by Jocelyn Fox
I sighed, turning to rinse my hair. Even if the state troopers notified my mother, or she got a frantic call from the Jacksons, she would probably nod and then shut the door or hang up the phone. My mother was a glacier, cold and massive and unmoving.
The sputter of the hot water interrupted my introspection. Apparently the supply of hot water wasn’t endless in Queen Mab’s palace, I thought, smiling wryly as I turned the knobs and shut off the shower. I wrapped myself in one of the large, soft towels and sat on the small wooden stool by the bathtub, trying to think about nothing in particular. But I couldn’t help wondering why the glows had responded so intensely to my mention of the Iron Sword. I got dressed and braided my damp hair, and slipped back out into the main room. It had become habit to arm myself, even in my own room, so I buckled my long dagger at my waist in its well-worn sheath.
The small Fae were still gathered around Lumina on the bed. I walked toward them, thinking that they would certainly hear my footsteps, but when they didn’t pause in their conferencing, I cleared my throat softly. Wisp detached from the little group and alighted on his favorite perch, tucking himself just behind my ear. I walked over to the desk and sat down, my back to the bed now.
“What’s going on?” I asked softly.
“We didn’t know that you knew of the Iron Sword.”
“So what does it matter if I do?” I replied, unable to keep the edge from my voice. Even though my busy mind wouldn’t let me sleep, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t tired.
“It matters,” said Wisp carefully, “because the Small Folk have always had a part in protecting the Sword.”
“Really,” I said skeptically.
“Yes,” Wisp replied, sounding a little affronted. He tugged on my hair a little. “Just because we’re small, Tess, does not mean that we cannot do something. Just like just because you’re mortal does not mean you are not useful.”
“Thanks, Wisp,” I said acidly, “that makes me feel so much better.” I sat back in the chair jerkily, and felt Wisp grab at my ear to keep his balance. “You know, I was just an afterthought. I was just brought here to satisfy some stupid sense of honor.”
“Honor is not something to be talked about lightly,” said Wisp softly, but I overrode him.
“I don’t really care,” I said hotly. “I serve no real purpose here, and I’d really rather just go home.” A wave of longing for Liam and familiar things suddenly engulfed me, crashing over me like a stormy wave breaking on the shore. I stood abruptly, and this time Wisp did lose his balance, but his wings whirred, bringing him up in front of my face. I resisted the strong urge to shoo him away with one hand. I felt anger rushing through me, and I couldn’t pinpoint the source. It was like an oil well had ruptured somewhere deep in my chest and this rage was just billowing out, clouding the depths of my soul with slick dark anger. In the back of my mind, a small part of me resisted the anger, protesting that I wasn’t being myself: I had never given in to such vague and all-consuming rage, not when my father died, not when my mother pushed us all away, not when Liam left for war. I tried to take a breath but the anger was choking me. I had to get away, and I ducked around Wisp, reaching for the door of my chamber blindly, like I was drowning and that door-handle was the hand of a rescuer to pull me from the water.
“Tess!”
I heard Wisp call out my name as I stumbled into the hallway, but I pulled the door shut behind me and ran. I picked a direction and I ran as hard as I could, stretching my legs into a long stride, my booted feet pounding against the floor of the passageway. And the harder my heart beat, the harsher my breath tore from my throat, the more I felt the sea of anger roiling within me receding. It wasn’t going away, it wasn’t calming, but as my already-tired legs began to burn, I envisioned the ocean of rage contained in a glass tank, and I built the walls of the holding-tank out of my physical pain, making the glass thick and glossy with sweat, as hard as the pounding of my feet against the ground, as strong as the clenching of my jaw. Finally, when I slowed down, drenched in sweat, I realized that I’d been running blindly, with no real path, and no real idea of where I’d ended up. I leaned against the passageway wall, breathing hard and feeling my pulse pounding through every inch of my body. My legs shook, and I slowly slid down the wall, sitting in the dim passageway with sweat sliding down my back.
It was very late—or early, I supposed. I was sure that it was well past midnight, which was why I hadn’t encountered any Sidhe in my mad dash through the halls of Queen Mab’s palace. But just as soon as I had finished congratulating myself on my luck, I heard footsteps. Hastily I stood and tried to smooth out my hair, pushing at the inevitable fly-away strands that escaped my braid.
A familiar-looking Sidhe walked around the bend of the passageway. I stood up as straight as I could and tried to look unconcerned. Maybe I could just walk forward and pass him, and nothing would come of it, but a warning tingled in my spine as I recognized the Sidhe: he was the Vaelanmavar, the one who had assured Queen Mab that I could be killed easily if I proved to be too much trouble. I stiffened but kept walking, trying not to make eye contact.
The Vaelanmavar’s footsteps slowed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him staring at me. Then he stopped, shifting to the center of the passageway so I couldn’t pass by him. I stopped a few paces away, and looked up at him, trying to keep my face carefully blank.
The Vaelanmavar was handsome, in a harder sort of way than most of the other Sidhe men. His dark hair, worn long, framed a sharply chiseled face, and his eyes were a startlingly pale blue. I suppressed a shiver as his eyes deliberately traveled up and down my body. It was a look I’d received at bars and parties, and I’d grown immune to it…but this wasn’t a bar or party, and the man looking at me was no fraternity boy or graduate student. He wore the Dark Sword at his hip, and one of his black-gloved hands strayed to the hilt as he finished his leisurely perusal.
I stiffened and forced myself not to jump backward like a frightened rabbit as the Vaelanmavar took a step forward. He seemed to sense my instinct to back away from him, and he smiled a cold, frightening smile. I clenched my jaw and fought to maintain a perfectly neutral expression, a blank slate.
“You are certainly a beautiful young thing,” he said in a soft, velvety voice that made my skin crawl. I decided I would have rather him challenged me to a duel, rather than rake his gaze over my body like I was an object he could possess. I chose to say nothing, keeping my calm gaze fixed coolly on his face. I hoped he couldn’t see the slight tremors beginning to make my hands shake. Adrenaline coursed through my limbs, boosted by the leftover glow of my frantic sprint.
“I can see,” he said, taking another step toward me, “why the Vaelanbrigh would want to bring you here, sweet little mortal.”
I fought the temptation to open my mouth and release the retort crouched on my tongue. Somehow I knew that nothing I said would have any effect on those cold blue eyes and that small, frightening smile. The Vaelanmavar surveyed me again, a distinctly predatory look on his coldly handsome face now. Perhaps he was taking my silence for weakness, I thought. Although I knew I was probably in very real danger, I was able to push away the limb-numbing fear that would freeze me on the spot. I couldn’t afford a misstep like that in front of a very dangerous Sidhe such as the Vaelanmavar. I concentrated on keeping my breathing even and my gaze steady. I brought my awareness to the dagger at my hip, knowing that if it came down to weapons, speed and surprise would be my only advantage…and even with an advantage of surprise on my side, the Vaelanmavar could probably still kill me without a second thought.
The Vaelanmavar took another small step forward, that small smile appearing again. He was enjoying himself. I felt a prick of intense disgust.
“Tell me, tender mortal,” he said slowly, pausing between each word and letting the sound of his voice caress the air between us, “how often has the Va
elanbrigh had you in his bed?”
I knew too late that I hadn’t been able to contain my flash of surprise and anger, that it had swept through my eyes before I’d been able to clear my expression. But I also noticed that the Vaelanmavar had pronounced Finnead’s title with a considerable amount of distaste, narrowing his eyes. I wondered whether the Vaelanmavar resented Finnead’s power and skill, whether he disliked the younger Knight for his rise to favor in the Queen’s eyes. Maybe I could use that to unsettle him.
“Ah, yes,” said the Vaelanmavar in a low voice that was very close to a purr, or a growl, “you thought your affair with the Vaelanbrigh was a secret.”
I kept my breathing slow and even. Obviously the Sidhe was utterly convinced that I’d been sleeping with Finnead...and a small part of me pointed out that I wouldn’t resent the opportunity, and I might have even taken it, if Finnead had made the offer. I felt a blush rising in my cheeks at the thought, and let that be my answer, however the Vaelanmavar wanted to interpret it.
He gave a low chuckle of satisfaction. “Oh, your surprise is delicious. I saw the look between you, when you were standing before the Queen.” He took another step, closing the distance between us, and I had to clench my fists at my side to stay still. I heard him taking a deep breath, and when I realized he was smelling me, my stomach clenched with sudden nausea.
The Vaelanmavar was standing slightly to my right, and thankfully I’d buckled my dagger at my left side. I moved slightly forward and to the left, so I could put my back to the wall of the passageway. The Sidhe moved with me, and took another step forward. I took a step backward, unwilling to let him touch me, and felt the coolness of the wall against my back. A slow wheel of profanities started turning in my mind, but I refused to let any of them cross my lips. I refused to let him see my fear.
“The Vaelanbrigh looked at you and I saw it in his eyes,” the knight said, his lips bare inches from my ear. One of his pale, spidery hands came up and stroked my hair tenderly. I pressed back hard into the wall, revulsion making my stomach churn. “He would give everything up for you.” His hand stroked my hair again. “And I can see why he finds you so alluring.” I felt his lips brush my ear, and I clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth would break.
I wanted to push the Vaelanmavar away and tell him that Finnead didn’t give a rat’s ass about me. But maybe I could use Finnead as protection, if the Vaelanmavar really thought that I was sleeping with him. I swallowed and hoped my voice would come out smooth. “And so what would you have me do, Vaelanmavar?” I asked in a low voice.
He leaned back, one hand on either side of my shoulders now, keeping me pinned to the wall. His pale blue eyes searched my face. “I would have you for myself,” he said, his voice half a growl.
“Do you think,” I said slowly and carefully, “that the Vaelanbrigh would appreciate you poaching his mortal?”
The Vaelanmavar’s eyes narrowed, and then he chuckled again. “That young upstart does not deserve a mortal lover. And in any case, he is absent at the moment, trying to impress Her Majesty by mounting a rescue attempt for those that are already lost.” He smiled mirthlessly. Then his eyes turned calculating. “I hope, for your own sake, that you are not…rejecting…my advances.”
A small cold thread of fear pulled on my heart, but I thought hard. Play the mortal card. “Of course not,” I said, almost in a whisper, “but Finnead is very jealous, and I would not want to make him angry.”
The Vaelanmavar’s eyes darkened. In a sudden movement he gripped my jaw in one of his hands, hard, and I gasped involuntarily. “Trust me, tender mortal, you would not want to make me angry,” he hissed into my ear, and then he crushed me against the wall so hard that I couldn’t breathe, and his mouth was on mine, his tongue thrusting into my mouth, his lips pressing with bruising force, his other hand gripping my shoulder in an iron vise, and then clawing down my body with seeking fingers, squeezing one of my breasts brutally.
After the first shock I felt the rage rising within me again, beating against the glass walls I’d built scarce moments before. Anger flushed my face, pushed back the desperate tears pricking against the corners of my eyes. I bit down hard on his tongue, gagging at the rush of sweet blood that flooded my mouth. The Vaelanmavar shoved me away hard, and the back of my head hit the wall jarringly, but my left hand went to my dagger.
“Bitch,” gasped the knight through the blood pouring from his mouth. I had caught part of his lip, too, and it was torn badly. It made me sick to think that my teeth had done that, but before he could recover, I pushed myself off the wall, dagger flashing up to his neck. I gripped his tunic and with all the strength I could muster spun and used my momentum to shove him up against the wall, where I had been pinned seconds before. I think it was shock that kept him from killing me. He stared at me with those pale blue eyes, dark blue blood running down his chin. I pressed the edge of my dagger hard against his throat, hard enough to draw a line of blue-black blood from his skin.
“Yes,” I said, “I am rejecting your advances.” I leaned in as close as I dared, pressing the dagger harder. The Vaelanmavar stared at me, an oily darkness filling his eyes. “If you touch me again,” I continued softly, “I will kill you.”
Part of me protested loudly that I should kill him now, that there would be nothing but trouble from him. He would be a powerful enemy. But I didn’t know how Queen Mab would take the death of one of her Named Knights, at my hands especially. Not that I was even sure if I was capable of killing him in the first place, because after all I was a young mortal woman with a few weeks of sword-training, not a knight or even a guard.
“If you knew,” said the Vaelanmavar thickly, his pale eyes burning with rage, “what a powerful man I am, you would not have done that.”
“What’s done is done,” I said. He shifted against the wall a little and I pressed the dagger harder against his skin in response. “It would be best,” I heard myself say in a low voice, “if you just let me walk away, right now, and never so much as look at me again.”
The Vaelanmavar, wiping dark blue-black blood from his pale skin, smiled at me, his perfect teeth gilded with gore. I saw his right hand shift ever so slightly toward the hilt of his sword, and as intrinsically as I knew that my skin would burn if I put my hand into a fire, I knew that if I let the Vaelanmavar draw his sword I would die, whether I was a guest of Queen Mab or not. And quick as thought I brought my dagger from his throat and slapped him across the face with the flat of the blade, hard enough that both edges cut into his skin and left deep gashes across his face. I realized that one of the edges had cut across his left eye as he screamed, a sound of both pain and rage that sent a chill skittering down my spine. I half-turned, keeping him in my sight as I walked back the way I had come, making my strides as quick as I could without breaking into a run, still holding my dagger.
The Vaelanmavar’s scream echoed in my head as I rounded a bend in the passageway, and then I ran as fast as I could, knowing in the deepest part of me that I had just made a very, very powerful enemy at Queen Mab’s court.
Chapter 17
As I ran down the passageway I lost my grip on coherent thought. My jaw burned where the Vaelanmavar had gripped me, and I still felt his hands raking down my body. I had no idea where I was running, but I knew that if I stopped I would probably start screaming, or my stomach would win its surly and insistent insurrection. So I let my feet carry me where they wanted, rounding bends and choosing turns at will. Then I felt a slight cool breeze, and I followed the feel of the fresh air. I came to an open doorway and stepped through it, out into a garden. A stone path meandered away from the doorway, disappearing amid wildly colorful flowers that even in the moonlight shone red and blue and yellow, pink and pale white. I stood for a moment, just gazing at the soft beauty of the garden. Then my hands started shaking, and with a grimace of despair I lurched behind one of the beautiful
bushes as my stomach rebelled.
The grass behind the bush was soft, cool and slightly wet with dew. I reflexively gripped the lush blades with each spasm of my body. I heard a small sound of helplessness, and realized that it had come from me. So I coughed and spat, and sat up shakily. That was enough of that. Even though my hands were still shaking and I wanted badly to run back to my room and scrub the feel of the Vaelanmavar’s touch from my skin, I sat quietly and forced myself to take several breaths of fresh night air. I leaned back on my heels and looked up at the sky. The stars in Faeortalam shone brighter, seemed nearer, than the stars back home, and the darkness of the sky was different too, a deep velvety purple that hung down to the horizon like a great heavy curtain. As I watched, a spark of light split from one of the stars, and the light turned a pale, delicate blue, unraveling into a long string of color. Then the string swept into a sheet of dancing light, and I gasped at the beauty of it. After a heartbeat, another star emitted a little pulse of light, and this one turned as green as a peacock’s tail, shimmering and dancing, swirling alongside the blue light. Within a moment, a golden sprig of light sprung from a different star, and the lights covered half the night sky. I leaned back on my hands and watched, utterly entranced.
“The stars are singing to you.”
I jumped and barely managed not to yelp, swallowing the sound back down just in time. I scrambled to my feet and turned sharply. Guinna stood gazing at me from the path. I took a breath and let my shoulders relax. A look of puzzlement drifted across Guinna’s lovely face like a cloud drifting across a clear sky; and then comprehension dawned in her starlit eyes. I hurriedly stepped away from the mess behind the bushes, walking back to the path.