by M. J. Scott
In her stead, the metalmages had sent Master Columbine, who had spent time with the Fae smiths in the past and was therefore another human well qualified to negotiate some of the perils of our world. She hadn’t said much during our journey, spending the time perched sedately on the carriage seats observing everything around her with bright blue eyes that missed nothing.
The others hung back and let me be the one to approach the door to the Gate. I had expected as much. I was to take the lead. I only hoped they would all remember that once we were inside. Especially Ash.
I lifted my hand and the door swung inward before I could even knock, leaving me face-to-face with the Seneschal. Or the woman who had held that rank when the queen was alive. It was a role appointed by the queen. Technically, it ended when the reign of the queen ended, just like Ash’s exile. But it seemed that no one had gotten around to replacing her, or perhaps, in these uncertain times, was willing to challenge the Seneschal’s long experience and mastery of the Gate’s defensive magics.
“Bryony sa’Eleniel,” she said, looking down at me with eyes like smoked ice. Her white hair was bound back from her face with bands of black pearls. They matched the black silk robe draped over her usual white dress. Mourning garb. I glanced down at my own dark gray dress. Hopefully it would pass muster. Black wasn’t required for anything other than the funeral of the queen and official court functions.
Attending the door was an official court function for the Seneschal, so I guess she had no choice. I nodded and bowed politely. The Seneschal wasn’t my favorite person in the court, but she had served the queen faithfully and well, and deserved my respect now in her time of grief.
“My father has extended an invitation to the people who accompany me. I trust you were informed.”
Her lips thinned slightly but she nodded. Apparently my father had been his usual autocratic self when he’d issued the instructions that I, and whoever I brought with me, should be admitted.
The Seneschal stepped back from the door and I turned and beckoned the others forward. As Guy stepped across the threshold, he bowed respectfully and got a slight nod in return. So she liked him at least. She didn’t pay much attention to Liam, Robert, or Master Columbine. Then Fen entered the room and her face turned thunderous.
I held up a hand to cut her off. “Fen had nothing to do with the queen’s death.”
“He failed to protect her,” she snapped.
“So did every other Fae on that field,” I replied. “He is part of my party. Unless the court has banned him.” That would require unanimous agreement amongst the High Families. I hadn’t heard that any such edict had been issued; besides which, they were surely too busy squabbling amongst themselves to actually stop and agree on anything right now.
“No,” she said tightly. She narrowed her eyes at Fen. “Do you bear iron?”
He bowed and then shook his head when he straightened. “No,” he said gently. “The queen—asai’hara nea ai—well, her grace holds and I have no further need of iron. My heart shares your sorrow.”
May the starlight sing her memory. It was nicely said of Fen—I wondered who had taught him that particular phrase—but it didn’t seem to improve the Seneschal’s attitude toward him any. Still, I gave Fen points for behaving and not doing anything to make the situation worse. He looked around the round room with something close to dislike on his face, carefully keeping his gaze, I noticed, from landing on the doors that would let us through to the Veiled World.
Asharic had stayed outside while this little exchange had taken place, but now he too stepped over the threshold. This time, the Seneschal’s mouth dropped open, though she recovered quickly. “Asharic sa’Uriel’pellar,” she managed after staring a moment longer. “You have returned.”
“My exile has ended,” he said. “Though the reason for it brings me no happiness. Asai’hara nea ai.”
This earned him a small smile. So it seemed the Seneschal was not one of those who had been arrayed against Ash back then. In truth, I didn’t remember the details of his banishment overly clearly. Only, the grief and rage that had burned within me from the moment he’d decided to accept Stellan’s challenge. I remembered the queen’s veils swirling gray around her as she pronounced the exile and the unyielding stone of her voice but little about anyone else at the court that day. I’d barely managed to stay upright and then I’d left with Ash, desperate to spend what little time we had left together.
Only to fight with him when he begged me to go with him and I refused.
The memory shone suddenly too bright in my mind, and my hand strayed to my chest, rubbing absently above my heart, as though to ease the remembered pain.
Fen shot me a sudden look, eyebrows arched above bright green eyes, and I dropped my hand back to my side.
Asharic moved to stand near Guy rather than me, which I appreciated. It was strange enough seeing him back here, looking so different in some ways and unchanged in others.
“Will you let us pass, Seneschal?” I asked formally.
She tilted her head at me, eyes unreadable. “May your time prove . . . fruitful.”
I blinked. It wasn’t the traditional response, but I didn’t really have time to try to interpret what she meant. Hopefully that she was on our side.
Maybe my father would know. I bowed thanks and the Seneschal opened the door to the Veiled World.
I went through first again, followed by Fen and the three humans. For a moment I stood still, glorying in the sudden rush of power that surged through me here where there was no iron to bar me and the source of our magic ran strong. Then Ash came through the door, and as his foot hit the ground, I felt the land shudder as though a vast bell had tolled beneath us. My power shivered in response. I quelled the reaction.
“What was that?” Fen asked, looking disturbed.
Ash shrugged. “Sorry. It’s been a long time since I was last here. I’d forgotten the difference in our powers here. It startled me.”
I eyed him warily. That wasn’t what had caused that reaction in the land. It hadn’t come from Ash at all. Even though there had been something in the rolling surge that had felt vaguely like him. Which meant, I assumed, that every Fae with half an ounce of sense might just have figured out who had crossed the threshold and returned.
“Welcome home,” I murmured, and then steeled myself for the next part of our journey.
Chapter Eight
ASH
I didn’t have long to enjoy the rush of power welling through me, circling and dazzling me like a pyrotechnical display seen too close.
Summerdale.
The feeling of it was both strange and as familiar as air flowing through my lungs. A sense of unfettered possibility. No iron to interfere with the pure song of the magic and the satisfying hum of the land beneath my feet.
I hadn’t spent too much time in human cities, where iron pulsed as strongly as it did in the City we’d just left behind, but I’d spent plenty of time with armies. And a well-equipped army could have far more iron per square yard than the average city.
My own weapons and armor were, of necessity, Fae-wrought things. Alloys humans couldn’t match that held the strength and sharpness of steel without the blinding bite of iron. But my men and my opponents most often carried steel weapons and as much steel mail as they could afford, to bolster the protection offered by hardened leather and lesser metals. I’d known the bite of steel a time or two. The first time—a dagger thrust to my side—had laid me low for days, my sense of connection to the earth and my power faded to nothingness as I fought off the burn of the metal. But over time, I’d become inured to some extent to its presence, though I still avoided direct contact wherever I could.
I guessed that Bryony and the Fae who worked at St. Giles had done much the same, extending their tolerance so that they could live and work in the City, surrounded by the metal that dulled their powers.
It had been almost thirty years since I had been in a place with no iron whatsoever for any length
of time. There had been moments here and there, of course, an hour spent roaming far from my men on scouting missions or stolen away when we’d been between jobs to find a deserted stretch of land and just let the earthsong soak into me for a while. But even that wasn’t the same as being home.
Here in the Veiled World. Where the earthsong wasn’t a whisper, it was a symphony that whispered seduction in my ear and promised to do whatever I willed. Between that and the sudden pure clear access to every last inch of my power, my pulse pounded and my head spun as though I’d had too much good wine.
The last time I’d felt this good was probably the last time I’d buried myself in Bryony, our power mingling with our bodies until we were both swept away.
Veil’s eyes.
I shouldn’t let myself remember it. The sweetness and fire of her.
Not now.
Not when she clearly was of no mind to indulge in reminiscing, let alone let me back into her bed.
Memories were only needless torture.
But I remembered all the same.
Remembered the hunger and the pleasure of her.
Wanted it again.
Down, boy, I said sternly to myself—not addressing merely that part of me that was standing to attention.
Thankfully, my sudden lust was somewhat quelled by the arrival of Bryony’s father in a huge black carriage drawn by four of his elegant black horses.
Garrett sa’Eleniel was no friend of mine; I knew that for certain. He would be even less so if he thought I was already sniffing around his daughter again.
Though I was no longer the same young man I’d been when I left Summerdale. I’d learned a thing or two since then.
Not least of which was how not to give two fucks how my enemies felt about me.
Still, it wasn’t going to make Bryony’s life any easier if I went to war with her father here and now when she was trying to make peace. So I curbed my tongue and tried to rein in the desire heating my blood and turn my thoughts to the task at hand.
I wasn’t entirely successful, but at least Lord sa’Eleniel didn’t try to strangle me on the spot, though the look he sent my way would have vaporized me where I stood, were such things actually possible.
I bowed to him and stayed silent as Bryony drew him aside for an urgent whispered conversation. Apparently she won for the moment, because, apart from another basilisk-chilling stare, her father chose to ignore my existence for the moment and busied himself with greeting the other guests and then ordering us all into the coach he’d arrived in.
I held back so that I could sit nearest the window. I wanted to see the land as it passed, to see what had changed and what was the same. I wasn’t expecting too much of the latter. The Fae shift and alter the appearance of their territories to suit their whims, and what is a deep and ancient forest one day can be a sun-drenched beach the next.
Still, the sa’Eleniels tended to be conservative and I recognized the blue, black, and purple banners topping the boundary stones when we passed into their territory.
I looked at Bryony, but she shook her head slightly and didn’t speak. In fact, none of us spoke during the journey. Fen looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he was and Guy, Liam, and Master Columbine merely wore inscrutable expressions so alike that I wondered if they taught them in human schools.
Lord sa’Eleniel was apparently fascinated by the scenery passing by the window—he was in the seat farthest diagonally from me, thank the Veil—and Bryony, sitting next to her father, eventually closed her eyes and avoided the situation entirely by pretending to sleep.
She wasn’t fooling anyone, but no one else dared to break the silence with her father perched like a giant black crow in the corner, seemingly willing to gut any of us if we annoyed him.
Mercifully, the horses ate up the miles as though they had wings and it didn’t take long to reach the gates to the sa’Eleniel estate where Bryony had grown up. I recognized the gates all too well. The first time I’d snuck in to see Bryony at night, I’d climbed it in a fit of foolishness and ruined one of my favorite shirts when I fell off the other side—not to mention crushing the flowers that I’d brought for her. Not that she ever knew, unless she felt the magical repair I’d worked on them before I’d handed them over with a bow and she had kissed me for the very first time.
Her father hadn’t been at home then. I wished he wasn’t now. Then I might try sneaking through the gardens to her chambers once again, just to see what happened.
Bryony’s eyes opened as we rumbled through the gates. I felt the wards bend and soften to let us through, snapping back as soon as the carriage was through with a ferocity and speed that spoke of a level of security that I wasn’t used to in Summerdale.
So things were definitely uneasy here for one as high in the court as Lord sa’Eleniel to be taking extra precautions on his home territory.
The queen had been assassinated, but that had been beyond the Veiled World. What was there to fear in the court, unless the schisms and enmities had truly reached a tipping point?
I set my teeth, resisting the urge to demand information. Surely Bryony had the same questions and would extract what we needed to know from her father as soon as she could.
The coach drew to a halt by Bryony’s house, which, other than being possibly even larger than I remembered, hadn’t changed much either. The gardens had morphed a little, I thought . . . more color and a hint less formality. Perhaps Lord sa’Eleniel had a new gardener. Or a new wife. Bryony’s mother had died a long time ago and her father had taken only court wives since. Temporary alliances of pleasure or politics. Not another formal marriage in the way for our kind. The ones that are supposed to last until death.
Those are rarer amongst us. Given the kind of love that is required to survive hundreds or thousands of years together, that isn’t really surprising. What was more surprising to me was the fact that Bryony’s mother had loved Lord sa’Eleniel enough to agree to one in the first place.
I climbed out of the carriage first and came face-to-face with a dark-blue-clad servant who blinked at me, then clamped his mouth shut.
I searched my memory for his name and couldn’t find it. Perhaps he’d been too young back then for me to notice. He didn’t look terribly old, but he obviously recognized me.
I wondered if I needed to check my room—if I was to be given one—for booby traps. The sa’Eleniel servants were fiercely protective of Bryony, or at least they had been and most of them had regarded me with much the same suspicion as Lord sa’Eleniel had, only tolerating me because Bryony loved me and their need to please her was stronger than their urge to do away with the young idiot who was seducing their lady.
As I’d expected might happen, we were shown to one of the guest suites, rooms designed to give those who stayed within them no good reason to go roaming through the rest of the house unless they were invited to do so.
Fen looked resigned as we settled ourselves on the couches. Or rather, Fen, Robert, Guy, Master Columbine, and I did. Bryony disappeared to go talk with her father.
“Same damned rooms as last time,” Fen muttered as the door shut behind her. He looked up to where, instead of a ceiling, there was a blue sky with drifting white clouds and shook his head. “Gives me the creeps.”
I grinned at him. “I’ve seen creepier things than that on a ceiling.” And not just one glamoured by Fae.
“Lucky you.”
I remembered that he’d spent time with the queen just before she died, so he’d spent time not here at the sa’Eleniel estates but in the court itself and even, perhaps, the queen’s private quarters. I’d never seen those. Only her, the women who served her, and most trusted advisers did—or had—and I’d never been one of those. Nor did I have any desire to be. The thought of being alone in a vast palace surrounded by a handful of people I could trust and servants unnerved me more than the sight of the false sky above our heads disturbed Fen. I was used to the company of soldiers and scenery that changed be
cause you moved through it, not because you willed it to alter.
But there above, even though there was freedom, there wasn’t the magic freely stealing through my bones. I laid my head back on the sofa and let myself listen to its siren call for a few minutes, attention drifting as I just enjoyed the sensation.
“Not exactly the time for a nap,” Guy said, eventually.
“He’s not napping—he’s power-drunk,” Fen said. “All the Fae get weird when they’ve been away from Summerdale for a time and then come back here.”
“It doesn’t seem to bother Lady Bryony,” Liam said.
“She’s more used to it. And better at hiding it, it seems,” Fen said. “Trust me, the power here is . . . considerable.”
“Do you feel it too?” Guy asked.
I opened my eyes at that, curious to hear the response. I’d never thought about how a hai-salai might react to Summerdale. My Family wasn’t prone to liaisons with humans, so I hadn’t spent time with many hai-salai when I was younger. Don’t get me wrong—I was sure there were a few sa’Uriel half-breeds around, but my Family left them alone rather than exploiting them as some of the other Families did.
Fen shrugged. “It’s annoying more than anything. I can feel it, but it doesn’t seem to boost my power much.” His eyes turned a flat moss shade as he spoke, rather than the deeper vivid green that signaled his mixed blood clearly to any who knew what they were looking for. I wondered if he was telling the truth. Fen had more than Fae blood mixed with human in his case. He was, according to Guy, one-eighth Beast Kind, thanks to his grandmother, who’d been a seer like him. Or an immuable rather. One of the unchanging Beasts who tend toward sight and other unusual powers.
Not the same as a Fae seer.
Fen, who apparently saw the future, was another thing altogether with the mixed magics in his blood. Something the queen had found intriguing, I reminded myself, which meant he was powerful, whatever he might say about how Summerdale affected him. I should find time to talk to him, to learn more about exactly how his powers worked and how we might turn them to our advantage.