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

by Jocelyn Fox

  “We would be remiss if we did not properly outfit the Bearer,” said Gray. Calliea motioned to several cloth-wrapped bundles.

  After a moment of industrious unwrapping, the final piece of cloth fell away from a truly glorious set of Sidhe armor: a breastplate, gold and then enameled green, with a sword—the Sword—depicted as a sigil in the center, with embellishments echoing the whorls and curves of my war-markings. There were greaves for my shins and a sleek helmet, and an emerald shield. “It’s beautiful,” I said truthfully.

  Gray—already wearing her own armor, I noted—pointed farther down the table. Several additional sets of armor, clearly masculine, lay waiting. None bore a sigil but all were masterfully crafted.

  “We assumed that you do not wear armor,” Gray said to Vell.

  Vell grinned like they shared some secret, and didn’t correct Gray.

  Murtagh, Merrick and Finnead wasted no time in donning their armor. With a laugh like a peal of bells, Calliea helped me buckle and clasp everything into place. Each piece felt light as a feather; when she was done, I could barely tell I was wearing anything other than my clothes. Calliea stepped back and smiled. I took that to mean that the armor fit me well.

  “Well, at least I’m dressed for the occasion,” I said, adjusting the straps of the Sword’s sheath across my chest. It ruined the fluid lines of the breastplate, but I didn’t want to carry the Sword any other way.

  “You are Gwyneth reincarnate!” trilled Farin when she saw me. We stepped out into the morning sunlight. From the great chorus of sounds behind me—the whisper of swords sliding into sheaths, rasps of leather on leather, the low murmur of voices—I knew the entire legion of Seelie quartered at the Hall was accompanying us. My hands tingled nervously; I shook them in their black elbow-high gauntlets. The two guards at the foot of the stairs saluted. I nodded, and we strode toward the outer courtyard.

  In the outer courtyard Nehalim waited, at the head of a host of faehal. I shivered at their preternatural calm and the intelligence in their liquid eyes as they watched me mount. My band leapt onto their mounts, resuming the same formation they’d adopted the night prior. There were new bright feathers worked into Nehalim’s mane, and the runes on his flanks had been repainted. He tossed his head eagerly as we trotted toward the main gate.

  The other mounts, too, bore war-paint and shimmering runes that shifted fluidly beneath the golden touch of the morning sun. An air of eagerness electrified the courtyard. Two more guards stood by the gate—no rune-opening for us this time. They opened the great silver-wrought doors; Merrick and Tristan leaned forward on their mounts, touched their heels to their sides, and the column sprang out of the gates of the Hall of the Outer Guard like water bursting from a dam.

  After a few moments of riding, I let myself glance over my shoulder. The glint of helms and gleam of white faehal still stretched back to the gates, with riders still pouring forth. I shivered at the magnificence of the Seelie legion and tightened my grip on Nehalim’s mane, turning my eyes back toward Brightvale.

  Chapter 36

  Brightvale rose before us in the unforgiving light of the noon sun. I slid my helm from my head and dismounted. The other riders in my band followed suit, craning their necks to gaze up in awe.

  I’d left the Captain of the Guard with the main body of the Seelie legion, stationing them a few miles back, taking only my trusted group as we approached Titania’s defenses. As we’d drawn closer throughout the morning, the mist between the mountains had lifted to reveal the ivory spires of the Fair City. But though we rode through knolls that became more like foothills to the mountains that cradled Brightvale, it seemed as though the citadel remained at the same distance. We couldn’t see any more than the slender bone-white towers, even when we rode up onto the winding path that led into the valley. Brightvale remained stubbornly obscured as though by an impenetrable white mist. The Glasidhe had flown ahead to scout, and Farin had rocketed back to report that there was a thicket rising up, vast as a forest, around the Seelie Queen’s palace. I’d made her repeat herself twice, her aura fizzing with irritated sparks.

  “Tess, a thicket, briars, a hedge with thorns as long as I am tall!” she expounded, flying in frenzied circles.

  And Farin’s description was very accurate, I thought, standing in front of the very edge of the thicket. We couldn’t see the spires of the citadel anymore. All that rose in front of us was a fathomless tangle of briar-thicket, vines as thick as my legs wrapped sinuously back upon each other, studded with long gleaming thorns. Shadows pooled in the impenetrable labyrinth of vine and thorn. Murtagh took a step closer to the edge of the wall of briars. Only his Sidhe reflexes saved him as a thick vine snapped out, swiping at the place he’d just occupied, hitting the ground with such force that the impact shuddered through my boots and wicked dagger-like thorns protruded from the earth when the vine snaked back into the thicket. We all took a step back, surveying the bristling wall warily.

  “Physical defenses as well,” I said, mostly to myself. I couldn’t use my taebramh; we’d seen the result of that little experiment; and if merely stepping too close to the thicket resulted in a deadly game of tag with foot-long thorns, I didn’t want to see what happened if we touched the vines with a blade. “Arcana!” I called.

  Vell stiffened at my call, her lips compressing into the thin white line she wore when dealing with the Evermage. Luca stepped closer to Chael. Gray watched, her eyes bright with interest, as the Evermage appeared from behind a tree and walked toward us. Arcana’s strange gliding walk still set goosebumps skittering down my arms. Nehalim snorted and tossed his head at her approach. I calmed him with a hand on his velvet-soft muzzle. I didn’t like dealing with the dead-eyed creature, but I forced myself to think of the endgame.

  I gave the Evermage a nod. She surveyed me with eyes devoid of life. “How do we get past this?” I asked, motioning at the briar thicket.

  Arcana surveyed the thicket, turning just her head with that smooth eerie motion. She was silent for a long moment.

  “You know,” I said. It was a statement. “Tell me.”

  “Blood pays all tolls of passage,” she said finally. I glimpsed a glow at the back of her throat and suppressed a gag at the smell of charred meat.

  I opened my beltpouch, unwrapping the Crown of Bones. “And this?”

  The Evermage hissed, and my hand went to my sword; I heard the sound of blades unsheathed behind me but it became apparent that the hiss was only the Evermage’s sound of wonder. A few sparks drifted from her mouth. After another long silence, Arcana repeated, “Blood pays all tolls of passage.”

  I wrapped the ruby again and faced the thicket. “Great. Answering a riddle with a riddle.” I sighed. “Blood is the key to everything around here, apparently.”

  “Titania was waiting for you,” Merrick said suddenly, eyes alight. “You’re right, Tess. Your blood is the key.”

  It made sense. I reached for my dagger, tugged off my left gauntlet and swiftly cut my arm, grunting at the sharp bright pain. I dipped two fingers in my own blood and stepped toward the thicket. I passed the scarred earth where the vine had attacked Murtagh. And finally I touched one of the vines, my blood shining wetly when I drew my hand away.

  A great shudder rolled through the earth. With a cracking that sounded like bones breaking, the vines of the vast briar thicket slowly twisted and twined together to form an arch. I peered down the shadowy pathway and watched the tunnel form through the thicket. The end disappeared into darkness.

  I dipped my fingers into my blood again, catching a rivulet before it dripped down my arm. “All right. Who’s first?”

  Luca stepped forward. I hesitated, wondering whether Titania’s spell would have any preference. “No taking any chances. We’re going full Old-Testament on this.” I smeared my blood in a vivid line across his forehead, and marked Kianryk’s muzzle.

  By the time I marked all my little band, the cut was clotting. I looked at the Evermage, holding up two
scarlet fingers. “Are you coming?”

  Vell made a little sound almost like a growl as I marked Arcana. But something told me I needed the latent power flickering beneath the shell of what had once been Vell’s sister. I pulled the glove back onto my left hand, covering the shallow wound.

  “All right,” I said, “remember the signal to the rest of the company. A blue flare, or if all of us that can make a flare are…if we can’t, then a flaming arrow.” I conjured two lights, sent one ahead and kept one to hover over us. Almost as one we drew our swords. We stood for a moment more, gazing at each other, Seelie and Unseelie and Northerners, and then we turned and walked into the shadows.

  A strange dead silence pressed around us as we walked down the path. Something crunched beneath our feet. I forced myself not to look down. The air hung still and stale, and even my lights struggled to illuminate the dreary gray twilight. Forin and Farin wove between us, scouting ahead and circling behind.

  “There is a golden door,” Farin reported. And sure enough, something glimmered ahead of us. We walked for what seemed like too long, breathing quietly in the stillness, feeling as though we were trespassing.

  “Gray,” I murmured, and the Seelie rider was at my side. “How does the door open?”

  “I have the key,” she said, drawing an ornate golden skeleton key on a chain from under her shirt.

  “Well, that’s a pleasant surprise,” I said. “Look, an actual key. Does that mean that tolls can be paid with coins instead of blood, too?”

  My attempt at humor fell flat even to my own ears, but Murtagh chuckled and Vell rolled her eyes at me.

  A blindingly white wall met us at the end of the tunnel. Gray slid the key into the lock of the golden door and it opened silently. Tristan and Merrick entered, blades raised. Kianryk slid past me and Luca followed. I stepped through the door, into their circle of protection. Vell sheathed her blade and nocked an arrow, her golden eyes finding every shadow and crevice. Finnead entered last, the Brighbranr’s sapphire gleaming in his hand. As soon as he crossed the threshold, the tunnel through the briars collapsed. Calliea kicked the door shut but we could still hear the massive cracking and feel the tremors shaking the ground. The Evermage stood to one side, surveying Brightvale with blank eyes.

  Even the courtyard of the Seelie Queen’s citadel was breathtakingly beautiful, but I spared no time to admire it. A sense of urgency gripped me. “Gray. Where will Titania be?”

  “The Throne Room,” she answered.

  “Lead us there.”

  We ran through deserted courtyards, passing crystal fountains that had run dry, magnificent jewel mosaics and tapestries dulled with dust. Always I was at the center of a diamond of out-thrust blades, windows and doorways and dark pools of shadow searched for threats with sharp eyes. Kianryk, Beryk and Rialla wove through us and disappeared ahead along with Forin and Farin. I wouldn’t have been able to find my own way back; Gray led us through several courtyards and gates, then winding sets of stairs, and finally into the citadel itself through a minor gate. As we slipped through, I glimpsed a great gate taller than the Sentinel Stones, with a delicate-looking golden portcullis drawn down before it. The shining white skeleton of a bird was caught in the uppermost teeth of the portcullis.

  After three spiraling staircases of increasing size and several more doors opened with Gray’s golden key, she led us at a more cautious pace into a hallway with a vaulted ceiling. Suits of Sidhe armor stood in alcoves, held together by some invisible artifice. Gray paused as we passed the first suit of armor, but nothing happened. She led us on faster after that. Finally we came to a set of doors inlaid with opals and emeralds and rubies, glimmering in the half-light.

  “If there are any other wards of protection,” Calliea said, “they would be here.”

  “I’d best go first then,” I said. I held up my hand against the brimming protests. “Whatever protections Titania laid, they’ve let me pass.” I looked at Gray. “What should I expect, in there? What happened?”

  “We believe the Queen and her Three laid the enchantment around themselves to prevent the enemy from taking Brightvale,” Gray said.

  “He had reached her while she Walked,” Calliea added, shifting her grip on her twin blades restlessly.

  I nodded. Adrenaline coursed through my body. “No time like the present,” I said, and I pushed the door open. I didn’t feel the prickle of any spell as I passed over the threshold.

  Even in the eerie twilight, the Throne Room of Brightvale was magnificent: columns carved in the graceful shapes of nymphs and satyrs and other creatures I couldn’t name supported soaring arches; immense tapestries hung from the walls, resplendent in tones as bright as if they were made of woven light. Even the floor was inlaid with gleaming mother-of-pearl and jade.

  In front of the diais lay three bodies, all reaching up with arms outstretched across the steps. I heard Calliea try to conceal her gasp. Our footsteps echoed as we walked forward. An intricately carved ivory throne stood regally on the upraised diais of the Throne Room, and upon the resplendent throne sat Queen Titania.

  I sent my glow to illuminate the diais. The light reflected off the unmoving Queen and the three bodies sprawled before the throne.

  “Are they dead?” whispered Calliea, sounding very young.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Finnead strode past me, Brighbranr raised, and knelt by one of the three bodies. “Not dead,” he said. “Bespelled.” He tilted his head. “These three…I can feel them. They are bespelled, but whole.” His gaze shifted to Titania.

  “Malravenar imprisoned her Walker form,” I said. “She’s trapped. She must have cast the enchantment as she felt him taking her.”

  “To protect us,” said Gray in a low voice.

  “My blood was the key to her enchantment. I have to be able to bring her back.” I nodded as the plan took shape. “Murtagh, are you up for a Walk?”

  The Unseelie spy grinned. “Will it be dangerous?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “I am always ready for danger, my Bearer.”

  I slid the strap of the Sword over my head and handed it to Vell. “If I don’t come back, it’ll answer to you, I think. Enough that you might be able to use it without it killing you.”

  “If you’re talking about not coming back, you shouldn’t go,” said Calliea. The others remained silent.

  “I have to go,” I said, looking at the Queen on her throne. “If we don’t have at least one Queen…” I left the rest of the thought unsaid.

  “Tip the scales of power,” said Arcana’s disembodied voice from the recesses of the shadowed throne room. I took that to mean she agreed with my decision. I walked up to the throne, a chill passing over me as I stepped over one of Titania’s Three. I touched her hand. It was like caressing a marble statue, but I swallowed and allowed my Walker senses to roam, feeling for the path that Titania had taken. After a few moments I was satisfied. I didn’t know exactly where she was, but I knew the path to take us there through the ether. Unspoken words hung heavy in the air as Murtagh and I settled onto the floor, sitting back-to-back.

  “Here,” he said, drawing a silken cord from somewhere. He tied our wrists together. “It will link us, during the Walking.”

  “Keep both of us invisible,” I told him.

  “Aye,” he said softly to me, and then he said to the rest of the company: “I’ll protect her with my life.”

  And with that, we closed our eyes and slid into the ether. I still marveled at the curious sensation of shedding my physical body. I felt Murtagh behind me and made sure he followed as we traversed the hidden paths of the ether, stars spinning around us, the familiar rushing loud in my ears. The path led us away, far away, and I felt the spider-silk line connecting me to my physical body thinning. I took a breath and checked the white-fire well of my taebramh like I usually checked my blades. There was Murtagh behind me, a familiar presence in the alien landscape of the ether as we hurtled toward Titani
a’s prison.

  With a great effort I slowed us. I didn’t want to slam into any wards or protection. Hopefully the element of surprise and invisibility would be enough. When my vision cleared, we stood in a gray sort of vestibule, the ether already foreshadowing Titania’s prison. I realized with a sick shock that Malravenar had imprisoned Titania’s Walker form in the physical world. I’d expected the prison to be in the ether, constructed of some dark sorcery; but to imprison a Fae Queen against her will in the physical world…I took another deep breath and looked at Murtagh. His face was pale, but he met my eyes steadily. “Ready? We do this quickly.”

  He nodded and frowned slightly. I felt my Walker-form shudder. When I looked down I couldn’t see my own hands.

  We slid through the seam into Titania’s prison. It was the small dank cell I’d seen in one of my first visions, so small that Murtagh and I had to press against one another to avoid stepping on Titania. The Seelie Queen lay curled on the floor of her cell, knees drawn up against her chest like a child. Dull manacles encircled her wrists and ankles, and as Murtagh swayed slightly against me I knew they were iron. A small iron grate was the only door to the cell. “No guard,” I whispered, and Murtagh let us flicker into visibility.

  Titania’s Walker-form was so pale it was difficult to distinguish her features. I knelt and examined the manacles. There wasn’t a lock, but ugly twisted runes swirled like an oil slick below the surface of the metal.

  “Can you help?” I breathed. Murtagh swallowed and nodded. I pointed to her ankles.

  Malravenar—or whatever creatures he had guarding Titania—would surely know we were here the minute we touched the manacles. I steeled myself, pulled a thin sharp shard of taebramh down my war-markings, and shoved it into the lock of the manacle, pulling at it with my hands at the same time.

  Pain exploded through my arms. I was sure that every bone from my fingertip to my shoulder was shattered. But when my vision cleared I saw that the manacle hung open. I pushed it away from Titania, trying not to retch at the wave of pain. “Murtagh,” I gasped. He wouldn’t be able to open the manacles on his own. I needed him to give me strength. He looked at me dazedly, unable to think through the terrible siren song of the iron. I crawled over to him, noting in a corner of my mind that a harsh gonging bell pealed, shaking the stones of the cell. Some sort of alarm.