by Nunn, PL
“Your friends came and got you. The Seelies brought this on themselves and now they’re too honorable and stubborn to give you up even though it might save them. Will you let them go down protecting you?”
“Alex, what do you want?” she finally cried. “Do you want me to abandon them after all they’ve done?”
“It’s the only thing you can do to repay them.”
She swept past him, ashen faced. She ran up the slight incline to the larger buildings where that the sidhe had claimed for their own shelters. Blindly she searched out her friends, Neira’sha and Aloe and found hints of both in the large hall the Seelies had appropriated for their council. She stumbled in that direction, not bothering to look to see if Alex followed.
Sidhe stood outside the hall, gathered miserably in the rain. A few of them had erected shields to protect themselves from the weather, most endured it. She pushed through and found herself in the midst of a crowded council. Almost the whole of Ashara’s court was here, hunters and elders both. She squeezed through the press, sidhe being too polite to shoulder her out of the way. By the door she found a place against the wall, sheltered from the view of the inner room by tall backs.
There was dread in the air. She cowered and listened.
They spoke of the rising water and their helplessness to stop it. They spoke of possible retreat and more possible battle with the Dockalfar forces. They pondered whether their magics could stand up to those of Azeral’s court. Most seemed to think not. They all agreed there was little hope in facing the overwhelming number of troops the dark lord had brought into these woods. Surrender was discussed briefly, but sidhe pride and the realization that Azeral’s court would not allow them dignified capitulation made that conversation short and bitter.
Victoria shivered against the clammy wall, realizing Alex’s words had been so very true. They would never dream of surrendering her. Even the cold, skeptical ones like the lady Mendalah held too much honor to contemplate that. She wept.
Bowing her head she let the tears silently fall. Her throat burned with it. Someone put their arm around her, patted her shoulder reassuringly. She glanced up at a blurry sidhe face. She could not place a name to the features. A hiccup escaped her and she forced a smile. Shrugging from under the arm she slipped back outside.
She could talk to Aloe later. But not to gather advice, for she had already made her decision.
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Part Twenty-six
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The torches burned low and fey light was in short supply in the great, ponderous keep in the Desney mountains.
There were few sidhe in residence and the servants breathed easier for the absence.
The halls echoed for once, with the hesitant conversation and laughter of those who served the dark court.
The laughter had died when Azeral came back. Only those that were forced into it ventured out to tend to his needs.
Surprisingly he shooed them all away with nothing more than a dark glance and a sharp word, sequestering himself and the lifeless form he carried in the towering cavern of his throne room.
He sat in the darkness, not bothering to call fey light into existence and stared at the physical remains of his only daughter. The only child of his loins. He had laid her out on the raised dais where his carved chair sat, and settled several steps down from her, leather armor and all. Her features were composed, her body in perfect order. Of her soul there was no sign. No clue to whether she had suffered the death of her true being, or might choose to come back to this realm in some other form.
He had no heir. That shocked him.
Scared him in a way he had never experienced. The Four knew he had slept with more females than he could easily recount, yet only on Ashara had he conceived a child. And only with Ashara had he killed the one he had.
A muscle jumped in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. He dropped his forehead to his fist, fair hair shielding his face. Conniving and insidious as she was, she had been his, a tribute to his own nature. Damn her for initiating her own downfall. For causing him to be a part of it.
In the vast darkness of the hub of his power and influence, he suddenly felt mortal. He felt powerless and vaguely incorporeal. The weariness overwhelmed him. There was a great yearning for Ashara. The Ashara of years past that had not looked at him with loathing. She had ever been the balm of his soul. He thought she was the reason for his downfall. She was the reason he had searched the core of what he was born to be and tried to change his nature. The reason why something that he could even now, only partially comprehend, punished him for the transgression.
He bit his lip and forced calm on himself, on his shattered nerves. He looked up to capture the mother’s features on the still face of the daughter. Leanan had been the epitome of them both. He had had some part of Ashara with her. Now he had nothing. He touched the soft hair, rubbed it between thumb and forefinger.
Luxuriant texture, luxuriant color.
And the silence and darkness devoured his thoughts. For hours unknown he sat in the throne room, sprawled on the steps by his daughter’s body. He saw nothing and heard nothing, not even the soft rasp of his own breath. His magic, the power that churned at the center of his soul, grew morbid and infusing. It reached out to make the very air of the keep and the surrounding range dank and oppressive. The servants shivered in their cells. The remaining guards shifted nervously at their posts. Nothing in the immediate forest surrounding the keep dared venture from nests or burrows. The world, or at least the one close around him, shared in Azeral’s dark depression.
Until his Mistress of the Hunt dared to intrude upon it. She broke the silence of the audience chamber with the sound of her boot heels on the polished marble floor. Azeral’s eyes narrowed to a glare, even as he whirled at the affront. Tyra walked on heedless of the fury in her lord’s eyes. She was in full armor save for the elaborate headdress that would have obscured her features. A sword clanked at her hip. He had needed her power to open the doorway to the keep earlier, but his own was full to bursting now and he seriously contemplated chastisement for her audacity. But ever a creature of curiosity, he waited to see what her excuse might be.
“Will you stay here all night, my lord?” she asked, sounding properly concerned for him. “Should I summon the court to observe the funeral pyre?”
“You take much upon yourself, lady,” he drawled at her, holding back his annoyance.
She lifted a brow. “This court is my concern, as always,” she countered and her voice lost the hint of consolation.
“And I advise you either draw them here or return to camp, for their restlessness grows.”
“You advise?!” he repeated in amazement. “You think I ought cater to the court’s restlessness?” He shifted from the position he had held for so long and rose in one fluid movement to tower over her.
Lady Tyra remained unmoved. Her coolness irritated him. He wanted to slap her down. To see her cringe under his might. The magic in him welled at the thought and he saw no reason not to use it, but she gave him pause with her next words.
“Poor Leanan. Met with Deigah’s fate and all on a whim.”
The power surged to a standstill. He stepped down to the floor and up to her.
“What do you speak of? What whim?”
Tyra looked past him to Leanan.
“Would she have attacked her mother without goading? Would she have done more than cast dark glances?”
He stared at her, at her inattention to him, then past her and into the darkness of the hall, seeing Leanan and Neferia with their heads together as he had ushered Ashara out of his tent. He recalled the jealousy on his mistress’s face and the hate on his daughters. He could well imagine their topic of conversation.
“No one forced her hand,” he told Tyra grimly. The lady smiled and shrugged.
“No. But there are those more adapt at weaving words than others. Those who use the weave to ensnare others to do their bidding.” She reach
ed into her belt and pulled out a knife. For a moment, Azeral tensed, the ludicrous supposition that she meant to use it on him flashing through his thoughts. His shields were up before she had cleared it from her belt. But she only held it up for his inspection.
“Just as Deigah was led. Do you know he had his dagger out when he fell. Unusual for a man to be inspecting his blade just before he accidentally falls from a terrace, don’t you think?”
“What are you getting at?” he demanded stiffly, letting down his shields in an angry cascade of magic that she surely felt. She held the knife out for him and when he refused to take it, put it back in her belt.
“I found it across the garden from where he fell. I’ve been told that the human girl was in that wing that very morn. Did he follow her or her him? Everyone saw them dancing a few nights before. Do you think they had a rendezvous? Neferia was so kind to introduce them.”
He turned from her, feeling the darkness close back around him. His mind whirled with the possibilities. With the things he knew his court capable. His present lady in no wise the exception.
Jealous of a human girl. Jealous of a love he had shared millennia ago. None too scrupulous to use Deigah or Leanan to prove her points.
He turned a wary eye to Tyra. “Do you accuse her of sending him after the girl? What? To kill her? Not Deigah’s style. To sully her in my eyes?”
“Perhaps,” Tyra agreed. “But the girl had her own protector. The Ciagenii, and Deigah lost his life and soul for the plot and there was nothing Neferia could do to disclaim his ‘accident’ and not involve herself. Poor thing, it must have been frustrating.”
He hissed. The darkness turned to black rage. He turned and fixed his gaze on Leanan. Foolish child to be goaded in such a manner. His eyes narrowed and their beautiful silken body erupted in a gout of flame. Tyra gasped and took an instinctive step backwards as the impromptu pyre licked the air about them.
The flesh was crisped to ash before the scent of roasted meat could fully permeate the air.
Azeral whirled without a word and stalked from the hall. More carefully, Tyra followed. No breeze or footstep would disturb the unordered pile of gray ash that sat at the foot of Azeral’s throne for some time to come.
~~~
A small, dark shape scurried through the ruins and towards the inclining slope to the east. The movements were quick and sharp, the stealthy traveler used to creeping about in the night. No one beheld him save one, and that one moved with an equally cunning quiet, padding through water on thick, fur covered paws.
Up the slope went the first, clutching a sack over one shoulder. He wove through trees and brush and finally passed the parameter of the rune stones that protected the vale. He breathed a sigh of relief, for there was no sense of ensnarement coming out as there had been traveling inwards. The great moss covered stones sat silently, glistening in the continuous rain. He continued on, chuckling to himself, small eyes alert to movement in the wood around him, ears listening for any sound not of the storm’s making.
And behind him stalked his four legged pursuer. And she stopped only briefly to sniff at the foot of the rune stone before creeping into the wood after him.
~~~
The magic portal opened from the dry coolness of the Desney range to the water drenched plateau overlooking the Vale of Vohar. The Lord of the Unseelie court stepped through in much the same state he had left, save for the fact that on departure his face had been twisted in agony and now it was rigid with barely contained fury. The court, who had come running from their tents on sensing his arrival shied back from their questions and demands. His gaze swept over them, his pale eyes hard like chips of blue glass.
Each and every one of the court a sensitive to magic, they felt the overspill of his torrential ire. No one of them dared to risk turning that agitation upon themselves. As his gaze raked them and he found not what he sought he stalked past them, scattering the great high sidhe of his court like so many servants. Some of their eyes narrowed at the affront, other’s turned to the form of the Mistress of the Hunt that had followed him from the glowing portal.
Her face was speculative, but she gave no more information than Azeral himself had. More mannerly she followed his path across the hilltop, through the collection of colorful tents and towards the largest one in the center that belonged to the dark lord. The court followed her, now whispering among themselves. They stopped not far from it, a glittering, rainbow colored collection. Tyra stood at the fore, arms crossed over her breast, head tilted to one side.
There came an enraged scream from within the tent and moments later, Neferia, in a gauzy gown and robe was flung out of the covered doorway and into the churned mud outside. She cried out in fury, gown clinging to the curves of her form, mud covering her knees and hands where she knelt. Her hair dangled in wet, spiraling tendrils to trail the ground and he eyes spat pure hate.
The court gasped as a whole as Azeral strode out of the tent after his mistress, the gleaming length of his sword held loosely in one hand. Water beaded on the well-oiled surface. The hatred turned to fear in Neferia’s eyes as he towered over her, face unreadable as any of the numerous works of art in his keep that depicted him. She held up a hand to ward him off and cried out.
“My lord, no!!”
He lifted the blade and she scrambled backwards, all fury and pride forgotten in her desperation to preserve her own life.
He caught her in two powerful strides, wrapping a fist in the thin material of her dress and hauling her up with a ripping of fabric. He dropped the blade and used his sword hand to backhand her. She was flung backwards into the mesmerized collection of her peers, who caught her and held her only long enough for her to gather her legs under her and shake off the hands. Blood trickled down from her mouth. She lifted a shaking hand to her lips. Her eyes were wide.
“Why?” she screamed at him who stood at the center of attention of them all.
“Snake!” he hissed at her. “Get thee from my sight. And never ever set foot in the halls of my keep hence forth.”
Her mouth fell in shock. The court murmured in astonishment at the banishment. Neferia clutched her torn gown to her breast and the amazement and the fear slowly turned to loathing. “How dare you?” she cried. “How dare you punish me when it was your hand that struck down one of our own?”
“Woman, still thy tongue,” he warned, taking a step towards her. She shied behind those surrounding her, but her voice still lashed out.
“Do you deny that it was your power as much as the Seelie bitch’s that struck at us all? Do you deny that you took her side over that of your very own court? Betrayer,” she sneered. “The fault is yours and yours alone!”
He bounded across the space separating them, flung the sidhe sheltering her from his path with a paltry sum of power and struck her to the ground. She huddled before his wrath but there was little fear in her eyes now. There was glee even as the court turned questioning eyes to their lord and the power buzzed among them. Blind to their unease Azeral lifted a hand to strike her again, but she scrambled away agilely gaining her feet and distancing herself from him. With one last sneering glare she fled to the line of horses, flinging herself up onto her own without bothering to saddle the animal.
Into the rain and the night she ran and left the court and her former Lord in shocked unease behind her.
“Soon,” Azeral muttered, the murderous haze not yet lifted from him.
“Soon and the Liosalfar will be ours for the taking.” Without further comment he turned and strode back to his tent, pausing only to retrieve his sword and magically clean it of clinging mud. The court remained for some while in the rain, thoughts exchanged in rampart disarray.
The blood lust was upon them as well, and had been for too long a time.
Neferia’s words rang true in their ears.
Their lord had struck at his own. How many times this day had members of his court felt his rage against them? The unease was growing and silently calm
in the center of it, the Lady Tyra smiled.
~~~
She was afraid to seek out Dusk.
Because he would see the unease in her soul. He would know what she was about and he would either try to stop her or protect her in her folly. She could not have him do either. It was her responsibility to lead this trouble astray and she could not risk endangering those that cared about her. No one must know. No one but Alex whose hazardous plan this was, and was to be her partner in the leave-taking. She was not sure she was ready to talk with him so soon either. There had been a certain smugness to his look when she had agreed to his idea that sat her teeth on edge. It was as if he thought he had won something of her in her compliance. In a way he had, for it proved she still trusted him. She could not help herself from trusting him. She had relied on him for all her life, it was hard not too. But this time she was bringing resources of her own into the fray. She was no longer solely dependent on his strength and his judgment.
The sidhe met well into the night, a council open to all, yet devoid of their Lady and her mate. Victoria worried about Ashara, about the deathly pallor to her skin and the look in her eyes when she had ridden back into the vale. Azeral certainly had a way with folk, she thought with grim humor. But the lady was in capable hands with Okar.
Sometime after the midnight hour the council broke up. The Seelies crept out into the dismal night, heading for the lairs they had found for themselves in the ruin of the ancient town. Victoria sought out the familiar essence that was Aloe and politely asked to be acknowledged. The sidhe girl’s presence filled her mind, complementing her on her manners with sardonic amusement. Victoria could not help the grin that formed. So many times had she rudely burst into her friends thoughts, or poked about where she was not allowed. She asked if Aloe might meet with her and the girl assented, calling a picture of a place to mind.