by WB McKay
I'd turned to go when she began speaking again. "Don't bring any belongings you can't easily replace. The city of Mellosh is well known for its thieves and pickpockets."
I scowled. "I thought there weren't any cities in Faerie."
"You think a lot of things that aren't true," replied The Morrigan, her face impassive. Something told me the only thing that would delight her more than seeing the surprise on my face as she enlightened me, would be knowing that she would always be superior if she didn't spill her secrets.
I spun on a heel and headed toward the medical room, happy to be done listening to The Morrigan play her games.
Silas was alone when I stepped into what I'd begun to think of as the doctor's office. It had that same antiseptic and medicine smell, even if it was also awash in magic.
"I guess it would be silly for Graulfv to still be in here," I said by way of greeting.
Silas smiled. "He's returned to his quarters to heal. His injuries were quite extensive, though he will never admit that."
"How long will it take him to get back to a hundred percent?"
"A week is my best guess. If it weren't for these magical poultices I traded for recently, it would have been a month."
I nodded, filing that away for future use. If I got banged up, he could make things better much faster. Then I realized that my way of thinking should probably change in light of my newfound magic. Could I heal myself? I wasn't sure. It would be nice if the Fleece was open for consultation any time and not just when it decided the time was right; I was sure it knew the answer.
"Do you have any extra of that poultice?"
"Absolutely, if you are in need, Mistress."
"My name is Sophie."
"Are you hurt, Sophie?"
"Not yet." I put my arm out in front of me. "I might not need your help. Let's see." Before it had time to freak the guy out, I whipped out Haiku and pulled her across my forearm. Oh god, ow, ow, ow. I bit my lip harder. Tears fell down my cheeks. I didn't cry out, though. I should get points for that. That hurt worse than I thought. To be fair, I hadn't let myself think about it. If I had, I might have picked a better spot to cut myself than my forearm. "Okay. That's done." I wiped off Haiku and put her away. "Now let's see what I can do, eh?"
"Can I help?" He was doing a good job of controlling how panicked he was. Good man.
I put my hand over the cut, and I focused as much as I could. Nothing. I pulled on where I'd found the heat of the healing magic before. More nothing. I gritted my teeth and tried harder. Fleece, you could help with this, you lazy bastard. The hunk of metal had decided to go quiet.
"Well, yeah. I think I'm going to need you to patch me up."
"Yes, Mistress."
"Sophie," I repeated. "My name is Sophie. Call me Sophie."
"Yes, Mistress Sophie."
"You're making it hard to like you, man, and I want to like the guy who is healing up my arm."
"I apologize."
He went to work, looking like a kicked puppy. Ugh. "Good work," I complimented him. He brightened some. "I appreciate what you did for Graulfv." He brightened some more, and it bothered me again how much my opinion meant to these guys. "Can you point me toward Graulfv's quarters?"
He did, and a few minutes later I was knocking gently on a heavy wooden door.
"Come in," called Graulfv, his voice gruff and strong as usual.
I opened the door and another clansman stepped aside and left the room before I entered. Graulfv was tucked safely into his bed on the other side of the relatively small room. Almost all of the space that wasn't occupied by the bed was filled with books. There was a comfortable chair by the window, but it too was covered in books.
"I want to heal you," I told him straight away. "I've depleted my magic quite a bit though, so I'm not sure I should try that yet. A partial healing might hurt worse than it does now. I'm not sure, obviously. This is all new. If you want me to try, I will, though."
"I'm honored, Sophie," he said. "I'm fine, though. I've been taken care of."
"Right." I'd already run out of things to say. I looked around, and luckily the room supplied a topic for me. "You weren't joking when you said you like to read."
I stepped up beside his bed and he gave me a weak smile. He appeared distracted. "Yes, I do."
"The man that just left told you what happened out in the courtyard, didn't he?"
He nodded. "Yes. We are all in awe of the power The Morrigan has brought out in you." He probably noticed the face I made because he gave me a patient smile. "It is an honor that The Morrigan has taken such an interest."
I snorted. "I can't say I feel much honor in my mother finally deciding she has a use for me. My feelings resemble something more like disgust. If I'm lucky, she'll forget about me soon and my life can go back to normal."
Surprisingly, I saw sympathy in Graulfv's eyes. "I know better than anyone here that once The Morrigan has touched your life, it will never be normal again."
"Oh, Graulfv. You know the way we see her is very different." I cleared books carefully off the chair and pulled it around so I could see Graulfv's face while he rested. "How did you meet The Morrigan?" I asked. "Were you always one of her worshipers?"
He shook his head. "No, The Morrigan was unknown to my people when I met her. I was a young warrior in a clan full of such warriors. It's been so long that I can't remember more about them than that." At my look, he added, "Hundreds of years, possibly closer to a thousand."
"You look good for such an old man," I told him.
"I work out a lot."
I snorted. "Good job with that one."
"I know how to tell a joke," he said. "If I said too many too quickly, I doubt your young mind could handle it. You'd get witlash." His eyes widened with anticipation.
"Oh my fae." My laugh was slow at first, but then it really picked up. "Witlash? Seriously? That's so bad, Graulfv."
"You're welcome."
"Oh, man." I shook my head in my hands. When I looked back up at him, he looked awfully proud of himself. He also looked beat up, old, and oddly frail tucked in under the heavy blanket. "So, Graulfv. How were you unlucky enough to draw her attention?"
"The same as you," he said, giving me a small smile. "We fought a great battle. I was one of over a hundred warriors who stormed a castle not much different than this one. When all was said and done, less than a dozen of us were left. We never would have succeeded if The Morrigan hadn't appeared with her sword in hand. Even still, several more died after her arrival. When the battle was finished and all of our foes vanquished, The Morrigan offered to bring us here if we would dedicate ourselves to her service."
"So, you were grateful to still have your life, and most of your friends had been killed. You'd just learned about the existence of magic, and the goddess who saved you offered you immortality. That sounds like the most manipulative way to recruit followers that I can imagine." My lips were pressed into a firm line when I nodded. "Sounds about right for The Morrigan."
"You can choose to see the world however you like, Sophie. I suggest you consider viewing things in a positive light, because your life is forever changed either way, and it's hard to live with hatred and anger for eternity."
I let out an annoyed sigh. His words had the ring of wisdom, but I still couldn't see anything positive that would come out of The Morrigan meddling in my life. "I'll think about it," I said, because I had a habit of ignoring wisdom and regretting it later. The page stepped into the doorway, a young man of maybe eighteen years if I was feeling generous. "You get better, Graulfv. We have a ball to attend in three days."
"I'll do my best."
CHAPTER TEN
I opened the thick paper the page had given me when I stepped outside the castle. Inside there were a few small bills in a currency I'd never seen before. Per The Morrigan's advice, I had emptied my bag in my room. No need to give thieves any incentive to look my way. I didn't want to lose any of my stuff on some stupid errand. I stuffe
d in the small amount of cash. Hopefully it wasn't important to my mission.
The message was written in a cramped swirly handwriting. Just looking at it felt like her, but it sounded preposterous that The Morrigan had written directions for me personally.
And that's what they were, directions. The first paragraph was a list of instructions for finding a portal. It seemed she was tired of me taking forever to go places and was entrusting me with knowledge of portals.
The instructions led me past the dead spot on the edge of the forest. I tried not to look too closely at the dead trees and plants within the wide circle of blackened ground, but it was impossible to miss. I doubted anything would be growing there for a good, long time.
The next set of directions had me walking in a curve that made it clear I could have avoided the area altogether. The Morrigan was sending me a message that she hadn't forgotten about my insubordination right before Aengus had shown up. She was reminding me that I still owed her more training time and we would spend it the way she saw fit. Unfortunately, this was not something I needed reminding about, I remembered quite clearly on my own. All sending me by the dead spot had done was convince me that I shouldn't listen to the Fleece so easily. Every time I did, something in my life changed irrevocably, and usually not for the better.
Well… I mean… was it for the better?
I had brought someone back from the dead. How could that be bad? Yes, I'd destroyed an area where things had been growing, but it would have been so much worse if I'd sent that kind of death magic into the air. Who knew how many people I could have killed like that. Then there was the mindfuck of having control over life and death. Who was I to decide who lived and died? Many fae already had such long lives that they may have been immortal. Almost every fae that died was killed. I couldn't even remember one that died of old age. That meant for fae, I was a way to stay alive forever, guaranteed.
There were so many ways that could go wrong. I shuddered at the thought of someone like Erik Bresnan never having to worry about death. He could rush into any situation, guns blazing, and if he had enough leverage on me, I'd bring him back to life.
All of that being said, bringing someone back from death was not like any other magic I possessed. If someone killed Owen or any of my friends, I could bring them back. I knew there had to be limitations to the magic, but the fact remained that it was there.
The responsibility was overwhelming. I wasn't sure I would be able to handle it.
Such were my distracting thoughts when I walked through the portal The Morrigan sent me to. I walked through like I was a human in a park, not a care in the world. In other words, what happened next wasn't my fault, it was The Morrigan's. If I thought about it hard enough, everything bad that had happened in my life was The Morrigan's fault.
One second I was walking through the crazy forest that I'd grown so used to in Faerie, despite its propensity for weird creatures and improbable plants, the next, I was thrust into the middle of an angry mob.
If I had been less distracted, I might have skirted the mob, or at least noticed their words in time to flee before being grabbed.
"It's her, the daughter of The Morrigan, the slayer of the Orani!"
Several rough hands pushed me toward a speaker raised on a box so he could look over the crowd. It was one of the winged Orani, his lizard-like features unreadable, but I played it safe and interpreted it as seething hatred.
"You butchered over half of our people and crippled our power of illusion. What have you to say for yourself, Sophie Morrigan?"
"You kidnapped my boyfriend and brainwashed him! I'd do it again!"
Uhhh. I guess I should have read the room before spitting out the absolute truth. The angry shouts of the crowd rose in pitch as bodies pressed in around me and the speaker on his pedestal. Hands groped for me. There were several Orani among them, the rest were another variety of lizard people, their necks sporting large wattles of flesh in bright colors. Probably some sort of cousin to the Orani. Or maybe Fae turkey people. I had enough time to think up a gobble gobble joke, and stop myself from sharing it, before a hand pulled a clump of feathers from my right thigh, eliciting a yelp.
"Back off," I shouted, a death light jumping to my palms on instinct.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd, and I suddenly found myself with a bubble of personal space. Apparently word of my death light had spread. "I don't want to kill you, but I will do it to protect myself."
The crowd rumbled in confusion, torn between actions. The man on the pedestal, now with a few layers of people between him and me, wasn't about to let that happen. "Do you see what I have been telling you?" he asked. "She brings death with her everywhere she goes!"
I made a few stuttering noises before I found my words. "I mean, yeah? But that's hardly my fault! It's my magic. I'm not spreading it around or anything! I only use it in self defense. Leave me alone, and we're totally fine guys!" The crowd wasn't interested in what I had to say. Most of them were looking at the original Orani guy, who was too intent on the crowd to look my way anymore.
"We have her surrounded," he said. "Take her down now, and she won't have a chance to kill many. Those who die will be honored eternally."
He was very wrong in his thinking that I couldn't kill many of them if they rushed me. If it came to it, I thought there was a good chance I'd survive a fight against the mob. Fortunately for them, I hadn't been lying when I said I didn't want to kill them. "Stay back," I shouted, drawing on the power of the Fleece. The metal warmed against my brow. It felt like smug satisfaction. "I do not wish to harm you or the Orani further."
The crowd began to disperse. They looked confused, like they didn't know why they were doing it. As much as I wanted to stop using the Fleece, saving the lives of the crowd felt worth it.
But then, of course, shit went sideways.
A lonely wail pierced through the background noise. "No! You killed my only daughter! You must pay!"
The tension I'd felt spread over the crowd, caused by the magic of the Fleece, snapped like an overstretched rubber band. Too many, the Fleece explained. They care too much. I understood, the people here believed killing me was the right thing to do. The Fleece couldn't command this many people who believed this strongly. It was good to know the Fleece had limits. It was a bad time to figure that out. A wall of flesh pressed in around me.
I had a choice to make. I could stay and kill a bunch more people who were being worked into a frenzy by the grieving Orani, or I could run.
I didn't have enough room to spread my human-sized wings. Between one breath and the next, I let my crow form come forward. Shifting my possessions along with me had become second nature since I'd gotten the Fleece, and I was even more grateful for that than usual.
A second later, I was winging away from the crowd as they looked up at me in frustration. The Orani had wings of their own, but weren't putting them to use. Something else to feel grateful for. There had already been enough death for the day.
I flew until they were lost to my view and landed in a small clearing, shifting back to my winged human form. I heaved a sigh and pulled out the note with my directions on it. Fortunately, I'd flown in the general direction the instructions called for. There was another portal not far from where I'd landed. That one would take me the rest of the way to Mellosh.
I used the walk to think over what was happening in Faerie, though I didn't know what exactly to make of it. I'd had a feeling of dread every time I thought of the Orani, but I'd been pushing that aside, not knowing what to do about it. It was hard to ignore now, though, because it was much worse than I'd thought. Yes, I'd started something with the Orani, they knew who I was and they weren't forgetting about it. But worse than that, they were gathering support against me. That's what I'd seen, wasn't it? The Orani was standing there convincing the others I was a danger? At least, that's what he'd done once I'd shown up. I couldn't believe that I was the reason he'd been talking to the crowd original
ly. It couldn't all be about me. So what were they up to?
When I'd gone to get help facing the Orani so I could rescue Owen, no one in Faerie had wanted to join my mission. They were too afraid of the Orani. Why would people want to hang out with them now? They didn't have their scary base anymore, since I'd kind of destroyed the shit out of that, but they were still the Orani. Would people really want to work with them now for… whatever it was they were doing?
None of this was any of my damn business.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
The issue here was that the Orani certainly wanted to kill me, and they were definitely in the mood to get help in making that happen. Why would they even need help? I wondered. I'm just… Well, holy crap. I was someone who'd led a group in and destroyed their home base and a considerable portion of their people. I guess.. I guess I'm kind of a big deal.
That didn't feel like a good thing at all.
I was supposed to be Agent Morrigan. I recovered dangerous magical objects for a living. Nobody was supposed to be paying attention to me. I didn't bother with other people. I lived in a quiet treehouse on Earth with my annoying dryad roommate who I barely tolerated.
How much of that was even true anymore?
I was Agent Morrigan. I recovered dangerous magical objects for a living. It would have been nice if nobody was paying attention to me, but lots of faces were pointed my way these days. I'd kicked Erik Bresnan off the fae council, after thoroughly pissing him off. There was no denying that The Morrigan was now an actual figure flying in and out of my life. I had a boyfriend with a mom on the fae council. I owed people favors, and they owed me some. If I had a problem, the question was no longer who can I call for help but actually required me to scroll through my contacts and wonder who would be best to call for help, and I could believe people would show up for me.
Holy smokes. My life had gotten so big. Holy smokes.
The Fleece warmed on my brow, a subtle reminder that it wanted to be added to the list of important things in my life.