floated on the air, midnight fireflies winking with blue flame. Between towering slabs of black ice that stretched to a starlit night sky, an enormous, velvet-draped bed filled most of the chamber. On the far wall, a blue-black fire sent tendrils licking up to the ceiling where they exploded in a fantastic nebula shimmering with blue vapors.
There was only one other piece of furniture in the room.
A small table upon which perched a translucent beaker, filled with a golden liquid, steaming at the narrow mouth.
Gathering her cloak around her, she crushed spicy petals beneath her feet as she glided toward it, feeling an unshakable sense of deft manipulation that chafed her.
Next to the beaker was a sheaf of thick vellum with three words on it.
DARE YOU REMEMBER?
She’d been wrong.
He’d known she would go through his mirror.
Why hadn’t he simply incarcerated her there to begin with, and poured whatever potion he’d chosen down her unwilling throat?
She’d been his concubine. Who knows how many potions she’d willingly drunk for him? Who could say how they’d changed her?
Yet, he’d forced nothing upon her.
Merely set her on the path of choice.
A fluttering, high in the corner of the starry sky, caught her eye, at too great a distance to make out detail. She doubted anything was in his chamber at this hour by chance. Turning her back on the beaker, she moved to the edge of the bed and gazed up, waiting motionless for so long she froze solid again.
She’d heard their love had burned so fiercely there’d been nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. That they’d traveled the Great All together, spinning breathtaking new worlds.
She’d heard.
She had no memory of it. Nor did she want it. She wanted no part of him.
She knew who she was now, and that her past had indeed been stolen from her. It was enough.
As she shattered the coating of ice, the fluttering thing at the starry ceiling dove for her, its jewel-toned wings spreading in a wide brilliant span, bold and rich against the sleek black walls of the king’s boudoir.
The T’murra settled lightly, with a soft rustling of wings, on her left shoulder and began to peck playfully at the fur trim of her cloak.
Damn the bastard!
His idea of renewing a courtship, no doubt. Reminding her of their beginnings. Trying to seduce her into wanting to know more.
As the T’murra hooked its talons into the fabric of her cloak, they iced together, cracking only when she finally stirred herself to return to the beaker.
The sheaf of vellum now bore new words.
For the Light Court, the Cauldron of Forgetting
Because they are fools and will use it
For the Dark Court, the Elixir of Remembering
Because they are fearless and will choose it
She’d heard myths that such an elixir existed. It was claimed that even those who chose not to drink from the cauldron lost memories over the eons. The elixir allegedly cleared the cobwebs of disuse from the mind and restored each and every one to its proper time and place. It was said the ancient king drank it daily, refusing to yield even a single memory, and that this infinity of knowledge contributed to his fits of madness. Among the Fae, there were stories about everything, making it impossible to discern fable from fact. She’d never believed the elixir was real.
But she’d been wrong about many things.
She stared bitterly down at the beaker and its golden, misting contents, absently stroking the T’murra on her shoulder, which clucked as it began to nibble delicately at the lobe of her ear.
She’d been torn from her life as the mortal concubine, turned Fae then transformed into their queen. Why? Had someone groomed her to become the queen because she’d been deemed suitably malleable? And if she disappointed her groomer, would he simply erase her memory again? She’d had her memories stripped away, not once as she’d feared, sixty thousand years ago, but obviously multiple times, given how long ago she’d been the king’s concubine. Her very existence, everything she was, had been thieved from her, repeatedly. How many lifetimes had she lost? Only to be left priding herself on being the ruler of a race that was not even hers!
If she believed the king, Cruce had done this to her and she would never have left her lover of her own volition. If she believed the king, Cruce had forced her to write a note decrying the king as a monster, and if she drank from the beaker she would be in love with him again.
She didn’t want to be in love with him again.
Love had made her a Fae pawn, to be batted back and forth across their manipulative chessboard, damaged, altered, changed. Look—she’s a pawn! No, she’s a queen! Oh, wait she’s a pawn again! What say we make her a rook next?
And for what?
To end up here.
Alone. A woman whose existence had been so fractured by magic elixirs, she no longer knew who she was.
Narrowing her eyes, she studied the beaker.
She had no desire to accept anything the king offered. But if she didn’t drink it, she would spend the rest of her life—which might be considerably shorter than she’d expected if the Song of Making wasn’t found—as no more than she was right now, a bitter Fae queen who resented the mantle she carried, resented the very people she’d been appointed to rule. If the Earth died, she would die as that woman. Wondering. Never knowing.
She sighed. On her shoulder, the T’murra clucked with seeming sympathy.
“Zara,” she murmured.
The T’murra cocked its head and gave her a quizzical glance. “Awk! Zara,” it squawked, as if agreeing.
It had been Zara’s joy that had drawn the king to her. Her passion, her wildness and unrestrained immersion in everything she did. That, too, had been tucked within the memory in the mirror.
She’d never known such…buoyancy of being. Not that she could recall. She couldn’t even quite fathom it. Could only examine its weft and weave, a dispassionate observer. What good could lost memories of such feelings possibly do her? She was Fae now, capable of only shallow sensation. It might do no more than torment her with dim impressions of a life she could never feel again. Which was preferable—bitterness or an eternal sense of loss? Wouldn’t both result in bitterness?
The concubine had not wanted to be turned Fae. When a mortal became Fae it lost its soul.
Zara had prized her soul above all else. And now had none.
She picked up the beaker and turned it in her hand, this way and that, eyeing the golden contents, the iridescent mist seeping from the narrow mouth, analyzing pros and cons, incentive and disincentive, reaching an impasse every time.
In the end she turned off her mind and made the decision with what mild emotion was left to her.
She tipped the beaker to her lips and drank.
MAC
The eviction from my body is instantaneous.
The moment I hear myself speaking words I’m not saying and never would, I’m seized by the Sinsar Dubh’s gargantuan will, scraped from my body, and stuffed back into my box.
Never think me weak, the Sinsar Dubh purrs. I got you, babe. ALWAYS.
As it crams me into the cramped, dark interior and slams the lid, I think—bullshit! There is no secret compartment inside my body that I can be stuffed into!
Just like there never actually was a book, open or closed, ins
ide me. The Sinsar Dubh painted two elaborate illusions for me, and did one hell of a sales job. I infused both illusions with my belief and was thereby imprisoned. Not by the Book.
By my own gullibility.
Belief is reality.
In here, disembodied, I apprehend that truth in a moment of exquisite clarity and realize it’s the keystone of existence. Not just mine. Everyone’s. What’s the surest way to be victimized? Believe yourself a victim. To win? Believe yourself a champion.
I believe myself a body, kick the lid off my nonexistent box with it, and the boundaries around me crumble into the nothing it really is.
I stand tall, my fury boundless for too many reasons to count but I’ll start with: I’d been basking in a warm exchange with Jada. The first one in what seemed a small, painful eternity. She’d let me call her Dani. And deep in her eyes I’d glimpsed a welcome flash of that old familiar fire. My girl was in there. And getting closer to coming out.
Then my mouth had called her a “stupid cunt.”
Yep. That’s enough to thoroughly piss me off.
I hate that word. No idea why. I just do. And the instant hurt in her eyes, the unguarded emotion that preceded her intellect processing that the Book had taken me over again, had utterly slayed me. I have no doubt she’ll understand I didn’t mean it, but that’s not the point. It just leads me to my second point: my psychopathic intruder deceived me.
Again!
How many times will I fall victim to its endless mindfuck?
What is wrong with me? It’s not like it can cast a spell on me. I’m it. It’s me. It can only try to control me with deceit and lies. And it keeps working!
I expand my awareness, feather into my limbs, settle behind my eyes and look out.
I may be free of the box, but the Book has full control of my body. I can feel my limbs, peer out through my eyes, but I can’t control any of it. I’m a passive, straitjacketed observer.
My hand is around Jada’s throat, shaking her violently. I can’t see it because it’s invisible, but I feel my fingers deep in the flesh of her throat as she dangles a foot above the floor.
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