by Joey W. Hill
Keldwyn squatted next to Nexus. The stallion lay where he'd fallen when the shielding around the demon had hit him. Had Uthe not had the sorceress's weapon protecting him, Kel expected it would have done far more damage to the vampire. It had broken the horse's neck. It would help Uthe to know the noble creature hadn't suffered more than a moment, illusion or not.
The only one missing from the courtyard was Uthe.
Varick? He spoke in his mind, hoping, but he heard nothing. It didn't mean anything, he told himself. He could be sleeping, unconscious. Kel didn't know if body decomposition was the same here or not, but those in the courtyard did not look long dead. So perhaps he'd only been gone a few hours.
Scanning the altar, he saw the pieces of the head had dissolved to ash. The Grail was still there, knocked on its side as before, the Cross standing silent above it. The traces of the demon's power, that insidious red, were gone, as was the silver-blue of the binding. With those two influences gone, Kel could feel the drumbeat pulse of the power innate to the Cross and Grail, a golden heat like the sun, constant, steady. Beneath that was the power of the earth, fueled by that light, as well as by blood. The vines were gone from the Cross, and the goblet no longer looked like an artifact recently dug from the ground. The wood of the Cross gleamed and the Grail's clay bowl had a luster.
He didn't see the Spear. Perhaps it had dissolved to ash with the head.
Kel moved away from the altar and began to search the crevices around the main courtyard. A handful of shallow, shaded alcoves seemed to be former entry points into the keep. Even though the sun wouldn't cook Uthe here as it would in the earthly realm, instinct might send him to a cool, dark place to recoup his strength.
Keldwyn discovered a hallway that had deteriorated into a cave, which became a tunnel leading downward, perhaps once a hidden passageway out of the keep. He saw a blood trail and, as he traversed the tunnel, skidding a little from the steep incline, he saw signs of a scuffle against the rock walls. When he had to step over two more bodies, he knew Uthe had been required to finish off his attackers. The demon's last defiance. Yet it meant he hadn't succeeded in taking Uthe's soul with him. Kel curled a lip in savage satisfaction. His heart was too pure, his faith too devout. Hell would have no space for Varick Uthe.
That part was good news, but Keldwyn couldn't dispel the image of Uthe fighting on his own while he and Rhoswen wrangled in her throne room over the mistakes of a time so far past it shouldn't matter anymore.
Cursing, Keldwyn quickened his pace. He hadn't yet found Uthe's collapsed body, something he wanted to feel hopeful about. The blood trail continued and, since he didn't find any other Saracens, the blood had to be all Uthe's. Blood loss might not kill a vampire, but it would have severely weakened him.
The tunnel opened back up into a cave, which led out into the grassy area Uthe had thought might be a former tourney field. It was at the mouth of that cave that Keldwyn found him. His heart froze. The Spear was thrust through Uthe's chest, and the vampire lay motionless on his side.
Keldwyn skidded down to him, kneeling by his side. He was dead. He must be dead. Uthe's eyes were open and unblinking, his face in the rigor of death. No.
He didn't care how selfish it was, he wanted to rage at Uthe's God, at any god that was listening. He'd let Reghan go, because Reghan belonged to another, and Fate had been too strong for him to fight its course, but Uthe was his. His. He'd given his heart to Keldwyn--at least he'd started to do so. They were going to belong to one another. He'd known it down to his soul.
He couldn't bear to see the Spear there, so Kel maneuvered Uthe gently forward, clasped the shaft behind the tip and pulled it free, setting it aside. If the trail of bodies hadn't told him vengeance was already served, he would have hunted down those who'd done this to Uthe, charting every corner of the Shattered World necessary to make it happen. He didn't care if Rhoswen brought him back. He'd rather stay lost here, never having to go through the painful farce of facing others in his life, forced to cope with yet another loss he couldn't bear. It would end here.
He was cunning as needed without ever telling a direct lie, the epitome of legendary Fae cleverness. He always presented the face he intended to present. It had been many years since someone had looked beyond that to see the soul beneath. That spoke to how good he was at the tasks he'd set himself over the years. Yet the perverse hypocrisy of being so good at such dissembling lay in the soul deep longing to find someone with the intelligence and strength to see that and far more. To accept Keldwyn as...Keldwyn. Someone who would look at him like Uthe had, with no mask or artifice between them. No separation between their souls.
Catriona loved him, and he treasured that, but a child's love was different. Uthe had looked into his soul and understood in a single quiet moment how much Keldwyn grieved for his children and for Reghan. He'd seen how important peace between their worlds was to Keldwyn, how Keldwyn did so much of what he did as a memorial to those he'd lost.
The gods thought a soul was supposed to have a limitless endurance against grief and loss. It didn't. He was done.
Keldwyn placed his hand on Uthe's chest, sliding his other arm around him to pull his body halfway into his lap. Wrapping both arms around him, he rested his forehead on the top of his head. A thought crossed his mind and he reached up, unraveled the braids Catriona had made. His time in the Shattered World had knotted them, but he yanked the strands free with impatient fingers. His hair tumbled down to brush Uthe's face and neck.
Beauty didn't mean much, except as a strategic advantage or as something that just was. But it became something different when offered as a gift to one specific person, one of many gifts he'd wanted to offer. The vampire liked his hair, liked feeling it on his face, and on his body. It had pleased Keldwyn so deeply, so absurdly. He'd liked how the vampire touched his ears, wondering at their shape and feel.
When he gripped Uthe's limp hand, he found there was still warmth in it. The discovery twisted the knife deeper in his gut. He could not have been gone long. Not long at all...What if the thrust of the Spear had happened a blink before Kel arrived, the last body thumping to the ground and Uthe stumbling or rolling to the bottom of the tunnel, coming to a stop here only moments ago? The quest was done, the relics now all that was left of his task.
The thought drew his mind back to the altar. Kel lifted his head, staring into Uthe's face. What if there was a way to restore life to him?
Keldwyn knew how magic did and didn't work. The idea that the Grail could bestow immortality was a legend born of men's perpetual fear of death. Yet there might be some truth in the embellishment. The Grail had power; he'd felt it. What if it had regenerative powers?
He left Uthe for only as long as it took him to run back through the tunnel, faster than he'd ever moved before. If he'd been matching himself against Uthe in one of his sun rituals, Kel would have left him far behind. But he had no intention of leaving the vampire behind, or being left behind himself.
The Grail was still on the table, an unadorned goblet lying on its side. Some of the inert black ooze that had come from the head was still pooled on the table, but it had cut a deliberate swath around the sacred cup, such that the Grail lay in a cleanly marked circle. Proof of its properties of Light gave Keldwyn hope.
As he headed back down through the tunnels, he was suddenly seized with a fear that the Shattered World would play tricks on him, change the track back to Uthe and keep him away from the vampire forever. But Uthe was still there. He also still had the dagger that Rail had given him. Keldwyn was going to use every possible advantage he had. When he pulled it from the scabbard, the blood on it made him pause, because Uthe had said he'd never used it to take a life, except for the one time with his squire.
It didn't matter. Keldwyn wiped it off on his clothes, then drew the blade across his wrist, a deep cut that brought forth a swift gush of blood. Holding his arm over the Grail, he filled it halfway. He hoped it was enough. He didn't dare wait any longer. Shifti
ng Uthe back across his lap, he held the Grail to Uthe's lips, cradling his jaw. It took some awkward maneuvering, but though Uthe couldn't swallow, blood was draining down his throat.
"Live," Kel muttered. He'd gone numb. There were things too large to be felt, so painful that they shut down everything else just so a person could keep breathing. But Kel knew firsthand it would be far more merciful if such a loss killed him outright, so he didn't have to feel it when the numbness wore off. Because it would. It always did.
He kept the blood going down Uthe's throat, putting aside the Grail when it was empty and bringing his arm directly to Uthe's lips. He cut himself again to keep the flow going. The world started to swim, but he didn't stop. It was the Shattered World, anything was possible. Maybe Uthe's brain fever would infect him, and Kel could wander in an illusion where Uthe was still alive, and they were together. They'd exist forever in this hellish fantasy.
If they were together, it wouldn't matter. There would be no Hell.
* * *
Being dead wasn't so bad. After impaling himself with the dagger, proving his willingness to take the innocent's place, he'd swum out of the grayness to find himself by the altar. The Spear was in his hand and Keldwyn's thunderous voice rocketed through him, bringing him back to what needed to be done. The Fae Lord would make a good battle commander, for his bellow could have carried over the clamor of two armies.
That was when Uthe realized he wasn't dead. The dagger was metal, not wood, so he could feel the pain of the wound but it wasn't mortal. Stabbing himself to prove he was a willing sacrifice, apparently that had been the important part. It had dislodged the innocent, snapping that tether so it could go free. Uthe could take care of other things now.
Things long overdue.
When Uthe shattered the skull with the spear, he watched the demon turn to smoke and get sucked through the floor. It was as if the Devil drew a deep breath and pulled him in. Uthe's attention returned to the fight still in progress, and he plunged into the battle, joy surging through him at the chance to stand with his fellow Templars one more time.
He didn't see Kel, Jacob or Gideon, but Jean-Claude shouted at him between thrusts of his sword and the clang of answering metal on his shield. "They disappeared--poof--in thin air."
That meant they were no longer needed. The quest was done, and Rhoswen had likely pulled Keldwyn out of here. Good. The Fae Lord was safe. All was as it was meant to be, though a fierce ache gripped him as Uthe longed for that most precious commodity of all, the one so intimately connected to love--more time.
It was what it was. The Lord's Will must be followed, and he'd been given more gifts than most, including love at the end of his life. He threw his strength and speed behind those still standing, and they fought and fought and fought. They battled as they'd done at Hattin, knowing the end would come here and, when it did, they would meet it with courage.
Jean-Claude, the strongest fighter of them all, was the last to fall. Though Uthe did his best to dispatch as many as he could, the Frenchman was at last overpowered, and Uthe faced a half-dozen Saracens alone.
He took down four. The other two maneuvered him out of the courtyard and into a tunnel where they thought they had the advantage. One had seized the Spear during their fighting in the bailey, and found the opportunity to stick the relic through him. He paid for it with his life, Uthe jamming his sword into the Saracen's chest.
The Spear hadn't gone through his heart, but the organ beat right up against it, a painful thudding. Then the last of the intrepid bastards grabbed the Spear and twisted it. The twisting ruptured the organ. Uthe decapitated the man in the same moment.
He supposed having his heart rupture from the force of the wood was as fatal to a vampire as a stake, because his vision grayed and he tumbled the rest of the way down the tunnel, ending up on the grass field next to the castle.
Being impaled on the Spear of Longinus has to carry some weight in Heaven, non? As Jean-Claude might say. Bernard had talked about being welcomed to the Virgin Mary's arms in the afterlife. Uthe thought of his mother. He'd like to put his arms around her, hold her, thank her. She could have found ways to kill herself if she'd truly despaired. He was sure she'd known his father was going to kill her. He'd probably told her that himself, repeatedly. She must have known Uthe's life would be difficult with such a sire, but maybe she thought he might have a chance at something better eventually. Which suggested she knew all vampires weren't monsters like his father.
She'd given him a chance at life. He didn't know if what awaited him was the Heaven Bernard envisioned or not, but if there could be a quiet meadow like where he and Kel had spent the day with Catriona and Della, and he could sit with his mother for a little while, that would be nice. Then he would stretch out in the meadow and think of Keldwyn. He'd let oblivion take him as he imagined the Fae against him, his arm around his waist and chest, holding him close. He could almost feel him doing it, his breath and heartbeat as close as a wish.
Everything after that, except for that brief thought of his mother, was quiet and dark, as if he were waiting. Perhaps that was how it went. You waited to see what your fate would be in this featureless stasis.
After a time, things started to feel different. He was more aware of his body, of his surroundings. Intriguingly, he still sensed someone holding him tightly, thanking all the gods that ever were for their mercy. Warm liquid splashed upon him, like a tear. Then things started to spin, get fuzzy, and he was drifting once more.
When he came back to awareness again, it was still dark, but that was because his eyes were closed. It took a while, but eventually he opened them to see what the afterlife looked like.
A blue sky and green trees. It looked much like the Fae world, everything far brighter and more vibrant than earth. The Fae didn't spread out and change the face of things the way humans did with their technology. Despite that, Uthe had to admit he had the oddest desire for a soda. One Mariela had given him. What had she called it? Cheerwine. He thought of her curled up in the servants' common area, watching the shows she liked. She didn't know he occasionally tuned in to her mind, sitting unnoticed inside it to absorb the tranquility she had, at peace with herself, him and the world as it was.
Heaven had even more to offer him than he'd expected. His gaze slid left and he found Keldwyn. Unlike the last time he'd seen him, when they'd both been blood smeared and travel worn, the Fae was clean and as impeccably groomed as he normally was. His long, rippling hair was loose, and he wore one of his ruffled shirts unlaced in the front over those snug breeches that were so temptingly immodest. Perhaps Heaven had allowed Uthe to sleep until the end of Keldwyn's life so they could be together. A fanciful thought. Their relationship in some ways had only just begun when Uthe had died. Yet seeing him now, he felt as bonded to Keldwyn as if they'd been intended for one another since the first skeins of time had been woven.
Keldwyn was tying ribbons on his wrists and arms. Tiny fairies fluttered in and out of Uthe's field of vision like moths, bringing Kel strands of different colors and thicknesses. Uthe imagined all the places they'd found them: out of the shining hair of little girls, from rose-laden arbors at weddings, from cheerful gift packages and whimsical shoes.
What are you doing?
The Fae Lord's gaze rose, and never had darkness held so much light. His lips curved, and he touched Uthe's face before lifting his limp hand to press his lips to Uthe's knuckles. Uthe couldn't parse out the Fae Lord's thoughts, but his expression said as much or more. There was a sheen to the dark eyes that Uthe realized with a shock might be tears.
"It is an old ritual," Kel said, clearing his throat and blinking that sheen away. "There is a clan of the Fae who create tapestries of ribbons over and around the body of a loved one."
What does it mean? He didn't have the strength to speak aloud yet, but he was glad Kel did. He liked hearing the male's voice.
Kel's lips quirked. "It is a sacred ritual to one of our clans, with much ceremony an
d structure to it. However, years ago, the original idea came about like a single flower, simple and spontaneous. It started with a human child. When her grandmother died, the little girl tied several ribbons from her hair to the body. She said she would hold onto one end so that she'd always be able to stay connected to her grandmother. In her mind, it was a real idea. To the Fae of that clan who witnessed it, it made an impression. A symbolic tether. When his mate passed, far before her time, he did it to give himself comfort. Then someone else did it, and it became part of their customs, the weavings and ribbons becoming ever more elaborate. Someone made up some spiritual reason for it, but all it means is the living need rituals to hold onto a loved one, even when death separates us."
"Am I dead?"
"No. But I have waited some time for you to wake. Nearly all morning. An eternity to me."
Uthe's fingers curved around Keldwyn's. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting."
"You should be. I am a high Fae lord, not used to waiting on a lowly vampire."
Uthe smiled, but he would not give himself to the moment yet. "The relics?"
"They are safe. We did remove them from the Shattered World, but they remain in the Fae world, out of reach of those who would use them for wrong purpose. You are considered their guardian still, Lord Uthe, and we will follow your guidance if you are dissatisfied with their placement."
Trusting Kel, he accepted that they were secure for the time being. Uthe glanced down at the ribbons tied to his legs and arms. "You have spoken of wanting to bind me. I didn't expect you to turn me into a Maypole." He was lying on soft grass, wearing a loose robe that Keldwyn had opened to place the ribbons upon him. Uthe was naked beneath the robe. But Uthe was even more naked in his thoughts. While Keldwyn was speaking of seemingly simple things, there was an intense restraint to his touch, like he wasn't certain he could keep his touch gentle if he let loose his hold on those emotions. Uthe could feel the shape of them, like a dam set to overflow. It made him incapable of guarding his tongue.