There were advantages, like no duties or responsibilities for me in the Behindbeyond, which meant I could spend almost all my time in the mortal realm I knew and loved. Nobody called me “Your Highness” except a few who knew me well enough to mess with me. And nobody could give me any serious grief about making grandchildren for the Alder King with my accidental wife, Erin, whom I loved with all my soul.
And that’s where I always stopped stoking the engine on that train of thought and pulled the brake.
Midnight Dreary finished her snacks. Time to move on. I held the chain by the clasp and let the pendant dangle. The crown caught the light and shimmered, as if the power inside knew it was about to be used.
“I don’t suppose I can just leave this here, right? I really need to get back to the mortal realm.” Midnight Dreary’s eye twitched, a few inches away from mine. She rapped on my forehead with her beak, not hard enough to hurt.
“Yeah. I know. Dumb idea,” I replied. “Are you coming with me?”
My favorite pet raven launched herself into the air and flew a few yards away where she landed on a boulder. She hopped in a half circle to look at me and tilted her head to the side. I guess I had my answer.
I put the chain around my neck. It was a beautiful day out here, and I suddenly regretted being unable to finish my hike. “Until next time,” I said.
Midnight Dreary croaked once. I swear it sounded like, “Bye!”
I pulled the pendant, breaking it off the chain, and vanished.
Blink.
* * *
A figure wearing robes and a tall hat waited for me. He bowed awkwardly and said, “I am Bromach, sire. Welcome to thy chambers.”
I nodded in reply.
I have chambers?
We were in the upper levels of the castle with a view of a sparkling lake and snow-capped peaks. More modern in design than I would have guessed, the “chambers” were a suite with two bedrooms and an open upper level with a spiral staircase in between. Everything was beautifully appointed with medieval tapestries and weapons used as decoration. I had zero interest in anything related to being a prince, but dang if this wasn’t legit.
I had to remind myself I was in a hurry.
A suit of armor took a step forward, sending my heart looking to confirm the definition of “palpitating.” The armor had appeared to be part of the décor, standing behind the guy in the robes. He said, “I am Sir Siorradh Fionnuar, at thy service, sire.” The knight’s voice rang clearly from his helm.
“Pleased to meet you both,” I said, trying to pretend I hadn’t nearly made griefs in my briefs. I coughed to clear my throat. “I need to get back to the mortal realm as quickly as possible. Could you please take me to the front gate?”
“If only we could, sire,” said the guy in the robes. “The King has requested thy presence. As soon as we knew thou wert in the realm, he sent thy raven to bring thee.”
“Look. I don’t have time for this. There’s a young woman in the mortal realm who’s in danger and I need to be there.”
The robe guy blinked and stammered. “Sire, thy father . . .”
Anger jumpstarted my core again, out of proportion, “Look. I said I don’t have time for this. Take me to the mortal realm.”
The knight stepped forward, his hand turned up in supplication. “Dude,” he said.
That stopped me.
The knight whispered, “C’mon, man. He’s trying to do his job. You know what happens when your dad gets ticked off, right? Cut us some slack? See what your dad wants?”
“Sure,” I said. Not because the knight had told me to, but because he had dropped the ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ language and called me ‘dude.’
The guy in the robes deserved my confession. “I’m not myself today. No hard feelings?”
“No, sire.” He replied with wide eyes, as if hard feelings were unthinkable.
The knight indicated the door. “Let’s boogie,” he said.
The knight’s armor was well-oiled and his tread was light on the stone. No clank-clank-clank like you would expect from a man covered in metal. Instead, a whispering as if the knight were a smoothly operating machine. My heart was still recovering from seeing him move at all.
“I do need to get out of here,” I said.
The knight whispered back. “Got you covered, dude.”
Nice.
My small retinue was familiar with the castle’s layout. I quickly got lost in the passages and stairways that twisted their way throughout the castle. I’d never be able to find my way back to my chambers already.
The halls were warm with rugs and tapestries and people going about their duties. They still had time to stare and cover their mouths in surprise as we passed. We were a motley-looking crew and I was the motley, completely out of place in my pullover and khakis. The reactions I got made me feel like a kid in high school.
To the guy with the unibrow and the constipated look, I said, “My locker number is 1138. Is that down this hall?” He shook his head as a general, all-purpose reflex.
To the girl with the huge bouquet of fresh-cut flowers whose eyes dilated to maximum aperture, I said, “So nice to see that the quarterback finally invited you to the prom, Francine.” Her mouth twitched into a confused half-smile and she blushed at my attention.
To the guy carrying the woven basket of wine bottles, I said, “Hey, get those over to the assistant principal’s office. The faculty meeting’s about to start.” The guy stopped dead in his tracks and gaped.
The robes guy and Siorradh let me spout off. What else could they do?
We arrived at a long hallway.
Well, this looks serious.
The corridor was lined with dozens of guards, brandishing halberds, which were at least top three on the list of cool weapons. The halberd had an axe on one side and a spike on the other. The spike could penetrate heavy armor, if appropriately wielded, and the axe could lop off limbs or even heads. The guards stood at attention, disciplined and immobile, except for their eyes which tracked us as we marched down the center of the corridor. Each man’s gaze was like a creeping spider on the back of my neck, and it was all I could do to keep from shrugging off their stares as we passed.
At the end of the corridor sat a massive door, made of thick oak beams held together with silver crosspieces and hinges. The silver was crafted with all kinds of finely-wrought filigree and scenes of fauns frolicking in the forest and centaurs striding across stony hillsides. It was beautiful but the contrast with the heavy beams of the door, black with age, made it clear that there weren’t any tea parties on the other side. The silver was for show and could undoubtedly be enchanted to create a barrier more impenetrable than any door in the mortal realm.
This was not the throne room. I’d been in the throne room and there wasn’t this much security there. Whatever happened on the other side of this door was Serious Business.
The door opened soundlessly. Me and the roadies went through in stride.
We ascended a ramp. I couldn’t see the action but I heard a voice, delivering a speech in grave tones. As we climbed, the scene gradually came into view.
“. . . have seen, your Majesty,” the grave-toned voice said, “The evidence presented is circumstantial. We have the testimony of this handful of people who have given us only opinions about the crimes allegedly committed by the maiden Nathair.”
As a former police officer, I knew what a trial sounded like.
Faces came into view as we continued up the ramp. Sober stone faces belonging to magisterial figures. One red-faced man had a row of spikes along his jaw line. The woman next to him breathed fire, smoke drifting from her nose and mouth, orange light glowing behind her teeth. They all wore boxy black hats, which appeared to identify them as some kind of tribunal. I knew little about the Fae government. Even less about the legal system.
More steps up the ramp brought another row of hat-wearing officials into view. The chamber was an amphitheater and we entered from th
e side. As we came up even with the floor, we saw a cage built onto a cart. The cage would have been rolled through the door we had used and up the same ramp to arrive in front of the jury.
The cage had a small oak platform which kept its occupant from touching the bars of the cage. From here, the bars felt wrong and I knew they were made of iron. Spaced closely together, the bars left little room to reach through. I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be surrounded by so much bare iron. I loved driving my car, but that got irritating and almost painful after a while, even though the steel was covered with upholstery. The young woman in the cage suffered while weeping. She faced away from us but her entire body had curled in on itself and she sobbed into her knees.
“We appeal to the mercy of the throne,” the advocate for the imprisoned girl went on. “There is insufficient proof to test her against the Súilfirinne. The throne would not wish to make an error that cannot be undone.”
Another trip to the Behindbeyond, another addition to my Fae vocabulary. Súilfirinne.
In the mortal realm, the defense gave closing arguments last, so it seemed we had arrived at the end of the trial, if the legal process was the same. I looked at my father. He ruled here, so he’d presumably be the one to weigh the evidence and pass judgment. I had never seen him in this role—I’d hardly seen him at all—but his reputation was legendary and he wasn’t known for his overabundance of mercy.
An advisor approached and whispered into dad’s ear. He was the chancellor, if I remembered correctly. He had a cat-like face and I’d met him before.
My father looked my way as the chancellor spoke.
Dad stood and took a couple of steps in my direction. Green buds of fresh clover sprang up from the stones where he walked. He was an Earth Mage, and all of Nature loved him. When he stopped, the clover flowered and bloomed, creating a small carpet of white around him.
“Goethe,” the Alder King said, saying my given name. Under his gaze, my posse bowed and went to one knee, including Sir Siorradh. I did the same. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have the King of the Fae focus his undivided attention on me. His glamour swept over me and a sense of loyalty and admiration filled the center of my being.
“Your majesty,” I replied. I remembered my etiquette. It was easier to do with all the strangers watching. Some stranger than others.
“What thinkest thou?” he asked. My father was a short man. Even with me on bended knee, he was only a few inches taller. His crown didn’t touch his head, but floated above him as if a mere circlet of silver wasn’t worthy of caressing his brow. I don’t think I’d noticed that before. Maybe it didn’t always happen.
What was the King asking? He had to know his question was broad and I’d just arrived. Was I supposed to decide if the girl was guilty or innocent? It was important to be fair to the accused, but I had missed all the evidence and testimony. I tried to get a read on my father’s thoughts, but his face was a mask. The impression given was he was interested in seeing how I was going to handle being put on the spot more than anything.
With a nod to the gallery, I said, “I’m unfamiliar with the Fae justice system.” My voice sounded steady, at least. Who enjoys public speaking? The members of the gallery stared at me with a mixture of expressions. Some raised an eyebrow, if they had eyebrows. Others smirked obliquely. A flippant comment came to mind, but I kept it to myself. Whatever I said or did would reflect on my father and the sense of loyalty I felt under his glamour lingered within me.
“If this has been a trial,” I said, “conducted under the procedures dictated under your law, your duty is clear.” I pulled from my own experience as a police officer and former marine. I wasn’t the first to be caught between Justice and Mercy, but my upbringing had also given me a sense of honor and that, for me, was usually the deciding factor. “You’re obligated to make the decision dictated by the law.”
There. A plug for cold, hard, dry jurisprudence.
The woman in the cage stopped sobbing and went to outright crying. “Please, sire! Mercy upon me!” She’d turned toward me. She looked to be no older than eighteen, although appearances often had very little to do with age in the Behindbeyond. Her eyes were raw and red. She looked like she had been arrested in her nightgown, with no shoes and no other clothing. Her hem was black with dirt and the sleeves were wet from tears. She shook as if her emotions were tangled up inside her, trying to get out all at once, and her wrists were held in restraints made of silver. She reached toward me, careful to avoid the bars, beseeching.
I was already a sucker for a woman in tears, but her glamour amplified my compassion tenfold. Even though a part of me knew it was a magical effect, I was affected anyway, ready to give her my vote for prom queen.
The feeling deepened. Let her go. This beautiful girl had no place in a cage, unwashed and mistreated. My father could be cruel, but this was a travesty. She should be free! I wanted—I needed—to let her go.
Searching the cage for a latch to open, I broke eye contact.
My passion for compassion dwindled like someone had turned the volume down on the radio. Her influence was strong. Messages came from her still. Messages through my hearing and messages through my heart. Small temptations.
I’m too pretty.
I don’t want to die.
I’m innocent.
Let me go.
I wanted to shake my head and clear it of her glamour, but I didn’t want to reveal how deeply she’d gotten into my thoughts. Standing as straight as possible and holding my chin up made it easier to give a stony façade. I refused to look in her eyes, but she had a Stain and I needed to examine it. Through the bars, I saw her Stain turning around her in a sickly gray-green color, with spots like blood on the edges. I’d never seen a Stain like it. It floated around her like a torn funeral shroud.
Her Stain was dying.
The skin on her chest and neck and legs had further signs of change. A pattern crawled just under the surface, like a living tattoo.
I’d seen that before as well. Just not on a person.
Stepping away from the cage, I saw a circle of silver on the floor and a pattern of silver set into the stone. The cage and the girl were in the center of the circle.
This wasn’t an amphitheater. It was a gateway.
My father wasn’t going to kill this girl. It was going to be much worse than that.
Turning my back on her, I looked over my shoulder and met my father’s eyes. I nodded once and my father set his jaw.
“Raise the Súilfirinne,” he commanded.
The maiden Nathair screamed. For a girl who was wrung out and exhausted, her shriek was shockingly loud and shrill and I had to cover my ears. She shrieked at the king, shrieked at the tribunal, shrieked at me.
She fumbled for something in her nightgown. My training had me reaching for my weapon, thinking, Gun! But my hands didn’t find a gun on my belt. Naturally, I wasn’t carrying. There were no guns in this realm. They had other weapons here.
The girl held a silver brooch in the shape of a dragonfly with faceted ruby eyes. She whispered something to it. With a fluttering of wings, the insect took off. Like a bullet, it flew over our heads and vanished. When it was gone, Nathair stopped shrieking mindlessly and started screaming words I couldn’t understand. Although the words were foreign, it sounded like a curse.
“Ní stopfaimid go dtí go mbéarfar orthu!” she cried.
Siorradh translated, “We will never stop until they are hunted down.”
We? There are more like her?
She repeated her curse over and over as a rumbling sound echoed in the chamber. Heavy things moved beneath the floor. A stone slid away and a pedestal rose from the dark eye beneath the cage. Nathair stopped screaming. The end of her high-pitched wail was a relief. The pedestal carried a silver box, taller than it was wide. The box rose from a stone container belowground and through a corresponding hole in the bottom of the cage. The girl’s eyes snapped wide and she slid away
from the box now inside the cage with her. Her fear was palpable and she started panting. She continued to back away until she hit the bars of the cage. The pain of iron on her skin was hardly a match for her fear, but she leaned forward so the bars weren’t touching her anymore.
Her breathing resonated with a note of hysteria.
The Alder King raised his hand. A glimmer of magic flared around his fingers and with a gesture the silver box fell open. Inside the silver box rested a glass case, sheltering a crystal formation longer than my arm, shaped like a sword. The glass box opened next, unfolding gradually like the petals of a flower greeting the morning sun.
Nathair hyperventilated as if she’d been presented with a poisonous snake.
A faint purple glow emanated from the crystal. Power awakening. The power felt like a cool breeze on my skin on a day when the sky was full of lightning.
The girl couldn’t take her eyes off the crystal. The king moved his hand and her hands moved as well. Blue strands of power shimmered in the silver restraints around her wrists. With his will, the king moved the silver manacles, and her hands were compelled to follow. She pulled against the restraints but she wasn’t strong enough. Every fiber of her soul wanted to resist. A measure of compassion stirred in me yet. I’d saved one woman today who had been condemned, but I couldn’t do anything for this one.
Her hands shook as she was dragged bodily toward the crystal. She shrieked again and again. Short cries that increased in pitch and volume after every breath.
With an ear-splitting scream, she touched the Súilfirinne.
Nathair’s Stain tore itself apart. She screamed again, but this scream spoke of agony instead of fear. The shreds of her Stain rose and burned like bits of paper leaving a campfire on the rising heat. A crimson miasma gathered around her, like blood from her skin in a mist.
So much red coalesced into a new form. The form of a deamhan.
The girl’s screams went to broken sobs and the sobs turned to giggles. The giggles wavered along the border of insanity, and I shivered. The sound gave me a horrible feeling as if my spine were a chalkboard and her giggles were fingernails, raking down my bones.
Got Hope Page 4