Shadow's Bane

by Karen Chance

  Then I was out again.

  The next time I woke up, it was because of food. A wonderful, earthy smell turned out to be coming from a bowl of soup somebody had shoved under my nose. Thankfully, that somebody was Olga, who had a proper notion of what a portion size is.

  I sat up, my bed warmers having gone off somewhere, probably to get their own soup. And, in the case of Stinky, had left a couple handfuls of coarse gray hair behind. “I think he’s shedding,” I told Olga blearily, which of course got no response. Trolls don’t care about such things.

  Fortunately, they do care—passionately—about food. Which was why the tray she was setting over me contained not only what looked like a whole tureen of homemade vegetable soup, but also half a loaf of fresh-baked bread, about a stick of butter crammed into a little pot, a couple of longnecks—hallelujah, somebody had bought beer—and some soft cheese that went great on the bread I’d already slathered with butter. There was no meat, but I didn’t mind.

  I dug in.

  Olga sat on the end of the bed, causing me to go almost perpendicular due to mattress sag. I managed to rescue the tray, while she scowled at the flimsy human furniture, then went out again. A few moments later she was back, carrying a sturdy wooden chair from the dining room. She put it down by the bed, and took a moment getting comfortable.

  I watched her over my bread-and-butter-and-cheese feast, which was seriously good. The bread wasn’t long out of the oven, the butter was melting into all the little cracks, and the cheese sat on top, being silky smooth and warm and—God. I was starting to sound like a troll. I certainly had the appetite of one, and Olga didn’t interrupt.

  Food time is sacred time to her people.

  I don’t know how long it took me to clear the tray—maybe twenty minutes, despite the fact that I had my head down, shoveling it in the whole time. I finally fell back against the pillows, utterly replete, and noticed that Claire had come in while I was busy. “My compliments to the chef,” I told her, and got a small smile.

  I started to set the tray on the bedside table before remembering the floral profusion. Which was gone now, I realized, with just a few well-shorn lilacs peering at me over the top of the pot, looking properly chastened. I completed the movement, wincing when pain shot through my shoulder.

  But it was a little pain, and didn’t seem to be echoed in too many more places. For once, I felt pretty good. “Hey,” I said. “I feel pretty good!”

  I started to throw back the covers, and, once again, was stopped.

  This time, by two fierce looks from two fierce women, which had me sliding back onto the pillows meekly.

  I didn’t feel that good.

  “So,” I said, looking between the two of them, “is there a reason I can’t get up?”

  “You can get up whenever you want,” Claire said, frowning.

  “Of course,” Olga agreed.

  I reached a hand toward the covers, and I swear somebody growled at me.

  The fact that I wasn’t sure which of them had done it was kind of concerning.

  “We just want to talk, and downstairs is still”—Claire looked like she was reaching for the right word—“messy.”

  “It a pit,” Olga agreed, which made Claire tear up, because it was her house. And because she usually ran a tight ship. And because she looked like just about anything could set her off right now.

  But she didn’t argue the word choice, so it was probably bad.

  “Maybe I could help,” I offered, but didn’t try getting up again.

  I’m reckless, not stupid.

  “Oh, it’s fine, Dory!” Claire said. “The guards are helping—”

  “The guards? What guards?”

  She blinked at me. “The royal guards. Who else?”

  I grinned. “You have the royal guards cleaning up? Since when?”

  The fey had this whole hierarchy I didn’t understand, because I didn’t care, about who could do what and when. It was familiar to me since it was the sort of thing vamps did, making up a hugely complex system of rules because, when you live hundreds or even thousands of years, what else are you going to do to pass the time? But I did understand enough to know that royal fey guards didn’t do the mopping up.

  Or anything else, as far as I could tell. Except hunt and laze about, polishing their weapons and waiting to accomplish deeds of derring-do. Of course, last night they’d pretty much managed that, so I guessed I should cut them some slack.

  “They do when Caedmon tells them to!” Claire said, and got up, but not to leave. Just to pace around, because she looked like she was about to come out of her skin. And considering what that looked like, I was all for the pacing. “I had my hands full with our patients—and the boys, who were scared out of their minds!”

  “They seemed okay earlier,” I said, “unless I was dreaming them being in here.”

  “No.” She turned around, looking apologetic. “I hope they didn’t keep you up, but there was nowhere else. My room was taken up with injured fey, and Gessa and the little troll were in the boys’ beds, and I was constantly back and forth and would have woken them anyway—”

  No wonder she looked tired, I thought.

  And then what she’d said registered.

  “The little troll? You mean he’s not dead?”

  “Not yet,” Olga said darkly.

  “I was up with him all night,” Claire told me. “And with Gessa, who had a slight concussion after Ymsi—”

  She broke off, biting her lip.

  “Wait.” I sat up and shoved another pillow behind me. My thoughts were still a jumble, but there was some stuff that I remembered clearly. Like a knife sticking out of a kid’s chest.

  “Caedmon was with me,” I said. “And that knife was through the heart. So how is he alive again?”

  “Troll heart on other side,” Olga told me simply.

  I blinked, and filed it away for future reference. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Someone else not know, either.”

  “Or maybe they weren’t aiming for him!” Claire said heatedly.

  “Aiden not stab,” Olga pointed out, with the tone of someone who had said it before.

  “Aiden?” I looked at Claire. “You think this is about your son?”

  “Who else?” She shoved extra-frizzy hair out of her face, because I guess she hadn’t had time to do anything with it today. “Gessa said those things went straight for the stairs, not once but numerous times. If you hadn’t been there—”

  “They’d have met an angry mother dragon a floor up. They were better off with me.”

  “Stone doesn’t burn, Dory,” Claire said, her arms tight around her, her face white. “It’s how the goddamned Svarestri win against the Dark Fey—how they’ve always won! Our element is fire; theirs is earth. And earth smothers fire. . . .”

  Leaving you armed only with a maw of daggerlike teeth, ten-inch claws, and a tail that can crush a man in one sweep, I thought, but kept my mouth shut because this wasn’t the time.

  “Aiden is probably the best-protected little boy on the planet,” I said instead. “Plus, he’s wearing that thing, isn’t he? That rune we spent so much time tracking down?”

  It had been an ugly, discolored item, old and cracked and strangely heavy. Not something you’d expect the heir to one of the major thrones of Faerie to have in his possession. Or on his person, because it melted into the skin once on the body, becoming invisible—and making the wearer virtually invulnerable.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t be hurt; if Aiden had been stabbed, he’d have definitely felt the pain, and borne the wound until it healed. But it would have healed. Because wearing one of the last remaining Runes of Langgarn granted certain privileges.

  So whatever had happened to the rest of us last night, Aiden had not been in danger.

  Bu
t that raised the question: who had? Because they’d sure wanted somebody. Gessa had been right—they’d made a beeline for the stairs and never so much as looked at anything else.

  “Why do the Svarestri want a troll kid dead?” I asked.

  “They don’t!” Claire said, whirling around.

  Olga didn’t say anything, but the look she gave me was eloquent. She didn’t agree with Claire, but she wasn’t going to argue with a frantic mother who was low on sleep. That never got anybody anywhere.

  “It’s that bitch Efridis,” Claire told me. “She’ll do anything to see her son inherit!”

  And, okay, Claire was the type who ran on nerves, even on a good day, and she hadn’t seen many good days lately. So she was a little distraught. But she nonetheless had a point.

  Efridis was a bitch.

  The beautiful blond fey queen was Caedmon’s sister, but other than for looks, I didn’t see a lot of resemblance. For example, she’d used her position to steal the rune now guarding baby Aiden for her son, a piece of work named Æsubrand, who was the Svarestri heir apparent. Yeah, I know. The names kind of get to me, too.

  But, basically, Caedmon’s sister, who had married the Svarestri king, had stolen baby Aiden’s protection to help her own son, who dreamed of a Faerie united under his rule.

  And one land means one throne, doesn’t it?

  Æsubrand had planned to inherit Caedmon’s kingdom, merge it with his own, and then go conquer everything else. And the fact that Caedmon had a son hadn’t really thrown a spanner into the works, because said son—Claire’s fiancé, Heidar—was half-human. And Blarestri law required their king to have more than half fey blood.

  Which was good for Heidar, since it kept him out of the hot seat.

  And was bad for Aiden, because it put him right in.

  Because the law had neglected to say what kind of fey blood was required. So Claire’s, although Dark Fey, still counted. And she was slightly over fifty percent, thanks to that Brownie great-something grandma. Meaning that, while Heidar couldn’t inherit, his son could.

  Thus making Aiden the target. His birth had knocked out Æsubrand’s chances of succeeding to his uncle’s throne, something the Ice Prince had been kind of hot about. So much so that he’d tried to kill Claire while she was pregnant to prevent Aiden from ever being born. Yet, afterward, he’d also said that he wouldn’t hurt a child, but would wait for Aiden to grow up to duel him for the throne.

  I would have laughed at that, but I’d asked around, and it seemed that, yes, the fey had the view that a baby wasn’t a baby until it was born. So, while Æsubrand could retain his honor and kill it in the womb (killing an innocent human mother apparently didn’t count as an honor ding), his rep would take a hit if he murdered a child. And we’d eventually gotten the rune back, making future assassination attempts on Aiden much less likely to succeed anyway.

  So, end of story, right?

  Only no. Because Æsubrand had done us a favor recently, and pimped on his batshit-crazy dad’s plan to bring back the gods. One that had almost worked.

  Aeslinn had attacked the consul’s home, where all six vampire senates were meeting, to try and knock the vamps out of the war by destroying their leadership. That would have given a huge black eye to the war effort, since vamps are almost the only creatures who can fight effectively in Faerie, where human magic doesn’t work. If they dropped out, there would be no one to take the war to Aeslinn, allowing him all the time he needed to find a way to bring the old gods he worshipped back into this world.

  And, presumably, to kill us all.

  His plan had been a good one, but Æsubrand and his mother had come to warn us first, so we’d had a slight heads-up. Yeah, you read that right. After trying to assassinate Claire, almost killing all of us over the rune, and generally being a massive douche nozzle, the prodigal son had returned to the fold and dragged momma along with him. It seemed that, while his father was happy at the idea of being a godly flunky, Æsubrand actually wanted to rule his own kingdom.

  And that did not include being a puppet to anyone.

  Of course, warning people who have every reason to view you as an enemy is not easy. They tend to be too busy trying to kill you to listen. But that wasn’t a problem for Efridis, who had conjured up a glamourie, disguised herself as a cook, and snuck into the house along with a bunch of servants Louis-Cesare had loaned us.

  And drugged the whole lot.

  I’d arrived to find everyone out cold, including Claire, who had been slumped over a table in the backyard, while Efridis and her spawn held on to the two kids. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to a heart attack. But they hadn’t hurt the boys, just used them as hostages to get me to listen.

  Yet now they were suddenly trying to kill Aiden again? When they, of all people, knew that he had the rune? It didn’t make sense.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Claire demanded, watching me.

  “It’s not that. I wouldn’t put anything past those two. It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  “What Olga said. They didn’t stab him, Claire,” I said gently.

  And immediately flashed on that old saying about not poking a bear, especially when the bear is a dragon.

  “No, Ymsi stabbed him,” she told me, her voice low and furious. “With that bitch riding him! And troll eyes are notoriously bad, especially in the dark—”

  “Wait. What?”

  “—and the boy only arrived today, and unexpectedly, so Aiden and Stinky were the only two people supposed to be in that room—”

  “Claire, hold up.”

  “—and Stinky snores to high heaven! There’s every reason to believe that anybody walking in there would assume—”

  “Claire!”

  She looked at me, eyes wide and startled, because that had practically been a shout. But she’d just said something important, and I needed to grab it before my wonky brain let it slip away again. “Riding?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘that bitch’ was riding Ymsi. What—”

  She threw out a hand, in a gesture that somehow managed to be elegant and exasperated at the same time. “Caedmon told me what happened with you and Efridis. I know—”

  “Me and Efridis?”

  “Well, who else are we talking about, Dory?” Claire stared at me. “Who else do we know who desperately wants Aiden dead, who probably knows how to remove the rune, since it’s her family heirloom, and who also happens to be a vargr?”

  “A what?” I said, because I was trying to keep up and not doing so great.

  And, suddenly, everything stopped.

  It was almost funny. Claire had been gesturing again, with her arm up and her mouth open, about to say something that never made it past her vocal chords. The only thing that did was a small “Oh.”

  And then she abruptly sat down again.

  “What I say?” Olga asked her mildly.

  Claire was still looking at me, her face almost tragic. “Caedmon didn’t tell you,” she said softly, a hand on my leg.

  And, okay, getting freaked out here.

  “Tell me what?”

  The two exchanged a look. Claire shook her head, and bit her lip, obviously passing the buck. Olga sighed.

  “You remember spriggans?” she asked me.

  I had to think for a moment.

  “Those little round things at the fair?”

  She nodded. “Old days, spriggans used as spies. Look like rocks. Blend in. Troll vargar ride them far away, all directions.”

  I blinked a little, because my brain was suddenly sending me the disturbing and quite hilarious image of a thousand-pound troll riding around on top of a crowd of those little things. Just this mass stampede of tiny, straining creatures, each with a bit in its mouth, the reins held by the troll. And dust f
lying everywhere as they thundered o’er the—

  I cut it off.

  I was losing it.

  “Vargar rare now,” Olga said sternly, as if she knew I wasn’t taking this seriously. “Used to be many. Spriggans put on all borders, even into enemy lands. We see far—”

  And, suddenly, something connected. “That young guard,” I thought for a second, and then snapped my fingers. “Soini. He said that’s why he’s here, something about far-seeing—”

  Olga nodded. “Light Fey also have, but not so many. Boy is young, but he will learn. Be important one day.” She looked at me shrewdly. “Like you.”

  I laughed. “Oh, so I’m a spriggan, Olga?”

  She shook her head. “Spriggan eyes. Send where you want to see, nobody notice. Like bird or animal.”

  And then it hit me, a memory of cloudy night skies, beaks and feathers and blood, and a breathtaking fall, dizzyingly far, and ending in—

  I jerked up, blinking, and swallowed. Because being in an animal when it dies is not fun. What the hell?

  “Not spriggan,” Olga said gently, catching my attention again, and gently touching my forehead. “Vargr.”

  I decided I needed to lie down again.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  An hour later, I stepped into the shower, which was much less fun without Louis-Cesare. And stayed there for a while, and not just because the hot water felt so damned good. But because I was trying to straighten out my head.

  Part of that was easier than I’d thought. Memories of the attack last night were coming back, and were easier to parse than whatever had happened at the fights, I suppose because I’d been conscious this time. Or half-conscious, or superconscious, or whatever it was called when two minds are awake and acting at the same time.

  I called it freaky.

  Olga had another word.

  The best I could figure out, vargar were some kind of fey shamans or mystics who could throw their consciousness into other creatures. They’d gotten the name from wolves, because their favorite ride had once been fast-moving wolf packs. Which was why they were shown on Viking monuments riding around on wolves like horses, and why some of the sagas had fey witches and trolls doing the same thing.