by Jocelyn Fox
“Is that even possible? I thought that…well, isn’t she one of the bosses?”
“She’s one of the Sidhe Queens,” said Vivian, nodding. “Tyr said that they were crowned by the First Queen, a sort of delegation of power when the goddess tired of governing their world.”
“There’s three Queens now, though,” said Ross.
Vivian blinked and Tyr looked at her sharply.
“I think Niall and Tess explained while you were asleep, or maybe when you were still a bit high on painkillers.” Ross tried to remember. Her mind didn’t retain the details of these fantastic stories as easily as Vivian’s. It was just difficult for her to remember that it was all real. “Tess had some…fragment of the First Queen? Some gem or something.”
Tyr looked at Vivian.
“The Crown of Bones,” supplied Vivian.
“Right,” said Ross, though she had no idea if that was correct. Tyr seemed very sure of it. His face alight with a strange intensity, he leaned forward and motioned for her to continue. “Tess said that there’s a High Queen now. She has a wolf, like Luca did.”
“An ulfdrengr,” said Vivian, glancing at Tyr to see if she got the pronunciation right.
“Sure.” Ross shrugged. “But anyway, there’s not just Queen Mab and Queen Titania anymore. I just thought that might be important.”
The room settled into quiet again for a few moments.
“Tyr says it is important, and he asked me to thank you for bringing that to his attention,” said Vivian. “But he says that won’t change Corsica’s fundamental plan.”
“How does she intend to kill Mab? Isn’t there strong magic associated with her?” Ross couldn’t believe she was seriously discussing magic and killing mythical queens. She really should just be preparing for her first day of work at the new station tomorrow, but instead she was sitting here watching a silent interview of an alien-elf…an exiled alien-elf, apparently.
Tyr looked thoughtful. The layers of scars on his face rippled as he pressed his mouth together. Ross wondered if the Fae had the same tendency to be self-conscious as humans. She brushed the scar on her arm, feeling its edges even beneath the cloth of her sleeve.
“Tyr said that he thinks Corsica may have stolen something from the Bearer,” Vivian said slowly. “He doesn’t know exactly what, but he felt its nearness, centered around the Bearer. At first, he said it was masked by the power of the Caed…the Caedbranr. The Iron Sword,” she clarified. “Then when the Bearer went back through the portal…he still felt it. This time near Corsica.”
“Tess was here to get the Lethe Stone. Is he sure he wasn’t feeling that?” Ross addressed her question to Vivian. She felt like she was using a translator again. Guilt prickled when Tyr looked at her directly and shook his head in answer to her question. She’d forgotten the first rule of working with a translator: you still addressed the person whom you were interviewing, the translator just the intermediary. Tyr understood her. Lengthier replies would just come through Vivian.
“I apologize,” she said to Tyr. “I’m not used to talking to someone who can’t reply.”
“But he can reply,” said Vivian with a smile. “Just through me.”
“Right.” Ross sighed and rubbed her forehead. “That’s what I meant.” She took a deep breath. “What do you think, V?”
“I think that Tess was probably carrying something else,” said Vivian. “She’s the Bearer. It wouldn’t be out of the question for her to have the Sword and any number of other powerful objects on her person.”
Tyr nodded in agreement.
“And you think that Corsica is somehow going to use this object in her plan against Mab?” Ross asked, following the thread of thought though her mind still moved sluggishly around the magical subject.
Tyr nodded again.
“I think Niall needs to be involved in this conversation,” said Vivian. She looked back to Tyr. “Would you like water or anything?”
He shook his head and smiled. Ross frowned. Was there fondness in his gaze as he looked at Vivian? She felt her eyebrows draw together disapprovingly.
Vivian stood and touched Ross’s arm as she walked past. “Please don’t worry so much,” she said quietly. “I promise I’ll try to do less dumb things.”
Ross didn’t have a ready reply, so she just nodded. When Vivian left the room, she and Tyr glanced at each other and then he made a show of inspecting the bandages on his thigh.
“Does your head still hurt?” Ross asked quietly.
Tyr paused and looked at her with a contemplative expression, his eyes guarded. Then he nodded, but shrugged as though to say it didn’t really matter.
Ross rubbed her arm, not sure what to say. “I’d offer to get you some painkillers, but they don’t work on you, do they?”
Another guarded look and shrug.
“You don’t really trust me.” She made it a statement, saved him the trouble of answering. His expression didn’t change. Ross let her face settle into a hard look. “Well, I’ll say this now, so there’s no confusion. I don’t trust you either, especially when it comes to Vivian.” She took a step toward him, dropped down to one knee so that her eyes were level with his. He met her gaze unflinchingly. “Just so we’re clear, if you hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
If anyone hurts her, I’ll kill them myself.
The words sounded faintly in her head, almost like an echo, faraway and distant – but Ross heard them, and she didn’t miss the slight smile that tugged at the corner of Tyr’s mouth as her eyes widened in shock.
“Please tell me you’re playing nice,” said Vivian as she reentered the room with Niall behind her.
“You should probably ask him,” muttered Ross, standing and resuming her post by the door.
“I have no idea what that means, but we can talk later. Niall, could there have been another object of power that Tess was carrying when she arrived in the mortal world? Something besides the Sword that Corsica might be able to use against Mab?”
“At the battle of the Dark Keep, the three Queens and the Bearer bound and broke the spirit of Malravenar into four stones,” said Niall.
“That sounds…” Ross couldn’t find the words.
“Messy?” suggested Vivian.
“The battle was bloody, yes, but that actual destruction of Malravenar was rather sudden once the Bearer thrust the Sword through him,” Niall replied.
An image of Niall spattered in gore, his white-blonde hair and pale skin streaked with blood, flashed in Ross’s mind. She firmly pushed it away.
Tyr gestured to Vivian. A small crease appeared on Vivian’s brow as she listened to the Exile.
“Tyr is asking whether the one you call Malravenar was the consort of the First Queen,” said Vivian, looking at Niall.
“Yes. We did not understand that until Arcana – what the remnant of the First Queen was calling herself – told us. There is a long story behind his desire for vengeance,” said Niall.
“Didn’t he also want some good old fashioned world domination?” Vivian asked.
“I would not dispute that,” said Niall, inclining his head slightly.
Tyr snapped his fingers to get Vivian’s attention. Ross glared at him.
“That’s rude,” she said firmly.
“Ross, we can just hear each other better when we have eye contact, and this is important,” said Vivian. Her eyes unfocused as she listened to Tyr. Then she went pale, her freckles standing out like constellations scattered across her skin.
“V, what is it?” Ross asked. She took a step forward, unsure if Vivian was still steady on her feet.
“So,” Vivian said slowly, “Tyr says that the stone with the spirit of Malravenar in it could be used to dethrone Mab.”
“How?” Ross asked, caught up despite herself.
“The Crown of Bones was merely a fragment of the First Queen, and Arcana was another,” said Niall. “Perhaps it is not out of the realm of possibility that a fragment of Malravenar could strip
away the power that the First Queen bestowed.”
“This sounds like it’s a great plot twist,” said Vivian, “but didn’t Malravenar and the Queens have an epic showdown before? Why wouldn’t he have just stripped them of their power then, if he was capable of doing it?”
Niall smiled humorlessly. “Most likely because the breaking of a Queen would require annihilation of whatever part of Malravenar’s spirit that is used.”
“So…self-preservation,” said Ross. “He couldn’t do this to them before because he would’ve ceased to exist?”
“Most likely,” Niall repeated with a nod.
“The bone sorcerer,” said Vivian, turning back to Tyr. “How does he fit into all of this?” She paused, listening, and when she turned to Ross and Niall, her face was grim. “Tyr says that the bone sorcerer likely knows how to use Malravenar’s spirit to break Mab.”
“So, Corsica is going to weaponize this dark spirit from your world,” said Ross. Whether she believed it or not, that sounded creepy. She looked at Niall. “Won’t Tess realize that the stone is missing?”
“One would assume so.” Niall nodded, his pale eyes hard as glass.
Vivian tilted her head to the side. “And that brings us to the possibility of an epic showdown when she comes looking for it again.”
“Unless Corsica’s purpose aligns with that of the Bearer,” said Niall.
“What, you think Tess wants to kill Mab too?” Ross looked incredulously at first Niall and then Vivian. “I thought everyone just joined forces to fight a war together in your world.”
“Malravenar is defeated,” said Niall with a shrug. “The Bearer said while she was here that far from bringing peace, the end of the war has only driven the Courts farther apart.”
“We really don’t have any room to talk,” drawled Duke sarcastically from behind Ross, his wiry frame filling the doorway.
“I guess not,” said Ross. “The question is, what do we do now?”
Molly slid past Duke, her eyes glimmering gold and green in a bar of sunlight striping the room. “I’m going to go meet Corsica. If nothing else, it’ll give us more information.”
Tyr tilted his head as he looked at Molly.
“Yes, I’m a halfblood. Get over it,” the dark-haired woman told him.
Ross saw Tyr smile in genuine mirth for the first time since he’d awakened. She looked at Duke, saw that he was watching Molly intently, and shifted her focus back to the problem at hand. If she was going to be a part of this, she had to go all in. No half measures. That was how people got killed.
“All right,” she said. “When and where is this meeting with Corsica?”
Chapter 16
The sky swept violet over the White City, its dusky hue inking shadows in the recesses of the soaring buildings, painting the spires and towers pale blue and gray, the last of the daylight lingering in the western sky, a wash of gold deepening into purple. Calliea inhaled a deep breath of the cooling air, her skin prickling with anticipation. Once upon a time, she had shied away from battle. Once upon a time, she had thought she wasn’t fit to fight or to lead. And then Malravenar’s creatures had attacked the Saemhradall, and she’d seen the Bearer fighting to save her.
That moment had changed the course of her life. Now, the hours before a battle were when she felt most alive. Some would probably say that was a lingering imprint of the war, a mark left upon her. Perhaps they’d be right. But she embraced it now. That was the difference. She turned her attention back to the gathered raiding party.
Thea, Moira and Robin had all accepted Calliea’s invitation. Thea wore a black breastplate, well worn from the battles, smudges of ash still on her face from her day’s work at the forge. She carried a hammer in her belt and a short axe in her hand. Moira measured one of Thea’s muscled biceps with her hand, an admiring smile on her face. For her part, the scout had braided her wild mane of curls tightly, tucking the tail of the braid under the surface of the braid at the nape of her neck. Calliea, too, had braided her own hair and pinned it about her head in an echo of the Vyldretning’s usual style. Quinn stood slightly apart, the colorful tattoos rippling on his forearms as he crossed his arms over his chest.
They were gathered about a table next to the Valkyrie paddocks at the rear of the cathedral. None of the other Valkyrie questioned Calliea’s presence, and that courtesy was extended to anyone else she chose to bring to the paddocks. Merrick took his scrying stone out of his belt pouch, delicately lifting the elaborate instrument out of its case.
“Will you be able to see anything with Mab’s wards on her territory?” Thea asked.
“The only way to know is to try,” Merrick replied.
“And she would not be able to sense you?” said Moira.
“Would any of you like to scry instead?” Merrick offered good-naturedly, raising her eyebrows. Moira smiled and Thea shook her head.
Calliea suppressed her own smile. Though some might be more afraid when going on a dangerous mission with their lover, she felt the opposite. She felt more excited, more alive, more intent on accomplishing their goal because Merrick would be right there with her. After all, he’d survived his time in the mortal world without any of the runes necessary to ward against the poison of that realm. A little glow of pride suffused her at his strength.
Merrick produced a small map of the White City, sketched in painstaking detail by one of the members of Liam’s reconstruction teams. Though it was a small map, it still almost covered the table. Moira and Thea held the edges in silent and voluntary penance for their questioning of his skills. He bent over the table, his long fingers nimbly working the delicate wheels on the side of the scrying glass. Calliea found herself fascinated by the way his dark hair fell over his forehead, curling delicately. After a few moments, he straightened and shook his head.
“All I can see is white fog. Perhaps it’s Mab, or perhaps it’s just truly foggy over there.” He glanced up at the purple sky. “Though that would be because of Mab too, I’m guessing.”
“The Princess’s cell is belowground anyway,” pointed out Robin. His red hair, shorn close to his scalp so Moira could stitch a wound after the battle at the Dark Keep, had grown out almost to its previous length. He wore two short swords at his waist, the slender blades slimmer than Calliea’s single sword but, she knew, just as deadly in his hands.
“We’ll have to rely on what Finnead told us, then,” Calliea said. The raiding party had naturally looked to her and Merrick as their leaders: the Laedrek and the Arrisyn, Dragon’s Bane and Eagle Sight. She wasn’t one of the Vyldretning’s Three, but sometimes she felt as though others treated her that way. The others waited silently for her to continue. She glanced up at the sky. “We’ll regroup in two hours. Thea, you’re sure you’ll have the runes ready?”
The smith nodded. “Said I would and I will.”
“And Robin, you and Moira have the caps.”
“Aye, Laedrek,” Robin said, his green eyes shining even in the shadows. “Won’t be able to recognize us once we’re done.”
“That’s the point,” replied Calliea dryly. Robin grinned at her. “No word to anyone,” she continued, even though she felt that she shouldn’t have to tell such seasoned warriors a basic principle. “If you have even an inkling that someone has caught wind, let me know when we regroup.” She surveyed the small circle. “And if any of you have second thoughts, that would also be the time to tell me. This is a dangerous mission, and we do not have the protection of the High Queen.”
“Better that way,” said taciturn Thea with a brisk nod.
“No one to blame but ourselves if it goes wrong,” agreed Moira.
“So optimistic,” said Quinn dryly.
“Two hours, then,” said Calliea, and they dispersed like leaves in the wind, sailing silently into the deepening dusk. Merrick was still fiddling with his scrying stone, so Calliea walked over to the paddock. She slipped through the gate and walked through the lush green grass that had mysteriously b
urst into verdant length overnight after a visit from the Vyldretning.
Her magnificent gray faehal raised his head and trotted over to greet her, opening his great wings and flexing them in the fading light. She rubbed his forelock affectionately.
“A flight tomorrow for you and I, I think,” she murmured. His ears swiveled to catch her words and his liquid eyes met her gaze intelligently. “How is Selaph?”
He snorted and flicked his tail, looking over to a corner of the paddock where a white faehal stood, bandages on both of her wings, slings attached to a harness holding them in place. The healers theorized that the faehal’s wings needed to heal in a semi-extended position to prevent loss of mobility. Calliea thought the principle had merit, but they had yet to see any concrete results, mostly because Selaph and the other wounded faehal were still healing. It felt like ages had passed since the battle, but in truth it had only been a few weeks. Flesh and bone took time to knit back together.
She walked over to Selaph, rubbed the white mare’s neck and spoke to her softly about Niamh’s progress. She heard Kyrim follow her, though he’d learned not to be jealous of her attention to the other Valkyrie mounts whose riders were not yet well enough to visit them.
“I think Niamh will be out here soon,” she told Selaph. And then she added to Kyrim, “Be on the lookout for anything unusual tonight.” The great winged faehal were more than capable of defending themselves – they were warhorses, after all. But the thought of anyone trying to harm her Valkyries’ magnificent mounts still tightened Calliea’s chest with anger.
Kyrim snorted and tossed his head, his black mane wild. Calliea grinned and combed her fingers through his forelock. She spent a few more minutes in the paddock. Merrick stood in the shadows just outside the gate, watching her silently as she bid Kyrim good night and snuck him an oatcake from dinner. For all their nobility, the Valkyrie mounts still liked treats as much as the next ordinary faehal.
“I’d better take you on a ride tomorrow, or you’ll get fat and lazy,” she told Kyrim affectionately as he slobbered on her hand, taking the second half of his treat. He snorted at her in disdain and bunted her chest with his head. She chuckled, rubbed his ears one last time, and then turned to rejoin Merrick.