Prince of Air and Darkness

by M. A. Grant

  He blinks, disarmed by my candor. The writhing thing in Lugh’s hand vanishes as he lowers his arm. “You mean that?”

  “I do.”

  Mother’s gaze flicks back and forth between us. She remains silent, forcing us to work this out on our own. We should. We’ve been avoiding it for too long already.

  I step toward the desk, gesturing for him to join me. “It’s early yet, but if you were to bring the Sluagh and their magick to the Winter Court, things would change. We should discuss that.”

  The tentative step he takes toward me is the first victory I’ve had all day. Hours later, Mother sends Lugh to find Keiran so they can discuss their next moves. The room is strangely silent after he leaves.

  On the desk before me, new plans and scribbled notes overwhelm my earlier, precise columns of figures. The Sluagh are comprised of two major factions and ruled over by the strongest warrior between them. Their combined numbers are greater than the population of both Courts; if Lugh can win one of them to our side, we would be strong enough to stand against the Summer Court. And the only way to do this is to challenge their current leader and win a place on their throne.

  With Keiran and the Hunt at his back, this may be possible. Then it becomes a question of his surviving others’ challenges long enough to lead the Sluagh into battle with us. Only he has had the freedom and time to commit to such a campaign, and he believes he can win the Sluagh over through his exploits as the Horned King. Whether I wish it or not, the numbers say I have to trust his instincts. My younger brother is now an integral part of our plan to ensure the Unseelie Court’s survival. In a matter of hours, he’s gone from a liability to an ally.

  “Roark,” my mother asks from her seat near the fire, “what just passed between you and your brother?”

  “I’m not sure. A beginning, I suppose.”

  “I find your change of heart troubling.”

  “Of course you would, Mother.” I smile. It’s a little ragged, tremulous after this many days of misery. A first step, I remind myself. I go to sit beside her.

  She doesn’t look at me.

  “What’s bothering you?” I ask.

  “The imbalance weakens me.” My proud mother, unable to share her shortcomings with me, afraid of tarnishing her image in my eyes, is so ashamed to admit the truth. “The Summer Court played us well, darling. I should have noticed it sooner.”

  “Noticed what, Mother?”

  “Each fall when they were supposed to restore balance and surrender power to let the world slip into winter and cold, they did. But they kept tiny pieces of it, stealing it over the centuries. They stole power from us, until now what they give us is crumbs compared to the feast we used to enjoy.” She glances at me and it takes a moment to determine what I see in her eyes. Fear. My mother, the Queen of Air and Darkness, is afraid.

  “Roark,” she warns, “they mean for this to be our end.”

  We sit in silence, her lost in her thoughts, me scrambling to readjust my worldview with this cataclysmic news. She’s accusing the Seelie of deliberately disobeying the laws governing our Courts. If it’s true, their need for power after their last fall from grace was strong enough they risked upsetting the balance of nature, of life itself, to claw back enough magick to maintain their pride. She’s admitting she was too naïve to realize they took advantage of her.

  It’s impossible to believe. Yet it makes perfect sense. It explains everything, from the extreme changes in the harvest that even humans have started noticing, to Sláine’s defection.

  It means this war was born out of greed, not boredom, and the nature of their intended conquest rocks me to my core. They will not obey laws of combat if that would prevent their victory.

  “Mother,” I manage, “we cannot fight a war against an enemy who is incapable of showing mercy. They will kill everyone in their attempt to dethrone us and claim our power for their own.”

  “That’s why we must stabilize our Court. We need to recall our people to the sídhe before there are further attacks. We need to bolster our numbers, even at the risk of Lugh’s life.”

  “Keiran will protect him.” My mouth’s strangely dry. Goddess, the world’s gone mad. My little brother is about to risk his life in a suicide mission to earn the allegiance of fae who have spurned either Court for millennia, while I smile and wave him cheerily on his way because there is no other choice.

  She nods absently. “Keiran will. Roark, we need Sláine back. We’ll be blamed for starting the war, but we cannot risk his power remaining in the Summer Court. If my Knight cannot retrieve him, the Cat Sith will step in.”

  Has it come to that? Sending our Court’s assassin to slaughter one of our own? The cruel reality lies unspoken between us: I must save my brother or, with my failure, ensure his death.

  “Will you be strong enough to take on the mantle?” she asks me.

  I want to deny it, to demand why I am forced to be the sacrificial lamb. I want to force her to explain how she could choose to damage me, her most faithful son. I want her to tell me that it’s part of her plan and that I won’t actually be destroyed. But asking these questions would do nothing to quell my resentment. My mother has made it clear: My path is fixed. This is the sacrifice required by war. This is the cost to keep Smith, and my people, safe.

  “Yes,” I promise.

  The shimmer of a tear cascades over her lashes, spilling down her cheek. She faces me, her glamour shredded in her grief.

  “I never meant for this to happen to you,” she whispers, voice catching and breaking on the words. “I never meant for my sons to pay the price.”

  At least the numbness I’ve clung to since leaving Mathers aids me now. I reach for Mother’s hands blindly, gripping them while the world falls down around us.

  Days ago, my mother held me when I wept, protected me so my grief and pain could leach from me like poison from a festering wound. Today, I wrap my arms around her, holding her bird-light bones together as she weeps for her sons. Sláine, the prince of betrayal. Lugh, the prince of impossible quests. And me, the prince who will be unmade.

  When she finishes, she pulls away and wipes her face carefully. I watch while she rearranges her glamour. Her voice doesn’t tremble when she says, “Roark, you alone are privy to this. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Together, we return to her desk and finish planning the evacuation of our people from their homes outside the sídhe and their return to this underground fortress. We complete our work long after the rest of the sídhe has fallen into sleep. I return to my chambers and crawl into bed.

  It doesn’t hit me until I lie there in the darkness. Seven days. I only have seven days left before I take on the mantle and begin to lose myself.

  Terror crushes the air from my lungs. I will become the Knight and my memories will be eaten away by the magick until there is too little of me left to stay alive. I’m not sure why I do it, but my hand reaches up and finds the wall. It’s nothing like the wall at Mathers, but I relax at the pressure against the backs of my fingers. I close my eyes and pretend I’m back there. I imagine Smith is asleep inches away, separated by thin drywall alone.

  I tap against my stone wall and let the air fill my lungs when I hear him grumble in my head, Stop worrying. Just go to sleep, Lyne.

  He’s there with me. He always will be. I obey and let sleep take me under.

  Chapter Twenty

  Phineas

  Accepting the absence of Roark in my life doesn’t follow a linear progression. There are good days and bad days. The migraine splitting my skull and the new bruises and split lip I received in Defensive Magick make this one of the latter.

  I’m beginning to think that magick doesn’t work like I thought it did. Turning off the ley line was probably a bit premature, since I’m taking classes which require its use to be successful. On the upside, I haven’t lit anything on fire in several days, and the thought of Roark is no longer like a knife to the gut.

&n
bsp; At least, it’s not until I lift my hand to knock on Gumba’s door and remind him of his promise to help me with my watershed management coursework. The muffled sound of that familiar voice can’t be real. My knuckles freeze over the fake wood and even the door handle turning isn’t enough to coax me from this stupor.

  He looks like shit, too. It’s petty, but I take what little pleasure I can from it. Roark’s never looked delicate until now. His skin hangs from his angular bones and a deep exhaustion seems to have settled into the lines of his face.

  He hasn’t moved since opening the door. We’re trapped, both unsure where to look, where to move, and I regret not cleaning up before coming over here. The first time I saw Roark again, I didn’t want to be wearing a pair of gym shorts and a ragged tee shirt I turned into a tank top. I’d imagined him seeing me in something slightly more impressive.

  Not that I want to inspire his soul-crushing misery, or anything.

  “Hey,” I say lamely, dropping my hand.

  “Hey.”

  He brushes past me as we trade places. The scent of his cologne is muted so late in the day; reflexively, I turn to follow the scent.

  Of course, he notices. He notices everything I do. “What, Smith?” he asks, brow arched in icy disdain.

  I intend to ask him politely what brings him to campus. How his life is. If the troubles with the Courts have been resolved. I am a rational adult who can ask mature questions of a former lover and prove how kind and gracious I am. How well I’m surviving the end of our tryst.

  Which explains why the next words out of my mouth are “What the fuck gives you the fucking right to show up here, you stupid fucker?”

  His mouth opens, closes, and he shakes his head. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that he’s trying not to smile. “Eloquent as always, Smith.”

  “Answer the fucking question, you fu—” I growl. And then, to make up for my repetitive vocabulary, I correct, “You bastard.”

  “I was here to deliver some news from the Court. I’m leaving now.”

  Neither of us moves.

  I have his eyes memorized. His lashes aren’t too long, but they’re dark and show up against his skin like someone sketched them. They make the unnatural hue of his irises even more pronounced. He stares at my mouth. I press my hands to my sides to stop from reaching out to him.

  “You have blood on your lip,” he finally murmurs, reaching up to wipe it away.

  I crave the sensation of his thumb caressing my lip. It’s some kind of out-of-body experience, ordering myself to smack his hand away but watching the slow rise of those pale fingers instead, begging them to make contact. I close my eyes, all my pent-up frustration and melancholy and confusion and longing mixing into the kind of cocktail that could knock anyone on their ass.

  Except, he doesn’t touch me. Instead, he whispers, “What did you do? Where’s the ley line?”

  Well, crap.

  I open my eyes and step back. He still reaches for me, but when he figures out that I’ve left him hanging, his hand falls back to his side. I push aside the spark of warmth from his concern and instead feed my anger. He has no right to ask that question. No right to make a judgment about what I’ve done since he moved out of the apartment and decided not to make amends for what he did, to not even talk to me about what happened.

  That self-righteous indignation doesn’t prevent my flush, though. “I walked away from it.”

  “Finn—” He shuts his mouth so quickly his teeth click together. He holds up his hands and backs up a step. “I’m sorry.”

  I tremble, drawn back to memories of his heat and reverence which threaten to overwhelm me. That’s why I forbade him from calling me that again. It’s too personal, too everything. I’m shocked he doesn’t call on his glamour to hide the slump of his shoulders.

  “Why would you do something like that?” he asks.

  Lie, Finny. Lie like a rug. “Because I was tired of it hurting.”

  Epic failure.

  Roark’s eyes widen and if I didn’t need Gumba’s help so badly, I’d turn tail and flee right now.

  “What news were you delivering?” I ask, hoping it’ll erase some of this painful awkwardness.

  “An offer of sanctuary,” he says, shifting his weight to rest on one leg. “We’re opening the sídhe for those who wish to travel to it.”

  “War not going well?”

  He ignores my question. “You could come, too.”

  Well, if that isn’t the most shocking offer of... I don’t even know what the hell it is.

  “What?” I croak.

  I recognize the grim set of his mouth. He’s preparing for battle. “The sídhe is a safe place. We can protect you there.”

  “Protect me from what?”

  My voice rises high and I hear Gumba’s hulking mass shift behind me. Roark doesn’t seem to notice.

  “From everything.” He scowls and gestures at all of me. “How do you expect to defend yourself from things worse than other students if you aren’t drawing on the ley line? You’re bruised and bleeding from a simple physical education class, for Herne’s sake. I can’t believe you’d still be this reckless, especially after I—”

  I’m not sure who’s more shocked when my fist connects with his face: Roark from the pain, or me from actually landing the hit. He stumbles back into the wall, his shoulder colliding with it hard. He clutches at his nose, fingers gingerly probing the area, while I shake out my hand and seethe in the doorway.

  “Guess I’m not the only one bleeding now,” I snap.

  “I know you’re angry, but think about it please,” he says while black blood oozes between his fingers.

  The please cuts the deepest.

  “Are you really asking me this?”

  “Smith,” he says and now I wish I could pull on the ley line, just so I could pop him again and make him shut up.

  But I can’t. Instead, I use my words as my weapon, willing all my anger and hostility into them. “You’re asking me to go to the sídhe after you chose fucking torture over helping me save my home. And you’re asking me to do this even though you haven’t apologized or tried to talk to me since you screwed up and then secretly moved out of our apartment?”

  A drop of blood falls from his hand onto his pale grey dress shirt. It takes a moment to soak into the fabric.

  “Do you have anything to say to me?” I ask.

  It’s a dare and a plea. But he doesn’t speak, which is answer enough.

  “No,” I say, biting off the word so I don’t lose it completely. Whatever he sees on my face must say more than that one clipped syllable, because he gives a single, curt nod.

  I close the door on him. When I move away from it, Gumba watches me with thinly veiled concern. “Feel better?”

  “Can we not talk about it?”

  The silent, non-judgmental turn Gumba makes is the reason he is one of my dearest friends. And he doesn’t say boo about me and Roark for the rest of the time I’m studying with him. It isn’t until I’m leaving that he rumbles, “It’s the first promise I’ve ever heard of him breaking.”

  “Fantastic.”

  “Maybe you should hear him out.”

  It’s a damn good thing I don’t have any magick to use because I’d probably do something stupid to get away from this conversation. “And maybe I would if he stopped running away from me without explaining a damn thing.”

  “Will you stop baiting him so he can try?”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  I’m pretty sure I mean it.

  On my way home, I decide that Gumba may have had a good point. Truthfully, I don’t like being angry with Roark. I know I’ve felt that way in the past, but this time it’s different. This anger chokes and suffocates me. This anger is personal. It isn’t something I can brush aside. It would be so much easier if I could go back to hating or fearing him, but that’s never going to happen.

  My mom’s ringtone cuts through those painful thoughts. For a sp
lit second, I consider letting it go to voicemail. Since I left the farm after failing my parents so utterly, I haven’t called them. The thought of hearing the gory details of the plans for the move, of the money we lost from the damage I caused, or listening to them dance around the topic of my magickal future was enough to keep me from checking in. But Roark’s refusal to explain his actions is what’s hurting the most; I can’t do the same thing to my parents. I won’t be like him.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say, forcing cheer into my voice.

  “Finny, I’m so glad to reach you,” she says.

  That twinge of guilt I felt for avoiding my family grows into a full pang.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t called,” I mumble. “Things here have been busy.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t worry. We haven’t had a moment’s peace either.”

  Crap. “Did you need me to come home and help pack anything? I’m sure if I explained to my professors they’d understand.”

  “That’s what I was calling about,” she says.

  My stomach drops and this faint buzzing blurs out everything except her voice. “You were?”

  “Finny, you will not believe this.” She laughs, a sound a little too close to tears for my taste. “The Wednesday after you left, there was a freak frost. Ours was the only county unaffected.”

  “Wh-what?” I manage to make it to a nearby bench before my legs finish going out from under me. A few students walk the nearby paths, but no one gives me a second look even though I’m pretty sure my head’s exploding. A freak frost.

  There’s no such thing. Not one that carefully targets every county but one.

  “We sold the crop for five times what we’ve gotten in the past.” The laughter’s turned into tears now. But I recognize this crying. It’s her Christmas-morning, Fourth-of-July-barbeque, just-got-home-from-another-perfect-wedding, my-son-got-into-college, life-is-beautiful-and-perfect crying. It makes my throat tight and my eyes prickle. “Finny, it’s a miracle.”

  Miracles aren’t real. They don’t just happen. But right now, while my mother celebrates, I don’t care. “There’s money now? What about the farm?”