by Nunn, PL
There was no need to tell his court to back off. They did so with the wary uncertainty of predators that have just discovered the sharp teeth and claws of their prey.
“Where’s Alex?” she pleaded in a small voice.
“You’re tired. You need rest. I’ll send him to you when you’ve your wits about you,” he promised with all his vast charm. “No one will harm you here. I promise.”
There was a murmur behind him. A spike of excitement that infused the high sidhe. He probed the easiest mind and groaned. Not now. It was not time. But the girl had seen what his sidhe had seen. He felt her pull her hands from his and step away before he could think of a way to distract her.
Her voice rang out. “Alex!”
He turned to see what she saw.
Leanan and Alex had come to the great hall to see what the whole keep was buzzing about. Their arms lay about each other’s waist. As always, the human’s attention was mostly focused on Leanan.
He paid little heed to the human girl crossing the floor towards him. Leanan saw. Leanan’s brows drew down. Her perfect lips turned up in a momentary half snarl before she converted it to a smile.
She curled her long fingers in Alex’s hair and grazed her lips across his.
Victoria faltered. Her eyes grew round and bewildered. A dozen steps away, she stared at her human lover and his sidhe companion. Alex had no eyes for her. Leanan demanded all attention.
Azeral would have cheerfully strangled her. But it was too late now. The damage was done.
“Alex?” the girl asked in a tiny voice.
He glanced at her, half smiled at her, as he would at any pretty girl that called his name in greeting. But there was little recognition. Little care. Leanan sunk her claws in deeper. She pressed her body close to Alex and whispered something in his ear, she ended the comment with a flick of her pink tongue. Alex laughed softly, Victoria forgotten.
The girl clenched her fists at her sides. “Alex?” This time the call verged on a shriek.
“You found your human, father,” Leanan commented. “Plain little thing, isn’t she? No wonder you forgot her, darling.” This last was directed at her human paramour.
“Leanan,” Azeral growled in warning.
Victoria whirled to glare at Azeral. “What have you done to him? What have you done?”
“My dear girl, calm thyself. All is not as it seems.” Leanan’s laughter cut through the chamber like the wings of a bird. “We’ve done nothing, silly chit. He merely found better than you could offer. Is that not so, love?”
Alex looked at Victoria and smiled dreamily. “Of course, Leanan.”
“Bastard!!” The scream burst from Victoria’s lips. Tears streamed down her cheeks. The power burst from her like a projectile. It was oppressive and hot, searing sensitive minds. Whether it was directed at Leanan or Alex was unclear. It certainly would have done damage to both had not Leanan thrown up a desperate shield and Azeral added one of his own.
The shock still threw him. Leanan’s knees gave way and she clutched at Alex. Azeral wavered and called support from the court as the girl summoned another wave of destructive power. She hurled it and he took the power his court offered and used it to shield his foolish daughter and her human consort. There was no time for subtlety, no time for crafted magic that turned small amounts of power into massive works of magic. He was shocked by her reserves. He was shocked by the power she drew to herself in her rage. He could not fathom how her human shell could contain it. There was madness in her eyes. Had it driven her insane?
“Stop!” he called, using all the power at his command to try and bottle her in.
She turned in a frenzy on him, the power lashed about like a whip and caught him unawares, all his shields protecting Leanan. He stumbled back, into the arms of his court, shocked senseless for a bitter moment. He felt her power recoil and strain as she prepared to release it once again. He pulled his shields back in a panicked effort of defense.
The girl crumpled. The power that charged the air dissipated in an instant as if it had never existed. There was nothing but the girl’s limp form, silent as death on the cold marble floor of the great hall. He stared at her in confusion before his senses focused on the shape behind her.
Dusk. Hood up and hands clenched, the assassin crouched over the girl. He looked as if he expected attack, which, Azeral thought in growing panic and anger, he just might get if he’d killed the girl. Azeral shook the groping hands of his court off and pushed himself forward, sending out urgent questing probes towards the girl. She breathed. Her life-force was strong. Her shields still protected the privacy of her soul. He relaxed, allowing himself a glance towards his daughter and the human male.
Leanan sprawled in Alex’s arms, her eyes dazed and frightened. Her face was red splotched, as if she had experienced a physical blow. She deserved one.
“Fool,” he spat. She flinched and struggled to gain her feet. Alex numbly lent her support. His eyes were dull and blank, but there was something in his expression that was horrified. Shocked beyond comprehension. His gaze was riveted on the unconscious girl. Azeral’s lips pulled back in a snarl. It had gone so tragically wrong. His plans for this human girl were mutilated beyond reasonable hope of repair. He owed it to his daughter and the malicious curiosity of his court.
Both Leanan and the curious sidhe who had first prompted the girl’s outburst would pay. But first he needed their power. He needed their raw strength to add to his own in the making of a binding, for he would no more trust this girl unfettered in his keep than he would the Ciagenii and since he had no access to her soul he must chain the impressive array of her power.
~~~
“Hellish, horrible creature! How can he abide her here?” Leanan whirled in a spray of azure silk and glittering jewels.
Her hair whipped about her face in a frenzy to match her mood. She stalked yet one more time across the floor of her chamber.
“If he cannot see reason for himself, someone should set him straight. She’s a monstrosity. She’ll be the death of us, I prophesy. The ruination! We should destroy her while we have the chance.”
Alex stared at her passage, listened to her ravings and tried desperately to piece together the scraps of memory that filtered through his head. Victoria was here. It seemed he should care more about her condition than he did. It seemed that she should warrant some concern from him, but it was hard enough remembering who she was. He felt lost. He felt dazed and alone despite Leanan’s overwhelming presence. Her rage bedazzled him a bit.
He had never seen her so. It was because of Victoria.
Victoria who was human like him.
Victoria who had meant something to him in another life. Victoria who had power to spare. Power enough to make Azeral wary and to set the whole of the court on it’s heels. She had a sweet voice, he thought.
She sang like an angel. If he concentrated he could half remember her voice crooning a lullaby….
“Alex!” Leanan’s sharp command snapped him out of his reverie. He blinked up into her pale face. Her blue eyes were glittering with something close to malice.
“Do not think of her,” she snarled.
Something closed in around him that came close to cutting off breath. It suffocated thought and instinctively he put up shields, but it was Leanan and some part of him, some reflex in his head could not rebel against her will. But she could not quite banish the memory of Victoria, merely dull it. He could not remember the sound of her voice anymore. Leanan had his total attention. He stared at her in expectation and she calmed.
“She’s nothing, you know. A little mouse that my father will toy with and destroy – if she doesn’t destroy him first. I can’t imagine what he wants with her. Or what you saw in her. I feel so sorry for human women. So plain. So uninspiring.”
She settled onto his lap, curling her legs up and tracing a knuckle down his cheek. She smiled like a thoughtful feline.
“She’s nothing to you now. How could sh
e be, when you’re with me? Poor little thing was so very upset when she saw us, don’t you think? It will crush her to know that you’ve forgotten all about her.”
He looked into her liquid eyes and shuddered at the spite in her voice. His beautiful, enchanting Leanan was showing her claws.
“She has power like me. I felt it. It was not sidhe power – it was different.”
“Human magic. She’s undisciplined. Wild. She’ll burn herself out in short order.”
“She should go home.”
“What?” She narrowed her eyes at him. He swallowed and repeated the thought.
“I think Azeral should send her home. There’s a place she belongs – she has a room – an apartment – he should give her back her life.” He recalled her quaint little apartment. Her antique clock. her clean white bed. Her phonograph and her radio.
She had a life, even if he could not remember himself a part of it, and it hurt him to know she had been taken from it. It hurt to know that in some way he could not exactly fathom, he had betrayed her.
~~~
There was silence. A great all sufficing quiet that hinted at early morning or monkish regiment in lifestyle. For a long time Victoria listened to nothing other than the soft wisp of her breath and the pulse beating at her temples. There was a mild discomfort behind her eyes.
The ache of a headache…or the result of a blow to the skull. She drew a deep calming breath before opening her eyes, then did so with determined courage.
The light was hazy and soft. Wispy tendrils of cloth formed a canopy over her. She took note of her immediate surroundings. Soft cushions that made a comfortable bed, warm silks and linens covering her body. Walls that were of carved stone and covered with frescoes.
A room that was spacious and high-ceilinged and cold despite the silks and pillows and the myriad depiction’s of art that surrounded her. She rolled to her side and pushed herself up. It was a mistake.
Pain shot behind her eyes. She gasped, biting her lip in shock. The taste of blood was on her tongue. She saw it behind her eyes. Damn the traitorous assassin that had struck her down. Damn him to whatever hell this land sent its miscreants plummeting down to.
She searched for the power to heal herself. Called on the wellspring of magic that had become second nature to her and found nothing. Shock greater than the pain in her head made her blink. She sat for a moment on the edge of the pillow platform and stared at the floor in bewilderment.
She tried to call it, to gather the earth magic to her, but it remained ignorant of her pleas. Yet it was there. She could almost feel the tingle of it on her skin, swirling about her like leaves in the breeze. Only she could not touch it. It was like fog, insubstantial, despite the integrity of its existence.
“My God,” she whispered, needing to hear the sound of her own voice to assure that all her senses had not been taken from her. She was incomplete all of a sudden.
Lost and unmade. She felt blind and deaf and dumb. How miraculous that in such a short time, the magic could become so important. In desperation she searched for a path to the power and found herself foiled again. It was like an invisible wall cut her off from what she sought. She turned inward, desperately checking to see if her inner shields had been demolished.
Never let an enemy get into your mind, Neira’sha had warned her. Once in, a skilled intruder could change the very fiber of your being. But her shields were intact. The edges were secure. At least within the workings of her own head she could still function. It was drawing upon new power that was the problem.
Damn Dusk for sideswiping her. She might have solved her problem in one fell swoop if not for his interference. She laughed in something approaching hysteria. Her problem? Her mountain load of disasters more likely. It was just like her dreams. Alex had barely shown recognition. He had been more interested in the evil, vile sidhe woman clinging to his side. The sidhe who ran her fingers through his hair and caressed him with her lips. Victoria felt the sick rage boil up inside her. She very much wanted to kill something. Preferably the traitorous bastard who had thrown away her love for that of a sidhe. She would settle for the sidhe bitch, and at the very least Dusk who had pretended some courtesy to her and then literally stabbed her in the back.
She grabbed a curtain of silk and savagely yanked it down. It fell in a lazy cloud of material. The quivering anger settled at her center. It lay there mocking sanity and reason. There was no room for excuses or compromise. It was abnormal, almost a physical need to wreak havoc on something. She half remembered the spriggan’s comments about females of his kind going slightly insane during their monthly cycles. She wondered if this place was causing her to do the same.
She twisted the dismembered drapery in her fists, willing the unreasonable anger to go away. She needed her wits about her. Breathing to a forced calm, she stood and occupied her mind by looking around her room. The furnishings were overlarge and graphically decorated. They meant nothing. The shuttered window did. She rushed to it, flinging back the casement sash. Chill morning air swirled in to meet her. A hazy fog drifted outside the window, only barely shielding the overhead view of the forested mountain side. With her belly against the sill she leaned outward and gazed down at the sheer drop ending at a stone courtyard some two hundred feet below.
The door opened behind her and she swung around guiltily, as if she might have been contemplating making an attempt at scaling a featureless tower wall. A bleak-faced woman, not much taller than herself, carrying a tray laden with covered dishes and a stone pitcher, scurried in. The ears reminded Victoria of sidhe, as did some of the bone structure, but the woman had a roughness to her features that was alien to sidhe. More like the few bendithy that had lived in Ashara’s keep. But so tired and haggard looking. This woman looked to be on her last leg of survival. Victoria stared, her back to the open window as the servant scurried into the room and placed the tray on a low table. She rushed out without a word or a backward glance.
For a long moment, Victoria did not know what to do, then the aroma of the food assaulted her and her stomach growled from more than anger. She took a step forward, when her second visitor appeared at her doorway. Tall and golden and beautiful. He took her breath away for the few seconds it took to recognize him.
Instinctively she called for power and received none. She stood helplessly wide eyed, clenching her fists as he stepped into the room. He smiled at her. The gentle smile of an adult to an impetuous child.
“I thought you might be hungry. You’ve slept the day away.”
“I don’t want anything from you.” The whisper came hoarse from her lips. She wanted to back away, to run. But there was nowhere to hide in Azeral’s keep for her. No allies here.
“But everything I have is yours for the asking.” He moved to the tray, pulling aside the cloth to see what was under it.
He looked up at her and smiled. “My cooks are quite good.”
She gazed at him while he sampled a bit of pastry. He was elegance personified. Azeral, who all of Ashara’s folk feared and despised. He had a boyish quirk to his smile when he chose.
“What do you want of me?” she whispered.
“Your good faith,” he replied. “Your trust.”
She laughed at him. “Really? Am I a prisoner?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. You are an honored guest.”
She waved an indignant hand at her head. “How did you do it? Why can’t I touch the magic?”
He breathed a long suffering sigh.
“My dear girl, offending you is the last thing I wish to do, but self preservation and the safety of my court can not be ignored. You are a power to be reckoned with and you have already wreaked considerable havoc. I cannot allow you to do more.”
“Yet I’m a guest? Your notions of hosting are rather unusual.”
“You are free to roam these halls at will. Ask any questions, explore any room, but I cannot allow you power until I know you will not use it against me or mine.”
<
br /> “And if I told you I would not?”
He stared at her for a long moment, then carefully said. “I think your word at his moment, or your will for that matter, is not so stable a thing. Forgive me for using my own judgment.”
She lifted her head and glared at him.
“And if I decided to just leave. To walk out of this keep and not come back? What then?”
“Where would you go? What could you find your way to? Without your magic, my dear you would be quick prey to the beasts that roam these woods. Your safety as well as my own is of concern.”
“So in other words, I’m a prisoner.”
She sniffed, whirling to stalk back to the window. There was momentary silence behind her. She doubted Azeral was used to people dismissing him in such a manner. She felt a presence behind her, a soft whisper of breath on her hair. She closed her eyes, swallowing fear, suppressing the shiver that threatened to slice through her. He scared her. The magnitude of his very presence frightened her. He was too smooth. Too charming.
Dangerous. He was like a golden god from her dreams, so handsome, so debonair. And he did want her. She felt that. He was greedy for her, or something she possessed. There was a tickle outside the barrier of her shields. A feather caress, that she hardly noticed. Or was it feather soft? Had she only just noticed the prying, nagging attempt at intrusion, at first so delicate and sensuous, now rougher with impatience. She whipped around and met him face to face. She had to crane her neck to meet his eyes. She forced a cold smile and a calm face. Inside she was quivering.
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly.
His fine golden brows drew. He did not step back from her. He lifted a long fingered hand to her cheek, caressed her skin with his knuckles. She endured it.
“What can I do to gain your trust?” He was asking her. He was giving her the bargaining power. She was amazed. He valued her that highly.
“I’ll think about it,” she stated boldly, “and get back to you.”
The door was unlocked. She had not expected it to be otherwise. It would not serve Azeral’s purpose –whatever that might be – to say she was not a prisoner, then keep her locked in her room. She ventured out into his keep. It was nothing like Ashara’s. It was older than time itself. As old as the mountains it sat within. Even lacking direct contact with the magic, she could feel the weight of its age. It was daunting in its immensity. She did not like it one bit. It made her cold, even though the air was warm with the crackle of fires. After some time of wandering its halls and its great rooms, she thought she knew what part of its problem might have been. It was so vast a structure, so huge a keep, but its populace was slight. There were more servants than sidhe, at least as far as she could see. But even with master and servant clumped together, the halls could not be filled. The bustle of activity, the sound of voices raised in laughter, in conversation and argument, the sight of folk moving to and fro might have made it seem more a home and less an archaic, dark monastery.