by Jocelyn Fox
“I’m right here. I can hear you,” Luca commented in his gravelly voice. I tipped the water-skin to his lips again and he drank until it ran dry. He leaned his head back as if even the exertion of drinking exhausted him. “They have him,” he murmured.
“Who?” I asked softly.
“Chael. Chael and Kianryk.”
A prickle of understanding ran through my mind. “Kianryk is your wolf.”
“He’s not my wolf,” Luca corrected automatically, making Vell pause and me smile.
I sat back on my heels and unwrapped a piece of venison. “Let me guess. Chael is the partner of the black-and-gray wolf…”
“Rialla.”
“…Rialla,” I finished.
Luca nodded painfully. He took the meat with his left hand, despite Vell’s admonishment to lie still. He closed his eyes blissfully as he chewed. It made me think that it had been a long time since he’d had food.
“They used us against each other,” he said after he swallowed. I gave him another piece.
“Not too much,” warned Vell. She finished her examination and returned to the burn on his chest, applying a greenish salve to his blackened skin with two fingers.
“Your hands are cold,” Luca commented.
Vell finished dressing the burn. She tended a few other cuts and scrapes scattered across his torso. There was a shallow cut near his collarbone that still bled sluggishly. She smeared a blue-tinted salve on that one and then rolled up her kit fastidiously. “I’ll go see to Rialla. You should sleep.”
I caught her eye as she stood. “What about…?” I motioned to the dagger.
“Been sewn on there for a good while now. I’ll survive with it a bit longer,” Luca answered for me.
Vell suppressed a smile and crossed the clearing to the black-and-gray wolf. Luca watched me as I settled into a more comfortable position, crossing my legs.
“You’re not Sidhe,” he said, his eyes searching my face.
“No, I’m not.” I rubbed my arms self-consciously. The Sword looked up from across the little clearing. It was the first time that I could meet its eyes, not just the emerald winking slyly at me from the hilt of the Sword.
Be proud of what you are, it told me, sending a warm wave of reassurance, so different than the wild aura it had adopted since taking wolf form.
But what am I? I asked almost plaintively. I keep being told that I’m not quite mortal anymore. What does that make me? I’m not Sidhe, and I’m not mortal…
You are my Bearer, it replied firmly, trotting across the clearing. It stepped across Luca and wrapped itself about me. I felt a real, solid wolf about me, its fur hot as the fire that burned through the Sword. I wrapped my fingers in its ruff, just as I had done so many times with Beryk; but I had never felt this kind of comfort from the black wolf.
“I like you as a wolf,” I murmured to the Sword, leaning slightly against it. The headache resting behind my eyes receded.
The Caedbranr opened its mouth in a wolfish grin, teeth gleaming. Do not become accustomed to it, my Bearer. But it laid its head along my arm for a moment, and then it nudged at me with its nose, pushing me back to a sitting position as its form dissipated. The emerald glow streamed back into the blade in the sheath across my back, leaving me feeling distinctly alone. I cleared my throat. “I used to be mortal,” I said quietly.
“I think you are mortal still,” Luca told me. “Just a different kind of mortal.”
“Maybe,” I said. His words didn’t assuage my peculiar sense of loneliness—because if I was ‘just a different kind of mortal,’ didn’t that mean that there was no one else like me?
You do not have to be completely alike to understand someone, the Sword commented. It stretched, a flash of its wolf-form appearing in my mind’s eye, and then curled in the hilt of the Sword, plainly settling down to rest.
Thanks, I told it, exhaustion seeping into my words even in my head.
“You’re tired,” Luca murmured. “And I took your blankets…”
“I still have my cloak, and Vell’s fur,” I replied with what I hoped was a reassuring smile.
“I’d offer to share, but…” He motioned with his right hand, the silver blade gleaming.
“Might be hazardous to my health,” I agreed.
“Or mine, with that beast in the blade on your back.”
I stood and stretched. It only took me a few strides to reach the sleeping-skin.
“Tess?” Luca’s hoarse voice carried through the dark night. I turned back toward him. His eyes gleamed like chips of ice in the shadows. “Thank you…for freeing me.”
“You’re welcome, Luca.” I sank down onto the fur in exhaustion, feeling as though my bones were melting. I pulled off my boots, each movement feeling Herculean.
“Tess-mortal!”
A pang of guilt flashed through me. I’d all but forgotten about Forin and Farin. The twins descended on me, one alighting on my shoulder and the other on my knee.
“You broke the curse on the wolf-warrior,” Forin said from my knee.
“We watched from the trees. We warned them when the cursed ones were close. You were sleeping most of the time,” Farin added, patting the curve of my ear.
I smiled lopsidedly. “And I’m about to go to sleep again.”
“It is hard work, freeing wolf-warriors from curses,” Forin said sagely.
“Yes, well…” I stifled a yawn. “It’s not his wolf, though.”
“Not his wolf?” repeated Farin unbelievingly.
I motioned for them to keep their voices down. They obligingly lowered their words to a whisper, their auras dimming with secrecy.
“How is it not his wolf?” Farin asked. “That makes no sense. No sense whatsoever.”
“It doesn’t make sense to us,” I agreed.
Forin paced across my kneecap. “They are holding his wolf captive, aren’t they?”
“From what he told us, I think so.” I arranged my boots beneath my camp-pillow. For a moment I wondered if Vell needed my help, but my shaking hands betrayed me. I’d be no use to her as an assistant or as a sentinel in this state. If they truly needed me, they’d come and fetch me. I lifted the strap of the Sword over my head and arranged the sheath by my side. As I laid back I was careful not to dislodge Farin. Forin leapt lightly into the air, hovering above me. Farin curled in the hollow of my shoulder just beneath my ear. “Thank you for scouting so tirelessly.”
“It is our duty,” said Farin, her words punctuated with a yawn.
“And our honor,” finished Forin. He flew restlessly above me.
“You should rest,” I told him.
He glanced over at Luca. “I think I will go introduce myself to the wolf-warrior. Perhaps he would like some company while he rests.”
“You have very large hearts, for small beings,” I murmured as Forin gave a slight bow to me and drifted over toward where Luca lay.
“It is not so hard to be kind,” Farin told me softly in her mellifluous voice. “But being small helps us remember that even the Sidhe feel vulnerable and alone sometimes.”
“Even the Sidhe,” I repeated, wondering if she was trying to tell me something. I pulled at my cloak, tucking it around me to ward off the night’s chill.
“Even the Sidhe,” she said again gravely.
Before I ruminated any more about Farin’s double meanings, a wave of exhaustion washed over me, weighting down my limbs. My eyes slid closed as sleep pulled me down into its depths.
Chapter 13
Consciousness returned slowly, awareness trickling into my mind like water over a rill. I swallowed thickly and squinted against the bar of sunlight resting over my eyes. Of course one of the only rays of sun that managed to struggle through the canopy of leaves overhead would choose to land directly on my face, I thought grumpily as I pushed myself into a sitting position. Farin, curled into a tight ball, mumbled something and rolled out of the way, her wings fluttering restlessly like the legs of a dog chasing a rabbi
t in its dream. I smiled a little and brushed the hair out of my face, tucking the straggling strands behind my ears unceremoniously.
Vell, sprawled on her side of the fur, made a small sound of protest as I stood. I tucked her blanket back around her and she subsided, her dark hair stuck to her cheeks. She looked oddly child-like asleep, the hard worry gone from her face, her piercing golden gaze tucked away in the folds of slumber. I wondered how much longer she had stayed up tending to the black-and-gray wolf—Rialla, I remembered. I glanced around the small clearing and saw Beryk’s long black form next to Rialla. He raised his head and regarded me solemnly. I pulled on my boots and slipped the strap of the Sword over my head in a movement that was now so natural that I no longer even thought about it.
“How is she?” I murmured, approaching the two wolves with careful, slow steps.
In response, Rialla opened her eyes, transfixing me with an arresting amethyst gaze made more intense by the mask of black fur around her eyes. She looked at me with wary intelligence, a light that had not been there before when we’d glimpsed her in the scrying-stone. The curse had lain like a film of oil over both her and Luca, dimming their minds as it forced them to its will. Now that it was gone, they were almost like entirely different creatures.
“You’re beautiful,” I told Rialla honestly, sinking down to my knees a good distance away.
She gave me a look that plainly said, Flattery will get you nowhere. But her tail twitched across the ground slightly.
I leaned closer, keeping half my awareness on the new wolf, though I was mostly sure that she wouldn’t attack me, not with Beryk right next to her. The collar had singed away the fur around her neck and burned the flesh beneath, leaving a raw, red stripe. In a few places, there were blackened puncture wounds. Those were the places that the Darkness had sent its insidious tentacles into her body. I swallowed hard against the sick feeling rising in my throat. Neat stitches closed the arrow wound in the black-and-gray wolf’s shoulder—Vell’s handiwork. Slightly ironic, given the fact that she had been the one to put the arrow in the wolf.
You shouldn’t ever patch up the people you take apart. Unless of course, that person is me, and in that case patch away.
Ramel’s words echoed unbidden in my head. I could almost see the wicked glimmer in his eyes as he said them, back in the healing room at the barracks before the battle. Before I’d been Bearer. Before he’d left me to escort the Vaelanmavar back to the Dark Court. A sharp pang resonated through me, but I shook myself free of the sadness, pushing away the tears suddenly prickling at the backs of my eyes. There was no need to be sad about Ramel, I told myself fiercely, because I’d see him again soon enough.
“So,” I said, glancing around the little clearing, “is anyone else up or is it just us?”
Rialla ignored me, laying her slender head down on her front paws and closing her amethyst eyes to slits. Beryk, though, looked over my shoulder, his eyes fixed on something in the forest. I turned and after a moment I made out Finnead, his lithe body draped in shadows. He leaned against a tree, one hand resting on the hilt of the Brighbranr. After a moment of hesitation, I walked toward him. His shoulders stiffened at the sound of the leaves crackling beneath my feet.
“Did you sleep at all?” I asked him, my voice carefully neutral.
“Someone has to keep watch,” he replied without looking at me. I glimpsed the bandage on his shoulder, dirty white against the black of his shirt.
“There are four of us for a reason,” I said, scuffing a toe in the dirt idly. “We can rotate taking the watch.”
He didn’t reply, staring out into the dappled forest wordlessly. I studied his profile in the silence: the long dark lashes framing his expressive eyes, lips that had been created for kissing, sharply sculpted cheekbones offset by his strong chin and jaw. Even the way his dark hair curled against his forehead was heartrendingly beautiful. My chest tightened with a nameless ache as the silence stretched between us, broken only by the trills of forest birds and the scuffle of small animals through the underbrush. I remembered the hardness of his muscles beneath my hands as he kissed me, the smooth curve of his shoulders and the gentleness of his lips. I was grateful for the shadows as my face burned in sudden embarrassment. How had I ever expected this enigmatic, beautiful man to fall in love with a mortal girl?
The Sword still slumbered on my back, but I imagined its response to my thoughts: You are the Bearer of the Iron Sword. You are no ordinary mortal girl. And then my own mind added: You are not even wholly mortal anymore. I pushed down the flood of self-pity, determined not to let him see my weakness. Determined not to let him see that he could hurt me. I cleared my throat softly. “How is your shoulder?”
He turned slightly, and I saw the dark circles standing out like blue bruises beneath his eyes, emphasizing the paleness of his skin. I told myself that it was mostly the shadows giving him his gray pallor. “No better, but no worse.” A hint of a bitter smile played at the corner of his mouth.
“I thought the ritual was supposed to heal it.” I tried to hold it back, but worry spilled into my voice. “You shouldn’t be staying up all night if you’re still sick. You should rest.”
“The dryad gave me a brief respite. You and the North-woman were otherwise occupied last night, and the navigator is hardly more than a boy.”
“Merrick can take care of himself,” I protested.
“To a point,” Finnead conceded. “But I do not trust him to take care of—of others.”
“He saved me, you know. When the skin-wraith attacked us back on the path. It leapt for me and he put himself in the way. That was how he hurt his shoulder.”
His face remained marble-smooth, devoid of all expression. “One moment does not prove the trustworthiness of a man.”
“What would he have to do to prove himself to you?” I asked, shaking my head slightly. “He fought in the battle, and he’s done more than his share of planning the journey with his navigation skills.”
Finnead remained silent, his face wreathed in shadows as he turned slightly, angling himself away from the sunlight.
A sudden, irrational impulse seized me. “So.The dryad…that was a nice little show.”
“You watched,” he said, his words like a barb in my chest. He wouldn’t look at me, staring pensively into the shadows.
“It wasn’t as though you chose a particularly private venue,” I pointed out.
“I never said I did. But you did not have to watch.” He glanced at me, the perfect picture of unconcern.
“Did you mean to kill her?” I shoved my thumbs into the waistband of my trousers. Damn Sidhe fashion for not sporting pockets. It made it difficult to occupy my hands during awkward moments.
Finnead’s shoulders tensed. “I knew it was a possibility.”
“So, what, you make out with girls and then kill them? I don’t get it.”
He looked keenly at me. “You must be upset. You haven’t used mortal slang like that in a while.”
“Never mind whether I’m using slang or not,” I snapped, irritated that he read me so easily.
Finnead sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I asked her to help me. She agreed.”
“Help you how?”
“This is shaping up to be quite an inquisition.”
“Just answer the question.”
“As you command, O Lady Bearer.” He sketched a bow toward me with one shoulder, a mimicry of obeisance.
I stiffened, crossing my arms over my chest protectively. “Don’t mock me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He leaned back against the tree almost lazily. “Dryads have healing powers, as I think the North-woman told you. The dryad at the faerie ring agreed to try to help me.”
“You still have poison in your shoulder, even though they performed that awful ritual.” My throat tightened.
“That ‘awful ritual’ usually works very well,” he replied mildly. “But there are other circumstances which I did not account for.�
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“Circumstances like Queen Mab draining power from you and the Vaelanseld?” I asked sharply.
“You’re very perceptive, Tess.”
Not very perceptive when it comes to the really important things, I thought, a jolt running through me at the sound of my name on his lips. “So what can we do? Can we perform the ritual again? Or can Mab heal you from a distance?”
“The Queen struggles to hold off the Shadow, even drawing on the power of her Three,” Finnead said. “I doubt she could heal me even if she so desired.”
“Are you saying she wouldn’t even if she could?” A cold kind of horror bloomed in my chest. “You’ve served her for centuries, you’ve spilled your blood for her…and she wouldn’t heal you?”
“I am sworn to her service,” he said stiffly, his features hardening as his mask fell into place again. “It is a great honor to be chosen as one of the Dark Queen’s Three, and we have always known that if it is required of us, we will give our lives in her service.”
“Giving your life in the service of someone who doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about you doesn’t seem very smart.” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. I wished I could reach out and catch my words before they reached his ears. A coldness settled over him. He looked like a statue carved of marble, hard and perfect.
“I serve my Queen unto death,” he said without looking at me. “And if death is what she requires of me, then I will give my life to her willingly.”
I felt as though I couldn’t breathe. Questions whirled through my mind. Why had he asked the dryad to help him, if he would die willingly? Why had he offered to travel with us on the dangerous road to the Seelie Court, if his loyalty still belonged wholly to Mab? I took a deep, shuddering breath and walked away quickly, stumbling a little over a tree root. I gathered myself, clenching and unclenching my fists at the frustration surging through me.
Vell sat cross-legged on the fur, braiding her dark hair. “You don’t look particularly happy,” she commented as I threw myself down onto the fur beside her.
“Your hair is a lot longer than I thought,” I replied, watching her nimble fingers plait her nearly waist-length hair, letting the sight distract me from the clamor of emotions whirling in my chest.