by Jocelyn Fox
“Open your eyes for me now,” Luca said, his thumbs tracing an arc on my cheekbones.
I gulped down a deep breath and opened my eyes. The world tilted alarmingly. I closed my eyes again and grabbed for the first solid thing my hand encountered. I gripped Luca’s arm, breathing hard, trying to make the river bank stop spinning. Slowly the world righted itself.
“Easy,” Luca said as I swayed and tightened my hold on his arm. “Take a few deep breaths.”
“I’m good,” I said breathily, my voice almost defensive.
“We aren’t in any rush.” His strikingly pale eyes met mine.
“We should be,” I murmured, thinking of the crushing vision of the Queen of All. I’d thought that bearing the Sword was a huge responsibility. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if Malravenar came into possession of the Crown of Bones.
“Between the three of us, we could put together one complete warrior,” Luca told me, his eyes sparkling with suppressed humor.
Despite myself, I felt my lips turn up in a smile. “It’s sad that I find that funny,” I murmured, shaking my head a bit.
“Sad but true,” replied Luca.
I took another deep breath. The sharp pain of my leg was slowly receding to a more manageable ache. Whatever Luca had used to clean the wounds was working, and I flexed my knee, raising my eyebrows appreciatively when the movement didn’t send me reeling into a faint. I looked at the bandage with a clinical eye, comparing its technique against what Eamon had taught me back at the barracks. I recognized the folded pattern from watching Vell work.
“Does my work meet your standards, Lady Bearer?” Luca asked, only half-joking.
“Well, I can move my leg without wanting to pass out or throw up, so that’s a good start,” I replied dryly. “Now, let me rewrap your hand.”
Luca obediently offered his right hand for inspection. I unwrapped the ruin of sodden bandages and examined the puncture wounds in his palm. “They’re healing well,” I murmured. “No sign of infection that I can see.”
“So, let’s rewrap it and be on our way,” Luca replied.
“Not so fast,” I admonished, turning his hand over. His fingers still curled downward—not nearly as badly as when we’d first removed the dagger, but still far from normal. “Move your fingers for me, if you can.”
Luca stared at his hand with a look of concentration. I watched his fingers. Two of them moved slightly, barely straightening. Glancing at Luca, I caught a shadow of frustration passing quickly over his face. “The muscles need to be stretched,” he said, his accent thicker than usual. He shifted uncomfortably.
I nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll work on it with you when we’ve got a bit more time on our hands.” After I realized what I’d said, I grimaced. “No pun intended. Sorry.”
Luca shrugged with one shoulder. “Even if you had intended it…” His smile finished his sentence.
I cleared my throat. “Well, I’ll just put a bit of a dry poultice on it for now and wrap it up.”
Luca watched with interest, clearly evaluating my choice of herbs and wrapping technique just as I had evaluated his work on my leg. When I finished, he held up his hand and nodded.
“For a novice, you do very good work,” he commented. “I was lucky to be rescued by you and Vell. Otherwise I might have no hope for using the hand at all.”
“You’re passable with a sword in your left hand.”
I paused in repacking my healing kit and looked at Finnead. Had he really just complimented Luca when barely two days ago I’d had to wrestle him away from putting his sword through the Northman?
Luca, still kneading his injured hand, glanced up as well. “We train with both hands from a young age.”
I blinked. “Aren’t the Sidhe ambidextrous too? I mean, when I first came to Court Ramel found it incredibly amusing that I couldn’t write with my left hand.”
“It takes just as much dedication to train your second hand as it does your first. Some do not have the patience. Just like I do not know our Historians’ methods of archiving, some Sidhe do not take the time to learn the art of swordplay.”
“But you have dedicated masters, do you not?” Luca said, standing.
Finnead nodded slightly. “Yes. We train as pages, and then an older Knight or Guard selects us as their squire, if we are lucky.”
“All the children train together, from the time we can walk,” said Luca. “We have—had—a pack-master, a barinvald.” Luca smiled slightly, his eyes distant. “Ours was Thirmonn, and his wolf was Wintaryk. Thirmonn lost one of his legs in a battle against the trolls and Wintaryk was blind in one eye, but for a solid two years the two of them could take on any pair in my year-group.” He shook his head fondly at the memory.
I cleared my throat. “We should probably get going, if we want to try and find a way out of this gorge by nightfall.”
“We had a crusty old sword-master,” Finnead said. “He had this timing-glass filled with sand…”
Neither Finnead nor Luca made any sign that they heard me, still in animated conversation. I grumbled something about the stupidity of men and packed up my healing kit, stuffing it unceremoniously back into my belt-pouch and securing the flap. With a bit of maneuvering I pushed myself up the boulder and tested my injured leg. The ache increased as I put weight on it, but it held, and the pain was bearable. The Sword hummed its approval. I took a halting step, and then another, more confidently. Still a noticeable limp, but much better than my previous hobble. I glanced at Finnead and Luca, shook my head and, with a quick adjustment to the Sword’s sheath, began walking down the riverbank, my strides as brisk as I could manage. I forced myself not to look back over my shoulder.
After a moment, their conversation paused and there was a call of, “Tess! What are you doing?”
Luca’s voice. So he’d been the first to notice.
“Getting something accomplished, which is more than you two are doing comparing training techniques,” I replied without turning my head. “There’s such a thing as walking and talking. You should try it!”
“Tess,” came Finnead’s voice.
“Are you going to join me or not?” I asked, focusing on navigating a tricky patch of rocks.
“Tess,” said Luca.
“What?” I turned in exasperation to find both of them looking at me with varying degrees of amusement—that half-smile lingering on Finnead’s lips, Luca’s eyes glimmering. I put my hands on my hips challengingly.
“You’re going the wrong way,” Luca said, almost gently.
I opened my mouth and closed it. “Well,” I finally said, “it got you two to pay attention, didn’t it?” I walked quickly back toward them.
Luca chuckled as I passed. “Points for creativity,” he said, falling into step beside me.
“Shut up,” I muttered, elbowing him half-heartedly, but even as I shook my head I felt the smile spreading across my lips.
Finnead took up position by my other side, a few feet behind us, our self-appointed rear-guard. I glanced back at him but he was staring out at the river, a contemplative look on his face. I wondered if he was still trying to parse out his place in the world, now that he wasn’t one of Mab’s Three.
We walked for a few minutes in silence, our boots crunching over the gravel, my steps creating an uneven cadence that countered the steady strides of Luca on my right and the cat-light tread of Finnead on my left. The walls of the gorge rose up on either side of us, the Darinwel rushing between with its harsh song. I couldn’t help but look at the steep sides of the gorge, searching for some foot-trail that led up its seemingly impassable slope. Luca glanced at me and followed my gaze.
“I do not know of any trails. The land this far south is unknown to me,” he confessed after a moment of study.
“Finnead? Any words of wisdom?” I looked over my left shoulder and met the Vaelanbrigh’s eyes.
“There is a reason they drew us to the bridge.” His unfathomable gaze traveled up the side
of the gorge and then turned back to me. “How good are you at climbing, Tess?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well…I took rock-climbing as a P.E. class last semester,” I said truthfully. “But all our climbing was indoors.”
“How exactly does one climb indoors?” Luca asked, brow creased.
“At a climbing wall,” I replied brightly.
Both men looked at me strangely.
“Climbing wall?” repeated Luca.
I paused and studied the imposing wall of the gorge. “Climbing wall. Exactly what it sounds like…a wall with handholds and footholds, and marked routes with different degrees of difficulty. You wear a climbing harness and you’re tied into a safety rope. Your partner belays for you—handles the rope while you’re climbing, and lowers you down once you get to the top.”
“So…you go up, just to come back down?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
“And you cannot really fall?”
“No, not really.”
“What’s the point of it, then?”
I thought for a moment. “To learn, I guess. To experience what it feels like to climb halfway up the wall, and then know you have to jump for that next handhold, and if you don’t quite make it you’ll fall…and jump anyway.”
“But you said you have a safety rope,” Luca pointed out.
I nodded. “Yes, but you still fall. You still have to overcome that fear of throwing yourself toward that next handhold or jumping as hard as you can knowing that you’re going to hit the wall and get banged up.”
“Like teaching pups how to fight,” he said musingly. “They know that once blood is drawn, one of the warriors will step in, most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
“A wolf who cannot fight and run with the pack is not part of the pack.”
“A harsh rule,” I commented.
“The North is harsher than any rules we could devise.” Luca scratched his day-old stubble contemplatively, still studying the craggy cliffs before us.
I adjusted the strap of the Sword over my shoulder cursorily, more out of habit and boredom now than anything else. Wearing the sheath was second nature to me, as intrinsic as my clothes. “So, how are we going to get out of this gorge?”
“The bridge,” Finnead said suddenly.
“The bridge broke. That’s how we ended up in the river…you were unconscious so you might not remember.” I tried to keep most of the sarcasm out of my voice.
“Yes, but how close to the other side did the bridge break?” the Unseelie knight asked. “If it was closer to the other side than to this one, we may be able to use the remnants as a sort of ladder.”
I thought back to the bridge, suppressing a shiver as I remembered the terrifying cold voice of the black-robed sorcerer prying into our minds, the snarl of the garrelnost as it advanced upon us, and the white-hot heat of the flames eating away at the bridge. I tried to remember how far it was to the other side—it had seemed like miles, like an unconquerable distance. “There would be maybe a little more than half on that side. I don’t know. I can’t remember exactly.” I took a deep breath. “Retracing our steps would also take us past the sirens’ lair again, and we don’t know how far downstream they took us. I’d say we’re at least a day’s hard travel from the bridge, maybe farther.” My hands had started to shake slightly at the memory of the bridge and the sirens, so I readjusted my sword-belt again. “I don’t know about you two, but I really have no desire to spend the night by this river. It doesn’t seem to have taken very kindly to us.”
“Nearly drowned two of us,” Luca agreed.
“There was nothing near about it,” Finnead replied matter-of-factly, looking at me with keen eyes. I shifted uneasily. How much did he remember? He had drowned. I had heard the aching silence where his heartbeat should have been, and then I’d used the siren’s power to lasso him back to his body from the Gray Cliffs, from the ether between life and death.
“Perhaps I was wrong about you Court types, then,” Luca continued. “You might be sturdier than you look.”
“Resurrection does require a bit of sturdiness,” agreed Finnead. “Sturdiness…and sometimes a helping hand.” He raised one eyebrow at me.
“Shouldn’t we be focusing more on rock-climbing and less on philosophical discussions of who is sturdier than whom?” I said with an air of helplessness, not sure where to look as both men surveyed me steadily. I settled for staring down at a rock by my foot.
“Tess,” said Finnead, sending a shiver down my spine—damn him and his perfect lips and unfathomable eyes. “Before we climb out of the canyon, we must talk about something.”
I fidgeted, shoving my thumbs into my belt and scowling at him. “Why do I feel like I’m in elementary school and I’ve just been called to the principal’s office?” I noticed that Luca had silently drawn his sword and taken up Finnead’s position as rearguard. What was it with these two? I wondered in frustration. One moment they were bickering, the next they were combining forces to lecture me.
“Was that a common occurance for you?” Finnead asked.
“It was a rhetorical question.” I crossed my arms. The Sword hummed a little. I didn’t know whether it was trying to calm me down or rile me up.
“Look, Tess.” Finnead took a step closer to me. He paused a moment. “I know that I drowned. I know that I…I died.”
“Only for a moment,” I whispered in half-hearted protest, wishing that I could erase the haunted look in his eyes.
“It’s only been through luck that I survived this long, with the syivhalla’s curse.”
“Luck and a nymph’s kiss,” I pointed out.
He gave a nod, the gray light playing in purple and blue upon his dark hair. “Luck and a nymph’s kiss,” he agreed, “as you so eloquently put it. But my point is, Tess…you cannot keep venturing into the ether to save us.” His eyes burned with a feverish light. “You cannot keep cheating Death of souls and expect him not to take notice.”
“I didn’t use my own power to bring you back.” It was a weak argument, even to my own ears.
“Regardless of whose power it was, you were the one Walking into the ether.”
“It was the only way to break Mab’s hold on you.”
“I could have remained dead and Mab’s hold would have been broken.”
“And then you would have been dead,” I said caustically. “Fat lot of good that would have done any of us. Are you saying I shouldn’t have saved you?” My voice rose.
Finnead fixed me with that arresting gaze. “I am saying, Tess, that you cannot use your power to save everyone.”
“You used your power to save me,” I pointed out, remembering the sapphire flames in Finnead’s eyes as he coaxed me back from the gray cliffs, Allene’s poison wrapping around my legs with dark tentacles.
“That was different,” Finnead replied smoothly.
I cocked my head. “How so? How is it different? You get to save me and play the hero and I’m supposed to stand by and let you die?”
“I was prepared to pay the price,” he said steadily. “It was not demanded, and I do not pretend to understand why. It is not for us to question.” He gazed at me. “You cannot be the sole judge of who lives and who dies.”
“What, and Malravenar is a better judge? Or Mab?” My heart beat loud in my own ears as anger rushed through my veins. A building bell-like tone resonated from the Caedbranr’s sheath.
“It is not the Bearer’s place to be a necromancer as well.” Finnead’s voice was low and deadly. His words hit me like a blow.
“I am not a necromancer,” I hissed, furious now. But even as I denied it, I thought of Merrick, back at the forest barracks, and Emery, with the ghosts haunting his eyes. And now, of course, Finnead, drowned in the Darinwel and then coaxed back from the edge of the gray cliffs. Am I overstepping my bounds? I entreated the Caedbranr silently, but it didn’t answer me.
“I did not say that you are a necromancer.” Finnead held u
p one hand against my glare. “I only say this, Tess, because I have seen others take the path that is before your feet, and it did not end well. Mastery of life and death…that is a power not even the Queen of All possessed, and all those who seek it end in ruin.”
My hand reflexively touched my belt-pouch, where the great ruby was wrapped and secured. I still had no idea what I was meant to do with the Crown of Bones, much less what kind of latent power resided in the gem. All my anger drained away suddenly, leaving me tired and hungry and cold. “I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing one arm. “I just…it’s easy. It’s easy to blur the lines between healing and…whatever else.”
“Necromancy,” said Finnead mercilessly.
“Cheating death,” I countered stubbornly.
“And the ease…that is what worries me.” The Vaelanbrigh’s mouth thinned into a hard line and his hand traced the sapphire on the pommel of the Brighbranr.
“So what, I was supposed to just let you die?” I spread my hands questioningly.
“If that was what should have happened, then yes,” Finnead replied calmly.
Damn him and his unshakeable serenity, I thought fiercely. “I couldn’t.” I met his eyes challengingly, my throat tightening. “I couldn’t, all right? I couldn’t let you die.” I clenched my jaw and my hands formed fists at my sides of their own accord.
A small crease appeared on Finnead’s brow. Luca pretended not to hear the conversation—or perhaps selective hearing was a particular trait of the Northmen.
Finnead and I stared at each other for what seemed like hours, the silence between us silvered by the sound of the rushing river’s waters. I spread my hands, hoping that he would understand that I didn’t have any other explanation than what I had offered. It was more candor than I’d meant to give him, but I supposed the truth had a way of working itself out, like a splinter caught under the skin. It was painful, but it felt a bit better now. And it wasn’t as though I’d confessed my undying love for him. He studied me, waiting for something. I sighed and rubbed my arms.