The King of Faerie (Stariel Book 4)

by AJ Lancaster

  “Oh no; it affects us all,” Irokoi said, confirming her suspicion. His eyes burned. “Hallowyn is merely the youngest and so least bound of us. He had less to forget. It’s no wonder ThousandSpire made a grab for him; it was desperate to bond to someone. Faelands don’t do well, untethered for so long.” Irokoi made an apologetic gesture towards Wyn. “That’s not to suggest that you might not have been its first choice; it’s merely that we cannot really know what its preferences would’ve been, since you were its only available choice at the time.”

  “And when you said you needed all the Spireborn to break the curse…?” Rakken asked. He wiped the blood from his nose and looked at his hand in distaste.

  “Well, yes, we are going to have to retrieve Cat first. That’s actually the easiest bit. The trickiest bit is the timing—without her presence to anchor it, we’ll have to act quickly to unravel the curse before it destroys the Spires. The harder part is probably going to be persuading Aroset to help, isn’t it?” Irokoi wrinkled his nose. “Though we probably don’t actually need her to do anything; I think so long as we can get her to be present, it will help the spell catch. I’m fairly certain I can convince Torquil to do his bit. He may actually be quite keen to help once I tell him he has another shot at being chosen king. Do you think the same bribery might work for Aroset?”

  Citrus and thunder rolled through the library in a wave that sent Stariel bristling and made Hetta press instinctively against Wyn’s side.

  “What,” Rakken growled, “are you talking about, Irokoi Tempestren? Torquil is dead.”

  Irokoi wasn’t at all ruffled, though he did seem tired. “Oh, yes, you don’t know that yet. No, he’s not actually. I helped him fake it; it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  For a moment, Hetta thought Rakken was going to hit Irokoi, but then his magic snuffed out, and he turned on one heel and stalked out without a word. Hetta didn’t blame him for being upset, though would the world really end if he just said that instead of pretending he didn’t care at all and going off to lick his wounds in private?

  She leaned against Wyn; he was so still that she might’ve thought he wasn’t upset either, except she could feel his heart pounding. He acts the same way as Rakken does, sometimes, pretending things don’t bother him.

  “You cannot blame him for his anger, Koi,” Wyn murmured. “I am still furious with you over it, and I didn’t feel Torquil’s death, as Rake said he did.”

  “Yes, that was quite a hard effect to achieve.” Irokoi was frowning in the direction Rakken had taken. “You have the luxury of anger, because of me. I did what I thought best; I cannot apologise for it. But perhaps I could have told him more tactfully, yes.” He slid off the windowseat with a sigh. “I’ll talk to him; I’ll need his help with the spell.”

  Wyn stood in his path. “Koi.” His voice was low and full of warning.

  Irokoi appeared oblivious to it. “You’re quite useful in many ways, Hallowyn, but you’re not much use for fine spellwork, I’m afraid.”

  “I need more explanation.”

  “I agree,” Hetta said.

  Irokoi huffed at them. “Which part was unclear? Firstly, we do the spell that will bring Cat to us, and secondly, we need all seven of us for the spell that will undo the curse on ThousandSpire. Our grumpiest brother unpicks the compulsion so that ThousandSpire can choose a new ruler. You get their support and complete the High King’s task—and good news, ThousandSpire even has a gate to the High King’s realm. Get married, save your child, everyone goes home happy. Simple.”

  It actually did sound a lot more possible when Irokoi spelled it out like that.

  Wyn glared. “There are six of us, brother, even assuming we can somehow involve Aroset in this mad plan.”

  Irokoi looked straight at Hetta. “Not anymore.” He folded his wings more neatly. “Now excuse me while I go settle Mossfeathers.” He left.

  40

  Inheritance

  Wyn stared helplessly at Hetta, fear jostling for space amidst his immense confusion. He felt as if he’d been set into free fall with a wing bound. Compulsion…there was a compulsion on him. A compulsion set by, set by… His fists clenched, trying to fight it, but his mind smoothed and he couldn’t hold on to the thoughts, the thoughts of, of—

  Hetta touched his sleeve, her face worried. “You can’t remember what Irokoi said about your mother, can you? I can see it every time you forget. Can you remember that you’re under a compulsion, at least?”

  It was like breaching the surface, sucking in a painful breath after being long submerged. His mother. His mother. He tried to recall her face, and his vision swam. Trying to analyse the extent of the compulsion was like grabbing fistfuls of fog. He could sketch the edges of it now—enough, at least, to be aware that there was a compulsion—but the deeper he went, the more unravelled his thoughts became.

  “Yes,” he bit out. “But it keeps sliding away from me. I can’t remember…” What? Hetta hugged him, and he held onto her as the only solid thing in a world that was shattering around him. “We’ll get Rakken to de-compel you. I’m so sorry, Wyn.”

  He wanted to ask what she was sorry for, but Hetta released him and stepped back, digging the heartstone out and weighing it in her hand. It glowed dimly, a deep, pure blue.

  “How much time do we have left, do you think?”

  Wyn wished that he wasn’t quite so good at mental arithmetic, that he hadn’t already made his own estimate on that very question.

  “We don’t know how long we will have after the spell runs out,” he temporised.

  Hetta gave him a flat look. “How long, Wyn?”

  “A week, at most, at the current rate.”

  Hetta swallowed. “That’s what I thought, too. I hoped I was wrong.” She glared at the glowing stone and curled her fingers around it.

  “So we have a week to free ThousandSpire and get its new ruler to support our union.” There was something more to that, he was certain, but whatever it was had slipped his mind. He puzzled at it, trying to recall what Irokoi had said. Perhaps some bit of spell detail he hadn’t understood?

  “And marry,” Hetta pointed out. “That’s the bit we actually need to sort out the stormcharge, isn’t it, according to Lamorkin? That’s what it means. We have a week to get married, and somehow around organising that I have to go to the Conclave as well so they can refuse to ratify my membership.” She sank down on the nearest chair, dark circles under her eyes. He resisted the urge to ask if she was all right, and she gave him a look that said she’d noticed anyway. “It’s still ten days until Queen Matilda’s ball.” She gave a weak laugh. “So we need to get married before she actually plans to announce our engagement. Assuming she’s still willing to do that after she hears about the leviathans.”

  “I hadn’t actually given much thought to that part,” Wyn admitted, somewhat daunted by the coming logistics. “But if we speak to the High King…we could do the fae ceremony first and complete the mortal part later, after your queen has ‘engaged’ us, with all the mortal trappings Lady Phoebe desires.”

  Hetta smiled at that. “I think my family are becoming less concerned with the trappings and more concerned that the event actually takes place in any form whatsoever.” Her smile faded, and she picked at the curling spine of one of the nearby books, an ancient encyclopaedia. “The Lords Conclave is never going to ratify me now, is it? Maybe I shouldn’t even bother going, given everything else.”

  After the leviathans, Wyn had the same doubt, but to see Hetta consider giving up… He was so used to preferring Mortal over Faerie, but in this, Faerie had the right of it. Faerie might have schemed and manipulated and threatened, but it had never denied Hetta’s worth. How dare Mortal reject her?

  “You will rule even without their approval, and they will regret that they shunned you.” He was sure of it—but it wouldn’t make life easy for her or Stariel. Guilt threaded through him. Why did he seem to bring only hardship to the place he now called home,
to the woman he loved? He tried to find some better comfort than his own anger. “But perhaps tradition will win out. The Conclave are known to be generally conservative.”

  Hetta drummed her fingers on the shelf. “Do you think Aroset would come willingly, if we told her she might have another chance at being chosen by ThousandSpire if she helps free it from stasis?”

  “To Stariel? No. She will not set foot on a faeland ruled by another. If we could find another resonance point to build a portal from, in unclaimed lands…perhaps.”

  “And then she’d try to slaughter you all the minute the spell successfully freed ThousandSpire,” Hetta finished for him.

  “Sadly probable.” It still hurt, to know his sister wanted him dead, to know she was capable of it. Aroset believed she’d already killed Torquil. Broken; Koi said we were all broken, some of us more than others. What had he meant? It had to do with, with…

  Hetta squeezed his hand, startling him out of his reverie. He hadn’t been aware of her rising.

  “That’s very unsettling, watching you go all blank like that. You were thinking about the compulsion laid by your mother, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.” Panic skittered across his skin and he breathed in and out, reining it in, breathing in the warm coffee and pine of Hetta’s magic, the soap scent of her skin as she wrapped her arms around him again. “It seems neither of my parents were very good role models.” How was he supposed to do this, now he knew the full extent of his inheritance? How could Hetta still want him? His father, a sadistic tyrant; his mother, someone who could ensorcel her own children and walk away without a backwards glance. It doesn’t matter, he tried to tell himself. It changes nothing. Why, then, did he feel as if he’d lost a wing? “Where is Marius?”

  “Stariel’s been keeping an eye on him. He’s…upset but he doesn’t seem unstable. I don’t think his shields have failed. That’s good, isn’t it? He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”

  “I hope so. I’ll talk to him.”

  “I’m his sister,” Hetta disagreed.

  Which was exactly why Marius would not welcome Hetta’s presence right now, and not only because—thanks to Wyn’s careless thoughts—Marius might be afraid he’d endanger her.

  “Yes, his little sister,” Wyn pointed out. Marius had always had trouble admitting vulnerability to Hetta for that reason. Mortal masculine beliefs around family could get rather complicated.

  Hetta’s nose wrinkled, and he knew she both understood and didn’t like it. “He’s an idiot, if he thinks I need protecting from him. I’m more worried he might need protecting from me, given how Stariel reacted before.” She sighed. “Fine. You talk to Marius. I’ll go and figure out what to tell her majesty; I imagine it’ll go worse if she hears about this from Lord Arran first.”

  He squeezed her hand. “My Star.”

  He got only halfway down the hallway before he had to sag against the wall for support, his pulse wild as a dust dervish. He pressed his hands flat against the peeling wallpaper. He was a fae prince and an excellent butler. He did not panic or lose control in a crisis. He made lists and defused tension with mild humour. Lists. He grabbed the thought like a lifeline. A list would be timely.

  Firstly, find Marius and check his mental state. Possibly accompanied by whiskey. Secondly, see if Rakken had recovered and ask him to lift this…this compulsion he could barely hold the edges of. Thirdly, pin down Irokoi again and figure out how to assemble the pieces they needed to free the Spires, including Aroset. Fourthly, go over the estate’s most recent figures in case he needed to plead with the bank again. Fifthly, think of anything he might do to aid Hetta with the upcoming Conclave. Despite her words, he knew the thought of failing there bit her deep.

  The mental list did not have its usual calming effect. With each item, a physical weight seemed to add to his chest and the spiralling out-of-control sensation grew. His fingertips dug into the wall, and flecks of plaster came free. Stormwinds take it. Stariel had enough maintenance needs without him adding to them.

  He was under a compulsion from his mother. The list evaporated. It shouldn’t matter so much—he’d carried the pain of his mother’s loss for years, not knowing whether she was dead or had left them on purpose. There were so many more urgent things requiring attention; this was an old wound he could lick at later.

  He pushed off the wall, stumbling in the direction of the nearest stairwell, the servants’ staircase to the courtyard. A surprised maidservant met him halfway down, nearly dropping her load of laundry.

  “My apologies, Amabel. I didn’t mean to startle you—don’t mind me.” He gave a slight bow. Could she see through his tattered mask of civility? A wild creature clawed at his insides, but he couldn’t let it escape here. The heartstone, only a few shades lighter than black. This form, which shouldn’t feel so strange but did, senses muted and wings scratching at the compaction.

  The maid blinked, dipped a brief curtsey of acknowledgement, and went on her way.

  The cool spring air helped, a little, when he pushed open the door to the courtyard. He emerged in deep shadow, the sun’s arc not high enough to reach this wall in anything less than the burning height of summer. He knew this in the same way that he knew which of Stariel House’s many bedrooms had the best sun and where the central heating system was inadequate in the older East Wing. It wasn’t only his years of butlering here that had made him gather every minute detail, holding it close. It had been an unconscious attempt to anchor himself against the pull of Faerie. Even in those ten quiet years before the Iron Law came down, he’d feared his father would one day find him, that he’d be forced to leave to protect the people and estate he loved. But in the end, the danger he posed to Stariel hadn’t come from some external force. I think that is what might be called irony.

  He found Marius seated on a wooden bench outside his greenhouse, staring vacantly towards the lake. The setting sun glinted in the silver threads in his black hair, and Wyn was reminded, oddly, of Lord Henry.

  Marius didn’t have much in common with his father apart from his colouring and the long Valstar nose—the same nose Hetta shared. Old Lord Henry hadn’t understood his oldest son, had tried to shape him into his own mould. Ironically, the old lord had had far more in common with his oldest daughter, even though his views on women had prevented him from seeing it. Lord Henry had had the same drive to protect his people and his land as Hetta did, misdirected though his efforts had been. Trying to force his children to be something other than what they were had only created a deep, irreparable wedge between them. It had made Lord Henry a bitter man, by the end.

  Well, that and the alcoholism. Wyn owed the old lord a lot, for taking him in when he’d most needed sanctuary, but he wasn’t sure if he could forgive him for the damage he’d done to his children. Especially to Marius.

  The thought steadied him. He couldn’t fall apart, not when Marius needed him. He shored up his mental shields but made no effort to keep his approach quiet, not wanting to startle Marius.

  “Come to make sure I don’t explode?” Marius said darkly without turning.

  Wyn came to a halt beside him. “I’m sorry you found out like this. I erred, keeping this from you. Can you forgive me?”

  “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” Marius did look up then, his eyes wild as winter storms.

  “Because you aren’t particularly fearsome?”

  “But…mind reading. It horrifies me, and I’m the one doing it! If I knew someone else could read my mind, I’d be terrified!”

  “Well, you are only reading surface thoughts, as far as I can tell, and those only when I forget my mental shields. For which I apologise. If you were any other telepath, perhaps I would be afraid, but I know you, Marius. It seems unlikely you will do anything nefarious with whatever knowledge I accidentally let loose, and I’m used to your sudden intuitions, regardless. If they were going to scare me, they would have done so long since. I fear only hurting you inadvertently with my own careless tho
ughts.”

  Marius leaned his elbows onto his knees and put his head in his hands. “Has my intuition—has it always been telepathy, then?”

  “I do not know for certain, but I suspect you must always have had some level of psychic ability for Aroset’s attack to trigger the way it did.”

  “At least I know now I’m not crazy.”

  Wyn sat down on the bench beside him. “I brought whiskey.” He put the hipflask down on the bench between them.

  Marius’s hollow laugh rang out over the countryside. “Very Northern of you.”

  They watched as a flock of ducks powered their way across the lake. Wyn had always admired the sheer muscle-powered way the birds flew, with persistence rather than grace.

  “How do I learn to control it?” Marius said eventually. “Can I turn it off?”

  “I can tell you what I know about mental shields against telepathy, though I do not know how or if they will be useful to you, since they’re similar to what one uses to shield against compulsion, and you’re already immune to that.” The telepathy explained that small mystery. “But you already do control your ability, subconsciously. I think you’ve been doing so for years, even before whatever Aroset triggered. It’s why we didn’t tell you immediately. Rake thought knowing might undo your instinctive control.”

  Marius’s knuckles whitened on the bench. Wyn wanted to ask what his brother had done to earn such a hostile reaction, but Marius said grimly, “Tell me about the shields.”

  Wyn explained as best he could; neither of them was satisfied by the time his answers ran dry, long before Marius’s questions did.

  Marius picked up the hipflask and began to tell Wyn about his conversation with the earl. “You are going to try to get the High King to agree to some sort of treaty or to rein in the fae when you talk to him, aren’t you?”