Master of One

by Jaida Jones

  “I take it working closely with Morien is a marked departure from your usual affairs, Lord Faolan?”

  Somhairle had no love for deceit. But he was very fond of stories.

  “My honored mother,” Somhairle continued, while Faolan waged a battle with a particularly tough country vegetable, “believes I’ve too sensitive a constitution to learn the extent of her concerns about her enemies. She doesn’t wish to burden me. But if anything should happen to her, and I knew nothing of it . . . that would be the true burden on my heart.”

  He busied himself then with folding and twisting his napkin, worrying his bottom lip. When he lifted his eyes, he made sure they were moist.

  He found Faolan observing him closely, as if he were an ancient tome written in fae.

  The instant their eyes met, Faolan’s hardened, jewel-like. His lips were smiling. “What is it you wish to know, Prince Somhairle? I’ve no similar concerns about your constitution, and not so gentle a heart as Her Radiance.”

  In some regions, Somhairle’s mother was called Diamondheart for her unyielding strength. If Faolan was being wry, his tone gave no indication.

  “Tell me everything you know,” Somhairle suggested. “Everything that’s happened since I left.”

  “That’s asking a great deal. Fortunately, I find myself equal to your challenge.” Faolan gestured magnanimously. “Who loves to talk better than the son of a lawyer?”

  By dessert, Somhairle had learned the current state of the Resistance.

  He’d been sent to Ever-Land too early to have much memory of what life at court was like, but there had been murmurs of discontent even then from those who believed his mother’s reign had lasted too long.

  She’s the first queen to have heirs, yet she won’t move aside for them. Somhairle remembered with a flush of sympathetic embarrassment the night Murchadh had had more drink than he could hold and had repeated this scandalous secret a bit too loudly to Lochlainn, who’d cuffed him for repeating it. The party, like others before it, had devolved into brawling.

  That was the extent of it, Somhairle had thought, but in his absence, the murmurs had organized themselves into a unified Resistance. They disrupted Her Majesty’s mining operations, causing collapse and destruction throughout the city. They sowed rancor and fear among the good men and women of the Queensguard.

  None of that compared to the killing blow they must have struck when House Ever-Loyal’s eldest son chose to champion their cause.

  It had been Tomman, Somhairle learned, not Inis. Inis was, as far as Faolan knew, still alive and well banished, thanks to the Queen’s beneficence.

  Somhairle recalled Tomman, Laisrean’s oldest friend, as slightly too serious, always marching at a dignified pace while Ainle, Inis, and Ivy Ever-Loyal gamboled ahead. Try as he might, he couldn’t picture Tomman as the fiery head of a rebellion, a deadly threat to order and the Crown.

  Was Tomman’s betrayal the reason Laisrean had stopped visiting? The reason he hadn’t written Somhairle with the news? Laisrean’s big heart must have broken to lose Tomman twice. Once to treason, again to the blade.

  However, regardless of personal sentiment, even as sheltered a prince as Somhairle understood the threat. House Ever-Loyal led the Queensguard. If they turned against the Queen . . .

  They could not be allowed to turn against the Queen.

  “Ever-Loyal was so beloved,” Faolan said. “Her Majesty hasn’t been the same since. I saw the aftermath for myself. I’ll always remember the violence I witnessed that dawn.”

  So it had been bloody, as Somhairle feared.

  Traitors to the crown forfeited their right to trial. What had happened at House Ever-Loyal provided public warning, a demonstration of a traitor’s ugly fate.

  “I mean that as a compliment to Her Majesty,” Faolan added shrewdly. “I strive to be as heartless as she, in all things.”

  Somhairle had to pretend he was choking in order to mask his startled cough.

  Too far away from the Hill for too long. He’d lost his edge.

  He’d been grateful to lose it.

  After reassuring Somhairle that no similar large-scale deception had been ferreted out since—strict measures had been taken to ensure no such plots could similarly fester—Faolan escorted him upstairs. On the steps, Faolan explained that the Queensguard had proven loyal to the Queen by leading the raid on House Ever-Loyal. Allegedly, one of the Queensguard had herself brought evidence of Tomman Hail Ever-Loyal’s treason to Catriona.

  Once he’d been encouraged to start speaking, Faolan seemed unable, or unwilling, to stop.

  Somhairle’s heart felt heavier than his head. He wanted only to trudge to bed and mourn in peace.

  “I lied to you before,” Faolan charged on, with such cheerfulness that it pulled Somhairle from his inner realm. “I suppose I do have gentler feelings, and I don’t want you to worry. Know this.” Faolan’s features sharpened, every bit the young lord orphaned early yet shrewd enough to lead his house to glory. His words were like hammered metal. “At present, the Last and I are researching something that will crush all treason, all memory of treason, down to its final gasp.”

  They stopped in front of Somhairle’s bedroom door. With one gentlemanly flourish, Faolan the blade vanished behind an air of coy amusement. He wore again the expression of an insouciant dandy as he opened the door and stepped aside.

  “That’s supposed to prevent me from worrying?” Somhairle asked.

  Faolan bowed. This time, it was mocking, but Somhairle didn’t get the feeling he was the target. Who was? “All your birds are dead, I miss my damned dogs—might as well do something to enjoy myself.”

  “Or you could do something to make things better,” Somhairle murmured wearily, but Faolan had already left, having provided Somhairle with more new questions than old answers.

  26

  Cab

  Cabhan of Kerry’s-End had defected from the Queensguard for a number of reasons. Reasons he’d since forced himself to stop chewing over in the hopes of sleeping decently for a change.

  He’d put the promise of promotion, all the bloodlust and murder disguised as patriotism, behind him. He’d chosen to live on the run, and he hadn’t glanced back.

  He figured adventure was likewise behind him, the price he had to pay for his freedom. Nameless and unrecognizable as the lad he’d once been, he’d returned to Kerry’s-End, wearing clothes he’d gathered from three separate drying lines.

  If his shirt scratched him at night because it’d been sewn with quickbeam seeds for protection, well, that was what he got for stealing.

  For abandoning his post. For returning to the superstitious countryside.

  Cab hadn’t looked anyone in the eye since he’d been back. He’d taken on odd jobs for minimal pay in order to keep his body busy. He had to tire it out so well that he could stumble straight to sleep when he finally lay down for the night.

  So he could forget the things he’d seen.

  Or pretend he forgot.

  For three nights now, he’d slept in Tithe Barley’s barn while he cleared the weeds from her sowing fields. The endless repetition—pulling and digging, stooping and gathering—numbed his head and his heart just fine.

  “Most boys leave Kerry’s-End, don’t show up here asking for work,” Barley’d said on Cab’s first day. Squinting at him like she imagined she recognized him, then squinting at him like she realized she didn’t.

  “Thank you,” Cab had replied. Her offer of work was a kindness, and Tithe Barley had been good to his ma before widow’s lung took her.

  They hadn’t shared more than two words since, but someone left cooked meals at the barn door morning and night. Cab guessed that meant Barley was satisfied with his work.

  People in Kerry’s-End kept to themselves, to their private, difficult lives, which was what he liked best about them. He craved the bluff, glancing nature of his country folk, already too full with their own secret sorrows to probe after their neighbors
’.

  His boots were the only thing he’d allowed himself to keep from his Queensguard uniform. They were battered and muddy now, unrecognizable, but the soles had good years left in them. Couldn’t toss them. Practicality trumped sentimentality. Needed to, for a man’s survival.

  Time might have sweetened the sour taste left in his mouth by politics on the Hill. Maybe he would’ve found a way to return to the boy he’d been: a lad with no more complicated aspirations than serving his Queen and country. He might have forgotten the startling warmth of a stranger’s fresh blood on his skin. It wasn’t particularly noble to want to move past something like that, to bury it. But it was human.

  People lived. Living was moving on.

  Cab was startled out of his lull by the frantic lowing of Tithe Barley’s four cows. He’d tucked in for the evening, eaten the meal laid out for him. Now something had spooked the cows badly. From the nervous hssh of restless hooves on hay, Cab could tell the old mare was none too pleased, either.

  “Hey now.” He hauled himself up ungracefully, aches in his muscles making him clumsy. Both hands ahead of him, he shifted into a soldier’s stance by nature. “You’re all right, hush. You’ll wake the house with that noise.”

  It’d grown dark while he drifted in and out of rest that never quite reached sleep’s comforts. The barn was lit inside by beams from the two moons above streaming through three uneven windows. A quick scan of the shadowy piles of hay revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

  Probably one of the cows had seen a rat, or been startled by a shifting cloud and riled the others.

  No matter what Cab told himself, old instincts gripped hard, wouldn’t let go. He slid his boots along the ground, slippery with hay and hay dust, advancing toward the pen. Silent and powerful, like the soldier he once was.

  By the barn door, the old mare whickered softly.

  Something outside the barn. Something coming. Not here for the cattle, the old mare, or Tithe Barley.

  For him.

  No time to prepare a defense. Even if there had been, the notion of spearing a royal bounty hunter on a pitchfork, watching him bleed out in the barn, bringing that violence to Kerry’s-End, was more than Cab could stomach.

  Then came the voice.

  It wasn’t quite a voice—half flute-song and half writhing collection of hissed syllables—but something out there was calling him.

  Not with his name.

  Almost sounded like it.

  For the first time since he’d abandoned the uniform, Cab wished he had his sword.

  The Queensguard had asked too much. Like a coward, he’d run. Not because he was too moral, too meek, but because he was too frightened.

  He couldn’t outrun his fear. It had come for him.

  A silver beast broke through the barn door. Collided with Cab in a blur of lightning-fast power. Knocked him to the ground so hard that the world disappeared, memories bad and good, confusion, fear, and anger.

  The oddest part of the experience was, surprisingly . . .

  That Cab had been expecting it. He’d known the voice was calling him. He’d been ready.

  Flat on his back in old, musty hay, two massive, clawed feet on his chest and three eyes staring into his own. Pure calm flooded him. He didn’t feel afraid, even when the flute-hiss of the almost-voice slithered through him from his toes to the top of his head.

  Something wet trickled over his upper lip. Blood from his nose. The lizard darted a silver tongue past its pointed fangs, through what looked like smiling lips. The tip forked over Cab’s bloody skin. Cab stared as that blood traveled up the tongue, sucked into the lizard’s throat, resting where the clavicle should be. A single red dot, part of Cab’s life force, hung there, barely visible through the slightly translucent scales. A part of him inside this thing.

  This amazing thing.

  If this was his death by sorcery, he welcomed it.

  Words began to congeal like mending stitches inside Cab’s head, formed from the disconnected syllables that had been haunting him.

  He . . .

  . . . ll . . .

  Hell . . .

  . . . o . . .

  Hello.

  Cab panted to catch his breath, lungs fighting the weight on his chest. The weight eased. The lizard sat back, though both front feet remained solidly pressed over the spot where Cab’s heart was ricocheting against his ribs. Possessive.

  Not in a bad way.

  Was Cab supposed to answer that greeting? Was he out of his mind? Had the mushrooms he’d cleared from Tithe Barley’s field that morning been the kind that made you see fae and Ancient Ones and wake up five days later in a ditch with no underthings?

  No one runs from their oath to the Hill and lives, Cab’s fear insisted.

  No, not that. He felt peaceful in a way he wouldn’t, if this meeting had been thanks to sorcery. Whole in a way he hadn’t since he’d put the Hill behind him for good, and damned himself with the consequences. Right in a way he never had. His lips twitched, tugged into a smile of their own accord.

  Hello . . . ? the voice tried again.

  Faint lilt of a question, the word more certain of itself. Three silver eyes peered into Cab’s face.

  Hello, master. Did I break you?

  The lizard was talking to him. It wasn’t a surprise. It made all the sense in the world, as natural as breathing.

  Did . . . I . . . break . . . you?

  No. Cab simply didn’t know how to answer. Opening his mouth to speak a reply out loud seemed wrong, and he didn’t want to blunder in this. It felt too important for him to chance mistakes.

  Cab squeezed his eyes shut. Pushed aside the flush of foolishness from his uncertainty, and concentrated as hard as he could on forming each word in his thoughts: Hello. There. Not. Broken.

  Not broken, despite how close Queensguard life had come to breaking him.

  If that hadn’t done it, nothing could.

  Answering laughter, as sweet and high as an innocent child’s giggle. What are you doing? Why have you shut your eyes?

  Cab opened them again, heat in his cheeks, too amazed for proper embarrassment. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work. Forgive me.

  I would forgive you anything. Anything but death.

  The world fell away beneath Cab’s back, swooping in a pitch of joy and belonging. It took him a moment to realize he was weeping. The lizard was licking his tears from the corners of his eyes.

  I have waited so long for you, the lizard told him. So many of your short lifetimes. And I have missed you every moment of every year until we met. Hello, Cabhan of Kerry’s-End. I am the One Who Will Serve You. A pause. A flicker of fresh but sadder laughter as the lizard swallowed Cab’s tears, glowed faintly as a result. You are as attractive by flesh standards as I expected!

  Compliment aside, Cab wanted an explanation for that part about serving.

  Before he could request one, a figure darkened the opening in what remained of the barn door, and Cab’s instincts made him tense once more. “Who’s there?” he demanded in a croaky rasp.

  Oh, these. The lizard didn’t appear disturbed. Cab found he trusted that more than his own instincts, and that realization didn’t disturb him by a fraction of what it should. The big one is Shining Talon of Vengeance Drawn in Westward Strike, last fae prince of Oberon the Black-Boned. The little one is Rags, who steals things. They are unimportant compared to me.

  “Ah,” Cab said softly.

  He had no problem believing it.

  27

  Rags

  Rags didn’t know what he expected to see inside the barn. Shining Talon held him back from entering long enough that he wondered if One was in there devouring a still-living human, or something equally gruesome.

  Rags settled for standing guard outside the ruined door with Shining Talon—not that he had a choice—telling himself it didn’t sound like devouring was going on. In fact, it was completely silent.

  Was that worse?

  “
Don’t you want to know what’s happening in there?” Rags tried appealing to the thread of nosiness he knew lurked in the core of every heart.

  Every heart except Shining Talon’s. He merely looked down his long nose at Rags.

  “I was not chosen for my curiosity,” he said, like that explained everything.

  “Does that mean your brother was chosen because he was real good at keeping watch?” Rags’s nose wrinkled, obscuring a wince. “Sorry.”

  He couldn’t help sounding coarse. This was merely how he talked to other thieves in the Clave. He’d already figured the fae didn’t have gutters, so why would they have need for gutter talk?

  “Ignore me,” Rags suggested when Shining Talon didn’t respond. “Just tell me when it’s time to steal something.”

  “You speak the truth.” Hesitance hung like heat haze around Shining Talon’s words, almost as though he couldn’t believe Rags had been insightful. “My brother was chosen for his vigilance. My sisters for their wisdom and courage.”

  “How many of you were there?” Rags asked, to distract himself from thinking about an entire family consumed by a greater purpose. Maybe it really was an honor. Shining Talon was still alive, and they weren’t.

  Though that seemed like punishment to Rags.

  “Five in total.” Shining Talon seemed to grow taller for a moment, swelling with pride. Then let some of the air out. “Though my sister Quick Heart—Black-Boned, Strong Hands Ready in Westward Strike—died in the war with the Lying Ones before her duties to the king could be fulfilled.”

  “Oh.” Rags nodded, like he could possibly understand, then resolved to stare at the ground after that.

  They kept their focus away from the barn until Rags’s twitchy impatience grew too overwhelming for Shining Talon to ignore. Shining Talon glanced into the barn once, then nodded and stepped inside. Rags followed, pushing all thoughts of Shining Talon’s family and destiny out of his mind.

  In the barn, One was licking a young man, sitting half on top of him and half curled against his side. The young man had a look like bliss and absolution on his face. Rags understood why Shining Talon had refused to let him inside. Whatever had happened in this barn was too private for intruders, so private that Rags looked away from the scene, despite his burning curiosity.