by Jocelyn Fox
“She has blood-power,” Riadne spat. She glared at me. “I had little choice.”
I shrugged. “We made the deal before you drank my blood, if I remember correctly.”
Theles’ eyes darkened. “Their flesh is sweet and their beauty could have sated us for a long while to come. With the Shadow approaching, who knows when we would have had such a feast again?” Her own pointed teeth gleamed in the half-light of the White Cave. “But you, sister, had to make a bargain in blood. A bargain bound not only by word alone, which is easily enough broken.”
“I will not argue with you, impudent stripling,” Riadne said dismissively. It was hard to look haughty and detached when there’s a sword at one’s throat and a Sidhe knight wrenching back one’s head by the hair, but somehow the siren managed it.
“Stripling, am I, sister mine?” Theles’ eyes narrowed. “Only the three of us left in this river, and still you would call me so?” She slithered forward, her eyes glimmering dangerously. Riadne kicked one slender bare leg ineffectually, struggling against Finnead’s hold. Luca still watched the water, now calming, smoothing into still glass again—except now we knew that there was a serpentine monster beneath the glass, waiting to lunge at us again. I looked beyond Theles and Finnead, to the tunnel that I had glimpsed, and I touched Gwyneth’s pendant, asking the question in my mind.
Theles advanced upon her sister, eyes sharp as a dagger, her slender hands alarmingly still by her sides as she moved, like the coiled pause of a snake before it strikes.
“You strike a deal with the Dark One on our behalf,” murmured Theles as she closed the distance inch by sinuous inch, “though that will put us under the power of the Shadow.” She bared her pointed teeth in a silent snarl. “And then you lead such beautiful morsels back to tempt us with their innocence and their youth, but again you forget the dangers of inviting powers not our own into bed with us.”
“Tess,” murmured Luca warningly. I risked a glance over my shoulder. A single ripple rolled over the glass-smooth surface of the lagoon. Luca motioned and I moved slowly away from the ledge, putting more distance between the water and me. Now Theles, advancing on her sister and Finnead, was between us and the tunnel. I eyed the distance. The sirens were blasted fast.
“And now,” Theles said, “your little golden-haired morsel has stolen your precious bargaining chip.” Her voice rose with every word, nearing a shriek, that manic gleam entering her eyes. “So now what will we offer the Shadow?”
I whirled as there was a quick wet sound from behind me. Ligeia pulled herself from the water in one quick graceful motion, sheets of water cascading from her massive tail. The serpent portion of her body was almost twice Theles’ size. Luca leapt back and blocked her path to me.
“To break a blood pact you must kill the one who made it,” Theles hissed, her eyes still fastened on Riadne.
Riadne gave an inhuman snarl and twisted furiously in Finnead’s grasp. I glanced over at him and our gazes connected for a bare second. I understood what he was about to do.
I pivoted and seized Luca’s arm. “Toward the tunnel!”
Ligeia swung her massive tail and Luca tackled me, throwing us both to the hard stone of the grotto floor. I rolled over and saw her tail sweeping back toward us and thrust out my long dagger. The dagger buried itself to the hilt in her tail and I wrenched it sideways with all my strength, despite the painful shock that vibrated through my entire body. The blow still lifted both of us into the air. I tried to land as Ramel had taught me, taking the impact on my forearms and rolling, but I was tangled up in Luca. One of his boots slammed into my side and I gasped as pain flashed across my ribs. But we needed to get up. We needed to get up and get to the tunnel before Theles killed Riadne, because then we would well and truly be fair game for the remaining two sirens.
I scrabbled onto my hands and knees, pulling Luca up as best I could. He pushed me ahead of him and we turned just in time to see Theles launch herself at Riadne. Finnead pivoted, bringing Riadne with him, barely evading the reach of the younger siren.
“Go!” I shouted as we dodged around him, my injured leg no more than an irritation in the back of my mind with the adrenaline surging through my body. Luca reached the mouth of the tunnel before me and slid to a stop. We glanced back. Finnead held Riadne before him like a shield—or bait. With the cat-quick speed of the Sidhe, he threw the siren toward the lagoon. She tumbled end-over-end with a shriek. Theles darted after her with a snarl and Finnead turned and sprinted toward us, his long legs eating up the distance with quick strides.
I scrambled into the tunnel, tripping on the uneven stone floor. It sloped upward at a painful angle and I used my hands to balance, climbing as quickly as I could. I felt Luca pushing me from behind, catching my foot when I slipped, urging me on with Northern words. Terrible screams cut through the tunnel from down below. I shuddered and wanted to be sick. What kind of creatures killed their own sister, their own blood, to release a spell? The image of Theles’ pointed teeth stained with green ichor passed unbidden through my mind’s eye and curdled my stomach. I tasted bile in the back of my throat with each rasping breath. My palms stung, scraped against the stone, and in the grayish light I saw dark stains, half-moon handprints.
“Quickly,” urged Finnead from behind Luca.
I poured what little strength I had left into climbing. Riadne’s screams faded into a gasping gurgle, and then silence. I strained to hear the sound of scales slithering over rock, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat booming in my ears.
“They’re coming,” said Luca.
Blue light blossomed behind me. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw Finnead, his eyes sapphire flames, his dark hair alight with the sheen of the Aurora, his beautiful face grim with determination.
“If they take me,” he said to Luca, “all I ask is that she lives, and is safe.”
“Upon my life I swear it,” Luca replied in a low voice, and the two men clasped each other’s forearms briefly.
“Nobody is going anywhere,” I told them both fiercely, voice breaking, and redoubled my efforts. Larger rocks studded the floor of the tunnel, paths worn smooth around them for sinuous bodies, like water carves out the riverbed.
“Faster,” said Luca, “if you want us all to live.”
I gave a wordless sound of determination in answer. My leg throbbed, adrenaline fading into a dusty desperation. I missed a foothold and fell, gashing my elbow against a sharp ledge. I swallowed a sob and reached for the Sword. Please. I need help.
And for once, without any sly words or sage wisdom, the Sword gave me a pulse of raw energy. I shuddered as it ripped through me, my body convulsing as the rough power coursed through my limbs. I took a breath and attacked the climb, heedless of the blood dripping down my wrists from my palms. I felt like a wild creature, like a fox or a ferret, winding through the hidden places between rocks, springing up the tunnel with lithe grace. Luca gave half a Northern battle-cry from behind me and kept pace, and Finnead’s blue light washed over everything as he leapt up the tunnel behind Luca, his Sidhe speed barely tested by my Sword-given swiftness.
“Almost fast enough,” breathed Finnead.
The crashing sounds of the furious sirens in pursuit reached my ears. I gritted my teeth. Even with the Sword’s push, my lungs burned. We had to be nearly there. I held onto that thought tightly, that slim thread of hope.
Suddenly the tunnel evened, no longer an upward climb. I stretched my legs and ran as fast as I dared, eyes straining to make out stalactites, one hand poised in front of my face. A faint pinprick of light appeared ahead, a luminous outline. I felt Luca’s solid form right behind me. The sirens were close. Luca jerked me to one side as a rock the size of my head hurtled past.
The sirens were close, and they were angry.
Luca grunted as a smaller rock hit him in the shoulder, but he didn’t stumble.
A furious shriek filled the tunnel, making me want to clamp my hands over my ears. The compuls
ion was so strong that my knees half-buckled but I shook my head fiercely and pushed toward the light. But why was it a halo and not a…? My heart sank. “There’s a rock over the entrance,” I panted.
Luca slid past me and ran full speed, swift as a wolf at the hunt. In the dimness I saw him lower his shoulder and strain against the stone. The hideous strength of the sirens in evidence once again, I thought—trust them to use a boulder that a Northman couldn’t easily move.
“Move your sword,” I gasped, and put my shoulder to the rock, lower than Luca, using my good leg to push for all I was worth. I felt the boulder shift, just a fraction, and I put my injured leg to the ground, ignoring the flash of pain, digging in as much as I could against the loose rocks of the tunnel floor.
And then Finnead was on my other side, putting his shoulder to the rock, the Brighbranr held high in his other hand. I made a sound of encouragement as the boulder shifted a fraction more and we all strained, breath rasping in our throats, sounds of effort escaping us. Sweat stung my eyes.
“All together. One, two…three,” said Finnead, and the boulder began to roll.
The sirens were upon us, their furious faces white in the dimness, their serpentine bodies stretched low to the ground in the tunnels.
“Again!” I cried, and we heaved against the boulder. Finnead slashed at the face of one of the sirens and she shrieked. The other siren threw herself at Finnead, crushing him against the boulder with terrible impact. I kept pushing as Luca lunged for the siren, pulling her off the Vaelanbrigh with a roar.
I strained against the rock, my legs working as hard as though I was running up a hill, and the boulder rolled away so suddenly that I fell, only barely getting my hands in front of my face to catch myself.
“Go!” shouted Luca, wielding my sword with a snarl and holding up Finnead with the other arm. Finnead had dropped the Brighbranr, I noticed, the world slowing. It pulsed with sapphire light. I slid forward, my hand closing around its hilt, and then I scrambled to my feet and tumbled headlong out of the tunnel.
I slid down the steep embankment and by some miracle didn’t impale myself on the Brighbranr. I heard one of the sirens shriek again. As I slid to a stop, I looked up and saw Luca running swiftly down the embankment with Finnead’s arm thrown over his shoulder. One of the sirens, her face a ruin of greenish blood, tried to follow, but her tail was too large to fit through the opening we had made and she shrieked, thrashing. The boulder rocked.
Gwyneth’s pendant heated against my skin. I turned and it pricked me sharply. I turned the other way and it sent me a wave of encouragement. “This way,” I said, and Luca followed without even a questioning look.
We ran. Blazes of pain radiated from my leg. The Darinwel rushed alongside us. My lungs burned and with every stride I thought that my leg might give out, but somehow miraculously I kept running. The Brighbranr glowed blue in my hand, its sapphire light touching my war-markings wonderingly, stroking my skin softly. Finally we rounded a sharp bend in the river. Luca slowed. I looked behind us, searching the gray rocks for any flash of serpentine scales, but found none.
“They’re not following,” I said, gulping down huge breaths, chest aching.
Luca helped Finnead sit against a large rock, and then turned back, standing stock still and scanning our path with his ice blue eyes, my ichor-stained sword held watchfully. I limped over to Finnead, trying to hide my grimace as I knelt, my injured leg refusing to yield. I kept it straight and leaned against the rock, inching myself down to the ground on my good leg.
“You’re hurt,” he said.
“So are you,” I said conversationally, looking him over with a critical eye. “Let me see your shoulder.”
His eyes fastened on the Brighbranr. I sighed and placed his sword in his upturned hand; but other than moving his hand slightly, he stayed uncharacteristically still. The shudder of the rock as the siren hurtled into him vibrated through my bones again. I slid closer and pulled aside the cloth of his shirt, unsheathing my knife to cut through the sodden remnants of Vell’s dressing on his shoulder. The wounds from the syivhalla’s talons and the blood-spelled knife still looked starkly raw, but the sickly green and blue cast of the skin about the wound was gone, as were the black threads reaching from his shoulder towards his heart.
Finnead leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes as I searched through my beltpouch. We didn’t have a dry scrap of cloth between the three of us, so rather than bandage the wound I found what herbs were left in the disintegrating packets of my healer’s kit and crushed them in my palm. With a surreptitious glance at Luca, who was still gazing watchfully about, I poured a liberal dose of my taebramh into my hand, thinking of healing, knitting bone and flesh together again, wounds reduced to flat white scars on supple skin. The paste glowed for a moment and then faded. I felt another layer of exhaustion settle onto my shoulders, but if it could take away the harrowed look on the Vaelanbrigh’s face, it would be worth it.
Finnead shifted when I applied the paste to his shoulder with two fingers. A sigh escaped his lips—barely noticeable, but then again, most Sidhe emotions were barely noticeable. He opened his eyes, brow creasing, as I leaned closer, covering the ugly raw wounds with the paste. I paused. “Does it hurt?” I asked softly, suddenly very aware of his closeness, the deepness of his eyes, the curve of his lips.
“Yes,” he murmured, “but in a different way.” The crease in his brow deepened, and then he looked at me with something close to wonder in his eyes. “She’s gone. I can’t feel her.”
“Mab?” I clarified, still working.
“I…I am still the Vaelanbrigh, but I am no longer one of her Three,” he said. He looked down at me, an unfathomable emotion running through his eyes like a swift current. “If I am not one of her Three, who am I?”
I finished with his shoulder and experimentally rubbed the remnants of the paste onto one of the puncture wounds on my injured leg. The pain receded from a torrent to a slow pulse. Looking back at Finnead, I told him, “You are Finnead, a Knight of the Unseelie Court. You are the Vaelanbrigh. You wield the Brighbranr.”
He glanced down at the Brighbranr.
“But,” I continued with a small smile, “you are much more than that.” My voice dropped lower. “You are the Sidhe who introduced me to Faeortalam. You saved my life and defied the Queen to do it, and now you’re defying her again, traveling with me to the Seelie Court.” I paused. “I’d say it’s high time you’re free of her.”
He blinked and then the hint of an answering smile touched his lips. We gazed at each other for a long moment, the spare space between us tightening with heat. Then I cleared my throat and rearranged his shirt over his shoulder, reminding myself of our conversation after the battle in the Royal Woods. Finnead didn’t want any distractions, and I couldn’t afford to lose focus, not when the fate of an entire world was resting on my shoulders. I shivered a little and sat back, avoiding looking at my leg.
“Let me see your hand,” I said to Luca. “It needs to be rewrapped, at the very least.”
“After I tend to your leg,” he countered. At my scowl, he continued, “All ulfdrengr are trained as healers. We must be able to tend to the wounds of our comrades and our brothers and sisters of the pack.”
“I will keep watch,” Finnead said.
“You couldn’t stand just a moment ago,” I protested.
The Vaelanbrigh gave half a shrug. “I feel much improved.”
Luca gave my sword a cursory cleaning, wiping the green ichor from the blade before sheathing it and offering Finnead his hand. I noted the way the Vaelanbrigh’s free hand reflexively curled around his ribs when he stood, but I said nothing. He was a Sidhe and a Knight of the Unseelie Court; he had endured much worse and with much less care in his time, I was sure.
Finnead adjusted his grip on the Brighbranr, scanning the rocky gray banks of the Darinwel. Luca knelt by my side. Wordlessly I handed him my healer’s satchel, a sick knot forming in the pi
t of my stomach.
“I might have a bit of trouble,” I said, swallowing back the bitter taste in my mouth, “when you touch it.”
“All the more reason to do it now,” Luca replied evenly. He unwrapped the trailing bandage from his right hand. “Wash this in the river,” he told Finnead.
The Vaelanbrigh’s eyes flashed at being given an order from the Northman, but he took the soiled bandage without comment. I thought I saw the hint of a smile on his lips.
Luca unsheathed a dagger and studied the ruin of my bloodstained and shredded breeches.
“Try not to take too much away, else I won’t be decent for our first appearance at Brightvale,” I commented, trying for a flippant tone and mostly succeeding.
Luca chuckled and shook his head. “Between the lot of us, we might be able to put together one presentable outfit at this point,” he replied lightly. He lifted the fabric from my wound as best he could and I jerked. “Hold still now,” he admonished gently.
I clenched my teeth as he cut away a long oval of fabric along the side of my thigh. The creature had gouged four slanted slashes into my flesh with its claws during the battle at the bridge. My head swam as I glanced down at them and I leaned back against the rock, one hand gripping Gwyneth’s pendant at my throat. “If I pass out,” I said in a gravelly voice, “just keep working.”
Luca met my eyes. “I’ll be as quick as I can about it, Tess.”
My name on his lips sent that strange shiver down my spine again, but I was able to ignore it as I tried to keep my head above the waves of nausea threatening to overwhelm me. Finnead returned with the length of freshly washed bandages. Their voices sounded far away. I felt large hands, calloused but incredibly gentle, against the bare flesh of my leg. Luca’s fingers were cool against my hot skin. Then he put something that burned and stung into the gashes, and it was all I could do to hang onto consciousness.
By the time Luca finished bandaging my leg, I was shivering and sweating, eyes tightly closed as I fended off the urge to be sick. The Caedbranr sent me a small wave of comfort, which did little to assuage any of my physical pain but heartened me all the same. Then there were hands on either side of my face, callouses rough against my cheeks.