by Jocelyn Fox
“Can it be anyone’s blood?” she asked.
“Willingly given, yes,” he said. He could see the calculation on her face. “It isn’t much blood,” he said, “and this is not the first time that Merrick has sealed his work in this way.”
Vivian pressed her lips together and folded her arms over her chest but stayed put. The wind knocked her canvas hat askew. She muttered curses as she tried to pull it down on her head and eventually just tore it off, the wind playing gleefully with her mane of corkscrew curls.
“You remind me of a Sidhe warrior who became Vyldgard,” Luca said. “Her name is Moira.”
“Moira,” repeated Vivian. “She’s a good fighter?”
“One of the best,” he replied, watching Merrick walk the perimeter of the runetrap, murmuring softly and scattering blood from his closed fist.
Vivian tried not to show that she was flattered, but she felt her face grow hot with a blush of pleasure. “Do you think…maybe you could teach me to fight like her?”
Luca chuckled. Her blush turned to one of mortification. She felt gangly and awkward. Of course this golden-haired Viking demigod wouldn’t teach her to fight.
Luca realized that Vivian had taken his chuckle as ridicule. “Yes, you remind me of her. You’re eager.” He nodded, still smiling. “I will see what I can make of you, given the time that we have.”
For once, Vivian was speechless. She swallowed down her excitement and turned her attention back to Merrick. He had moved on to the rune in the center of the circle, leaving himself an exit point in the perimeter. Strange silvery steam began to rise from the runetrap as he finished tracing the center design; when he stepped out of the circle and completed it with his blood, a silent explosion and burst of hot wind made them all stagger. Vivian blinked at the ringing in her ears. Then she felt the earth begin to shake beneath her feet. She looked with eyes round as saucers at Merrick.
“What did you do?” she shouted above the sudden wind and the roaring in her head. She couldn’t hear his answer – he shook his head and his lips moved, but it was as if sound didn’t exist anymore. In this white silence, Luca collapsed beside her. Duke awkwardly caught him as he fell, ended up going to a knee and then lowering the big man to the ground. Ross sprinted toward them from her vantage point by the shed, giving the steaming runetrap a large berth. She grabbed swaying Merrick and pulled him away from his creation. The silver steam turned black and the grass nearest the runetrap shriveled away, charred.
The ground shook for what seemed an eternity, but it couldn’t have been – Vivian couldn’t hear her own breathing, but she could feel her heartbeat thumping in her chest as she took Merrick from Ross. Everything seemed slow and ponderous. Each pause between her heartbeat felt like minutes. She didn’t even feel any excitement at the touch of her bare skin on Merrick’s as she grabbed him around the waist to keep him from falling. Her head ached – pressure built, and the ground shook, and then there was relief like slicing into a blister, strange and painful but undeniably better. Sound rushed back. Ross and Duke were yelling, trying to claw through the void of silence by brute force. They stared at each other and stopped, stunned at the sudden volume of their own voices. Vivian became very aware of Merrick’s labored breathing, his arm over her shoulder, and her hand about his waist.
Ross made a strangled sound of disbelief and sat back on her hands. Vivian followed her gaze and couldn’t hold back her own gasp: Luca was glowing. Not in the way that someone said a bride glowed on her wedding day or a new father glowed as he held his child for the first time. He was physically emitting light. Vivian swallowed hard and felt a crazy smile starting to overtake her face as she drank in the sight. If Merrick’s runetrap hadn’t convinced her, the vision of Luca shining like one of those illustrations of a saint rising heavenward cemented her willingness to believe in their fantastic story. She tore her eyes away and glanced at Ross, who stared transfixed with a mingled expression of shock and a strange relief.
The aura emanating from Luca quickly faded. Duke stood up, rubbed the back of his neck and watched the ulfdrengr warily. Luca opened his eyes and sat up. He no longer looked haggard and worn. The circles beneath his eyes had disappeared, and his icy blue eyes seemed more vibrant than just moments before. He flexed his hands, took a deep breath and stood, the simple movement conveying supple strength. Thunder rumbled overhead, closer now. He looked at each of them in turn: Ross and Duke, then Vivian, and lastly Merrick, still leaning on Vivian for support.
“A Gate was opened,” Luca said. Merrick’s breath hitched as a desperate hope surfaced in his eyes. “A Gate was opened,” repeated Luca, rubbing his hands over one another as though to assure himself that his renewal was real. “And Kianryk is now in the mortal world.”
The sky darkened and fat raindrops began to fall around them, breaking their collectively astounded trance. Ross appeared on Merrick’s other side, and between them they managed to get him quickly across the yard to the house, reaching the door just after it began to pour in earnest. The dark-haired Sidhe collapsed onto the couch.
“Why are you better and he isn’t?” demanded Vivian, looking at Luca desperately. While Luca looked sound and whole, Merrick’s condition had worsened with the sealing of the runetrap. A gray pallor lurked beneath his pale skin, his lips tinged with blue.
“I don’t have a wolf in the mortal world,” replied Merrick with an attempt at a smile.
“You’re still bleeding,” said Vivian, touching the hand that Merrick still clenched in a fist. He didn’t reply but laid his head back wearily as she spied the first aid kit in the corner of the living room and swooped down on it.
Ross checked the lock on the door and leveled a severe look at Mayhem when the dog shook the rain from her coat. The Malinois merely grinned innocently at her and loped over to Luca. “So what do we do now?” she asked the room at large.
“Every creature with any sense of our world within hundreds of leagues will have felt that Gate opening,” said Merrick, obediently opening his clenched fist for Vivian. He winced as she dabbed at the cut gently with gauze, glancing surreptitiously at the dark blue blood.
“Yes.” Luca nodded. He grinned and Ross realized how very wolf-like he looked with his teeth bare and gleaming. “Kianryk will not have crossed into this world alone. He is a wolf, after all.” Luca’s pale eyes flashed with humor.
“You think Tess is here with him?” asked Duke.
Luca laid one of his hands flat against his chest. “Yes. I feel it here.”
“How convenient,” remarked Ross dryly. She ignored the reproachful look from Duke. “Nobody has answered my question yet. What do we do now?”
“Now we wait,” said Luca.
“Wait for what?” Vivian asked, looking up from fitting a clean square of gauze over Merrick’s hand.
“We wait to see who reaches us first,” said Luca. “The Bearer, or the bone sorcerer.”
They all absorbed this announcement. Then Ross rubbed her face and sighed lightly. “I don’t know about you, V, but I need another beer.” She headed toward the fridge, thinking that perhaps a nice, cold beer would take her mind off being the bait in a trap for a psychotic wizard. It was already shaping up to be an interesting day, and she was fairly sure that they still had time for more craziness before it was over.
Chapter 21
“I need to speak to the Bearer.” The voice was low, almost frantic. Tess didn’t recognize the speaker immediately, the fog of sleep still shrouding most of her senses.
“She’s sleeping.” Calliea used her carefully neutral voice.
“I know,” came the first voice again, this time tinged with something like desperation. “And I’m sorry to wake her, but I need to speak to her when she is asleep.”
“First of all,” Calliea replied, her voice closer to a growl now, “you’re not making any sense. And second of all, it looks like sleep is the only thing that might help the Bearer…recalibrate. So we intend to let her have as much o
f it as she needs.”
“You don’t understand. Please. This isn’t what you think. It’s not what any of you think. I need to talk to her.”
Tess stirred. If someone needed to see her that badly, she might as well oblige them – they’d awoken her already. She opened her eyes and blinked fuzzily: with the dissipating gossamer threads of sleep still entwining her mind, she thought she saw bits of taebramh, small and featherlike, drifting in an invisible wind that funneled the glowing silver specks down to her skin. And she thought she felt them, each one a tiny spark of warmth like the opposite of a snowflake hitting her skin. But then she blinked and her vision cleared. Rain still lashed the sides of the trailer and wind howled around the windows.
“Who is it, Calliea?” she asked in a rusty voice as she sat up. Her muscles ached as though she’d trained for hours with Luca, but it was a better kind of discomfort than the sickness she’d felt right after coming through the Gate. She brushed her fingers against the sheath of the Sword, still propped against the broken headboard. The Caedbranr warmed to her touch and fawned beneath her hand. She felt the liquid heat of the silky pelt it wore when it appeared as a primal wolf.
Calliea turned slightly from her post by the door. “It’s Molly. She says she needs to speak with you.”
“Yes, I heard that.” Tess nodded as she took a deep breath. She didn’t feel like vomiting every five seconds, so that was an improvement.
“But she is not making very much sense,” Calliea said, tilting her head.
“If you let me in, I can explain,” Molly said from the other side of the door.
Tess rubbed one hand over her face and glanced around the room. She wasn’t afraid of Molly, but she still had the uneasy feeling that something wasn’t right with her friend.
“Jess is on watch,” Calliea said. “I’m staying.”
“Sounds like a good plan. Let her in.” Tess stood as Calliea opened the door slightly, forcing Molly to slide against the wall to enter the room. The Valkyrie commander took two steps back and settled one hand on her coiled whip, watching Molly dispassionately.
Molly shut the door with a soft click. She’d grown her hair long during her time in the Fae world, wearing it in a braid over her shoulder; Tess watched her friend for the manic grin or strange flash in her gaze, but Molly seemed…afraid. She moved with Sidhe grace but her cat-like eyes darted around the room, peering into the shadows, as though waiting for a trap to be sprung.
“Molly,” Tess said, trying to make her voice calm and reassuring. “What’s wrong?”
Thunder rumbled overhead and a particularly strong gust of wind shook the trailer. Molly jumped and glanced nervously at the window, licking her lips.
Tess frowned. “Molly?”
“What do you know that we do not?” Calliea asked in a low voice, stepping toward Molly again.
“I…give me a moment.” Molly put up a hand as though to ward off a blow from Calliea. “Please. I need to explain to the Bearer…to…Tess.” She turned and looked at Tess with wide eyes. After a moment of silence, she took a deep breath and said, “I remember. I have my memories back.”
It took a moment for Tess to absorb the meaning of Molly’s words. When they finally sank into her brain, she found herself grinning despite the strangeness of the situation. “Molly! That’s amazing…isn’t it?” Her smile faded as Molly shook her head, looking over her shoulder at the door again.
The dark haired, half-mortal girl took a few steps toward Tess. Calliea slid sideways, staying between Molly and Tess, her delicate face hard with purpose. Tess moved to wave Calliea away, but Molly began talking in a low voice, words tumbling out of her so fast that it took all of Tess’s focus to understand them.
“Tess, she’s punishing Ramel. He found a way to restore my memories, but he couldn’t find a way to help the princess. Mab is slipping. She’s resorting to…to methods that are cruel even for her.” Molly took a breath and plunged on, her pale face earnest in the darkness. “She’s paranoid. She began to think that I was a threat. I thought she was going to have me killed, Tess. This was my ticket out.”
“So you’ve been acting crazy to seem like less of a threat to Mab?” Tess asked slowly, the pieces of a strange puzzle finally beginning to take shape in her mind.
“Yes and no,” Molly said quickly. “I don’t know how much time I have, she only allows him to sleep when she sleeps, and if we are not asleep when that happens, then he doesn’t get to sleep at all.” A flash of anger crossed her face, erasing the fear for an instant. “It’s monstrous, even for her.”
“When you say ‘she,’” said Calliea, “you mean Mab?”
“Yes.” Molly nodded.
Tess felt her stomach drop, and this time the nausea wasn’t from the Sword’s expanding power. The image of Ramel in his light-swallowing dark armor and lifeless eyes flashed in her mind. “What has Mab done to Ramel?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Molly said, her words tumbling over one another, “but it has something to do with his armor, I think.” She grimaced. “Whatever it is, she’s spying on us. She’s controlling him. He fought against her enough to warn me once. I don’t think she realized that he’d been able to tell me anything, but it was enough that I understood him.” She took a shuddering breath. “And…that’s not all.”
“Of course it isn’t,” muttered Tess. Aloud, she said, “What else is there?”
“As the price for my passage through the Gate, Mab gave me a mission.” Molly grabbed her own elbows, hugging herself in an abrupt movement.
Calliea narrowed her eyes. “To retrieve the Lethe Stone for her?”
Molly shook her head. “No. But please…I never meant to do it. I only agreed to be free of her. I only said yes because it was the only way out.”
Tess’s stomach sank even further. “So what’s this mission?” Her voice came out flat and cold.
Molly looked at her with a plea written across her pale face. “After you defeat the bone sorcerer and the Lethe Stone is in our possession, I’m supposed to kill you.”
Tess didn’t see Calliea move, but the Valkyrie commander suddenly gripped Molly by the throat, pinning her up against the wall with a dagger pressed to her ribs. Molly didn’t move to defend herself, wheezing, “If you kill me, Ramel will do it.”
“Then I’ll kill him too,” snarled Calliea, a savage light in her eyes.
“That’s what she wants,” choked Molly.
“Let her down,” said Tess sharply. Calliea tensed and stared at Molly for another moment, but then released her grip and backed away. Molly dropped to her knees, coughing.
Tess took a step closer to Molly. “Why is that what Mab wants?”
Molly coughed and swallowed. She looked up at Tess, a few tendrils of dark hair escaping her braid and draping across her face. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Mab wants war.”
“Why?” pressed Tess. “We just finished a war. The Unseelie Court lost as many as anyone. Why would Mab want another war?”
“She’s afraid she’s losing control,” Molly whispered. Her eyes darted between Tess and Calliea. “She’s afraid. She’s afraid that with the Vyldgard, more of her people will realize that there are other ways to live. She’s afraid that there will be another uprising.”
A thrill coursed through Tess. “Another uprising like the one that ended with the Exiled being cast through the Gate.”
Molly nodded. “And it might be true.” She winced as she swallowed, standing unsteadily.
Tess took a deep breath. “So…you’ve been acting insane to try and throw Mab off your scent. You agreed to kill me as price for your passage to the mortal world.” She shook her head. “And Ramel is somehow even more of a spy for Mab than one of her Three usually would be?”
“She’s using him as her own eyes and ears,” whispered Molly, casting another terrified glance at the closed bedroom door. “She’s controlling him.”
Calliea murmured an oath.
“How?” asked T
ess brusquely.
Molly jumped at the sudden change in tone and wrung her hands together nervously. “I…I’m not entirely sure.”
“Why should we believe you?” Calliea said in a low voice.
Molly straightened and her eyes flashed. “Why would I lie about something like this?”
Calliea shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. But I don’t know you and I don’t trust you.”
Molly turned back to Tess, her eyes glimmering too brightly in the shadows. “Please, Tess. Please believe me. I don’t know how, but Mab is controlling Ramel and if she finds out that I’ve told you anything, she’ll probably force him to kill me.”
“And then kill me,” Tess said grimly. The Sword’s power circled in her chest. She rubbed at her breastbone with the heel of one hand. “I don’t understand why Mab wants to start another war, but then again I’ve never fully understood Mab anyway.”
“There’s talk…within the Court, that she is going mad,” Molly whispered.
“I wish I could send a message to Vell,” Tess said, almost to herself. “But if I open the Gate without the Lethe Stone, Mab will just say that I’ve broken my word and use that as leverage to start a conflict too.” She pressed her lips together and then took a deep breath.
“So what do we do?” Calliea asked Tess, her hand still resting lightly on her coiled whip.
“We continue with the mission. We don’t let Ramel or Molly stand watch.” Tess raised a hand at Molly’s half formed protest. “If Mab is watching through Ramel…that means that I can’t act as if I know anything is wrong. So keep on doing the crazy act and sowing discontent.”
Calliea snorted softly. “That doesn’t take much effort.”
“And being courteous doesn’t take much effort either,” returned Molly with a rebellious flare.
“I don’t make a habit of treating insane traitors with courtesy,” said Calliea, smiling coldly.
“Enough,” said Tess. She leveled a hard look at Calliea. “Even if you don’t trust her, you know that she’s in a difficult position. Try to be more understanding.”