by M. J. Scott
Amongst a race so long-lived as ours, it is rare to lose one so young other than in battle, and killing him had been nothing I relished doing. But I had not been willing to sacrifice my own life to appease those who had plotted against me.
I stepped out into the early-morning sunshine and squinted toward the gate. Just as Father Cho had said, five Fae men were arrayed outside the iron barrier. Four of them sat on horses, while Tomar had dismounted from his—a massive bay of the kind he always favored—and stood by its side a few feet from the gate itself. Distancing himself from the iron, I presumed. He would not be used to it, unless he had changed his ways and started to venture farther from Summerdale than he used to.
Even I, who was used to weapons and armor, could feel the pull of those solid bars, like a silent pulse, that made the connection to the earth and all that surrounded me feel discordant and faded.
Tomar stood quietly in the sunlight, not talking to the Templars who faced him or the Fae behind him. The light bounced off his dark brown hair and threw a shadow on his face so that I couldn’t see his eyes or read their expression.
I could see his mouth, though, and it wasn’t smiling.
I slowed my walk, hoping Liam would return soon with Bryony. Her Family was nearly as high in the court as you could get without being of the queen’s line. Equal to mine. Besides which, she, from what I could gather, was well loved in the City and respected for her skill at healing and the way she managed St. Giles. Which meant the Templars wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And no sensible Fae would cross Lord sa’Eleniel by offering offense to his daughter. Or so I hoped.
I studied the men behind Tomar as I walked the last few paces. The one with darker hair than Tomar’s—near black like Bryony’s—would be the one wearing sa’Eleniel colors. I didn’t recognize him. Definitely not Bryony’s father, which was a relief. Perhaps one of her myriad uncles, whom I had never been able to keep straight. Her father’s father had had several wives so far and had sired nothing but dark-haired, blue-eyed men who tended toward severity and politics.
Bryony was a rare female in that line. Which made them overly protective of her. A fact that she didn’t like but that she had lived with until she had escaped their oversight and become a healer in the City. Which wouldn’t have improved their disposition toward me any.
Bryony was supposed to be making astute liaisons and swelling the Family ranks and influence. As far as I knew, based on the fact that she still only wore one Family ring, she hadn’t yet made any sort of partnership and her ring lacked the deep blue topaz that the sa’Eleniels gave to the mothers of their line, so I had to assume she hadn’t borne any children while I was away.
The other three, who had darker skins and bronzy hair, would be the Istars. They looked young to me, but then, I was somewhat out of the habit of judging the ages of Fae, which was an art of reading the experience in the small signs of the body and the eyes, not just the ageless faces.
I knew that I looked older than when I had left. Injury and strife had taken a toll, as had the things that I had seen. The Fae in my company likewise looked older than their years, which ranged from younger than me to several hundred years older.
So the five men before me now, including Tomar, looked strange to my eyes. Too perfect. Inhumanly so.
But I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to deal with them.
“Cousin,” I said as I came to a stop at a distance from the gate that matched his. Possibly I could have offered him a more formal greeting, but that would be setting a tone for the encounter that I was trying to avoid.
“Asharic,” Tomar said.
We stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Tomar took a deep breath. “I have been sent to bring you home.”
I nodded. “Then I will have to ask you to send my regrets. I have an engagement here in the City that will be occupying me for some time.”
He looked surprised. “The court requests you to attend.”
“That’s flattering, but my understanding is that the Veil currently stands empty. Which means that the court can request all it wishes but I don’t have to answer. The court has survived without me for many years now. I’m sure it will continue to do so.”
That made one edge of his mouth flicker upward. Nearly a smile. The tension in my stomach eased a little. Perhaps the cousin I remembered wasn’t quite so far away after all.
“As you are aware, the court is currently disrupted.”
“Well, they can’t blame me for that, at least. I was nowhere near the City when the Veil fell. Shai’el el’aria demain.” The last meant something close to “blessed be her memory.” The queen might have exiled me, but I had always liked her, as much as you could like someone who was closer to a force of nature than a person. And she was of my blood, and Tomar’s. My Family would be feeling a double loss.
Tomar inclined his head, granting me the point. “No. But still, the court must fill the Veil. Which means all the High Families are summoning their kin home.”
That much I could believe. But there were those who wouldn’t be summoned. Bryony was still here for one—though right now her “here” was still elsewhere . . . where the hell was she?—and there were other Fae still at St. Giles. Some of them had to be High Family as well. The healing magics ran strongest in the blood of the court for some reason. Maybe because the High Families were far more prone to damaging one another in the course of their jockeying for position. Perhaps the magic had developed in those directions in self-defense. The thought amused me, but I kept the smile from reaching my face. It might be misinterpreted by Tomar’s friends.
“If my Family wishes to summon me home, then why didn’t they send just you?” I asked Tomar. I jerked my chin at the other four men. “Who are they?”
“These are uncertain times. No one is venturing from Summerdale alone.”
I quirked an eyebrow at him. Our kind cannot lie, but we are very, very good at dissembling. We can avoid saying what we do not want to say. Tomar could be speaking the truth and the four men with him were friends who had volunteered to accompany him safely to the City and back, or they could have a different agenda altogether. One that he was failing to mention. Like dragging me back to Summerdale for a purpose far less pleasant than seeing my Family and taking my part in the court shenanigans that would accompany the seeking of a new ruler. And the latter was guaranteed to be quite unpleasant enough as it was.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry but I can’t. Please convey my apologies.”
Tomar, I realized, wasn’t listening to me. Instead he was staring past my shoulder. I hadn’t been paying attention. Bryony had arrived.
“Can’t what?” she asked, coming to stand beside me. Today she didn’t feel still. No, today her mood crackled around her, sparking the air to life. I hid my smile. No one sensible crossed Lord sa’Eleniel, nor should anyone annoy his daughter too much when she was in this temper. I wondered if Tomar remembered that.
“Tomar here has come to invite me home.”
Bryony flicked me a rapid sidelong glance. Then she straightened her shoulders and aimed her disapproving gaze at the Fae men. “Is that so?”
“Apparently. He seems quite insistent.”
Bryony glanced backward. I followed the line of her gaze and saw Liam and Guy DuCaine standing a few feet behind us. More reinforcements. Excellent.
Bryony turned back to Tomar and inclined her head toward him a little. The chain around her neck glimmered purple for a moment. “Tomar sa’Uriel’aven. I have not seen you in the City before.” Her gaze moved past him and onto the men on their horses. “Nor you, Uncle. Did you feel like an outing? I understood the Gate to Summerdale stood closed.”
So I had, at least, correctly identified one of the men. The dark-haired man stared down at Bryony with an expression that was part amusement, part exasperation. “Your father thought that if Tomar was coming to fetch the young Pellar here, then it was worth me coming to talk to you again. Ask you to come
home too.”
She shrugged. “Has the court convened for a coronation?”
Her uncle shook his head. “No. The Veil still stands empty.”
“Then there is no need for me to return, is there?” She tipped her head toward me. “And the City needs Asharic for now. Hard as it may be to believe, he apparently has his uses.”
“Bryony.” Her uncle’s eyes didn’t even flicker in my direction. From which I was to understand, or so I gathered, that I was not even worthy of a moment of his attention. It didn’t impress me. “Won’t you see sense?” he continued. “It’s dangerous here.”
“It’s no less dangerous in the court right now, I would imagine. At least here, the enemies are clearly identifiable.” She smiled, the expression carrying a dangerous edge.
He pursed his lips, disapproval clear in his face. “No one will offer you harm while your father is alive.”
“Depends on your definition of harm,” she muttered in a voice so soft that only I could hear. She flicked a hand toward her uncle, the sunlight catching her ring, the dark stones flaring to match the temper in her eyes.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go back empty-handed,” she said. “Unless Asharic wants to go with you.” She turned to me.
“I have already explained to Tomar that I’m needed here in the City,” I said.
“Good, then that’s—” Behind her, Guy coughed and Bryony paused. Then turned to the Templar and beckoned him forward. The big blond man strode to her side and bent to murmur something in her ear, his head so close to hers that I had to fight back a pang of envy that cut more fiercely than Tomar’s lack of any sign of happiness at my return.
Bryony nodded at something Guy had said and then the Templar stepped back again. They exchanged a long look and eventually Guy shrugged as if to say “It’s up to you.”
The twist in my stomach tightened a turn or two. What were the two of them contemplating?
Bryony turned back to her uncle. “Although,” she said, “perhaps not quite empty-handed.”
“Oh?”
“You can take my father a message from me. Tell him that if he will allow me and a delegation from the humans to come to Summerdale to discuss the treaty, then he will see me return for a time.”
“Summerdale is closed to any non-Fae,” her uncle said bluntly.
“Perhaps he would like to reconsider that policy.”
“It is the court’s decision.”
“Then perhaps my father can turn his thoughts to changing their mind.”
“The court is not inclined to help the humans.”
“Then the court needs to start thinking clearly,” Bryony snapped. “The queen held this peace for so long because it was beneficial to all of us. If the Blood reign here they will bring more than disaster for the humans.
“The court is occupied with finding the new holder of the Veil.”
“The court, in my experience, is more than capable of doing more than one thing at a time. In fact, they delight in doing so. But there is little point to you and me standing here arguing, Uncle. The quicker you return to Summerdale, the quicker you can tell my father what I have asked.”
“Oh, joyful fortune,” her uncle muttered. But then he nodded. “I will ask. But do not hold your breath for a response that will please you.”
Chapter Six
BRYONY
Uncle Mikel stepped back and I could tell that he was happy that he could at least tell Father that he had spoken to me and delivered the message. He was less happy about the request that I’d made in return, but he was fond enough of me that I believed he would do as I had asked.
Of all my father’s myriad brothers and half brothers, Mikel came the closest to having an actual sense of humor. Not that he was allowed to use it all that often within the court. The sa’Eleniels did dignity and pomp. Frivolity wasn’t to be indulged. I’d always thought that that was the reason that my father had disapproved of Asharic so vehemently. Ash, when I knew him, had been the very definition of frivolity.
I’d often wondered whether Fen’s father had been from one of the Families in Ash’s lineage. That same sense of wickedness and charm that burned bright and enticed all who came into its boundaries burned strong in him. But Fen had never shown any inclination to discussing his Fae heritage with me—not that I could blame him—and since the queen had taught him control of the visions that had plagued him so badly, he no longer had any need to seek out any help from his Fae relatives.
Indeed he was wise to avoid them. The Sight is a highly valued gift, and depending on the attitudes of the Family that Fen’s father came from, a hai-salai with such powers would be an extraordinarily valuable tool, to be caged and cossetted like a favored lapdog but also strictly controlled. He definitely wouldn’t be allowed to run free in the City to consort with humans and do whatever he willed. He would be kept safely in Summerdale to do his Family’s bidding.
Maybe that was the solution to Ash as well. Send him home to Summerdale and let them deal with him. Let me continue the life I’d forged for myself in the City. It had taken me some time to find my balance in this place. I had no desire for Asharic to upset it. Though Ash clearly had his own ideas about that.
But, tempting as it was, it would be asking for trouble to allow the Fae to sweep him off now. The Templars needed his forces and Veil only knew what they would do if their leader was taken from them. There was enough strife in the City without adding several thousand angry mercenaries to the equation.
Tomar was staring at his cousin, studying him in a way I recognized. As though he wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t seeing a mirage or a cruel joke conjured with glamour. The same way I’d felt when Ash first appeared.
When Ash first left I’d spent months thinking that I saw him in a crowd or across the street. I would wake with the scent of him in my nose and the sensation of his body next to mine strong in the shivers of my nerves. But that had faded, as heartbreak does. I had locked away those memories. There had been little choice. Exiles rarely returned. And to go with him would have been to choose exile myself. And giving up the healing path and the training I was undertaking.
I hadn’t been able to take that path with him. I wondered how much of it had been the sheer fury that had burned through me at the time. Anger at Asharic for being so stupid. Anger at the court. Anger that he couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t come with him.
There had been anger enough between us to set the City on fire.
As there had been desire.
But that was before. And this was now. Ash and I were a story that would remain untold.
Tomar, however, looked as though he wasn’t entirely sure how he wanted the rest of the tale to go.
Ash, standing still beside me, did not seem inclined to make the choice any easier. That much, it seemed, had not changed.
“Asharic, you should come with me,” Tomar said. “The court is—”
Ash cut him off with a sharp gesture that showed no inclination to accede to his cousin’s request. He had grown used to being obeyed in his time away from us. And, I guessed, far less used to having to submit to anybody’s authority. A mercenary took instruction from whoever hired him, I supposed, but the bond was one of money, not honor or loyalty. You could walk away if you were willing to forgo the payment and face the consequences. And Ash had never been one to be easily swayed from his path by the threat of consequences
“I said no. Let them come to me.”
“I’m here,” Tomar said. “Is that not enough? You have been away from us for many years. Are you not eager to rejoin your Family?”
Ash shrugged. I suspected that it cost him, that air of casual disinterest that he donned so readily. “I have a job to do. The court—and my Family—have waited this long for me. They can wait a little longer. And they can send me a warmer welcome than five armed men.”
“Ash . . . ,” Tomar said with a hint of pleading in the word.
“Good day, cousin. I have b
usiness to be about. And you have a journey back to Summerdale to undertake. You would not want to be caught here after sundown.”
There was time enough and more for a journey back to Summerdale. It only took a few hours—three at most— to reach the Gate.
“I will return,” Tomar said.
“I will be glad to see you, cousin,” Ash said with a bow. And then he turned and walked back into the Brother House. I watched Tomar carefully, waiting to see if he would do anything foolish like try to challenge the Templar guards for access to the order’s grounds and pursue his cousin within the walls. But Tomar had never been as foolhardy as Ash and he stayed where he was.
The three men behind him looked somewhat annoyed by the turn of events, but they didn’t dismount. And Uncle Mikel had merely watched the whole exchange with a kind of benign disinterest. But inevitably, his gaze returned to me.
“You will take my message, Uncle?”
“I will.”
“Then I too have business to be about.” I nodded at Tomar. “I wish safe journey to you all.” Then I turned and followed the path Ash had taken back into the Brother House. It was bordering on rude for him to leave as he had done, but I didn’t blame him for the retreat. It was sensible to put himself beyond the reach of the five Fae if they did decide to change his mind more forcibly, and in any case, he had probably grown out of the habit of court manners living the life of a mercenary, traveling to whatever provinces might need his services.
I could see how that part of the life he’d chosen would have been inviting. Being free to set one’s own destiny was vastly appealing after the strictures of court life. It was the same reason I’d chosen to work at St. Giles rather than be a healer in the Veiled World. Escape.
But at the same time, Ash had been loyal to the queen’s edicts and had never tried to return, never—as far as I knew—tried to contact any of his Family in all the years he had been away.
The question now was whether it would be possible for him to connect with them again. If they wanted him to. If he wanted to.