by AJ Lancaster
Hetta nearly rolled her eyes, but in truth she could probably use a steady arm. Her dizziness was only increasing, and she wobbled her way to her feet.
“Thank you,” she began to say, but the duke was unexpectedly close. She started, clutching the back of her chair for balance. The duke’s expression was strangely blank as he reached for her, and there was a sharp, painful tug at her neck.
Her thoughts moved sluggishly, and it took a few long seconds to process what was happening. The duke held her necklace in his hand, staring at the two spell-gems—Lamorkin’s heartstone and the more recent one that held the translocation spell. He still had that unsettling expression, as if he were in a dream. Compulsion! Danger! She had to get the gems back, but her limbs moved as slowly as her thoughts.
Before she could act, the duke dropped the necklace and smashed his boot down on the gems. They made a crunching sound as they broke, and Hetta stared down at the glittering shards. No. No, they couldn’t both be broken; that wasn’t fair. Aroset would only care about the translocation one; why should the heartstone be caught in the crossfire?
Wyn. She needed Wyn, to warn him, but the air bloomed with storm-scent laced with metal and roses. The centre of the table burst into light as a portal slashed the air.
Aroset’s silver-gold hair hung down her back in a long braid, and her wings sparkled like blood rubies as she flared them. The lords flung themselves backwards with shouts of alarm.
Aroset’s eyes were the same guinea-gold as King Aeros’s had been, glinting with malice, and they were the last thing Hetta saw before the world spun and everything went dark.
46
A Most Inconvenient Kidnapping
Hetta woke with a throbbing head and rebellious stomach. I haven’t been this hungover in years; what in Prydein did I drink last night? she thought before groggy memories caught up and slammed her awake all at once.
She went to sit up and found she couldn’t; her arms and wrists were bound behind her. At least she was alive, but her plan lay in pieces on the floor of the Dome.
She lay on a bed facing towards a window. Neither the bed nor the view of the countryside gave any clues as to her location. The sky was dark with stormclouds, but it was still daylight. The sky above Greymark had been clear. How long had she been here and how far exactly had Aroset taken her?
A cold feeling clutched her chest as she remembered the shattered translocation spell. She was alive, and Wyn would come for her, and Aroset was presumably somewhere nearby, hoping for exactly that. Aroset was more powerful than Wyn, or had been, last time they met. And this time they had no backup to convince her to retreat.
Well, the first thing to do was to get out of these ridiculous bonds.
“You’re awake.”
Hetta twisted awkwardly towards the voice. It came from a woman seated on a stool near the foot of the bed. Her expression had an unsettling spark of zealotry. Compulsion.
“I’m going to be sick,” Hetta said, her voice dry and scratching. She tried to look as pathetic as possible, which wasn’t difficult. “Can I have my hands free, and a bucket—unless you want to clean up a mess?”
The woman’s expression lagged behind Hetta’s words, shifting into a frown after a long pause. But she rose and drew a chamberpot across the floor and plonked it in front of Hetta.
“Don’t think you can escape the Storm Queen,” she warned.
Honestly, does Aroset think styling herself as such will magically make the Spires choose her? Though Irokoi had implied any of them might be chosen, if they were freed of compulsion, she doubted Rakken would help Aroset achieve that.
The woman leaned down to untie Hetta’s hands and flinched as a spark of static crackled at her touch. After a beat, the woman resumed untying her hands, and Hetta lay still and tried not to think about what it meant that she didn’t have the heartstone draining the babe’s excess charge away anymore.
The request had been a ploy to get her hands free, but her stomach gave a horrible twist when she sat upright, and she was quite glad of the chamberpot’s proximity. The woman watched impassively but did offer her a mug of water when she was done. Hetta stared at the mug suspiciously, fairly certain the duke had put something in her drink at the Conclave. Just how long had Aroset been compelling him? Jack had said he’d turned up at Stariel asking after her too; could it have been that far back?
Her throat ached, and she rinsed out her mouth but didn’t swallow any. The woman made as if to re-tie her hands, and Hetta spread her palms and summoned fire.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, because it wasn’t the woman’s fault she’d been compelled by Aroset. “But I will if you try to stop me leaving. Go away.”
The woman’s eyes flashed, but she backed away as Hetta poured more magic into her left hand, increasing the size of the flame there and bending to undo the knot at her ankles with the other.
“You’ve polluted the sacred bloodline!” she screeched, voice twisting with hatred.
Well, that told Hetta what Aroset thought of her pregnancy. The knots of her ankles took an age to undo, and her fingers were slippery with sweat by the time they came free. So long as the fire sat in her palm, it was under her control and wouldn’t burn her, but it still put out a great deal of heat. She eyed the woman warily as she crossed the room and put her hand on the doorknob, but she didn’t move, so Hetta let herself out and into the hallway.
“Hallowyn Tempestren,” she whispered. Possibly a more self-sacrificing person would avoid summoning her lover, but two of them against Aroset seemed much better than Hetta alone. Her hand slid to her abdomen. Especially because it wasn’t only the two of them. She repeated the name as she crept through the house. Its appearance confirmed her first impressions; this was someone’s manor house, though it was awfully quiet, absent the sounds and sights of people she was used to in her own.
She was halfway along a hallway when metal and storms washed over her.
“Henrietta Isadore Valstar,” Aroset purred from the far end of the hallway. “You are outside your faeland.”
“Princess Aroset Tempestren,” Hetta said, not sure if saying her name aloud would help Wyn find her or not. It couldn’t hurt. She took a slow step backwards towards the door, as if Aroset were a feral dog she was trying not to antagonise. All the fae royalty Hetta had met had that sense of suppressed power about them, that hint of wildness, but in Aroset it held a more vicious edge.
“Queen,” the fae woman corrected, her wings arched up in what Hetta now knew was a very stormdancer pose, meant to intimidate. In fairness, it was intimidating. Threads of gold glittered in feathers brilliant as crushed rubies.
Aroset appeared to be enjoying the effect. She bared white teeth in an extremely alarming smile. The expression was made more unsettling by the familiarity of her features, the same cut-glass cheekbones as Wyn, the same brown skin and startlingly silver hair. But Wyn had never smiled like that.
“Your new wings are, er, very nice,” Hetta mumbled, taking another step backwards. Aroset’s smile widened.
“Yes,” she agreed, fanning her primaries. “It is the Maelstrom’s gift to its future ruler.”
“Very nice,” Hetta repeated in the hope it would stall Aroset a little longer, repressing a hysterical laugh. She took another step back.
But apparently Aroset’s taste for admiration had limits, for she snapped her wings shut and shook her head, chiding. “Now, now, mortal lordling. You’re trying to escape from me. Aren’t you pleased to see me, a member of your intended family?” She bit out the last word with disgust. “How many screams do you think it will take before he comes for you? It is a pity you have no wings to break, but fingerbones are nearly as satisfying.”
Oh, to the hells with it. Hetta poured magic into great spouts of flame from her hands, half real and half illusion, down the full length of the hallway.
Aroset snapped out the real flames in a heartbeat, the scent of roses and iron heavy in the air. Fire wasn�
��t an effective magic against someone who could pull the oxygen away from it in an instant. But the illusory flames confused her for long enough that Hetta had time to whirl about and sprint down the length of the corridor.
A whip of air caught her ankle as she fled and she tripped, catching herself on the wall before she fell. Panic scattered her thoughts, so she summoned the simplest illusion she knew: fog. The hallway behind her filled with dense grey mist, and she heard Aroset’s frustrated snarl, followed by a gale-force blast of wind. The corridor shook with the air currents, picture frames knocking against the walls, but the fog wasn’t real and wouldn’t blow away.
“You cannot run forever, little lordling,” Aroset taunted, as Hetta fumbled along the wall for balance against the rush of wind, trying not to breathe too loudly, making the illusory fog even thicker. Hetta could see through her own illusions, of course, and she risked a quick glance backwards. Aroset stood tall and narrow-eyed just outside the bedchamber door through the haze of magic, her lips curled back from her perfect white teeth. Her gaze locked onto Hetta’s and Hetta jerked away, scrambling faster. Aroset couldn’t possibly have seen her through the fog, but Aroset’s widening smile had been the opposite of reassuring.
Hetta fumbled for the nearest doorknob and lurched through into a drawing room. Just where was she, and, more importantly, how did she get out?
She filled the drawing room with fog for good measure and scrambled across it, escaping through the door opposite and emerging onto a landing. Stairs! Her gaze fixed on the entryway below, and she hurried along the landing and down the staircase, summoning as much fog as she could.
She’d forgotten something essential: Aroset could fly. Suddenly the fae woman was in front of her, folding her wings behind her as she landed.
“Lordling,” she crooned. Her golden eyes were bright with pleasure, the kind of look a cat gets when it knows a mouse is already caught. She’s playing with me. Aroset canted her head to the side, the gesture eerily similar to Wyn’s. “I do not think you need to be undamaged.”
She moved so fast that Hetta had no time to react before cold and then pain lanced across her arm. She stared down at the spreading wetness in confusion. Aroset hadn’t touched her. Had she? But the next strike came while she was watching the fae woman, an icy line just above the curve of her breasts. Air. Aroset was making blades out of air! How was that fair?
Without thinking about whether it was a good idea or not, she launched herself at Aroset in a fiery ball of magical flames. She latched grimly onto the fae woman’s arm and poured fire out through her palms. It had to have hurt, but Aroset only laughed, and it was then that Hetta realised that whatever had caused the changes in Aroset’s wings and increased her power mightn’t have left her entirely sane. Oh dear.
The wind blades picked up speed, the next slash on her abdomen. Hetta gasped, releasing Aroset, her hands going to cover herself protectively.
That was when the lightning struck, cracking open the roof like an eggshell. Hetta covered her eyes, ears ringing with the crack of it.
Aroset spread her wings and looked up. A maniacal grin split her face.
“Ah, Hallowyn. Well met.”
Wyn hovered in the space that recently had been occupied by roof. Above, stormclouds churned in angry purple. Thunder rumbled.
Charge poured off his wings, and his eyes burned a flickering blue-silver, not the merest hint of russet visible. He held a sword like he knew how to use it, and Hetta’s thoughts snagged on the question of where in Prydein had he gotten a sword from? It looked suspiciously like one of the treasured relics from the walls of the Dome.
Hetta scrambled away from Aroset, partly because being further away seemed like an excellent idea and partly because hailstones the size of fists were smashing into the tiles through the newly formed hole in the roof.
The hailstones, most unfortunately, didn’t hit Aroset. She had some kind of thickened air shield, creating a halo of frozen shards around her as the hail shattered on impact.
Aroset smiled mockingly up at Wyn and spread her wings. “Would you like me to kill you or your mortal first?”
Wyn met Hetta’s eyes, and there wasn’t any hint of mortal butler in them.
“Run,” he said. It wasn’t Aroset he was asking her to run from.
And then he released the storm.
47
The Maelstrom's Gift
Aroset cocked her head, eyes gleaming the same guinea gold as King Aeros’s. Despite the roof, Wyn read only triumph in her expression; she didn’t doubt her victory. And why would she? She was older, more skilled in battle, she had beaten him once before, and she stood between him and Hetta now. And Hetta was bleeding.
Aroset took in his proximity, calculating angles. He knew she would try to strike at Hetta first, if she could. A bit of space folded around her hand, and she was abruptly holding a spear. She hefted it thoughtfully.
Wyn had never truly embraced his nature, never let the magic spool out as it willed. He’d always kept a tight leash on his power, but such caution would only hamper him now. He couldn’t defeat Aroset by playing mortal.
I am a stormdancer. Hail and wind hammered at him, and he let their songs resonate over his feathers, relishing each wingbeat. I am a stormdancer, and this is my birthright.
I am not sorry for the child. And I am not sorry they will be fae. The thought hummed to the rhythm of the storm, glorious and bitter all at once, and he welcomed it, welcomed the knowledge of who and what he was.
“Run,” he told Hetta.
The Maelstrom gave gifts to those who survived its grasp. To Rakken had gone compulsion strong enough to hold vast crowds in thrall. To Aroset, the ability to open portals even into Deeper Faerie.
And to Wyn, the Maelstrom had given the storm.
It shook its way out of his soul, white and burning. Lightning struck a javelin into the earth, centred on Aroset.
The world froze, his sister’s eyes going wide and startled before it slammed into her. He’d wondered how deep his own power went, if he set it free. Now he stripped it from its fetters, and it was glorious. He let the lightning bear him downwards, embracing the pain and ecstasy of it, and landed with a thump in the smoking crater in the floor.
Charge crawled in white-hot snakes over Aroset’s crumpled form, flocking to Wyn’s feet like puppies when he touched the ground. He looked down at his sister, lightning writhing through his veins. It would’ve killed Aroset if she hadn’t been a stormdancer, hadn’t had significant natural immunity to charge. As it was, only the smallest rise and fall of her chest showed she still lived.
The hail softened into snowflakes, drifting down around them in a chill hush while his thoughts ran cold and crystalline. Aroset had hurt a lot of people, from the bank manager injured in a lug-imp attack she’d orchestrated to the wing worshippers she’d compelled. She’d blinded Irokoi. She’d nearly strangled Marius and pushed his telepathy in unnatural directions. She’d kidnapped Hetta—twice.
If they woke ThousandSpire from its curse, it might still choose Aroset as its queen. Oh, Irokoi had been blithely confident they could avoid her stepping foot there, but the risk remained. Aroset was most like their father, after all, and his cruelty hadn’t stopped ThousandSpire bonding with him. Faelands weren’t concerned with morality.
And if she isn’t chosen, it won’t stop her from wreaking havoc. She’d already shown herself willing to target those Wyn loved in order to get to him.
She would target the child, his and Hetta’s. His grip tightened on the sword, burning white-hot and unforgiving. Blood and magic dripped from his fingers as the wound healed and re-opened with every heartbeat, as the power coursing through him came into contact with the hot iron.
He could end this, now. It would be easy. He’d already killed his own father, hadn’t he, already made the terrible calculation once before? And Aroset was as monstrous as King Aeros.
He waited for Hetta to call out as he stared down at his sister�
��s still form, to stop him, to remind him that they might need Aroset alive to undo ThousandSpire’s curse, but she said nothing. He heard her footsteps softly approaching the crater, but he didn’t turn. Instead, he pulled in the storm’s influence, so it reached no further than the circle of his feet, and for the first time it obeyed without question.
Blood pooled beneath his frozen fingers, the same colour as Aroset’s wings.
He brought the sword down. It lacked the razor edge of Catsmere’s when she’d shorn Rakken, and Wyn was forced to saw at Aroset’s feathers, separating primaries from wingbone in rough, ugly motions. Aroset didn’t stir, not even when he leaned down and forced open the wing she lay upon in order to reach her feathers.
He met Hetta’s eyes. ‘I love you,’ hovered on his lips, fighting for primacy with ‘I’m sorry’. Except how could ‘sorry’ begin to encompass the scope of things? And he wasn’t sorry, exactly, or at least not sure what he was sorry for. Sorry for not killing Aroset? Sorry for the way the Conclave had treated Hetta? Sorry for all the various complications he brought with him?
“Where are we?” she asked.
He blew out a breath, the sheer mundanity of the question pulling him back from the edge. “The Duke of Callasham’s estate, near Greymark. Aroset had caught him in her net; the compulsion was apparent even to me when I examined him.”
Hetta harrumphed.
“What have you done to your hand?!” She stepped closer as if to take the sword from him, but he flung it across the room before she could. It clattered against the banisters.
“It’s hot,” he explained. There were lines of red seeping through her blouse on her arms and stomach. “You’re bleeding.”
She grimaced down at the wounds. “Yes, I know, but they’re not deep, and they mostly seem to have stopped bleeding.” Her grey eyes were serious, and she put a palm to his chest. “I’m fine.”