by Amy Sumida
“It's madness,” Tiernan shook his head and then gave me a little smile. “But it just may work.”
Chapter Forty-Three
We decided not to risk bringing anyone else in to help us. It would be a clandestine operation that we weren't even telling my father about. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission. So it would only be Aodh, Tiernan, and I, riding out to the Unseelie Court with three carriages, one for each of us. Hopefully we'd have enough room to fit all of the seelie prisoners.
“What are you doing?” The deep rumble came from behind me, making me jump. I turned to see Conri leaning in the stable's doorway.
“Nothing that concerns you,” Tiernan answered crisply, as he finished attaching the lead to my horses.
“Have you already forgotten that I'm a member of the Star's Guard?” Conri straightened and sidled over with the graceful gait of a predator.
“The what?” Aodh asked from where he was already seated atop his coach.
“My personal Guard,” I said to Aodh before I looked back at Conri. “I'm fine, Conri, go back inside the castle.”
“Where are you going with three empty carriages, Princess?” He narrowed his eyes on me.
“This is a private matter that the Princess and I must attend to,” Tiernan said briskly. “She is well protected.”
“We have to go,” Aodh urged.
“I'm not letting you go anywhere with only a sylph and one knight to guard you,” Conri growled. “No matter if that knight is a Lord of the Wild Hunt.” He said the last bit in a mocking tone, like he was tired of hearing it said, which made me grin.
“Get in the damn carriage,” I sighed as I climbed up onto the driver's seat.
“You're not going to like where we're going,” Tiernan warned.
“I'll like it better than allowing the Princess to go without me,” Conri smirked as he headed towards my carriage.
“Fine,” Tiernan grabbed Conri by the shoulder and spun him around, “but you're riding with me. I'll explain on the way.” Tiernan turned and got up onto his carriage, which was in front of mine.
“He's jealous of our love,” Conri winked at me before he jumped up into the seat beside Tiernan.
Tiernan gave an irritated huff and slapped the reins down lightly. His carriage rolled out into the courtyard smoothly and then through the warded gates. The gate guards, who believed I was on my way to the Human Realm on urgent Council business, merely nodded respectfully as we passed.
“That bargest is going to be incorrigible now,” I said to Cat as I shook my head. I couldn't leave her behind either, she was just as tenacious as Conri. So I'd compromised by letting her help pull my carriage in her horse form.
We were traveling as fast as possible, trying to get to the unseelie castle right at dawn so that all of our magics would be at their strongest. Granted mine would only be empowered for a little while but Aodh and Tiernan would get a boost all day... and how unfair is that, by the way? I only get a power surge twice a day for maybe fifteen minutes, at the most an hour, depending on where I am in the world. So not right.
After a couple hours, we came to a large hill with a tunnel going through its center. The road led right up to it, the forest crowding in on either side as if herding us in. I didn't recognize this side but I knew this was the passage we'd taken to get from Unseelie to Twilight. A fairy mound within Fairy, like a wormhole through space. It occurred to me then that we were crossing continents, that if I were in the Human Realm, I'd basically be traveling from America to China in mere moments. How convenient for a raid into the Unseelie Court. Or if I wanted to go to China.
The stone archway outlining the tunnel's mouth was barred by golden gates. They were shut firmly and I frowned at that. I didn't remember any gates opening the last time I came through but then again, I hadn't really been paying attention to the fairy mound and it had been pretty dark. Now I was able to make out the image of a full moon suspended over a castle. The castle was perched on a hill with a forest surrounding its base. The forest and castle were carved from pieces of onyx but the moon was made of silver.
Tiernan's carriage was nearly to the mound when the gates swung open, splitting the moon and the scene in two with a silent and rapid movement. Tiernan didn't even pause, just drove his team of horses into the dark. I spared a glance for the detailed silverwork of the gate as I followed him.
The dark didn't scare me anymore. The more I walked these roads in-between, the more I felt my power over them. I was safer here than anywhere else. Even if I were to leap from the seat of the carriage and fling myself into that unknown black, I would be fine. I knew it in my bones. I could change the dark, fill the void, and alter the path entirely with just a thought. This was my world and nothing could defeat me while I stood in the between.
I took a deep, satisfied breath and let the power course through me. My skin began to glow softly and I smiled to myself. How strange that I felt the most at ease within a void. Then a glimmer of gold pierced the shadows as the gates opened for Tiernan. We rode through and I glanced at them but on the inside, they were just unadorned sheets of gold.
Outside of the mound, the sky was still inky black and full of stars. There seemed to be more celestial bodies in Fairy but I knew that was just because they were easier to see without the blinding lights of human cities obscuring their sparkle. Still, the night seemed more magical, more powerful. I breathed in the pure, crisp air and let it clear my head of the rush I'd received from the path in-between. My skin had muted down to normal but its previous glow must have been enough to attract the attention of a moth, which landed on my hand.
It was a large moth, perhaps six inches across, and had a bright red, furry body and two, large, ruby spots on its wings, giving it the appearance of predator eyes. They even glimmered a little like cat eyes, the opalescence in the moth dust catching the moonlight. Those wings shivered as the moth tip-toed slowly up my arm to cling to my shoulder.
“Hey there,” I glanced down at it, not at all bothered by its presence. This insect was one of mine, a twilight creature, and I sensed our connection immediately. “I'm on a super secret mission to rescue a bunch of fairies. You wanna tag along?”
The moth shivered again and then crawled down onto the seat beside me. He made his way back, wedging himself in a corner of the seat cushion to escape the wind.
“I guess that's a yes,” I grinned.
We had to stop a bit away from the castle so we could hide the carriages in the forest. If the fey were too injured to travel that far, we'd just have to run back to fetch them... and hope no one spotted us. The moth stayed in his little nook and I was glad for it. He may just be an insect but I didn't want to risk his little moth life in the unseelie castle.
“Watch over everything for me, Cat,” I gave her neck a pat as I headed past the horses.
She huffed and gave me an annoyed look. I knew she wanted to come along but this was as far as I was willing to take her. Yes, she could probably help protect me but she could also bark at the wrong moment and totally screw us. No, pukas didn't belong on covert missions. At least not without more training. Plus, it would take too long to get her bridled again.
“There it is,” I said as we crept over the rolling hills that surrounded the unseelie castle. “Follow me.”
I led the men to a distinctive grouping of rocks behind and below the castle. The sky was lightening, already purple instead of black, so I could clearly see the castle looming above us. The path to the castle's entrance wound gently up a gradual slope but there, at the castle's back, the rock face was a shear drop. Looking up at the soaring towers was dizzying, so I focused instead on finding the large boulder that completely camouflaged the entrance. I eased around it to find an open tunnel, there wasn't even a door barring the way. I was about to go in when Tiernan grabbed me.
“Hold on,” he waved a hand over the entrance and it shimmered. “There are wards in place.”
“No, we walked out without a probl
em,” I insisted.
“I'm sure you did,” Tiernan shared a look with Aodh and Conri, “when you were with Bress.”
“Oh damn and double damn!” I hissed. “We should have brought him with us.”
“Did you just say double damn?” Conri drawled. “You're adorable.”
“Relax,” Tiernan held up his hand, ignoring Conri. “We just need to wait a few minutes for sunrise.”
“You can get past this?” I asked with surprise.
“Shadowcall, remember?” He smirked at me. “This ward is shadow magic.”
“Well that's convenient,” I started to grin.
“I don't think they were expecting a seelie with shadow magic to try and infiltrate their castle,” Tiernan shrugged.
“You must really annoy them,” I chuckled.
“He annoys everyone,” Conri grinned, “and he's very good at it.”
“Are we talking about me or you?” Tiernan lifted a brow.
Then I inhaled sharply as the night gave way to day and the closeness of sunrise brought a surge of power. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Conri shiver through the twilight magic with me. Titillating tingles spread through my veins and then my vision shifted from the dark tunnel to another scene entirely.
I was standing in a room with a group of fey before me and they were running towards me with malicious intent. I saw my hand lift to my chin and felt the breath rush from my throat as I blew over my fingertips. A cloud of sparkling, lavender dust flew out from my fingers to settle over the fairies. They fell to the ground, immediately fast asleep. Then I shivered and blinked as my vision shifted back to reality and I found three men staring at me in concern.
“I'm the god damned sandman,” I huffed.
“What does she mean?” Aodh looked over to Tiernan as Conri continued to watch me carefully.
“I believe she's had a vision,” Tiernan frowned. “What did you see, Princess Seren?”
“I saw myself putting fairies to sleep,” I lifted a brow. “Do you think it means what I think it means?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Tiernan grinned and glanced over to Aodh and Conri. “It seems that she's inherited her father's gift of dream-dusting. Not exactly a fearsome magic but it'll come in handy.”
“Especially when I don't want to kill anyone,” I shrugged as the sun came up and the two seelie men inhaled sharply.
“If killing needs to be done, I'll take care of it,” Tiernan said grimly as his eyes began to glow and just like that, the Lord of the Wild Hunt took over my mission. Maybe I was fooling myself in thinking I'd ever been in charge. Clearly, this was a man who led much better than he followed.
“You're not the only one capable of killing,” Conri rolled his eyes. “But if you want to go into the dark unseelie tunnel first, then by all means.”
Tiernan gave Conri a stern look before he held his hand up to the tunnel's entrance and concentrated. The darkness coalesced into a sphere of shifting shadows which hovered in the air before him. He scooped up the sphere and cast it aside. As soon as it hit the sunlight, it burst apart and disappeared.
Without even a backwards glance at us, Tiernan headed into the tunnel. I rushed ahead of him though; he may lead better than he followed but he wasn't going to lead us anywhere if he didn't know where he was going.
I saw him flinch a little as he realized the same thing and then he waved his hand, gesturing for me to take over. I gave a low chuckle and set off, going through the escape in my head, laying out the map of it, and following it backwards to the beginning. I'd been trained to remember this sort of thing; routes through places, distinguishing landmarks, and facial features. This was easy for me, fun even, and if I hadn't been on such a serious mission, I might have enjoyed myself.
The tunnels were empty and we made good time in reaching the lower levels of the castle, but once we were there, I realized there was another flaw to our plan. I had no idea where they kept the seelie prisoners. Tiernan saw me hesitate as I stepped out of the tunnels and he stepped past me to look around.
“Prisoners are commonly kept in cells,” Tiernan glanced back at me. “True for humans and fairies.”
“Excellent,” I sighed and looked around the large room. “You think those cells are down here?”
We were in the bowels of the castle and the room we stood in was carved out of the mountain itself. The stone was rough-hewn, with obvious tool marks marring its damp surface. The floor was smoother than the walls, laid with tiles of some kind of gray stone. Directly in front of us was a set of stairs and although it was too dark to see how far up they went, I knew from my last journey down them that they went quite far. At the base of the stairs, a hook was set into the wall and a lantern hung from it. Its soft glow illuminated the entrance to the corridors on either side of us.
“They most likely are,” Tiernan frowned as he stared down one of the corridors. “Though there are several unseelie who are most comfortable within the earth's embrace. There could be living quarters down here too.”
Conri gave a long sniff in both directions and then pointed down the left corridor. “That way smells of blood and fear.”
“Alright then, blood and fear it is,” I began walking towards the corridor but Conri's warm hand slid into mine and pulled me to a stop.
“Let me go first, Your Highness,” he tapped his nose. “I can find the way faster.”
“No kidding,” I waved a hand in front of me and he let me go to pad down the dark corridor as quiet as a mouse, or whatever they called a mouse in Fairy.
Tiernan slid in front of me before I could head after Conri and I made a face at his back as I followed. Aodh closed in behind us. The hallway went straight back without a bend or door to be found, then it opened up suddenly into a large room with two more corridors branching off it. There was a table made of thick wood planks with a few crude chairs around it, placed in front of a fireplace on the right side of the room. The fireplace wasn't all that large but it had several weapons hanging above its mantle; an ax, a mace, a couple spears, and a crossbow. They imparted an air of intimidation that even the teapot, hanging above the cheery fire, couldn't alleviate. Though that could have been more due to the fact that a hag stood near the fireplace, reaching for that kettle. Then there were the two goblins and a bodach, sitting at the table nearby.
A bodach is a nasty male fairy whose past times include stealing human children. This particular one was old man thin with sagging, jaundiced skin and bulging, cloudy, blue eyes, which he set on us with shocked glee. Conri started to growl and step forward while Tiernan pulled his sword, but I went between them, held up a hand, and blew harshly across my fingertips.
A glittering dust wafted out and drifted over all four of the unseelie fairies. Their eyes widened with a jerk and then drifted shut as they all fell into a deep slumber. The hag was lucky and fell backwards or she would have landed in the fire. The two goblins just plopped their heads down on the table but the bodach fell face forward on the grimy stone floor, knocking his head loud enough to make me wince.
“Sweet dreams,” I smirked. Yep. I was the Sandman... or Sandwoman I guess. Too bad I wasn't a witch, that would have been a great joke.
“That was so unfair,” Conri scowled at me. “Do you know how long it's been since I've seen any action?”
“About five hours?” Tiernan smirked.
“Jealous?” Conri shot back.
“We want to be as quiet as possible, don't we?” I interrupted before the talk turned into a sexual innuendo squabble.
“I guess,” Conri grumbled as he kicked the bodach over onto his back and pulled two large sets of keys from his belt. The bargest frowned down at the two rings and then tossed one to Tiernan before he headed off down the left corridor. Aodh gave me a smiling shrug as he followed Conri.
“Shall we?” Tiernan nodded to the hallway on the right.
I nodded and followed him into a passage lined with cells. It was really just a large room divided up by walls of bars
to create several cells to either side of us. It smelled rank and I don't think it was fear or blood I was smelling. I wrinkled my nose as I peered into the shadows, searching for any sign of life.
Tiernan went to the very first door and started trying keys in the locks. After the fourth attempt, we heard someone coming down the corridor and both of us tensed, hands going to our weapons, but it was just Aodh, holding up the other set of keys.
“Wrong ones,” he huffed and tossed them to me. Tiernan tossed him our set and Aodh ran out again.
“Here,” I handed Tiernan the new keys and he quickly found one that worked.
The door creaked open in the way that all dungeon doors must and Tiernan handed me the keys before heading in. I nodded and went straight across the corridor to another cell. Metal scraped against metal as I tried several keys before finding a winner. The door swung open, giving its metallic screech just as its neighbor had, and I edged into the gloom.
“Hello?” I whispered. “I'm here to take you home, I'm not an unseelie. Is anyone here? This is a rescue, I promise.” I know, I sounded like an idiot but it was my first rescue, give me a break.
“Yes,” a voice whispered. “I'm here. Who are you?”
“I'm Extinguisher, er, uh, Princess Seren of Twilight,” I found him sitting in a corner, legs pulled up tight to his chest, clutching what looked to be a bloody blanket.
“Twilight? The Twilight Court never interferes.” He blinked up at me with large, rounded, coffee colored eyes that shone liquid in the dark.
“We do now,” I bent down and offered him a hand.
He stared at my hand a moment and then took it resolutely and allowed me to help him stand. When the filtered light hit him, I saw that he was a selkie, a type of fairy who can change into a seal, simply by slipping on a seal skin. Their skins were their most prized possessions and if they were damaged, the selkie would be unable to change until it was healed. If the skin was destroyed, so was the selkie.