Sons (Book 2)

by Scott V. Duff

  “And you saw this?” he asked me. “At a glance?”

  “After a fashion, yes, sir,” I said, snapping the thing shut again. “It’s not quite as simple as ‘at a glance’ as it might seem. I understood what it did and what it needed to work at a glance, but that was obvious. It took a little more work to find the translation matrix that did the actual work. Kieran and Ethan didn’t see it right off and Peter wasn’t looking for it yet.”

  “And you have to understand, Dad,” Kieran interjected, pointing at the huge dull but silvery object I was pushing around, “that what you are seeing here is just a representation of what’s sitting in the wagon. He’s showing you symbols for an arcane system you aren’t familiar with.” He leaned over and, with his left hand on the right side of his mouth, slyly hiding the comment from me, added in a stage whisper “He’s scary!”

  Peter and Ethan started to snicker. “I should have seen that coming,” I said, shaking my head.

  “What about the other two?” Peter asked between gasping fits.

  “One is an elemental snare and the other is a binding tool,” I answered with disinterest. “Nothing we can’t already do.”

  “So you’re saying that you could take the rest of Faery? How strong will that make you?” Dad asked me.

  “It wouldn’t really help me all that much,” I answered.

  “Gilán’s a pretty big bucket to drop the Wyldes next to,” Kieran said. “I don’t see that you have much choice but to leave it alone. If you do anything to it or take it, they’ll wonder why and they may have another or be able to reproduce one. It might cause a civil war.”

  “So you’re saying he’s already more powerful than both the Queens of Faery?” Dad was nearly shouting in my head now.

  “Dad! We’re right here,” I said calmly. “And we don’t want that shouted from the rooftops exactly. We don’t want to create that kind of tension here.”

  “It’s never as simple as who’s the biggest and baddest on the block, is it?” Peter said, sighing.

  “No. There’s always someone else to pay the price,” Kieran agreed. Then he pulled out and back to himself. Ethan and Peter fell away a second later leaving me to take Dad back.

  “What just happened? Why did everyone disappear?” he asked.

  “They pulled back from my cavern into themselves,” I answered as I stepped through his filters. “We decided to walk away from the gifts and let the Queens have them back. They’re just not useful for me. You ready to go back to yourself now?” Rather a rhetorical question since I’d already started moving us across the link.

  “How long have you been… like this?” Dad asked me, waving at my cavern vaguely as it started to fade from view.

  “What? You mean, how long I have seen the world like I do?” I asked as I settled him mind back into its usual haunts. He grumbled in a sort of agreement to my question. “Mostly all my life. Then Kieran showed me another way of looking at things that gave me clarity and sharpness that I didn’t have before. From there, things just… grew as I figured out how things worked.” I dropped back into my body and watched Dad as he came back, woozy and disoriented. Peter was already climbing down the wheel, watching my dad at the same time.

  I leapt from the wagon, piercing the distortion field Jimmy placed around us. Reading the time displacement from the field, we’d been talking in secret for a minute four seconds—an interminably long time for that kind of conversation but Dad had to take time or I’d have killed him—and only the Princesses noticed. They didn’t think it long enough to be suspicious. In that time, Jimmy had said or done something to cement their attentions to him, poor guy. I used his distraction a moment longer and added my own level of destructive magic to the wagon, locking the power levels higher than they had for me, just a little, so they’d know not to play with me.

  The Princesses felt my working move, but couldn’t identify where it went. It was curious to watch them twitch in response.

  “Unfortunately, ladies, you are correct,” I said sweetly as we walked toward them, stopping about ten feet out. “It would be in poor taste to ask for more territory in Faery and the others, I don’t think would work quite right in Gilán’s climate. Perhaps at sometime in the future, a small embassy could be set up, something like that, but please give your mothers my appreciation for their consideration. It is evident they are trying to make me feel welcome.”

  They both smiled and together said, “Yes, Lord Daybreak, I am delighted to return with that.” It was eerie.

  “Is there anything else to decide tonight?” I asked.

  “Only your agreement to the Accords, Lord,” they said, again together and slyly this time.

  We weren’t expecting that.

  Chapter 33

  As a man, agreeing to the Unseelie Accords is a lot like breathing, you just did; it happened. As a wizard and magician, it’s a bit more like running and breathing. You still had to do it, but you had to work a little harder and make sure you did it right when you were going at full tilt. If you didn’t, you were a grease spot on the ground.

  The Accords enforced quite a few concepts and practices common in today’s world, even though most wizards assumed they dealt only with the Fae. The Rules of Hospitality came from the Accords, among a host of other things. They were agreed upon thousands of years ago in a language no longer spoken, but meticulously translated. There was no loss in either sense or letter of the law. I knew this to be true because as I read the translated copy the Faery Princesses provided, the Pact scrolled the original out in my mind as I went. I compared the two.

  There was a problem, though, several actually, not the least of which was their length.

  Avenour stood behind the firsts of Faery, leaning ever so slightly toward the Seelie side of the table. They sat on my left facing me while the Unseelie were on the right. The pavilion opened behind them and stayed clear, but the Princesses had agreed to allow unoccupied couples to negotiate with the other councils while I read through the Accords before I agreed completely. Kieran and I sat alone across from the Princesses and their husbands, steadily and silently scrolling through archaic but exact language. We were near the end, though, thankfully. Three hours of this was enough for… was too much for any man.

  “Ugh. I need a break,” I muttered on the last word on the last line. “Excuse me, ladies, but I need to stretch me legs and breathe for a few minutes.” I stood with Kieran, both of us stretching and yawning to get blood moving into our limbs again. Leod and Laranis stood quickly, to match us and to attend their wives, who rose as well. They murmured some sort of placation but all I heard was my calves and feet crying out in relief for oxygenated-blood.

  Kieran and I headed out of the pavilion on the faery side, the least populated area. Evening stars and a gentle breeze greeted us as we stepped out still stretching unused muscles and trying to not think for just a moment. Jimmy came up behind us and gave me a gentle nudge to the left, up the hill and away from people. Gordon arranged several places like this around the ambassadorial tent that were specifically warded and private.

  “If you want to be alone, the first alcove at the top of the hill is best and closest,” he said quietly, behind us. “Gordon and Peter stepped out a few moments ago and went toward the castle. They didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, though. Is there anything I can get for you?”

  “A huge bottle of water would be great, please, Jimmy,” I said, heading for the newly planted terrace of shrubs that obscured the warded alcove. “Remind me to give you a raise.”

  “That and a huge bottle of fine brandy and a few snifters,” Kieran said, grinning. “And I’ll remind him to actually pay you something first.”

  Jimmy laughed as he turned and slipped to the right on another path back the catering tent. Kieran grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed forward into the clearing Jimmy claimed earlier for us. The other two Courts had taken positions as next door neighbors to us. Jimmy waited a while before claiming this spot. I
felt the elves claim the other two quickly afterward. Gordon furnished the three areas comfortably so Kieran just shoved me toward something that looked like a couch and let go. Neither of us realized the couch was occupied. Both couches were occupied, actually.

  Laughing as I twisted in the air to land on my back, I hit the middle of the couch and bounced once to crash into the ample bosom of the Queen of the Sidhe of the Seelie Court.

  “Seth!” Kieran started low, increasing pitch and volume quickly.

  “Relax, Kieran,” I said, calmly, crossing my legs at the ankles and clasping my hands together. “They’re here under a truce, unannounced and uninvited. Any hostile act would break the Accords.”

  “How quickly things change, little man,” the elven queen cooed above me as she ran a delicate finger lightly across my forehead. “Not long ago you hid behind your brother, cringing in fear of us, and now he calls for your aid. How the tables have turned.”

  “Look again, sweetheart,” I said, not without some bite in my voice. “My brother called in warning, not for help, though you are correct in that much has changed in a short time. Your appearance, for instance. Do you often wear your counterpart’s guise when you come calling?”

  “We never did find where you have been hiding yourself for years, sweet Ehran,” the apparent Winter Queen said, slinking over Kieran shoulders as he backed away from her. “A place that can change a scrawny boy into such a strapping young man of strength and power is a miraculous place indeed.”

  “She is not Winter?” Kieran asked without turning away from the queen.

  “No,” I answered. “But my guess would be the veils were done on each other rather than done each on their own, so that the magic would feel right.”

  “Very good, little Lord,” the Winter Queen whispered as she melted the illusion around her and I found myself in a much more seductive lap.

  “Sorry it took so long, Seth,” Jimmy said as he came into the alcove carrying a large tray with bottles and glasses. “I seemed to have lost my bearings for a moment. Oh, we have company…” He stared at the Winter Queen, his eyes hard, studying her.

  “No worries, First,” I said. “The Ladies got in your way. They want a private chat, but I’m thirsty.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said quietly, setting the tray on a small table that sat totally incongruously with its surroundings to the right of the entrance to our alcove. “Lord Ehran, would you care for water as well?”

  “Yes, please,” Kieran said, still not looking away from the changed Summer Queen.

  “Ladies, would you care for either water or brandy?” Jimmy offered them, suffering Kieran’s problem but with the Winter Queen. “I’m afraid that’s all I’ve brought with me, though.”

  “A brandy, please, young man,” Winter said lightly, watching him back. “You’ve chosen a plain human as your first, Daybreak? That hardly seems fitting for one of your stature.”

  “I’d hardly call Jimmy ‘plain’,” I said, sitting up to take the bottle from him and more importantly to disentangle me from her. “I don’t think I could have made a better choice.”

  “It’s certainly an impassioned binding,” Summer said as Jimmy handed Kieran a bottle. “And a fine specimen of manhood he is. We did not think your taste ran in that direction.”

  “They don’t,” I said, confused by the statement but unwilling to press the issue. Unless… they couldn’t see Gilán. “Ah. I see the problem. First, I believe the Ladies are underestimating you.”

  “Don’t you mean underestimating you, Lord?” he asked, offering Winter and me each a snifter of brandy. I grinned and winked at him as I took the glass.

  “Same thing,” I said. “They’ve yet to see anything about Gilán as it is. Have you spoken to your daughters yet?”

  “We are aware of what transpired here tonight, yes,” Winter said, leaning back into the armrest to face me better. Her dress, a dark blue number with threads of silver and gold running faintly through the weave, catching the lights at odd moments, pulled away from her thighs in a thoroughly sexual way. “We do wonder where you’ve built this realm, so well hidden from others, and a faery realm? But not of Faery?”

  “We saw the crafting of its beginnings,” Summer said, somehow making it sound lurid as she stepped to her right around Kieran to get a better look at Jimmy. “We saw the duel from challenge to finish. We know you took his mantle and used it to channel the Fountain to power the creation of your Gilán.”

  “You still hold the mantle, invisible mostly, until you wish to make it known,” Winter continued. “A useful natural ability that we sometimes have to work quite hard at achieving. Yet according to our daughters, your First literally blazed in its power.” She rose from the couch beside her peer to glare at Jimmy.

  Brushing the anchor, I asked Ethan to get Peter and come up here, but easy like. Then I took a swig of brandy, letting Jimmy pull from me what energy he needed. My First blazed in eerie blue fire standing in total ease leaning lightly against the couch I was sitting on. His eyes were so bright with Gilán’s fire that his natural blue was nearly lost. Seriously, why was he able to pull off sexy, especially on them? All I can ever get is klutz, and it’s my power!

  “Is there something I can help you with, Ladies?” Jimmy asked casually but standing, cradling his snifter.

  “You are Sidhe,” Winter hissed, examining Jimmy carefully with extended fingers. The Seelie Queen’s head snapped to me. I just shrugged as I stood up.

  “I have no idea what that means,” I admitted. “Other than ruling class.”

  “Even you do not appear as Sidhe yet he does and human,” slurred Summer, making the crimson fire at the bottom edges of her dress sparkle up her long legs.

  “I’d wondered where you two got off to,” announced Ethan, bounding into the clearing. “I knew Jimmy had to be with you and you weren’t in trouble. Ladies! Meeting the First of Gilán! Peter! Come quick! We’re meeting the Queens. Again, I think.” He came and leaned on Jimmy’s shoulder, sniffing at the glass while scanning the entire panorama in a split second on several spectrums. “I know that we have seen one another, but I don’t recall whether we’ve been introduced. I am Ethan.”

  “Yes, our… former cousin was quite curious about your parentage, E-than,” the Unseelie witch whispered, stretching the second syllable with expert theatrics.

  I couldn’t help it. I snickered a little. Then I pounded my chest, trying to fake something with the brandy and I ended up choking myself with the brandy. Wonder child, uh huh.

  “Quit hittin’ yourself, dumb ass,” Peter mumbled as he sat down beside me, which made me snicker harder, not helping the situation. Somehow in one swift, deft movement, he managed to switch the glass in my hand for a bottle of water. “Sip slowly.”

  “And this is our other brother, Peter,” Kieran said, much more calmly than before Ethan and Peter arrived. Safety in numbers, I suppose.

  “Ladies,” Peter said, bowing his head and flashing a brilliantly white smile at them both. “I presume this is an unofficial visit?”

  “Yes, Master Borland, that is correct,” Winter answered quietly, uneasily.

  “That might well change in a moment, especially when I attempt to sign the Accords,” I said coyly. Well, I tried for coy; I got strangled and choked, along with another round of laughter from my brothers.

  “Have you seen the gift Seth sent for you?” Peter asked them. “I thought they were quite lovely when I watched him make them. Though admittedly, he kept the insides private, being personal to you and all.”

  “We were curious about where you got the seeds,” Summer cooed, edging closer to me now. “Those flowers have been extinct in Faery for hundreds of years.”

  “Really? That would explain why mine didn’t know what they were, then,” I said. “For the most part, they grow wild in Gilán.” I laughed a bit. “Everything at the moment grows wild in Gilán. We haven’t cultivated anything yet.”

  “How many were you able to sa
ve on the first night?” Winter asked coldly.

  “All of them, why?”

  “As weak as you were? You managed a full land-binding geas on hundreds of thousands of minds, and it held?” Summer slurred through the heat of her namesake. They were getting agitated.

  “I had a nap, first,” I said sharply. “Ladies, the first thunderstorm I see and you shall have to leave.”

  “And it was over a million,” Dad said casually as he walked into the alcove carrying what looked like a whooping huge mug of coffee. He met my glance. “I thought you might be running in circles by now, to burn off excess energy. You’ve never been able to sit still for that long before.”

  “A storm is brewing to take care of that, unfortunately,” I answered.

  “When do we get to visit your realm, Daybreak? This Hidden Realm beyond the Shadowlands?” The Seelie Queen asked as she pulled in the warmth from around her, cooling the area a little quickly.

  “We are a young nation and very small,” I said earnestly. “And I have so much to learn. Please allow me some time before you insist on a visit. At least that way I’ll know the more fascinating places to show you.” That did give me an idea. It was a bit fantastic to try and might be dangerous for me.

  “How about a little taste? I believe my brother called it a knowe?” I asked politely, looking between the two Sidhe queens casually with an occasional look past them to Kieran to gauge his reaction. He seemed surprised, but not upset.

  “Where did you think to place it, little brother?” he asked easily.