by Jen Katemi
I hope she is merely unconscious, and not... No. Focus. I can battle and heal at the same time, as long as I maintain my concentration.
I send a swirl of healing magic toward her, praying it will be enough to hold her until I can get her back to Faerie and repair the damage properly. I cannot do more than that with a were’s jaws threatening to close on my throat and a vamp on my back dragging at my head to assist the were.
I crash deliberately backward onto the ground, a surprised squeal released in my ear by the vamp as my weight combined with my armor crushes the creature enough to force it to let go. Its spindly hold releases and it wriggles out from beneath me and jumps away. I jab up and into the were’s chest with my dagger. Silver, with a wooden core. Perfect for felling any of these creatures. Any, except fae.
The were collapses onto me as it dies, so close to my face that its death gurgle fills my lungs with its fetid breath. I cough to rid myself of the putrid stench, and then breathe shallowly under the weight of the furry body until I manage to shove it off me.
As I do, I notice a sparkle of something metal at its neck. A medallion, with a strange swirling design. I remember Indie’s sister asking me if I had seen something like this. Guided by instinct, I conjure a handkerchief, and then for good measure, a sealed plastic bag. I use the handkerchief to rip the necklace off the dead were, and then fold it into the linen wrap and seal it into the bag. I tuck the package into my boot to consider later, before jumping to my feet, checking out the rest of the room. My fellow warriors—assembled at a moment’s notice back in Faerie when I sent out the call—are gaining the upper hand over the remaining abominations.
There don’t appear to be any necromancers left alive.
I turn my attention to the fae woman standing on the dais behind the altar. My queen. Or rather, my ex-queen.
Indie’s folded up body between us looks tiny and helpless. She is so still and pale. Too still. Too pale.
I direct another wave of healing magic Indie’s way, the tentacles reaching out from deep within me to wrap her and hold her tight. I can sense her essence, still hanging on, within the cradle of my magical embrace. She may not be conscious, but she is definitely still alive—at least for now.
Hold on, my love. I will get you home as soon as I am able.
I rush toward the altar, judging the distance and the height, and take a giant leap over the top of the stone slab. I land on my feet near the throne. Rhiannon takes a few small steps backward, away from me.
There was someone standing with her when we first arrived in the room. I caught the flash of a tall male lurking in the shadows behind Rhiannon. My momentary lapse of attention when I saw the spectacle of Indie—my beautiful, brave Indie—standing up on that slab and facing her enemies like an amazing Valkyrie warrior, gave whoever it was the opportunity to disappear.
No matter. I am positive I know who it was. And he will not get away with this. I will make sure of it.
I have to restrain myself from launching at Rhiannon and grabbing her around the neck. Even if she were to use her magic against me, my wrath is such that I would likely squeeze the life out of her before I could gather any useful information.
I narrow my gaze and glare at her. My control is balanced on a dagger’s edge. She must sense how close I am to snapping, because she sucks in a ragged breath and takes yet another step back.
“Time to end this, Rhiannon.” I can barely force the words past the constriction in my throat.
She holds out her hands in a beseeching manner. “You could join our cause, Tarrien. The Restoration Movement offers rewards beyond anything you have ever imagined. I would never have you working as a lackey, a glorified security guard. The way Renna has treated you since I left the Winter Court is disgraceful. You deserve so much more.”
The fact that I agree with her about Renna is moot. “I think not. It’s over, Rhiannon. Give yourself up now, to my warriors, and I will guarantee you maintain your dignity, at least.”
I will ensure Rhiannon dies for what she has done. But not here, and not now. We need to extract as much information as we can. If I act now, in this moment, we may never discover the full extent of her plan, nor identify all her allies. More innocent victims might die. We need that information from her, to rid both the mortal and fae worlds of the rot that has permeated everything, almost since the Accord began.
The Restoration Movement, she just called it. At least now, we have a name for the enemy.
“If you take me back now, you and I both know what will happen, Tarrien,” she says in a pleading tone. Her eyes are calculating, though. Their coldness does not match her beseeching voice, and I do not trust her at all. Especially not when her hands are tucked behind her back, potentially concocting a magical attack.
“King Tryppton loved you, once,” I say. “He will—”
“Tryppton will torture me, and then kill me, and he’ll enjoy doing it. Please don’t send me back.”
She’s not wrong. The king will indeed be most pleased to receive this prisoner in the dungeons of the Winter Palace, and her stay will not be pleasant. Unfortunately for Rhiannon, I have nothing but loathing in my heart for her. She should never have tried to kill Indie.
I reach behind me with my awareness, through the tentacles connecting me to my banshee. I confirm she is still alive, though barely. For the first time, doubt at my own ability both to battle and heal creeps in. What if I’m too late? What if this—I blast more power through the strands—is not enough?
I need to get her back to my quarters and locate all the strands that connect her to this life. I need to rebuild some of them and strengthen others, in order to bring her back whole.
I gesture to two of the warriors to come forward, providing quick instructions for transporting the queen back to Faerie’s Winter Court. They will temporarily freeze the captor, which will hold her magic in stasis and effectively renders her powerless.
Rhiannon’s lip curls up in a sneer as the warriors approach. Her hands are still tucked behind her. I watch carefully, waiting for whatever magic onslaught she might send our way.
“Rhiannon,” I start to say. “You—”
“That’s Queen Rhiannon to you, Tarrien.”
She quickly thrusts her arms and a ball of silver attack magic launches at the warriors. I jump to deflect it with my sword, and draw my short dagger.
“You’re not a queen. You’re nobody’s queen, anymore. Remember?”
Her eyes flash with rage. “When I am reinstated, I will remember those who supported me, and those who did not.”
“Those who supported you? Like my father, you mean?”
Her gaze flickers over her shoulder toward the shadows, and then back to me, confirming my guess. It was him. Sadness touches my heart and I realize I was holding out hope that my father had not fully crossed over to the dark side. Futile to hope for something I already knew was untrue.
“I will hunt him down, and I will kill him, you know,” I say. “Just like I will kill you, Rhiannon, once the king has extracted the information he needs. For what you both have done to so many, and for what you in particular have done to...”
I swallow back her name. I will not let this fae bitch see that the ice around my own warrior heart has the capacity to melt, and reform, and melt again.
She narrows her eyes. “What I have done to... Indigo? Ah, Tarrien. Poor little warrior boy. So, you are just like your father underneath that impressive armor. Only...” She glances past me, over my shoulder. “You are too late to save your little banshee. She is too far gone. In fact, I think she is already dead. Pity.”
Dead? She can’t be. I’m keeping her alive. Even though I still feel Indie’s essence, I can’t help the glance back at her. The queen hurls another ball of magic and this time it hits me directly in the face and bounces off to hit the other two warriors.
Silver blasts all around us and my vision disappears. I slash with my sword and my dagger where she stood, the blades fin
ding nothing. I already know what I will find when the silver mist clears.
She is gone. My father is gone. And I am left with a whole room full of dead abominations and necromancers.
Plus, the woman who managed to melt the ice around my heart without me even realizing. I sprint the short distance back to Indie, all the while barking instructions at the remaining warriors to stay and clean up the mess in this forsaken place.
Gently, I lift her up into my arms. “Indie. I’ve got you, now.”
She is floppy and non-responsive. Is the queen correct? Have I dallied too long, trying to be a hero and capture Rhiannon?
Self-disgust fills me. I should have taken Indie home immediately, instead of assuming I had the strength and expertise to battle and heal at the same time. Why did I not leave this battle to the others? Why did I not take her out of here the second I arrived?
“Hold on, my love. Stay with me.”
If she has already begun to cross over into oblivion, then nothing I do will be enough. There is no amount of winter warrior healing magic strong enough to bring her back, if she has already passed out of this plane of existence.
Chapter Eleven
Indigo
It’s the warmth that seeps in first. Delicious warmth, and the feeling of being safe and comforted in loving arms. I smile and stretch, wondering how I could possibly have slept so long and so dreamlessly that I can’t even remember the night before. I can’t even remember...
My eyelids pop open. I sit bolt upright, then grab my head as a wave of dizziness washes over me. I fall back into the pillows and groan. What the hell did I do last night? How much did I have to drink?
Awareness that this is not my own bed arrives slowly, and as it does, patches of memory begin to return. The ritual. All those leering faces. The pure evil leaching from that hideous fae queen.
This time I sit up with a bit more decorum, and the dizziness stays away. I’m in a bedroom, quite sparsely furnished with only the bed I’m lying in, a side table, a wardrobe tucked in the corner of the room, and a couple of chairs set on a rug in front of a small fireplace. The sparse nature of it all should be unpleasant, but it is not. Instead, there’s a warm and cozy feel to the space, which is enhanced by the lit fire in the grate. The flames provide a gentle golden glow in addition to several lit sconces dotted around the stone walls.
The bed itself is huge, constructed of wood and with a silver-gray quilt covering my lower half. It is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in, and the feeling of warmth and security stays with me, even though I’m now sitting up.
“Where am I?”
A slight chuckle to my left has my head turning, and I realize Tarrien is kneeling by the bed. He looks exhausted. He is strained around the eyes, and there are lines at the sides of his mouth that I don’t remember being there before.
I want to reach up and caress him, but my hand closest to him is clasped in one of his. I become aware that the sense of security emanates from our connection. I regard our clasped fingers and decide to leave my hand resting in his.
“Welcome back, Indie,” he says. “You’re in my bed. In Faerie.”
“Am I? But...” I frown, staring around. “Aren’t you from the Winter Court? I imagined something different to this. All, I don’t know, ice and coldness. This is...lovely. Homely.” I glance at the fireplace. “Won’t the fire melt things?”
This time his laugh is full-throated.
“I do hail from the Winter Court, which is where we are now, and there is quite a bit of snow and ice outside. Inside, our homes are whatever we want them to be. And I enjoy an open fire, much of the time. It hasn’t melted anything in the past few hundred years, so I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
His expression changes from lightly amused to serious. “Which brings me to you. How do you feel, Indie? Are you...fine?”
At his words, the whole slew of memory comes rushing back in then, not just in patches this time. So much blood. So much terror.
I shudder and rip my hand out of Tarrien’s, before reaching down under the covers with my free hand, exploring my thigh. The wound has disappeared, and I feel...well. There’s no other word to describe the sense of physical well-being. My mental well-being, on the other hand, may take a while to recover.
“They drained my blood. Didn’t they? I don’t think I should feel this well after...after...”
I can’t finish. Tears prick at my eyes and I bite my lip, trying to use willpower to hold them in. Tarrien jumps up from his position on the floor and sits on the edge of the bed. His white shirt and dark trousers show off his muscled physique. In this ordinary-looking bedroom setting, I could almost imagine we are two normal human beings, in the human world, in the tentative early stages of a developing relationship. No fae magic, or madness, or evil creatures running around trying to kill me. I stifle a laugh before it turns into a sob.
“It’s okay, Indie. You’re safe. I promise you, no one is going to hurt you, here.”
“I know. I...” I fold my arms across my belly, clutching my elbows.
He tentatively places his arm across my shoulders and draws me in to his side. His delicious scent rises around me, causing butterflies in my belly. I allow the embrace, leaning into him. His body emits warmth and I crave warmth. I crave his warmth in particular. Which sounds ridiculous, given he’s a winter fae. And yet, here we are in Winter Faerie, and I’m being warmed by an open fire and a fae warrior who is hot in every sense of the word.
“Are all winter fae as warm as you?” I ask.
“Winter fae vary a lot. Some are warm, and others—like winter warriors—carry the power of ice permanently within our veins. The connection with winter is supposed to keep us focused on our role as protector.” He lifts his shoulders in a slight shrug. “Though, for some reason, it does seem as though your presence heats me up, more than the norm.”
“Oh.” A small smile plays on my lips. “I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing from your point of view. But I have to admit, I kind of like that idea, actually.”
His arm tightens around me. “Several days ago, I’d have insisted it was a very bad thing for a winter warrior. Now...”
He pauses, and I tilt up my head to stare at him.
“Now?” I prompt, when he doesn’t speak.
He meets my gaze squarely. “Now, I very much like that idea, too.”
This close, I see the interesting flecks of silver that decorate the gray of his irises. The color is entrancing, and draws me in until my breath hitches and I can’t think straight.
Last time I saw Tarrien, he was wearing dark fae armor and waving a sword in the air, his eyes flashing silver and the promise of death etched across his features. He should have been terrifying. He was terrifying. But he was also magnificent. A true hero riding to my rescue.
Right now, he seems much more approachable, though no less magnificent. My pulse rate begins to speed up.
“It was definitely you, who came to rescue me? I didn’t imagine that?”
“Of course, it was me.” His voice is slightly indignant.
My tense muscles relax at the tone. He has an ego, though I’m willing to forgive that given the kindness and courage he has displayed toward me.
“Though when we arrived,” he says, “it looked like you were doing a damn good job of holding them off all by yourself, little banshee.”
“Hmm.” I try to laugh but it comes out sounding a bit pathetic. “I was pretty much all out of banshee song. Good thing you appeared when you did. I was down to a pathetic little squeak.”
He squeezes me super-tight for a moment, as if he knows how much effort it is taking for me to try and keep things light. “In some ways I’m glad you passed out, Indie. There was a lot of death in that room. I would not have wanted to put your banshee half through that horror and carnage.”
This time my chuckle is slightly more genuine. “A positive from a negative, then. Though I have to admit, I honestly didn’t expect to surv
ive. How did I survive? I think I lost a lot of blood back there in...where was I held, Tarrien?”
His expression turns grave. “You were in a place known as the Badlands. It hovers on the edge of the fae realm, almost in the human realm but not quite. It is neither one place nor the other. Right at the edge of The Nothing.”
Badlands. That sounds pretty much on a par with what it felt like to be there. And at the edge of nothing? I shudder and turn my face into Tarrien’s chest. His scent rises, subtle and comforting.
“Did you use your winter warrior skills and heal me?”
“I did.”
How can a man have two such contrasting sides? A warrior, and a healer. Someone who forges into battle seemingly without fear, slashing and chopping and killing without mercy, and then in the next instant he can turn around and be the complete opposite: a healer who can bring life back to those who hover on the edge of death.
In some ways, he reminds me of my own banshee side. The song of death is also the song of life; of new beginnings. Two opposing yet complementary sides. One cannot exist without the other.
Tarrien fascinates me in a way no one ever has before.
I realize he is still speaking, and tune back in. “It was touch and go, for a while. You were right. You had lost a lot of blood, Indie. Far too much. For a few minutes there...”
His voice trails off and I tilt my head back so I can study his face again. His mouth is a grim line and his features communicate guilt as well as tiredness. What on earth does he have to be guilty about?
“I thought I’d delayed too long. I cast strands to begin the healing process while I battled there in the Badlands, but even so, I parried insults with Rhiannon when I should have focusing purely on you.” He shakes his head, not trying to hide his self-disgust.
“I don’t remember.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You were not even partly conscious, by the time I brought you back here. I thought I wasn’t going to be strong enough to retrieve all the strands that keep you connected to life. I thought I’d failed you.”