She paused, irritated. Sinafin! It was the first time she had tried calling with her mind. Nothing happened. Alexa frowned. Maybe words weren't the best way to communicate. What about pictures? She fashioned the best image she could of Sinafin—as the pink fairy—and tried again. Sinafin!
Faint, running claw-clicks came from a hall up a bit and to her left.
Sinafin shot from it, turned away from Alexa and ran down the corridor and back, panting and grinning. Run, run, run! Sinafin said.
"You run," Alexa grumbled. Her body still ached from the two dips in the jerir. At least now she knew what it was called, and that it was supposed to heal her and then be protective. She shook her head. Magic. Something to be as cautious about as a loaded gun.
Her thoughts went to the guy she had saved, and she winced. If she thought she hurt today, he'd be even worse off. His wounds had been awesome, but since he'd lived through the ordeal, he'd be one tough cookie, she guessed. And the baby—if she was flawed, would the jerir have cured her? Probably what everyone had hoped for. Alexa would miss the little girl, and Marwey.
Sinafin bounded up to her, lolling a tongue, then turned around and jogged left back down the passage she'd appeared from. The closest way out is through the Assayer's Office, just beyond the Keep walls.
Down a short passage the feycoocu waited before a big square wooden door. It was more roughly finished than most of the Castle doors. Alexa set her hand on the iron handle and an overwhelming dread flooded from her fingers up her arm to her mind, making her heart pound hard. She pulled back. Death. She could smell it now. The tang of blood and fleshy refuse. She swallowed hard.
Sinafin cocked her ears, looking too innocent. Alexa hesitated. She didn't want to go into that room.
Shuffling steps behind her made her whirl. A bowed woman in serving costume came slowly to them, her gaze fixed on Sinafin. Even hunched, she was taller than Alexa. The woman stopped, ducked her head a little and glanced at Alexa with shy eyes.
"I am Umilla. Is that the feycoocu?"
I am Sinafin. The words echoed twice, and Alexa realized the greyhound spoke to them both.
"Why did you tell Umilla your name and not the Marshalls?" Alexa asked.
A name is powerful magic. You can Summon me by my name, Sinafin said. The Marshalls might use me if they could.
Umilla snorted.
Alexa reckoned since the Marshalls couldn't pronounce her name, she was safe.
"I'm Alexa." She put out her hand.
The woman just stared at it. Her mouth fell open.
Sinafin trotted to Alexa. Alexa. Then danced to the serving woman. Umilla.
Alexa tried a reassuring smile and nodded. "Umilla."
"A-lex-a." The woman bobbed her head.
Alexa's eyes widened. Finally someone who pronounced her name correctly! She grinned.
Umilla ducked and leaned down to pet the dog. Her long hair swung to hide her face, and Alexa realized it was streaked black-and-white. Like the baby's. Like the guy's last night.
Reynardus had called them black-and-whites—and flawed.
Flawed? As she studied the woman, Alexa sensed wild fluctuations of energy—magic?—inside Umilla. Something the woman had never been able to control.
Umilla straightened, holding Sinafin.
Alexa watched the serving woman and Sinafin for a moment, then turned her attention back to the door and frowned. An itching at the back of her brain told her the Marshalls' meeting had ended and they were breaking up. Soon they'd disperse, and she didn't want to meet any of them. She didn't know of any door out except this one.
Finally a sigh escaped Umilla and she closed the short distancebetween them, holding Sinafin out to Alexa. Alexa took the feycoocu.
"Merci." Umilla bobbed a curtsy. With vague eyes but a dignified bearing, she shuffled back the way she had come.
You should put me down now, Sinafin said, a note in her voice that made apprehension ripple through Alexa.
She set the dog on its feet. Facing the door again, Alexa clicked open the latch, pushed and entered in one motion. The smell was a mixture of antiseptic and dead things. The room was a nightmarish vision. Something that would haunt her dreams for years to come.
"What is this place?" Her voice rose.
The Assayer's Office, Sinafin replied calmly.
It was nothing like an assayer's office in Colorado. Not for minerals—silver or gold. It was for monsters.
Alexa's stomach gave a sickening roll. Heads were mounted on the walls. Grotesque heads of creatures she'd never imagined in her most dreadful dreams. Above the heads the ceiling disappeared into dimness around the rafters. One of the heads was like the thing that had attacked her when she'd come from Colorado to Lladrana. Its fangs glistened in such a realistic snarl that she shuddered.
Render, Sinafin informed her.
It was as huge as she remembered, the eyes small and red, the black bristly fur looking as rough as a steel brush. The muzzle was short, but open, showing black tongue, sharp teeth and the fangs. Beneath the head, a paw-hand was mounted, the foot-long curved claws extended.
Alexa put her hand to her mouth to stifle an involuntary scream.
Next to the render was a torso consisting of a bald, gray head with holes for eyes and lizardlike skin. It had two arms with suckers all the way down to its three-digited hands. Two tentacles draped before and behind each arm. The horror loomed directly above Alexa. All the hair on her body rose.
Soul-sucker, Sinafin said.
"Get me out of here!"
The room was taller than it was wide or long, with a wooden counter running the full length on her left, A heap on the counter caught her eye and she couldn't help staring. Yellow fur, as bristly as the render's, showed against glistening red muscles. The head and the back of the monster sported curved, wicked spines. The fur was nearly flayed from the thing.
Alexa bolted across the room, praying to find a door.
Slayer, Sinafin said.
A man with a neat gray goatee and thick black hair on his head skipped around the counter, blocking her way. Eyebrows raised, he stared at her with fascination. "The Exotique," he breathed.
He made her feel as unusual as the horrors surrounding them, and Alexa had an awful vision of herself stuffed and mounted. She couldn't bear it. She ran around him and hit the round-arched wooden door at top speed, falling into a stone-paved courtyard open to the sky.
At least it wasn't raining. The sky was a deep blue that reminded Alexa of home. She breathed air that was fresher than any the mountains provided, without the slight sulphur tinge she'd noticed when it rained.
She leaned against the stone wall next to the door, face in hands, trying to compose herself. "Was that really necessary?" she asked Sinafin.
Yes. Those are what threaten our lives. Those are what invade our land daily. Those...and worse.
Alexa couldn't contemplate what could be worse.
We need you. Wait and watch.
Again the note of warning.
With deep gasps, Alexa settled herself. She shoved fingers through her hair and wasn't surprised to find it damp at the roots from terror-sweat.
She looked around the courtyard. The Assayer's Office seemed to be on the right side of the main yard. The Temple dominated the far end, sitting in the center of the wall. Diagonally to her left and across the courtyard, tucked into a corner, was a gatehouse—in the direction of the Town.
Her breathing had just returned to normal and she was ready to leave again when she heard bells jingling from above her. She looked up to see a winged horse flying over the outer wall. Her mouth dropped open. The light brown horse spiraled down, blood welling from three claw marks on its neck. Claws like that had scratched her. Marks like that had crisscrossed the body of the man the night before—new wounds and silvered scars.
Render. The name fit.
The horse landed with a clatter of hooves, then tossed up its head in a lost, mournful cry that penetrated Alexa'
s very bones. She whimpered.
It fixed its gaze on her, then stared at Sinafin, its head lowered and feathered wings folded trembling against its heaving flanks.
The courtyard erupted with people. Doors Alexa hadn't noted were flung open around the square; some soldiers wearing the Castle livery jumped the low walls of the Cloister opposite her, into the yard. With a yip, Sinafin leaped into Alexa's arms.
The big Marshall—Mace—got to the horse before the others. His jaw tightened. "We've lost Perder." He stroked a soothing hand down the horse's neck. Two soldiers stopped and stood waiting for his orders. He nodded. "See to the volaran."
Volaran. Flying horse. Right.
More bells jangled. Like everyone else, Alexa looked up. Two struggling winged horses—volarans—with slumped riders whinnied and jostled. Even she could tell all four were in trouble.
Mace flung out his hand to the Marshalls near him. "Link!" A lady wearing the same dark burgundy surcoat as he, and Thealia and Partis in malachite green, joined hands. They frowned upward, and Alexa saw an opalescent white sphere coalesce around the volarans and riders. The horses stopped struggling.
Mace's woman gasped and fell to her knees. The sphere failed on one side, drooped like a deflating balloon. Volarans and riders screamed.
Alexa flung out a hand and jade-green energy poured from her fingers, hitting the sphere, making it round again.
"Bring them down fast!" Mace shouted. Sweat rolled down his face.
The sphere descended in a controlled fall and hit the ground—and the magic disappeared.
Suddenly weak, Alexa stumbled to a bench next to the Assayer's Office.
A metallic clatter came as one of the riders flung off a helm and let it hit the stones. Her long tangled black hair blew in the wind. She leaned over to hold the other flyer, tears streaking her face. "Help! Farentha, my mate, she's dying. The jerir! Healing spells, anything. My lifeblood for you. Anything!" She sobbed.
"Keep linked. Send energy to Farentha," Thealia ordered. Her gaze caught Alexa's. Thealia said, "We must take Farentha to the Temple for the jerir and healing. Will you help, Alyeka? We need your strength."
Alexa had planned on leaving these people, but she couldn't. Not right now when someone needed her, when she could save a life. Heart thudding in her chest, Alexa walked to the knot of people around the winged horses. She'd never been able to refuse a request for help.
Farentha's arm hung loosely, showing muscle and sinew and the round bone of the shoulder-ball. Alexa swallowed, glad she'd had no breakfast. Sinafin jumped from her arms, leaving them empty of warm, living comfort.
Other Marshalls came, linking hands in a circle and stretching their arms into the center to form a living pallet for the injured rider. Thealia broke her link with Mace and slapped Alexa's left hand into Mace's, then grabbed Alexa's right hand, hard. Alexa shuddered with the force of the current that shot through her. The energy spiked, then evened out as Thealia directed it.
Partis began to sing a powerful healing spell—that knowledge dribbled to her from the others. The rest of the Marshalls supporting Farentha joined in the Song. A wave of warm, bubbling energy swept from Thealia into Alexa's torso, tingling her nerves. She felt as if she stood in the strong flow of a river. Her head grew light with champagne fizz and giddiness. Then the force moved from her, taking the effervescence, letting her think again.
To her left, Mace jerked and whispered an oath. He glanced down at her with wide, brilliant black eyes. He was huge, his life-force incredibly strong. A big, trained knight. He could probably kill her with a blow. Yet awe at her shone from his eyes.
She shivered, and as the current of energy passed through her again, trembled more. Partis's Song segued into a chant that pushed her feet. The Marshalls moved in unison to the opposite end of the courtyard and the huge round Temple dominating the yard.
Alexa found herself humming with the others. She winced. She wasn't much better at singing than at languages. Her verbal skills were less than her written ones. The thought made her miss a step—sent the energy into a ragged beat. Thealia glared at her andsmoothed it out. Then a golden glow of honey-sweetness from Partis soothed Thealia and trickled in to affect Alexa. She smiled.
They were healing the wounded one and she was helping! Through sheer willpower and magic. Wonder touched her. This was the bright side of the magic that could kill—the Power to save.
"Huh!" Reynardus snorted as he stood under the Temple's portico, at the entrance. "What do we have here?"
If Alexa let her mind rest, didn't try to force the sounds into words, she could understand him through her connection with the others.
Partis was spinning the healing songspell, Thealia handling the combined energy. And Mace was the strongest personality after Thealia.
"We have Farentha, close to death," Mace said, "and Dema, her mate, injured also. The Temple holds the jerir and is the best place to heal them. Let us pass."
Reynardus's face hardened. "They are independent knights, paid in coin. Why do we waste precious spell-energy and strength on such a couple? Neither of them has more than one volaran—and no land."
Anger surged in Alexa and she was surprised to feel it matched in Thealia. Thealia gripped Alexa's hand and clamped control over both of their emotions. To Alexa's amazement, Thealia siphoned some of the fury-heat into the healing spell.
Reynardus looked at the wounded woman they carried—pallid skin, face plain and round. His eyes lingered on her injured side, the arm aligned but wound gaping. He scowled. "She should be dead with such an injury." His gaze fixed on the other rider who was part of the Marshalls' circle. "And you, Dema, with that leg you shouldn't be able to walk. What is going on here?"
"The Exotique Alyeka," Thealia said softly. "She has the vitality and magic to keep them both alive."
Everyone looked at Alexa.
As all gazes turned to her, Alexa smiled weakly. For once she was glad she didn't know much of the language. She had no clue what to say. Sincerity radiated from the older woman. Everyone felt it. Even Alexa. Even Reynardus.
The harsh lines on Reynardus's face deepened as he frowned.
Alexa broadened her smile. She liked seeing the man nonplussed. In the light of day and without the haze of anger clouding her vision, he reminded her of a particularly pompous attorney she'd had to work with during her internship at a large law firm in Denver. Reynardus was tougher on the outside, solid fighting muscle, but Alexa would bet his mind was just as crafty, his will just as forceful as that of the lawyer she'd known. Oh yeah. She'd trust this guy just as far as she could throw him.
Partis's voice broke on a note and Thealia sent a mental command to concentrate on the injured Farentha. They inhaled as one, and the circle squeezed into a lozenge as they prepared to enter the door to the Temple. Rhythm picked up as they marched through the door from the bright light of the courtyard into the Temple's dim, incense-laden coolness.
Oddly enough, Alexa sensed the person watching her most intently was Dema, lover of the deeply wounded Farentha. Alexa met Dema's eyes, and though the other woman lowered her gaze, curiosity hummed from her.
The Medica joined them. In an exquisite blend of physical and mental management, Thealia and Partis rearranged the circle until only they, the Medica and Dema supported the fallen rider.
Legs shaking, Alexa backed up to the stone bench lining the circular wall and collapsed onto a plush pillow to rest and watch the drama. She'd wait until she felt stronger, and see what happened before she abandoned the Castle for the Town. She wanted to know whether the woman she'd helped would live or die.
"Jerir...Chevalier Farentha," Reynardus said.
Since Alexa wasn't connected with the Marshalls, those were the only words she understood. But she read his tone, gestures and stance well enough. He didn't think the woman would survive. She looked bad off, but the guy last night had been just as bad, and he'd made it. Hadn't he?
Of course he had. Sinafin would have
told her if he hadn't. For reasons of her own, Sinafin took an interest in the man.
Alexa looked around for the feycoocu and saw a large purple furred muff a foot away from her on the curving bench. The same muff that had rested on the table outside her suite door the first night she'd come. "Sinafin?" she whispered.
I have to be invited through the door of a person's living space, Sinafin answered. You brought me in as a muff that night.
Just like a vampire, Alexa thought. She couldn't help herself: The image of a tiny, fairy-size vampire with white skin, long black hair and teeny pointed teeth, wearing a red-satin-lined black cape over a full-length black dress formed in her mind—A fairy vampire? A vampire fairy? A—
"Exotique Alyeka," Reynardus sneered.
Hearing her name jolted Alexa. She glanced over to the tableau.
Reynardus stood, legs apart. With a broad gesture he pointed to her, then to the wounded women, then to the pool of jerir.
8
Standing by the pool, Reynardus again pointed to Alexa, then the liquid.
He'd done that twice. How rude.
As far as she was concerned, she'd done enough dunking in the jerir. The others could take care of the injured flyer. They were the locals, and they had the experience and knowledge. She'd be an observer, not a participant.
Alexa rose and mimicked Reynardus's stance. She jutted her chin, pointed to herself, then to the pool of jerir and held up two fingers, then raised her eyebrows and pointed to Reynardus.
Vrai...true, said Sinafin, and Alexa could tell by the others' expressions that they'd heard the feycoocu.
A rumble came from Mace, and an unenthusiastic agreement from the Medica. Alexa stared at Reynardus until his cheeks darkened a bit and he peeled off his gauntlets. She smiled sweetly. She'd won that round with him.
She kept the smile pasted on her lips as he continued to strip until he was naked. Obviously he didn't want to subject his clothes to the jerir. Alexa wasn't too comfortable with nudity, but she sure wasn't going to show embarrassment.
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