by Nunn, PL
Alex blinked at her, standing with tendrils of hair dripping into his face. She moved off before he could formulate a reply. He looked as baffled as a lost child.
Dusk brushed past him, hesitating at his side.
“Come. It is not safe for any of us outside the wards.”
“What did she mean by that?” Alex demanded. “What the hell do these people think I am?”
“What Victoria has told them. Now come.” Dusk put a hand to his arm and Alex glared at that and shook the limb free. But he moved down the hill at the assassin’s side.
They led the horses, the ground slick enough and unruly enough not to trust riding them. The spriggan was as disgruntled as Dusk had ever seen him.
The Seelie court was not a place where a spriggan who had served a dark lord most of his life would feel comfortable. Or an assassin. But Dusk had nothing left to lose, save the girl. And she was for better or worse part of that court and so that court he would serve.
They passed the wards in safety and made their way carefully down the steep slope towards the vale. The rain picked up momentarily, then graced them with a period of nothing more than a soft drizzle.
The sidhe looked up at the sky hopefully.
The clouds still loomed overhead, stern judgmental faces that gave no hint of dispersing. The wind howled mournfully through the trees, shaking what pine needles and leaves that still held firm to their limbs threateningly.
Then they passed the barrier of trees and the vale proper came into view. It was hazy and muted with drizzle and low hanging clouds. It seemed all the more dilapidated and haggard in the dim light.
But there was still a grandeur about it. A majesty that time only enhanced. Alex hesitated and stared at it, eyes wide. He turned to look at Dusk a clear question on his lips, then pushed it back, swallowing heavily.
When they reached the first of the great stone pillars that once might have formed arches leading into the main community, Alex ran his fingers over the age riddled stone. He looked up at the thick cross beam of rock that perched between two stone supports. He almost laughed. Aloe cast a queer look back at him, and looked up at what he was staring at. He shrugged at her, still amused or amazed, Dusk was not certain which.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said simply. “Or the like.”
She arched a brow doubtfully and moved on. They had come to the first of the stone paved paths, now deeper than ankle height with water. Debris floated carelessly past them, swirling in invisible eddies. Leaves and sticks gathered against walls and piled in corners. A figure moved through the hazy mist at a run, noisy and heedless of her tread. She stopped out of breath and flushed yards before them. Dusk caught his breath, he always did at first sight of her. Alex whispered her name and stepped forward, hand half extended towards her.
Victoria hissed. It was hard to tell if there were tears or merely rain on her cheeks. “Bastard!” she cried. “There’s nothing I want of you. Nothing!”
Alex looked stricken. He kept moving forward and she screeched, summoning forth a maelstrom of leaves and water from behind her and propelling the whole mess towards him and those hapless enough to be behind him. The sidhe, Dusk and the spriggan found themselves covered with debris and more water than treated leathers and cloaks could possible keep out. Alex ignored his own covering of leaves and cried out her name.
“Victoria, listen to me!”
“No!” she screamed, then turned her glare to Dusk. “How could you?”
He blanched under her condemnation.
She fled after that, calling up the rain and the mist behind her to swallow up her trail. Not that any there, including Alex, was inclined to follow.
A disgusted Aloe turned her narrow gaze on both Alex and Dusk. “She seems rather put out, hmmm?” She picked leaves and clumps of grass and mud from her leathers gingerly.
“Haven’t seen her yet, when she wasn’t put out,” Bashru was muttering, wiping a dirty sleeve across his mouth and spitting out mud.
Alex released an amazed breath. The amazement was rapidly turning into something more dour. He turned to glare at Dusk. There was hate in that stare. And accusation.
A sickening dread began to form within Dusk. The fear that the man who held his soul would no longer find it a benefit to keep it whole. That all his reasons for bringing Dusk to this place would shrivel with Victoria’s hate. And the most convenient person to blame would be Dusk, who he already held at fault.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, not knowing what else to do or say. Alex narrowed his eyes at him, and there was the glint of something more than rain on his lashes. Then he turned away, and Dusk felt a distinct wrench on the part of him that was connected with his severed soul.
“Come,” Aloe suggested. “Neira’sha awaits.”
Dusk followed for a few steps, then let his body absorb the colors of the rain and the mist and the gray stone around him. He faded into nothingness with no one the wiser for the moment and moved off in another direction.
~~~
Stupid. Stupid! Stupid!! She cursed herself for a fool and angrily kicked water from her path. She should have known what seeing him would do to her. Should have expected every ounce of the pain, but still she had had to go. She had had to vent some of the fury that coiled inside her.
And he had the audacity to look stunned.
And hurt of all things. She seethed and stomped down the path.
The gulun whined plaintively at her from the raised doorstep of her own private shelter. The cub had had quite enough of being wet. So had Victoria. She dried herself with a flurry of pent up power, then as an afterthought evaporated every bit of moisture clinging to the stone walls of her crumbling domicile. Steam rose from the rock in wafting little clouds.
The gulun rubbed her head against Victoria’s thigh, setting her off balance.
Phoebe was growing very strong.
Phoebe’s claws, even retracted, made clicking sounds on the stone floor when she walked. Victoria smoothed the white fur between the cub’s ears, then started as those selfsame ears flattened and a low growl emanated from deep within the gulun’s throat.
She whirled and found herself facing Dusk. A gasp caught in her throat. His hood was up and he was spattered with leaves and debris. He looked plainly miserable, which she found somewhat satisfying since he had made her miserable by bringing Alex to the Vale.
“What do you want?” she sniffed, turning and walking past Phoebe, whose ears had come back up and was smelling Dusk’s leg with interest. The assassin moved carefully past the cat and out of the rain.
“You are distraught,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “You catch even the little things, don’t you? Go away. I’m still very angry with you.”
He sighed and pushed his hood back. His hair hang in long, dangling tendrils around his face. It was mist pale, as was his skin.
“Forgive me. I do not wish it.”
“What? My anger? You should have thought of that sooner. Before you brought him here.”
“I did not. He brought me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Damn it, Dusk, you knew how I felt. You knew what he did to me.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, softly, barely above a whisper. For such a damned dangerous creature, he could practically tear her heart out when he looked so genuinely contrite.
“Victoria, there are things you need to know –” he began, just as soft. His voice was shaking. She thought he was shaking, and she suddenly had a great deal of concern for him, for his bruises and his comfort, and the misery so clearly written on his beautiful, battered face.
“You’re wet and freezing,” she accused, reaching for his cloak. He caught at her hands to stop her, but she brushed him aside, ridding him of the ragged, dripping mass of his cloak. He was shirtless underneath and very pale. The skin was crisscrossed with fading welts and marred with scabs and bruises. She stared at him, mouth hanging open. He looked to die of embarrassment. A flush stol
e up his cheeks, robbing him of the camouflage colors.
“My God. What did they do?”
“Nothing,” he murmured. She put her fingertips on him and felt him jump under her touch.
“Did I hurt – “
“No,” he said too quickly. “Victoria, please.”
“All right,” she breathed and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his neck. He stood unresponsive for a moment, for a span of breaths, then he shuddered and brought his hands up to her hair. He buried his face in it, and his breaths came harsh and unevenly.
“What have you done to me?” he asked her, voice laced with amazement. “I am supposed to be immune to spells.”
“Are you accusing me of bewitching you?” she breathed into his skin.
He was silent. Then, “Like Leanan bewitched Alexander?”
Her breath stopped. She lifted her head to look up at him. “Don’t speak her name to me.”
“I have to,” he sighed softly. “For you have to know the truth.”
She made to pull away. He kept his grip on her hair, holding her for the moment, immobile. “Victoria, Alexander did not betray you of his own will. He had no choice. Azeral and Leanan made him their own before he had the power to resist.”
Her eyes blazed. “Let go,” she commanded mildly. He did so, and she stepped back from him. She glared into his face, looking for a hidden agenda, looking for treachery or slyness. All that was there was a honesty and oneness that could not be denied. She might not be able to read his thoughts but his face always betrayed him.
“I cannot believe that you come to me speaking on his behalf. Are you still Azeral’s?”
“No, Lady.”
“Then what?” she cried. “I don’t understand you.”
He looked away from her, up to the ceiling as though applying there for help.
In desperation, in misery he cried. “He loves you, Victoria. And you still love him, otherwise the hurt would not be as grave. You blinded yourself to what was happening in Azeral’s keep. You refused to see the truth. Just because you were strong enough to repel Azeral’s will, you thought Alexander would be also? Lady you overestimate the rest of the world.”
She wanted to deny him. Deny everything he said, even though the truth glittered so dangerously bright beneath the words. “Why are you doing this?” she asked. “Why should you care if I ever speak to Alex again?”
He stared at her, seeming for the moment, incredibly young and bedraggled.
“Your hate. He does not deserve it of you.”
“You want me to love him again?”
She could not believe him. Absolutely could not believe him.
“I want you to be happy.”
She laughed sharply, ironically. “I was. It doesn’t matter, Dusk. Things have changed. I’ve changed.”
“Talk to him.”
Her world spun –
~~~
They questioned him like a court of inquiry. They were sharp of wit and suspicious, as they had every right to be.
They were against a wall, and scared and his sudden presence here in this vale, was not something to comfort them. They had let the spriggan go some while back, under guard. They kept Alex. The greatest of them, a woman of fragile beauty and eyes of deep, deep understanding, spoke with him the most. She asked him of the great hunt. Of what had been done to the Seelie keep. Of the numbers in Azeral’s army. He knew very little. He spoke truly on what he did know, despite the tickling in the back of his mind not to betray Azeral’s interests. He told them what had happened to him, and what he knew of Victoria’s stay. The elder asked to look into his mind. Reluctantly he let her. He barely felt her gentle probe. There was a shimmer where he knew the last vestiges of Azeral’s control lay.
He blinked and she was standing only inches away, her eyes almost level with his own. There was a look of admiration on her face.
“You did well, boy,” she complimented him. He blinked, not understanding. His head was spinning.
“I did?” he whispered back, feeling the need for privacy. She reached out and patted his cheek.
“You broke a formidable control. Not many sidhe could brag of such a feat.”
“Oh. It’s still there. Sort of. Can you help me get rid of the rest of it?”
“I think there is no need. You’ve done rather well yourself. You can finish the task.”
“What matter?” a tall sidhe woman asked. “When Azeral takes this valley he will have him back. Have us all.”
The oldest frowned. “Mendalah, let it rest. We’ve all nerves to contend with.”
“Leave it rest?” The woman, Mendalah, stepped forward, amazement in her tone. “Ashara has sacrificed herself to him for naught. He’ll keep her and still crush us.”
Something slapped against stone. A sidhe who had been sitting quietly at the back of the room rose, retrieving an unsheathed sword from the floor. His look was murderous. Mendalah cringed at it as he stalked across the floor. He paused one moment to stare at her, then swept past and out into the drizzle.
The old one watched him go with sadness in her eyes. “Aloe,” she finally said. “We are all tired. Find a dry place for Alexander to rest.”
The girl, Aloe, drifted out of the shadows. She gave him a stern look and put a hand on his arm. He let her guide him out of the makeshift council chamber.
The one at the Seelie keep had been so much more fitting for a personage such as the ancient woman. There had been something vaguely familiar about her.
Some hint of a whisper that he had not, during the entire interview, been able to place.
“What’s her name?” he asked Aloe as they walked out into the rain.
The girl frowned. “Neira’sha.” Her step faltered, her scowl deepened. She tilted her head to cast a glare up at him.
“Your luck, mortal, has changed.”
He lifted a dripping eyebrow at her.
“I was going to house you with the horses. You’ve been offered other shelter – for the time being.”
She took him through the maze of block like ruins, up a paved path streaming with water and left him at the yawning portal of a small building. A glistening spider web bracketed one corner of the door. Its inhabitant sat like a small black burr against the stone, balefully looking out at the rain.
Alex stared at the web for a moment, bedazzled by the glints of moisture on the fragile spider silk. A beautiful, beautiful trap for the unwary. So much like this world. He thought of Leanan. A lovely spider. Reflexively his inner mind sought out the ragged edges of her conditioning and for the first time since he had become aware of it, could find no trace whatsoever. Not even the tiniest hint. He wondered when it had dissipated. He had certainly not had the time to work at chiseling out the last remnants.
He shivered and stepped into the alcove. There was a low, warm light illuminating the inner sanctums of the shelter. The heat felt dry and welcome.
Further in and there was the scent of very old dried flowers. Musty and sweet. And deep in a shadowed cubby sat a woman.
The witch light did nothing more than hint at her shape, but he knew who she was.
He felt the current in the very air that pimpled his skin, that tugged at the strings to his emotions. He felt hesitant and hopeful at once. Felt nerves start to twine in his gut.
“I thought you wanted nothing of me?” he whispered and was surprised that that was the first thing out of his mouth.
She moved, stood and stepped into the aura of light. Her hair was dry and shining. Her face in the wan light pale, stern.
“Talk to me,” she told him. “Explain to me things I am told I am too blind to see for myself.” Her voice was cold.
Emotionless.
He blinked at her, caught off balance.
Took a great breath and moved further into the room. Not towards her, but around the wall. Her eyes followed him. She had never looked so harsh in all the time he had known her. Never so hard. He thought for a brief moment
, that it was not the same girl at all, but a fey impostor. But there was a smear of dirt on her cheek and her hair held a snarl on one side and these were imperfections that sidhe did not harbor well. Mortal imperfections.
“I… don’t know where to start,” he floundered helplessly. “I don’t know what went wrong.”
“Don’t you?” Her eyes held accusation and loathing.
“Damn it, Vicky, it’s not my fault!
They started on me the moment I got there.
Azeral and Leanan and God knows who else. I didn’t even know I had magic until they brought it out in me. I never meant to hurt you, or betray you. I damn sure didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Tell me.” Too stiff. As if she was expecting him to confirm the false assumptions she already held.
“Tell you what? That they took damn thorough advantage of me? That Leanan go to me first and then Azeral added his two cents, and I was so new at the magic game that I didn’t have a chance in hell to realize what they were doing, much less stop them? Victoria, they spelled me. The two of them got inside my mind and put the thoughts they wanted there. There was a point that I couldn’t even remember who you were, it was so bad.”
“She made you love her?”
He stifled a laugh. “She made me worship her. I’d have done anything for her and subsequently anything for her father.” He tapped his head ironically.
“Some of his handy work is still up here.”
She stared at him, the green of her eyes so dark to be almost black. She opened her mouth, then shut it. A shudder passed her.
“Let me see.” It was not a question. It was a soft-voiced command. He shrugged.
Why the hell not? Everyone else had been in there. And she was the only person, really, who he had ever wanted to bare everything he was to. He let down his shields and felt her intrusion. Not as feather soft as the ancient Neira’sha, no where near as skilled, but powerful. He felt something of her as she roamed his mental byways. He felt immense power. Staggering strength. She pulled back and his mind was his own again.
“I felt nothing of Leanan,” she said, almost accused, as if catching him in a lie.
He laughed. “I got rid of her. She was easy. Azeral’s the hard one to shake.”