FULL MOON

by Jennifer St. Clair

  "I don't remember," Edward said. "But I almost wish I did. My mother did not speak very often about her family."

  "When this is over, if we all survive, I'll take you to meet some of the nicer Cousins," Ceidrin said, and hesitated. "I'll be in the...in our bedroom, for want of a better word, if...if Gene wants to know."

  "I do have a library," Sennet said. "Other than that, my house doesn't lend much to entertainment. Make yourselves at home."

  Lucien nodded and drifted away, looking troubled. Edward stood up a moment later.

  "I think I'll just check on Rose," he said, and left Sennet and Elinor alone.

  "Are you tired?" Sennet asked.

  "No, not really," Elinor said. "I'm a little--worried, I guess. About what will happen."

  "So am I," Sennet said, and smiled at her. "Would you like to meet another Healer? I'd like for at least one other person to know what's going on, just in case we need reinforcements."

  We. Elinor shivered. "Can I really be one of you? A Healer, I mean?"

  Sennet smiled. "You already are," she said. "Follow me."

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  Ceidrin awoke when a hand--a familiar hand--softly brushed the hair away from his face. He opened his eyes and squinted at Gene, who smiled cautiously at him, his eyes full of something Ceidrin didn't want to define.

  They had been together for almost forty years. And Ceidrin had thought--wrongly--that he knew every inch of the man he had taken as his soulmate.

  "Hi," he said, and stretched, yawning. "How long have I been asleep?"

  Gene shook his head. "Not long. Two hours, perhaps. Not much more."

  Ceidrin levered himself up on one arm. "And you've been sitting there the whole time?" he asked. "The bed's big enough for both of us--"

  "I know," Gene said. "I'm not tired. Perhaps I just wanted to watch you sleep."

  This was the most Ceidrin had heard from him since his rescue, other than barking orders to his inexperienced helpers in the kitchen.

  "Well--"

  Gene interrupted him before he could continue. "They didn't do what you think they did," he whispered.

  Ceidrin's breath froze in his throat. "They--"

  Gene's lips quirked. "They wanted you to think the worst."

  "I did," Ceidrin said. "Are you--" He wanted to ask Gene if he was certain, but why would he lie about something like that? "Still, they kidnapped you, and tortured you. I'm not inclined to forget that, or forgive."

  "I wouldn't ask you to," Gene said. "But I want my own end to this." His eyes gleamed with sudden tears. "Don't shut me out."

  Ceidrin hadn't thought at all about how to keep Gene safe, or whether it was his decision or Gene's to let him stay involved. "I--" He took a deep breath, quelling the urge to tell him that it was none of his business. It had become Gene's business when he'd moved into Ceidrin's house. "I had no intention of denying you an end to this," he said. "But--you're not a wizard. They are."

  "You can give me protections against them," Gene said, his voice intense. "I know you can."

  "You're right; I can," Ceidrin said. "And I will. But Gene--" He hadn't wanted to admit this in front of the rest of them; they seemed to think he was invulnerable. "I don't know if I'm strong enough to fight either of them. I survived one attack, but if Sennet hadn't come--" He closed his eyes and let himself fall back onto the bed. "If Sennet hadn't come, I'd be dead and so would you."

  "What would happen to me if you assumed the throne?" Gene asked.

  Ceidrin opened his eyes. "What? I have no intention--"

  "Humor me," Gene said.

  "If I--" Ceidrin didn't even want to think about it. "If I assumed the throne, which I am most certainly not going to do, then you would be my--my consort."

  Gene raised an eyebrow. "They'd let me stay?"

  Ceidrin laughed. "Being king would have its advantages, and I don't think they'd let you leave after they tasted your cooking," he said. "They wouldn't have a choice, because if they forced you out, there would be Hell to pay."

  "Then why--" Gene bit back his question. "You've never really talked to me about why you left Faerie," he said. "I know it wasn't only because of me. You had that house before I was ever in the picture."

  "It's ancient history," Ceidrin said, and tried not to see the hurt in Gene's gaze.

  "There was someone before me," Gene said lightly, as if he'd decided to weasel the story out of Ceidrin regardless of the circumstances.

  "Yes. There was. He died." Ceidrin felt his lips curve into a smile as brittle as glass. "You do, you know. Eventually. Despite any effort to the contrary on my part."

  "I know," Gene said.

  "He died because we quarreled and I...I fled home with my tail between my legs like a beaten dog," Ceidrin said. "Only no one had ever bothered to tell me that if I stayed in Faerie for any space of time, the effects on my human lover would be disastrous. And I was gone--in Faerie--for a month. In the human world, thirty years had passed. And my--his name was Thomas, incidentally--Thomas was dead."

  "I'm sorry," Gene said, perching himself on the edge of the bed. "I'm so sorry." He reached out his hand and wiped the tears from Ceidrin's cheeks. "I always wondered why you never stayed away for more than a week."

  "Time isn't as different anymore," Ceidrin whispered. "Both our worlds have grown closer together. Eventually, they'll grow apart again, but for now, you're safe from that, at least." He blinked away the tears. "On her deathbed, my mother admitted that she had kept me in Faerie on purpose. She knew, you see. Thomas had tried to find me, and she kept him away." His lips twisted into a semblance of a smile. "She thought that might set me straight. She never approved of anything that I did."

  "If you were king, you could change all of that," Gene said.

  "But I don't want to be king," Ceidrin protested.

  "I know," Gene said, his voice as soothing as his touch. "Just as Nidrea did not want to be Queen."

  "It is not the same at all," Ceidrin snapped.

  Gene sighed, as if he'd completely missed the point. "Show me how to protect myself. Just in case they try to take me again."

  "How did they take you before?" Ceidrin asked, focusing on something he could understand.

  Gene's lips twisted. "By surprise," he said. "I'd just gotten home from the grocery store when they appeared--"

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In hindsight, Edward realized he should have told someone that he needed some time alone to think. In hindsight, he would have found a way to go home, perhaps, and wander through the silence of the warded woods behind his house instead of the unknown forest around Sennet's little cottage. But it was broad daylight, and he neither sensed nor saw any sign that Sennet's house was being watched.

  He had shifted shape early on, after finding Gene and Rose playing a frigid game of fetch in Sennet's backyard. At this time of the month, his wolf form was more familiar and more concrete than his human form anyway. If there were watchers, he saw no sign then, or when Gene had gone back inside and he had stepped outside of Sennet's wards to explore a new place.

  Even Rose had not sensed a thing.

  She followed him, of course, with only one longing thought of lying in front of Sennet's fireplace. For better or for worse, she considered Edward her Master now. He wasn't quite sure how he should feel about that. He wasn't quite sure of anything else, either; especially his wonderfully vague idea that could just as easily get everyone killed.

  When the three hounds appeared--long and lean like greyhounds, save for the look in their eyes--he realized that Ceidrin's declaration that they had appeared out of nowhere was more than just simple inattention. They appeared, perhaps by magic, perhaps by deceit. Either way, he sensed nothing until they were far too close for comfort.

  And they were not alone. A woman sat easily on a white elvish steed, too close in family resemblance to Ceidrin f
or any sort of comfort. And some part of Edward's human self recognized her.

  "What is this?" she asked, just as Rose began to growl.

  Sennet's house was in the human realm, or Edward thought it was, so the presence of an elf here--and the identity of that elf--could only mean one thing.

  Oriellen suspected something. She might not know everything yet, but she knew enough to search out Sennet.

  She dismounted, evidently assuming they would not run away--Edward had no doubt she would send her hounds to hunt him down if he tried--and stood beside her horse, muttering something under her breath. When she cast her spell--a net, of sorts that spiraled out in glittering arcs around both Edward and Rose, he had to struggle not to break it. If he did, she would know that he wasn't just a wolf.

  And perhaps she knew already, because she frowned, glared at Rose, who had not stopped growling, and motioned to her hounds. "Kill them both."

  Edward destroyed the net, shouted a silent order to Rose, and turned tail to run, dodging the hound who had circled behind them. Alone, he could probably outrun them, but Rose was only a dog. And mundane dogs could not outrun elvish hounds.

  So he led two of them away from Sennet's house in the hope that Rose could get behind Sennet's wards before the third hound killed her--if Sennet's wards would hold--and find a way to warn the others. They would just have to worry about the crown without him, because he doubted the other hounds would give up until he was dead.

  He managed to immobilize one with a hastily growled spell, but the other one gave him no respite. And despite the fact that Elinor had healed his wounds, she had not been able to heal his leg completely, and it was the first thing that threatened to collapse after he turned too quickly to avoid tumbling down a cliff.

  And once the hound knew his weakness, it was only a matter of time before it acted on that knowledge.

  Its teeth caught his hind leg--his good leg, not the leg that had been broken, and as Edward turned to snap at it, the hound went for his throat. In an instant, as they tumbled over each other in a flurry of snapping teeth and gouging claws, Edward knew he had to kill it or die trying.

  He felt no joy when he tore out its throat, thus proving Lucien wrong that they couldn't be killed. But he had no time to rest on his laurels; another hound appeared out of nowhere--barreling into him before he could get to his feet--not the one that had followed Rose, thank goodness, but another one. Would she send all seven after him? Now that he had killed one, he thought, perhaps, that she would.

  And Oriellen appeared to watch this part of the battle, her frown deepening when she saw the dead hound. Edward saw her move her hands in a complicated gesture--another spell, but he had no time to consider it until something cold as ice pierced his shoulder; until he remember Ceidrin's talk about the iron-loaded crossbow and saw the very same weapon in Oriellen's hands.

  Edward collapsed, then, still fighting, bleeding from a dozen wounds, the snow that had remained throughout the battle bright red with both their blood. The hound was not much better off, but when another one appeared beside its mistress, Edward cast a net that fixed the first into place and wearily struggled to his feet to face the new foe.

  "Who are you?" Oriellen asked, and flicked something at him with the tips of her fingers. Edward cast it aside.

  His next spell, intended for the remaining hound, fell far short of its mark as she fired another bolt he barely dodged.

  This time, the battle was far shorter than it had been before. This time, the hound went directly for his wounded leg--not the one already immobilized by the bolt, but the one Elinor had healed--and Edward heard the crack when it broke anew.

  As a wolf, he could run on three legs, but not two. And he already knew that he did not want to shift shape in front of Oriellen.

  "Hold," Oriellen said as the hound closed its teeth over Edward's throat.

  Edward closed his eyes, gathered what small scraps of strength he could find, and prepared one last ditch attempt at escape.

  "Open your eyes," Oriellen said, and a forgotten piece of Edward's mind wanted very desperately to obey her. He growled when she touched him--her hands were shockingly cold--and then she did something that cast all hope of freedom away. "Who are you?" she murmured, and something--something broke inside Edward's mind, shattered into pieces so sharp that they sliced everything they touched to shreds.

  Edward screamed, and continued screaming, long after that last sane piece of his mind realized that she had torn something away from him; something so old and ingrained in his psyche that it shattered everything else with its passing.

  He screamed until his voice gave out--his human voice; the wolf was gone now, dead, or worse--and curled up on the bloody ground, groping for some sort of stability--some sort of anchor--that would bring his mind back from destruction.

  When she tried to tear something from his mind--his identity, perhaps--he fought her, but she found it anyway, and took that as easily as she had taken everything else.

  And then, her touch receded. Alone and aching in every part of his mind and body, Edward opened his eyes and stared up at her.

  Oriellen's face was a mixture of fury and shock. She stood above him with his blood on her hands and spun on her hound so quickly that Edward doubted it saw her move.

  "He was supposed to be dead!"

  The hound shifted shape at those words, its manner both cringing and wary.

  "My lady--"

  "Silence." She retreated into fury, the shock gone. Edward could only presume that she recognized him somehow, but did that mean she knew who he was?

  He was having trouble breathing. He realized that with a sort of bemused detachment, almost as if he was watching himself from above. The pain had receded to a dull roar by now--at least, the pain from his wounds had receded, but his mind still felt flayed and raw. And he couldn't find enough strength to reach out to find something he could use to protect himself.

  "How did you survive?" Oriellen asked the question expecting him to answer, but struggling against her was habit now, and not easily broken.

  He felt something snap inside his mind; not quite as painful as the last time, but bad enough to almost send him careening into darkness.

  But this wasn't Oriellen's doing; not this time. Whatever had broken, freed that last remaining piece of his mind that defined his self, and he used that--digging his fingers into the frozen dirt--to pull enough strength from the ground beneath him--from the stones and bedrock under him--to protect his mind from her touch.

  He couldn't do much about his body, but his mind was his own again.

  And faintly, very faintly on the very edge of his range of internal hearing, he felt Rose. Still alive. Safe.

  Good girl.

  "How did you survive?" Oriellen asked, and aimed the tiny crossbow at his heart. "Answer me!"

  "My lady, he is dying," the hound whispered, and Edward heard some sort of echo in its voice; the faint whisper of the spell that kept it loyal to its mistress.

  "He won't die," Oriellen snapped, but she hesitated before firing the crossbow into the ground right next to Edward's right ear.

  He flinched, despite any effort to stay still.

  "See? He's more awake than you think," Oriellen said, and fired the next bolt into Edward's other arm, effectively crippling him. "Go join your brother. Find out what else that damned Healer is hiding."

  "And the wolf, my lady?"

  Edward heard her reply through a fog of steadily encroaching darkness.

  "The wolf? The wolf is coming with me."

  Return to Contents

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sennet's first inclination that something was wrong was the furious barking outside. She wasn't the only one who noticed; Lucien appeared out of the library a moment after the cacophony started, and he followed her outside.

  Rose stood at the very edge of the wards surrounding the garden, barking and growling at a hound--one of Oriellen's hounds, no d
oubt--that slunk into the trees as soon as Sennet and Lucien appeared.

  "They've found us," Lucien said, his voice both soft and cold.

  "Where's Edward?" Sennet asked, more concerned with his absence than the fact that the hound couldn't help but see Lucien.

  Rose turned her head at Edward's name. The look in her eyes--Sennet's heart sank.

  "Go back inside," she said to Lucien, who was too surprised at her tone of voice to protest.

  As soon as he was gone, Sennet knelt down and held out her hand. "Rose, where is Edward?"

  Whining, the black and white dog approached her hand, and just as Sennet stroked the soft fur on her head, she saw what Edward had done.

  "Did he think he could fight them himself?" Sennet asked, and patted Rose on her head. "Thank you, Rose. Why don't we go and find him?"

  If there was anything left to find.

  Sennet heard the front door open behind her. "Go back inside," she said, not bothering to see who it was. "Stay inside, if you please, until I get back."

  "But--" It was Elinor's voice, afraid and worried.

  "Elinor, stay inside," Sennet said. "I don't want them to see you, too. They can't get through my wards, and they won't get through my wards while I am still alive."

  "And if they kill you?" Lucien's voice cracked, as if he, too, realized what had probably happened. "Is Edward dead?"

  "Rose doesn't know, and neither do I," Sennet said. "I intend to find out." Before they could ask any other questions, she stepped across her wards, and when she glanced back at the house, she saw that the front door was now shut.

  Sennet stood completely still for a moment, straining her senses for any sign of Edward's pain. And his pain was not difficult to find. Even from this far away, she felt it, a vast engulfing agony that nearly swallowed her whole.

  Rose whined. Sennet opened her eyes.