by AJ Nuest
Yet ʼtwas the menacing glint in his coppery eyes which set Faedrah’s nerves to fraying. Had she to guess, she would’ve sworn the man was the cross-bred progeny of an ogre and female Dregg.
Rhys’ hands landed on her hips and urged her back a step. Apparently, he’d tuned in to the gruff mannerisms emanating from this monstrous man as well.
Violet released Oliver and Jon, searched Faedrah’s face and glanced over her shoulder. “Todd.” She slapped the back of her hand against the man’s chest. “Stop scaring our guests. I already told you, Oliver said he’s cool.”
By “he” Faedrah could only assume the witch spoke of Rhys, which meant her uncle had offered these two strangers full disclosure regarding her beloved’s ties to Gaelleod.
Her muscles tensed as the moment stretched. Trouncing a man so large would require a feat of epic strength, yet if one of his eyelids scarcely twitched, she would be left no choice but to try.
Sir Todd focused his attention past their shoulders and Faedrah followed his gaze toward the street. The metal pipes of Rhys’ mechanical horse winked in the morning sunlight, parked behind the glossy red encasement of Oliver’s motorized carriage. As a group, they’d agreed to travel separately to Violet’s chambers on the possibility her counsel best be followed by departing in opposite directions. Perchance this colossal man took issue with their mode of transportation.
He crossed his massive arms, sizing up Rhys from the top of his head to the toes of his black leather boots, and jerked his chin in the steel horse’s direction. “That your sweet ride?”
His gravel-laden voice was a flawless match to the weather worn creases bracketing his eyes, and Faedrah held firm as Rhys’ fingers tightened about her waist another degree. “The seat behind me belongs to Faedrah, but my name’s on the title.”
He shifted his perusal to her and nodded, swinging his shoulder aside. “You can come in.”
Or perchance he’d sworn allegiance to some modern-day guard which patrolled this witch’s domain upon their own iron steeds. ʼTwas a fortuitous stroke of luck Rhys’ penchant for danger and speed designated him an equal to Sir Todd’s gens d’armes.
Faedrah followed her uncles into the entryway, stopping to blink several times within the shaded interior. Yet before she’d been given proper time to absorb her surroundings, Violet’s palms clasped her cheeks and the witch lowered Faedrah’s forehead to her lips.
“Just let me look at you.” Tears threatened atop the lower lashes trimming the petite woman’s eyes. A small smile bandied about the corners of her mouth. “My God. I swear it’s like the past twenty years never happened.” She squinted. “I only met your father once, briefly, but you have his eyes.” Her hand stroked the side of Faedrah’s head, and she instinctively leaned into Violet’s touch. “And this black strip of hair, no doubt, came from him.”
She ran her palms the length of Faedrah’s arms, grasped both hands and hung tight. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you, sweetie. The last time I talked to your mom, I didn’t give her very good news.” Concern darkened the older woman’s azure gaze. “How is she?”
Faedrah smiled. Her mother’s friend was a faithful ally, to be sure. “The queen is…happy. Still and always, desperately in love with her king.”
Violet nodded, dropping her focus to the tiled floor, though the relief Faedrah expected to smooth her wrinkled brow never came. “And now it’s your turn. Now you stand in front of me, looking for answers.” The witch sighed. “Some days, I really hate my job.”
Alarm skittered through Faedrah’s belly and she glanced at Rhys. He crossed his arms, eyes narrowed. “What’d you find out?”
“Right. Where are my manners?” Violet squeezed Faedrah’s fingers before releasing her, and opened a flat hand toward an open archway on their left. “Let’s have a seat. I’m sure you’re all anxious to hear what I’ve learned.”
Rhys grunted, skepticism set within the angle of his shadowed jaw.
Faedrah paused to allow her uncles precedence into the room, in addition to stealing a moment of privacy with her beloved. She turned her back to Sir Todd, voice lowered as he lumbered after their troupe. “You do not trust this witch to speak plainly?”
“I believe she’ll give us the truth according to her.” Rhys’ eyes glittered like faceted emeralds, and she marveled at the captivating shimmers in the muted light. “Just remember, not everything this woman is about to tell us is necessarily fact.”
Her faith these proceedings may remedy the riddle of their plight vanished like a wisp of smoke. More than any other, she trusted Rhys’ instincts. If he harbored qualms regarding the information they were to receive, she would be wise to heed his advice.
“Listen.” He slid his calloused palm against her throat, brushed the ball of his thumb along her bottom lip. “This distance between us is making me crazy. God Faedrah, ever since this morning, I feel like I’ve been losing you and I don’t know how to stop it.”
And rightly so. Her inability to share her dream had kept him unawares. “My heart is yours. I am yours.”
“Just promise me, no matter what happens here, you’ll remember that.”
She encircled his shoulders in her arms, the rasp of his beard tickling her neck as she cradled the back of his head. “I could no easier forget how to breathe.”
With a crushing squeeze of her ribs, he released her, linking their fingers as he led them into the room.
The interior was a shade or two darker than the foyer, though the blue haze emanating from the three glowing squares placed atop a semi-circular desk provided ample light by which to navigate the furnishings. Each of the panels cast an eerie pall over the faces assembled, their inner workings humming like the surface of the veil, and Faedrah wavered in her decision to draw too close. Strange magics were afoot. This witch controlled a keen malevolence far beyond her understandings.
“It’s okay.” Rhys tugged her hand to step beside him, and Faedrah assumed the vacant spot between his shoulder and that of her uncle Oliver, completing the opposite side of the circle to match the curvature of the desk.
Violet had already acquired the oversized chair in the center, the base a strange five-pointed star set upon tiny wheels that pivoted and rolled with her movements. She spun to the first window on her left and her fingers flew over a series of letters and symbols set within an elongated, flat, black box. “I started at the beginning, back where I had left off when your parents last came to see me.”
The screen flashed and Faedrah withdrew a pace, a breath lodged in her throat. A quick survey of the picture, and her apprehension vanished. As sure as she lived and breathed, this witch had stolen inside the armory and plucked a charted survey of the Austiere Kingdom off Denmar’s desk. “Sweet tits. That is my homeland.”
“Right.” Employing the use of her index finger, Violet rotated an elevated fragment of a palm-shaped device and the picture enlarged to a detailed rendering of the castle and its surrounding villages. Faedrah slapped a palm to her chest. Helios wept, if their enemies ever discovered such mysterious enchantments, her kingdom was doomed.
The witch pivoted toward the center panel and a series of documents shuffled past the window. “The last mention of Gaelleod I could find happened the Night of Silver Knives, during the battle he fought with Rowena and Fandorn.” A blur of her fingers over the board, a furious series of clicks, and the parchments scrambled and rearranged. “Except for here.” An arrowhead danced along the verbiage, encasing several of the lines in a bright yellow block. “A small footnote about twenty years later reports a Crystal Cave where Gaelleod’s tomb was found.”
Faedrah stiffened. “Twenty passings of the seasons? That would put the discovery precisely during this timeframe.”
“Yep, and I can do you one better.” Violet swerved back to the map, scooted the picture to the right and hemmed a section of the Austiere Kingdom’s northern most coastline within the lines of a box. A click and that same region enlarged to encompass th
e entire pane. “That asshole buried himself in the cliffs.” She cleared her throat, glancing at Rhys. “No offense.”
He huffed. “None taken.”
“From what I could gather, I’m guessing the entrance is located somewhere in this area here.” She wagged a finger at a small section centered in the screen. “Bad news is, the actual crypt where he’s hidden will be a lot harder to find. There’s a labyrinth of tunnels and dead ends leading inside, and the supposed spells he cast over the area make for a dangerous minefield. If a person would ever decide to try their luck at finding him, they could easily get disorientated and lost…or walk straight off a ledge into an abyss.”
Faedrah clutched at the last strands of her quickly diminishing hope. “Do you know the proper course?”
“Nope.” The chair twirled and Violet faced their group, one delicate white eyebrow lifted in firm regard. “If the secret route through the tunnels ever did get recorded, I couldn’t find it. Which means it was either destroyed or left uncharted to begin with.”
Pinching her bottom lip, Faedrah frowned as another, more devious, alternative occurred. “Or Gaelleod had the diagram entombed along with him, thus awaiting the day of his resurrection and ensuring he could furrow his way out.”
“Holy hell.”
She snapped her gaze to Rhys and her hand dropped lifeless at her side. The ashen pallor of his cheeks nearly cast her into a tailspin.
“I’ve seen it.” He raked both sets of fingers through his hair and threaded them together along the back of his neck, elbows forward. “God dammit, at least I think I saw it. It was a long time ago, when I was a kid. I went into my dad’s study looking for a sketchpad and ended up picking the lock on his desk. When I stumbled across a secret compartment filled with what I assumed was a treasure map, I thought I’d hit the Lotto.” He released his hands, shaking his head, the laugh tumbling from his lips rife with scorn. “Leo found me soon after, got all bent out of shape over what I’d done, as usual.”
Faedrah clasped Rhys’ arm and a chill whispered over her skin. Reliving the memory had wound him so tight, his muscles vibrated beneath her grip. “Can you recall the path?”
“No way.” He glanced at her from under his brows. “But I remember how he whipped me with a leather belt until I could barely walk.”
Jon clucked his tongue, pressing a cloth hankie to his nose.
“And I know where the map is hidden. If he’s still keeping it in the same place, that is.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t advise going anywhere near him if you can help it.” Violet spun back to her mystical portals, faced the one in the center and her fingers plucked a tuneless song along the lettered board. “When I reached a dead end moving forward, I decided to start in the present and go back. See what else I could discover about Gaelleod’s history.”
A black and white image of a young Leo McEleod filled the screen and Faedrah’s pulse skittered with dread. He was debarking a motorized carriage, though the lines were more cumbersome than those of her uncle’s sleek coach, a wide-brimmed hat sat low on his brow and a satisfied grin creased his cheeks.
“Here’s an article from the Chicago Tribune dated May 12, 1966, the day Leo inherited the reins to McEleod Industries, three days after his father’s death.” A tap of the witch’s finger and another image appeared, blanketing the first, a portrait of the man Faedrah assumed was Rhys’ grandfather, slightly blurred and tattered near the edges. “Rayburn McEleod took over on January 24, 1910, also three days after his father’s death.” She tapped in rapid succession, the pages altering from white to yellow, exact depictions changing to those sketched by hand. “Same with every single McEleod who ran the business from the time the company first appeared back in the seventeen hundreds. Always the only son born, always three days.”
“Yeah, so?” Rhys crossed his arms. “We have a predisposition for birthing sons and like to follow tradition. What’s so weird about that?”
“The weird thing is that prior to their inaugurations, each heir had absolutely nothing to do with the business.” Her hand bounced with a final click and she rotated the chair back around to face him. “This is Leo a week before Rayburn died. Look familiar?”
Alarm washed the entirety of Faedrah’s being. She slowly lifted her focus to Rhys…as did Oliver, followed by Jon. A low growl issued from Todd’s chest and he swung his leg around to stand beside the witch, a towering wall of flesh bent on protecting her at all costs.
“Fuck me.” The whisper falling from Rhys’ lips bore such anguish, Faedrah clenched her jaw to stifle a moan, yet none could deny the resemblance of a young Leo McEleod to that of his natural born son.
The smile dimpling Leo’s cheeks, the dark scruff offsetting the square line of his jaw…even Leo’s hairline was a flawless match to her beloved. But of all the details defining them as father and son, the one which most cast her heart into the throes of despair, was the beautiful blonde woman Leo McEleod clasped in his arms. Rhys’ mother, and the love shining outward from their joyous gazes was as tangible as the devotion Faedrah shared with the man at her side.
Violet locked her attention onto Faedrah. “You need to sit down?”
“No.” She wound a hand around Rhys’ bicep and held tight. “I do not regret, nor do I fear my decision in offering the son of Gaelleod my heart. We were destined, our union blessed by the Goddesses.”
“Yeah?” Violet’s eyebrows rose. “Well then, I suggest you hold onto your ass.” She twirled back to her desk and commenced another string of infuriating clicks. The window to their right blinked repeatedly, presenting the fair guise of one young maiden after the next, the final, topmost scene a representation of Rhys’ mother adorned in a white, lace-trimmed gown. Her arm was linked with Leo’s bent elbow, his formal attire, a black well-appointed suit. “Grace McEleod married Leo three months after he became chairman of the board. A year later, Rhys was born and, a week after that, she disappears off the radar. It’s like the woman never existed.”
Violet slid their likeness to the left and it reappeared in the center window, alongside the depiction of a young Leo and Grace caught in a loving embrace. “Do you remember her, Rhys?”
“No.” The word croaked from his throat and Faedrah released his arm to slide her hand about his waist. He gathered her to his chest, pressing a fierce kiss to the top of her head.
Violet pivoted back to the right screen and the remaining image of another blonde beauty, her smiling face shown beside the tangled remains of a pile of charred wreckage. “Henrietta McEleod, married to Rayburn two weeks after he was sworn in as chairman, gave birth to Leo ten months later and died in a car crash three weeks after that.” Another tap and a third woman filled the screen. “Jane McEleod married Oscar two months after he gained control of McEleod Industries, mothered Rayburn a year later and died shortly thereafter of tuberculosis.” The fourth beauty appeared. “Margaret McEleod, wife of Lucas. Shot to death in a robbery gone wrong six days after giving birth to Oscar.”
Rhys’ arms tightened around her shoulders and Faedrah closed her eyes, her mounting horror too poignant to bear.
“Annette, died in childbirth, leaving a son, Ulmer.”
This witch spoke of too much death.
“Camille, found dead in bed two months after Louis was born.”
Struggling for air, Faedrah clung to Rhys’ shirt, each name arrowing home the dire similarities to her dream.
“Francesca didn’t survive the trip to the Americas, but her infant son—”
“Stop!” Rhys’ sharp retort rebounded in her ear. “Just stop. This is killing Faedrah, can’t you see that?” His warm hand covered the back of her head. “For Christ’s sake, it’s killing us both.”
“Killing her is exactly what I’m trying to prevent.” A squeak of the wheels and Faedrah lifted her eyes to find Violet facing the room. “All of them died, you guys. All of them. The life expectancy of a McEleod wife is three months, tops. Her survival rate? Shit, it’s less t
han zero.”
“This is completely ridiculous.” Rhys’ voice shook with unrestrained anger. “All those deaths can be explained.”
“Which is most likely why they were never investigated.”
“Please.” Faedrah broke from Rhys’ embrace, fisting her hands. “I compel you to speak plainly. Are you stating a consent to matrimony condemns all McEleod women to some inescapable curse?”
“Sure.” Violet shrugged one slender shoulder. “If you can call murder a curse.”
“That’s bullshit!” Rhys stutter-stepped forward.
Sir Todd leapt into his path and seized her love by the collar of his black leather coat. “Hold it right there, cowboy.” The burly man hauled Rhys to the tips of his boots, leveling them eye for eye. “Last time I checked, you showed up at my house with a truckload of questions. What kind of husband would I be if I let you bust the messenger’s balls just because you don’t like the answers?”
“And let her accuse me of premeditated murder?” Rhys thrashed against the man, his feet searching for purchase. “Fat chance in hell!” He grasped both of Todd’s wrists and sparks sizzled and cracked at the contact. “Now let go!”
Faedrah gasped as the air compressed and a silent percussion whipped her hair about her shoulders. Sir Todd’s arms flew wide, pin-wheeling in the air as he stumbled back. A squeak issued from Violet and she shrank in the seat, using her heels to propel her out of harm’s way.
Sir Todd careened to the ground with a harrowing slam, lay prone on his back and stared at the ceiling. “What the hell?” A loud groan filled the stunned silence as he pushed to sitting, rubbing his hand along the back of his head. “I swear to God, Violet, I’m too old for this shit.”
She scooted forward and cupped her husband’s cheeks in both palms. “Oh, sweetie, are you okay? I’m so sorry.” A coo issued from her throat as she rained a series of kisses over his forehead, down his nose and lips.
“Jesus.” Rhys held his splayed fingers before his face, eyes wide and disbelieving. He shifted his gaze to her and Faedrah started at the panic etched on his face. “Faedrah, what’s happening to m—?”