by R. A. Rock
“They haven’t done anything wrong? Are you joking?” Ransetta lifted one lovely eyebrow. “They have all helped you to defy me, hide from me, and take the crown, which I was planning to steal from under the King’s nose. Finally.”
“I just want to end the Severance. To let our people be whole again, Ransetta.” Tess felt as though she were begging for understanding. And she knew that she wouldn’t get it from the queen but she asked anyway. “Don’t you want that?”
“Want an end to the Severance? Of course not. If the Severance ends, then I have no kingdom anymore. Why would I want that?”
Tess hadn’t thought of that. Of course, the Dark Queen wouldn’t want the Severance to end.
“I can use the Crown of Visions, which I already have, in order to destroy the Light Court and take over all of Ahlenerra. But the Scroll would be very handy as well. I need it to destroy the Light Court and make the King suffer.”
“I won’t give it to you,” Tess swore. Besides, she couldn’t. Because she couldn’t get into her Otherworld sheath. But the queen didn’t have to know that.
“All you have to do is tell me where you’ve hidden the Scroll and we’ll be done here.”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said, her face expressionless.
“That’s what I thought. Let’s bring out… hmmm, who shall we start with?”
“No,” Tess said, following along as the queen walked down the hall, her pretty lavender shoes crunching on who knew what on the floor of the dungeons. “No. Please. Whatever you’re going to do, do it to me.”
Ransetta turned and smiled, her face so painfully beautiful that it made Tessa’s eyes hurt to look at her.
“I know you can withstand a lot of torture,” Ransetta said. “But watching someone you care about be tortured? That’s going to break you far sooner. I know.”
“Ransetta, please.”
“Just tell me where the Scroll is and we don’t have to do any of this,” she said, walking up to the bars and staring into Tessa’s eyes.
“I—I can’t.”
“Tell me where the Scroll is hidden,” Ransetta said, her eyes boring into Tessa’s, and she felt the pull of the Dark Queen’s powerful Ancient Voice trying to rip the information out of her.
When a Fae invokes the Ancient Voice, they become extremely convincing. Depending on the strength of the mind that a Fae is trying to convince, the Ancient Voice can be absolutely enticing but, if a mind is strong enough, then the person can resist. They used it mostly on non-Fae. Like the taboo on using glamours, it was considered sneaky and underhanded to use it on another Faerie.
“N-n-no,” she said, starting to breathe hard as she resisted the magic.
“Fine,” the Dark Queen, dropping the Ancient Voice. Tess staggered back and fell to the ground, weak from the queen’s onslaught.
“Tess,” Finn exclaimed, grabbing the bars of his cell. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said faintly, getting to her feet. “I’m okay.”
“Oh good, we wouldn’t want you to be hurt, Callahan,” the queen said from Finn’s cell where she was now standing.
How had she gotten in there so quickly and soundlessly?
Tess felt strange.
Something was off about this whole situation but she couldn’t figure it out. Her mind was too hazy. She couldn’t get it sorted.
“If you’re all right, Tess,” the queen said, pulling her out of her musings. She gave a nod to the guard that was with her, who grabbed Finn and smashed his head on a block of stone, pinning him there. Where did that block come from? Tess was sure now that it hadn’t been there and that something weird was happening. But she didn’t know what.
Finn groaned in pain and Tess winced as the guard held a razor-sharp knife to the Beeon point in the neck, which Tess knew from her training brings the most pain. “We’ll continue with the proceedings.”
“No,” Tess said, latching onto the bars. “Please. Don’t.”
The Dark Queen smiled in pleasure. Tess knew from much experience that this was the queen’s favorite part. The mental anguish people experienced before any physical pain took place. It was like she fed on the agony—both mental and physical.
“Oh?” she said, her gorgeous eyes wide and innocent. “Did you want to tell me something, Callahan?”
Tess clenched her jaw.
“No? That’s fine then. Proceed,” she said to the guard, who slowly drew the knife along the Beeon point and down Finn’s shoulder, making sure not to cut too deep because it was most painful if the cut stayed along the top of the skin.
How could the guard be hurting Finn? What about the Truce spell? What in the name of Severance was going on here?
Finn closed his eyes, unable to stop himself from making a quiet groan.
“No, stop,” Tess said, starting to cry.
She didn’t want to cry in front of the queen. It was so weak. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself, which she found odd. She had been in many situations where she felt terrible but she had never actually cried, no matter how much she had wanted to.
Had the Joining altered her so much?
“Tess, don’t tell her,” Finn said, then gasped as the guard made another cut crossways at the exactly right place to cause the most pain possible. He was clearly a master.
Who was it?
Tess glanced at the guard. She knew every single guard the queen had. When she studied him, though, his face seemed somehow completely generic and absolutely forgettable. What the…
“Tess,” Finn said again, pulling her attention away from the guard. “Don’t tell her anything. It’s not worth it.”
Tess clutched the bars of the cell, anguish filling her.
Then there was a strange shimmer to the room as if a wave had passed through reality. What in the name of Severance was that? Did the Dark Queen have some new magic that messed with the nature of reality itself?
Tess knew how this would go. She had seen enough torture sessions in her time in the Dark Court. If she didn’t tell the queen what she wanted to know, they would go from just cutting, to cutting off. Then the queen would send all the pieces out to have them spread over the entire kingdom or thrown into the Broken Seas so that it would be impossible for Finn to regenerate.
He would die in agony.
Tessa could not let that happen.
“Stop,” she said again.
“No,” the Dark Queen said, her eyes merry. It seemed the only time the woman was happy was when she was causing pain. The edges of the room wavered a little and Tess wondered if she was going to pass out. “Keep going.”
“I said stop,” Tess said, her face serious. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Ah,” the queen said, seeming surprised, glad, and disappointed all at the same time. “Good. Speak, Callahan.”
Tess pressed her lips together. She was not a dog for the queen to give orders to. Not anymore.
“No, Tess, don’t tell her anything,” Finn said as he bled all over the floor of the cell.
“I’m not going to let you die,” Tess said, clenching her jaw. “Ransetta, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
Chapter 28
“Excellent, Callahan,” the queen said. She gave the signal to the guard and he grabbed Finn, shoving him against the wall of his cell. He slid down, putting his hand to his neck to stop the bleeding. “I knew you would come around. Now tell me where the Scroll is.”
“No, Tess,” Finn said, getting up from where the guard had thrown him on the floor. He grasped her hand where she was still holding on to the bars of the cell. “Don’t tell her anything.”
“But Finn,” she said, feeling the tears coursing down her cheeks. “She’ll kill you if I don’t.”
“No, she won’t,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “Because none of this is real.”
Tess blinked and pulled back from him. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Tess,” he said. “Deep down, you kn
ow it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do. Otherwise, I couldn’t be telling you this. Deep inside, you know that this isn’t real, and that’s why as a part of the dream, I can tell you.”
“Guard,” Ransetta said, looking annoyed. “Cut him again. Or maybe sew up his lips.”
Tess frowned as Finn let himself be taken back to the block.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not really here. All of this is just a projection of your mind. It’s just a dream, Tessa.”
“You may wish it was a dream, thief,” the Dark Queen said. “But I assure you. It’s very real.”
But then there was that weird ripple again. And how was it that she didn’t recognize the guard’s face? The edges of the room blurred again.
And Tess understood. Dream Finn spoke the truth.
“This isn’t real,” she whispered.
“Be quiet, Callahan,” the queen ordered. “I’m busy torturing your pet thief.”
“No, you’re not,” Tess said, turning to face her. She tilted her head, studying the bars of the cell. Then she grabbed them and wrenched them off, throwing them to one side. Ransetta gave Tess a look that would have killed if this hadn’t all been a dream.
“Fine, you win this round, Tess. But I’ll get you in the end. Enjoy the rest of the Ball because then I will get my hands on your precious thief and, when this is all over, you will regret that you ever went against me.”
Tess didn’t answer her.
She knew Ransetta was somehow actually there in her dream. She was the only part of the dream that was real—to a certain extent. She had heard of the queen doing such things before, but she had never been the recipient. Somehow the thought repulsed her so much that she wanted the Dark Queen out.
Out of her dream.
Out of her head.
Out.
She screamed in rage and ran at the Dark Queen. Ransetta looked surprised for a half second and then she blinked out. Now, if only Tess could wake from this nightmare.
She opened her eyes and drew in a deep breath.
“Tess,” said Finn’s voice from beside her. “Oh, Chasm, I thought we’d lost you.”
She opened her eyes and tried to sit up. With a groan, she dropped back to the bed. Every muscle in her body ached.
“Stars and Shadows,” she exclaimed. “What happened?”
“We got the chest open,” Finn said, indicating with his head where it sat on the table. “But you went unconscious.”
Tess looked around at the room suspiciously.
“Am I really awake?”
“Of course,” Finn said, looking confused. “What else?”
“I had a dream when I was unconscious. The Dark Queen was there.”
“You dreamed about the queen?” Finn said.
“No. I was having a dream but she was really there. She was trying to get me to tell where I had hidden the Scroll.”
“Chasm and Severance,” Finn said, looking concerned.
“She does this kind of thing. I’ve heard her mention it before that she’s going to pay someone a visit in their dreams. But she’s never tried it on me before.”
“What happened?” Finn said.
“We were in the cells below the castle. The dungeons where the queen keeps the Fae she’s captured once she’s got them.”
“We?”
“Yes, you were in my dream.”
Finn seemed pleased about that.
“Nat, Izzie, and Lorcan were there too. But it was you she picked to torture.”
Finn grimaced.
“She had a guard who was cutting you. I thought it was real. I thought we were really captured. And I was about to tell her everything.”
“What in the Chasm did you do, Tess?”
“I figured it out. There were a few different clues. She could hurt you and reality was a little wavy.”
“Wavy?”
Tess gave a nod. “Of course, the biggest was when you told me not to tell her anything because none of it was real.”
“I said that?”
“Yep. That’s what it took to put the pieces together. And then I decided to wake up. And here I am.”
She frowned again at the room. “How can I tell this isn’t another dream, though?”
“Well, did you touch me in the dream?” Finn said, his eyes a little sad.
“Yes, of course.”
Finn put his hand on hers and it went right through.
“Shadows take me,” she muttered. “We’re still insubstantial.”
“We are. And we’ve got some other problems, too, if you’re up for it?”
She nodded, wondering what else could go wrong. He shook his other hand. His wrist was handcuffed to the bed frame. He pulled but couldn’t get away.
“Are you cuffed?”
He nodded.
“Lorcan did it.”
“What?” Tess snapped, the word sending a shot of pain through her head. She managed to glare at Lorcan through her agony anyway.
“Well, in truth, I asked him to,” Finn admitted.
“Thank you,” Lorcan said from across the room, his tone of voice annoyed.
“Why did Lorcan cuff you to the bed?” Tess said, completely bewildered at this point. “And how?”
Then she remembered that those Light Court magic cuffs could tie up anything with magic, including both monsters and spirits that had no body whatsoever.
“Because,” Finn said, his face troubled. “I told him I was going to go kill the queen. I tried to leave.”
“Why didn’t you just walk through the wall?” Tessa said, not sure how Lorcan could stop someone who was a ghost.
“It happened that we had been talking about his bag of magical objects,” Lorcan said, coming over to sit in the second chair that was pulled up beside the bed. “He had shown me the cuffs he got off of Nyall and I was looking at them when the attack came on.”
“The attack?”
“Remember at the races when you had to stop me from trying to get to the queen?”
“Yes.”
“It happened again. But worse. If Lorcan hadn’t been quick thinking and cuffed me to the bed, I would have left.”
“The vow,” Tessa said, concerned. “It’s getting stronger?”
“I vaguely remember the incident,” Finn said, worried. “But it’s almost like I blacked out.”
“Have you ever heard of a palm vow doing this?” Tess said to Lorcan.
The other man shrugged. “No, but you know what they say. Either you fulfill the vow or it sucks all your Starlight and you die.”
“I know what they say. I thought that maybe it was a story.”
Lorcan turned to Finn, pointing at him. “And you promised you’d explain everything when Tess woke up. So start explaining. Why don’t you just fulfill the vow instead of letting it kill you or take you over? Is it because the queen might catch you if you did?”
He frowned suddenly.
“Wait, what exactly is the vow? And why did you want to kill the queen?”
“The vow,” Finn said, his eyes darting to Tessa’s and then back to Lorcan, “was to kill whoever was responsible for the death of my… friend.”
“And?”
“And the person responsible was the Dark Queen.”
“You made a vow to kill the Dark Queen?” Lorcan said, aghast.
“Not exactly,” Finn said. “But yes, in the end, that’s how it turned out.”
“But you can’t kill her. It would… I don’t even know what would happen. But everyone knows that the King and Dark Queen are tied to Ahlenerra. Without them, the land would fall.”
“We know, we know,” Finn said. “It’s a mess.”
“So, you can’t fulfill it,” Lorcan said, with a frown. “That means the vow will kill you.”
“That’s the problem, Lorcan,” Tess said.
“That’s terrible,” he said, getting up and starting to pace.
&nbs
p; “Tell me about it. What makes it worse is I brought it all on myself.” Finn dropped his head. “With my need for vengeance.”
Tess felt sick to her stomach. “What are we going to do?” she said. “If you’re blacking out during these attacks, we may need to lock you up.”
“He was still lucid enough to ask me to cuff him,” Lorcan said. “But then he tried to evade me. And then he held his hands out and begged me to cuff him. Then yanked them away again.”
“If an attack comes on, you two cannot trust me,” Finn said, looking back and forth between Tess and Lorcan.
“What are you going to do about being insubstantial?” Lorcan asked.
“We need someone to turn us back,” Tess said.
“Who would you rather ask?” Finn said sarcastically. “The King? Or the Dark Queen who was just pretending to torture me in your dream? Or maybe you have another Fae as powerful as them in your pocket.”
Tess wrinkled her nose. The situation was impossible.
“If only there was someone as powerful but who was on your side,” Lorcan suggested. “That would be perfect.”
“Someone as powerful…” Finn was thinking hard. “What about the Second? Would she be powerful enough?”
“The Second Faerie to fall? Perdira? Yes, definitely.” Lorcan laughed. “Unfortunately, she’s long gone. Just a tale heard at my grandmother’s knee.”
Finn exchanged a glance with Tessa.
“Actually, Lorcan,” Tess said, trying to sit up again and, with Finn’s help, actually managing it. “She’s still alive. And she’s hanging out in the wyrm tunnels. With the wyrm.”
“You’re kidding right?”
Tess shook her head and immediately regretted it.
“She’s kept herself alive in the swamp all these years. It’s a long story. But she’s here. And you’re right. Maybe she could help. She has nearly limitless powers, too.”
“The question is,” Finn said, his face grim. “Will she help us?”
“I’m sure she will if it seems as though it will be the least bit entertaining,” Tess said and Finn gave a nod.
“We should go and ask right away,” Tess said. “We have to have the Scroll translated before the end of the Ball.”