The Mad Queen (The Fae War Chronicles Book 5)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “I know you’re speaking from experience, but that doesn’t really comfort me,” said Tess. She stretched, feeling the muscles in her back and arms twinge pleasantly. “I went to the practice yards, thought that would help me tire myself out. And I guess it did, but…” She shrugged.

  “No off switch for what goes on up here,” said Liam, tapping his temple with one finger.

  Tess nodded. “Yeah.” She decided it was time to change the subject. “Have you seen Finnead? Maybe you should have gone to keep him company instead. He looks like he’s having a rough time.”

  “He’s not have a rough time, he’s a mess,” said Liam, his mouth thinning into a hard line. Tess caught a glimpse of her brother as the warrior, the soldier accustomed to making life-and-death decisions on the battlefield. “I don’t know if he’s going to be able to handle all this.”

  “What do you mean?” Tess sat up a little straighter.

  “You’ve seen it, Bug,” said Liam, finishing his last bite of the sandwich. “He’s been different ever since the battle.”

  “Not since the battle.” She shook her head. “Since he found out that Andraste is alive.”

  “He’s been trying to help her, but nothing’s worked. While you were gone, I encouraged him to talk about her to me,” Liam said slowly. “I figured if they needed to use his memories to rebuild hers, there should be someone to try to bring them back together.”

  “What, and you decided that you had to be that person?” A hot flush washed over her face at her reaction, but her gut twisted and her chest ached with a feeling of betrayal.

  “Who else was it going to be?” Liam asked, his blue eyes finding hers calmly.

  His unshakeable composure only stoked the spark of anger in her chest. She clung to it. Better anger than the sick dark anxiety leaching at her thoughts. “Oh, I don’t know. Gray. Vell. Robin. Pretty much anyone.”

  “Is it the fact that I’m your brother or the fact that he was your lover?”

  “First of all,” she said hotly, “we weren’t lovers. Not in the biblical sense. It never got that far.” Now her face felt like it was on fire. Why did her brother insist on plunging them into such mortifying subjects? “And second of all, am I not allowed to have an opinion about things?”

  “I think in this case it’s a rather unreasonable opinion,” said Liam.

  She growled a string of frustrated curses at him, shoving back her chair and pacing in front of the fire. “So what, you got to hear the whole story of his romance with Andraste?”

  “Most of it.”

  “Fantastic.” She faced him, hands on her hips. “So now do you think that the poor Princess deserves to be rescued too?”

  Liam frowned. “I didn’t realize that I had to choose between her and you. Or you and Finnead. He’s one of Vell’s Three, Tess. Whether you like it or not, there’s a bond between us.”

  Tess didn’t know if she imagined the copper spark that flashed in Liam’s eyes.

  “And you were part of making that bond happen, so I don’t think you can really protest it.”

  “If you’re talking about telling Arcana to save your life…what was I supposed to do, let you die?” Tess crossed her arms over her chest. The Sword thrummed as her thoughts turned to the battle at the Dark Keep, the stench of blood and the merciless grip of Malravenar’s power squeezing the breath out of them as they fought their way toward his Dark Throne.

  “Of course not. That would have sucked. I don’t want to be dead,” replied Liam, raising one eyebrow.

  Tess caught the gleam of humor in his eyes, and that wasn’t her imagination. “You’re ridiculous,” she growled.

  “So are you,” he replied mildly, “especially when you’re worried.”

  “You voluntarily threw yourself into the lion’s den on that one,” she pointed out.

  He shrugged. “It’s a big brother thing.”

  She sighed and stared into the embers for a minute before grabbing the silver poker and prodding the fire back into life. “How much longer, do you think?”

  “A couple of hours,” said Liam.

  “I thought Finnead would have volunteered.”

  “He wanted to, but he knows better than that.” Liam leaned back in his chair and propped his booted feet on the table. “It’s not the first time he’s been one of a Queen’s Three. He understands, maybe more than anyone, the fine line we’re walking.”

  “With Mab,” said Tess. She slipped her hand into her belt pouch and felt the smoothness of the Lethe Stone. After realizing that she’d lost her river stone to Corsica’s thieving fingers, she checked on the Lethe Stone at least every few hours. “When they bring back Andraste…what then?”

  “Then we’ll hold fast until Vell gets back,” said Liam grimly.

  “We discussed the raid and made the decision quickly. Do you think we moved too fast?” Tess pressed down a spiral of anxiety that curled up her throat. Enough. She was the Bearer of the Iron Sword. She couldn’t fall to pieces at every clandestine mission. The Sword’s power warmed approvingly in her chest.

  “What’s done is done,” said Liam with a note of finality in his voice.

  “It’s not, though,” said Tess. “It’s not done until they’re all back safe and we have the Princess. Even then it’s not done, because Vell still has to use the Lethe Stone…”

  “There’s always going to be something coming down the pipeline,” her brother replied. The firelight picked out golden highlights in his tousled hair. “Can’t let it drive you nuts.”

  Tess sighed. “What if you’re already a bit nuts?”

  He smiled, even though her attempt at a joke was terrible. “Then I guess you’re out of luck.” After a moment, he changed the subject. “How was the return trip?”

  “Weird,” she admitted. “Our world doesn’t really feel like home to me anymore.”

  “Probably because of the Sword,” said Liam thoughtfully.

  She shrugged. “Maybe.” Dropping back into her seat with another sigh, she said, “So why did Vell and the other two disappear with the wolves?”

  Liam grinned. “Come on, you can figure it out.”

  “I really don’t know.”

  “For a not-quite-mortal who defeated a deity, sometimes you’re frustrating in your naïveté.”

  “Wait…” Her eyes widened as the thought struck her. “Is it mating season or something? Is that why they left on such short notice?”

  “Chael has been sticking to the edge of the city with Rialla,” said Liam. “When Kianryk returned, she decided it was time.”

  “But I thought only Beryk was herravaldyr.”

  “Doesn’t mean that Rialla doesn’t want a little competition.” Liam smiled. “Like most females.”

  Tess decided not to let her mind work through all the implications, but her thoughts wandered all the same. When the wolves mated, did their ulfdrengr partners feel anything? Did they do anything? She hastily slammed the door on that line of thought. The Caedbranr shivered with its equivalent of a chuckle.

  You think that’s funny? Tess demanded.

  Marginally, it is humorous to observe you sometimes, replied the Sword.

  Screw you, she thought at the sentient weapon viciously, shutting down their mental connection with all the force she could muster. The Sword fell silent, its sheath still upon her back and its power curled quiescently behind her breastbone. She felt a faint pang of regret for her harsh reaction but clenched her jaw and turned back to Liam.

  “You said that you didn’t think Finnead could handle all this. What’s the alternative?”

  He looked into the fire for a few minutes before answering. “Vell might release him.”

  “She can do that?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know. She thinks she can.”

  “Who would take his place?”

  “I don’t know,” Liam repeated.

  “Thought you’d be up on all the latest gossip,” said Tess teasingly.r />
  “That is the latest gossip, and it’s not even really gossip because you’re the only other person who knows.”

  Tess sighed. “Think it’s midnight yet?”

  “Just past, actually.”

  She groaned. “Two more hours.”

  “Come on,” said Liam, standing and stretching. “Let’s go on a walk.”

  “Won’t that seem suspicious if you’re there to meet them at the pavilion too? Wouldn’t that seem like collusion?”

  “That’s a good Scrabble word,” said Liam approvingly. “Collusion. And what’s suspicious about us taking a nice nighttime walk? We couldn’t sleep and we’re talking things through. That’s what siblings do.”

  “We have literally never talked things through on a ‘nice nighttime walk.’”

  “All right then, spoilsport.” Liam walked toward the tapestry. “Suit yourself. Sit and stew for the next two hours.”

  “Fine,” grumbled Tess. “Let me at least put on my plain blade.”

  “Think you’ll need it?”

  “You never know,” she replied as she slid the scabbard of her second sword onto her belt. It wasn’t really plain anymore, inscribed as it was with the names of all the war dead, but calling it ‘the Sword of the Dead’ seemed a bit melodramatic.

  They walked through the still passageways to the front of the great cathedral. The night air stirred with a cool breeze as they visited the Valkyrie paddocks. Tess leaned on the fence and watched the shifting shadows of the magnificent mounts, their wings half-spread in sleep. She kept her voice low.

  “Do you think Vell will make more of them? Or if they have foals, they’ll have wings?”

  “Both good questions,” replied Liam.

  “You know nothing useful,” said Tess. “These are important questions. The fate of winged faehal hangs in the balance.”

  Liam chuckled. One of the nearer faehal snorted and shifted. They ducked their heads and shifted to whispers. After a while, they drifted away from the paddock and began to walk toward the Queens’ Pavilion, letting their path twist and turn through the deserted White City. The stars blazed in the dark sky overhead. Tess slowed their leisurely pace even further, tipping her head back to gaze at the great dome pierced with the stars that hung so much closer here in Faeortalam.

  “I saw the stars sing once,” she said quietly. Her voice carried and echoed off the white walls, even pitched low.

  “How do stars sing?” Liam asked. They both stopped and stared up at the sky.

  “It was like watching the most beautiful music translated into light,” Tess said. “I was walking in the gardens at Darkhill and I met one of my friends there. Bren.” She let the serene grandeur of the night sky wash away the sudden prickle of concern that the thought of Bren provoked.

  “So not all the Unseelie are terrible,” mused her brother, hooking his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers.

  “You know that already,” she said. “Merrick used to be Unseelie. And so did Finnead.”

  “I thought maybe they were exceptions to the rule.”

  “We fought alongside the Unseelie in the Dark Keep.”

  He nodded slowly. “We did. But it was also the Unseelie Princess who broke the Great Seal. And killed me.”

  “She didn’t kill you,” Tess said automatically.

  “Technically I was dead for a minute before Arcana pulled me back.”

  “How do you know that?” She glanced at her brother. His face was inscrutable in the shadows, his skin painted a pale blue by the luminescence of the stars overhead.

  “I just do.”

  “Again…ridiculous.” But this time she said it gently, just to ease her own mind. She didn’t like thinking about Liam dead, even just for a minute. She swallowed hard. They began walking again, wending their way toward the pavilion.

  “Almost time,” said Liam, glancing up at the stars.

  Tess touched the hilt of the Sword over her shoulder, more out of habit than for actual reassurance. “Are we the only ones coming?”

  “I think so.”

  “If they’re being pursued by Unseelie, I don’t want to kill them if I don’t have to,” said Tess. “If Mab is really going mad, she has her claws in them. It’s not their fault.”

  Liam nodded. “I’ll agree to that, with the condition that if it’s a choice between one of us or one of them, I’m going to choose to keep us alive.”

  “I’d choose the same.”

  The pavilion loomed ahead in the night, its white pillars skeletal in the darkness. Tess suppressed a shiver. There were no flowing banners or shows of power as they climbed the stairs into the pavilion, their footsteps echoing eerily. Tess conjured a small taebramh light, as she’d done so many times on the journey through the Deadlands, tossing it overhead to hover in the domed darkness. Its light only sharpened the shadows. Liam walked across the marble floor of the pavilion to the eastern entrance, his broad-shouldered silhouette noble against the dim gray of the Unseelie Queen’s territory.

  Tess’s skin prickled as an icy draft drifted into the pavilion, borne by the night breeze. It didn’t feel malevolent, but it was a reminder of the cruel frost hardening the Unseelie Queen’s lands. The Sword stirred. Gwyneth’s pendant heated against Tess’s throat. Perhaps the pendant was beginning to speak to her again, Tess thought musingly as Liam straightened, his posture reminding her of a dog who’d caught a scent on the wind. She put her hand on her sword-hilt and strode toward him. Before she reached him, he leapt down the eastern steps without a word or a backward glance. Her heart dropped and she stretched her legs into a run.

  A cluster of black-clad figures sprinted toward the pavilion, weaving within their formation and changing places too quickly for Tess to count them in the shadows. She glimpsed a limp figure over one of the raiders’ shoulders, and a spark of excitement kindled as she realized it must be Andraste. But something in Liam’s body language as he ran forward to take up rearguard made her pause. She counted the raiders breathlessly as they pelted up the stairs into the pavilion. Four. There were four on their feet, and that meant the lifeless body belonged to one of the raiders they’d sent on the mission to free the Unseelie Princess.

  Her breath caught in her throat. Not lifeless, she chastised herself fiercely, even as the thought choked her.

  “On the table,” commanded one of the disguised figures in a strange voice.

  “Were you followed?” demanded Liam, his sword still held at the ready as he watched the eastern entrance to the pavilion.

  The raider who’d spoken pulled off a dark kerchief and stripped a leather thong with a wooden circle from her throat. Shadows still pooled unnaturally about Moira, shifting over her like the inverse of light reflected on water, but Tess could see her face. “We lost them, or they didn’t pursue. I don’t know which.” Her voice still came out oddly, but Tess barely gave the strange sound a thought as she rushed toward the table where the Queens had held their council only a day before. Another of the raiders pulled away the kerchief and the rune-necklace from the still body laid on the table. Tess’s stomach clenched as she saw the blood spreading in an inky pool underneath the limp figure, and she let out a small cry when the shadows parted to reveal Calliea’s face.

  “No,” she said, the word ripped from her throat like a plea. The taebramh light illuminated Calliea’s slack face with harsh clarity.

  “She’s not dead,” said one of the raiders in a deep voice. Merrick pulled off his concealment, revealing a face already etched with lines of pain and worry.

  Tess rushed to Calliea’s side. They’d bound a makeshift bandage to her side, just her kerchief folded and tied against the wound, already soaked with gore.

  “It was a mace,” said Merrick. He looked over Calliea’s still body at Tess. “What do we do?”

  “I…” Tess’s mind wouldn’t work. Bile rose in the back of her throat.

  “Tess, what do we do?” Merrick demanded, reaching over the table and grabbing the front
of Tess’s shirt with one gloved hand. Her head jerked forward at the sharp motion, and she distantly noticed that his gloves were soaked with blood. Calliea’s blood.

  The Sword slapped her sharply with its power. Focus, it commanded her, or you will regret it for the rest of your days.

  “Merrick,” said another raider tersely, grabbing the arm that held Tess by her shirtfront.

  “It’s fine,” she snapped. “Exactly what I needed. You,” she pointed to the raider holding Merrick’s arm, “run and tell Maeve to send one of her best healers to the pavilion. Let her know we’ll transport as soon as she’s stable enough.”

  The raider released Merrick and sprinted away, footsteps clattering loudly on the marble floor.

  “What can I do?” Merrick repeated, his voice breaking.

  “Hold her hand,” replied Tess. “Talk to her. Keep her here.” She felt herself slip into the calm, efficient mode that she’d learned from Eamon and the other healers…including Calliea. But she didn’t have her healing kit. Frustration at her own oversight tightened her chest.

  Think of what you do have, came the Sword’s distant voice in the back of her mind.

  Tess drew a skein of her taebramh from the pulsing well behind her heart. Her war markings blazed, cutting through the shadows. She pressed her hand to Calliea’s side as the edges of her vision went white. Shattered bone grated under her palm and she felt the slow, halting beat of Calliea’s heart, the wet wheeze of her labored breath. She took a deep breath and sent her taebramh into Calliea’s body, bidding it to staunch the blood flowing from the wound, to seal her lungs, to bolster her faltering heart. She felt the staggering pain of Calliea’s injuries in her own body. As if from a distance, she heard her breathing become ragged and felt her body sway. One of the raiders wordlessly stepped close and put his arm around her shoulders.

  Tess poured her taebramh into Calliea’s shattered body, heedless of the dwindling of the fire behind her own heart as the voices of the raiders swirled around her unheeding ears, the tale of the failed raid nothing but a hum in the distance as she fought to contain the damage of the mortal wound. They had failed to rescue Princess Andraste, and there was still a chance that Calliea would pay for their failure with her life.