Veil glanced at me sidelong. I gave a small, one-shouldered shrug. I stared at my high guard, willing them to produce Chevelle from somewhere behind all this mess. Anvil’s empty gaze stared back at me, no promises bar his vow. He’d pledged fealty to me when I’d been a mere child, and it was as strong now as ever. I nodded gratefully, hoping he could not see the truth of my distress.
I needed more than vows. I needed my Second.
When Chevelle finally did show up, it was in the middle of the mayhem before a setting sun. Six high fey faced off, spears and horns and sharpened bones spraying blood as far as the center stones. The court was alight, excitement and power vibrating through every single being present, fevered dancing and wanton screeching pierced through with the occasional torturous scream. My nerves had been overworked, the constant tension fatiguing my muscles as well as my mind. I’d expected his appearance to be a reprieve.
I should have known better.
30
Chevelle
Chevelle held up the diary, fully aware that it could get him killed. This was a dangerous ruse. They’d come too late, the attack at the boundary slowing them just enough to force his hand, and he’d have to play this through, to risk the fey finding out before they’d had a chance to get safely out of the fey lands.
Liana sang, some wild bird call that trilled higher than nature ever intended, and parts of the crowd settled down, turning to see what new thrill might await their frenzied delights. Fights were scattered through the packed arena, pockets of drinking and betting and blood abounded. One particularly gruesome battle was near its end, and Liana and Chevelle had picked this moment for their entrance before another began.
They had their attention. Enough of the crowd was watching to begin his offer of trade. But Chevelle was frozen, unaware time was passing, even if it was time they desperately needed to use.
Freya sat high upon the court dais, practically mounted upon a stage as ornament for the fey high lord. Veil watched him from his golden throne, but Chevelle had no interest in returning the stare. He could only see Frey, her armor gone, slick black leather covering her from neck to toe. Her eyes were lined in charcoal, dark green and filled with pain and exhaustion. Braids adorned her head, threaded through with ornaments, a makeshift crown. There was tension in her body, and he suspected she was having a hard time holding back her power in this current of madness. He could feel it swimming through the masses, and it was affecting even him. But there was something else, some warning in her gaze.
Liana nudged him. He glanced at her, hesitated. She threw up her arms.
“I have brought a lovely gift,” she told the audience. She smiled graciously at the crowd, pausing pointedly when her attention landed on Keane and Pitt.
Ruby, he thought, shocked to see her here, alive. She was tied in charred bands of braided hemp, anger boiling below the surface as she stood at the feet of the platform’s steps.
“He has a trade,” Liana offered. She gestured toward the book in Chevelle’s upthrust hand. “And it is that which you fools have yearned for many, many years.” She bowed, spinning closer to the dais and letting her form shift to and fro. It made Chevelle’s stomach turn.
She came to rest a few lengths from Ruby, keeping Chevelle and Frey in her line of sight. She’d solidified, chosen a color, and the entire display had been a ploy. She’d merely wanted the crowd settled, cleared from a decently sized area, and it had worked beautifully.
On the night of the fates’ dance, you gave a changeling her space.
Liana looked up at Pitt, though her smirk was more likely aimed at Keane. “Opening bids?”
Keane hissed, but neither changeling gave notice. Interested, Pitt asked, “Terms?”
“The halfling, of course.”
Pitt flicked a finger, indicating Chevelle should bring the diary closer. It was too much of a command, an offhand gesture he might use with his servants. Chevelle moved anyway. The sun was sliding lower, throwing red and purple and orange against a thousand stones and shards of glass. The reflections of it caught the statues, now wet with blood and reaching toward that dying sky.
The fates would dance. In a matter of minutes. They had no time.
He gave himself distance between Liana and the others, holding the diary close to his chest, the fire fey’s mark plain to those who’d know it.
Pitt twitched, not entirely a tell, but enough on a changeling’s face to give away shock. He’d not expected this, not from Chevelle and certainly not Liana. He opened his hands toward the two, gave a small shrug. He didn’t truly need Ruby. He only needed this knowledge. “It matters not whether the secret is in blood or ink. I shall trade, the book for the halfling.”
One of Pitt’s men tugged on Ruby’s rope, jerking her toward the stairs. Chevelle started to open his mouth to speak, to add his terms before the bargain was sealed. After the fates’ dance. The trade must be made when they had time to run, to get to the border before Pitt had opened the record to find it was not his fire fey’s potions, but an elven girl’s diary.
He never got the chance.
“No,” Frey shouted. “There is no bargain to be made among my guard on my behalf. I have spoken for Ruby. The fey high lord will fight.”
The entire arena went still. Chevelle turned to Freya, staring first at her form, solid and strong and standing atop the court dais, a feathered sculpture appearing to sprout wings at her shoulders from the top of a throne. When he looked to Veil, Chevelle saw his own shock mirrored, doubled, circling quickly to something dark.
Fury.
Spikes of sunlight shot through the sky, lightness disappearing below a purple horizon. The sun was setting, but Veil’s heat could be felt through the entirety of the clearing. Frey’s words echoed again and again, spiraling down until Chevelle could come to only one conclusion.
She’d made a deal with the fey.
31
Frey
The heat of summer was behind me, Veil a burning ember on the hottest day as he sat upon his golden throne. I’d betrayed him, as simple as that. My Second had shown up to save me, to give the diary to the changeling and retrieve Ruby so we might walk away, and I had refused him. Veil was at a disadvantage with his own kind, not simply because of the encroaching humans, but from a coup, with apparent players from both the fire fey and the changelings and it was impossible to know who else. Veil had given us a lifeline with this bargain, and I’d had no other choice. But now Chevelle was here, offering to save both me and the fey lord from this challenge, and I’d refused.
In front of everyone.
The sky was turning, nightfall was upon us, and the half-breed elven lord had betrayed the highest fey. I cleared my throat. “We all know why the changeling wants Ruby. The gift she holds is her namesake, her mother having known that she was not tethered to the base power as the rest of you.” Ruby, a stone that could hold power outside the fey lands. I stepped forward, making my voice louder, my intention clear. “You will not have her.”
Veil stood behind me. I could not see him, but I felt the heat, could see his move register on the stunned faces of the fey below.
“I will protect your kind from the draw on your power. I will stave off that drain, keep the humans at bay.” I inclined my head toward Pitt. “But only if I don’t stand in tomorrow’s dawn as eternal stone.”
Pitt grinned wickedly. He understood I hadn’t trusted him to uphold his end of the bargain, I knew my Seven, and myself, would never make it out of here alive. I needed him dead. And I would let Veil do it before attempting myself.
Nothing could have made the changeling happier.
“Then I propose a separate bargain,” announced Chevelle. He glanced first at Keane, and then Pitt, keeping the table open to whomever held the cards. “The diary for the others: Grey and Rhys. Without challenge, a simple bargain alone.”
Pitt turned to Keane, making it clear the two were under the other man’s control. Which meant either Keane’s men had captu
red them, or they’d made some other trade.
Chevelle waited, watching the idea of this new offer play its way out in Keane’s mind. Veil would fight Pitt, and one of them would die. If it were Pitt, Keane’s hopes of ruling this court died with him. If it were Veil, he might have a chance, but he’d done his part. He’d captured Ruby, and then Grey to keep her under control. And now he’d have a diary he did not need, one that he’d have no single use for, because Veil dying meant Pitt had Ruby and the secret—and no use for the actual book.
And Keane had lost.
A long moment passed, soundless and still. And then Keane roared, raising a tube to his mouth and firing a poison dart into the crowd. There was an instant of stunned silence ahead of a small, muffled noise as Grey’s body landed upon the polished stone floor.
A high-pitched keen rang through the arena as Ruby raised her head to the sky. The ring of trees surrounding the entire clearing ignited in flame.
The sun was falling below the horizon. There was only a few spare minutes before the start of the fates’ dance. Everyone rose, unsure what the fire fey might do, but it was Liana who spoke. “I challenge you, Keane.”
Keane glared at her, threw a slender finger toward the body on the ground. “He is dead. You will never have him, at any price.”
“I will fight you for free.” Her words were ice, spelled to life with a coldness that resonated sharp against the heat of Ruby’s trees.
“And if I win,” he told her, nodding toward Chevelle.
“Yes,” she said.
My legs gave way, sudden and completely. Veil caught my arm, surreptitiously moving me against him. But no one was looking at us. They watched Liana and Keane. Liana, who owned Chevelle. That had been his bargain then, himself for me. And now she gambled him in this fight with Keane. For nothing.
I let out a helpless breath.
“I accept,” Keane said, just as the sun dipped into the dark abyss.
Ruby’s fire lit the clearing, flickers and flame making shadows dance, making the stillness of the stones appear to come to life.
Veil wrapped his arm around my waist, throwing his free hand toward the sky. “It is time,” he told the eager fey. “The dark night is upon us, and the fates shall dance!”
Lightning and fire rolled through the clouded sky, a thunderous roar boiling up from the crowd. Rain sprayed onto their outstretched hands, drenching fey and fire alike. A wild wind raged. The clouds parted to moonlight, bright and full and bathing the entire expanse in eerie white and blue. The rain ceased, but had wetted the floor and key stones, only adding to the unnatural effects. The mass of fey shifted, moving to center the arena where the fight would begin.
The dais was positioned perfectly, leaving me able to see the complete revolting affair. I could see Chevelle as well, strong and poised, his tattered armor laced with black char. And Ruby, not far behind him, staring dead-eyed at the form of Grey on the floor. No one had touched him, not with the threat of her glare. She’d ignited the trees with a purpose; they knew her power could reach them if they tried.
Anvil stood on the outskirts of the masses, his familiar face lit with the paleness of the moon, his expression unswerving. Several score of men stood shoulder to shoulder behind him, the line eventually falling into less formal bands of rogues. Rider stood before those, across the throng from a brother who looked just as battered as he.
Steed then, the last of my Seven who was missing. I’d scarcely had the chance to think of him over the last two days. I hoped he was well. I hoped Thea had stayed with him.
I hoped at least he would live.
Flora and Virtue swooped down to hover at either side of the dais. The contestants’ names were drawn, the opening match called. “It begins,” Flora said, and the first opponents walked into the ring. From this angle, it was a ring, the standing stones arranged so that two figures could face each other without obstruction. When they did, a tall, thin male wearing ochre robes and carved bone knives met a stout female with a spear, the bulk of her green-tinted skin layered in a web of vine and jewels. They looked to the sky.
All of us looked to the sky.
And the sky exploded. The base power rose up through the two of them, conductors for the energy that fought in a ball of blue, violet, pink and white. It sparked and shone, collided and drew against itself, a sphere of light that desperately struggled to form or shatter, or embrace some other construct than what the two fey held it to. The base power thrummed beneath us, rushing forward through these players to light the atmosphere, and then it detonated, one energy finally overpowering the other so that the winning side remained standing, the losing hit with a blast of power too strong to endure.
The defeated party did not always turn to stone. That fate was reserved for only the strongest matches, only the highest fey. This time, the man in ochre robes ignited, his body burned before our very eyes.
It was not an easy death, but it had been quick.
The next two matches were neither easy nor quick. My stomach had turned and knotted in on itself so long that it ached. My thirst was nearing unbearable, and the heat radiating off Veil had me ready to cut the leather arms from my costume. For it was a costume, the garb, the show, all of it to appease the high lord’s court. He needed them, but now he needed me. I had agreed to help him with the humans, to save their land—the only place they could use this power—and they would all know he was the only fey I would bargain with. The only one I could trust. I should have let him out of this challenge. I should have let Chevelle bargain the diary against Pitt and ended the whole thing there.
But I couldn’t let them win. I had to show power, to hold my own, even if it was on fey land. And there was something else, something the fey wouldn’t see.
The diary was not Ruby’s mother’s. It had been etched with a V.
I glanced at Chevelle again. He might die now, at the hands of Keane, if Liana lost this battle, but he would have certainly died then, when Pitt and the others discovered the book was a forgery. How long had Ruby had this in play? How long had this fool mess been weaving its way toward us all?
“Next match,” Virtue shouted into the crowd, “Liana and Keane!”
I probably wouldn’t have been the first being to retch on the high court dais, but likely the first elven lord. I pressed it down, my fisted hands bracing against the carved wood of my seat. Veil leaned forward, his breathing slow and words soft. “It will not be an ending. If she loses, Keane will have to wait until my battle is done.”
I would have a moment. As a non-fey, I was not tied to the base power. I would have a small window of time to act, and no idea how to do so in the middle of a thousand fey. But Chevelle was here, and he was my anchor. My magic, tied to him, would be strong enough to fight at least a few high fey.
“Thank you,” I told him. Veil did not have to offer the advice. I had betrayed him, and I would do it again.
He could do the same.
“Don’t die,” I said flatly.
He laughed, short and cold. “I cannot.”
His realm would be lost. Keane couldn’t hold it the way Veil had, and I would be gone, unable to stop the humans from eating away at the base power, the source of their energy, their very lives.
Even the changelings were wrong, because their plan to subvert the use of it could not play out quickly enough to save them. They had too little time. We all had too little time.
Liana and Keane walked toward the center stones, now covered in blood and littered with ash. Anvil and Rider had brought us an army. We had men from Camber, renowned fighters, we had rogues, notorious killers. If Liana lived, if Veil lived, we might have a chance. Some of us might make it across the border.
If they lived.
The earth vibrated beneath us, the crowd’s excitement rising with the steady pulse that made its way toward Liana and Keane. Liana grinned, her skin glowing with the power she already held, power that remembered Keane’s threat, that wanted his blood. Keane’s
was a darker energy, slithering and foul, but inciting his audience all the more for it. “You will not be stone,” she promised him. “I will crush you beneath the sole of my boot. You deserve nothing eternal.”
Keane screeched, opening himself to the energy and throwing his hands upward so that the base power stuttered, the lull after a massive wave—and just before another hit. Liana stumbled, knocked forward and nearly off her feet. The crowd lurched with her, knowing the disaster it would mean if she didn’t immediately join, but she caught herself, face twisted to anger, body discolored and dull, melting momentarily into a monstrous reflection of itself before she found her footing and reached to the sky.
Liana’s power was glorious, pure white and blinding, her skin losing all semblance of flesh and going iridescent, her lithe frame thinning into something of a blade, and then the energies collided, discharging a flare of heat and sparks that reached us before the concussion of the blast. No one breathed, and then the surrounding fey erupted in chaotic cheers and shrieks. This was what they were waiting on. This was how the base power thrived.
They would be radiant for weeks, overfull and exuberant as they fed on the energy their lands provided. And one of these two fey would have died for it.
I closed my eyes, breathed long and deep, feeling every part of my being. The power inside me was overwrought, and despite it seeming otherwise, my limbs were still intact. It was a good thing, because if Keane won, I would be needing them. But when the energy finally exploded, releasing the two locked in battle, it was not Keane who remained standing. Liana had kept her word; the other man was silted, spreading across the arena floor. He was smaller than sand, thinner than ash, blowing away with the air. He was nothing.
The Frey Saga Book IV Page 15