All three of the brownies stared at him. The little male, Pred, sniffed lustily. His eyes got even larger and more protuberant. “They attacked him. The Davail first-son.”
“Rafe,” Rafe said automatically. This wasn’t good.
Pavan stared at him directly. Rafe looked at his sculpted nose. “The Davail bloodline was specifically modified by us Lightfolk to fight great Dark ones more than a millennia ago. The firstborn sons of your line would prove that they were strong enough to fight the Darkfolk by finding and claiming a specific dagger. They were honorable men whose land had been confiscated and families tortured and killed by a great Dark one.” Pavan’s jaw flexed. “Standard procedure for evil—whether Darkfolk or human. We gave them better reflexes, more strength especially after their quests and training…and magic, then, too. We gave them special weapons.” His silver brows caught the light as they arched. “You do dream of a dagger?”
Rafe cleared his throat, coughed. “Yeah.” He thought a few seconds, scowled and ran his fingers through his hair. “Hell, I’m going to have to give back my trophies, aren’t I?” Ticked him off.
Pavan’s smile was swift and amused. “Not necessarily. Your physical attributes are currently within the realm of other high-achieving humans. You have to work to win…after your magic is freed and you train, though…”
Rafe couldn’t prevent a grumble. The brownie woman vanished from the settee in an unnerving way. Before Rafe could blink, she was standing before him holding a small tray with tall, thin-walled china mugs full of coffee. His was just the way he liked it. The back of his neck tightened and his ears buzzed as she tsked at him when his hand trembled as he bobbled the drink. A tiny bit sloshed over the rim but no droplets hit the floor.
The brownies had been at Amber’s office the day before! And Conrad…what had Conrad seen and heard? No wonder Rafe’s friend had behaved so oddly. Rafe was glad he was sitting down.
The brownie woman—browniefem—had glided over to Amber with the tray. Rafe stared at the little woman’s feet under her long dress. She had shoes that curled up at the toes.
Of course.
Amber blinked at the mug being offered to her, took it and whispered, “Thank you, Hartha.”
“You dream of the dagger,” the elf reminded gently.
“Yeah, I do. Blue and silver and white, starbursts, triangular blade,” Rafe said. He drank too quickly but the coffee wasn’t hot enough to burn his tongue.
Pavan nodded. “After he found the dagger, the Davail son would arrive at one of the Lightfolk palaces on his thirty-third birthday, with the weapon. We would know that he’d been tested and was ready for advanced training. When you appeared at a Lightfolk palace, you would be taught how to fight to defeat Dark ones.”
“Sounds like a story,” Rafe said, but his mouth remained dry. He drank more coffee.
Pavan’s shoulders rippled, too graceful to be called a shrug. “Plenty of stories about us.” He waved a hand. “Legends, myths. This happens to be the truth of your line. And so the men of Davail fulfilled their purpose for generations. Dark minions fell to you.”
The guy just said minions?
“For a while we lost track of your line. Magic faded in this world. That was a greater threat than the Darkfolk and we turned our attention to surviving. When your family crossed our path again, we discovered you had been cursed. Now you face this curse. Your brother is not a man who is suited to be a warrior, and your cousin—”
“I don’t have a cousin.”
Pavan looked down his nose, glanced at Amber. “A distant branch. That cousin, too, labors under the curse, though it will not strike him until next year if you fail to survive.”
Rafe’s mind whirled and his breath locked in his chest. “Not just my life on the line if I don’t break the curse. Not just any son Gabriel has.”
“No.”
Amber had stiffened at the end of the couch and he knew she was thinking the same thing. If he persuaded her to lift the curse on his family, which seemed essential, it wouldn’t only be him.
“Two,” she said in a thready voice. “I can’t.”
“You can’t do one, let alone two,” Tiro the brownie said.
Pavan stared at Amber as if she were less than smart. “Currently the curse is concentrated upon Rafe, so only Rafe’s life would be applicable to the breaking. Once broken, of course, all others would be free of it. But I strongly discourage the woman from interfering in the curse. She has her own lesson to learn. You did not contact her to lift your curse?”
So there were things that the elf didn’t know, and that was a damn relief. “No,” he said.
“It does not reflect well on a warrior to ask another to put herself in peril for him.”
“Not Davail,” Tiro sneered. “Cymbler.”
The elf closed his eyes. “Those lives are entangled again? Cymbler and Davail?”
Tiro snorted, then cackled. “Humans who fight Darkfolk tend to gravitate together. You Lightfolk can’t control fate. Not even you, Pavan.”
Amber said, “Tell us about the Davail death curse. Who cursed him? What are the conditions of the release of the curse? I’ve learned that there must be a loophole.”
“Indeed, there must,” Pavan said coolly, his smile as sharp as a knife. “But in this case the ‘loophole’ requires what Rafe must do to live.”
“And that is?” He should have been terrified, and the whole thing yanked on his nervous system, but there was relief bubbling through him, too. He wasn’t helpless.
He might go down fighting but at least there was something he could fight. As his determination flamed up, he felt like a warrior.
Pavan’s lips curved. “The person who cursed your line is currently called Bilachoe, a human originally apprenticed to a Dark one who has always had ambitions of becoming greatly powerful. He knew the Davail line was created to kill evil and knew of the requirement that a Davail must appear at a Lightfolk palace on his thirty-third birthday. Thus Bilachoe cursed you all to die before then.”
“How’s that work?” Rafe asked.
“First you will draw risky circumstances into your life. If you manage to evade a stream of bad luck that has surrounded the first Davail son for nearly a millennia, the curse acting upon you, Bilachoe will no doubt send others to kill you.”
“Minions,” Rafe said. The cup was too delicate to really wrap his hands around. He took another sip of coffee. “My father died in a hit-and-run accident.”
“That could have been the curse working, drawing him to the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Or it could have been murder by Bilachoe.”
“I doubt he drives,” Pavan said drily. “We don’t.”
Amber frowned. “Surely there must be a weakness to Bilachoe, too. He must be affected by the curse in some way. Shouldn’t he have an Achilles’ heel or fatal flaw we can exploit?”
“None I know of. Bilachoe has kept to places on the planet where misery and hopelessness have soaked into the earth for centuries. None of the Lightfolk, major or minor, visit such areas. We would be espied immediately and bound or killed more easily there than anywhere else.”
“Would any mortal weakness engendered in Bilachoe at the time of the curse be evident at that time?” Amber asked.
“This is not the computer game that Jenni wrote. I know of no mortal weakness, or if there might even be one,” Pavan said with an edge to his patience.
Amber lifted her chin. “And the loophole?”
“The firstborn Davail son must kill Bilachoe. Who has grown in power since the curse.”
“But you don’t know whether he has a limitation?” Tiro asked.
“Do not question me, brownieman,” the elf said in a dark, low voice that had the brownie shivering back into the seat cushion of the love seat.
“When was the curse?” Amber persisted.
“Approximately eight hundred and twenty years ago,” Pavan said.
Rafe went a little dizzy. “T
his dude’s been, uh, accruing power for over eight hundred years?”
“That’s right.” Pavan looked at Rafe’s cup of coffee. Rafe drank.
“That’s 1197 A.D. Your chart only goes back to 1712,” Amber observed.
“I doubt Bilachoe has been practicing warrior skills, though,” Pavan said.
“Good to know,” Rafe said. He finished the coffee, set his back teeth. He wasn’t helpless. Something wouldn’t just sneak up on him. He was gaining enough knowledge to protect himself. He’d get more. “If I get this dagger, will that help against Bilachoe?”
“The dagger was forged to kill great Dark ones?” Amber asked.
Pavan appeared surprised at her intelligent question. “Yes.”
“So it should work on Bilachoe, too.” A line still showed between Amber’s brows. “He’s not a great Dark one?”
“Not quite,” Tiro said.
The elf looked toward the brownie, who crossed his arms and stuck out his chin. “Lived near Bilachoe’s area of influence.”
“The curse must have worked on Bilachoe, too. Given him some fatal weakness.” Amber breathed deeply to steady herself and shot Pavan a look. The elf was utterly gorgeous and completely unhuman in her point of view. “The best magic is balanced magic. I think good strives to balance with evil and vice versa. Bilachoe must have a flaw.”
“Faulty assumptions,” Pavan said.
He definitely didn’t like her for some reason. That wouldn’t stop her. He had such a glamour about him that she guessed matching gazes with him could be disastrous. She stared at his eyebrows. They were as beautiful as the rest of him. Not too thick or thin, elegantly arched and silver.
“I have some minor magic and can see specific visions of the past.” Eight hundred and twenty-five years would be tricky, but she would give it her all. Davail sounded French. France eight hundred and twenty-five years ago and “warriors” might mean the Third Crusade.
Journeying into the past at the moment of the curse was a better alternative than trying to break the curse by drawing it from Rafe. Tiro was probably right that that would kill her.
She glanced at Rafe. He was looking better than since she’d first met him. Then he’d had a deeply buried air of worn despair and recklessness. Now he simply appeared honed like a man being tested.
As if being told he was a warrior had brought that steel within him to the forefront.
She could do no less, intended to match that courage and strength.
There was a slight thump, an alteration of air pressure. Amber tilted her head. She was becoming more accustomed to the small modifications in her home—the sounds, the rippling of magic as beings appeared or vanished. Another large change in the magic had occurred. As strong as Pavan’s but…denser.
Squeals of excitement came from the brownies and they vanished. A minute later there was a rumbling voice, speaking a harsh language that was all edges to Amber’s ears. Then she heard the bustle of Hartha in the kitchen and the scent of hot chocolate rose. “They are in the living room, sir. I will bring you hot cocoa and cookies.”
Amber was a cookieholic. She didn’t keep cookies in the house.
She waited, became aware that Pavan was waiting, too. He smiled and it was ravishing, of course, and the first lighthearted thing that he’d done since he’d entered her home.
“I wasn’t offered cookies,” Pavan said.
“You’re an elf,” a deep, rumbly voice replied, “and the brownies know that you disapprove of Amber, here.”
Amber stared. Now she had an elf, three brownies and a dwarf in her living room.
Chapter 10
HE WAS SHORT and husky, his face weathered and bearded. But he moved lithely and had a sword strapped to his back.
“My friend, you are taking too long to brief the Davail. I am here to remind you that we have a meeting with the Eight within the hour and must leave soon,” the dwarf said.
Small sounds of protest from the brownies.
One side of the dwarf’s mouth kicked up. “I s’pose I can settle a few minutes to eat some cookies.” He glanced around. “Nice place.” Walking up to her, the dwarf offered his hand. When she held hers out, he took it and bowed over it. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mistress Amber.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
He was a good foot taller than the brownies and much broader. He glanced at them. The brownies had gathered around him as if he was the sun and they were satellite planets. “You have treated the brownies well and I thank you for amusing them in Jindesfarne Mistweaver’s absence.”
“They are easy to be with,” Amber said. She smiled. “Though I think I will watch their chocolate intake.”
“Chocolate,” the dwarf said reverently.
“I have a drink made with real milk and cream and chocolate,” Hartha offered. “Please sit down, great sir, and I will serve it to you, along with the sugar cookies.”
Amber’s mouth watered at the thought of sugar cookies. She would resist. Really.
The dwarf crossed to a large blue velvet hassock. He wore brown leather that looked like armor to Amber. Immediately Hartha was before him with a pottery mug in a glaze about the same color as his clothes, with whipped cream floating on top and steam rising from it. A small inlaid wooden occasional table holding a plate stacked with cookies scooted to the dwarf’s right hand.
“I’d like some hot chocolate, too,” the elf said mildly.
Hartha sniffed, slid a quick glance to him and away. “You do not treat Amber with courtesy. What kind of a being is rude to one’s own host?” She vanished.
After a squee of horror Pred disappeared, too. So did Tiro.
They hadn’t gone far. Amber could still sense them in the kitchen. Since Pavan was gazing thoughtfully in that direction, he could, too.
The dwarf was hooting and coughing. A small spray of white crumbs dusted the floor and his footstool.
Pavan stood and walked over to Amber. He inclined his body in a stiff bow, but didn’t offer his hand. “My apologies for my discourtesy.”
Amber nodded. “You’re forgiven.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you like cocoa and cookies?” Amber rose from the couch and walked toward the kitchen, but Hartha was back, bustling and staring at the elf, gesturing for him to reseat himself. The browniefem gave him a small teacup of cocoa made of nearly translucent china and an equally small plate with two cookies.
Amber returned to her seat on the couch, noticing Rafe was strained around the eyes, appearing a little shell-shocked.
“Thank you, Mistress Amber and Mistress Hartha,” the elf said.
Rafe moved restlessly, studying the dwarf. “I guess you’re friends with Pavan and work for Eight Corp, as a troubleshooter, too.”
The dwarf grinned, showing pointed red teeth that took Amber aback, and answered, “I prefer to hack at trouble or skewer it, myself, lad.”
Clearing his throat, Rafe said, “Do you have a card?”
The dwarf’s brows rose until they nearly reached his brown-threaded-with-gray hairline. “A card,” he repeated as if he rarely said the word. He studied the cookie, which appeared perfect to Amber—just a little brown at the edges.
Of course she wouldn’t ask for one.
A piece of gold-colored cardstock appeared near the dwarf, then it separated into two. One floated toward Amber, the other to Rafe. He snatched it out of the air as if magic still bothered him and she took hers. “Thanks,” she said. The card read Vikos, Eight Corp, Troublehacker.
She laughed.
Vikos put the whole cookie in his mouth and crunched, winking at her.
Pavan finished his mug of cocoa and his delicate china cup and the plate that had held two cookies disappeared.
Hartha sniffed again.
Rafe said, “Could I have more—”
But Hartha was there taking his mug, vanishing and returning, handing his refill back to him.
The scent of coffee overwhelmed the
fragrance of cocoa, in contrast to the magical beings overwhelming the humans in the room. Pred and Tiro were back on opposite sides of the love seat, drinking mugs of hot chocolate.
“Thank you…Hartha,” Rafe said.
“You’re welcome,” she said. Then she was sitting with her own mug and a cookie between the male brownies.
“So you can help me if I get the dagger,” Rafe said.
“That’s right,” Pavan replied. “Before then you are considered being tested for your fate and must prevail without our aid.”
“How can you help me later?”
“I can give you hints to where the Lightfolk palaces are located and how to get there…later.”
Pred opened his mouth. Hartha elbowed him in the ribs.
“How do I find this magic knife?”
Pavan’s arched and silver brows rose. “You manifest it into your life. Call it to you.”
Rafe’s eyes narrowed and his face flushed. Amber felt the heat of his irritation.
“I’m not a warrior and magic has been part of my mindset for about—” he looked at his watch “—half an hour.”
Pavan stared at him. Naturally Amber couldn’t read the elf, but she thought he was running rapidly through options, faster and with more experience than she would ever have.
“Perhaps a construct.” Pavan snapped his fingers and a tablet computer spun above the couch several times before dropping with a slight swish of air between Amber and Rafe.
Standing, Pavan said, “Now we must go help Jenni. We have no more time to spend with you.”
Rafe stood, too, so Amber rose.
“A big battle is coming!” squeaked Pred.
Pavan inclined his head, his gaze glanced over Rafe. “It’s a pity that you aren’t a warrior against the Darkfolk already. We could use you.”
Rafe stood solid, of course, but Amber felt all the nerves in her body give a cold quiver.
“When is this bad time? Will Jenni be all right?” Pred pressed.
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