Fire Kin

by M. J. Scott

  It wouldn’t hold off a sustained series of attacks, but another strike would have to be very strong to burn through wards I’d set when standing on my Family’s land.

  Satisfied, I turned my attention to the others. “Is everyone all right?”

  Asharic had a pad of some material pressed to his head, and Guy’s face was blossoming into a bruise from just below his right eye to his jaw. Robert Abernathy had a hand pressed to his side, and Liam limped as he helped the other man to walk a few steps away from the carriage. Of all of us, Master Columbine seemed to have come off best. She was rumpled, her hair falling down around her face and the sleeve of her dress torn, but she didn’t move as though she was hurt seriously.

  So I would start with Abernathy and work my way through the others.

  I took a step toward Liam and Robert, and Guy moved to block me, his expression strange.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t you think you should do something about that?” Guy pointed at my arm and for the first time, I saw the weird angle of my hand.

  As soon as I noticed it, there was a surge of pain and my knees buckled. I reached for the power around me, but it didn’t help.

  “Asharic,” Guy snapped as he caught me. “Do something. She can’t heal herself.”

  Ash had been studying the carriage as though it held the secret to who had attacked us, but he whirled back at Guy’s words.

  Pain seared again and the sky spun around me for a moment.

  “Shal e’tan mei,” Ash swore. “Lay her down,” he said to Guy, the words half a snarl.

  “You’re not a healer,” I managed to protest as Guy knelt and laid me on the grass.

  “I’ve learned a thing or two while I was away,” Ash said. “Now be quiet.”

  I didn’t argue. I was too busy trying not to scream. My arm felt as though the bones had been replaced by molten iron. Burning like fire. I’d never been seriously hurt before.

  Ash laid his hand gently on my arm and I made a whimpering noise before I bit my lip to cut it off. “Sorry,” he said. “Just a little longer.”

  Power surged up my arm. I’d asked my patients sometimes what healing felt like. Most of them described a cool sensation . . . the flowing away of pain and damage. This didn’t feel like that. No. Ash’s power was fire, and for a moment, I felt as if he had set my skin alight as the pain blossomed into something even fiercer. But only for a second and then the pain vanished with a suddenness that made my head spin.

  • • •

  When I caught my breath again, my wrist was straight and my arm was numb. I stared down at it in surprise.

  “It’s rough,” Ash said. “You need a proper healer.”

  “When did you learn how to do that?”

  “I’m a soldier for hire. Knowing how to do a bit of rough-and-ready healing comes in handy. I’m not that good at it, but it does in a pinch.”

  “You need more control,” I said absently. “Too much power.”

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked. His hand drifted toward my arm, but he pulled it back before he touched me.

  I shook my head. “It’s fine.”

  “You should keep it still until another healer can look at it,” Ash said. “I don’t know exactly what I did.”

  I could look and see, but better to do as he suggested and wait for a healer to finish what he’d started. After all, there was nothing I could do until then. “I need a sling. Cut a piece off my robe. About three feet by three feet.” He did as I asked and fashioned the square into a useful enough sling without further prompting from me. My arm supported, I let him help me up.

  “Now we need to get back to your father’s house,” Ash said.

  I walked closer to the carriage. “They’ll be coming for us. From the house. We’re safe enough. If there hasn’t already been a second attack, I doubt there will be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We’re well inside the borders of my father’s land.”

  “That didn’t stop someone doing that.” Ash gestured at the carriage.

  “True. But I’d know if there were still strangers around. If they had something set to let them know when their little surprise was triggered, then they’ll have something that lets them know we survived. Which means we’ve called for help. They’d be foolhardy to try something now.” I approached the carriage cautiously, stretching out my senses to see if I could pick up anything from the traces of magic. But mostly what I got was the echoes of whatever Ash had done to blow out the side so we could get out.

  “Bryony, I think Abernathy has a broken rib,” Guy called from behind me.

  I shot a look at Ash. “I can’t get anything from the carriage, thanks to you. Why don’t you go see if you can feel anything closer to the horses?”

  He frowned. “What if there’s another charge?”

  “Try not to trigger it,” I suggested. “Surely a soldier for hire can do that much.”

  His smile was lopsided. “I’ll try.”

  “Good.” I reached up and put my hand on the gash near his temple. It had mostly stopped bleeding, but I could finish the job. I kept my touch light and sealed the wound, encouraging the flesh and vessels to knit back to their original form and drawing the swelling and pain away.

  Ash closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “Thanks. My head felt like a mule kicked it.”

  “It’s just a little head wound. Go look at the horses. I need to deal with the others.” I drew my hand back before I could be tempted into lingering, enjoying the feel of him against my palm a little too much.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, and I rolled my eyes at him and went to see to Abernathy.

  By the time a band of guards arrived from my father’s house, together with half a dozen horses and another carriage, Abernathy’s ribs were mended and I’d done what I could for the bruises and cuts the others had sustained in the blast.

  Dario, the captain of the guard, bowed as he jogged toward us, worry clear on his face. “My lady. Are you hurt?” He stopped short as he took in the sling on my arm and bellowed back toward the troop of guards to send up the healer.

  “Nothing too serious,” I said as he approached me, consternation clear in his face. He was the one who was going to have to explain this to my father. I was glad that I wasn’t in his shoes. “We were lucky.” I nodded toward the horses and the crater. “Someone didn’t time their trap as well as they could.”

  “We will find out who did this, my lady.” His voice was savage. “No one can bring harm to one of the Family on our lands and not pay.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be interested to hear what you discover. Don’t let my father kill them outright.”

  Not until I had a chance to question them at least. For one thing, I was very interested in who the target might have been. Me? My father? Or Ash perhaps? As far as I knew, there hadn’t been an attack on our lands for a very long time. And yet here we were, not yet a day after Ash had set foot back in the Veiled World, and I’d almost been blown to smithereens. Wonderful. Yet another benefit of his return. Though maybe that was unfair of me.

  “Your father has been notified. He will meet you back at the house.”

  “In that case, perhaps I can get the healer to give something to knock me out,” I said wryly. I wasn’t looking forward to discussing these events with my father. He was likely to be in one of his rages. Even harder to deal with than usual. Not to mention that pulling him away from the discussions with the other Families wasn’t going to do much for our appeal for assistance.

  Dario nodded and then beckoned the healer forward. He was a young man I didn’t know, but if he was in my father’s guards, then he had to be skilled at his job. So I put my father out of my mind for a moment and let the healer do his work.

  ASH

  I had seen Bryony’s father angry before. But I’d never seen him quite this angry. The ground, quite literally, shook beneath his feet the first time he slammed the point of his cane down and demand
ed to know what was going on as he appeared in the garden, having apparently taken one of the strange Fae ways back from the Court.

  Each of the Families has a connection to the court that it can draw on for near-instantaneous transport if needs be. Most only use it in emergencies because the experience isn’t exactly pleasant and it uses a hell of a lot of power.

  But apparently Lord sa’Eleniel was in no mood to be delayed. I couldn’t blame him for that. I was feeling somewhat enraged myself. Someone had tried to blow us up. It didn’t matter who their target had been—though I had a strong suspicion it had been me—they’d been willing to take out Bryony and the others to get to me. And that, in my book, had earned them a one-way ticket to whatever hell they believe in and oblivion if they didn’t.

  Guy and Fen and I had waited for Lord sa’Eleniel, insisting that Bryony let the healers at the house look at her, and she’d taken Abernathy and Master Columbine with her. Guy had sent Liam as well. He was a sunmage after all and another layer of protection if someone had enough of a death wish to try something here in the sa’Eleniel’s stronghold.

  I didn’t think they would—not unless the treachery had come from within the household itself. And that was enough of an unpleasant thought that I didn’t want to even try to deal with it right now.

  I’d seen Bryony in a rage before and it was akin to standing in the middle of a thunderstorm. Her father was doing a close impression of that now. If he struck the ground with his cane again, there was a good chance of lightning boiling down from the clear sky and frying something.

  I hoped it wouldn’t be me.

  “You,” he snarled as he got close to us. “What caused this?”

  “Someone laid some sort of ward on the road,” I said. I had puzzled out that much when I investigated the bodies of the horses and the crater the explosion had left. “It was designed to react to a horse, I think.” Though whoever had laid it had been careless and not figured in the time it might take for a carriage drawn by more than a single pair of horses to cross the ward after the first horse had.

  Either that or the hastily flung ward I’d felt Fen send up when he’d yelled in the carriage had been the only thing that had stopped us from all being in pieces right now.

  “Did you recognize the magic?”

  “No, sir,” I said carefully. “There was no obvious trace of power. Nothing that felt strongly of any particular Family.” Which only meant that more than one person had worked on whatever they’d used to set the ward or that the working had been done by someone from a more obscure Family—a very minor house or a servant even. It wasn’t a complicated spell after all.

  Lord sa’Eleniel swore, then fixed his dark blue gaze back on me. “You almost got my daughter killed.”

  “It may have been Bryony they were after,” I countered.

  “No one,” Lord sa’Eleniel said, dangerously soft, “would try to harm my daughter on my lands.”

  “I’ve only been back a few hours,” I protested. “How could anyone even know where I was?”

  He cocked his head at me, then shook it disgustedly. “Anyone with half a brain felt you as soon as you stepped through the Gate. You need to do something about that. Or don’t you know your own strength?”

  “I—” I realized he was right. I’d been careless. I could’ve shielded my presence somewhat. But I’d never had to worry about such things in Summerdale. I knew the Veiled World carried the echoes of each Fae’s power. The stronger the Fae, the stronger the echo. I’d felt the jolt of the queen returning after treaty negotiations or one of the rare other times when she left Summerdale. And I’d felt the comings and goings of other powerful Fae.

  “Tchah,” Lord sa’Eleniel snorted, and waved his hand at me. “You always were trouble. You need to watch your back, boy. And I’ll thank you to keep my daughter out of your idiocies.”

  “Anyone who wants to hurt Bryony will have to get through me first,” I said.

  His fingers tightened around the tip of his cane. “I’d prefer that it wasn’t an issue. But that can wait. Just now I have to see to the security of my house.”

  BRYONY

  My father spent little time on niceties like knocking. He came charging into my room like a tornado, demanding to know if I was all right.

  Saffron, the healer treating me, twisted to face him. “Be quiet, my lord. I need to concentrate.”

  I hid a smile. Saffron sa’Namiel wasn’t my favorite person, but she brooked no argument from anyone when she was performing her duties, and I respected that. I also respected anyone who stood up to my father.

  Behind her my father looked as if he wanted to blow something up. I knew how he felt. Now that I was home and the immediate shock of the attack was wearing off and Saffron had nearly finished her work on my arm, what I was mostly left with was anger. How dare someone attack me on my own land? Attack me and my guests. If my father wanted to take his revenge on those who had planned the attack, then he was going to have to form an orderly line behind me. And Asharic, I suspected.

  I had felt Ash’s rage like a banked fire all through the short journey back to the house. I wasn’t the only one. So far Saffron had refrained from trying to extract information about exactly what Ash was doing back in the Veiled World from me, but the curiosity practically rose from her like steam.

  I ignored it. Saffron didn’t need to know my business and anyway, she would learn soon enough as word spread of what had happened at court today. I saw no reason to speed that process just to indulge her taste for gossip.

  She’d never cared for Ash anyway.

  When Saffron finally released my arm, I flexed my fingers cautiously. No pain marred the movement. “I thank you,” I said.

  “So you should,” she said tartly. “Whoever did that rushed job needs to go back to beginner classes.”

  “I’ll be sure to let them know,” I said, hoping Saffron would think that I was referring to someone within my father’s household rather than figuring out that it was Ash who had healed me.

  “Is anyone else hurt?”

  “Only minor bumps and bruises. I took care of them.” I looked at her steadily, waiting for her to suggest that she should examine them too. She was older than me and fancied herself a better healer. And perhaps, when it came to healing Fae, she might be. But I was the one who’d spent thirty years working with the humans and I knew better than her how to heal them rapidly and well.

  Saffron, perhaps with a weather eye to my father’s mood and likely tolerance level, merely nodded. “Let me know if you have any further pain. It’s unlikely,” she added as my father started to say something. “But still, send word if you need me again.”

  She gathered up her supplies and then curtseyed. “My lord, I’ll leave you alone with your daughter.”

  Father didn’t acknowledge the courtesy; he came straight for me. I waved him off. “I’m fine.”

  “Your arm was broken.”

  “Well, it’s mended now.”

  “I will find whoever did this,” he growled.

  “Good,” I replied. “Just don’t kill them until you find out what they were up to. Actually I’d like to help with that part.”

  He smiled at that, as he always did when he thought I was being appropriately ruthless. “They were after the sa’Uriel boy, I’d imagine.”

  “Ash? Why?” I’d reached the same conclusion, but I was interested in hearing my father’s thoughts on the subject. He had a much better grasp of how exactly things lay in the court.

  “He’s a threat,” Father said bluntly.

  I hadn’t expected that. “Ash? A threat to what?”

  “You must have felt it when he stepped across the Gate,” Father said darkly. “He’s grown strong, that one. And there’s a power struggle going on here at the moment. None of those who are jockeying for position will welcome any extra competition.”

  “Do you include yourself in that category?” I asked.

  He laughed, though there was an
edge to the sound that I didn’t entirely trust. “I doubt I’m likely to be the next ruler of the Veiled World.” He looked at me for a moment. “There are better candidates amongst our blood.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” I said, standing to face him. “I have no interest in that particular prize. Besides which, I’m not powerful enough. So leave me out of your games, Father.”

  “You don’t know what you’re capable of. You’ve never tested the limits of your power.”

  “Nor do I want to. And anyway, the land didn’t ring its bell for me like it did for Ash, so that should tell you something.”

  “It tells me he’s forgotten anything he might once have known about containing his power,” Father said. “He always was a fool.”

  “Don’t—”

  He thumped his cane. “You cannot be defending him to me. He almost got you killed today. Not for the first time.”

  “Ash didn’t put me in danger. Your stupid politics did that.”

  “That may be an explanation for today but not for what happened before.”

  “What happened before is history. And Ash never knowingly put me in danger then either.”

  “No, he just encouraged you to be as headstrong and foolish as he was,” my father snapped. He stared down at me. “Do not tell me you still harbor any of that childish sentiment for him. You cannot be that foolish. Not twice.”

  “What I felt for Ash before is also history,” I said. It wasn’t an outright denial. I couldn’t speak an outright denial. But I could prevaricate with the best of them, thanks to the lessons I’d learned from the man before me.

  “Good,” my father said. “See that it stays that way.”

  I set my teeth. Answering any further would just worsen the argument. My father didn’t like Ash. He likely never would. And in his current temper he would just do something we’d likely both regret if I kept the subject alive.

  “Did the court reach a decision?” I asked, reaching for the only topic that I could think of that was likely to distract him from Ash. “Before you were called home?”