The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  It was something of a relief to know that Rakken’s magnetism wasn’t Marius-specific—though it would be even better if Rakken didn’t exude any magnetism at all. Was it glamour? Marius wasn’t immune to that, though sometimes he could tell it was being used, like a procession of spiders scrambling over his scalp, but there was no such feeling now. Of course there wasn’t. That would be much too convenient, being able to blame this unwanted attraction on magic rather than his abysmal taste in men.

  Gods above, how could he be worrying about such petty anxieties when Wyn was still missing? He remembered Hetta’s expression when she’d held that feather, distress and longing all rolled up together. Wyn had to be all right. The alternative was unthinkable. His heart squeezed tight.

  Wait, Rakken had said something and he’d missed it, too wrapped up in his own thoughts.

  “Sorry?” he said when Rakken stared down his nose at him, intent as a panther. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

  Rakken considered him for a moment. “And what is it, little scholar, that so preoccupies you?”

  Little scholar, he huffed internally. He was skinny, certainly, but it still wasn’t a reasonable label. “Ah—your brother. Wyn,” he added stupidly, as if Rakken somehow didn’t know his own brother’s name. “Sorry. I was wondering if he was all right.” Rakken made a noncommittal noise, and Marius rolled his eyes and made his way past him. “The special requests desk is up here.” He’d visited the Law Library before, on one of his trips to see Hetta in Meridon, but that had only been to the public areas. They’d have to request access to the undercroft to view the old legal documents.

  Hetta had been different, then, and not just because she’d been younger. Marius tried to pinpoint exactly what he meant by that, and was so caught up in doing so that he failed to pay adequate attention to where he was going.

  Smack! He collided with a blond man descending the stairs. The scent of familiar cologne punched straight to his gut, and recognition rose up in a wave of longing and despair even before he looked up and met the blue eyes that had haunted his dreams for so many months. John. It seemed so completely unfair of the universe to arrange this meeting that for a moment he couldn’t do anything more than stare in disbelief as another, less-frozen part of him drank in every detail of John’s appearance, looking for—he didn’t know. Guilt? Absolution? But John looked exactly the same as always, still achingly handsome, lithe and smooth-cheeked, and a flurry of images assaulted Marius—that same face, relaxed in sleep, the heavy-lidded way John would look at him, teasing, when—

  John’s eyes widened as he recovered from his own shock, and then such a look of open contempt came over him that Marius couldn’t move or speak, stunned into paralysis by the force of it. The words John had hurled during that horrible final argument rang in his ears, his head starting to pound as if they were hammer blows against it. Heat flooded his cheeks, and he wanted to sink into the staircase and melt straight down through it into the centre of the earth.

  He felt the sudden weight of an arm across his shoulders, and Rakken spoke, coolly arrogant, before Marius could process the strange intimacy of his nearness. “You are blocking the stairwell,” he said to John with casual arrogance. “Move, or I shall move you.”

  John’s expression shifted to disbelief, and Marius read his thoughts as easily as if he’d spoken them aloud: He’s not—he can’t be with Marius. If Marius hadn’t been glued in place, he might’ve laughed at the sheer, mind-numbing pettiness of that.

  “I do not like to repeat myself.” Menace in his tone, a hint of storms in the air. Horrified recognition flashed across John’s face, and he went white.

  Marius jerked back into motion, shrugging out from under Rakken’s arm. “John—”

  But John was already gone, fleeing down the stairs in real terror, boots sharp against the stone.

  Marius whirled on Rakken. “What did you do?”

  Rakken looked surprised. “Nothing magical.”

  Marius stared down the empty stairwell, unwilling guilt curling around him. He didn’t want to feel sorry for John, but the way he’d reacted… He must’ve realised what Rakken was, from his resemblance to Wyn, and thought he was about to be compelled again. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about that! John was the one who’d blackmailed him, after all, and a bitter, angry part of him was glad Rakken had terrified him. But oh gods, the way John had looked at Marius at first, with such contempt…

  Rakken made a thoughtful sound, and Marius braced himself for an interrogation, adding panic to his already turbulent emotions. But Rakken’s expression was uncharacteristically gentle.

  “Shall we go retrieve your charter?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and continued up the stairs. After a moment, Marius swallowed and went after him. What else could he do, really? He felt peculiarly off-balance and faintly nauseous, as if someone had given him several shots of strong whiskey on an empty stomach.

  The librarian was a middle-aged man with iron-shot hair and a forbidding expression. The forbidding expression turned out to be an omen, for the man wasn’t at all amenable to Marius’s request for access to the old charters, and specifically, to the treaty signed between Marius’s ancestor and the then-monarch of the rest of Prydein.

  “I’m not going to hurt it!” Marius said, exasperated. “I know how to handle old artefacts. And as for needing permission to view it, we’ve our own copy in the Stariel library. You’re not protecting state secrets.”

  The librarian puffed up, and Marius knew he was going to tell them to leave, but Rakken’s smooth voice interrupted.

  “Take us to see this charter. You should not be worried we will damage it; see how trustworthy we appear.”

  All the hairs on Marius’ neck rose. Compulsion. Horror twisted in his stomach, a live thing made of jagged edges. This was what John had feared.

  The librarian’s face went blank, and he nodded and reached behind the desk to retrieve a set of keys. Should Marius do something to snap him out of it? Could you snap people out of compulsion without specific anti-fae materials? Why hadn’t he brought some of his experimental mixtures with him from Knoxbridge so he could at least try? What would happen if he shouted at the man or slapped him? But he did none of these things as the librarian made his way out from behind his desk and led them down a locked staircase into the library’s understoreys, and he hated himself a little bit for it.

  The temperature dropped a little as they descended in the steady glow of the lightspells. The room the librarian showed them into was below ground level, with a reading area in the centre of the room and walls lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves and shallow drawers, each labelled with a series of numbers.

  “The Northern treaties?” Rakken suggested to the man, though he looked at Marius for further guidance. Oh no, Marius thought grimly. He might not have done anything to stop it, but he wasn’t going to help Rakken carry out this crime.

  The librarian went muttering along the rows and began opening drawers.

  “Are these originals?” Marius couldn’t help asking. There was a faint vanilla-y smell to the room, the comforting whiff of old paper.

  “Some of them,” the librarian answered, absently, pulling on a thin pair of gloves from a box next to the door. “Some are copies of older documents too fragile for handling. Those are stored elsewhere. We periodically audit the files and copy them when necessary. Ah, yes.” He returned and laid a brown leather-bound book on the reading table. “This is the charter that was signed between the Crown and the Conclave of Northern Lords,” he said reverently. The charter marked the official beginning of one united Prydein between North and South. “And this is the additional treaty between Stariel and the Crown.”

  “What do you mean, additional?” Marius asked. Stariel had its own copy of the charter, but he didn’t remember any additional documentation.

  The librarian shrugged. “Northern legalities are not my area of speciality. I am merely showing you what you asked for.�
�� He frowned, and for a moment it looked like the compulsion was fading, but that cold sensation came again, and the librarian’s expression softened with it.

  “You may leave us here,” Rakken told him.

  “Remember to use the gloves,” the librarian said sternly. “The oil from fingertips can be very damaging to old documents.”

  “We’ll remember,” Marius promised him. “Won’t we, Mouse?”

  Rakken’s eyes narrowed in irritation, but to Marius’s surprise he agreed. “Yes. We will remember the gloves.”

  The librarian nodded unconcernedly and left.

  “You can’t just use compulsion on people because it’s easy!” Marius burst out as soon as he’d left.

  “That is scarcely an argument against it,” Rakken said, with the kind of cool amusement he so often used on Marius, as if this was some trivial and faintly amusing notion on Marius’s part.

  “It’s wrong!” Marius said. “A mind is the ultimate sanctum. To invade it is…a horror beyond anything.”

  He’d amused Rakken again, the hard lines of the fae’s mouth curving. “I do not hurt the mortals, little scholar, so I don’t see why it troubles you so.”

  “Don’t call me that!” he objected before he could help it.

  “Scholar?” Rakken’s gaze flicked up and down the length of him, and Marius flushed. “Or little?”

  “I’m not—the adjective isn’t even correct!” Marius spluttered, not sure how they’d gotten to this tangent but seizing on that as at least one thing he was sure of. He was taller than the average man; it was rare that he found himself looking up as he was now. And, yes, he might not have the breadth of Rakken’s shoulders, but he sure as hells wasn’t going to let Rakken insult him for it. Brilliant. Just brilliant. I sound like a bratty teenager. He took a breath. “You’re trying to wind me up.”

  “Well done, little mortal,” Rakken said, eyes gleaming. He took a step forward and loomed over Marius. On purpose. “You are, you must admit, smaller than me.”

  “You are not the objective standard of size against which everyone else is measured!” Marius said. Do not think about sizes. Do NOT go down that mental path. Think about something else. Anything else! What had he been talking about before? Compulsion!

  “Stop trying to change the subject!” he told Rakken, taking a step back. His back hit a shelving unit. And stop being so damned attractive, he added mentally. He was excruciatingly aware of the fae’s closeness in the small room, of the faint citrus notes in his scent.

  “How is it that you care so much for the trifling redirections of dull mortal minds?”

  Honestly, what was he supposed to do with Rakken’s complete inability to take this seriously? It was pointless. He rubbed at his head, which was starting to pound again.

  “Never mind,” he said, suddenly tired. He tried to push past Rakken towards the reading table, but Rakken caught his wrists.

  “Do not try to strike me, Marius Valstar. I am not my brother; I will not tolerate the insult. And do not call me by my sister’s pet name. I have not granted you the right.”

  For a moment Marius just stared at him, uncomprehending, and then he laughed. “I was trying to get past you, Prince Melodramatic, so I could look at the damn charter, not trying to attack you. Maybe I’m not a terrifying fae warrior-assassin, but I’m not so inept that my punches look like flailing!”

  “Forgive me if I find that difficult to believe,” Rakken said. But he released Marius’s wrists and stepped away. He was definitely amused.

  Had he truly thought Marius meant to hit him or could the entire bizarre interaction be filed under ‘strange fae humour’? But maybe people did frequently try to strangle Rakken. And I for one wouldn’t blame them, Marius thought darkly. He took a deep breath, struggling to focus, and went to retrieve a pair of thin reading gloves. Rakken followed suit.

  Still unsettled, Marius sat down at the central table and pulled the document the librarian had named the ‘additional treaty’ towards him. The cover was made of wooden boards joined by leather thongs with metal clasps. Iron? But iron would rust, and it was the wrong colour besides—a shade between copper and silver. An alloy of some sort?

  Rakken sat opposite Marius, examining the Northern Charter with appropriately gloved hands. He leaned over it with a slight frown, apparently fascinated, even though from Marius’s vague memories of Stariel’s copy it was a very dry and archaic document.

  Just ignore him. You’re here to help Hetta, remember? Marius rearranged the square book and undid the metal clasps. They clicked open easily enough, despite their age, and Rakken looked up at the sound.

  “That,” he said, “has a magical residue on it.” He held out a hand imperiously, and Marius sighed and slid the book over to him. Despite its age, it wasn’t at all fragile.

  Rakken hummed to himself as he turned the pages in what Marius considered a highly irritating manner.

  “Well?” Marius said. “Are you going to explain or are you going to sit there making entirely non-illuminating noises to yourself?”

  Rakken chuckled, the sound chocolate-rich and sinful. “Settle your feathers, Marius Valstar. Not everything I do is designed purely to provoke you.” His lips curved in a close-lipped smile. “Though you are very easy to provoke.” Before Marius could respond, Rakken had returned his attention to the thick vellum pages. “This tastes of the High King. And it pre-dates the Iron Law. Three hundred mortal years, give or take,” he expanded at Marius’s blank look.

  “Your fae High King came to Stariel when the Northern Charter was signed?” Marius asked.

  Rakken turned the book to a page of signatures, tapping on one written in runes that shifted oddly as Marius stared at them. Printed underneath, in reassuringly non-headache-inducing letters, were the words: Her Royal Majesty Oberyn, High Queen of Faerie.

  “He was the High Queen then. He has been the High King for only a few decades past.”

  Wyn had told Marius this before, the gender-changing nature of their fae ruler. It was so strange, and Marius couldn’t quite get his head around it, but Rakken didn’t seem to find it at all odd.

  “So the, er, High Queen was there because Stariel is a faeland and so sort of part of her kingdom too?” Marius guessed, trying to imagine the world before the Iron Law had cut off interaction between Faerie and Mortal. And now we’re to live in that world again. Had Hetta truly thought about the ramifications of her relationship with Wyn from that perspective? It would be like her to think she could bull her way through them with sheer stubbornness.

  “His kingdom. One uses current pronouns when speaking of him, regardless of his various titles,” Rakken corrected gently. “But yes, the Court of Falling Stars is a faeland, and that is likely the reason for the High Queen’s presence at the time this was signed.” He smoothed the vellum, and his gaze grew faraway, his fingers stilling on the pages.

  He’s sad, Marius realised, recognising the yearning emotion with a start. “You’re thinking of home,” he said aloud. “The Court of Ten Thousand Spires.”

  He didn’t expect the fae to acknowledge his words, but Rakken sighed and rubbed at the nape of his neck.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I was.” He turned vivid emerald eyes to Marius, as if he could see through flesh right into Marius’s thoughts. What a terrifying idea. “You are a very dangerous man, Marius Valstar, and yet as ignorant as an unfledged chick. I am beginning to wonder how it is that you’ve survived so long thus.”

  Marius stiffened. Unfledged chick? he thought indignantly, followed by, Wait, Rakken thinks I’m dangerous? Which was such an improbable sentiment that he laughed.

  “What do you mean dangerous? Dangerous to your plans, whatever they are?”

  The corner of Rakken’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t look up from the charter as he said, “No, I’m not going to explain myself, Marius Valstar. I suspect it may be for the best that you do not know.” He turned a page and pushed the separate treaty towards Marius. “Besides, ar
e you not here to aid Lord Valstar? Should you not cease admiring me and begin your research?”

  Marius glared at Rakken. He was right, damn him. They were here to help Hetta. Or at least, Marius was. Gods only knew what Rakken’s motivations were in all this. Marius firmly cordoned off the growing field of questions Rakken’s words has sprouted. Later, think about that later. This document in front of you is the only thing that is important right now. He hunched over the treaty and began to read, desperate to be taken away from his whirling thoughts. Fortunately, the mundane magic of words still worked, catching him in its spell, and the world dropped away as he sank into the convoluted legalese. He stopped to make notes occasionally in the notebook he’d brought with him. A library hush fell, the background noise of pen scratching and page turning.

  He was concentrating so hard that he wasn’t sure how much time had passed when something snapped him out of it. He glanced up to find Rakken wearing a very sardonic expression.

  “You are not good for my ego, Marius Valstar,” the fae reflected. “I am not accustomed to repeating myself so frequently.”

  “Sorry,” Marius apologised. “I tend not to hear things when I’m concentrating.”

  “So I have discovered,” Rakken said. He was leaned back from the table, hands loosely steepled in front of him. “My amazement at your continued survival only increases.”

  “You might take this slightly more seriously, since it’s your brother who’s currently most at risk from Queen Matilda’s wrath.”

  “I am taking this seriously, Marius Valstar,” Rakken said. He unlaced his hands and leaned forward. “As I understand it, this charter of yours is a written mortal oath that binds your queen and all the Northern estates, Stariel included.” At Marius’s nod, he continued. “And the estates agreed to give up certain powers in exchange for various promises from your mortal monarchy. The power to make laws or negotiate treaties is one of the powers they gave up. But this specifically does not”—he tapped the charter meaningfully—“apply to FallingStar.”