by Blake, Laila
According for Sir Fairester’s quickly given report, her advice had worked to a degree. She hadn’t shrunken away from him and talking about the things she enjoyed had made her more inclined to pay her suitor attention and even smile at him. The young man had been quite delighted with himself and Iris had carefully avoided mentioning any hint of her involvement in his success.
The next day, of course, she would have to come up with a new step in the process but when she had mentioned meeting him in the morning, he had waved her off. Unsurprised, Iris had smiled and nodded submissively even if it didn’t bode well. It was her own fault, really, for using the hunting metaphor; what self-respecting hunter would take step-by-step tutoring from an old woman?
With little confidence in his success on his own, Iris had decided to look at the girl herself, even if it was her sleeping self. The girl was rarely seen in the more public parts of the castle and Iris had only glimpsed her a few times and never from anywhere close. She had a strange reputation in the castle; she wasn’t disliked necessarily and she had found that most servants seemed to feel varying amounts of pity for her. Most of them also avoided close contact, found her strange and a little frightful and bestowed the most amount of sympathy on her maid Bess. A homely girl of two or three years Lady Moira’s senior, Bess seemed quiet and dedicated to Moira and hadn’t responded well to questions about the girl she served. An admirable trait in a maid, Iris supposed, but less than convenient for her purposes. Maybe she was better off letting Sir Fairester fight for himself for a while; she would be blamed if he didn’t succeed of course, but in the end, there still were her other skills. And while it was an ethical grey area, Iris was beginning to think the two of them deserved each other.
Conscious of the risk in remaining there, Iris took a final look around, made sure nothing she’d touched looked out of place and then walked back into the corridor. It was dark and shaded and while pondering what to do next, she sought refuge in a small alcove not far away.
She could wait for the girl to return, but that would once again only give her a short glimpse. She considered asking Sir Fairester to introduce them, but quickly put that idea aside. It didn’t sound feasible or smart for him to show he was seeking intimate council with someone like her and there was always the remote possibility that the girl would be able to sense her craft and her limited power.
She was just thinking that scheming and plotting was better achieved in the comfort of her chambers or after a good night’s sleep when she heard the soft patter of feet. She squeezed herself a little tighter into the alcove but she also couldn’t resist a quick peek at Lady Moira, sneaking back into her bedroom. And what she saw made Iris’s chest freeze to ice.
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe and when she recovered, she picked up her skirts and as quietly as she could, crept closer to the door. The impression had been momentary and yet burned into her mind. Had she imagined it? Was it a trick of the light or an illusion brought on by the lingering imprint of the bright moon on her retinas?
Still feeling a little faint and quivering, she leaned her ear against the door. She couldn’t hear much; a low thud, of shoes maybe. Was that the water bowl? Finally, a squeak that sounded like someone getting into a bed. Nothing that could substantiate what she had seen.
But she had seen it; the faintest glow that had emanated from the girl’s skin, hardly there at all and centered only around her chest and neck, but it had been there.
Iris finally took her ear from the door and leaned against the wall beside it. Her eyes were closed and she was rapidly going through the different possibilities. This wasn’t good and there was no earthly reason why Moira Rochmond should be able to glow. Did she know? Who else knew? Once that question had established itself, it unraveled a whole host of scenarios, each worse in its outcome. Finally, though, she tried to marshal herself; nobody knew. She would have picked it up from the servants — servants in a big house knew everything. And especially if they had been instructed to hide her nature, they wouldn’t have elaborated on the different theories about her strange and abnormal attitudes.
Iris rubbed her head. She would have to tell Maeve. Soon. And yet, if she was wrong … No, she decided. She had to wait until the girl was asleep and then check again. A short glance wasn’t enough — she had to be certain before she could bring all their plans and hopes to unravel.
• • •
It had been a long night and Iris could feel it in her aching bones. She was getting old and as much as she had been able to hold the physical symptoms at bay with her potions and limited skills, she knew her time was coming. Would Maeve have been able to convince her of this insane plan if it wasn’t? She didn’t know the answer, not for certain.
She inhaled again; how long had she been waiting now? It had to have been half an hour at least. Another voice told her it was less than a few minutes. Maybe it wasn’t safe enough to check, but neither was it safe to keep standing in her hallway. It had to be almost morning and the rest of the castle was bound to wake up soon.
Putting her ear back to the door again, she heard absolutely nothing except for the wind outside of the likely still open windows. It wasn’t certainty but it was the best she had. She put her hand on the handle and started to push it down.
Suddenly there was a presence behind her. A blade was pressing against her throat before she could even think about turning around or opening the door.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” asked a raspy voice. She thought she recognized age in it, but how had an old man been able to so completely take her by surprise?
“Answer now, crossling.”
“Wh … ” she got out as her stomach turned to ice. She hadn’t heard that term in a very, very long time. With it, and quite immediately, came other associations — pain, darkness and fear. “Iris, my name is Iris.” Her voice shook a little but she could mostly control it even if her fingers had turned to stone on the handle and against the door.
“Iris … you’re with the Fairester envoy?”
“Yes … ”
“What are you doing here?”
That question wasn’t easy to answer, not while Iris was trying to gather her powers of mind to barricade her thoughts from any probing. It wasn’t a skill all Fae had and it took more power than most of them had if they were alone and stranded in the human world but it was possible. At the same time, she had to come up with an appropriate answer, which was harder to grasp for than the mental exercise.
“I needed … I needed something of hers.”
“Keep talking.”
“A hair or … something for … for a tonic.” It would have been true if she had already decided to take that route. The hint of magic she had in her blood was mixed with variety of plants and other ingredients but it also would have to contain something of the people who were to become ensnared with one another. She could feel the exhale of a sigh on the back of her neck. It caused the tiny hairs to stand up there and a shiver ran down her spine.
“That is why he brought you?”
Iris nodded, very carefully and conscious of the knife. She couldn’t tell whether the man believed her but she couldn’t afford to question it all and unravel in front of him.
“He has been here before, but he wasn’t successful in wooing her. He knew of my talents … that’s why I’m here.”
The man behind her scoffed quietly but he did lower the knife and involuntary, she brushed her fingers over her throat. She knew he hadn’t broken the skin, but her fingers had to make sure. The presence behind her was backing off and for a moment, she dared to hope that this was all there would be to the nightly adventure. But then he spoke again.
“Follow me.”
Iris turned around, but all she caught was the glimpse of an old man’s profile before he had walked ahead enough to present the thin silver hair
at the back of his head, looking yellowish in the dim and warm light of the oil lamp in the wall ahead.
“I said follow me,” he repeated when she hesitated. He turned around again and finally, she recognized the face as that of one of the tutors the girl met for lessons. This could not possibly be good. No one was supposed to know.
“Who are you?” Iris dared to ask as she started to do as she was bid and made her feet follow his even if everything inside of her was telling her to turn around, run into the stables as fast as her aged legs would carry her and get the fastest horse out of this cursed fief.
“Bold question for a crossling,” the old man snorted. He didn’t move like Iris; there was nothing age-appropriate about him and it made her shiver harder. “You shouldn’t have come here. This is my post, and I won’t have you interfere.”
“Your … post?” she asked. Her fear was still very much present, prickling under her very skin like so many angry ants, but she had to know what was going on here. She had to find out what he knew.
“I have been here monitoring the situation since before the war. This is my castle, it is my fief. Lords come and go, I make them and I shape them — and I decide who they marry. Understood?”
They were walking along the corridor toward another one and then he suddenly turned left into a spiraling staircase.
“Understood?” he repeated, once again turning the strangely wrinkled face upon her which seemed so at odds with his movement and the pace of his voice.
“Understood.”
A few minutes later, Iris found herself sitting on a chair in a circular room in the highest tower. The Fae had introduced himself as Brock — a human name he had adopted, she assumed — and now he was walking around the room, thinking.
“Where are your loyalties?” he finally asked in a straightforward tone, and Iris felt taken aback.
“What are the choices?” she deadpanned. Now that she could see him, he was less frightening, no longer an incorporeal voice with a knife.
Brock gave her an unimpressed glance and then stopped right in front of the chair.
“You work for a human.”
“He pays me. I’m not welcome Across as you know. I have to live so yes, of course I work for humans.” It was getting easier to lie now, easier to slip into her role. It was a matter of sticking as close as possible to her true feelings, about not acting as if she was doing anything wrong, and about leaving out tiny details that didn’t rouse suspicion.
“I haven’t seen one of your kind in a long time,” he continued, eyeing her carefully, maybe looking for a family resemblance. “Who owns you?”
Iris scowled. Fae and their tendency to label anything that wasn’t Fae as property in some way. She cocked up her brows and then shrugged. Her face was too mature and dignified to read as sullen, but she wasn’t going to pretend that she liked his condescension or his kind.
“Speak up, crossling,” Brock grunted impatiently. He hadn’t shed his human disguise and Iris knew that he wasn’t likely to do so. There was an intimacy to showing their true face to someone in the old world, the one the humans had taken, and the situation didn’t warrant it.
“I don’t know who my parents are,” she lied with the carefully placed shift in expressing the same sentiment. “I understand your kind don’t place a lot of pride in offspring like me.”
Brock seemed to consider that with a disgruntled nod. She was old in human terms but even for immortals like himself, it wasn’t easy to come up with a list of Fae who might have betrayed their kind for an affair with a human seventy or eighty years ago.
Iris had obviously been found and undergone the ritual that all crosslings underwent — it made them quite obvious to recognize. But what happened before or after that could very well be a mystery. Chances were, it truly didn’t matter. As little as crosslings understood about this part of their heritage, giving birth to one was the kind of ignominy most Fae sought to hide.
Of course, he didn’t know what to do with her now. He had plans for the young Lady Moira and while Fairester might have been acceptable as a husband, the fact that he did not shy away from employing magic to attain the object of his greed — Brock wasn’t naive enough to think it desire — made him want to reconsider.
Certainly, there had to be suitors with less ambition, suitors that were easier to sway his way. And in the end, as little as he liked to admit it, the human girl had captured his affection. She was strange and sweet and possessed a mind he had found in few humans. Surely, she deserved better than this ambitious, scheming boy.
“What is Fairester planning?” Brock chose to ask next.
“To marry her,” Iris answered with a shrug of expressing the obvious. She caught his glance though and just for a moment, it brought back that deep and learned fear of his kind and she shook her head quickly. “He just wants the title, the land. His family has been having difficulties regarding their treasury. He is ambitious and he thinks he is doing his duty.”
There was a hint of loyalty toward the young man in Iris, simply because he had raised her from the dregs of her life the way it had been to his almost official advisor with her own rooms and clean-smelling clothes and away from a life of cursing away warts and old flames. But in the end, he was no more than a spoiled rich nobleman to whom she owed nothing. If talking about him kept her safe, she wouldn’t hesitate.
“What are his plans for the fief?”
“I’m not his economic adviser,” she said quickly, sinking back into the chair and trying to figure out which answers would get her out of the tower room and back into her own the fastest. “I know he has little love for it. He would leave someone in place to keep it running but he wouldn’t reside here most of the year … He just wants to be Lord Rochmond and enjoy all the riches and power that comes with the title. He wouldn’t squander the chance to show them off by spending all year here in Rochmond, far away from his flatterers and friends.”
Brock started to pace again and even as Iris was trying to follow his scheming train of thought, she knew entirely too little to be able to. In a way, she was still trying to come to terms with the knowledge that the Fae had an agent here. Did they have one in other places, too? How thin exactly was the ice she and Maeve were standing on?
“All right, crossling,” Brock finally said, turning around to her again. “I will take it under advisement. He might be convenient in the end. But no spells, no using the blood without my permission, is that clear?”
Iris nodded, shivering a little. She didn’t know what he could really do to her, but he obviously didn’t even need his powers to harm her. He had proved that easily. If she was right about him and his nature of a spy for his kind, he would resist using any major powers that might get him detected, especially with other magically inclined folk like the Blaidyn or herself around. That didn’t make him less frightening, however.
“I would know. Like I knew today,” he warned and another cold shiver ran down her spine. It wasn’t her he’d sensed and maybe there was one small thing to be grateful for in this utter fiasco.
“I understand,” she said quietly and then nodded toward the door. “Am I free to go?”
Brock shrugged and stepped back.
“I will find you if I have any instructions. And obviously it would not be good for you if any part of this conversation, or any comment about my person would leave those wrinkly old lips of yours.”
Again, Iris nodded. She maintained her composure enough to leave his room in small, dignified steps. Once the door closed behind her though, she started to shake so hard, she had to cling to the banister not to fall down the stairs. She would have to adjust; she would have to stay away from Maeve and she definitely had to find out what in the world had triggered the girl to glow like that.
Chapter Nine
The morning after a full moon was n
ever an easy one. Stumbling for clothes, usually wet and clammy after lying somewhere all night, to fighting to keep his eyes open while he made it back to the castle and right into the mess hall. He generally had a healthy appetite — all Blaidyn did — but shifting form required energy and while sleep would help some, what he really needed was food. A lot of food. He could feel the curious glances of the other members of the guard on him; they looked away when he glanced up. But their reflexes were poor and their charade transparent.
Owain didn’t even mind. In fact, he was so focused inward, he hardly tasted the huge plate of eggs and meat and bread in front of him. The wolf inside of him preferred meat raw but Owain was too used to living among humans to insist on uncooked mutton or chicken. In truth, his own tastes had gotten rather fond of the spices and the salt and the taste of slightly charred crust. This morning, however, he was ladling it into his mouth almost mechanically.
He had shifted during the full moon for as long as he could remember, but this had never happened before. He usually made sure to avoid humans or human-inhabited regions and the night before, he had made sure to walk far into the forested foothills of the mountains. The wolf, however, had not been content to stay there.
He had hunted and fed, but then something — someone — had inevitably drawn him back toward the Keep. It had been dangerous and in a way, Owain still had trouble believing his wolf’s reactions to the girl. He had noticed a certain desire to protect her before his human side started to share that sentiment, but seeking her out was not something he would ever have expected of the animal nature inside of him.
Of course, Moira’s reaction was no less shocking. There was a reason why he kept the wolf away from humans; he was dangerous, quite literally so, but he looked even more ferocious than he was. And yet he had wagged his tail and smiled his wolf-smile and she had treated him like a playmate, like an overgrown puppy to run around in the fields with. She had even hugged him. No human had ever, ever hugged the wolf. That simply didn’t happen.