Shadowfever_Fever

by Karen Marie Moning

  “We will never know. Upon hearing what he had to say, she confined him to her bower. She then summoned the king and they met in the sky that very day. Although I possess no memory of it, according to our histories it was me she sent for Cruce, and when I brought him to her, she lashed him to a tree, took up the Sword of Light, and killed him before the king’s eyes.”

  I gasped. It was so strange to realize V’lane had been alive during that time. That he’d had firsthand experience of it all yet recalled none of it. He’d had to read about it in written histories to recall what he’d willingly forgotten. I wondered: What if whoever wrote Fae histories, like our humans, distorted things a bit? Knowing their penchant for illusion, I couldn’t see any Fae telling the whole truth. Would we ever really know what had happened back then? Still, I imagined V’lane’s version was the closest I might ever get to it. “And war broke out.”

  He nodded. “After the king killed the queen and returned to his court, he found his concubine dead. According to the princes, when she learned of the battle and discovered that the king had begun to slaughter his own race in her name, she stepped from the Silvers, lay down in his bed, and killed herself. They say she left him a note. They say he carries it still.”

  What ill-fated lovers! It was such a sad story. I’d felt their love on those obsidian floors in the White Mansion, even though both of them had been deeply unhappy: the king because his beloved was not Fae like him, and the concubine because she was trapped, waiting alone, for him to make her “good enough” for him—that was how she’d felt, inferior. She would have loved him as she was, one small mortal life, and been happy. Still, there’d been no question of their love. They were all each other wanted.

  “The next we heard of the Sinsar Dubh, it was loose in your world. There are those among the Seelie that have long coveted the knowledge in its pages. Darroc was one of them.”

  “How does the queen plan to use it?” I asked.

  “She believes that the matriarchal magic of our race will enable her.” He hesitated. “I find that you and I trusting each other appeals to me. It has been long since I had an ally with power, vitality, and an intriguing mind.” He seemed to be assessing me, weighing a decision, then he said, “It is also said that any who knows the First Language—the ancient language of … I believe the only human word that suffices is ‘Change,’ in which the king scribed his dark knowledge—would be able to sit down and read the Sinsar Dubh, once it was contained, page after page, absorbing all his forbidden magic, all the king knew.”

  “Did Darroc know this language?”

  “No. I know that for a certainty. I was there when he last drank from the cauldron. Had any of our race known the Sinsar Dubh had been rendered inert beneath your abbey before they’d drunk from the cauldron so many times that the ancient language was lost in the mists of their abandoned memories, they would have razed your planet to get to it.”

  “Why would they want the knowledge the king had so regretted acquiring that he’d banished it?”

  “The only thing my race loves as much as itself is power. We are drawn to it without reason, much as the mind of a human man can be so numbed by a stunningly sexual woman that he will follow her to his own destruction. There is that moment you call ‘before,’ in which a man—or Fae—can consider the consequences. It is brief, even for us. Besides, while the king chose to do foolish things with his power, another of us might not. Power is not good or evil. It is what it is in the hands of the wielder.”

  He was so charming when he was open, speaking freely about the shortcomings of his race, even comparing his people to ours. Maybe there was hope that one day Fae and human could learn to—I shook my head, terminating that thought. We were too different, the balance of power between us too exaggerated.

  “Repay my trust, MacKayla. I know you went to the abbey. Have you learned how the Book was originally contained?”

  “I believe so. We found the prophecy that tells us the basics of what to do to re-inter it.”

  He sat up and removed his sunglasses. Iridescent eyes searched my face. “And this is the first you think to mention it?” he said incredulously. “What must we do?”

  “There are five Druids that have to perform some kind of binding ceremony. Supposedly they were taught it long ago by your race. They live in Scotland.”

  “The Keltar,” he said. “The queen’s ancient Druids. So that is why she has long protected them. She must have foreseen that such events might transpire.”

  “You know them?”

  “She has … meddled with their bloodline. Their land is protected. No Seelie or Hunter can sift within a certain distance of it.”

  “You sound upset about that.”

  “It is difficult to see to my queen’s safety when I cannot search all places for the tools I need to do so. I have wondered if they guard the stones.”

  I appraised him. “Since we’re trusting each other, you do have one, right?”

  “Yes. Have you had any success locating any of the others?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “All three.”

  “You have the other three? We are closer than I had dared hope! Where are they? Do the Keltar have them, as I suspected?”

  “No.” Technically, I had them at the moment, safely warded away, but I felt more comfortable letting him believe Barrons did. “Barrons does.”

  He hissed, a Fae sound of distaste. “Tell me where they are! I will take them from him, and we will be done with Barrons for good!”

  “Why do you despise him?”

  “He once slaughtered a broad path through my people.”

  “Including your princess?”

  “He seduced her, to learn more about the Sinsar Dubh. She became temporarily enamored of him and told him many things about us that should never have been revealed. Barrons has been hunting it a long time. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nor do I. He is not human, he can kill our kind, and he seeks the Book. I will kill him at the earliest opportunity.”

  Good luck with that, I thought. “He will never give up the stones.”

  “Take them from him.”

  I laughed. “Not possible. You don’t steal from Barrons. It doesn’t work.”

  “If you find out where they are, I will help you obtain them. We will do this, just the two of us. Of course, the Keltar are also necessary to restrain it, but no others, MacKayla. When you and I have secured it for the queen, she will reward you richly. Anything you wish can be yours.” He paused a moment, then said delicately, “She could even restore to you things you have lost and grieve.”

  I stared out at the sea, trying not to be tempted by the carrot at the end of that stick: Alina. Rowena was insisting I work only with the sidhe-seers. Lor was demanding I work only with Barrons and his men. Now V’lane wanted me to ally myself with him and shut everyone else out.

  I trusted all of them about as far as I could throw them.

  “Since the day I arrived in Dublin, everyone has been trying to force me to choose sides. I won’t. I’m not going to choose any of you over the others. We’ll do this together or not at all, and when we do, I want the sidhe-seers to watch, so if anything ever goes wrong again in the future, we know how to stop it.”

  “Too many humans involved,” he said sharply.

  I shrugged. “Then bring some of your Seelie if it makes you feel better.”

  The balmy day suddenly cooled. He was deeply displeased. But I didn’t care. I felt that we finally had a solid plan, one that would work. We had the stones and the prophecy; we just needed Christian. I refused to worry about what we would do once the Book was secured, if the queen should be permitted to read it. I could tackle only one seemingly insurmountable obstacle at a time, and I had no idea how we were going to locate Christian in the Silvers. Too bad Barrons hadn’t branded him, too.

  I had one more question. It had been gnawing at me the entire time we’d b
een talking. I couldn’t help but feel there was something about myself I needed to know, a truth that would make clear the dreams I’d been having all my life. “V’lane, what did Cruce look like?”

  He lifted a shoulder and let it drop, then folded his arms behind his head and tipped his face to the sun. “The other Unseelie Princes.”

  “You said they kept getting better as the king made them. Was Cruce different in any way?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just something one of the sidhe-seers said,” I lied.

  “When do you plan to attempt to fulfill the terms of the prophecy?”

  “The moment we can get all the Keltar together and I locate it.”

  He looked at me. “Soon, then,” he murmured. “It will be very soon.”

  I nodded.

  “It must be as soon as possible. I fear for the queen.”

  “I asked you about Cruce,” I reminded.

  “So many questions about an insignificant prince who ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years ago.”

  “And?” Was that petulance in his voice?

  “Were he not dead, I might feel … what is it you humans are so often driven by? Ah, I have it, jealousy.”

  “Humor me.”

  After a long moment, he gave another of those perfectly imitated human sighs. “According to our histories, Cruce was the most beautiful of all, although the world will never know it—a waste of perfection to never have laid eyes upon one such as he. The torque of his royal line was threaded with silver, and his visage was said to radiate pure gold. But I suspect the reason the king felt such kinship to him—before he permitted his love for a mortal to destroy all they could have been—was because Cruce was the only one of the king’s children to bear a paternal resemblance. Like the king himself, Cruce had majestic black wings.”

  25

  Shortly after midnight, I was pacing the alley behind Barrons Books and Baubles, arguing with myself and getting nowhere.

  Barrons still wasn’t back, which was driving me crazy. I planned to have it out with him the moment he showed up. Knock-down, drag-out, air all the dirty laundry between us. I wanted to know exactly how long I could anticipate him being gone if he got killed again. I was on constant edge, waiting, half afraid he might never come back. I wouldn’t be satisfied that he was really alive until I saw him with my own eyes.

  Every time I’d closed my eyes tonight, I slipped into my Cold Place dream. It had been waiting to ambush me the moment I’d relaxed. I’d flipped endless hourglasses of black sand; I’d scoured miles and miles of ice, with increasing urgency, for the beautiful woman; I’d repeatedly fled the winged prince we both feared.

  Why did I keep dreaming the damned dream?

  Ten minutes ago, when I’d woken from it for the fifth time, I’d been forced to accept that I simply wasn’t going to get any sleep without having it—and that was no sleep at all. The fear and anguish I felt in the dream were so draining that I kept waking up feeling even more exhausted than when I’d closed my eyes.

  I stopped pacing and stared at the brick wall.

  Now that I knew it was there, I could feel it—the hidden Tabh’r in the brick, the Silver Darroc had carefully camouflaged within the wall catty-corner to the bookstore.

  All I had to do was press into it, follow the brick tunnel to the room with the ten mirrors, and pass through the fourth one from the left to get back into the White Mansion. I’d have to hurry, because time passed differently inside the Silvers. I would just take a quick look around. See if there was anything I’d missed the first time.

  “Like maybe a portrait of myself hanging on the wall, arm in arm with the Unseelie King,” I muttered.

  I closed my eyes. There it was, out in the open. I’d voiced my fear. Now I had to deal with it. It seemed to be the only thing that explained all the loose ends that wouldn’t connect.

  Nana had called me Alina.

  Ryodan said Isla had only one child (which Rowena confirmed, unless she was lying) and she was dead, and there’d been no “later” for the woman I wanted to believe was my mother.

  Nobody knew who my parents were.

  Then there was my lifelong feeling of bipolarity, of things repressed just beneath the surface. Memories of another life? When I’d been walking around in the White Mansion with Darroc, it had all been so familiar. I’d recognized things. I’d been there before and not just in my dreams.

  Speaking of dreams—how could my slumbering mind conjure up a fourth prince that I’d never seen? How could I have known Cruce had wings?

  I could sense the Sinsar Dubh. It kept finding me, liked to play with me. Why? Because in an earlier incarnation—when it had been the Unseelie King, not a book of the banished knowledge—it had loved me? Did I sense it because I’d loved the earlier incarnation of it?

  I buried my hands in my hair and tugged, as if the pain might clarify my thoughts or perhaps fortify my will.

  See me, Barrons kept saying.

  And, more recently, If you can’t face the truth of your reality, you can’t control it.

  Ryodan had been right: I was a loose cannon, but not for the reason he thought.

  I didn’t know the truth of my reality. And until I did, I was a wild card, something that could flip. The question keeping me awake at night wasn’t whether or not sidhe-seers were an Unseelie caste. That was small compared to my problem. The question that kept me from sleeping was much more alarming.

  Impossible as it seemed, was I somehow the Unseelie King’s concubine? Reincarnated and brought back to life in a new body? Fated for her inhuman lover, destined to a tragic cycle of rebirth?

  And just what were Barrons and his eight? My ill-fated lover split into nine human vessels? That was a doozy of a thought. No wonder the concubine had found the king insatiable. How could one woman handle nine men?

  “What are you doing, Ms. Lane?” As if my thoughts had conjured him, Barrons’ voice slid out of the darkness behind me.

  I looked at him. I’d flipped on the exterior lights outside BB&B, powered by the store’s immense generators, but the light was at his back and he was heavily shadowed. Still, I would have known it was him even if I were blind. I could feel him on the air; I could smell him.

  He was furious with me. I didn’t care. He was back. He was alive. My heart did a flip-flop. I thrilled to his presence. I would anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. No matter what he was, what he’d done. Even if he was one-ninth of the Unseelie King who’d begun it all.

  “Something’s seriously wrong with me,” I said, half under my breath.

  “Just now figuring that out, are you?”

  I gave him a look. “Good to see you alive again.”

  “Good to be alive.”

  “Do you really mean that?” He’d made comments about death in the past, which now made sense to me. Apparently he would never experience it, and at times he’d seemed almost … envious.

  “Nice tan. You just can’t stay away from the Fae when I’m gone, can you? Did V’lane take you to the beach again? Did you get a sand burn when he fucked you?”

  “Are you the Unseelie King, Barrons? Is that what you and your eight are? Different facets of you, crammed into human form, while you search Dublin for your missing Book?”

  “Are you the concubine? The Book certainly seems enamored of you. Can’t stay away. Kills everyone else. Plays with you.”

  I blinked. He was always way ahead of me, and he didn’t even know about my dream of the winged prince or my déjà vu experience in the mansion. We’d been thinking the same things about each other. I’d had no idea he’d been wondering if I was the allegedly dead concubine.

  “There’s one way to find out. You keep telling me to see you, to face the truth. I’m ready.” I held out my hand.

  “If you think I’m letting you into my head again, you’re wrong.”

  “If you think you could stop me if I wanted to, you’re wrong.”

  “Aren’t
you full of yourself?” he mocked.

  “I want you to come somewhere with me,” I said. Did Barrons know full well what he was and would just never admit to it? Was it possible the king could subdivide himself into human parts and forget who he was? Or had he been tricked into human form, his individual facets forced to drink from the cauldron, and now the most feared of the Unseelie walked the earth with no greater clue to what he was than his oblivious concubine?

  One way or another, I wanted answers. I was sure enough of the truth about myself to run the gauntlet. If I was wrong about him, he didn’t have much to lose, just the equivalent of a few days’ “nap.” And somehow I knew that wouldn’t be the case. I was right about this one. I had to be.

  He stared at me in silence.

  “C’mon, Barrons. What’s the worst that can happen? I lead you into some trap and you die for however long it is you go away? Not that I’m going to,” I added hastily.

  “It’s hardly pleasant, Ms. Lane. It’s also highly inconvenient.”

  Inconvenient. That’s what dying for me back on the cliff had been. An inconvenience. And I’d been ready to wipe out a world for him. “Fine. Do what you want. I’m going.”

  I turned and pushed into the wall.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re—get your ass out of—Ms. Lane! Fuck! Mac!”

  As I vanished into the wall, I felt his hand close on my coat, and I laughed. He’d called me Mac, and I wasn’t even dying.

  “Which mirror now, Ms. Lane?” He glanced around the white room, scanning the ten mirrors.

  “Fourth from the left. Jericho.” I was sick of him calling me Ms. Lane. I picked myself up off the white floor. Once again the Silver had spit me out with entirely too much enthusiasm, and I didn’t even have the stones on me. I didn’t have anything but the spear in my holster, a protein bar, two flashlights, and a bottle of Unseelie in my pockets.