Bryce couldn’t tear his gaze away from the woman—no, she wasn’t a woman. Female, yes, as the earth was female, or the moon, although the idea of assigning that kind of label to her was almost laughable. Mal was nearly right. Gender in Faerie was not so much optional as inconsequential—a convenience for a language that didn’t have a word for what she was.
But the way she held herself—her spine as straight as a birch sapling, her hair the color of maple leaves in October, her eyes the green of the first unfurling shoots of spring. His druid sight showed him the way she connected to the ground. No, that’s not quite right. The ground reached up to her, as if to beg for her touch, for her footfall. And with each step she set down a new root, renewing their bond.
“You’re the woman on the tapestry. The one in the Unseelie throne room.”
“We have given you no leave to speak, druid, nor any right to be in our lands.”
Maybe he should worry about the warning in her tone, but he needed to know. This was important. This was vital. “That’s not the royal we, is it? You really are more than one person. You’re the One Tree. You’re Faerie.”
“What?” Mal burst out.
Seriously? Hadn’t he known? Couldn’t he tell by looking that she was part of the center, the fulcrum, the heart around which Faerie turned?
“You see too much for your own good, druid. Do you think such knowledge can be permitted to spread like a canker on a fruit?”
“Don’t threaten him,” Mal said. “He didn’t have a choice. He had to come because of—”
Mal stopped speaking as if she’d cut off his words with an ax. “You think that an excuse, Lord Maldwyn? Or even a reason? You should not be here yourself.” Her gaze flicked between him and Bryce, as if following an unseen line in the air. Hell, maybe she could see Cassie’s invisible chain too. It wouldn’t surprise him. She looked as if she could see anything, through anything and anyone.
Mal had called her merciless, but Bryce saw it differently. Could you ascribe intent, good or bad, to the turn of the seasons? Winter was as necessary for growth as spring. She wasn’t merciless—she was inevitable.
“This is neutral territory.” The cloaked figure’s voice, like the rumble of distant thunder, held no heat or accusation. I really need to get a name for that guy.
The Queen allowed her attention to drift to him. “Just so. Yet you corrupted one of our subjects to gain entry. You have no place here either.”
She raised one moon-white hand, and Bryce felt the gathering of energy, of potential, like electricity on his skin.
“Wait!” Mal stumbled to his feet and dropped to his knees again between her and Bryce. “Hear him out. You can do this much for me after my years as your hunting dog.”
“You are not entitled to special consideration for doing no more than your duty.”
“What can it hurt? If you don’t like what he has to say, you can blast me to all the hells afterward. But—” He glanced at Bryce, and despite the anger Bryce still felt over Mal’s lies, the despair in his eyes cut all the way to Bryce’s heart. “One way or another, let Bryce go. Please.”
“Do you forget, Majesty?” the cloaked guy asked. “Once inside the circle, however we came here, we have the right to stay.”
She regarded him, unmoving. “Few know of that law.”
“Does that give you the right to gainsay it?”
She lowered her hand and tucked it into the sleeve of her gown. “Only the bold, foolhardy, or desperate would dare accuse us of an unlawful act.”
“Just so.”
She inclined her head. “Continue.”
Bryce glanced from Mal to Cloaked Guy. Which of them was supposed to continue? Mal looked totally wrecked, his brother looming over him like the Grim Reaper. Bryce tried to catch his eye, to will him to take heart, but it was as if he’d given up.
Fine. He’d lectured to auditoriums full of sullen, sleep-deprived students at 8 a.m. classes. He could do this, at least until Mal recovered enough, or Cloaked Guy worked up the balls to tell them why they were all here.
“Your—Your Majesty, I can see that you’re like the avatar of this place. It needs you to keep it going. But the reverse is also true: you need Faerie to keep yourself going. It’s a closed ecosystem and you’re the engine. Am I right?”
“In a way, although we wouldn’t put it so bluntly, or with such a lack of poetry.”
“But something’s wrong. When you walked across the circle, the grass nearly cried for your touch, but it wasn’t enough. Look.” He pointed to where her footsteps still showed. Even in the Outer World, healthy grass should have sprung up by now. “The blight, it’s not just localized, is it? The heart of Faerie, the One Tree is infected. It’s dying.” The bleak look in her eyes told him he’d gotten it right. “You’re dying.”
“No.” Alun’s voice was broken, and he dropped his sword at his feet. “It can’t be true. The druid lies.”
“Peace, Lord Cynwrig.” The Queen raised her chin, and in the light of the moon—full and huge and way too close—Bryce could see what the softer light of the stones had hidden before: the web of lines at the corners of her eyes. “We do not punish those who tell the truth, no matter how inconvenient it might be.”
“Lord Maldwyn,” Cloaked Guy rumbled, “please offer Her Majesty the token I trusted you with.”
“The what? Oh. Right.” Mal fumbled in his pocket and drew out a tiny wooden box. He held it up on the palm of his hand so the Queen could take it or refuse it if she wanted. “I—I can’t open it. Not with one hand.”
Bryce stood and walked slowly to Mal’s side, keeping an eye on Alun in case he decided to retrieve his big-ass sword. “Allow me.”
When no one objected—not the Queen nor Cloaked Guy, nor Alun and his sword—Bryce placed one hand on Mal’s shoulder and took the box from his hand. He squeezed Mal’s shoulder once, then released it to open the tiny box.
Inside, a single fragile blossom glowed upon a cushion of moss. Its ivory petals were the color of the Queen’s skin, but their outer edges held a rusty stain, as if they had been dipped in blood.
The Queen inhaled on a gasp, and somehow that sound was as shocking as if the moon itself had screamed. “It’s begun.”
“It has,” Cloaked Guy said.
The Queen stared down at Mal, her eyes cold and hard. “We hold you to blame for this, Lord Maldwyn. If you had not deprived us of our Consort—”
“Blame not the messenger, my lady.” Cloaked Guy’s tone was sharp. “The blight began far earlier than that night, and indeed, your former Consort was part of it. Lord Maldwyn did you a favor, will you but acknowledge it.”
She looked as if she were about to wring her hands, like a heroine in a melodrama. “I suspected. But the traditions, the laws. I could not be without a Consort or—”
“Or this would happen.” Cloaked Guy finally moved, gesturing to the blood-edged flower with one leather-gauntleted hand. “Our world out of balance. The end of Faerie.”
“Yes.”
“Yet to be with a Consort who was not your equal, who craved your power for his own—the balance had tipped long before Lord Maldwyn separated the traitor’s hand from his arm and freed you from his evil influence.”
“What do you know of such things?” Her chin was up again, and if ever Bryce needed an illustration of the word haughty, she was the epitome of it. “You speak as if you have experience of such evil.”
“I do. If you permit?” He raised his hands, hesitantly, almost apologetically.
Bryce held his breath. He was about to see what had cast that monstrous shadow, and he was torn between his avid scholar’s curiosity and his primitive flight reflex. But as long as Mal was hunkered in front of the Queen, he couldn’t stray more than a dozen feet away; his curiosity won by default.
Cloaked Guy lowered his hood. Bryce sucked in a breath. As much as he was expecting something on the upper scale of horrifying, he was unprepared for the reality of a giant blue-sk
inned cross between Medusa and a Tellarite from Star Trek: TOS.
Alun snatched up his sword and moved between the guy and the Queen. Mal clenched his eyes shut and bowed his head.
And the Queen—she merely looked at him, calmly, as if she saw such horrors every day, or the years had worn away her ability to be shocked by them.
“Neither you nor the Unseelie King, were he inclined to do anything other than grasp for more power, can halt the decay alone. It requires sacrifices on both sides, sacrifices the King is not prepared to make. He seeks always for an easy path, or one that others will clear for him. But his actions, his ill-advised alliances, tip the scales ever further, allowing the poison to leach into the Outer World. I’ve done what I could to thwart him, but thus far have been unsuccessful. Indeed, I was exiled for my pains.”
“Yet you have come here as if you have a solution.”
“Not a solution. But perhaps an opportunity.”
Steve stared at Mal, his eyes aflame in his blue-skinned face, the serpents that passed for his hair writhing and hissing in apparent agitation. What . . .? Oh. Right, then. Mal had to be the one to do the persuading. Perhaps Steve’s own geas made it impossible for him to ask for what he needed. One thing Mal had learned in his days trolling the Outer World clubs: if you can’t ask for what you want, chances are you’ll never get it.
He glanced at Bryce, who scowled at Steve and pushed his glasses up his nose with one knuckle. He gave me what I wanted when I didn’t even know I had a question.
Mal cleared his throat, and everyone’s attention snapped to him. “Your Majesty, I would never have come here tonight except we . . .” Mal waited for the familiar crush of his windpipe whenever he tried to speak of the bargain, but it didn’t come. “That is, Steve—”
“‘Steve’? Seriously?” Bryce muttered. “If you believed that—”
Mal glared at him. You’re not making this easier, mate. “Steve craves a . . . a boon.” Shite, that’s one fragging huge understatement. “An indulgence from you.”
“Indeed?” Her chilly Majesty wasn’t giving him much to work with either.
“He requests . . .” Goddess grant me strength, “a night. In your bed.”
If Steve uncloaking got everyone’s attention, that little bomb blew the top off the hill. Alun growled, his attention split between Mal and Steve as if he didn’t know whom to behead first. Bryce’s mouth fell open, and the look on his face was something Mal would have paid anything never to see: disappointment, hurt, betrayal.
The Queen looked as remote as the moon. No change there.
“Can you give us a single reason why we would countenance such a request, Lord Maldwyn?” Her voice could have carved diamonds. “A single reason why we shouldn’t punish you for daring to suggest it?”
“Ah. Well. If you— I mean . . .” How in all the bloody hells was he supposed to persuade her to do something he didn’t understand himself? Steve could have prepared me a little better for this. He sighed. “Not a bloody one.”
“You hold the reason in your hand, my lady.” Steve’s voice, in comparison to the Queen’s, was as near to gentle as he’d ever gotten.
She looked down at the sad little flower, already wilting in the night air. “A return to balance.”
“Wait a minute.” Bryce strode forward until he was in direct line of sight between the Queen and Steve, and within reach of Alun’s sword. “You can’t do this.” He rounded on Mal. “Coercive sex is no better than rape. How can she refuse? If she wants to save her world, all her subjects, she has no choice but to agree.”
“There is always a choice,” Steve rumbled, “and every choice has its own consequences. Choosing the good of others above our own comfort and desires is the nature of sacrifice.”
“How do we know it’ll even work? Maybe this is all part of the Unseelie King’s plot. You said he wanted power. What better way to get it than to steal it from her?”
“How do you imagine I could do that?”
“How the hell should I know? You’ve clearly got the power to teleport yourself up here when you’re supposedly banished. Plus, you’re packing a dagger—we saw you tuck it away just now.”
“If that is your only objection . . .” He removed his leather gauntlets, revealing scaled skin and talons like an eagle’s, and drew the dagger from under his cloak. He offered it to her on his plate-sized palm. “It must be near if I’m to remain undetected, but you’re welcome to keep it close, my lady.”
“Forget that. You’re like twice her size. You could overpower her—”
“You underestimate her abilities, druid. She is the Seelie Queen. The heart of Faerie, as you have so astutely observed. But the One Tree cannot stand if its roots wither and rot.”
“But—”
“We grant you your boon.”
“What?” Bryce and Alun shouted in unison.
She looked down at Mal. “We all make the choices we must, do we not? Our reasons may not be evident to others, perhaps least so to ourselves, but they are valid nonetheless.” She inclined her head again, but it had nothing to do with surrender or supplication. “You may keep your dagger, my lord. It matters not to us.”
“Your Majesty,” Alun stepped forward. “You can’t mean to go through with this. We have no notion what his motives might be.”
“His motives are likely the same as ours for agreeing. The role granted us by the elder gods is not one we take lightly. Your honor and duty demand that you serve your realm to the best of your ability. How can we offer any less?”
Alun bowed. “As you wish. But I cannot let you go unaccompanied.”
“Your authority does not extend into our bower.” When Alun would have protested, she held up one white hand. “You may guard the door, if you wish. But you may not interfere, no matter what you hear.” She raised her chin, tilted her head, her hair sweeping across shoulders bared by the neckline of her gown. “Shall we retire?”
Steve took three measured strides toward her, ignoring Alun’s sword, and dropped to one knee at her feet. “You do me great honor.”
“It is not you we honor, sirrah, but Faerie.”
He pressed one scaled fist against his chest in salute, bowing his head. Thank the elder gods the snakes had gone quiescent. “As you say.” He stood, graceful despite his monstrous form, and offered her his arm.
Bryce turned to Mal, unable to watch the Queen pace across the circle, her hand on the monster’s forearm, Alun dogging their heels. “Stop them.”
“What do you imagine I can do?” Mal rose heavily to his feet. “She owned me when I thought she was only the Queen, but now you tell me she’s bleeding Faerie itself.”
“Relative power is immaterial, don’t you get it?” He grabbed Mal’s shoulders, barely resisting the urge to shake. “It’s still wrong to deprive someone of choice.”
Mal jerked out of Bryce’s hold. “You ought to know about that, eh? Seeing how much practice you’ve had with choice deprivation lately.”
A scalding geyser of anger shot from Bryce’s chest to the roots his hair—but not at Mal. No, he knew exactly who to blame. “This is all Gareth doing, isn’t it? No matter what you feel like you owe him, you don’t have to listen to everything he says.”
“That’s what you think. He’s always been smarter than me, plus he’s a bard. They . . . they know things. If he thinks the druid bond is shameful, then—”
“Stop it. He can’t know what’s right for us. Only we can know that. Besides, when we drank the management tea, we bypassed the compulsion.”
Mal’s face twisted in a sneer. “If it was so fecking bypassed, then why did I still want you?”
Bryce’s breath stalled. “But . . . why? Why go through with it? If you thought what you felt wasn’t real, then . . .” Why invite me in?
“Why not?” Mal stared down at his hands, flexing one while the other stayed still, fingers half curled into his palm. “Why the bloody hells not?”
So I was nothing more
than a distraction. He doesn’t want me. He never did. Not really. How could he? He was Lord Maldwyn, for God’s sake. Practically immortal and more beautiful than the day. How could he ever want an awkward science nerd with one foot in the swamp and the other squarely in his mouth?
The lump in Bryce’s throat threatened to choke him. “Very well. After tonight, I’ll tell Cassie my supernatural indoctrination is complete. Get her to release us.” Why did that feel as if he were cutting his own heart out with his fucking pruners? Would Mal still live in Hillsboro now, in their laughably modest houses that Bryce had once been so proud of because they had a zero carbon footprint? After what he’d seen here, his pride seemed pathetic. “You’ll never have to talk to me again.”
“Not bloody likely, mate. Remember? Thanks to that last shag, we’re connected until one of us dies. If you’re lucky, maybe Alun will do you the favor of killing me before the night is over, and you can go home.”
“Now you’re being an asshole. What’s the point of giving up? You know there’s a problem here. You’ve seen it.”
“No, mate. You’ve seen it, and clearly a bunch of other shite as well, which you didn’t see fit to share with the class.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your fecking druid sight! If you could tell when bloody Steve was lying, why didn’t you tell me when he first showed up?”
“Oh come on, Mal. Be fair. Even if I’d known I could do it, I didn’t get a good look at him in the kitchen, and tonight—”
“Hold on.” Mal grabbed his arm, this time in a grip hard enough to bruise. “You saw him in my house?”
“Just his shadow.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Bryce dropped his gaze, ashamed of decisions that were rooted in his own self-doubt and unfounded suspicions. “Because the two of you were talking about some kind of . . . of conspiracy.”
“So you thought I was the traitor too? Why bed me, then? Get off on a bit of rough, do you?”
The Druid Next Door Page 24