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

by Jocelyn Fox

  I had struck a deal with Riadne, but the sirens no doubt thought of truthfulness and honor in a slippery sort of way. Resolve hardened in my chest. I would kill them before I would let them harm Luca or Finnead, and if they did not stand by their word, I would kill them to secure our freedom. Every moment wasted in their lair was a moment that the Seelie Court slipped closer to falling to the Darkness. Malravenar’s forces were growing in strength, as evidenced by their presence at the Borderlands, so close to both Seelie and Unseelie territory.

  Riadne’s speed through the water slowed. As the effect of the siren’s kiss faded, my lungs began to burn with the need for air, and I desperately hoped that we were close to their lair, and I wouldn’t be forced to show my hand. The cold rush of the river calmed into a gentler current around us. Riadne arced up toward the surface, carrying us with her, and we broke the surface just as spots danced behind my eyes. The first breath was more water than air but I suppressed my cough and surreptitiously glanced at our surroundings.

  We had emerged in a lagoon, the surface still except for the ripples about our bodies as Riadne towed us toward a rock ledge. The stone of the cave arced overhead like a cathedral ceiling, white and sparkling, striated with veins of deep blue and purple. Around the edges of the lagoon, pockets were carved out of the rock, grottoes decorated with bits of shimmering colored glass and candles perched on ledges, and some oddly shaped rocks arranged in patterns, some suspended by fine thread from the arched ceilings of the grottoes. Shallow water covered the floors of the grottoes, and I realized that they were the individual rooms of the sirens. I counted quickly—almost a dozen. My heart sank. But then I looked closer and saw that at least half of the grottoes seemed unused, their candles melted down to blackened wicks and their bits of glass scavenged by the lair’s other inhabitants. As we passed one on our way to the ledge, I stealthily peered at it. The glass was benign enough, colored glass most likely picked from the depths of the Darinwel and arranged in patterns pleasing to the sirens. A few broken gold rings and bangles covered one small ledge, and two candles occupied another stone shelf. But then I got a closer look at the oddly shaped rocks: a few were hung from the ceiling of the grotto, and others were laid out in a symmetrical pattern on a low, broad shelf, the smaller stones grouped about a large, round stone. And then, like when the image in a puzzle becomes suddenly and painfully clear and you wonder why you couldn’t see it before, I realized that the large round rock was a skull missing its lower jaw, staring hollowly out at me amid a carefully arranged mosaic of bleached bones.

  A horrified shiver ran down my spine and goose-bumps flooded my skin. I fought the instinct to fight the sirens right then and there. Riadne’s grin, showing her pointed shark-teeth, flashed through my mind’s-eye. Any death dealt by the sirens would be slow and torturous, for they loved blood and pain almost as much as desire and lust.

  “We thought you had bargained away these two,” purred an unfamiliar voice as Riadne approached the ledge. The second siren grasped Finnead by the shoulders, her creamy-white hands digging into his flesh as she dragged him up onto the ledge. Riadne slithered up onto her huge tail and hauled me behind her. I had to force myself to stay still as the Sword’s sheath dug painfully into my back. Riadne pulled me onto the ledge until my torso was out of the water, my boots still half-floating in the lagoon.

  “Bargains are made to be broken, are they not, Theles?” answered Riadne with a silvery laugh.

  Theles. The siren who had taken Luca. I gazed up at the shimmering white rock overhead, still allowing them to think I was under their spell. If I could see where they were holding Luca, then I could formulate a plan, but I couldn’t risk looking about, not with two of them so close.

  “With three, each of us may taste sweet flesh,” Theles murmured. One of them stroked her hands through my sodden hair, laying it out about my head in a carefully arranged halo of damp waves.

  “They are young and strong,” said Riadne, her tail sliding by me on the rocks as she presumably attended to Finnead in the same manner. “There will be ample time for us to share.”

  “What a pleasant surprise for Ligeia, when she returns,” agreed Theles.

  “We shall arrange them beautifully, for her to feast her eyes upon when she first arrives home,” Riadne said breathily. “Bring the third one. She shall be the centerpiece, with her two men on either side—one light and one dark.”

  “It shall be a beautiful contrast. You are ever the artist, sister mine!” replied Theles.

  I heard Theles slither away behind us, presumably into the dark passageway.

  “Now then,” said Riadne contemplatively. Her beautiful face hovered right at the edge of my vision; then she leaned over me, taking my chin in her long fingers and turning my head from side to side. One long finger ran lightly over the scar across my cheek, and then skated down to Gwyneth’s pendant at the hollow of my throat. She lifted the pendant and turned it in her fingers, examining it. For a terrible moment I thought Riadne was going to take it, to hang among the baubles in her grotto; but she made a disappointed sound and let it fall back down against my skin. She did make a delighted sound when she discovered the emerald war-markings on my right arm. Her long fingers traced the whorls on the back of my hand and my palm.

  Riadne continued in her examination, like a prospective buyer examining a piece of art before purchase. She hissed softly when she found the claw-marks on my thigh. Pulling herself up so that she was even with my face again, she peered down at me and tapped my cheek with two fingers. “Awake now,” she said.

  My heart hammering in my chest, I blinked and let some of the glazed look drain from my face—but not all, since I was still supposedly under the spell of her kiss.

  “Does your leg hurt, my pet?” Riadne murmured.

  “Yes,” I answered in a low, drugged voice, keeping my face blank of expression.

  “How delicious,” she purred, one slender hand gripping my thigh and squeezing. A jolt of fiery pain flashed through my leg and I heard my breath leave me in a gasp of agony. “Broken toys are sometimes much more fun.”

  Well, there went my slim hope that perhaps the sirens would piece us back together before tearing us apart with their shark-like teeth. I took a few deep breaths, allowing a strange dream-like smile to float across my lips and hoping that the sirens’ drugged victims reacted with pleasure to their infliction of pain.

  Theles appeared to my left, dragging Luca across the ledge behind her, one delicate hand gripping his bound wrists mercilessly. He was naked from the waist up, the burn on his chest standing out vividly against his pale skin. A myriad of bruises mottled his ribs, though whether they were from the battle or the sirens or both, I couldn’t tell. Theles laid him by my left side, so that Luca was on my left and Finnead on my right. His eyes were closed, his golden hair almost dry, curling against his temples.

  Riadne slid over to Luca, her slender hands running down the muscled length of his torso, lingering on his broad shoulders and the carved hollows just beside his hipbones. His eyelids fluttered at her touch.

  “He is waking,” said Theles, watching from near Luca’s legs. I let my head fall to the side. Theles gazed at Luca with hunger in her eyes, her green-tinted tresses curling about her shoulders. She was slimmer than Riadne, her tail more slender and the fin a deep green rather than the silver-and-purple of Riadne’s coloring. Riadne sat by Luca’s waist, her back to me and her tail half-curled beneath her like a woman lounging with her legs tucked to one side. She leaned over Luca as his eyes opened.

  The two sirens pinned Luca down with lightning-fast speed as he lashed out at them, Theles gripping his legs and Riadne slamming his shoulders down onto the rock of the ledge with brutal strength, one of her hands pinning his bound wrists above his head. He arched his back and snarled, twisting in their grip.

  “Do not fight us,” Riadne commanded.

  “I do not fear death, temptress,” Luca growled. He freed one leg and kicked Theles solidly i
n the chest, knocking the siren back into the water of the lagoon. Riadne lifted his torso and slammed him down into the rock again. She reared up and dealt him a stunning blow to the chest with her massive tail. He gasped for breath but his ice-blue eyes still burned with anger.

  She moved and let him glimpse Finnead and me. His eyes widened and as his gaze connected with mine, I let the glazed look leave my eyes, hoping against hope that he’d realize I wasn’t under the sirens’ spell. He blinked and then nodded ever so slightly. Theles emerged from the water of the lagoon hissing, her pointed teeth bared in a snarl of anger. She moved quick as thought and tore Luca from Riadne’s grasp, rearing up on her tail and gripping Luca by the throat, lifting him until his boots no longer touched the ground. She shook him like a rag doll, his face turning even paler as she choked him.

  “Theles, control yourself,” said Riadne mildly, twisting a lock of her hair around one slender finger.

  Theles dropped Luca, who collapsed to the stone of the ledge, coughing.

  “Obviously this one cares nothing for himself,” continued Riadne, jerking on Luca’s bound wrists as she dragged him back over to his place by my side. She slithered over to me. “But you cannot be so out of practice that you do not recognize his weakness.”

  Her hand darted over me and seized my leg. I couldn’t help the small sound of pain that escaped past my clenched teeth. Luca growled.

  “You see? Her pain is much more useful,” Riadne purred, her hand sliding up my thigh, caressing my hip.

  “We should put him under again,” Theles said, a hint of a snarl still in her voice. “At least until Ligeia returns.”

  “No,” said Riadne. “One of them should be awake, to witness the others’ pain.”

  “I do not see why,” Theles said sulkily, sliding back into the water of the lagoon with a small splash.

  “Because,” Riadne replied, her voice sliding from sharp to sweet, “I did not ever say we would wait for Ligeia to begin our fun.”

  Panic rippled through me. The sirens weren’t only interested in seduction and pleasure. They were darker, more dangerous in their intertwined love of pain and lust. I tentatively reached for the Sword, my own taebramh flickering behind my breastbone like a shielded candle-flame. I didn’t expect the Sword to answer, but to my surprise and intense relief its power uncurled into the familiar spot between my ribs, filling my chest and vibrating through my bones. My war-markings flared and glowed emerald. My whole body tensed as Riadne’s head snapped toward me. Theles slid out of the water smoothly, fascinated by the patterns swirling across my skin.

  “I have never seen a glowing one before,” she commented, her voice suddenly child-like and intrigued. She reached for my arm. Riadne slapped her sister’s hand away.

  “Do not touch her,” she hissed. “She has the power of blood-spells, and the Dark One knows what else.”

  “Perhaps you would have seen fit to tell me that before,” Theles said silkily, baring her pointed teeth in the suggestion of a snarl. She cocked her head as she looked down at me, combing her slender fingers through her lavender tresses. “And why are we keeping such a dangerous little thing alive?”

  “Because,” said Riadne, trailing her fingers down Luca’s chest even as he strained away from her touch, “she is the key to them both. She bargained for both their lives, and they would do the same for her.” She straightened, a devious look settling across her beautiful face. “And who knows, my sister. Perhaps with such power the Dark One will give us some sort of reward if we bring her to him alive.”

  Theles balked at Riadne’s mention of Malravenar, hiding her face behind her hair. “I do not see why we owe allegiance to him. I do not like it. We are daughters of the river.”

  “We are daughters of the river, dwindling in number,” Riadne replied, “and if we wish to remain alive, and perhaps one day fill the White Cave with daughters of our flesh, we must ally ourselves with the Dark One. He has laid his hand across the Bright Lands, and soon will reach into the Dark Lands and smite down their ruler. And then his gaze will turn again to the North, and the Borderlands, the wild places where creatures roam free.” There was a sort of sadness in Riadne’s voice as she spoke, I noticed with interest. “He will bring us all under his power, eventually. But those of us who pledge ourselves to him at the beginning…there will be less pain, and more reward.”

  “Or less freedom and more servitude,” murmured Theles.

  I felt the Sword listening. Questions raced through my mind, one after another. If the sirens were in league with Malravenar’s forces, how did they not know of me? How did they not know that the Dark sorcerer had trapped us on the bridge, and we had chosen the river rather than capture? They were clever, but what would they gain by feigning ignorance? And…most importantly, what would they say if I revealed myself and offered to reward them for their allegiance?

  What could I offer them? Part of my mind scoffed at the idea. It would be an insane, dangerous gamble, and I would risk revealing us all to Malravenar, neatly packaged in the White Cave, just waiting for him to come and retrieve us. But the sirens, assuming they were in league with him, would reveal us anyway.

  I would either have to convince them to switch their allegiance, or kill them.

  Turning my attention back to the sirens’ conversation, I realized that they were answering a few of my questions without any prompting at all from me.

  “So what does he demand as tribute?” Theles asked.

  “Ligeia will tell us when she returns,” replied Riadne.

  “If she returns,” Theles said darkly.

  “Do not wish ill upon our sister,” Riadne reprimanded the younger siren.

  “I am not wishing ill upon her. I am saying that we trust this Dark power far too easily.”

  “She speaks truth,” Luca said, his voice hoarse and gravelly.

  For a moment Riadne looked as though she was going to strike him, rage flashing across her beautiful face, but then she sat back, her tail sweeping from side to side thoughtfully. “What experience do you have with the Dark One, my golden morsel?” she asked, the seductive velvet layer added to her voice again. Luca blinked and struggled against it but his breath came shallow and fast as the siren’s power caressed him.

  “I was…captured,” he breathed. “Enslaved.”

  “That is the fate of those who resist,” Riadne said, but Theles’ eyes widened a fraction as she listened. I watched the younger siren carefully.

  “No,” panted Luca, a shiver rolling through his body as Riadne’s words stroked his skin. “It is the fate…of all.” He moaned, half in pleasure and half in protest, as Riadne ran her hands over his hard body. Her tail obscured my view of Luca from mid-torso down, and I was glad, because her hands disappeared below his waist and he arched his back against the white stone of the ledge.

  “Let him speak, sister,” Theles said, more commanding than I had heard her yet.

  “Oh,” purred Riadne, her eyes alight,“he does not want to speak anymore.” She leaned over Luca and he made an inarticulate sound of want. “Come and join, sister.” She smiled coyly over at Theles. An answering hunger ignited in Theles’ eyes, but the younger siren shook herself and crossed her arms over her beautiful bare chest, a pout upon her lips. Riadne shrugged her alabaster shoulders and leaned over Luca, one of her hands pinning his bound wrists over his head and the other still where I couldn’t see. Luca’s eyes rolled back and for a moment he seemed to succumb. Riadne pressed herself closer to him, and suddenly a silver flash lit the cave, blinding me. When my vision cleared, I blinked hard to make sure my vision had indeed returned: Riadne’s huge silvery tail had disappeared, replaced by shapely legs. Just like there were no colored seashells fashioned into a top to preserve her modesty, she was naked from the waist down as well, every inch of her just as beautiful and deadly.

  My eyes widened. I couldn’t help it. Riadne glanced down at her bare legs in satisfaction and leaned over Luca, kissing him deeply. I watched i
n horrified fascination—what good would it be putting Luca under the poisonous kiss of the siren when she clearly wanted to use him to satisfy her own lust? But Luca didn’t fall unconscious, instead breathing sounds of desire into the siren’s kiss. She straddled his hips and I looked away. I couldn’t watch any more. I had to do something.

  I turned my head and met Finnead’s alert, piercing gaze.

  “Our Northman is putting on quite a show,” he murmured, barely loud enough for me to hear lying a mere arm’s length away.

  “You’re one to talk,” I breathed back, arching one eyebrow.

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “Plan?”

  I shrugged slightly.

  Suddenly a slender hand pinned down one of my shoulders and one of Finnead’s shoulders. Theles peered down at us, her almond-shaped eyes narrowing. “You are awake,” she hissed. Her eyes slid past us, over to Luca and Riadne. I tried hard to ignore the sounds coming from their direction.

  “You are blushing,” commented Theles with a sly smile, her lavender hair brushing against my shoulder as she leaned closer. “How quaint.”

  “Well, you’ll have to excuse me,” I retorted. “It’s not every day two of my friends and I are simultaneously seduced by sirens.” I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe you should consider expanding the grotto, here, if you want to take on more than one client at a time. It would really add to the comfort, I think—”

  Theles slapped me. My ears rang and I blinked away spots from the edge of my vision.

  “We are not some common whores who sleep with men for coin,” she hissed, her eyes black with rage.