by Jocelyn Fox
“Hello, Guinna,” I said. To my dismay, my voice wavered. I tried for a smile and failed completely. Before the dead smile could wobble and turn into a grimace of anguish on my face, I looked away, swallowing hard. I cleared my throat and then tried again. This time my voice was stronger. Not perfect, but almost. “Why are the stars singing to me?” I turned my face up into the velvety darkness of the night, watching the play of light above me, a dance that my soul longed to join. “It’s breathtaking.”
“Yes,” agreed Guinna.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her looking at me intently, but I kept my gaze on the star-song.
“Would you like to sit with me, Tess?” Guinna asked, motioning to a bench. I hadn’t seen the bench when I’d first come out into the garden because it was delicately carved of a pale wood, and situated amid low trees that bloomed with nodding white flowers.
After we sat down, Guinna smoothed out the skirts of her pale blue gown, her pale hands moving like a mirage in the moonlight. We watched the stars for a little more, and my heart ached at the solemn magnificence of it. I started to get a familiar feeling, and when I tried to place it I realized it was the same feeling I’d gotten when Finnead had carried me through the Gate and I’d glimpsed Faeortalam for the first time. Every fiber of me ached with the fierce beauty of the alien land, and underlying that sweet pain was a pull, like a threat wrapped around my heart and tugging through my breastbone. I wanted so badly to be a part of the wild splendor of this untamed world, and I didn’t exactly know why. All I knew was that something in the untamed riotous beauty and danger of the place stirred my soul deeply, in an unsettling and insistent way.
“The stars sing for those whom they love,” said Guinna softly in her mellifluous voice. Her words drifted slowly through the dark air, mingling with the sweet perfume of the heavy-headed white flowers.
“How can the stars love me?” I sat back against the bench. “They don’t know me.”
“Sometimes, knowing a person is quite different than loving them.”
I shook my head. “That’s something I can’t say I’ve heard before.”
“And the stars,” continued Guinna serenely, “might know you, Tess, much better than you might think. They’re very different than the stars in your world, you know.”
I nodded, watching as a sheet of lavender fire wrapped around a glowing, pulsing blue orb in the sky. “I know.”
“The stars in Faeortalam, they’re…alive. The stars in your world have grown distant. Ours still come close and sing to us on summer nights.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat silently, enraptured.
“It is written in the old books that the stars can see into the soul.” Guinna smoothed her skirts again. The star-fire shone on her hair and made her marble-pale skin glow. She turned and looked at me. “I think they are seeing your soul, and they are singing to you because they love you for what they see there. I think they know you are…upset. And they want to make you happy again.”
I blinked sudden hot tears away from my eyes, clenching my jaw resolutely. I tried to push the thought of the Vaelanmavar from my mind, but his hate-filled gaze burned in my mind’s-eye as if he were still staring at me.
“Would you like to talk to me?” Guinna asked gently. “Perhaps I can help.”
I took a deep breath. Maybe confiding in Guinna would make the Vaelanmavar’s stare disappear from my mind. Maybe then I could forget the feel of his hands gripping me like a vise. “Only if you promise not to tell anyone else.” I didn’t want the story getting out, becoming just a piece of everyday gossip. From what I’d seen, the Sidhe were just as prone to gossip as mere mortals, and I didn’t like the idea of becoming a part of their daily tabloid—or becoming more a part of it than I was already.
“If that’s what you want, I will hold your words in confidence.” Guinna looked up at the stars serenely, waiting silently for me to speak.
“I was…taking a walk,” I started. My involvement with the glows wasn’t necessary to the story, and I didn’t want to stir up the incandescent rage that was still lurking somewhere within me, waiting to be triggered. It still felt a little wrong, that pulsing ember of anger, but I pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the best words for my story. “I couldn’t sleep. And I ran into the Vaelanmavar.”
Guinna stiffened slightly. It was a minute movement, but I was very good at reading Sidhe body language after my weeks in Faeortalam.
“He tried to—convince me—to be his lover,” I said, trying to keep my voice as level and emotionless as possible. “And I said no.”
“The Vaelanmavar isn’t familiar with rejection,” said Guinna quietly. “He is a favorite of the Queen, and one of the named Knights, and so to be connected to him is to gain some measure of power.”
“I don’t want power,” I said, unable to keep the disgust from my voice. “Not like that, at least.”
Guinna nodded. “I can see why that wouldn’t sit well with you, Tess.”
I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I decided not to ask. “He got very angry and tried to force himself on me.” Guinna made a low sound, and I thought I heard a similar revulsion in her voice, but I kept talking. “I didn’t let him do what he wanted. I…” I paused, wondering what Guinna would think of my fighting tactics, and decided that I’d started the story so it stood to reason that I should finish it. “I bit his tongue, hard. He was bleeding pretty badly. And then I held my dagger to his throat, and told him not to look at me ever again.”
“Ramel told me you were bold,” said Guinna with an undertone of something like wonderment in her voice. “Now I believe him.”
I smiled a little, then sobered as I thought of the end to my tale. “I told him to let me walk away, but he went for his sword, and I slapped him with the flat of my dagger. I only meant to sting him, maybe cut him a little, but…I think I cut his eye,” I said, trying to keep a pleading note of desperation out of my words. I wanted Guinna to understand that I hadn’t had such dark intentions when I’d hit the knight with my blade, even if he had tried to…force himself on me. My mind tried to use another word, but I violently pushed it away.
“Did he hurt you?” Guinna asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure, Tess?”
“I’m fine,” I said, even as I knew how ridiculous that sounded. But Guinna had the grace to accept that time-worn defense, and we sat for a heartbeat looking up at the stars.
Then Guinna said, “I was going to come to your chambers, later. I know that you are worried about Ramel and the others.” She hesitated almost imperceptibly after naming my sword-teacher, as if she had been about to say another name. I silently blessed Guinna’s tact. I didn’t know if I could have handled stirring up that particular maelstrom of emotions. I was content to let her gloss over the name that had almost passed her lips.
“Well,” I said, leaning back against the bench again, “I’m glad that you found me here.”
“I’m grateful that you trust me,” Guinna replied.
I looked up at the sky, at the vividly colored star-fire dancing on the stage of the night, and I said to the stars, “I’m glad I saw your dance, and your song.” After a moment, even though I felt a little silly talking up to the sky, I said, “Thank you. It was beautiful, and I feel better now.”
The dancing lights flashed golden in an explosion of beauty. My heart caught in my throat, and then the golden light faded, leaving the night sky velvety-dark. And even though the lights no longer played on the cathedral-vaulted expanse of the heavens in this strange world, I looked up at the stars in their alien constellations and felt oddly comforted as they twinkled, larger and closer than stars in the earth’s sky. I smiled a little. “I feel like they’re watching over me,” I said. “Is that strange?”
“No,” replied G
uinna, “because they are.” She paused. “You have more people watching over you than you think, Tess.”
“A lot of good that did,” I said, unable to keep a strain of bitterness from entering my voice.
“We can’t watch over you all the time. Ramel is the one whom the Queen charged with keeping you safe.”
“What?” I turned to look at Guinna in surprise.
“It’s his task, to move up in the ranks of the knights.”
“So the Queen assigned me a babysitter. Wonderful,” I said dryly.
“I was the one who spoke to her about it,” Guinna confessed. “A few of the men expressed their concerns and asked me to speak to the Queen.”
“A few of the men?” I asked. “And who would those men be?”
“If you would like to know…” Guinna trailed off, as if she expected me to answer.
“I do,” I said firmly.
“Finnead came to me first, just after your encounter with the Queen. He didn’t particularly like the outcome, especially the Vaelanmavar’s comment. And then Ramel spoke to me about it the next day, after the celebration. Donovan and Emery mentioned it to me as well, but Finnead and Ramel were by far the most insistent.”
The cool night breeze delicately brushed against my skin as I leaned back, crossing my legs. So Finnead had asked Queen Mab to protect me, and Ramel had followed hot on his heels. I licked my lips, remembering suddenly the feel of Ramel’s kiss; except instead of picturing Ramel in my mind, an image of Finnead rose to the forefront. I knew what it felt like to kiss a Sidhe, but I desperately wanted to know what it felt like to kiss one in particular. I’d been propositioned by a Named Knight, but not the right one. I shook my head slightly at my unwittingly spun web of intrigue. “You know, it’s funny, Guinna. In the mortal world, I’m really nothing special. I have trouble connecting with men. It always seemed like there was something missing, whether they were my own age or older or younger, it didn’t matter. There was always something that I wanted that they couldn’t give me.”
“And do you think a Sidhe man may give you what you want?” Guinna’s voice wove through the darkness, brushing against the nodding white flowers all around us.
I sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know whether I even want to find out, because…I mean, I have to go back to my own world eventually, once I’ve satisfied Queen Mab and this whole mess with Molly is resolved.”
“Do you still tie up your fate with the fate of your friend?” Guinna tilted her head slightly, considering me with cat-like eyes.
“She’s the reason I’m here,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in a while, but…I guess I just thought we were both busy.” I shrugged.
“Tess, you must realize something. Do you know of Molly’s soul, of how the Fae half was bound so she could survive in the mortal world?”
“Yes. I was told it wasn’t a pleasant process.”
“Not in the least. It is painful, but that pain is quickly forgotten by a young child. But the pain of unbinding…that marks a person. It brands their soul, and some do not recover easily from it.”
An uneasy feeling of foreboding blossomed in my stomach. Guinna spoke in a voice that was too gentle for my liking. I’d heard it before, and it stirred vague recollections in the back of my mind, hazy decade-old memories of when a state trooper and our parish priest had stood on the front doorstep speaking to my mother in soft tragic tones.
“Is Molly all right?” I asked, sitting up straight. I stared at Guinna for a long moment.
“Mostly,” replied the Sidhe woman.
“And what does that mean?” I demanded, standing up from the bench.
“Tess, please sit down again,” suggested Guinna.
“No. I’d rather stand, thanks.” I looked down at Guinna, one hand on my hip as I waited for an explanation.
“She is not as she was when you knew her,” Guinna said carefully, her hands folded serenely in her lap, her heart-shaped face turned up slightly toward me. “She is struggling with many things, and I do not know if she will ever be as she was when you were her friend.”
“Stop talking about our friendship in the past tense,” I snapped. “I haven’t seen her for the past few weeks because no one told me where she was, and I thought she was too busy learning…everything, just like I was.”
“She has more to learn than you, Tess,” said Guinna.
“Right, because the fate of Faeortalam depends on her, etcetera, etcetera,” I said acidly. A small bubble of anger drifted up my throat. I tried to swallow it down but instead it traveled up into my skull, burning behind my eyes like a hot stone. The delicate sweet scent of the beautiful flowers drifted around me, and the stars sparkled reassuringly in the sky, but I felt my eyes narrow, burning with resentment. “And I’m a mere mortal so I’m not worth her time.”
Guinna’s careful silence cut into me like a knife. I took a shaky breath. It couldn’t be true. Molly would still want to see me, still care about me like the good friend that I was. I’d believed her story back in Texas, when anyone else would have committed her to a psychiatric ward or laughed at her. I’d saved her from the garrelnost, almost getting myself killed in the process, and now I was stuck in Faeortalam until I satisfied Queen Mab.
“The Fae half of her,” said Guinna softly, “is very strong, very wild. The binding was barely holding it back. When it was unbound, it...erased…most of her memories from the mortal world.”
The breath left my lungs like I’d been punched in the stomach. “So…she doesn’t remember me?”
“It is likely she does not.” Guinna stood, and reached out a small delicate hand to me. “I am sorry, Tess, that you have lost your friendship with her.”
“I wasn’t the one who lost it,” I said, making no move to take Guinna’s hand. I half-turned, staring at the vividly white flowers of the trees surrounding the bench. They looked like a cross between a rose and a lily, but their beauty did nothing to comfort me. I realized that the news that Molly had no memory of our friendship hurt, an ache deep in my chest—a place that hadn’t been touched by the Vaelanmavar’s rough handling, that few people had ever touched. It was a raw feeling, and it erased the last lingering effects of my encounter with the Vaelanmavar, leaving instead a heavy misery that hung like a weight in my chest. In an instant I’d lost my only remaining connection with my own world. I felt like a shipwrecked sailor, abandoned on a desolate island.
“You could still see her,” said Guinna. “But you would have to start over again.”
A bitter smile crept onto my lips. “I don’t think I want to do that.”
“If it makes a difference—”
“It probably won’t,” I said under my breath.
“—you should know that she is faced with a very difficult task,” finished Guinna smoothly.
“Oh yes, right, saving the world and all.” I smiled mirthlessly.
“Tess, it isn’t as though it’s going to be easy for her,” Guinna said, her voice no longer gentle.
I’d finally rattled Guinna out of her prim and proper shell. I felt a small smug twinge of satisfaction. “She has to use the Iron Sword to kill the Big Bad of Fairyland.” I shrugged.
“This isn’t a joke, Tess,” Guinna said, irritation coloring her words now. “Malravenar is very real, and very dangerous. And just to remind you, if you die here, you die in your world as well. It’s not as though this is a dream. You won’t wake up, and neither will Molly.” Guinna was on her feet now, energy vibrating from her slender gowned body like ripples from a rock thrown into a pool. “And while we’re different than you, we can die too, Tess. Donovan and Emery are out there right now, facing the evil that Malravenar has created. If they die, their bodies will be just as cold as mortal corpses.” Her eyes were burning with the Fae-spark now, her hands no longer extended toward m
e in a gesture of comfort but clenched at her sides.
I took a deep breath. Guinna was just as worried about the rescue party as I was, and that did nothing to allay my fears. I wondered if Forin and Farin had caught up to the rescue party. I wondered if the group of knights and guards and healers had reached their stranded comrades, or if they had wandered into an ambush. I pictured them on their darkly gleaming steeds, riding through the night to the rescue of their companions…and then I firmly told myself that I was indulging in stupid fantasies. Daydreaming wouldn’t accomplish anything, and I took another breath as I realized that I had an opportunity to speak to Guinna about the plight of the Glasidhe. “I hope they come back all right,” I said sincerely. “Really, I do. And…thank you for talking to the Queen to get protection for me.” I glanced away. “It’s hard for me here sometimes. I feel like I’m stranded, especially now.”
Guinna nodded. Her hands slowly relaxed, and her face softened, the Fae-spark leaving her eyes.
“And I have something else that I need to tell you, if you’re still willing to listen.” When Guinna inclined her head gracefully, I motioned to the bench and we sat down again. “One of the reasons I’m here is because a glow came to me in a dream when Molly received the letter from Queen Mab. She wasn’t going to come, and the Queen sent Wisp to convince me to talk to Molly.” I paused. “Or at least, I thought it was a dream.”
“The Small Folk are skilled at blending the line between dreaming and waking,” agreed Guinna.
“You know Wisp?”
“I have probably seen him about Court. There are a number of Glasidhe that run errands from time to time for the Queen and even the named Knights.”
I nodded. “In any case, he came to me today. Or yesterday.” I grimaced. It was probably well into early morning, after my sword sessions with Flora and Forsythe, and my encounter with the Vaelanmavar. “Do you know of the Three Trees?”