The sight! Her mouth twisted in a cruel smile. So, the king plans to use me to exact revenge. The realization actually brightened Aoife’s spirits. She was fae, after all, and could see a bargain formulating. Her sight to find out Cuchulainn’s plan to defeat Roi in exchange for her freedom. Now, how could she spare her cousin yet fulfill this bargain?
She smiled at the waif girl. “I can run faster than the wind. If ye take me to the boy, I can save him and be back in this tower before the king is none the wiser.”
“I cannot.” The maid shook her head. “The king will find out and sacrifice me in his stead!”
“Shh…” Aoife slid her hand through the lass’s silky, brown hair and slipped her other hand into the maid’s. “Explain to me about this ritual. Spare no detail.”
The maid lifted her glistening, brown eyes. Her lip quivered. “I shouldn’t.”
Again, Aoife kissed the corner of that pink mouth. She heard the lass’s breath quicken. “Ye are not from this land, are ye?” She cupped the maid’s chin and kissed her full on the mouth. Drawing back, she asked, “Do miss yer people…our ways?”
The maid nodded. “These mortals are so cold. They fear giving me a bit of affection, calling me awful names. They think I’ll steal them into a faerie.”
Aoife felt a twinge of momentary guilt. She’d done as much to bonnie Fagan. “Aye. They’re so cold.” She ran her hand through the brownie’s hair, remembering the way Fagan’s felt against her bare skin. The way he revered her. She found herself kissing the brownie. The girl kissed her back with the fervor of a touch-starved fae.
They found comfort for their separate woes this way, easing the pain of their predicaments. Through a series of images, Aoife saw the brownie was thinking of the lad, Bláthnat, and other lovers. Aoife thought of Fagan and a certain copper-haired, fae knight who had once been mortal.
The kissing and caressing came to a natural end, both fae calming in each other’s company. With the brownie practically purring, Aoife continued her pursuit of knowledge about this ritual.
“I have seventeen sisters, all of them kelpies. I cannot call upon them for myself, but I could call upon them to whisk ye and yer dear friend far, far away from here where ye may be with yer kith, if not yer kin.”
Her brown eyes were truly beautiful when they filled with hope, but then she sighed heavily. “I came here with the queen. I followed her all the way from the faerie where I was born. Without her, I have no friends, save the lad I spoke of.”
“Then, ye have no loyalty to R—the king. It is in both yer and yer friend’s interest that ye tell me the whole of it.”
The maid pondered this for a moment. “Once every year, the king selects one of the people to sacrifice to the goddess Danu so that she’d bless these lands and make them fertile.”
Aoife reared her head at the revelation. Danu did not ask for human sacrifice; surely the half brownie knew that. Nonetheless, she held her tongue, fearing interrupting the maid with protests and questions would discourage her from telling the whole of it.
Why? Why was Roi killing humans? A shiver ran down her back.
“I see ye know as well as I do that Danu calls for nothing of the sort. He hid what took place during the ritual from me and the queen, locking us in here for the days surrounding the festivities.” She gestured to Aoife. “The same as he has done to you. During the last, my lady enticed her guard into letting her out for one hour. She discovered the ritual and with that knowledge, she sent a message to her lover.”
“How?”
“I’m fae enough to pass through the Veil in a thin spot just south of the keep. She told me where in the Otherworld I could pass through to Cuchulainn’s lands. From there, I found my way to his castle and there he gave me a message and told me he’d feed me to his hounds if I dare read it.”
“Did ye read it anyway?”
The maid shook her head. “I can’t read,” she admitted with a flush. “The lady disappeared soon after that. I am sure it was to be with her love.”
Aoife frowned. “If ye could pass through the Veil into the Otherworld, why didn’t ye return to faerie?”
The maid’s gaze passed to the window, her expression filling with a kind of wistful yearning Aoife knew well in her own heart. She too missed home. The lass sighed. “Alas, I’m not fleet of foot. Where I go, others will follow. The king would hunt me down and murder me in such a way that the news would find its way to my queen. I’ve only survived because I feigned ignorance. I instilled a false hope in his heart that his lady wife may not have left of her own accord, that something foul might have ensorcelled her.”
“Clever lass to gain his trust.”
“Tis nothing clever. I’ve warmed his bed in the queen’s stead. I sigh and make soft mewls, and his majesty believes he’s the master of me because of it. Humans are so cold they don’t understand such acts are nothing between fae. My heart belongs to the lad no matter what my body does with the king.”
Aoife snorted and took the maid’s hand. “My statement stands. I could ferry ye and yer lad to my sisters or take ye to yer homeland.”
The girl looked down at her hands and pushed to her feet. “Forgive me for being so bold. It’s best we don’t interrupt the ritual. I don’t think the cottar’s son would go even if I asked. The king will only find another to take my friend’s place. I thank ye for easing my troubles.” She kissed Aoife on the cheek. Face flushed, she made haste out of the room.
Chapter 3
Fagan
Fagan tried to put some distance between himself and the shimmering knight, but it proved rather difficult since they rode the same horse. He didn’t trust the way his pulse raced at the nearness. He’d been fooled by a fae once, lured to be her tithe. Fortunately, he didn’t have to hold onto Tamlin for long.
The ride to the queen’s castle turned out laughably short. A bitter taste filled his mouth and an ache developed in his chest. He had spent weeks if not months in the same woods with the kelpie, but Aoife had run so fast in her water horse form, he’d had no idea she’d run them in circles.
“I can hear you seething back there. Don’t be too angry with the kelpie. Distance is what the heart desires it to be. If she tarried, it was to have ye to herself a while longer.”
“Aye. Before she passed me on to yer queen like a pretty bauble.”
“If she did not drag ye unwilling, it seems Aoife gave ye a choice in the matter. Be glad of that.” Tamlin’s words were followed by a heavy sigh.
Fagan grunted noncommittally, eyeing the towering castle. He’d only seen one laird’s keep. Impressive as it was at the time, the keep was nothing so grand or whimsical as Mab’s castle.
The portcullis rose and instead of a typical functioning exterior courtyard with pigs and stalls. There were walking trees among an enchanted forest and all manner of fae folk, from the high fae who looked humanish to the little hobgoblins and pixies flying about like birds.
He and Tamlin dismounted. As if he did this every day, the knight handed the reins to a fae with skin the color of grass and a face of a toad. Then he removed the helmet again, revealing the handsome face and coppery hair underneath. He eyed Fagan. “What is yer name?”
Fagan gnawed at his lip. He knew names had the power of ownership in faerie.
Tamlin flashed a dazzling smile, green eye sparkling with amusement. The knight was pretty as any lass. “Yer wise to that trick. Let me see.” His gaze drifted down Fagan’s body. “Ye remind me of the first lad I kissed. Dark hair and broody just like Fergus. So that’s what I’ll call ye.”
Fagan shrugged. “One name is good as the other.”
“I hope to earn the knowledge and gain the intimacy of yer true name.” The earnestness in Tamlin’s tone and expression surprised Fagan.
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. This could all be a trick to gain his trust so Mab could have true ownership over him. Tamlin was her servant as well as consort after all, not a free man with
a free man’s desires.
It mattered naught to Fagan whether he served the queen the same way, as long as he freed Aoife from Cu Roi mac Daire’s clutches.
“Come.” He clamped an armored arm around Fagan’s shoulder. “Ye must bathe and dress before I present ye to her majesty.”
Fagan would have grimaced at the thought of a bath—he didn’t feel like a cold dunk in a stream—but the eyes of so many lovely fae setting their gaze upon him as they passed distracted him from the thought. By the way they eyed him, they knew he was human, but did they know he was supposed to be Aoife’s gift to the queen, a tithe? He’d rather he came here on his own merit, even though he wanted to leave here as a knight with the ability to rescue his love.
Betray him though she did, Aoife did not deserve the fate of being wed to a monster. She’d brought him hope when he had none; her reasons didn’t matter. Aoife deserved hope too, and Fagan was determined to do anything he could to give it to her.
“My god. Ye have the attention of the Sidhe court and yer not scared,” Tamlin whispered, bemused.
Fagan cocked an eyebrow and angled his head to get a better look at the knight. “No worse than a Viking horde or the plague’s kiss.”
“Yer a grim one. I thought cottars had a more pleasant demeanor with their simple lives. Tis not as if you bear the immense burdens of the nobility,” Tamlin mused, the curve of his lips faintly rueful as he spoke.
Fagan shrugged. No sense arguing if the knight already had an opinion. What would a nobleman turned fae knight know of a peasant’s life? At nineteen summers, Fagan had buried the last of his kin, his own brother naught but thirteen summers. The lass he’d wanted to marry had married an elderly clansman, rich enough to have land with cottars. She’d died in childbirth—a babe of Fagan’s seed, who’d joined her ma soon after. The other cottar boys he’d either been friends with or loved in secret were all dead too…of plague, starvation, or murdered by invading hordes. Why should Fagan be scared of monsters when life had been so monstrous?
They entered an archway into a corridor. Glowing flowers grew from vines that completely covered the walls and ceiling. The luminescent glow lit their way. Brownie servants rushed past. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere. The only people not in a hurry were the larger, humanish fae who greeted Tamlin.
Even among the fae, the rich had it better, Fagan thought.
Tamlin gestured to a narrow, stone staircase leading downward. He relaxed his grip on Fagan’s shoulder, the armored arm dropping. There seemed to be reluctance about it. As if responding to Fagan’s earlier thoughts, Tamlin said, “You must think the life of a noble carefree.”
“I suppose we all romanticize what we are not.”
“We have only just met, but I don’t believe ye are a man who romanticizes much.”
“Nay. I do not. I’d never dream of a place such as this.” Sweat pearled on his forehead as they descended the stairwell. Heat emanated from below like steam from a boiling pot. “However, there was a time I’d fancy myself a man worthy of a princess, or at least becoming that man,” he admitted.
“Ah, love. The only thing that would make even a sensible person foolhardy.” Tamlin passed him on the stair and gave a conspiratorial wink.
Fagan scowled, not caring for the knight’s assessment, accurate or no. He didn’t think leaving with the kelpie was a foolish choice. Taking his chances with a fae was better odds than the assured starvation, plague, or being a lone man against foreign invaders.
“I myself was never sensible,” Tamlin threw over his shoulder, flashing a broad grin that didn’t reach his eyes.
Fagan snorted, following the knight through an archway at the bottom of the stairs. They entered a cave, but not like any he’d ever seen. The ceiling was impossibly high with glowing stalactites hanging down and providing light for the cavern. Stone benches lined tiled walls. Gleaming marble floors surrounded underground ponds. Steam rose from the pools of water, and the smell of salt and minerals he could not name filled his nostrils.
“This is where the court and the knights of Mab’s army bathe. Today, ye have the bathhouse to yerself. From this day forward, ye will eat, sleep, and bathe with my men…and women, and those who aren’t inclined to one or the other. Fae don’t separate duties by what’s between the legs like human folk. It will take some getting used to seeing strangers naked, I’m sure, Fergus.”
That name again. Fagan had always liked his name, but Fergus would do. He stripped of his belt, tunic and braies, aware of Tamlin’s gaze. The knight, for all his talk of being used to other bodies, seemed to take a lot of interest in Fagan’s. Aoife had studied him like that too. There was admiration in their expression and also a cold assessment, seeking some value he couldn’t fathom.
After testing the water with his toes, he sank his leg in deeper. He found a step or ledge for sitting and stepped down into it. The heated pool felt good on his sore muscles. He’d trained hard with Aoife every day, working at swordplay and archery. He likely wouldn’t have killed one of the hounds Cu Roi mac Daire had sent after her. Though he’d been a decent archer before, training on horseback—or rather kelpie-back, which was a different experience entirely—had made him adept at shooting moving targets from a mounted position.
Behind him, the clink of metal hitting stone marked Tamlin’s decision to join him. He peered over his shoulder, taking in the knight. He was not powerfully built like some of the clan warriors, but he had graceful lines and the body of a well-fed knight. His skin was fair and freckled, unblemished for a warrior. No battle scars…or at least none that he could see. He didn’t stare as long as Tamlin had. Long enough to satisfy his curiosity without being rude.
He’d heard from his former lover that the lives of the nobility were separated by gender, but among the cottars one washed up in the same home everyone lived or bathed in the river with one’s family. He’d been allowed to look his whole life, but not stare. There was an unspoken etiquette among the peasants during public bathing, learned by a pinch or an ear tug when they were bairns.
Fagan allowed himself to glance again as Tamlin settled in the water. The knight stepped down and then pushed off the inner ledge, sinking to immerse himself completely in the steaming underground pool. He watched the water and fey light glow upon the sinews of Tamlin’s arms and back as he swam across the pool. When he emerged on the other side, Fagan was treated to a full view of the knight’s body again as he stepped out of the pool and into a hidden recess in the opposite wall.
Tamlin returned, joined by two blue-green skinned maidens who were naked as well. Each maiden had green hair that resembled vines with flowers of a sort Fagan had never seen. They carried a bucket apiece filled with various items. The fae maidens took a path between pools.
The knight returned to the water, swimming back to Fagan’s side. “They will groom you to be fit to meet the queen.”
“Will I be meeting her today?”
Tamlin shook his head. “I doubt it. She is with the king. He heard about her troubles with Mannan mac lir and Cu Roi mac Daire. The king doesn’t like my presence at court when he visits.” He drew near enough that his body brushed Fagan’s arm. The knight’s lips brushed Fagan’s ear. “The fae will fuck anything, but they’re not supposed to love us. It galls him how much she adores me.”
He drew away just as the fae set their buckets down behind them. There was no smugness or satisfaction in Tamlin’s expression after revealing such an honor. Rather, a deep sadness Fagan would equate to grief had filled his green eyes.
As the maiden scrubbed his head, Fagan recalled his first lover and how he'd ended their trysts after she married. It wasn’t the sharing of her that he'd minded, but the expectation that he'd remain faithful to her. Their affair had made him feel used, like a tool for her pleasure, while he had to settle on loneliness when she could not avail herself.
She’d chosen a life of ease rather than a life of a cottar with him, and that he could not fault her for, but
he had faulted her for the jealous accusations she’d throw at him and the punishing sulks if duty to his kin had kept him from meeting her. It had been unbalanced and didn’t sit right with his sense of fairness. He'd loved her, but love had not been enough.
If Fagan were a gambling man, he’d wager the love of the Queen of the Sidhe was in some way not enough for the knight. Unlike Fagan, Tamlin could not end the affair with his mistress. One did not walk away from queens or kings unscathed.
Chapter 4
Roi
Roi blew out his breathe, fogging the window. Traveling through the veil and maintaining the safety of his lands from a distance had taken its toll upon the sorcerer. He had done as Mab bid. He and Cuchulainn had raided Mend’s castle and stole the fae king’s possessions and his daughter. Mab had agreed Bláthnat would be Roi’s price for making her enemy look weak.
Now that his enemy and Mab’s former favorite Cuchulainn had stolen Bláthnat from Roi, the queen owed him. He had to threaten to reveal to all who had ears that Mab’s Tamlin had helped them gain entry to Mend’s faerie and castle.
It had worked. Mab didn’t want a price on her pretty, copper-haired lover’s head. The Sidhe queen was a fool for the comely lad.
Roi didn’t care what it cost Mab to lie about Mannan mac Lir, who cared naught about the deal he’d brokered with Roi. The God of the Sea simply wanted his murderous daughters to stop killing the fisherfolk who worshipped Mannan, leaving Roi to hunt down his betrothed on his own.
Now, he must convince Aoife to aid him. After seeing the hatred in her eyes, he thought long and hard about the bargain he’d make with the kelpie.
Vow Unbroken: Faerie Tales 3 Page 2