Shadowfever

by Moning, Karen Marie

  We needed no further encouragement. We slipped and slid down the frozen ridge and fled the way I’d come, heading for the narrow fissure between cliffs. It was going to be a close race and a tight squeeze with Christian’s shoulders and with an avalanche chasing us.

  “Why’d you scream, anyway?” he shouted at me over the rumbling.

  “She startled me, is all,” I shouted back.

  “Bloody great. Next time put a sock in it, would you?”

  Neither of us said anything then, focused on trying to outrun being buried alive. I bounced between the walls of the cliffs like a Ping-Pong ball. Twice I lost my footing and went down. Christian went flying over the top of me but somehow managed to hang on to the frail queen. The avalanche chased us, growling like dark thunder, crashing from ravine to canyon, spraying the deep fissure with snow.

  We finally cleared the claustrophobic path through the cliffs, slid on our asses down a steep hill, then raced across the canyon for the towering fortress of black ice.

  “The Unseelie King’s castle!” Christian marveled as we dashed through the towering doors. He looked up, down, and around. “I grew up on tales of this place, but I never imagined I’d see it. I thought the closest I’d get to one of the legendary Tuatha Dé was standing next to a portrait. And here I am, holding the Seelie Queen, in the Unseelie King’s fortress.” He gave a bitter laugh. “And turning into one of them.”

  I murmured the same soft command that had opened the tall doors and heaved a sigh of relief when they slid silently closed on the thundering rush of snow beyond. Would the avalanche I’d started reach the castle? Pile up outside the doors, sealing us in here more securely than any bolt? I waited for Christian to demand to know how I’d shut them, but he was so engrossed in his surroundings, he’d not even noticed.

  “What now?” His fascinated gaze kept sliding between the frail woman in his arms and the interior of the dark fortress.

  “Now we head for the Silver in the king’s boudoir,” I said.

  “Why? I can’t go through and neither can she.”

  “I can. And I can get help and bring them back to the mirror to talk to you. We’ll make plans to get you out, figure out how and where to meet.”

  He cocked his head and studied me a moment. “There’s a thing you should know, lass. My truth sensor works just fine here in the Unseelie prison.”

  “So?”

  “What you just said wasn’t truth.”

  “I’m going to go through the mirror. Truth?” I said impatiently.

  He nodded.

  “And I’m going to get help and bring them back for you. Truth?”

  He nodded again.

  “Then what the hell is the problem?” I had a lot on my mind. Delays were untenable. Standing still, my mind began to think. I needed to keep moving. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman in his arms. Couldn’t handle thinking what looking at her made me think.

  His eyes narrowed. They were full black again. There was a time when it would have made me nervous, but I doubted anything would make me nervous ever again. I was beyond stress, beyond fear, beyond reach.

  “Tell me you plan to save me,” he ordered.

  That was easy. With each passing day, I understood Jericho better. People didn’t ask the right questions. And if you answered enough of their wrong ones, by the time they ever got around to a right one, you could just snap their head off and shut them up. How many times had he done that to me? I was developing a grudging respect for his tactics. Especially now that I had something to hide.

  “I plan to save you,” I said, and I didn’t need a truth detector to hear the ring of sincerity in my voice. “And I will do it as quickly as possible. It will be my priority to get you out of here.” It would. I needed him. More than I’d ever understood.

  “Truth.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t know. Something.” He shifted the queen in his arms.

  She wore a sparkling white gown. I knew that dress. Who’d selected it for her? Had she chosen it? How and why? I refused to look at her. I snapped my gaze from her dress to Christian’s face.

  “Tell me again why you screamed,” he fished.

  He was getting too close for comfort. But I knew this game. Barrons had taught me well. “I was frightened.”

  “Truth. Why?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Christian, I told you already! Are we going to stand here all day while you interrogate me, or are we going to get out of here?” Beyond the fortress, the avalanche crashed and roared. It was nothing like the roar I felt building in me. “She wasn’t what I expected, okay?” That was certainly the truth! “Even though you told me it was her in the coffin, I expected it to be the Unseelie King,” I tossed, to get him off the scent.

  There was just enough sincerity in what I’d said to appease him. But barely. “If you’re somehow lying to me …” he warned.

  He’d do what? By the time he figured out what I was doing, it’d be too late. Besides, I really wasn’t someone he wanted to be threatening, no matter who he was turning into or how powerful he was becoming. I’d just found out I was way more terrifying than anything he could possibly be turning into.

  “The king’s bedchamber is this way,” I said coolly. “And don’t threaten me. I’m sick of being used and pushed around.”

  Christian dallied. There was no other word for it. He was fascinated by the Unseelie King’s fortress, and his Keltar duties as Fae lorekeeper had been bred into him since birth, despite any misgivings he might have about what was happening to him. He took detailed mental notes on everything he saw, to pass on later to his clan. I was glad he didn’t have pen or paper, or I might never have gotten him to the mirror. “Look at this, Mac! What do you think it means?”

  I glanced unwillingly where he pointed. It was a door that was much smaller than the others. There was an inscription above the arch. It was a powerful ward. The king had kept things in there he’d never wanted loosed on the world. The ward had been broken long ago. Great. I just hoped they weren’t on my world. I resumed walking, staring straight ahead, retracing my earlier steps. Unlike Christian, I didn’t want to see a damned thing.

  “You’ll have time to look around when I’m gone,” I said.

  “I’ll need to stay close to the Silver to know when you return.”

  “Well, move a little faster, okay? We have no idea how time’s passing out in the real world. You slow it down, I speed it up.”

  “Maybe we’ll split the difference.”

  “Maybe.” Would enough time have passed that Barrons would be alive again? Standing at the mirror, waiting for me? Or had so much time passed that he’d have given up? Moved on to other tasks?

  I’d know in a few minutes.

  “She’s not breathing,” he said.

  “Neither are we,” I said drily.

  “But I think she’s alive. I can … feel her.”

  “Good. We need her. Through here,” I said.

  Moments later I stepped into the comforting darkness of the Unseelie King’s boudoir, where the dark maker of the Court of Shadows had rested—he’d never slept—and fucked, and dreamed.

  Jericho wasn’t dead on the other side of the mirror, nor was he waiting for me. I assumed that meant we’d been gone a good long time as humans counted it.

  Christian made it easy for me.

  I couldn’t have asked for more.

  He laid her on the king’s bed, close to the Silver, and tucked furs around her.

  “She’s so cold. You’ve got to hurry, Mac. We need to get her warm. In my travels, I heard that during the battle between the king and original queen, some of the Seelie were taken captive before the prison walls went up. The Unseelie planned to torture them for all eternity, but legends say the Seelie prisoners died because this place is the antithesis of all they are and drains their life essence.” He gave me a grim look. “I think someone brought the Seelie Queen here, put her in that coffin, and left
her to die slowly. Uncle Cian said she wasn’t really there when she came to see him but was a projection of herself. As if she was trapped somewhere, focusing all her effort and energy on sending a vision of herself to nudge events around so we would save her when the time was right. Someone wanted revenge. I think she’s been here a long time.”

  And V’lane was looking like the prime suspect, considering that he’d been lying to me about where she’d been since day one. But how could any of this be? Why would V’lane have had this woman to begin with? How had she ended up in the Seelie court?

  The truth was, I was standing in the middle of so many lies—some of them hundreds of thousands of years old—that I didn’t know where to begin trying to untangle them. If I pulled on one thread, ten others would unravel, and I saw little point in trying to make sense of anything now.

  All I could do was what had to be done. Get them both out of here. The sooner the better. Especially her. Not because she was the queen but because Christian’s legend resonated with me and I knew it to be true. A Seelie could survive only a finite space of time in here. I doubted a human would survive half that long. And I wasn’t entirely sure which she really was.

  She was dangerously weak. The slight form on the bed barely made a hump. Masses of silvery hair cloaked a body that had deteriorated to that of a slender, undeveloped child. My dreams had been trying to warn me. I’d waited too long. I’d almost been too late.

  “Look over there,” I exclaimed, pointing to the far side of the bed. “What’s that on the wall? I think I’ve seen those symbols before.”

  He was halfway across the bedchamber before that sixth sense of his made him look back over his shoulder. I know, because I was looking over mine.

  It was too late.

  I’d already scooped her up and pushed into the Silver. She was oddly insubstantial, as if she’d donned physical form to contain the energy of which she was made and, as her life essence evaporated, so did the physicality holding her. Was she beyond saving?

  I know what he thought.

  I was the traitor.

  I was trying to finish the job of killing the queen by forcing her through a mirror only the king and his concubine could pass through. A mirror that killed all other life, including Fae.

  But that wasn’t it at all.

  I wasn’t trying to kill the queen. I knew she wouldn’t die. I knew she could go through the mirror.

  Because the woman in my arms wasn’t Aoibheal, queen of the Fae.

  She was the concubine.

  30

  That was why I’d screamed. I’d been having a hard enough time dealing with the thought that I was the concubine.

  As I’d stared into the coffin and recognized her from the White Mansion, it had taken me only a moment to process that, if the concubine was lying in the coffin and I could pass through the king’s Silver, I had a serious problem.

  The scream had been instinctive, denial from the very marrow in my bones clawing its way up my throat and past my lips.

  If she was the concubine, and I could go though the Silver, too, there was only one other … person—and I was using that term very loosely—I could be.

  “And it’s not the concubine, that’s for sure,” I muttered as I pushed through the Silver and slammed into the wall. I’d expected resistance like in every other Silver, but this one—the first ever created—was untainted by Cruce’s curse. I turned at the last moment, cradling her in my arms, taking the brunt of the impact on my shoulder. Not a damned thing about this made sense.

  “Mac, what are you doing?” Christian roared, storming toward the mirror.

  “Don’t touch it!” I cried. “It will kill you!” I didn’t want him to think for a minute that it wouldn’t and try to come through. It had killed Barrons. I had no doubt it would destroy Christian, and he didn’t have a get-out-of-death-free card. At least not that I knew of. But as had just become painfully apparent to me, I didn’t know much of anything, so maybe he had a whole deck of them. Maybe everyone did but me. Still, I wasn’t going to count on it. I needed him. More than ever before, I needed the Sinsar Dubh contained, and he was one of the five necessary to do it. I understood why it played with me now.

  He stopped inches from the mirror and peered at me through it. “Why didn’t it kill her? I’ll know the truth,” he warned.

  I adjusted her in my arms, scooped up a mass of her hair, and draped it over my shoulder so it didn’t trail the floor and trip me. I stared back through the mirror at him. “Because she’s the concubine. That’s why I really screamed. I recognized her.”

  “But I thought you were the conc—” He gave me a fast once-over. “But you went through the—But that would mean—Mac?”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “How do you know she’s the concubine?” he demanded.

  “The memory residue of the king and the concubine walks these halls. It’s hard not to get lost in them. But I imagine you won’t have quite as hard a time as I had, seeing how you aren’t quite so … personally involved,” I said bitterly. “I have no doubt you’ll see her while I’m gone.” I still wouldn’t look at her. It was too disconcerting. She was frighteningly light, delicate, and very, very cold. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  We stared at each other.

  “I won’t believe it,” he said finally.

  “It makes too much sense not to be true. There’s no record of me being born, Christian. The Book … it hunts me. I hear it always has.”

  “Not buying it.”

  “Give me another explanation.”

  “Maybe the legends are wrong. Maybe a lot of people can step through the Silver. Maybe it’s all bluff, to keep people from trying.”

  My heart lurched when he took a step forward. “No, don’t! Christian, listen to me. I can’t tell you who, but I know you can hear the truth in what I’m saying. I watched the Silver kill someone already.”

  He cocked his head, then nodded. “Aye, lass. I hear truth in that, but why can’t you tell me who?”

  “It’s not my secret to tell.”

  “You’ll tell me one day.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “I’m still not buying it.”

  “Find me an alternative. Any alternative. I’ll happily believe it.”

  “Maybe you’re … I don’t know … Maybe you’re their child somehow,” he offered.

  “Seven-hundred-thousand-plus years later?” I’d already considered and discarded that thought. Not only didn’t it resonate with my gut feelings, but “It doesn’t begin to explain all the things I know and feel and remember, or why the Book plays with me,” I said. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but I wasn’t the progeny of the Unseelie King and his concubine. My feelings were far too personal. Far too sexual and possessive. Not a child’s feelings at all. But a lover’s.

  He shrugged. “I’ll remain here. But hurry back.”

  “Promise me you won’t try to come through, Christian.”

  “I promise, Mac. But hurry. The longer I’m in here, the more I feel myself … changing.”

  I nodded. As I turned away with the queen/concubine/woman I’d apparently destroyed worlds for, I couldn’t help but wonder where my other parts were.

  31

  I stared through the front door of Barrons Books and Baubles, uncertain what surprised me more: that the front seating cozy was intact or that Barrons was sitting there, boots propped on a table, surrounded by piles of books, hand-drawn maps tacked to the walls.

  I couldn’t count how many nights I’d sat in exactly the same place and position, digging through books for answers, occasionally staring out the windows at the Dublin night, and waiting for him to appear. I liked to think he was waiting for me to show.

  I leaned closer, staring in through the glass.

  He’d refurnished the bookstore. How long had I been gone?

  There was my magazine rack, my cashier’s counter, a new old-fashioned cash regist
er, a small flat-screen TV/DVD player that was actually from this decade, and a sound dock for my iPod. There was a new sleek black iPod Nano in the dock. He’d done more than refurnish the place. He might as well have put a mat out that said WELCOME HOME, MAC.

  A bell tinkled as I stepped inside.

  His head whipped around and he half-stood, books sliding to the floor.

  The last time I’d seen him, he was dead. I stood in the doorway, forgetting to breathe, watching him unfold from the couch in a ripple of animal grace. He crammed the four-story room full, dwarfed it with his presence. For a moment neither of us spoke.

  Leave it to Barrons—the world melts down and he’s still dressed like a wealthy business tycoon. His suit was exquisite, his shirt crisp, tie intricately patterned and tastefully muted. Silver glinted at his wrist, that familiar wide cuff decorated with ancient Celtic designs he and Ryodan both wore.

  Even with all my problems, my knees still went weak. I was suddenly back in that basement. My hands were tied to the bed. He was between my legs but wouldn’t give me what I wanted. He used his mouth, then rubbed himself against my clitoris and barely pushed inside me before pulling out, then his mouth, then him, over and over, watching my eyes the whole time, staring down at me.

  What am I, Mac? he’d say.

  My world, I’d purr, and mean it. And I was afraid that, even now that I wasn’t Pri-ya, I’d be just as out of control in bed with him as I was then. I’d melt, I’d purr, I’d hand him my heart. And I would have no excuse, nothing to blame it on. And if he got up and walked away from me and never came back to my bed, I would never recover. I’d keep waiting for a man like him, and there were no other men like him. I’d have to die old and alone, with the greatest sex of my life a painful memory.

  So, you’re alive, his dark eyes said. Pisses me off, the wondering. Do something about that.

  Like what? Can’t all be like you, Barrons.

  His eyes suddenly rushed with shadows and I couldn’t make out a single word. Impatience, anger, something ancient and ruthless. Cold eyes regarded me with calculation, as if weighing things against each other, meditating—a word Daddy used to point out was the larger part of premeditation. He’d say, Baby, once you start thinking about it, you’re working your way toward doing it. Was there something Barrons was working his way toward doing?