by AJ Lancaster
“But you think your sister’s meddling has changed him anyway?” Hetta bit her lip and looked down at her brother’s still form. Marius’s expression was taut with pain rather than the smooth composure of true sleep. “He’s been getting more headaches in recent months,” she murmured.
“I don’t know if Set caused this or not,” Wyn said, unhappy at uncovering yet another piece of ignorance. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it’s another side-effect of the increase in Stariel’s magic since the Iron Law came down.” A futile anger burned in him—for Set, himself, or the High King of Faerie, he wasn’t sure. The train rattled over the rails, swallowing the small sounds of Marius’s breaths that Wyn couldn’t help straining to hear.
“What happens if he can’t control it? If it gets worse?” Hetta’s grip on his hand tightened.
“It could be bad, depending on how powerful he is,” Wyn said carefully. “But control is possible. There do exist functional telepaths in Faerie. And Marius’s abilities could be quite mild if they’ve hidden for so long undetected. We won’t know until he wakes what, if any, changes Set has wrought this time. He might be fine.” He clung to that reassurance.
“Madness,” Rakken said bluntly. “Or death. Or other people’s madness or death, since today proves he can project as well as receive. No, I didn’t know he was capable of that, brother,” he added. He brought his legs up and crossed them, leaning his weight on his elbows as he peered across the carriage at Marius. “I assumed he’d always had some measure of mild psychic ability and that you chose not to tell him, either for his own good or to use as leverage.” He smiled. “Or both.”
Of course Rakken had assumed that; it was exactly what he would have done if their positions were reversed.
Hetta leaned against Wyn’s side, and he put his arm around her without thinking how it would look. Aunt Sybil made a half-hearted clucking sound, which both of them ignored.
“And you’re sure, are you?” she challenged Rakken. “That he’s a…telepath?” She hesitated over the term.
“Your brother appears particularly sensitive to Mouse, Lord Valstar.” Catsmere spoke suddenly. Rake narrowed his eyes at her, and she shrugged, unrepentant. “I assume that’s why his abilities were more obvious to him.”
Rake was an accomplished sorcerer—his mental shields should’ve been adamantine. Was it coincidence that Marius had asked about Rakken, earlier at the station? Wyn cut that thought off, uncomfortable with its direction.
Rakken pursed his lips, not entirely pleased with this revelation either. Then he shook himself back to composure. “Marius Valstar aside,” he said, coolly assessing Wyn, “you acquitted yourself better than I feared, against our sister, Wyn.”
The name caught Wyn by surprise. “Careful you don’t inflate my ego with flattery,” he said dryly.
“She’ll be back, won’t she?” Hetta asked quietly.
“Yes,” said Rakken. “She would like all of us dead, but Wyn most particularly.” He smiled, sharp and unamused. “Tell me, what sort of ruler do you think she’d be? Precisely how generous do you think she would be in her dealings with mortals?” His teeth caught viciously on the last word.
Hetta flared up in his defence, her body tense against his side. “You’ve already persuaded Wyn to go back to the Spires—there’s no need to labour the point,” she said. “And don’t try to tell me you want Wyn as king out of some kind of altruistic motive; you’re just trying to save your own skin.”
Rakken met Wyn’s eyes, the ice-cold accusation in them piercing straight to Wyn’s core—because they both knew that hadn’t been Rakken’s point at all. The fate of mortals should not be what motivated the ruler of a fae people.
“I do care for those of the Spires,” Wyn said. A weak truth. He cared what became of ThousandSpire’s fae, yes—but it was as a candleflame to the sun compared to how he cared for those of Stariel, and he could not pretend otherwise, not with Marius lying deathly still only a wingspan away. But it only added further fuel to his determination; nothing like this could be allowed to happen to his Valstars again. “I have accepted my duty, brother.” What did his reasons for doing so matter?
Rakken’s mouth thinned into a hard line. “Just remember the cost of breaking your promises.”
48
A Minor Celebrity
Hetta didn’t remember the day-long journey to Stariel ever taking quite so long. The minutes stretched into hours, but still Marius didn’t stir. She watched his chest rise and fall and tried to find it reassuring that the lines of pain on his face had smoothed into sleep. She dug her fingers into the stiff leather of the seats. If I see Aroset again, I’m lighting an inferno with her at the centre. Along the muted bond, Stariel pulsed in distant agreement.
Probably the murderous thought ought to horrify her, but there wasn’t space in the hollow of her chest for anything but anger. Her mind kept flashing back to Aroset’s face as the fae woman held Marius. As a child, she’d once seen a boy in the village pull the legs off a grasshopper and watch its disjointed attempts to escape with fascinated glee. He’d had the same expression as Aroset.
Her aunt hadn’t said anything the entire journey so far, just sat silently watching Marius, but now she gave herself a shake and said, in an uncertain tone at odds with her normal authoritative way of speaking: “What about that fae girl, Miss Smith?” She looked at Wyn. ‘Miss Smith’ was how Gwendelfear had styled herself when she’d originally come to Stariel.
Alexandra started from where she’d been slouched into her seat, knocking her untouched sketchbook from the seat onto the floor. She bent to pick it up with a murmured apology, her attention fixed on Wyn too. He and Hetta hadn’t told them yet that Gwendelfear had been responsible for Wyn’s recent imprisonment.
Wyn shook his head. “It isn’t a physical injury,” he murmured. The russet of his eyes was dulled. “Though we will try that, if it comes to it.” He didn’t suggest it wasn’t a good idea to bargain with hostile fae, which told Hetta he was as worried as she was.
She shivered, and Wyn put an arm around her shoulders, ignoring Aunt Sybil’s protest: “Henrietta!”
“There’s no one here to see, Aunt.” She leaned into him, trying to ignore the guilt prickling low in her stomach. This wasn’t her fault. Was it? If she hadn’t put her own desires above Stariel’s best interests, would Marius be lying deathly still in a silent carriage? Would Alexandra still be staring at the blank page of her sketchbook as if she were reliving Aroset’s attempt to compel her?
If Hetta had let the Spires have Wyn that first time, after King Aeros had died, this wouldn’t have happened. The guilt sharpened, and she buried her face in Wyn’s coat. He didn’t object, and she breathed in the spice-scented comfort of him, the steady beat of his heart against her cheek.
Please let Marius be all right, she begged any gods that might be listening. She and Marius had been at odds so much recently. She hadn’t wanted to hear his advice, that kernel of painful truth in it. It wasn’t fair! If she was the one making selfish choices, why was it always everyone else who ended up hurt? Her hands clenched in the fabric of Wyn’s shirt.
She looked up at the sound of movement some minutes later. Rakken was making his way over to Marius’s still-unconscious form. He sat down next to him and closed his eyes as if he were meditating.
“What are you—?” But he shot her a look of pure impatience.
“I’m not going to hurt him, Lord Valstar. Of us all, I am the most qualified to understand magical injuries, and there is little else to occupy me on this train. You may thank me for my generosity later.”
“I’m not going to thank you for trying to help Marius only because you’re bored!” she said indignantly, but Rakken ignored her and closed his eyes. But only a few moments later he let out a hiss of pain and opened them. He rubbed at the nape of his neck and retreated to his earlier perch.
“His shields are…sharp,” he said, as if that explained anything at all. His eyes narrowed. “But effect
ive. If you want my advice, it is thus: don’t tell him what he is, when he wakes.”
“Why not, Rake?” Wyn asked before she could.
Rakken shrugged. “I’d rather not be here if that shield shatters.”
“You think he’ll wake, though?” she asked, latching on to the word ‘when’ with fierce hope. But Rakken spread his arms in an it’s-anyone’s-guess gesture and her heart sank.
He pondered the shifting countryside through the window, where the sun was curving towards late afternoon. “I am going to see if there is anything else to occupy me on this train,” he announced, getting up to prowl towards the far end of the carriage.
“If you compel anyone, I’ll burn every feather you’ve got,” Hetta told him firmly, with a glance at her sister. Alexandra’s shoulders straightened, and she glared at Rakken as well.
Rakken rolled his eyes at the pair of them. “Noted.” He looked to Catsmere, and she raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll look after them, Mouse. You need not fret.”
He made a rude gesture at his twin that fortunately Aunt Sybil didn’t see. It startled a burble of laughter from Hetta, and Wyn chuckled softly as well. Rakken shot them both a cold look and stalked out. Catsmere’s expression was as unreadable as ever, but it occurred to Hetta that Wyn wasn’t the only member of his family with a dry sense of humour.
After he left, Hetta reached along the bond, tried to judge the distance to Stariel, and couldn’t. She sighed.
“We should pass Ulerain soon,” Wyn murmured, drawing small circles on her back. Ulerain marked the last Southern city before they crossed into the North.
“Seven more hours then,” she said. It felt like a lifetime.
When they crossed the border, Stariel washed over her in a wave of magic and familiarity, and the bond lit up like a firestorm. She sucked in a breath, suddenly alive in a way she hadn’t felt since she’d left. But she didn’t have time to savour the sensation, instead pushing it away impatiently.
Previously, she’d tried to avoid examining the Valstar-sparks she was connected to in any detail. It felt too much like an invasion of privacy—and she’d rather not accidentally find out everything her relatives got up to in their spare time.
But now she knelt next to Marius and measured what she could see against the faeland’s perception. His spark was…bruised, for lack of a better term, and Stariel coiled around him protectively.
The faeland plucked at his spark with something like satisfaction, and the line thickened with a zap that nearly made her drop it. Clinging on, she began to feed energy along the newly strengthened bond. She drew the land’s energy up through her feet, tasting pine and new grass on her tongue, becoming more than herself, stretched all the way from the Indigoes into this tiny metal box running over her fields.
Marius’s spark flared, an aura of shifting patterns slowly gaining speed, and the line between them narrowed as something sharp and defensive sprang into being between him and the faeland. Shields, she realised, jumping away from the slicing churn of them before the blades could catch her. That’s what Rakken was talking about. Marius’s land-sense had always been weak, and she wondered, suddenly, if this was why.
She blinked, coming back to her body. Marius groaned and curled in on himself, but he seemed to be waking. Oh, thank the gods. Wyn was crouched next to her, and he reached out and squeezed her hand. The movement made the faeland’s interest shift to Wyn, agitated and possessive, and he staggered as it rubbed against him affectionately.
“At least it’s happy to see me,” Wyn reflected, finding his balance again. “Marius?”
Her brother groaned again and opened his eyes. “Ow,” he complained. He made an aborted attempt to sit and gave up, clutching his head. “Ow.” He looked sideways at them blearily. “Where…?” He shut his eyes again. “Ow.”
“You’re not a lamb to bleat so, Marius Valstar.” Rakken had returned to his previous seat a few hours ago, apparently un-entertained by the rest of the train’s occupants.
Marius’s eyes snapped open. “Fuck you, Rakken.” It wasn’t like him to swear, though Hetta broadly agreed with his sentiment.
Rakken chuckled. “Am I to take it your mind is intact, then?”
“Maybe it would be more intact if you stopped yelling at me to get up already,” Marius complained and made a second, more successful, attempt. He leaned his elbows on his legs, panting, and flushed as he spotted Hetta, Aunt Sybil, and Alexandra clustering around him. “Sorry.”
“I don’t actually need my smelling salts to cope with strong language,” Hetta said dryly before throwing her arms around him, dizzy with relief. He yelped, and she released him. “Sorry. How do you feel?”
“Terrible,” he said. His expression crumpled at the edges as his land-sense kicked in. “We’re in Stariel. How…?” He frowned around the empty compartment and winced. “What happened? I thought…” His gaze fixed on Wyn. “You told me to get on the train, but I don’t remember getting on it.”
“Aroset happened,” she said, exchanging a glance with Wyn. “You don’t remember?”
Marius paled but shook his head.
“Aroset tried to compel you and failed,” Wyn said. “You’ve been unconscious since we left Meridon this morning.” There was a warning in Rakken’s eyes not to tell Marius the rest, though Hetta wasn’t sure how he planned to enforce that if Marius could pluck the knowledge straight out of his brain.
But however Marius’s telepathy worked, it clearly wasn’t quite so simple.
“And everyone is all right?” he said, glancing around, his attention going to Alexandra. “Alex?”
“I’m fine,” she said fiercely. “Why does everyone keep asking me? You’re the one that was hurt!”
He frowned but rubbed at his head. “Where’s Aroset? Sorry. I think I missed some steps in there somewhere. Can someone please explain? Gods, my head is killing me. How did Aroset find us?”
Rakken flung something at them, hard and so quick Hetta couldn’t tell what it was until Wyn snatched it out of the air and frowned down at the rolled newspaper in his hand.
“That, I suspect,” Rakken said. “Though on the brighter side, your name will now be useless as a trace, assuming this newspaper has a reasonably wide distribution and you remain a topic of interest. Congratulations on your new celebrity, Hallowyn.”
Wyn unrolled the newspaper to reveal the front page of the Meridon Times. “The earl disobeyed the queen’s instruction not to use my full name,” he noted.
“Maybe that might finally make her punish him properly!” Hetta grumbled. It still rankled, leaving the earl and John Tidwell free to do what they liked back in Meridon—though at le
ast the queen would be more suspicious of her advisor now.
She took the paper from Wyn, and Alexandra craned to see over her shoulder. In the photograph Wyn was in his fae form, wings slightly spread in front of a set of grand stone steps leading up to a terrace in the palace gardens. The photographer had caught him at an angle that emphasised the sharpness of his cheekbones and the pointed tips of his ears. Queen Matilda stood next to him. Their expressions were uncannily similar, warm and relaxed but ultimately false. Or perhaps it was only because she knew Wyn, knew that this wasn’t what he looked like when he was actually enjoying himself.
“You look very dashing,” she told him. “Very ambassadorial.” She stared down at the picture, unsettled. The caption read: PRINCE HALLOWYN TEMPESTREN BIDS FAREWELL TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN MATILDA I IN THE PALACE GARDENS.
“I suppose this means I shan’t be able to make any more dramatic reveals of my true self,” he said, giving a deep, put-upon sigh. She laughed and reached instinctively to take his hand. Marius followed the motion with a frown but said nothing.
Jack was waiting for them at Stariel Station, the station lamps a beacon of welcome in the evening. Marius still had difficulty with his balance, and he leaned heavily on Wyn for the transfer to the platform. Jack started forward in alarm before Marius waved them off.
“No, it’s fine, I’m fine,” he said.
“You have an unusual definition of fine,” Wyn muttered, low enough that Hetta only caught it because she was standing just behind them in the carriage door.
“Says the person who was determined to climb every staircase in the house after we cut a bullet out of him,” Marius retorted. It reassured Hetta—if Marius had the energy to make biting remarks, he must be feeling somewhat better.