The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3)

by AJ Lancaster

  “I don’t know,” Wyn said, moving towards the exit whilst scanning the leylines for a hint of his sister’s location. Marius followed him out. The street between them and the station was relentlessly normal, bustling with traffic and pedestrians spilling out from the arched entryway. Footsteps, the whirr of kineticars, the clip-clop of hooves, the thunk of baggage: nothing out of place. Wyn concentrated. All the iron warped his leysight, but his sister’s magical signature was faint but unmistakeable: copper and old-fashioned roses, along with the tell-tale storm-scent. The metallic signature was rare for a fae, but Father had had that same copper note as well.

  Stretching his senses to their limits, he located Hetta a block away. She blazed to his leysight almost like a greater fae, even though they were outside Stariel. That was new. What had changed? Was it the ring, or had sex connected them more than he’d anticipated? No time for such questions. Regardless, he’d need to teach her how to hide it if they survived this.

  They crossed the road, the space between his shoulder blades itching. Thinking of Rakken’s trick with the knives, he pulled up shields of air around Marius and himself. At least that would give him some warning—but that raised the question of why his sister had announced her presence. She had enough control to mask her signature if she wished. Was she simply relishing the chance to intimidate him in advance of her arrival? If so, it was working, and he felt Cat and Rake’s absence keenly. But how had Aroset known where Wyn was in the first place?

  They reached the bottom of the steps to the station entrance. Should he leave Marius to join Hetta and the others? Should they both go? He rapidly calculated risks and made a decision.

  “Please go and get on the train without me. Any train. I’ll fetch Hetta and the others.”

  “The iron,” Marius said, understanding at once.

  “Yes,” he said, casting out his leysight in a wide net but still failing to pinpoint Aroset’s location. Had she done that on purpose, or was it the effect of the iron, tangling his leysight into incomprehensible knots wherever it touched?

  Marius didn’t argue with Wyn’s instruction, but he didn’t look happy about it. “I suppose I am just a helpless distraction otherwise,” he said philosophically before striding up the steps into the station. Wyn disliked sending him away, but the train station was one of the most uncomfortable human locations he’d ever visited. Full of iron and with criss-crossed supports giving a strong impression of a cage, the architect might have built it specifically to antagonise stormdancers. It was unlikely it would resonate with anywhere in Faerie, which meant that if Aroset had built a portal, she wouldn’t come through there.

  As soon as Marius disappeared through the entryway, Wyn turned and sprinted in the direction of Hetta’s magic. Pedestrians squawked indignantly as he darted around them. He’d have to thank Rakken for the reminder that moving at human speed was an ingrained habit, not actually compulsory. He barrelled around the corner of the station and spotted Hetta arguing with her aunt next to a newspaper stand, with Alexandra standing awkwardly to one side. Hetta’s head turned towards him even before he called out. Their eyes met, his alarm communicating itself to her, and she stiffened and spun around, searching for the danger.

  He had a single heartbeat of warning, which he used to shove people away from him with a blast of air. Cries of outrage turned to fear as lightning struck from a clear sky. Out of sheer, mad reflex, he raised his arms and let it come, pouring down his arms. The power of it forced him into his fae form, wings tearing free of his clothing. Sparks sprayed from his spread primaries, but he managed to divert most of it into the pavement under his feet, cracking the surface and filling the street with the stench of ozone and burnt stone. His ears rang, and he could feel all his hair standing on end.

  Thank the Maelstrom he’d had so much practice recently at channelling unexpected lightning, because if he’d paused to think about what he’d just done, the hesitation might have killed him. His low-charge elektrical strikes to irritate Rakken had been nothing to this; Aroset’s lightning had been at full strength, meant to kill.

  People were shouting and running away from him—thank the high wind’s eddies. But where was Aroset? Hetta’s presence burned even more brightly in the leylines, anger and shock fuelling her magic.

  He sensed his sister’s presence and blasted out with air as he spun towards it. Aroset diverted the currents effortlessly, landing with a laugh two wingspans away. Her silver hair was braided, but stray strands wafted in elektrical currents, creating an impression of swaying tentacles. Her golden eyes gleamed.

  “Hallowyn Tempestren,” she said with satisfaction, and his true name twanged in the air between them. Her wings fanned out in challenge, different from the pure red he remembered. Gold threads glittered in their depths, as if every feather had been inlaid with gold filigree. Aroset’s smile widened as she noticed him take them in. “The gift of the Maelstrom.”

  Wyn felt faintly indignant. The Maelstrom had granted her even more power, as if she didn’t hold entirely sufficient already? And she, like Rakken, hadn’t broken her wings for the trouble—unlike him. He felt his youth and inexperience sharply, but he shoved the rising fear straight into his magic, the only useful place for it right now.

  “What do you want, Aroset?” he asked. “I heard what you did to Torquil.”

  She didn’t bother to answer, and charge hissed in the air. Somewhere close, thunder rumbled. He didn’t dare glance up to check, but he could feel the storm forming above them. The day had darkened to the point of twilight, despite the early hour.

  I have touched the Maelstrom too, he reminded himself. My powers are also greater than they’ve ever been. If only he understood them properly! When the next strike hit, he surrendered to instinct and moved within it, letting it curve smoothly around his body and back towards Aroset. She was more adept than him, and the lightning arced perfectly to discharge in a wide circle around her. Little flames flared as a stray newspaper caught, burning up in an instant. She laughed again.

  “You’ve grown, little brother. But I think you don’t fully understand what you’re doing.” A spark of anger kindled in her eyes. “You do not deserve the throne.”

  He ignored her and drew the power of the building storm towards him, until he was bursting with the wild energy and he couldn’t tell whether it was charge or magic itching under his feathers. Aroset shook her head chidingly as he leapt into the air and simultaneously threw a strike at her, redirecting it easily, but the diversion worked as he’d hoped, giving him time to wing his way past her.

  He landed next to Hetta with barely a wobble. Eventually I may even pull off elegance in my landings. The street was empty now for a block, cracked pavement and smoke rising from the lightning strikes, newspapers flung into disarray. The stand owner had fled with the rest of the crowd, and Alexandra and Aunt Sybil huddled behind the stand. He caught a glimpse of Alexandra’s pale face, her eyes wide and terrified.

  “You’re in charge of the lightning,” Hetta said grimly, ducking past his wings and flinging out a hand in a very familiar gesture.

  Love welled up in him, fierce and primitive. He pushed that emotion into his magic as well. One couldn’t do that forever, not without cost, but if ever there was a time to take risks, this was it.

  Taking a breath, he redirected another strike from Aroset as Hetta poured forth an inferno. Aroset hissed as flames hit her wings, but they winked out as she stole the breath from them, leaving her annoyed but uninjured. She threw another lightning strike at him, almost casually, and he grit his teeth and pulled it towards him as strongly as he could, curving it around himself and sending it back. Hetta gasped, her auburn hair sticking out in every direction from the static, but she was unhurt.

  Aroset’s attention swung behind them, and she said in a sing-song voice: “Come out, come out, little Valstar.” Her magic pushed out, filling the air with copper and roses.

  Alexandra took a lurching step forward, her eyes oddly bla
nk, and then she sucked in a harsh breath, the blankness giving way to horror. Her hands balled into fists. “No! No, I won’t!” she shouted at Aroset, shaking.

  The magic in the air increased, but before Aroset could double-down on the compulsion, Hetta grabbed his hand. “Help me! Like we practised.”

  Understanding at once, he abandoned lightning for his more familiar air magic, wrapping air around the flames she poured forth. There was a still, silent heartbeat in which everything synchronised, as if they were casting magic as one rather than two, and then sound rushed back in as a vast, crackling wall rose to stand between them and Aroset.

  Of course, he wasn’t the only one with air magic. Sweat trickled down his spine as he panted, wrestling with his sister as she tried to snuff out the fire. He’d had more practice at this, but she had more power; the two forces counterbalanced. The wall of flames kept burning, but it didn’t move any closer to Aroset even though he could see Hetta recklessly pushing her anger into it.

  Stalemate. Aroset’s eyes narrowed, considering the two of them. She didn’t look tired, but already Wyn could feel his own fatigue threatening, the air currents slippery in his grasp. How long could Hetta keep the fire burning without Stariel to draw on? Would Aroset go for her weapons next? He quailed, knowing he wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t skilled enough—damn you, Rake, for being right—but instead the copper-and-rose of her magic strengthened and the air in front of her warped into a portal, pulled out of nothing.

  Disbelief held him paralysed. Aroset had shown an uncanny knack with portals before, but this was different. You couldn’t just—just force portals to open willy-nilly wherever you wished, with no regard for resonance! Aroset’s lips stretched wide at his expression, and she stepped through her portal with a smirk. It winked out behind her, leaving only a haze of smoke and charred newspaper fragments spinning in the air above the cracked pavement. He stared, panting, at the empty space. How distinctly unfair that the Maelstrom had only made Aroset better at portals.

  “Is she gone?” Alexandra asked shakily. Aunt Sybil was still frozen by the newspaper stand, staring at him as if she’d never seen him before.

  “Are you all right, Alexandra?” he asked, feeling sick that he’d failed to protect her yet again.

  She jerked her head, her eyes bright. “I’m fine.” Her hands were still balled into tight fists, and she gave an angry, choked sob. “She didn’t get me this time, did she? I stopped before—”

  “You did.”

  “Where’s Marius?” Hetta asked urgently, grasping his arm. There were dark hollows under her eyes; too much magic in too short a time.

  “I sent him into the station.” Surely Aroset couldn’t make a portal into the station. But he no longer felt as confident in that as he had before, not after seeing what she’d just done, and he saw his fear mirrored in Hetta. “We need to find him before she does.” He took hold of Hetta’s hand, who took hold of Alexandra’s, who tentatively tugged at Lady Sybil. Slower than he wanted, the four of them stumbled around the corner to the station’s main entrance.

  There were trains still pulling in and out of platforms, unaware of what had happened outside, though the crowds moved in an agitated way that suggested communication was starting to occur. Wyn scanned the station, but before he could spot Marius, the air warped and another portal opened at the top of the entry stairs, only a few yards from where he stood. Aroset stepped out, holding a struggling Marius by the neck and bonds of air both. Alexandra screamed.

  Wyn took an instinctive step forward, flaring his wings to shield the mortals behind him, but Aroset tsked and tightened her grip. Marius made a choking sound. “So you care about this mortal too. How sentimental. But how much do you care, I wonder?”

  “He has nothing to do with our quarrel. Let him go.” His heart thundered in his ears, watching Marius’s face redden as he struggled to breathe.

  She smiled. “If you don’t come here, I will kill the mortal.” She looked down at Marius with a contemplative expression. “This is the one with the compulsive resistance. I wonder…how resistant?” Roses and copper saturated the air, and Marius whimpered. Aroset’s approach to compulsive magic was force rather than subtlety, and if she couldn’t bend Marius to her will, his mind would probably break under the strain. His back arched as she piled magical compulsion onto him, trying to fracture his natural shields.

  “Stop!” Wyn cried, rushing towards her. “I surrender!”

  But something broke with a wave of psychic force, and he stumbled under the backlash, ears ringing. Aroset reeled away from Marius, holding her head, and crashed against the nearest column. Marius crumpled, and Wyn caught him before he hit the ground, Hetta at his side a half-second later. Aroset had lost her balance, careening into the side of the building again as she tried to right herself. She propped herself against the wall, panting, her eyes flashing. Whatever had happened might have stunned her, but it had also made her furious, and he could feel her magic gathering for another attack, one he suspected would be all force and no finesse. How much longer could he keep diverting her lightning strikes, especially since unlike her, he had no margin for error, not surrounded by mortals.

  “Really, Aroset, you should know better than to use compulsive magic on a telepath,” Rakken drawled, and Wyn whirled to find him and Cat standing on the top of the steps behind them. The twins had clearly only just landed, their chests heaving with exertion. They must’ve flown like dervishes to get here so quickly. Wyn wasn’t sure if they’d been shielding or if he’d simply missed their signatures amidst the cacophony of storm magic, but now they blazed up, a riot of cinnamon and tangerines.

  Aroset’s eyes narrowed, reassessing. Even with Cat and Rake backing them up, she showed no sign of fear, but her gaze fell on Marius and a ripple of unease washed over her expression. He saw the moment she decided to retreat, the portal forming behind her in the doorway. She leapt through and disappeared.

  47

  Aftereffects

  Wyn half-carried a semiconscious Marius into the train station, his heart lurching every time his friend’s weight stumbled against him. Alexandra fluttered around their path, her colour pale.

  Hetta’s face was drawn as well. “Shouldn’t we be seeking medical attention rather than fleeing?” she asked in a low tone.

  Wyn shook his head, holding Marius steady as he sagged. “I think Stariel will do him more good than any mortal doctor. He’s suffering from magical backlash, not a mortal ailment.”

  Hetta’s frown deepened, but she gave a reluctant nod.

  Getting on the train to Stariel required glamour, illusion, and some compulsion.

  “Rake,” Wyn said warningly at the latter magic, but his brother ignored him and arranged matters without compunction so they had an entire compartment to themselves. Hetta shared a tired grimace with Wyn that said she couldn’t muster the energy to object properly either. At least Alexandra barely seemed to notice, her attention wholly focused on Marius.

  Wyn set Marius down on the padded bench inside the carriage, where he slid down onto the surface with a groan before curling into himself, eyes closed. Alexandra rolled up her coat and put it underneath his head. Aunt Sybil appeared to have been rendered mute, sinking into one of the seats in a daze.

  The train pulled out of the station, the slow grind of iron reassuring. Wyn was fairly sure Aroset would need time to recover, but he could not help being glad of the protection of a moving iron box regardless.

  “What did you call him before?” Hetta asked Rakken, who had perched in a seat next to the window, watching the outer suburbs of Meridon roll past. Catsmere had taken up position in the corner of the carriage, arms folded as she leaned against the wall.

  “A telepath,” Wyn answered in his brother’s stead. Marius had gone eerily still, and Wyn tracked the rise and fall of his chest, trying and failing to reassure himself. Stormwinds, Marius.

  “Did you truly not know?” Rakken pulled his attention back from the factorie
s they were passing. “I’d assumed it was reasonably obvious. Interesting.”

  “Telepathy is the ability to read minds,” Wyn explained to Hetta. “And no, we didn’t,” he answered his brother. “I knew he had strong natural shields against compulsion.” Marius had always been intuitive, but telepathy wasn’t a human magic. It wasn’t a very common one in Faerie either, and it seemed a particular cruelty that the Valstars’ distant fae blood might have inflicted such a curse.

  But surely Wyn would have noticed, over the many years they’d been friends? Or was this a recent development? He hadn’t spent as much time with Marius of late. A terrible suspicion bloomed. “Last year, Set tried to compel him.” When Marius had been carrying out an errand outside Stariel’s bounds—at Wyn’s request.

  Rakken raised an eyebrow. “You think that triggered a latent ability?” He frowned at Marius’s still face. “Interesting,” he said again. “Are you going to tell him?” He asked it casually, as if it were only a matter of academic curiosity, but Wyn caught the grimness beneath the question; Rakken knew the dangers of such magics as well as he did—probably better, in fact. Wyn exchanged a look with Catsmere, who grimaced.

  “Of course we’re going to tell him,” Hetta burst out. “Why wouldn’t we?” But she faltered in the face of Wyn’s expression. “What is it?”

  He rose and went to sit beside her, taking her hand in his. Alexandra watched silently, her face still very white.

  “I don’t know as much as I would like about telepaths,” he said slowly, speaking to them both. “It is a rare magic, even in Faerie. But I know that one of the dangers is keeping your own thoughts separate from those of others. It’s possible that if Marius has always had this ability, he has developed instinctive shielding mechanisms to cope with the, ah, ‘noise’. Once he knows what he is, there’s a risk that instinctive control may fail him.”