by Jocelyn Fox
They flew down the highway. Ross paid no attention to speed limit signs. If they got pulled over, she’d tell the police officer that they’d been assaulted. They all had wounds enough to prove it. True, they could just be miscreants fleeing the scene of a bar fight or some neighborhood dustup, but…she shook her head and shifted her grip on the steering wheel. Maybe Vivian or Tyr had worked a spell on the truck, because they flew past a black and white squad car on the four-lane highway going almost thirty miles an hour over the speed limit, and the police just sat there.
The thick, tight feeling in the air and the shimmying of the ground didn’t diminish as they sped out of New Orleans. Ross popped her ears again and wanted to ask what was going on, but a headache blossoming behind her eyes demanded that she focus all her attention on the road. After all, Vivian and Tyr were riding in the truck bed. If she flipped the truck, they’d probably die.
Probably? Was this weird vibration turning her brain to jelly? Maybe she wasn’t firing on all cylinders after being held captive by Molly and Corsica. And the bone sorcerer. Ross jumped as an ice-cold hand clamped with bruising strength around her arm, the truck’s tires screeching as she fought to course-correct on the wet highway. Duke yelled something from the back seat and even Ramel grabbed for the handle at the top of his door. The Glasidhe twins tumbled across the dashboard at the sudden violent movement of the vehicle. But no, no one was clenching cold bony fingers around her bicep. It had been a flash of memory. A vivid, disturbing flash of memory.
Why had Duke thought she was good to drive? What had possessed her to get behind the wheel? Her heart beat triple-time with anxiety now, sweat prickling her brow. She’d never driven after drinking, never nudged the line with partying and then driving home, and she was suddenly irrationally convinced that she was somehow intoxicated, still drugged from whatever spell lingered from Corsica’s lair.
“Just make it home,” she commanded under her breath.
They were almost there. Just a few more miles on the highway and then the exit, and then they’d be tearing down the backcountry roads, past the gas station where Ross had met the fiancé she’d thought was dead after he’d called her from the old coin-operated pay phone.
Focus. Just make it home. Another memory snaked around her: that wide-eyed kid, his dark eyes panicked, gagging as his last breaths bubbled through his slit throat. Ross gritted her teeth. She turned onto their street, the truck’s headlights cutting through the thick darkness of the Louisiana night. Vivian yelped in the back of the truck as she hit a bad pothole, one they always avoided. She pulled the truck into the driveway, stomped the brake as she threw it into park, and before anyone could break the breathless silence she’d shoved her door open, fallen out and vomited.
Bile stung her throat and tears sprang into her eyes. Her entire body hurt. She should feel happy that they’d all survived, that they’d all made it out of that damn lair with the bones and the blood and the gold coins. But Ross still felt panic and guilt choking her. Panic that she couldn’t remember, and guilt that she’d caused whatever it was that she couldn’t remember. She’d been the one to march into Corsica’s lair, pulling Ramel and the Glasidhe along with her.
And to top it all off, they were in the middle of the longest low-grade earthquake that southern Louisiana had ever experienced. The feeling of the ground rippling beneath her feet made Ross even more nauseous. Someone pulled at her arm, their fingers pressing into bruises from that icy grip.
“We gotta get inside,” Duke said into her ear, almost lifting her bodily with the force of his pull.
“Why,” Ross croaked. Through her blurred vision, she saw Niall, still on his feet. Indestructible Niall. And Ramel was already at the front door, his hands cupped carefully around the Glasidhe. Good. The little guys were safe.
“Because someone is opening a Gate!” yelled Vivian, her red hair flaring about her. Out of all of them, she was the only one who wasn’t bowed or slowed by her wounds. In contrast, despite the smudges of ash and the gore spattering her shirt, Vivian glowed with a vibrancy that took Ross aback.
“A Gate?” Ross repeated stupidly, letting Duke lead her up the driveway. He tried to pull her along faster, but she let her body set the pace. They’d all survived the truck ride, they could survive another five seconds outside so that she didn’t split her face open on the driveway.
“A Gate!” confirmed Vivian ecstatically. “A passageway between the worlds!”
The ground was shaking in earnest now. Ross wondered disjointedly if their little house would take it or if it would be shaken right off its little cinderblock stilts.
“Inside, inside!” chanted Vivian. “They’ll be done soon!”
Ross stepped through the front door. The tightness in the air receded, though it still lapped at her senses like ocean waves. Now it felt like she stood in a boat. She blinked. All the aches in her body roared into a greater tide of pain.
“I need to sit down,” she heard herself say faintly. The warm hand around her arm flashed to a frozen cruel grip and she wrenched herself away with a cry, but then she stepped off the ledge, falling into nothingness, falling into Corsica’s lair, her mistakes waiting to swallow her in the darkness.
Chapter 40
Calliea stared at Finnead and Andraste, a deep dread hooking its claws into her bones. To see the recognition fade from Finnead’s pale face – stoic though he was, she could read him better now that she felt the echoes of his emotions through their bond – to watch his love for Andraste flicker and then die, snuffed out like a candle in the same moment that self-awareness returned to her, igniting a matching flame in her eyes…Calliea thought that it was a bit like watching someone die. She’d sat by the bedsides of a few of the gravely wounded Valkyrie as they took their last breaths. She had witnessed the instant when the light left their eyes, and the immediate dampening of Finnead’s gaze reminded her uncomfortably of that moment, that transition between life and death.
The Crown Princess gave a low cry and reached for Finnead as the Knight wavered. Sayre stood by Andraste’s side, the sedative that Mab had used on her sister ready in a glass ampoule with a wickedly long needle. But it was Liam, not Andraste, who steadied Finnead. Calliea’s estimation of Sayre increased as she watched his discreet restraint of the Unseelie Princess. Then she shifted her attention back to Vell – the High Queen, after all, was her purpose now. She felt a tug at the invisible connection that she shared with the Queen of the Wild Court. It had not even been a day since Gray’s death, and already Calliea accepted these new sensations as naturally as breathing.
The Vyldretning drew in a breath as the intense white light faded from the Lethe Stone. The High Queen stood between Finnead and Andraste. The Crown Princess had been laid on the table, and Finnead stood at the foot of it. Calliea stepped closer to Vell as she drew another shuddering breath. Then, as the High Queen pressed her hands over the Lethe Stone, a pulse of power robbed them all of their hearing, and the smooth white stone crumbled to ash in Vell’s palm.
“No one else will ever use that,” said Vell firmly.
Calliea didn’t know if she approved of the High Queen’s decision to destroy the Lethe Stone, but that wasn’t her decision. Vell brushed the black ash from her hands matter-of-factly and looked at Liam, who was now almost holding up Finnead.
“Take him to his quarters,” she told Liam.
“Finn,” implored Andraste in a voice hoarse and broken by misuse. She tried to slide off the table but Sayre once again put a restraining hand on her arm.
“He does not know you,” said Vell. The words could have sounded harsh, but as Andraste stared after Finnead and the sound of his name on her lips didn’t even give him pause, the statement seemed almost gentle.
“How?” demanded Andraste, her eyes flashing.
Vell pointed to one of the chairs at the table. “Sit, and I will tell you.”
Andraste digested the order, blinking owlishly for several moments. She flexed her pale
hands, watching her fingers move suspiciously, as though she didn’t quite believe that her hands were her own. She shrugged away from Sayre’s offer of assistance with the whipped look of a kicked dog. Calliea felt a twinge of empathy, and she wasn’t sure whether it was her own or the Queen’s.
The Unseelie Princess slid off the table and into the seat with hesitant movements, like someone walking for the first time after a long illness. Sayre took up station behind her chair, standing within arm’s reach. Perhaps sparing the Unseelie guard hadn’t been such a terrible idea after all, thought Calliea.
Guinna and Merrick still stood on the other side of the Vyldretning. Guinna watched the Unseelie Princess with a stricken look. The expression on the small woman’s face was not so unusual, considering that she was essentially witnessing the resurrection of her Court’s heir to the throne, presumed dead those centuries ago. Calliea kept her position at the Vyldretning’s right hand. With Liam and Finnead gone, she was the only one of the Three remaining in the room. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Would they sense if the High Queen was in danger, or would she have to reach out to them?
Vell glanced at her with a sardonic half-smile, as though to tell her not to take her new duties too seriously. Calliea took a deep breath. She wished briefly that she’d had the time to at least change her shirt; the gore from the Unseelie she’d killed stiffened the fabric and stuck to her skin.
“How?” Andraste asked again, an echo of her earlier question, her voice softer, her eyes traveling from one face to the next with the startled fear of a hunted animal. When she reached Guinna, she blinked and shuddered in her chair. Guinna nodded but said nothing.
“You were held prisoner by Malravenar,” said Vell evenly.
“I…agreed,” said Andraste, a wrinkle appearing between her brows. The furrows on her cheeks underscored her frown. “It was… a deal. There was something…someone…I was trying to protect.” She shut her eyes and shook her head so violently that Sayre stepped forward with the ampoule, pausing at Vell’s raised hand.
“You were protecting Finnead and Rye,” said Vell in that same steady voice.
“Is Rye…where is she? Can I speak to her?” The edges of Andraste’s words frayed with something like panic. “She always…I trust her. She will remember.” The Unseelie Princess stared across the table, her chest heaving.
It was Guinna who finally answered. “Rye did not survive, my lady.”
Chills rippled up Calliea’s back at the haunted expression on Andraste’s face. The Princess’s eyes widened as she absorbed the words. “Dead?”
Guinna nodded. “Yes, my lady. Nobly and with honor, but yes.”
Andraste’s gaze snapped back to Vell. “And who are you? You look like one of the Northern delegation.” Her eyes narrowed. “Like their volta.”
A smile curved one corner of Vell’s mouth. “You most likely met my grandmother. She was the greatest volta our people have ever known.”
“And what are you now? Who are you?” demanded Andraste again. She crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “Where is this?”
“Please, my lady, do not be frightened,” said Guinna soothingly.
“You are in the White City,” said Vell. “And I am the Vyldretning, the High Queen of the Wild Court.”
“You smell like snow and pine and wolf,” muttered Andraste under her breath. She clutched her elbows. “And what…what happened?”
“You were held prisoner by Malravenar,” said Vell again.
“What did I do?” whispered Andraste. “He said that I’d die. He said my death for theirs. What did I do?”
“Perhaps it might be better if you rested, my lady,” suggested Guinna delicately.
“Why doesn’t Finn remember me?” the Unseelie Princess asked. “What happened?”
Calliea didn’t like the thread of hysteria beginning to wind its way into the Princess’s words. She moved her hand to her belt, her thumb brushing her coiled whip, still stained with blood.
“You have been under Malravenar’s power for nearly four centuries,” Vell said. “After his defeat, your sister Queen Mab kept you imprisoned because you were…not yourself.”
Andraste had gone very still in her chair.
“Calliea, one of my Three, liberated you today. And I used a Lethe Stone to restore your memories. To restore you.”
“That’s why they’re all…jumbled,” muttered Andraste. She shook her head again.
“To use the Lethe Stone,” continued Vell, “we needed memories from those who had known you. Preferably someone who had loved you.”
The Unseelie Princess stared at the High Queen, unmoving save for the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
“Finnead selflessly gave those memories to restore you,” the Vyldretning said.
“Gave?” said Andraste, her eyes burning now with a strange flame.
“He does not know you because those memories are gone,” Vell said.
Andraste said nothing for a long while. Calliea shifted as the silence dragged on. She could see the similarity to Mab in Andraste’s beauty, even with the scars marring her cheekbones. Perhaps that was what made her skin crawl as she watched this girl who was older than she by centuries and wore the face of the enemy who had just tried to kill the Vyldgard.
Then the Unseelie Princess turned her head with slow precision, fixing Sayre with her gaze. “Use that on me now, please.” She coolly offered him her arm.
Sayre looked at the Vyldretning, who gave a single nod of her head.
“Guinna,” said Andraste, “would you please help me to…wherever it is I’ll be sleeping.”
“You will be sleeping here in my chambers,” said Vell. “The wards and protections are the strongest.”
“To protect me…or everyone else?” Andraste said. She didn’t wince as Sayre finished injecting her and withdrew the needle. Calliea wondered how often she’d endured that sensation.
“Both,” replied Vell quietly.
Beryk flowed out of the shadows, his golden eyes fixed on the Unseelie Princess.
“Oh,” said Andraste breathlessly, “Rye loved wolves…”
Sayre caught her neatly as she slumped to the side, lifting her as one would lift a child.
“In the bed there,” said Vell. She shifted her attention to Guinna. “Use whatever you need, and if something that is needed isn’t here, you shall have it.”
Guinna looked as though she wanted to curtsy, but she settled for a deep nod of her head.
“Arrisyn, stay here to assist Sayre and Guinna,” continued Vell.
A little flash of jealousy pricked Calliea at the thought of Merrick staying here in this chamber with Guinna – never mind that Sayre and the sleeping Andraste would be there as well.
“Laedrek, if you would accompany me,” finished the High Queen.
Calliea wordlessly followed Vell from the chamber. She felt the vague swirl of emotion from Finnead and Liam: concern from Liam, balanced by the knowledge that this was what Finnead had wanted; and a cloudy confusion from Finnead. Hopefully that would clear up with a little time, or Calliea would have to learn how to dampen the effects of her bond with Finnead. The fog of his bewilderment seeped into the back of her own mind, swirling into the edges of her thoughts like ink spiraling through water. She couldn’t recall ever seeing Finnead perplexed, adding to the disquieting feeling of his current state.
“It will get better with time,” said Vell, drawing Calliea back to the present.
“As you say,” Calliea replied respectfully.
Vell stopped in the middle of the passageway, turning to face Calliea, her arms crossed over her chest. Despite the weariness carving lines into her fierce face, the Vyldretning’s eyes flashed and she raised her chin. “Let’s get one thing straight. You’re one of my Three now because Gray is dead.”
Calliea swallowed as her chest tightened.
“In public, yes, Gray was at her Court best,” Vell continued, “but I’ll tel
l you something. In private, she told me what she thought. She dropped the ‘yes, my Queen’ and gave me actual opinions and insights.” The High Queen swallowed. When she spoke again, her voice was rough. “I need you to speak honestly to me. I need you to be what she was.”
“I’m not her,” Calliea replied, her own words compressed by a rising tide of emotion.
“I know.” Vell nodded and looked away. “What I’m saying is I need you to be as honest as she was. As truthful. I need people around me who are willing to tell me when I’m wrong.”
“I will,” Calliea said with quiet assurance. She realized as she said it that it was true. It would almost be like talking to Tess. Others stood in awe of the Lady Bearer, but she counted her as a friend. Even if she was never truly a friend to the High Queen, she would be a counselor and confidante. She decided to dare a bit of levity. “I mean, I will, as long as Beryk isn’t sitting by your side staring at me while I’m contradicting you.”
Vell stared at her for a moment, and then she chuckled. “Oh, you’ll get used to Beryk,” she said as she turned back down the passageway.
Calliea smiled and fell into step just behind Vell. They wended through the passageways of the cathedral until they arrived at a beautiful stained glass window. Standing taller than Calliea, the artful panel depicted a winged faehal on its hind legs, wings spread, rays of a sunset bursting through the clouds behind it. The Valkyrie commander liked it instantly. Vell touched one of the stones by the frame and the window neatly swung inward.
“Don’t stand there staring all day,” Vell said to Calliea amiably as she stepped through the doorway. Calliea blinked and followed. A cylindrical staircase led upward beyond the concealed door, which swung shut of its own volition behind her.
“Not many know of this place,” the High Queen said, already nearly out of sight around the first curve of the spiraling stairs. Calliea leapt the first few sets to keep up. Her legs sharply reminded her that she’d spent the day astride Kyrim, battling Unseelie guards, and keeping hold of the Unseelie Princess on the harrowing flight back to the Vyldgard stronghold. The wish for a bath rose again strongly in her as she ascended the staircase. Sweat slid down her back as she wondered exactly how high they were going to climb. Finally, the High Queen stopped at another door. She pressed her hand to it. Runes flared into life on the wood and the door opened. Vell disappeared up another small flight of stairs, and Calliea quickly followed.