of Maidens & Swords

by Melissa Marr

  A child would be complicated, but the thought of watching his own daughter or son grow up made Irial struggle to breath. He had never had that, and according to the letters he’d received, he should have. The closest he’d come was the half-fey children that Gabriel had sired. He was an “uncle” of sorts to many halflings, but the thought of his own child suddenly filled him with longing.

  As she walked toward Irial, her footsteps were muffled by the overly thick burgundy and gold rug. Shadows puddled where she stepped as if to soak up some sort of magic in her very touch.

  “I do not ask you to be my tiger on a leash,” Leslie explained softly.

  “Mmmm.”

  She paused, despite the catch in her breathing and the widening of her eyes. The control she had made him certain that she could rule a nation of pirates . . . or monsters. Leslie was not immune to his allure, but if he didn’t know better, he might think she was.

  The sound of her breathing, of her trying not to run to him, was enough to make him have to resist leaning forward. For all of his centuries of living, only one other mortal had made him feel so oddly human. That was over a century before Leslie had been born, and he still wondered if he ought to mention it to her.

  Niall knew. Gabriel had known. The only others who remembered his brief relationship were fey of his court, those who would not share his secret—even with Leslie.

  “You’re staring,” she teased, voice breathless as he felt.

  “As are you.”

  “It’s been three weeks since I saw you. Staring is sort of inevitable.”

  “Ah, and here I worried you were immune by now,” he kept his voice teasing, but they both knew that he could not lie.

  It was a fear—one of many these days. The gazes of others, fey and mortal, still raked over him. From thistle-skinned creatures of the Dark Court to the Scrimshaw Sisters of the Winter Court to the vine-bedecked Summer Girls, faeries watched him as if he was every dream they had. Although he knew Leslie wanted him, she could—and did—leave for weeks.

  Niall did the same. It made Irial prone to waves of melancholy. If those who loved him didn’t long for every moment with him, was he . . . lacking?

  “Immune? To you?” Leslie laughed softly. “We both know that’s impossible. Staring would be just as unavoidable if I’d seen you last week. I always want to see you, Iri. That’s part of love.”

  “I do love you,” he assured her.

  There was a question in her words, though, one he was trying to avoid answering. Telling her she had his heart didn’t seem to be enough this time. Niall had delivered Irial’s excuses to Leslie, but neither of them believed him. The difference, of course, was that Niall was more tolerant of Irial’s tendency toward secrecy. They lived together more peacefully than he’d hoped possible because they both kept more than a few boxes of secrets hidden away.

  Leslie had no such patience.

  She stood in front of Irial now, her knees not quite touching his, and he had to resist the dual urges to reach out and to run away. “But you could’ve come with Niall last week. Perhaps I am not irresistible these days . . . ?”

  “He told you that I wasn’t able to come,” Irial hedged.

  “He told me a bunch of excuses, and I’m not so innocent as to believe them. Lies are lies, Iri, even when they are delivered by someone who knows how to distract me.” Leslie caressed his face. “Why don’t you tell me you weren’t able to come, Irial? Say those words to me.”

  The half-accusing, half-angry tone in her words made his resolve falter. He couldn’t lie outright, and those words were a lie.

  “I would say them if I could,” he admitted. “I chose not to visit.”

  Leslie withdrew her hand, leaving him wishing he could lean closer, but too proud to do so. “Because? Tell me, Irial. Is it because of threatening my landlord? He offered to extend my lease suddenly. And there was some error, apparently. I no longer owe back rent. Are you feeling guilty?”

  The former king leaned away, more to resist his own temptations than anything else.

  “I know you can’t help yourself sometimes,” Leslie allowed.

  “If I have meddled, I’m certain it was justified.” He’d far rather discuss his supposed sins than his actual ones. Then, at least, he could be truthful with her. He hadn’t avoided her from guilt, so there was no harm in owning whatever she thought him guilty of this time.

  His reasons for avoiding her were harder to discuss.

  Once, almost four years ago, they were bound together by blood and ink. Her emotions were the food that sustained him, the wine that intoxicated him, but their bond changed him even as it nourished him. She’d severed all but the barest thread of their connection, setting him adrift in the world, feeling like a strange new version of himself. Back then, Irial had been willing to give up everything . . . except her. Now, he was facing the possibility of losing her. It was an intolerable fate.

  “You’re hiding something,” she announced.

  “Trying.”

  “Failing.” She reached out again, hand not quite touching him but near enough to make him feel like a hapless insect drawn to destruction.

  “Don’t ask me why I didn’t visit,” he half-begged, half-ordered. “Tell me how to atone for this meddling you say I did.”

  He’d ruled the monsters that were only spoken of in whispers, but for the second time in his life, a human girl held power over him.

  “You didn’t do it, did you?”

  Irial shrugged. There was no harm in being held accountable for what Niall had likely done. From all of his years in the Summer Court, Niall carried an impulsiveness that sometimes made him unable to use caution or common sense—and those outside the Dark Court thought Irial guilty of many an ill-thought out act that was Niall’s doing.

  “So. . . not you.”

  “I didn’t say that, love. I am guilty of all manner of things. I simply asked which has you in this mood.” He lit a cigarette, pulling the smoke into his lungs with the comfort of a man who will never weaken or die from the poisonous stuff. It was a pleasant perk of being fey.

  “No. I can feel your emotions, Irial. It’s not the same as before, but it’s growing stronger the past few months.” Leslie spoke carefully as if she were weighing the words, sliding invisible fingers over the tendrils that flowed between their bodies again. “When I . . . cut the ties, it was like a ghost that passed by me sometimes, but now, it’s like I can feel you more and more every month.”

  “Not enough to know whether I’m truly guilty, though.”

  “True,” she murmured.

  He caught her hand and pressed it to his cheek. “Does that help?”

  Leslie laughed before saying, “Touching you always helps, but it doesn’t always make you easier to read.”

  She caressed his face for a moment before settling onto his lap. There was no doubt in her, no insecurity as there had been when he’d first seen her. Back then she was a broken doll hiding her fears behind a false bravado. She’d survived an assault that left her screaming inside and trying desperately to pretend she was untouched by the pain. She’d been everything he needed for a conduit to feed the Dark Court: all but destroyed but still fierce inside.

  For the past several years, the Dark Court had been her home. The monsters she’d saved would willingly kill or die for her. Admittedly, they’d also willingly kill for a cookie, but they wouldn’t die for just anyone. They’d donned glamours and cheered her every victory while she was at university. They’d been planning a party for her upcoming graduation that even Irial thought might be a bit over the top, but he wasn’t their king anymore and their current king would agree to any excess if he thought it would please Leslie.

  “Niall’s away,” Irial said, trying to remember that she wasn’t only his, not now.

  “I know. I saw him last week. He isn’t avoiding me.” She slid her hand from Irial’s cheek to his throat. “I’m here to see you, Iri. You can’t hide from me if I’m in here w
ith you.”

  Possessiveness flared at the thought of a few uninterrupted days with her. He ground his unfinished cigarette. No amount of time with Leslie was ever enough, could ever be enough. She was too mortal, too fleeting, and fate had a horrible habit of stealing those he loved.

  As Leslie twined her arms around him and pulled him into a kiss, Irial stopped thinking. She was here now, touching him, and that was more than he’d ever expected when they’d first been bonded. Ink exchanges were often fatal, so by the time he realized he loved her, he’d expected her to die. When she severed their bond, it held a likelihood of killing her. When he’d been poisoned, he hadn’t even had time to see her before he slipped into a comatose state. So to be kissing her several years later was . . . whatever came after miracles.

  And like all miracles, he couldn’t even quite believe this was real. He’d been the thing that led the worst of Faerie’s monsters for over a millennium, the embodiment of Discord for the past few years, and his greatest fear was losing the two people he loved.

  He’d done so once. Twice. Three times. Centuries ago, he’d lost the faery he now shared his home with, and then he lost the mortal he’d loved, and then he’d lost Leslie briefly, and then he’d died.

  Dying ended up being a temporary state, but he felt the finiteness of life since that unfortunate event.

  Losing a loved one always hurt, but with Niall and Leslie, they were still alive even when they weren’t his. He’d been separated, partly, from them when he died. That, too, was bearable. Death of a loved one, on the other hand, was a far uglier thing. He’d gone through it once, and he’d thought the madness of losing the only other mortal he’d loved would break him. He wouldn’t do it again.

  “You must never die,” he whispered to the woman in his arms.

  Leslie smiled, kissed him again, but she made no such promises.

  Mortals age. They die. And Leslie thought she was mortal still. He hoped she was wrong, but he wasn’t sure. The thought that he might be wrong made him pull her tighter to him. “Never. Ever. Leave. Me.”

  Not long after, both of them half-drunk of kisses, Leslie watched Irial decided what and how much he could still misdirect her. It was a lie, but he had been king of the Dark Court for literal centuries. He was good at lying by way of omission, misdirection, and other subterfuge.

  “I need answers,” she nudged.

  From the comfort of the sofa, Leslie watched the centuries’ old faery pace as he acted only slightly older than the boys at university. Faeries age slower than mortals, and Irial had been a creature of self-indulgence so long that he reacted to restrictions, rules, or confusions with a mix of temper and embarrassment.

  “Time to talk,” she announced.

  “Fine.” He sulked—and she tried not to laugh. Learning to live with the Dark Court meant learning that the monsters were often not as scary as people thought, and not nearly as scary as they pretended. At least it seemed that way to her.

  Certainly, after the battle between the courts in which Bananach died, Leslie could admit that there was a violence to them that she rarely saw.

  “I graduate in a few weeks,” she nudged. “Is that what has you upset?”

  “No.” Irial poured himself a drink.

  Lightly she said, “Sometimes I swear you have single-malt bottles in every room.”

  He grinned, drank, and refilled his glass. “I usually do, but this is the study. What sort of study lacks liquor? Or books? Or a comfortable sofa?”

  As Leslie was stretched out on said sofa, she wasn’t likely to argue. “Fair enough.”

  He shook the glass. “Drink?”

  Leslie shook her head. She was legal now, but she didn’t often drink. “My liver isn’t as eternal as yours.”

  His face darkened.

  “Is that what this is all about?” Leslie stared at him. “My lack of eternity?”

  “Perhaps.” Irial downed his drink. “I dislike how easily and quickly mortals die.”

  “I’m here right now.” She stood, hands on her hips, but regretfully not terribly intimidating. “I’m in my second decade of life, Iri. Second.”

  “And unless something changes, you only have a handful left. Not even a century.” His voice grew louder, not quite yelling but far louder than normal speech.

  Leslie took a step back. He was far from perfect, but it wasn’t like him to yell. He was calm, sardonic, charming, and a million other things. He could be irritating, and on a few occasions, she’d seen him seem cold or cruel when he and Niall were at odds.

  Never to her, though.

  “Something else is going on.” She stepped toward him, approaching as if he were a feral animal that might flee.

  “I don’t know if I can do this again,” he said quietly. He bowed his head.

  “Do what?” Leslie reached out, and he withdrew further.

  “Love someone who is going to die,” he admitted.

  As pieces started to click together, she stared, mouth agape.

  Again.

  He was afraid to love someone again who would die. Foolishly, she’d assumed there had only been Niall. He’d lived for centuries, though. No one was sure how many. He was older than Keenan, the reigning Winter King and former Summer King, and Keenan was over nine hundred years old.

  “A human?” she asked.

  At first, Irial simply stared at her. Then he gave a nod.

  “I had no idea,” she said, as gently as she could.

  Irial shrugged. “I don’t discuss her.”

  Leslie felt like her heart would break as his wave of sorrow washed over her. The ties that bound them were still fragile things, but even the edge of his grief brought tears to her eyes. Once, before them, Irial had loved deeply. Not Niall. Not her. A stranger. The thought of it made her understand his attempts to withdraw from her. What was confusing was why now? Why did he feel so much fear now when she had always been mortal?

  “How old was she?”

  Irial smiled sadly. “Young when we met. Older than you, but times were different then.” He took Leslie’s hand in his. “You are very different people. . . and I’ve lived longer than I can fathom. Do not feel jealous, love.”

  Leslie kissed him gently. “I am well aware that I am not the first woman in your life, Iri.”

  He nodded, and they were together quietly for a moment longer.

  Then, sheepishly, she admitted, “I just figured that you hadn’t loved any of them.”

  He lit a cigarette and paced. His energy, the sheer emotional chaos that rode in his expression, reminded her that while he was gentler with her, he was still something of a caged tiger.

  “I almost started a war over her,” he said quietly. “When I lost her, I wondered why I ought not start it anyhow.”

  There was little that she could do. His withdrawal and her healing connection to him— Leslie had to wonder if it was all connected.

  “I am not good at grieving,” Irial said lightly, as if she had forgotten how devastating grief could be.

  Leslie thought back to Niall when he’d been grieving.

  She walked into the room to find Niall holding a fire poker which he’d just tried to shove into Seth’s eye. There was a madness there that she’d not ever seen before, but struggled to forget. Inside one of the two faeries she loved was a darkness that was more unstable than Irial’s calculated coldness.

  “You are not this person,” Leslie told Niall.

  He dropped the poker to the warehouse floor when he saw her.

  Slowly, carefully, Leslie walked farther into the room. Niall’s skin sizzled from gripping the poker, and Seth’s face was burned. The smell was unsettling, but not as much as the lost look on Niall’s face.

  She stepped in front of the cage that held Seth, the beloved of the Summer King and friend to Niall until today.

  “Niall? You don’t really want to hurt yourself . . . or him.”

  Niall looked lost, as if his very world had vanished. He stared at her
. “Seth Sees things. He knew and . . . He knew that Irial . . .”

  “I heard what happened.” Leslie approached Niall with her hand outstretched, as if she could touch him and heal him with it. She understood as no one in the world did. Irial wasn’t the sort of person who could be replaced, who could be lost without a ravine in the middle of her heart. She knew what Niall felt because she felt it too.

  “Ash called me. Donia called me. . . . You sent for me. Do you remember that, Niall? You sent Hounds.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” he whispered.

  “I’m here.” Leslie looked over her shoulder.

  Behind her, a Hound stood in the open doorway. She wasn’t sure if he was there for her safety or Niall’s. It was all the same though. The court—and it was her court, too—was in pain. They were grieving, and their new king was unraveling.

  “I am here with my court,” she assured Niall. “I am here with you . . . because you needed me. They need me to be here with you.”

  She took Niall’s uninjured hand in hers, careful not to look at the burned flesh on the other hand, and used the only words she was sure would matter just then: “Irial wouldn’t want you to hurt. You know that.”

  Leslie remembered that sorrow, how it had nearly destroyed the entire Dark Court.

  Her own grief was less horrifying in its results, but she would never forget that utter terror that washed over her at the thought of never again touching or laughing with Irial.

  She reached out and caressed his cheek. “You’re in pain, and I understand.”

  He stared at her.

  “I lost you once, Irial. In all the world, there is no one like you, and you were dead. . . and I love Niall as fully as I love you, and he was grieving.” She felt tears escape her eyes. “Do you think I don’t understand your fear?”

  Several hours later, Leslie lifted her head from his chest and stared at him. “Are you okay?”

  At some point in their lovemaking, Irial felt a tear slip from his face to hers, and he hoped she hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t wept, but in the moment of union, he was overwhelmed.