by AJ Lancaster
He decided not to point this out.
“Can you have your argument later?” Irokoi interjected. He grimaced at Wyn, leaning against a shelf in an awkward sprawl of wings. He rubbed at his temples. “That guardian’s call made my head ring. Did you hear it too?”
“Yes—how? What did it do?”
Hetta frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Wyn blinked. She hadn’t felt it. Which meant it hadn’t been something physical, and it hadn’t been something connected to Stariel. Ice began to creep across his chest—the lake guardian had triggered something, something significant enough to dramatically shift the leylines in the Mortal Realm.
“The leylines shifted,” he explained, inadequately. “And I cannot apologise for throwing myself in front of the guardian as I’m not at all sorry for doing it, since it worked.”
Why had it worked? It was as if the guardian hadn’t wanted to hurt him, specifically, despite its rage at Hetta for building a Gate. Perhaps it was primarily the forming connection to Mortal it had objected to; perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt Hetta either. He was glad they hadn’t tested that.
Hetta narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t know it was going to work when you did it.”
“It was still preferable to letting it reach you. I’m much more resilient than you are. And you needed time to finish the Gate.” He levered himself up off the floor.
She put a hand flat on his chest, as if she couldn’t decide if she wanted to push him away or throw her arms around him. “Don’t do it again. Just…don’t.” Her voice went wobbly.
He took the opportunity to fold his arms around her. “I will try not to meet any more lake guardians.”
She made an angry hiccoughing sound against his chest. “Dash it, I’m not going to cry!”
He murmured wordless reassurance and let the warmth of her ease his jagged edges. That guardian had come much, much too close to her. If it had reached her… No, he wasn’t sorry at all for putting himself in its path. They rested like that for the space of two heartbeats before Hetta fought her way out of the embrace. Wyn reluctantly released her.
Taking a long, steadying breath, she said in a more even tone, “What do you mean, the leylines shifted? How could the lake guardian do that?”
“I don’t know. Koi?”
Irokoi got to his feet, black feathers rustling. “I don’t know exactly what it did. I’m not an expert on everything. But I don’t think it’s happy that we left, waving a mortal in front of its nose while we did so. I did say it would be better not to wake it.” He looked around the room with interest. “This is a very nice house.”
“Thank you,” Hetta said drily.
Running footsteps sounded, and Jack and Alexandra burst in.
Both of them pulled up short at the sight of them. Wyn pulled his wings tightly against his spine and…reached.
His other form came as if it had never been missing, but oh, it felt strange. Everything was oddly muted, his balance off. He clutched at the nearest armchair for balance. Hetta gave him an unreadable look.
Irokoi beamed at Jack and Alexandra while he was still recovering. “Ah, little Valstars! Tell me, where is my brother and also yours? The oldest one,” he clarified.
What did Irokoi want with Marius? Irokoi had refused to explain more about how to free ThousandSpire until they’d returned to Stariel, but Wyn didn’t like the shape of this game he was playing.
“You’re one of Wyn’s brothers,” Jack accused. He narrowed his eyes at the new Gate before whirling on Hetta. “Where in the hells have you been? And why did you land us with Miss Gwen again?”
Wyn had almost forgotten about the lesser fae, given more pressing recent events, but now he reached out with his leysight and found Gwendelfear approaching the room at a more cautious pace than the Valstars. Her expression held fearfulness—she’d felt the leylines shift too—but she straightened as their eyes met, chin tilting.
She wore a glamour, which surprised him—he hadn’t thought she’d have enough magic for it, given how drained she’d been when he’d last seen her. But even allowing for glamour, she moved more easily than she had before, as if her limbs no longer pained her as much. Gwendelfear had healing abilities, but Wyn wasn’t sure if she could use them on herself or not.
“How long were we gone for?” Wyn asked slowly. “What day is it?”
Jack frowned and gave the date.
He and Hetta both drew sharp breaths. His estimate of the time dilation effect had been off—considerably off, storms take it. They hadn’t been gone three days. They’d been gone nearly three weeks.
“I missed the dinner at Angus’s. Not that I was exactly looking forward to it, but…” Hetta trailed off. But it had been an opportunity to persuade more of the lords to support her.
A thousand smaller questions sprung into being, tasks that Wyn worried had gone unchecked. He hadn’t prepared for so long an absence. He glanced at Hetta, where the heartstone lay hidden beneath her clothing. Perhaps that was why it had drained faster than they’d anticipated, shifting between realms. How much time did they have left before it turned pure black?
Hetta performed the introductions and gave a succinct and highly edited account of their adventures in Deeper Faerie.
“Yes, yes,” Irokoi said impatiently. “But where is your brother, Lord Valstar? And where is mine?”
Wyn calculated what day of the week it was. “In Meridon, in all likelihood.” With the earl. Would the addition of Rakken to that mix better or worsen the situation? “I will send him a summons to return.” That bit of magic was beyond his skill, but Rakken had left him the requisite charm before they’d left for DuskRose.
Hetta gasped and went rigid. A second later, Wyn felt it too—as did Jack and Alexandra, from the way they stiffened.
“What—what’s that?” Alexandra asked, her voice trembling.
When Irokoi spoke, his voice was as grim as Wyn had ever heard it. “The lake guardian sent the leviathans after us.”
Part III
And Back
33
Cold Visitors
Hetta gasped as something stung at her in places that had no physicality. She’d had greater fae cross the boundaries of Stariel without permission before, but never quite like this—never actively opposing her. Right at the border, to the north, huge and inhuman creatures pressed against her, sharp and biting.
Distantly, part of her raged at the monstrous unfairness of their arrival. She and Wyn had spent apparently weeks trying to build a Gate out of the underwater library, and the lake guardian had opened a portal here in a matter of minutes. Could they really have been gone for so long? Anxiety over all the things that would mean threatened, but she pushed it aside.
Monsters first; self-doubt later.
They rumbled in response, wordless and full of rage. Hetta had had enough practice interpreting Stariel’s sendings to sieve their meaning out: they hated her humanity, hated that she had tainted their realm with it, hated this mortal realm they’d been sent to, and they were here for blood.
Warm hands on hers, voices, and she snapped back to herself, senses dimming, contained again in a small, fragile vessel. Was that how Wyn felt, shifting back to his mortal form?
&nbs
p; Wyn’s eyes were wide and worried, his hands steady on hers.
“I sent them away.”
He didn’t look reassured. “Where?”
“On the north-eastern boundary. Near…” She trailed off.
“Penharrow,” he finished grimly.
Hetta teleported herself, Wyn, and Irokoi to the border, leaving Jack’s cut-off protest behind. Fog clung thickly to the ground, here in the lower-lying parts of the estate. There was no sign of the leviathans but for footprints the size of cartwheels. Each dark impression glistened with water that—through her land-sense—tasted slightly salty. How dare the strange dangers of Deeper Faerie follow her home! She glared at the footprints and willed the ground flat again, like smoothing out a rumpled rug.
She pushed the fog away, clearing a wide circle around them, but she had no power to do so beyond Stariel’s boundaries, so it piled up along the border, impossible to see through. She could hear nothing.
Irokoi made a gesture akin to swiping a cobweb away, and a path cleared beyond the boundary. Right—air magic. In the distance, large, lumbering shadows strode in the direction of Penharrow Manor. Oh, gods. What would they do if they encountered anyone in their way? What would they do when they got there? Angus had no faeland to back him up, and no magic. And a bunch of Northern lords are currently staying at his house. So much for making a good impression.
She curled her hands into fists. “I shouldn’t have sent them away; I should’ve trapped them here.” Hetta thought of the trick she’d used once on Rakken, liquefying the soil to bury him up to his waist then re-solidifying it.
“Do you think these ones are under similar instructions not to harm fae as the lake guardian?” Wyn asked.
Irokoi considered the lumbering shadows. “I think they will follow us,” he grit out, as if the words cost him. Hetta got the impression that wasn’t all he’d intended to say, but he shook his head and closed his mouth, frustration flashing in his expression. His feathers pressed flat against his spine.
Wyn took a breath and changed to his fae form. He gave Hetta a tight grin. “I shall have to give them sufficient encouragement to follow us back to Stariel.”
Hetta didn’t like this plan in the least, but she couldn’t think of a better one, and Wyn was much more able to survive the wrath of a giant fae creature than anyone else at Penharrow.
“Be careful.”
He nodded. “Koi?”
Irokoi sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I suppose you’re right, though it isn’t the leviathans’ fault they are under a geas.” He flared out his wings. “I shall leave any close flying to you, brother.” His missing eye interfered with his depth perception, he’d told Hetta once.
The two fae took off and Hetta’s heart with them. The fog billowed and curled without Irokoi’s air magic holding it back, making it hard to tell whether the leviathans had reached the manor or not.
A loud crunch echoed through the valley, followed by a sound like a giant’s fist hammering on stone.
I suppose that’s an accurate description of what’s happening. The leviathans had reached the manor. Hetta wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to think about large, gleaming teeth and slab-like hands. What if Wyn and Irokoi couldn’t turn the leviathans’ attention away from Penharrow? Why had she thought simply standing here and waiting was a good idea? Her pyromancy itched for expression; if she’d made Wyn take her with him, maybe she could’ve burned those things to ash. Their powers clearly relate to water, she reminded herself, thinking of those gleaming footprints. I don’t think fire would be particularly helpful.
She’d never meant to drag a bit of deepest Faerie back home with her. She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering, and Stariel’s presence rubbed against her, unsettled as she was. Hetta searched the horizon, trying to see through the murk, her heart stopping each time a flash of lightning lit up the sky. Wyn. He’d be all right, wouldn’t he? But she couldn’t help think of the tight rein he’d held on his magic, his unease with himself. How he’d changed so quickly to his human form when they’d returned. How could he possibly elude the leviathans’ grasp while at war with himself?
Enormous echoing booms grew nearer, and both fear and relief flooded her. She visualised, crisp and determined, sending a false version of herself to stand just inside the border while she blended the real her in the scenery. The power came easily, strong and deep as a river, her own will boosted by Stariel. Oh, how she’d missed that.
The ground vibrated with the leviathans’ strides, and Hetta braced herself.
The estate sent a sensation not unlike a sigh but acceded to the instruction.
A winged figure shot across the border like a dark arrow—Irokoi. Hetta had a sharp, fleeting concern for Wyn—where was he?—before the two leviathans crashed across the border and took up her entire attention. They slammed across her senses like tidal waves, and Hetta felt the impact down to her heels, down further, into the roots that spread beneath her surface. The leviathans roared at the sight of her illusionary self and smashed their fists down, cries of triumph changing to anger as they met no resistance.
Hetta’s stomach roiled—there was something deeply disturbing about seeing yourself be crushed under a giant’s fist, real or not—and bit her lip to distract herself from the sensation. She needed to concentrate.
She’d spent so much time trying not to lose herself in Stariel’s vastness, trying to balance its alien, distant attitude with her humanity, patiently explaining to a force of nature why certain blunt approaches weren’t always the most appropriate, but now she…let go, and became a channel for the faeland’s primal possessiveness, its absolute black-and-white view of the world, where things either belonged to it or didn’t.
And the leviathans didn’t belong.
Power surged, and she rose up and struck at the fae creatures who dared cross her boundaries, who dared try to harm her people. The leviathans resisted, power spilling out of them as they tried to free themselves from the earth liquefying beneath them. Lightning struck from a clear sky, fire igniting in a sudden contained inferno about them. They grew afraid, and would’ve fled, but she held them in the white-hot heart of her anger, a place where there was no room for moral greyness, in the absolute righteousness of knowing this was her land and her first duty was to protect it.
They buckled, snuffing out, but the magic continued to burn, a conflagration that didn’t satisfy her wrath. She swarmed up and down her boundaries, checking and rechecking them, and the sparks of her wyldfae bowed in terrified obeisance at her passing. Mine, this is mine, she hissed, restlessly pacing the length of Starwater. She and Stariel brushed against the sparks of the Valstars, those most closely connected to her, reassuring themselves of their safety. They touched the newest member of their court, the little lesser fae, plucking at the bond like a new filling. The lesser fae quivered under the scrutiny, and they sent it an impatient dismissal.
There was a key spark missing from the net—their lightning-drenched prince, the one they’d claimed for their own. Where was he?
They searched, frantically, the boughs of the pines on the slopes of the Indigoes rustling with anxiety. Clouds raced across their surface, the weather disordered by the lightning they’d summoned.
They stumbled across the foreign spark near their border, its magic nearly unnoticeable, and only the familiar storm-smell of him kept them from squashing him immediately. This foreign spark was of the same blood as their missing prince. They nosed about him, demanding.
The foreign fae didn’t flinch, but his magic uncurled. They had thought him weak, but they realised now that this was only because he’d kept the full weight of his power so well contained they’d mistaken it for a lack thereof. It flared into being, a beat deep and dark as midnight in the heart of winter’s storm, before it snapped back in on itself.
The show of strength made them
pause, and then something hurt on their skin and suddenly they had skin.
Hetta gasped and rocked back on her heels, her cheek stinging. Irokoi stood in front of her, grimacing.
“Henrietta Isadore Valstar,” he said.
Hetta rubbed at her cheek, her limbs feeling ill-fitting as a jester’s costume. “Did you just slap me?”
He shrugged, feathers rustling softly. “Yes.”
“Thank you.” Her legs wobbled under her, and she had to jerk away from the urge to extend her sense down beneath the earth to steady herself. “Did your father ever…lose himself in ThousandSpire?”
Irokoi blinked. “Not that I saw, but he was already ancient by the time I was born. You are young and still coming into your powers. The comparison isn’t useful.”
“Where’s Wyn?” Her gaze fell on the scorched earth where the leviathans had been, and her stomach turned. It smelled nauseatingly like fried bacon.
Irokoi’s mismatched eyes were old and solemn. “He keeps fighting his own nature, and that’s not only foolish but dangerous.”
“Yes, but where is he? Is he all right? What happened at Penharrow? Is anyone hurt?”
“No one is dead, that I saw. Wyn will heal.”
“That is not reassuring.” Hetta fought her stomach into compliance and put out a hand commandingly. “Take me there. Now.”
34
Blood and Stone
There was far too much blood. Wyn pressed the wadded scarf firmly against Lord Arran’s shoulder. The unconscious man didn’t react as Wyn held the wad with one hand and wound the scarf he was using as an impromptu bandage as tight as he could with the other. He had to shift his weight to do it, and he hissed as daggers stabbed his left leg in response. Concentrate! The man bleeding out in front of him was the important thing, not his damned leg, and not the high-pitched ringing in his left ear where the leviathan had crushed him against the side of the house in its attempt to snatch him out of the air.