by Jocelyn Fox
“But you have not been introduced as a Paladin,” said Niall.
His smile brought a blush to her cheeks and she felt suddenly shy. Was she genuinely ready to be called a Paladin? If Tyr hadn’t been cross with her, he would have replied to her doubtful thought with his own sage reassurance. His icy silence cut even deeper. But then she drew her shoulders back. She wouldn’t let his obstinacy ruin the rest of the night. Day. Whatever it was at this point. She looked at Duke.
“Ross is fine,” he said reassuringly. “Her circuits just overloaded.” He even gave her half a smile.
“Come, come!” piped Farin. “We are being insufferably rude, not greeting the Bearer!”
Forin opened his wings, fluttered them experimentally and then jumped into the air. He left the flashy aerial maneuvers to his twin, but it brought a smile to Vivian’s face to see him flying.
“Come,” said Forin.
“I will accompany you as well, with your permission,” said Ramel, nodding to Vivian.
“I – of course,” said Vivian, biting back the protest that surely Ramel, an Unseelie Knight, didn’t need to ask her permission to do anything. She thought she saw a flash of amusement in his hazel eyes before she turned to the door. With Ramel’s second-best sword still at her hip, her skin covered in ash and splashes of gore from the fight at the warehouse, Vivian squared her shoulders and opened the door, leading the delegation to meet the Bearer out into the thick morning air.
Forin and Farin flew slightly ahead of her as she strode around the side of the house toward the Gate. Their auras illuminated her path, though the gray twilight of dawn lifted the darkness by the minute. Niall walked on her right and Ramel on her left, both half a step behind her.
The Gate drew Vivian’s gaze as though a searchlight illuminated it. She walked through the long grass of the back yard toward the trees, mesmerized by the sight. The outline of the Gate brought to her mind the heavy gilt frame of a baroque mirror, but rather than brass the border was fire, racing golden around intricate and beautiful curves. She struggled to think of a word to describe the Gate. It wasn’t a mirror, because it didn’t reflect its surroundings; neither was it a window, because she couldn’t peer through it into the Fae world, though she tried. The best description that her mind supplied was oil upon water: shifting colors and shapes, shadows and reflections swirling nebulously within the border of golden fire.
“Ordinary mortals will not be able to see the Gate,” murmured Niall. “Some might see a bit of a mirage or a curve in the air, like heat over pavement. But they will not recognize it as a Gate.”
“So it’s really my Paladin senses that are letting me see it,” said Vivian in breathless wonder. The happiness within her chest expanded until her bones ached.
“You see,” continued Niall in that same quiet voice, “I did not train you because I lost my taebramh. I trained you because I saw in you something that I have not seen in many years.”
Vivian cleared her throat. His proud smile made her stomach quiver. “Stop making me blush right before I’m introduced as a Paladin.”
Niall chuckled as they turned their attention back to the Gate. They stopped about ten yards away, beyond where the rune trap for the bone sorcerer had once been. Vivian felt the echo of that power like a shadow imprinted on the blades of grass and soil. The shifting forms in the frame of the Gate coalesced into a silhouette that Vivian recognized, taller than her by a few inches and with the hilt of a sword visible over one shoulder. Tess stepped through the Gate, shimmering colors playing over her skin for an instant as though she traversed a cosmic waterfall.
“Lady Bearer!” exclaimed Farin, diving to hover excitedly just over Tess’s head.
Luca followed Tess through the Gate, his wolf Kianryk by his side. The great tawny wolf shook himself thoroughly, sniffed the air and then disappeared into the long grasses.
“Farin.” The Bearer greeted the Glasidhe with a smile.
Another woman stepped through the Gate, holding a bow in one hand and brushing back her mane of tightly coiled golden curls with the other.
“Lady Bearer,” said Niall with a courtly bow. Ramel echoed his motion.
“Niall,” said Tess, genuine warmth filling her voice. “Ramel. You look…well.”
Ramel nodded, his copper hair glinting. Niall took a breath and continued his introduction. “If I may, Lady Bearer…”
“Just Tess, Niall, you know that,” the Bearer interjected.
“…Tess,” Niall said smoothly, “I would like to introduce to you your cousin.”
“Cousin?” Tess said sharply, raising her eyebrows.
“Distant, in the way that mortals think of such things,” amended Niall with a smile. He gestured to Vivian. “Lady Bearer, as her instructor, I am pleased to introduce to you the first Paladin in over four hundred years.”
Vivian felt the force of Tess’s intelligent emerald eyes like a physical touch. She held herself carefully still as the Bearer looked at her with renewed interest.
“A Paladin?” repeated the woman with the golden mane.
“We have also trained her in swordsmanship,” added Farin proudly.
Vivian didn’t know if she was supposed to say anything, so she pressed her lips together and let them inspect her.
“Vivian,” said Tess finally with a nod.
“Tess,” replied Vivian. Did she imagine it, or had she heard cautious approval in Tess’s voice?
“I shall have to teach you how to wield an axe,” rumbled Luca.
Vivian grinned. “Any weapon training is good training as far as I’m concerned.”
Luca chuckled and then crossed his arms over his broad chest. His wolfish eyes scanned the expanse of the grass behind them. “And where have you moved the bone sorcerer’s cage?”
Vivian resisted the urge to look to Niall. She had just been introduced as a Paladin. She could handle breaking some bad news. “We didn’t move it. He escaped.”
The golden-haired woman sucked in a breath and scanned the shadows around them, as though she expected the bone sorcerer to leap out at them. Vivian didn’t miss the way that Luca’s entire body tightened, and her skin prickled. She definitely did not want to be on the receiving end of his anger.
“How did it happen?” Tess asked, addressing Vivian rather than one of the two Sidhe men. Vivian inexplicably appreciated that.
“Tyr and Forin had the watch. Corsica attacked them. She left them both for dead,” she replied. It still sounded terrible, even though both Tyr and Forin had survived. Farin growled overhead. “She took the bone sorcerer and hid him. And then Molly went to join them.” Vivian paused and then realized everyone waited for her to continue. “Molly became the bone sorcerer’s apprentice, and Corsica kept them both at her lair.”
Even in the pale light of the new day, Vivian saw Tess blanch. Luca put out a hand, touching her elbow. Not to steady her, but just to let her know that he was there, that he felt what she felt. Vivian hoped that someday she’d find someone who would offer silent support like that.
“Perhaps we should go inside the house to discuss the situation further. It is warded,” said Niall.
“Titania has her guard on the other side of the Gate,” said the woman holding the bow. Her pale blue eyes scanned the shadows again and then returned to Niall. “Moira of the Vyldgard.”
“Niall of the Seelie,” said Niall elegantly. “Vaelanseld to Titania.”
“Ramel of the Unseelie,” said Ramel.
“Vaelanbrigh to Mab,” Tess added when Ramel fell silent.
Ramel shook his head. “No longer.”
“We should go inside,” said Tess firmly. “I’d like to sit down and maybe have a beer if you’re going to drop any more bombshells.”
“What is a beer?” Moira asked curiously, falling into step beside the Bearer as they all turned toward the house.
“An ice-cold stress reliever,” Tess replied.
“It is not as delicious as mead,” contributed F
arin from overhead.
“I think we have wine too,” said Vivian as she tromped through the grass. “Though it’s barely six in the morning.”
“Traveling between worlds creates exceptions to the normal drinking rules,” Tess said.
Vivian chuckled. “I can understand that.” As they reached the front steps, she paused. “We just got back from a fight with Corsica and Molly and the bone sorcerer. Ross got a little banged up, but she’s fine.”
“We just finished a battle with Mab,” replied Tess drily, “so we have no grounds to judge you on the state of your clothes or how you smell.”
Vivian narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think I smell.” She lowered her head to one shoulder and sniffed. “Okay. Sorry. I really do smell.” She shrugged and opened the screen door. “We have two showers. Everyone can rotate through while I cook breakfast.”
“Though this is a humble structure, it is cozy,” pronounced Moira as they all stepped through into the living room.
“Glad you approve,” said Vivian. “Boots off, please.”
Controlled chaos ensued as three Sidhe, one ulfdrengr, the Bearer and a Paladin all attempted to pull off their footwear without losing their balance. After a minute spent organizing the boots, Vivian straightened. Niall had taken Moira under his wing, showing her the layout of the house; Ramel and Tess were talking in low, intense voices by the kitchen table; Luca had already gone into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, surveying the ingredients available for breakfast; and Ross sat with Duke on the couch, a bit haggard but awake and holding an ice pack against the bridge of her nose.
“Full house again,” said Ross to Vivian, grimacing at her nasal voice.
Vivian smiled. “Yeah. And you know…I like it.”
Despite the news that the bone sorcerer had escaped and Molly had defected to become his apprentice, no one had lost their cool. Vivian appreciated the level heads of the Bearer and her companions. She only wished Tyr would follow their example.
“Vivian,” said Luca from the kitchen, “what was the dish you prepared for us before?”
“Scrambled eggs?” replied Vivian.
“Yes! I could not remember the odd name. Would you teach me how to make it?”
Vivian grinned at the big ulfdrengr’s enthusiasm. “Of course. We’d better have about a dozen eggs, if everyone’s going to eat.”
She padded over to the kitchen and began gathering the ingredients. Tess and Ramel took seats at the kitchen table. As Luca began enthusiastically cracking eggs into a large glass bowl, Vivian took a step back and surveyed the busy house, now thrumming with conversation and activity. The fight with Corsica at the warehouse had already made the night one for the books, but she couldn’t wait for what the day would bring.
Chapter 42
“And Mab attacked the Vyldgard without provocation?” Ramel asked, his eyes grave as he gazed at Tess from across the kitchen table.
“I’m sure she had her own reasons in her head,” said Tess. The Lesser Gate must have been more stable than the portal the Queens had opened in the pavilion, or else she was just used to traveling between the worlds now, because she barely felt any hint of nausea. She still felt the expansion of her taebramh, but it was like stretching a muscle now. “But as far as I’m concerned, none of them could have justified the attack.”
Ramel ran one hand through his coppery hair. Tess glanced into the kitchen watching Luca make short work of cracking a dozen eggs. His enthusiasm for learning how to cook in a mortal kitchen made her smile despite the heaviness pressing down on her. How could the bone sorcerer have escaped? She knew she shouldn’t have trusted Corsica. First the Exiled woman had stolen the river stone; then she’d nearly killed Tyr and Forin while breaking the bone sorcerer out of his cage; and to top it all off, she’d lured Molly into casting her lot with Gryttrond. She clenched her jaw. She should have known better than to leave the bone sorcerer alive.
“It’s not entirely your fault,” Ramel said.
Tess blinked and then raised an eyebrow at Ramel. “You certainly don’t seem any worse for wear.”
Ramel shrugged, his trademark half-grin lingering on his lips. He pulled up one sleeve to show Tess the start of lacy silver scars. “I’ve had a few elements added to the external decoration, but…someone told me once that women love scars.”
Tess spread her own hands on the table, looking at her own fire-kissed skin, the markings from when she’d held the burning Crown of Bones during Vell’s chaotic coronation as the High Queen. “Just stories to tell.” She curled one hand into a fist. “What’s the next play, Ramel?”
“Trying to stop Molly,” he replied, leaning back in his chair. He grimaced. “She has the Brighbranr and my blood. I’m sure there’s some way to twist the weapon to her purposes with both of those.”
“Why would she choose to go with Corsica and the bone sorcerer?” Tess asked. “I don’t understand.”
Ramel stared down at the table with a grave face. “You have not experienced Mab’s wrath, so you cannot fully understand.”
“I experienced Mab clawing through my head,” retorted Tess. “When I wasn’t Bearer yet and I didn’t have any defenses, she combed through everything without my permission.”
“Imagine that happening every hour of every day,” replied Ramel quietly. “For those of us that were bound to her by more than the simple blood oath of majority…that was what it was like.”
“Molly told me that Mab was going to kill her if she didn’t kill me,” Tess said, remembering the tense night in the abandoned trailer after they’d come into the mortal world on a rescue mission, a thunderstorm raging outside.
“Mab wasn’t going to kill her.” Ramel wouldn’t meet Tess’s eyes. “I was going to.”
“No,” Tess said fiercely, reaching for Ramel’s hand. Her chest ached as she thought of all that Ramel and Molly had gone through, and guilt sliced into her. Where had she been when they needed her?
Fulfilling your duties as the Bearer, said the Caedbranr firmly in her mind.
She shoved the Sword’s voice away. It didn’t have emotions. It didn’t understand loyalty or friendship. She took Ramel’s hand in her own, and only then did he look at her with haunted eyes.
“Ramel, whatever you did, whatever she made you do…that was her, not you,” Tess said insistently. She glanced into the kitchen again and Ramel followed her gaze, watching Luca learn how to whisk milk into raw eggs, the silver kitchen tool comically small in his warrior’s hands. “Would you have blamed Luca for what he did while enslaved by one of Malravenar’s dark spirits?”
Ramel swallowed and looked away.
“And if you’re about to spout some nonsense about how you should have been stronger, or you should have killed yourself rather than let her control you like that, you can just take all that and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine,” Tess said.
By the end of her tirade, her old friend stared at her, confusion and amusement mingling in his face. “Shove it…where?”
“Where the sun doesn’t shine,” repeated Tess.
“In shadow? In night? I don’t understand.”
Tess shook her head and swallowed the sudden urge to laugh. “I – it’s a mortal saying. It means…well, it means take it and shove it up…up…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, dissolving into mirth.
In a quick break from her supervision of Luca, Vivian slid over to Ramel and whispered the meaning of the phrase into his ear. The laughter gripping Tess only strengthened as Ramel fixed her with a mockingly scandalized look.
“Tess O’Connor, that is not ladylike,” he scolded, his eyes dancing.
“Tess is not a lady! She is the Bearer of the Iron Sword!” crowed Farin from overhead.
By the time Tess regained her breath, Luca triumphantly placed a huge bowl of steaming scrambled eggs onto the kitchen table. He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned, clearly waiting for words of adulation for his culinary skills.
“Plates,
” said Vivian in a stage whisper behind him. “And silverware. Can’t eat hot eggs with your hands.”
Luca grunted in assent and dutifully fetched plates and silverware, Vivian helping with the distribution around the table. Ross took a seat at the table. The firefighter looked pale beneath her tawny complexion, but she gamely drank half of the glass of orange juice that Vivian set in front of her. Luca slid into the sat on the other side of Tess, clapping Ramel on the shoulder as he sat down.
“It’s good to see you recovered,” he said.
“Thanks to Niall, Vivian and Tyr,” said Ramel, raising his glass to toast Vivian as she made her way around the table to an empty seat.
“It helps that you’re stubborn,” Tess added with a smile. She knew the banter masked the uncertainty that they faced, but it felt familiar, like the good-natured teasing around the fire the night before a battle.
“That too,” said Ramel.
Luca chuckled and doled out a heaping portion of scrambled eggs onto his plate. He passed the bowl to Duke.
“Showers for everyone after this,” drawled Duke, “because y’all smell somethin’ awful.”
“Oh, and you smell like a bed of roses,” retorted Vivian.
“Honey, it’s my natural musk,” Duke replied with a grin. “Ladies can’t resist it. Err – one lady can’t resist it.” He hastily self-corrected as Ross fixed him with a questioning look.
Tess chuckled and reached for the bottle of ketchup, applying it liberally to her eggs.
“What kind of heathen are you?” said Duke with a look of exaggerated disgust.
“My kind of heathen,” said Vivian, taking the ketchup bottle after Tess set it down.
“Savages, both of ya,” pronounced Duke. “How can you ruin such a culinary masterpiece with ketchup?”
“This from the man who puts Texas Pete hot sauce on everything,” interjected Ross drolly.
“Not on eggs!” protested Duke.