She brushed her lips lightly over the palm of my hand and released it. Then she lay still, watching me intently.
I was flattered. To this day I know of only one answer to a question so politely phrased. I bent to kiss her. And laughing, she took me in her arms.
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
Magic of a Different Kind
BY THIS POINT IN my life, I’d earned myself a modest reputation.
No, that’s not entirely true. It’s better to say that I had built myself a reputation. I’d crafted it deliberately. I’d cultivated it.
Three-quarters of the stories folk told about me at the University were ridiculous rumors I’d started myself. I spoke eight languages. I could see in the dark. When I was three days old, my mother hung me in a basket from a rowan tree by the light of the full moon. That night a faerie laid a powerful charm on me to always keep me safe. It turned my eyes from blue to leafy green.
I knew how stories worked, you see. Nobody believed that I’d traded a cupped handful of my own fresh blood to a demon in exchange for an Alar like a blade of Ramston steel. But still, I was the highest ranked duelist in Dal’s class. On a good day, I could beat any two of them together.
That thread of truth wove through the story, gave it strength. So even though you might not believe it, you might tell it to a wide-eyed first term student with a drink in him, just to watch his face, just for fun. And if you’d had a drink or three yourself, you might begin to wonder....
And so the stories spread. And so, around the University at least, my tiny reputation grew.
There were a few true stories as well. Pieces of my reputation I’d honestly earned. I had rescued Fela from a blazing inferno. I had been whipped in front of a crowd and refused to bleed. I’d called the wind and broken Ambrose’s arm....
Still, I knew my reputation was a coat spun out of cobweb. It was storybook nonsense. There were no demons out there, bargaining for blood. There were no helpful faeries granting magic charms. And though I might pretend, I knew I was no Taborlin the Great.
These were my thoughts when I woke, tangled in Felurian’s arms. I lay quietly among the cushions for a time, her head resting lightly on my chest, her leg thrown loosely over mine. Looking up through the trees at the twilight sky, I realized I could not recognize the stars. They were brighter than those in the mortal sky, their patterns unfamiliar.
It was only then that I realized my life had taken a step in a new direction. Up until now, I had been playing at being a young Taborlin. I had spun lies around myself, pretending to be a storybook hero.
But now there was no sense pretending. What I’d done was truly worth a story, every bit as odd and wonderful as any tale of Taborlin himself. I’d followed Felurian into the Fae, then bested her with magics I couldn’t explain, let alone control.
I felt different now. More solid somehow. Not older, exactly. Not wiser. But I knew things that I’d never known before. I knew the Fae were real. I knew their magic was real. Felurian could break a man’s mind with a kiss. Her voice could tug me like a puppet by its strings. There were things I could learn here. Strange things. Powerful things. Secret things. Things I might never ever have a chance to learn again.
I gently freed myself from Felurian’s sleeping embrace and walked down to the nearby pool. I splashed water on my face and scooped up several handfuls to drink.
I looked through the plants that grew at the water’s edge. I picked some leaves and chewed them as I considered how I might approach the subject with Felurian. The mint sweetened my breath.
When I returned to the pavilion, Felurian was standing there, brushing pale fingers through her long dark hair.
I handed her a violet, its color dark as her eyes. She smiled at me and ate it.
I decided to approach the subject gently, lest I offend her. “I was wondering,” I said carefully, “if you would be willing to teach me.”
She reached out to touch the side of my face gently. “foolish sweet,” she said fondly. “have not I already begun?”
I felt excitement rise in my chest, amazed that it could be so simple. “Am I ready for my next lesson?” I asked.
Her smile grew wider and she looked me up and down, her eyes going half-lidded and mysterious. “are you?”
I nodded.
“it is good you are eager,” Felurian said, her fluting voice tinged with amusement. “you have some cleverness and natural skill. but there is much to learn.” She looked into my eyes, her delicate face gravely serious. “when you leave to walk among the mortal, I will not have you shame me.”
Felurian took my hand and drew me into the pavilion. She pointed. “sit.”
I sat on a cushion, placing my head level with the smooth expanse of her stomach. Her navel was terribly distracting.
She looked down at me, her expression proud and regal as a queen. “amouen,” she said, spreading the fingers of one hand and making a deliberate gesture. “this we call the hushed hart. an easy lesson to begin, and one I expect you will enjoy.”
Felurian smiled at me then, her eyes old and knowing. And even before she pushed me back against the cushions and began to bite the side of my neck, I realized that she did not intend to teach me magic. Or if she did, it was magic of a different kind.
While it was not the subject I’d hoped to study under her, it’s fair to say that I was not entirely disappointed. Learning lover’s arts from Felurian far outstripped any curriculum offered at the University.
I am not referring to the vigorous sweaty wrestling most men—and alas, most women—think of as love. While sweat and vigor are pleasant parts of it, Felurian brought to my attention the subtler pieces. If I were to go into the world, she said, I would not embarrass her by being an incompetent lover, and so she took care to show me a great many things.
A few of them in her words: The pinioned wrist. The sigh toward the ear. Devouring the neck. Drawing the lips. The kissing of the throat, the navel, and—as Felurian phrased it—the woman’s flower. The breathing kiss. The feather kiss. The climbing kiss. So many different types of kissing. Too many to remember. Almost.
There was drawing water from the well. The fluttering hand. Birdsong at morning. Circling the moon. Playing ivy. The harrowed hare. Just the names would fill a book. But this, I suppose, is not the place for such things. Alas then for the world.
I don’t mean to give the impression that all our hours were spent in dalliance. I was young and Felurian was immortal, but there is only so much two bodies can endure. The rest of the time we amused ourselves in other ways. We swam and ate. I played songs for Felurian, and she danced for me.
I asked Felurian a few careful questions about magic, not wanting to offend her by prying at her secrets. Unfortunately, her answers were not particularly enlightening. Her magic came as naturally as breathing. I might as well have asked a farmer how seeds sprouted. When her answers weren’t hopelessly nonchalant, they were puzzlingly cryptic.
Still, I continued to ask, and she answered as best she could. And occasionally I felt a small spark of understanding.
But most of our time was spent telling stories. We had so little in common that stories were all that we could share.
You might think Felurian and I would be unevenly matched in this regard. She was older than the sky, while I was not yet seventeen.
But Felurian was not the narrative treasure trove you would think. Powerful and clever? Certainly. Energetic and lovely? Absolutely. But storytelling was not among her many gifts.
I, on the other hand, was of the Edema Ruh, and we know all the stories in the world.
So I told her “The Ghost and the Goosegirl.” I told her “Tam and the Tinker’s Spade.” I told her stories of woodcutters and widow’s daughters and the cleverness of orphan boys.
In exchange, Felurian told me manling stories: “The Hand at the Heart of the Pearl,” “The Boy Who Ran Between.” The Fae have their own cast of legendary characters: Mavin the Manshaped, Alavin Allface. Surpri
singly, Felurian had never heard of Taborlin the Great or Oren Velciter, but she did know who Illien was. It made me proud that one of the Edema Ruh had gained a place in the stories the Fae tell each other.
I wasn’t blind to the fact that Felurian herself might have the information I was looking for about the Amyr and the Chandrian. How much more enjoyable would it be to learn the truth from her, rather than rooting endlessly through ancient books in dusty rooms?
Unfortunately, Felurian wasn’t the mine of information I’d hoped. She knew stories of the Amyr, but they were thousands of years old.
When I asked her about the more recent Amyr, asking about church knights and the Ciridae with their bloody tattoos, she merely laughed. “there were never any human amyr,” she said, dismissing the idea out of hand. “those you speak of sound like children dressing in their parents’ clothes.”
While I might expect that reaction from others, getting it from Felurian was particularly disheartening. Still, it was nice to know I had been right about the Amyr existing long before they became knights of the Tehlin church.
Then, since the Amyr were a lost cause, I tried to steer her in the direction of the Chandrian.
“no,” she said, looking me squarely in the eye, her back straight. “I will not speak of the seven.” Her soft voice held no lilting whimsy. No playfulness. No room for discussion or negotiation.
For the first time since our initial conflict, I felt a trickle of icy fear sweep over me. She was so slight and lovely, it was so easy to forget what she truly was.
Still, I couldn’t let the subject go so easily. This was, quite literally, a once in a lifetime opportunity. If Felurian could be persuaded to tell me even a piece of what she knew, I could learn things no one else in the world might know.
I gave her my most charming smile and drew a breath to speak, but before I could get the first word out, Felurian leaned forward and kissed me full upon the mouth. Her lips were plush and warm. Her tongue brushed mine and she bit the swell of my lower lip playfully.
When she pulled her mouth from mine, it left me breathless with a racing heart. She looked at me, her dark eyes full of tender sweetness. She laid her hand along my face, brushing my cheek as gently as a flower.
“my sweet love,” she said. “if you ask of the seven again in this place, I will drive you from it. no matter if your asking be firm or gentle, honest or slantways. if you ask, I will whip you forth from here with a lash of brambles and snakes. I will drive you before me, bloody and weeping, and will not stop until you are dead or fled from fae.”
She didn’t look away from me as she spoke. And though I hadn’t looked away or seen them change, her eyes were no longer soft with adoration. They were dark as storm clouds, hard as ice.
“I do not jest,” she said. “I swear this by my flower and the ever-moving moon. I swear it by salt and stone and sky. I swear this singing and laughing, by the sound of my own name.” She kissed me again, pressing her lips to mine tenderly. “I will do this thing.”
And that was the end of it. I might be a fool, but I am not that much of a fool.
Felurian was more than willing to talk about the Fae realm itself. And many of her stories detailed the fractious politics of the faen courts: the Tain Mael, the Daendan, the Gorse Court. These stories were difficult for me to follow as I didn’t know anything about the factions involved, let alone the web of alliances, false friendships, open secrets, and old grudges that bound Fae society together.
This was complicated by the fact that Felurian took it for granted that I understood certain things. If I were telling you a story, for example, I wouldn’t bother mentioning that most moneylenders are Cealdish, or that there is no royalty older than the Modegan royal line. Who doesn’t know such things?
Felurian left similar details out of her stories. Who wouldn’t know, for example, that the Gorse Court had meddled in the Berentaltha between the Mael and the House of Fine?
And why was this important? Well of course that would lead to members of the Gorse being scorned by those on the dayward side of things. And what was the Berentaltha? A sort of dance. And why was this dance important?
After a handful of questions such as this, Felurian’s eyes would narrow. I quickly learned it was better to follow along, quiet and confused, rather than try to winkle out every detail and risk her irritation.
Still, I learned things from these stories: a thousand small, scattered facts about the Fae. The names of the courts, old battles, and notable persons. I learned you must never look at one of the Thiana with both eyes at once, and that the gift of a single cinnas fruit is considered a terrible insult if given to one of the Beladari.
You might think these thousand facts gave me some insight into the Fae. That I somehow fit them together like puzzle pieces and discovered the true shape of things. A thousand facts is quite a lot, after all....
But no. A thousand seems like a lot, but there are more stars than that in the sky, and they make neither a map nor a mural. All I knew for certain after hearing Felurian’s stories is that I had no desire to ever entangle myself in even the kindest corner of the faen court. With my luck I’d whistle while walking under a willow and thereby insult God’s barber, or something of the sort.
Here is the one thing I learned from these stories: the Fae are not like us. This is endlessly easy to forget, because many of them look as we do. They speak our language. They have two eyes. They have hands, and their mouths make familiar shapes when they smile. But these things are only seemings. We are not the same.
I have heard people say that men and the Fae are as different as dogs and wolves. While this is an easy analogy, it is far from true. Wolves and dogs are only separated by a minor shade of blood. Both howl at night. If beaten, both will bite.
No. Our people and theirs are as different as water and alcohol. In equal glasses they look the same. Both liquid. Both clear. Both wet, after a fashion. But one will burn, the other will not. This has nothing to do with temperament or timing. These two things behave differently because they are profoundly, fundamentally not the same.
The same is true with humans and the Fae. We forget it at our peril.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
Shaed
I SHOULD, PERHAPS, EXPLAIN a few peculiarities of the Fae.
At first glance, Felurian’s forest glade did not seem particularly odd. In most ways it resembled an ancient, untouched piece of forest. If not for the unfamiliar stars above, I might have suspected I was still in an isolated piece of the Eld.
But there were differences. Since I had left my mercenary companions I had slept perhaps a dozen times. Despite this, the sky above Felurian’s pavilion remained the deep purpling blue of summer dusk and showed no signs of changing.
I had only the roughest guess as to how long I had been in the Fae. More importantly, I had no idea how much time might have been passing in the mortal world. Stories are full of boys who fall asleep in faerie circles only to wake as old men. Young girls wander into the woods and return years later, looking no older and claiming only minutes have passed.
For all I knew, years could pass each time I slept in Felurian’s arms. I could return to find a century had passed, or no time at all.
I did my best not to think about it. Only a fool worries over what he can’t control.
The other difference in the Fae realm was much more subtle and difficult to describe....
In the Medica, I had spent a fair amount of time around unconscious patients. I mention this to make a point: there is a great difference between being in a room that is empty and being in a room where someone is sleeping. A sleeping person is a presence in a room. They are aware of you, even if it is only a dim, vague awareness.
That is what the Fae was like. It was such an odd, intangible thing that I didn’t notice it for a long while. Then, once I became aware of it, it took me much longer to lay my finger on what the difference was.
It felt as if I had moved from an empty roo
m into a room where someone was asleep. Except, of course, that there was no one there. It was as if everything around me was deeply asleep: the trees, the stones, the rippling stream that widened into Felurian’s pool. All these things felt more solid, more present than I was used to, as if they were ever so slightly aware of me.
The thought that I would eventually leave the Fae alive and unbroken was an unfamiliar one for Felurian, and I could tell it troubled her. Often, while in the midst of an unrelated conversation, she would change direction and make me promise, promise, to return to her.
I reassured her as best I could, but there are only so many ways you can say the same thing. After perhaps three dozen times I said, “I will do my best to keep myself safe so I can come back to you.”
I saw her face change, becoming first anxious, then grim, then thoughtful. For a moment I worried she had decided to keep me as a pet mortal after all, and I began to berate myself for not fleeing the Fae when I had the chance....
But before I could begin to grow genuinely concerned, Felurian cocked her head to one side and seemed to change the subject, “would my sweet flame like a coat? a cloak?”
“I have one,” I said, gesturing to where my possessions lay scattered at the edge of the pavilion. Only then did I notice that the tatty old tinker’s cloak wasn’t there. I saw my clothes, my boots, and my travelsack still bulging with the Maer’s lockbox. But my cloak and sword were gone. The fact that I hadn’t noticed their absence was understandable, as I hadn’t bothered dressing since I first woke next to Felurian.
She looked me over slowly, her expression intent. Her eyes lingering on my knee, my lower arm, my upper arm. It was only when she took hold of my shoulder, and turned me so she could examine my back, that I realized she was looking at my scars.
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