The Crown of Bones (The Fae War Chronicles Book 2)

by Jocelyn Fox

“My sister already has him, in our home,” she continued silkily. “Do not worry. He is treated as an honored guest. Very honored indeed.” She arched her back suggestively, water sliding over her silvery skin.

  “Finnead wasn’t breathing when you pulled him from the river,” I pointed out in my best business-like voice, despite my shivers and the cold rain. “You essentially saved me a corpse.” I felt the grief straining against me, an ache building in my chest.

  “You think you are clever, little one?” she said, drawing closer still.

  “Cleverer than some,” I replied with a shrug of one shoulder. “And you said all three of us would leave alive and whole.”

  The mermaid narrowed her eyes slightly. “So for what price would you like me to coax him back from the kiss of the river?”

  I squared my shoulders. “You won’t coax him back. You’ll give me your power, and I will.”

  The mermaid looked intrigued. “You think you can take my power from me?”

  “You’re going to give it to me. That’s the bargain.”

  “And in return?” Her eyes were lit by a hungry, otherworldly light. I fought against the urge to take a step backward though all my instincts screamed at me to run from this beautiful perilous creature with the face of an angel and the teeth of a shark. I remembered suddenly the other mermaid, licking at her own blood, and the sensuous pleasure on her face.

  “Blood,” I said.

  Her gaze sharpened.

  “My blood,” I clarified.

  “Done,” she said, and she was upon me so quick that I stumbled backward, half-falling across Finnead’s unmoving form. Rocks bit into my palms but I barely felt the pain as the mermaid’s hands slid over me, caressing me like a lover; except I felt no surge of heat—not because she wasn’t beautiful—she was a gorgeous creature— but because of the naked bloodlust gleaming in her eyes as her hands raked possessively over my body. Her body was surprisingly light, her skin smooth and silky against mine. For a terrible moment I thought she was going to sink her rows of teeth into my neck—her full lips pressed against my skin and I almost jerked away, but she trailed sensuously down my right arm, flicking her tongue against the tender skin just by the bend of my elbow. I gasped at the warmth of her mouth against my wet skin and then bit back a sound of pain as her razor-sharp teeth slid into me. A wave of nausea crashed over me as I felt her tongue lapping up my blood. She gave a moaning sigh of pleasure and pressed closer to me, her inky hair spread across my chest in wet strands.

  Gwyneth’s pendant, pushed over to the side and touching my skin only at the curve of my neck, heated slightly. I felt a strange vibration, not from the pendant but from the four stones I had placed at the four corners of the compass. I freed my right arm from underneath the mermaid and wrapped my hand deep in her hair, ready to pull her away from me. But she clung like a leech, sucking greedily at my arm, and I fought the urge to be sick, panting as weakness flooded my body. There was a cold metallic taste in my mouth and I couldn’t feel my fingers.

  Call to your blood. I thought hazily that it was Gwyneth’s voice instructing me, her pendant hot enough to burn my skin. With the last of my strength I called up a spark of my taebramh, a speck as small as a dandelion seed, and I bent my thoughts to Gwyneth’s words. My taebramh drifted up from someplace near my heart, which I could hear beating in my ears like a faint and distant drum. It slid down my arm, and into the mermaid’s mouth. She lifted her head, blue-black eyes unfocused, my blood painting her full lips red. I stared up at her, panting, blood trickling down my forearm and dripping onto the wet gray rocks.

  Then the mermaid screamed, and the four stones blazed, and I was awash in power as mighty as the rushing Darinwel.

  The mermaid tried to throw herself back into the river, but she hit a wall of fire, a diamond with the four stones at its points. I pushed myself to my knees, my entire body vibrating with the intensity of the power crashing through me.

  “The fire,” the mermaid cried, falling to the rocks, her tail thrashing.

  “Be still,” I commanded, gesturing to her calmly with one hand.

  She collapsed onto the ground, quivering, her chest heaving and her almond-shaped eyes watching me fearfully. Her power hung suspended between us, thick and tangible as a rope. I reached out and grasped it with one hand. The mermaid gave a terrible gasp. I leaned over Finnead and sent my sweeping power through him.

  It was like being pulled through a door. A door into a cold gray world. I felt my Walker-self leave my body, slipping through the portal, one hand still gripping the rope, anchoring me to the mermaid and the power of the river.

  Finnead knelt by the edge of the gray cliffs, right at the edge, closer than I had been with Allene’s poison coursing through my body.

  “Finnead.” I said his name, and his shoulders stiffened. I held out a hand. “Time to go back.”

  He didn’t turn to face me. He was peering down at something beyond the edge of the cliff. “There’s no going back.” His voice was distant. The Brighbranr was still at his hip, but the sapphire in the pommel was dark and lifeless, no gleam of power emanating from its crystalline blue depths.

  I stepped forward, felt the rope slide forward with me, still sturdy. A few more steps and I felt it beginning to thin, but I pressed on. I walked over to Finnead and stood beside him. He didn’t raise his head. I knelt beside him, and followed the gaze of his sapphire eyes.

  A path wound down the side of the gray cliffs, invisible except from right on the edge. I strained my eyes, following the silvery thread down the side of the cliffs until it was lost in the mists. “Where does it go?” I asked softly.

  Finnead shook his head slightly. “That is not for us to know.”

  I knew in my insubstantial bones that if I let him set foot on that path, he would be well and truly dead, unreachable even by my power.

  “We must all travel it, one day,” he murmured, still transfixed.

  “Not like this, though,” I said, more to myself than to him. Then I said to him, “Today is not your day to travel that path, Finnead.”

  He stared down over the cliffs, mesmerized by a vision below us. There was something else I wasn’t seeing. I kept my grip on the rope with one hand but put the other on his shoulder, and after I blinked I saw the ethereal young woman standing below us on the perilous path. Her alabaster skin glowed even in the dim light, and her raven-black hair fell in a cascade down her back, reaching almost to the ground, sharp contrast to the pure-white dress draped about her slender figure. She wore a crown of morning-glories—flowers that bloomed at night—and her luminous eyes held something unfathomable as she gazed up at Finnead. She extended one slender hand beseechingly. Finnead drew in a shuddering breath.

  There was something terrifyingly familiar about the beautiful young woman, something I couldn’t put my finger on until she spoke.

  “Have you forgotten me, my love?”

  Her voice was hounds, and bells, and wind through the trees.

  Mab’s sister, the Unseelie princess murdered by Malravenar.

  At the sound of her voice, Finnead closed his eyes, his shoulders bowing. “Never.” The single word was wrung from him, low and tortured.

  Her name cannot be uttered, even now. Finnead was one of the escort, and it was a task that should have been easy. Even then he had caught Mab’s eye, and there was talk that he might wed her younger sister….He thought she was beautiful, and probably in time he would have loved her. But they didn’t have that time. The murder of the Princess served as Malravenar’s coronation.

  The Unseelie princess beckoned with her slender fingers. “Come, my love. Come and lay with me again under the stars.”

  Finnead stood, his movements stiff and jerky, like a badly made puppet. Suddenly the memory of my father’s voice at the gray cliffs rose up past the scathing jealousy simmering in my chest. I shook my head fiercely and tightened my grip on Finnead’s shoulder.

  “Finnead,” I said, “it’s not her. It’s
not her, it’s the Darkness, trying to lure you in.”

  He looked at me with such confusion that my heart twisted.

  “It’s not her, Finnead. It’s not the princess.”

  Finnead looked back to her. She leaned forward and beckoned him again, and he took a step forward. I gripped his shoulder as hard as I could.

  “If she truly loved you, wouldn’t she want you to live?” I said desperately.

  The Princess’s eyes darkened at my words. Finnead hesitated. He blinked and swayed on his feet. Her eyes flattened to black, like ink spreading through water, as he turned toward me. I pulled him back a step from the edge of the cliff and lost sight of her. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as white mist began to coil around our feet.

  “Finnead, please, look at me.” I risked taking my hand from his shoulder and I pressed my palm to his cheek. “Come back to me. Mab can’t hurt you anymore. You’ll be free of her.”

  A flicker of recognition surfaced in Finnead’s cloudy eyes. He shuddered, and shook himself as if emerging from sleep. Lines of weariness settled into his face again. “Tess?” he whispered hoarsely, brows drawn together in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

  The creature that looked like the Unseelie princess hissed, unseen, from below on the path. The mist thickened, twining around our legs, coalescing into something living and solid. “Never mind what I’m doing here,” I said urgently. “We have to go.”

  “Go…where?” His expression of confusion deepened again.

  With a sound of exasperation I seized his chin in my hand and kissed him hard, pressing my body against his. Even in our insubstantial Walker-forms, heat exploded through us, fire racing through my veins at the feel of his lips on mine. Dimly I heard the creature shriek from the abyss of the cliffs, and with an effort I tore myself away, breathing raggedly.

  “Tess,” Finnead said, and by the way he said my name I knew that he remembered. He reached up with one hand, as if to touch my face. I grabbed his hand and pulled it away.

  “We have to go,” I said again, guiding his hand to the rope of river-power. His sapphire eyes widened. I gave him a push. “Go!”

  We ran. Terrible screams rose from the abyss behind us. The mist suddenly transformed into a slithering solid thing, like snakes about our feet. Finnead stumbled and I unceremoniously hauled him back to his feet, pushing him ahead of me, hoping that we reached the portal before the creature of the cliffs reached us. I felt something in the mist behind us, something gaining on us. With a strange sucking sound, Finnead was suddenly gone in front of me, and as I felt the pull of the portal, the end of the rope of power wrapped around my wrist, I turned and saw the terrible twisted face of the cliff-creature. It still wore the beautiful countenance of the Unseelie princess, but as she was in death—her throat slit, blue blood staining the front of her white gown, eyes cloudy and unseeing. I screamed and then I was through the portal, sliding smoothly back into my body—but she was coming through after me, skeletal hand reaching for me with bloodstained fingers.

  “Let go,” the mermaid gasped.

  I reflexively released the rope of power and it snapped back into the mermaid with a sound like bones breaking and the portal slammed shut. Beneath me Finnead convulsed, and I scrambled to help him as he choked on river-water.

  “Thank God,” I said, weak with relief. He pushed himself to his knees and I put his arm about my shoulders as he almost fell back onto the rocks. He coughed and spit more water, finally drawing huge noisy breaths. The Brighbranr pulsed with a slow, steady blue light at his side.

  I looked over my shoulder at the mermaid. She was still stretched out over the river-rocks—whether it was still from my command, or fear, or exhaustion, I couldn’t tell. “You have had my blood,” I said to her steadily. “Now where is Luca?”

  “Release me and I will bring him to you,” the mermaid replied in a strangled voice. There was still something akin to fear lingering in her eyes.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  The mermaid hissed at me. I raised my eyebrows and waited.

  “Riadne,” she answered sulkily. “Your golden one is with my sister Theles.” She twitched her tail—it seemed to be the most movement she could manage. “Release me and I will take you to him.”

  “Which is it, you will bring him to us or you will take us to him?” I asked suspiciously.

  Finally finished retching water, Finnead raised his head and stiffened as he saw the mermaid. In a movement so lightning-fast that I would have been hard pressed to believe he’d been as good as dead a moment ago, he pushed me roughly behind him and drew the Brighbranr, pointing it steadily at Riadne. She bared her teeth and hissed at him from the rocks.

  “You’re not so seductive, now that you’ve tasted my blood,” I commented.

  The four stones still pulsed with latent power, like rocks releasing the sun’s heat after dark falls. I watched them glow slightly for a moment and then picked up the eastern stone gingerly, expecting it to be hot, but it was cool to the touch. Keeping Finnead at the corner of my vision and giving Riadne a wide berth, I retrieved the other three stones and dropped them into my belt-pouch again, feeling their power quiet as they clacked against the other stones. An odd feeling rippled over the rocky shoreline, something akin to releasing a breath held for a long while.

  “I should spear you where you lay, siren,” Finnead said coolly, advancing a long stride toward Riadne.

  Her lips curled from the rictus of a snarl to the soft curve of her sensuous smile as she gazed up at Finnead. She pushed herself up off the rocks with all the languor and self-satisfaction of a cat stretching. Funny, that she made me think of cats, I thought distractedly, when cats hate water, and she was a water creature…

  “Put away your sword, and perhaps I shall let you spear me, my handsome knight,” Riadne purred, her low voice rolling over us like a sheet of velvet, like a silken rope drawing us closer. “And perhaps your young mortal will watch…or join in…”

  Finnead sheathed the Brighbranr dazedly. Even the Bright Sword’s silver song whispered of silky bare skin and steel. Riadne slithered up onto her tail, silvery scales gleaming in the grey mist of the river, alabaster shoulders glowing white beneath the tumble of her tresses. I leaned forward, captivated by the slide of water down her hips.

  “Or perhaps,” she continued, her voice melting over us, caressing us with every syllable, “we shall adjourn to our home beneath the waves, and reunite you with your golden one.” She slid forward and caressed Finnead’s cheek, her long slender fingers lingering on the strong curve of his jaw. My breath hitched. I wanted to feel her skin upon mine, to let her trail her lips down my neck again—but this time I would savor the sensation, let her beauty overcome me as I should have done the first time. My feet moved of their own accord, carrying me toward her.

  Riadne laid her lips upon the tender spot where Finnead’s pulse jumped in his neck. His hands clenched and unclenched as he tilted his head back, eyes closing and lips parting. The siren slid her arms about him and caught him effortlessly as his head dropped. She gazed at me over his shoulder as she laid him on the ground. I blinked, a twinge of concern suddenly piercing the silvery haze of beauty and want.

  “What…?” I breathed, brow creasing in confusion, and then she was close enough to touch, her eyes the crushing blackness of ocean depths, of starless skies, nights without light. Cold darkness, I thought disjointedly as her graceful hands caressed my arms.

  “Such a beautiful young thing,” she sang in her melodic voice. The darkness in her eyes deepened. “But you should have thought twice before releasing me from your blood-spell, young mortal.” She leaned close, drawing me to her bare chest in a deadly embrace, whispering her words into my ear, her warm breath upon my neck sending shivers down my spine. “Steel and fire cannot save you from the tides of desires in your own heart.”

  As she drew back, a hot flash of pain burst in my leg as her tail slid against the claw-marks. I g
asped, the veil of seduction torn away by agony, panic flaring through me. I tried to push her away, raising my arms, but she pinned me to her chest with amazing strength, her slender arms like bands of iron, and then she kissed me brutally on the mouth. The burst of pain quickly subsided under a wave of delirious contentment. Her kiss gentled, soothing my bruised lips with sweetness. Lightness suffused my limbs. My arms and legs were insubstantial, boneless; and the last thing I heard as I slid into the welcoming blackness was the siren’s soft, sensuous voice, singing me to sleep.

  Chapter 17

  Silver bubbles flowed past like a stream of pearls. I was flying. Swimming. But I wasn’t moving, because I was sleeping….an arm about my chest, and a huge gleaming tail slicing through the water. I awoke from the dream all in a rush, opening my eyes wider, lucidity returning in a terrifying whirl as I stared into the white-and-blue rush of the Darinwel. One hand twitched as I instinctively reached for my knife—but I stopped myself as the siren turned her head toward me, still swimming with supernatural speed through the water. I didn’t need to breathe somehow—some effect of the siren’s poisonous kiss. So I forced down the fear clawing at my belly and let myself go limp and boneless against her side as we rushed toward the siren’s lair.

  She carved a sharp turn through the water and I was able to turn my head just enough to see Finnead. Through my blurred vision I couldn’t tell much, only that it looked as though he was still unconscious from the siren’s kiss. As we sliced through the water, drawing closer to the siren’s lair with every stroke of her powerful tail, I took stock of my options.

  The siren’s spell had taken effect only after I had released her from the blood-spell; I doubted I could trick her into drinking my blood again, and it wasn’t a very savory prospect from my perspective anyway. Her poisonous kiss affected me much less than the Sidhe, but who knew how it affected Northerners—Luca could be wide awake when we arrived at the lair, or he could still be cocooned within the suffocating spell of desire.

  Vell and Merrick would be looking for us, of that much I was sure, but the odds that they would find the sirens’ lair…that I wasn’t sure. Perhaps Merrick could use his map and scrying-stone, but I couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t some sort of glamour concealing the lair from sight. I couldn’t count on their help until we were free of the sirens’ grasp and back on the bank of the river. Even then, I would have to ensure that we were on the right side of the Darinwel.