by AJ Lancaster
“Why are you telling me your—or Rake’s—nefarious plan, anyway? Isn’t the whole point of a nefarious plan that it’s also secret?” Hetta asked, when the heat of her anger had ebbed a bit.
“Have I told you anything you didn’t already suspect, Lord Valstar?” Still with that same bland expression, she added: “I thought I would save us all some time.”
Hetta glared at her. “And if you’re not trying to persuade me to give Wyn up, then why are you insinuating that he’d be happier in the Spires? That seems unlikely. He’s never described his time there using anything even approaching the word ‘happy’.” And he still carried the scars of his upbringing, the tendency to flatten down any emotions he thought he ought not to have, the habit of freezing and assessing rather than simply reacting.
Catsmere sighed. “Yes. Our father was unpleasant, even more so after our mother left.”
She desperately wanted to ask about Wyn’s mother, but equally she didn’t want Catsmere to know her ignorance. It was the sort of thing you ought to already have talked about with the man you were trying to marry, wasn’t it? But what did she care what Catsmere thought of her? She took a deep breath. “What happened to your mother?”
“He never told you?” There was no judgement in Catsmere’s tone, but Hetta felt it nonetheless. “We don’t know.” Catsmere examined the branches of a cherry tree overhanging the footpath. It was more optimistic than its brethren, buds of pale pink already forming despite the earliness of the season. “Mouse thinks she’s probably dead, that perhaps Father killed her and hid it from us,” she added conversationally. “He may be right. Little Hollow has always believed in a more optimistic outcome. Her departure affected him badly. He is, after all, the youngest.”
Hetta stumbled again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Catsmere looked down at her. “I believe you are.” She sounded surprised. “Thank you.”
Hetta shook her head. “And yet you’re trying to convince me Wyn would be better off there than here?” She’d known there was probably some tragic story attached to Wyn’s mother, but she hadn’t imagined anything like this. The calm way Catsmere had announced that it was perfectly possible their father had murdered their mother sent chills through her.
“I am not trying to convince you of that, Lord Valstar.”
“What do you want then? Do you want Wyn to be King of Ten Thousand Spires?”
Catsmere laughed. The sound was silvery, but with none of her brother’s sensuality.
“This isn’t about what I want, Lord Valstar. This is about blood and duty. We are royal stormdancers, bound to the Court of Ten Thousand Spires as your family is bound to FallingStar. We owe a duty to our land and its people.” Her expression grew bleak, and she surveyed the park as if seeing a different landscape, one made of soaring rock towers. “There are many there who will suffer under my older sister’s rule. She is powerful enough, perhaps, to hold it, and she has modelled herself on our father, but she lacks his self-control.”
Something about the phrasing puzzled Hetta. “Wait—you think your father was a good ruler?”
“He held the Spires against the might of DuskRose for generations,” Catsmere pointed out. “We were one of the largest and most influential courts under his rule. He built what is now our greatest city, Aerest, from nothing.”
“And the fact that he was a sadistic tyrant who imprisoned me and tried to kill Wyn?” Perhaps she ought to feel bad about King Aeros’s death, since he was Wyn’s father, but she didn’t. The world was well rid of him, in her opinion.
“I do not agree with all of his choices. This does not make him a bad ruler. There are realms in Faerie that have seen worse. If Set succeeds in her goals, I fear she may be one such.”
“Why does it have to be Wyn though? Wouldn’t one of you rather rule the Spires? Don’t you have other siblings?” All right, none of Wyn’s siblings had so far struck her as being particularly virtuous, even if they weren’t as actively murderous as Aroset, but on the other hand, virtue wasn’t exactly a requirement for rulership in the human world either. Guilt wound its way around her insides, and she ignored it. Why should who ruled ThousandSpire be her or Wyn’s responsibility? She had enough responsibilities as it was.
Something in Catsmere hardened. “There is no one else, now.” Her anger was a colder thing that Rakken’s, the merest hint of ice in the depths of that blindingly green gaze. “It is not for me to argue with the choices of faelands. If the Spires favours little Hollow, then that is who I will pledge my allegiance to.”
“Then why are you asking about Wyn’s happiness, if it doesn’t weigh into your calculations at all?”
Catsmere stared into the middle distance as they cut their way across Crown Park. “Why indeed?”
31
Blood And Iron
The first few times Wyn woke, his magic instinctively flared out in panic at full strength, hit the dismae, and shocked him back into unconsciousness. The defensive response to pain was designed to keep him safe, so he could protect himself even in sleep. Now, it caught him in an endless loop each time he grew awake enough to feel but not quite awake enough to suppress his instincts before activating the cuff’s recoil. He became a leaf in a gale, letting the pain and magic flow and ebb, dragging him where it would. This reaction, too, was one bred in the bone rather than a conscious choice, a way to survive when the world had narrowed to nothing but terrible sensation.
Awareness came and went, sound and smell and touch. The air tasted gritty. He was cold and that was strange; stormdancers were resistant to cold. It meant… But he faded out again before he could finish the thought.
At one point he opened his eyes and met the glowing green gaze of a catshee, the colour reminding him of his sister Catsmere’s eyes. The wyldfae gave him a very unimpressed look, as if he were a kitten that had gotten itself stuck in a too-tall tree.
He should say something, he knew, but the catshee slunk away before he could find his voice. He swam back to consciousness inch by inch. It was cold and dark, he was lying on something hard, and he felt like he’d been split in two. Was he in his father’s dungeons? He’d been sent there only once, briefly—but that had been enough for him to vow he’d never, ever make the mistake of angering King Aeros again. How had he slipped up?
But my father is dead. I helped kill him.
The thought startled him enough that he only just managed to avoid shocking himself again. I will be very adept at controlling my magic the longer these dismae stay on. He should point this benefit out to Hetta; it would make her laugh, though it wouldn’t entirely defuse her anger at him for letting himself be cuffed in the first place.
Hetta. Another layer of memory peeled back. Hetta. How could he have forgotten her? He could see her so clearly in his mind’s eye, the way a faint crease formed between her brows when she was thinking, the line of her nose, the storm’s grey of her eyes. Where was Hetta? Was she safe? Why was he lying here when he didn’t know that very important fact?
I am lying on my wings, he realised with a jolt. It was an unnatural position for a stormdancer. They protested when he tried to move, cramped and heavy, and for a single, terrified moment he feared they were broken. I can’t be earthbound again. Not if another wyrm comes. For a moment, his magic threatened to surge again, but he grit his teeth and held it back, mainly because he wasn’t broken. The discomfort was merely chains, weighing his wings down and preventing him from unfurling them.
They’re not broken; I’m not broken. The flash of terror dispelled the last of his dizziness, and he finally managed to haul himself awake. For long moments he lay panting. Little aftershocks crawled over his skin and eventually faded. He sat up, the movement taking an embarrassing amount of effort. Every muscle protested but—thank the high wind’s eddies—none of them actually refused to work. His chest burned in a long line from his hip across to the opposite shoulder, and his shirt was crusted with dr
ied blood. Was he still bleeding? He touched it, gingerly, and brought away fingers spotted with fresh blood. At least it appeared to be oozing now rather than gushing. He wrinkled his nose, deciding it might be better not to try to unstick his shirt in case that made it worse. Damn these dismae. They were slowing his healing. How long had he been here?
He stared down at the dismae on each forearm. How ironic, that they should be more effective on greater fae than on the lower ranks of Faerie, since they turn our power against us. The markings on them were blackened around the edges, almost singed, as if his unintended battering at them had taken a toll on the spellwork. Well, if Princess Evangeline’s hair doesn’t free me, I suppose there’s always the option of sheer magical persistence. That would have to be a last resort, since there was a high chance his own strength would give out before the ancient spellwork. He reached for the little packet of hair in his pocket and realised in that moment that he’d acquired extra restraints: someone had placed iron manacles above the dismae, binding his hands together with about a foot of free movement between them.
His temper snapped. It had been a very trying day.
“Oh, Maelstrom take it!” He shook his manacled arms in frustration. It didn’t achieve anything except a loud, metallic rattle that filled the space. Leaning back against the wall, wings cramping, he tried to sort through the muddle. Instinctively, he went to look at the world with his leysight and hissed in discomfort as the dismae reminded him of his constraints. He closed his eyes, breathing in and out in time to his heartbeat before opening them again.
Where was he and how had he gotten here? The room was dark, with no windows or furniture, and a layer of grime covered every surface. The hard metal floor hummed under him, bringing with it a faint rattling noise that swelled and then subsided, along with the vibration.
He remembered the nightwyrm with a shudder, and his decision to flee before the guards shot him out of sheer fright. He hadn’t wanted to go to Hetta, not until he knew what else Aroset might have sent, but his wing-beats had grown sluggish, his vision darkening at the edges. I landed on a rooftop to think, and—ah. That was when the world had gone dark. He examined his blood-stained fingers. Well, I suppose that explains why. Blood loss. That was a new one. He didn’t think he’d ever fainted from blood loss before. The nightwyrm hurt me worse than I realised. That was the problem with their diamond claws—the blow had cut too sharp and too deep. Had anyone at the palace been hurt? There had been those unconscious guards outside, safe at least from the wyrm if not from whoever had been responsible for their state. What of the palace staff? Thank the high winds the attack had been after midnight, when most were asleep—it was all a blur, but he could not recall that he’d led the wyrm into sleeping quarters, at least. Please let no one else have been hurt.
Before he could sift through any more of his jumbled thoughts, light flooded the room, and his brother Irokoi was standing before him without so much as a ripple in the fabric of reality. Nor the use of any doors. Wyn reached for his magic, but the dismae clamped down on him, hard. He winced, and tried and failed to get to his feet. His limbs felt weak as jelly.
“Brother!” Irokoi said, his face splitting into a smile. His silver hair was unbound, parting softly around his dark horns, and his black wings flared out a fraction in excitement.
“Koi,” Wyn said. “How are you here? Where are we? What is going on?” Had Irokoi brought him here?
“No, this is definitely not the time for family arguments,” Irokoi scolded himself with a frown. He looked momentarily blank and then beamed at Wyn again, the sudden change jarring. “That was the right name! Well done.”
Of course—that must be how Aroset’s nightwyrm had found Wyn, through the trace of his true name.
Irokoi canted his head as he examined Wyn’s wings. His pale hair fell away from his face to reveal his mismatched eyes: one gold, one a fractured arctic blue where Aroset had blinded him.
“They’ll say we resemble each other now that Father is no longer there to compare us to,” Irokoi remarked. All King Aeros’s children had inherited something of his looks, but in Wyn and Irokoi the resemblance was strongest, though neither now had his wing colouration—King Aeros’s bloodfeathers had been silver and crimson. “They are very pretty, you know. I am nearly jealous.” He fanned out ink-dark feathers. “But mine are good for sneaking, don’t you think? You sparkle a little too much for such things.”
Wyn bit back impatience and tried again. Prising information out of Irokoi had something in common with herding catshee. “Koi, where are we? Is Set looking for us? Is she Queen of the Spires?”
Irokoi frowned at him for a few seconds. “She’s very childish, isn’t she?” He sighed. “She never liked me much.” Sadness edged into his expression. “I’m not here. That’s why I’m here. Am I making any sense?”
“Not a lot, no.” Wyn held up his manacles. “Will you help me remove these?”
Irokoi shook his head. “They’re not important. I’m important. I need your help. And you need mine, if you truly wish to take those vows.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Bring the other one, if you can.”
“Koi—” Wyn said, even more lost than usual in the conversation. “What do you mean you need my help?”
“I’m stuck,” he said, expression falling comically. “So stupid, I know, at my age, but there it is.” Whimsy danced across his face, and his eyes brightened. “But I do have some advice to offer, for the time being.” His tone grew sly. “If you want to ensure you can’t be torn from FallingStar, you need to put down deeper roots—and I don’t mean that entirely metaphorically.” He paused, feathers rustling thoughtfully. “Tell Cat I looked, but there isn’t another way. Sleep is not death.”
And then he was gone.
Wyn gaped at the space he’d left behind. There hadn’t been a portal, and when Wyn shuffled closer to inspect the ground, pulling to end of his chain, there was no sign of footprints, even if Irokoi was capable of teleporting, which he wasn’t—at least to Wyn’s knowledge. He sagged back down against the wall with a groan of disbelief, the chains clanking in grating counterpoint. His brother had spoken truly: he hadn’t been here, not really.
But astral projection wasn’t a stormdancer talent. Was it? How else had Irokoi done such a thing? And why had he thought it necessary to deliver such irritatingly cryptic advice instead of, say, helping Wyn escape?
The effort of moving had cost him, pain pounding him with every heartbeat, his cramped wings a dull background ache. His thoughts moved sluggishly. If Koi had come to him, that meant he wasn’t with Wyn’s other siblings. Didn’t it? Which meant the others were… somewhere. Not here, certainly, which was… darkness, cool and quiet and so tempting to slip under and… Focus! He couldn’t be unconscious when whoever had dragged him here and put these manacles on him returned. But his thoughts unravelled like streamers of fog, giving way beneath the pain and exhaustion battering at him. Consciousness was clearly a losing battle.
He gritted his teeth and Changed. His mortal form juddered into place, and the world grew darker but a little less disorienting, since at least in this form he was accustomed to dampened senses. Normally this form would slow his healing, but since the dismae were already doing such an excellent job of that, at least this might prevent him being stuck in the psychic pain loop again.
And at least this way I cannot cramp my wings, was his last thought before he surrendered and darkness towed him under once again.
32
The Law Library
Libraries usually soothed Marius, but the imposing dome of the Law Library didn’t have the usual effect. Instead, the sight made his stomach tie itself in knots. It wasn’t just Rakken’s unsettling presence next to him. Though let’s be honest, that’s definitely not helping. It was the knowledge that this was the Law Library, i.e. plausibly contained law students, and it would be just his luck to encounter the one law student in all of Meridon he most wanted to avoid. Except a part of him
hoped desperately he would see John, just so he could finally say all the things that had been burning in him over the intervening months, like I should’ve been the one who ended it, not you and I don’t love you anymore. Which was a completely stupid hope, because it wasn’t like he could say any of those things in a public forum, even if John gave him the chance and the words didn’t dry up in his mouth.
“I appreciate that the building has an impressive facade, but do you intend to admire it for much longer?” Rakken said dryly. “Or were you attempting to imitate the architecture?”
Marius jerked out of his thoughts. “This way,” he mumbled, marching into the building.
The Law Library was built around a soaring stone foyer that spanned the full height of its three floors, circled by an open staircase. High, narrow clerestory windows let in sharp shafts of light, and intricate stone owls nested amidst the elaborate architecture; the animal most closely associated with Eracene, the Goddess of Justice.
There was a reasonable amount of traffic in and out of the library, and the high foyer echoed with the sharp clicking of various footwear crossing its polished floors. No one gave Marius a second glance; he looked like he belonged here. It was almost certainly his spectacles.
People’s disinterest didn’t extend to his companion; their gazes caught on Rakken, and they’d blink as if they weren’t quite sure they were seeing correctly. Maybe the effect is magnified after you’ve spent hours buried under legal records. And there was undeniably an effect. One older woman nearly dropped a stack of files when she came hurrying out of a nearby doorway and encountered them, and only Rakken’s quick reflexes saved them. She stammered her thanks, but Rakken merely smiled and walked on without giving her the opportunity to start a conversation. She looked after him forlornly. Rakken was either oblivious to or uncaring of people’s reactions as they walked up the winding stairs to the special requests desk on the second floor. Probably uncaring. What would it be like to be so inured to admiration that it didn’t even register?