by Jocelyn Fox
“Open the door,” she growled, “and I may let you live.”
“Give me a quick and honorable death,” he said, but she caught the fear flitting through his eyes.
She pressed the point of her blade harder into the tender spot just above his collarbone. The woman had finally gone still, the sounds of her struggle fading into silence. Her blood, black in the dim light of the passageway, flowed like a dark tide toward the surviving sentry.
“Come,” said Calliea silkily, “you do not wish to die for a mad queen.” She cursed inwardly, wishing that she remembered the runes Thea had written on the door. It would have made this simpler. Then she spied another key ring at the dead woman’s hip. She kept her blade pressed against the other’s throat as she crouched and delicately plucked the key ring from the woman’s belt. Blood dripped from the silver key. She looked at the young Unseelie questioningly, holding up the silver key.
His silence told her all she needed to know. She drew back to give him a quick death – a strike through the throat would be quick, if she caught both arteries – and he steeled himself, but Vell’s voice echoed firmly in her head: No.
Calliea growled but lowered her weapon. “Pick up your sword and you die,” she told him, turning to the door. The silver key fit smoothly into the lock and the door opened on well-oiled hinges.
The room beyond the door was much as Calliea remembered, except it was cold and dark. No fire lit the grate. No otherworldly screaming met her ears. Calliea held up her gory blade and walked the length of the room, ensuring that the shadows didn’t hide any unseen attacker. Her side ached at the memory of the mace’s jarring impact. The clink of chains beyond the silver bars of the prison cell drew her attention.
The Unseelie Princess stood silently in her cell, watching Calliea with eerie focus. A predatory glint in the corpse-pale woman’s eyes sent a shiver down Calliea’s back, breaking through the intensity of her rage.
“She’ll kill you if you take off her chains,” said the surviving Unseelie sentry from the doorway.
Calliea whirled and snapped out her whip. He gave a hoarse cry as the golden weapon coiled around his legs and she yanked him from his feet. To his credit, he managed to fall somewhat gracefully, taking the brunt of the impact with his arms. He quickly held up his hands as she approached. A delighted coo from Andraste made Calliea glance over her shoulder. The Princess crouched by the side of her cell, grinning at the Unseelie sentry’s demise.
“I don’t have my weapon,” the young man said, his empty hands held toward Calliea in a gesture of surrender. She flicked her wrist and retrieved her whip. He pushed himself up onto one knee. “Take me with you,” he said. “Let me help, and take me with you to the Vyldgard.”
Calliea clenched her jaw. “I didn’t come here to rescue strays.”
“No, you came here for her.” The Unseelie sentry pointed to Andraste, who hissed at him. “And I know what works and what doesn’t.”
Could Kyrim carry three? Calliea didn’t doubt her warhorse’s strength, but she resented the attempt at manipulation by the Unseelie sentry. She felt Vell’s presence in the back of her mind as the High Queen evaluated the situation.
Use him, Vell said.
“We don’t have much time,” said the sentry, glancing fearfully at the door.
“Show me,” Calliea said grimly.
“Give me the key.” The young Unseelie held out a hand streaked with blood. Calliea warily pressed the silver key into his palm. He traced a rune on one of the stones of the dungeon floor, and with a rasp the stone slid away to reveal another keyhole. That was clever, Calliea had to admit. She remembered their fruitless attempts to break the silver bars during the failed raid.
“What’s your name?” she asked, almost against her own will, as the young Unseelie knelt and inserted the key into the flagstone.
“Sayre,” he replied. “Named after my father, who was killed early in the war against Malravenar.” He steeled himself and turned the key. A section of the bars began to slide into the floor. The Unseelie Princess shrieked and threw herself against her chains, gnashing her teeth and flailing with such force that Calliea wondered how she didn’t snap her own bones.
Sayre strode over to a small table, opened a box and carefully lifted out a glass ampoule tipped with a long needle. “This will sedate her.”
Calliea eyed the thrashing figure, uncoiled her whip and then sent it sailing into the cell, wrapping tightly around the Princess. Andraste lost her balance and fell hard, her shrieking never decreasing in volume. Sayre darted forward and plunged the needle into the Princess’s shoulder. She tried to bite him but he danced away. Her screams faded to snarls, the snarls subsided into growls, and finally she lay still, moaning every now and again.
Without a word, Sayre moved to unlock the Princess’s chains. Calliea left her whip coiled about the limp woman’s body. She watched the door as Sayre heaved the Princess over his shoulder, her head and arms dangling lifelessly. He nodded to Calliea. With her blade raised before her, she ran down the long, sloping passageway, careful not to slip on the patches of ice glinting here and there on the floor. She didn’t pause to think about why Vell had directed her to trust Sayre. Or…not trust, she corrected herself. Use.
They burst into the courtyard and Calliea heard Sayre start to retch as they ran through the dark congealing blood of the sentry that she’d stabbed. She whistled sharply.
“They’re coming,” gasped Sayre, pointing.
As Kyrim circled to land, Calliea saw the dozen Unseelie Knights running in formation. She tossed her blade into her left hand and grabbed one of Thea’s devices from her belt pouch, running forward. A few of them had bows, but they hadn’t paused to let loose their first flight of arrows, and she was going to keep it that way. She didn’t slow as she approached the ruins of the tower, leaping up onto a huge stone and finding another foothold. The first arrow sang past her ear. Good, if they were aiming at her they wouldn’t be aiming at Kyrim.
She threw the rune-sphere as another arrow sliced past her, igniting a trail of fire down her throwing arm. The formation of Knights was only a stone’s throw away. She dove back down behind the stone of the fallen tower as the rune-sphere detonated. The screams alone told her that most of the reinforcements had been rendered useless, and she sprinted back toward Kyrim, who had landed and now danced skittishly in front of Sayre.
Calliea vaulted onto his back and patted his neck reassuringly as she tightened her straps and sheathed her sword. She motioned to Sayre. “Give her to me.”
Between the two of them, they heaved the unconscious Princess over Calliea’s knees. Calliea looped the end of her whip through her belt and then held out her hand to Sayre, hoping fervently that Kyrim could handle the extra weight, especially for takeoff. He snorted and pranced as Sayre jumped up behind Calliea. She grabbed his hand and thrust it through her belt. “Don’t let go,” she commanded.
A few of the Unseelie Knights had made it over the tower. Calliea threw the last rune-sphere at them, its explosion leaving her breathless. Kyrim tossed his head and she urged him forward. “Up, up!”
He galloped toward the fallen tower, unerringly picking a path free of the bodies of the Unseelie Knights. Calliea realized his intention and tightened her grip on the limp form of Andraste. “Hold on!” she yelled, hoping that Sayre heard. He must have, because she felt him shift his weight forward. She felt trapped between him and Andraste, two beings now depending on her to keep them from falling to their deaths.
Kyrim’s great lungs labored as he picked up speed, his legs churning and his wings still pinned to his sides. He gathered himself beneath Calliea, his muscles coiling like springs, and she clenched her jaw, bracing herself. The warhorse leapt to one of the fallen stones, sprang to the top of the ruins, and launched into the air with a herculean bound, his wings snapping open. They dropped alarmingly even as his wings pumped once, twice, and Calliea thought for a heartbeat they wouldn’t make it, but Kyrim gave a
grunt of effort and strained against gravity, holding steady and then slowly increasing their altitude.
The cold wind conjured by the Vyldretning materialized under Kyrim’s wings, and the ruined tower rapidly fell away below them. Calliea glanced once at the carnage she’d left, feeling nothing but hard satisfaction. Her cold rage had not abated, but she felt a small seed of triumph begin to slide roots into her chest as Kyrim wheeled toward the cathedral. Calliea gripped the Unseelie Princess’ bonds and focused on getting them all safely on the ground. Only then would she breathe a sigh of relief. Only then would she know that for once, she had not failed.
The silhouette of the cathedral grew larger and larger as they sped across the city, buoyed by the conjured zephyrs. Despite her preoccupation with the Unseelie Princess and the feel of Sayre gripping her waist, Calliea thrilled to the rush of the wind past her magnificent mount’s wings. The sun, low in the western sky now, gilded the white stones of the city below them, washing the many graceful buildings in shades of amber and gold.
We will have the Lethe Stone ready, said Vell in the back of Calliea’s mind. She tried not to tense at the touch of the Vyldretning’s consciousness, and she realized as Kyrim began a long and gentle descent that she had much more to comprehend than just Gray’s death. She had accepted the power of the High Queen unquestioningly, but only now did she start to understand how the afternoon’s events had changed her life forever.
The spires and towers of the cathedral stretched up into the blue of the sky. Calliea glanced down and her stomach tightened as she saw the blackened craters pockmarking the side of the cathedral, the destruction trailing back toward the Unseelie-claimed portion of the city. She pushed her mind firmly away from the thought of casualties at the practice yard. She would find out soon enough, after she ensured that neither Sayre nor Andraste joined that list.
Kyrim bugled a greeting as two other Valkyrie flanked him. Trillian drew alongside them, her good eye gleaming as she appraised Calliea and her two charges.
“Up for switching mounts?” she yelled to the Unseelie lad, half a challenge and half a command.
Calliea turned her head enough to catch Sayre’s pale but determined face. “You don’t have to, you know.”
“Of course I do,” he said, his chest heaving as he clenched his jaw and evaluated the distance between the two winged mounts.
“Just slide off, Faline and I will catch you,” Trillian called as her mount took up a position just behind and below Kyrim. “We’ve only missed once!” she added merrily.
Calliea felt Sayre shudder as he took in the mind-bending distance to the city below. He’d certainly have a few moments to contemplate his impending doom if he fell.
“Don’t listen to Trillian,” advised Moira from the other side of Calliea. She winked at Sayre. “This is my first ride and I survived!”
Sayre chuckled weakly, braced himself and then slid neatly off Kyrim’s back. With a cheer of approval, Trillian gave Faline her head and the nimble faehal arrowed under Sayre. The Valkyrie caught the Unseelie fighter like a man catching a damsel in distress, holding him firmly in the position even as he tried to maneuver to get a leg over Faline to ride in a more dignified manner. Moira gave a whistle that was almost a catcall. Trillian finally let Sayre reposition himself, but not without ruffling his hair. Calliea thought she saw the flash of a grin from Sayre.
Moira and her mount kept pace with Kyrim as they began a slow spiral toward the clear area in the rear of the cathedral near the paddocks. Calliea was relieved to see that other than a smoking hole near the beginning of the straightaway they used to take off, the paddock for the winged faehal looked undamaged, and a half-dozen figures guided the last few mounts back toward their home.
“Niamh caught an arrow to the leg,” said Moira over the rushing wind. “Her boot took most of the damage and she didn’t leave until we saw you take off from the edge of the city.”
Calliea felt a warm rush of pride in her loyal Valkyrie. “Mab?”
“Furious,” grinned Moira. “We hit both of her Knights, but I think both will survive.”
That strange cold fury strangled Calliea again. For a moment, she wished that she’d been able to attack Mab herself. She imagined the feeling of thrusting a blade through the chest of one of her Three – taking from Mab what the Unseelie Queen had taken from the Vyldretning.
“She’ll be even more furious when she finds out that Andraste is gone,” Moira added. Her corkscrew curls moved like a living creature about her head in the cool air, tendrils seeming to defy both gravity and the wind to float in arcs and whorls.
“She should be terrified,” replied Calliea, tightening her grip on the form of the Unseelie Princess. “Easy landing, now,” she cautioned Kyrim, whose delicate ears swiveled at her words. He snorted in understanding.
Trillian and Sayre landed at high speed on the straight path; Calliea thought that Trillian was either trying to terrify or impress their young Unseelie charge as Faline transitioned with liquid grace from the air to the ground at a full gallop.
“Nothing like that,” she told Kyrim, who tossed his head as though to reprimand her for thinking that he’d be so reckless.
Kyrim spread his wings, the sun rippling blue and purple on his rich dark pinion feathers. For a moment, they hung suspended over the earth, and then he set them down with pointed delicacy, needing no more speed than a brisk walk, which he quickly slowed. He flicked his tail in satisfaction as Calliea released one handhold to pat his neck appreciatively.
Liam met them at the edge of the beaten path. He nodded up at her gravely, his green eyes, so like the Bearer’s expressive gaze, whirling with emotion. Before he even looked at the limp form of the Princess, he extended his large, calloused hand to Calliea. She gripped his forearm firmly in the sign of friendship and fealty used among kin and blood-sworn companions, something other than cold fury fluttering in her chest.
“Well met,” he said to her with a nod.
She dipped her chin and swallowed. “Gray will be missed.”
“Her sacrifice was not in vain,” he replied, a copper spark flashing through his eyes. It was the first time Calliea had witnessed the subtle signs that a fragment of Arcana – of the First – still resided deep within the Seer. She resisted the sudden urge to ask him whether he’d known that Gray would die today, banished into oblivion by Mab’s writhing black orbs.
Sayre walked over to them, mostly steady on his feet. Calliea had to hand it to the young Unseelie, he was handling the events of the past hours rather well.
“The Princess is sedated,” he told Liam, “and I can tell the formulation to one of your healers. It is not difficult to make, but it is much stronger than any other medicine that I have been taught.”
Liam nodded. He stepped close to Kyrim and Calliea helped him lift the dead weight of the Unseelie Princess. Her dark hair covered her face as Liam put her over his shoulder. Calliea glanced around and didn’t see Finnead. She frowned.
“Vell sent him to fetch Tess and the Lethe Stone from the practice yards,” said Liam. “We’re to go to the High Queen’s quarters.”
“The cathedral is stable?” Calliea glanced at the massive building towering over them.
Liam nodded. “Thanks to you and the Valkyrie. You stopped the attack before Mab could do any real damage to it.”
“But there was real damage,” Calliea replied, her fingers beginning to shake as she loosened the straps of her harness.
“Yes,” agreed Liam. A copper spark escaped from his lips as he turned with the Unseelie Princess balanced over his shoulder like an unwieldy sack. “Mab will pay in her own blood for those she killed today.”
“Good,” replied Calliea grimly.
“I must go before too many realize her identity,” Liam said, hefting Andraste’s limp form.
“I do not have a weapon, but I would like to escort you,” Sayre said. “I have been one of her guards since her rescue from the Dark Keep.”
&nb
sp; Liam glanced at Calliea.
“He owes his fealty to me,” she said, staring down at Sayre, “since I spared his life.”
Sayre bowed his head in acceptance.
“Fine,” Liam said. “Keep up.” He strode away at a pace that forced the young Unseelie to break into a jog.
Calliea took a breath, held it and then let it out slowly. She finished unbuckling the harness but kept hold of it as she slid down from Kyrim’s back, unsure if her legs would hold her immediately. She leaned against her faithful faehal as she regained her balance, pressing one hand against his silky neck. He turned to rest his great head on her shoulder. They stood like that for a few moments, just breathing, reveling in the fact that they were alive and whole.
Chapter 37
“Everyone buckled in?” Vivian asked, glancing around the Jeep. “Don’t need any cops pulling us over for not wearing seatbelts.”
There had been an awkward pause when everyone had reached the Jeep, and Vivian had unconcernedly jumped into the driver’s seat. She wasn’t a babysitter and they were grown men. Fae. Whatever. They’d figure it out. Duke ended up in the front seat with Niall and Tyr in back. She tried not to be distracted by the glimpses of Tyr’s white hair in the rearview mirror as she buckled her own seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition.
Duke wore the Glock in a hip holster clipped to his belt, the pebbled black grip camouflaged against his loose dark t-shirt. He ran one hand through his hair again. Vivian felt a little twinge of empathy through her excitement: he was struggling with the fact that Ross had left him behind, slipping out on this mission right beneath his nose.