Soul Fire

by R. F. Long

  But if Aynia held Daire captive, why had she not taken him back to the Unseelie Court already? Why were they still here?

  The answer, though Rowan tried to push it away, hung before her mind’s eye, glaringly obvious. The Dark Sidhe didn’t just want Daire now. Aynia knew she was a Blood Witch. That meant Aynia wanted her too.

  She could run. Every instinct screamed at her to run and hide, to lock the doors of her house and wait for morning.

  But that would mean leaving Daire, and presumably Matthew. She had seen no sign of her brother other than the car. She could never leave Matthew in trouble, and God alone knew how much trouble her brother had caused her over the years. And Matthew—

  Oh, God.

  She came to a stumbling halt. A cold breeze swept through the trees. It played on her skin and through her hair, and she let the bag thud to the leaf-carpeted ground.

  Matthew was her brother, and haemochromatosis was a hereditary condition, which had to mean he too was a Blood Witch. Fair game for the Dark Sidhe. And, without knowing about it, Matthew would be a prime target, much more attractive to Aynia than she was.

  The forest closed around her like a cold blanket, damp with dripping leaves, smothering. Rowan stopped at the summit of the slope, feeling the rocks in the cliff above threatening to crush her if she took another step forwards.

  The small remnant of sanity left in her head made a final call for retreat. Instead, Rowan squared her shoulders, picked up the bag again and walked into the darkness, the torch in her hand unlit. Whether they knew she was coming or not, she had no wish to announce her presence. Twilight was still a long way off, but in there, in the darkness of the caves, what would that matter?

  Her heartbeat sounded too loud. She crept forwards, her feet as quiet as she could make them. Her memory of the caves was poor, a child’s nightmare. Matthew used to go potholing here more recently, but she’d never been into mucking about in dark and dangerous places.

  Except for the last few days.

  A sound alerted her to movement up ahead. Rowan froze. She retreated back outside into the deceptive safety of light. Flattening herself against the wall, she listened to the noise of running feet getting louder, closer. She lifted the torch, steeling herself, swallowing hard.

  A figure burst out of the darkness. Rowan struck out, her torch her weapon. A solid weight slammed into her arm and doubled over with a gasp of shock and pain. Matthew sprawled at her feet.

  Cursing, Rowan seized him and pulled him back from the cave mouth, into the shelter of the nearest trees.

  She propped him up against a tree trunk. Dazed, gasping for air, her brother pushed her away and added some expletives of his own.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” she exclaimed.

  “Escaping.” He slumped forwards, holding his stomach and rocking back and forth. “Jesus, Rowan, where did you learn to do that?”

  “Self-defence classes and a couple of dodgy nights in Camden,” she snapped. “Talk to me, Matt. Are you okay? Is Daire in there? Matthew James Blake, answer me. What happened?”

  He flapped away her attempts to help him and struggled to his feet, still leaning heavily on the rough bark of the oak which protected him. “Rowan, what’s going on?”

  “How many of them are there, Matt?” she asked.

  “A woman and three men. And Daire. He’s in trouble, Rowan. And he’s dragged us into it as well. What has he brought down on us?”

  Rowan reached out to touch her brother’s face. He still felt feverish. His skin, waxy and pale, burned through the slick sweat. A bruise ran across his cheekbone, fresh and violent. He sniffed, drawing his arm across his face, wiping it with his sleeve. Before her stood the boy he had been when their mother died. Lost, frightened. The boy she had taken care of even after Grams brought them home.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” he told her. “Get home. Come on.”

  He grabbed her arm, intent on pulling her after him through the trees, but Rowan didn’t move. Her feet felt rooted to the earth.

  Matthew turned back to her, anger colouring his cheeks now. “You can’t be planning to go in there.”

  “I have to.”

  “No. They’re crazy. All of them. And dangerous. I think your precious Daire is losing his grip too. He knows them. Knows them well, especially Aynia. His ex. And I thought I had lousy taste in women.”

  She let the barb pass her by. He didn’t mean her. Matthew didn’t even know about her relationship with Daire, doomed though it was. But the bitterness in the words stung like acid.

  “Is he all right?” she asked patiently.

  “I—I don’t…” Matthew looked away and his eyes glittered in the half light. They looked like polished stones, dead inside.

  What had he seen in there? What had Aynia done? Rowan touched his arm again, a gentle caress which seemed to break whatever spell of nightmare had caught him.

  Matthew hung his head, tightened his shoulders and drew in on himself. “She’s doing things to him, torturing him, but she doesn’t appear to want anything. Except to hurt him. Over and over again. It’s like she’s a cat playing with him.”

  Rowan pulled her bag close to her stomach, feeling the reassurance of the iron’s weight against her. Shivers spread across her skin, the pain of tension in her shoulders and the small of her back tightening. She lifted a trembling hand and closed it around the acorn key, enfolding it in her palm.

  Emotions came at her like a monster made of shadows and nightmare: pain and bewilderment, boiling anger locked deep inside like pressure building, ready to tear its way out in unimaginable violence. Her chest constricted, bound with invisible chains of iron which burned against her skin, dug into her flesh. The anger spiked again, stained with self-loathing and desolation that pushed him close to breaking point.

  Cracks were opening in his carefully composed shell. She had only caught a glimpse before, when Aynia had tormented him and tried to make him attack her. Rowan watched as something widened those cracks now with a crowbar of determination, feeding whatever lay beneath.

  She squeezed her eyes closed so tightly the sting became a barb working its way deep beneath her skin, and from inside the depths of her love, she saw something else emerge. The Sidhe had once been angels, he had told her, and angels could so easily fall. From behind the façade Daire still struggled to knit together, something dark and terrible garnered strength from his anguish, something that gathered its own impetus now to break free.

  Rowan staggered back, her body thudding against the oak. Daire’s tree.

  From the depths of the caves, laughter echoed around her, a bright and merry laugh that made her all-too-mortal stomach knot in on itself and then heave.

  Matthew held her arms, studying her face, his expression barely suppressing panic. “What happened? Are you okay? We have to get out of here, Ro. Now.”

  Rowan shushed him. She didn’t have time for this now. She could not dwell on thoughts of Daire in such agony, nor of whatever Aynia was determined to make of him. Not if she was going to get him out. That thing, whatever it was she sensed within him, that was not her Daire. She had to believe that and hold tight to her conviction, no matter what.

  Shaking off the cold hand of panic, she started forwards, marching towards the confrontation, only half-aware that Matthew followed, a part of her only half-caring. As she reached the cave mouth she rummaged in the bag to pull out one of the remaining horseshoes, pressing it into Matthew’s shaking hand. He eyed it dubiously.

  “Are we planning on a little equestrian care?”

  She shot him a warning glance, her eyes narrow. But inside she felt a touch of relief. At least that sounded like Matthew. If he could still make jokes, there really might be hope.

  “It’s iron,” she explained. “Just throw it at them, you idiot.” She drew in a breath and stepped into the shadows, letting the darkness fall around her and praying that her eyes would adjust quickly.

  “Woul
dn’t a gun be easier?” her brother whispered, following close behind her.

  “I don’t have a gun. Do you? Trust me,” she said. “Iron works.”

  She sensed the change a fraction of a second before he let the horseshoe drop to the ground, clanging off a rock.

  “Yes,” he said, all emotion draining from his voice, all fear, love or affection leeching out of him. “Iron works.”

  Matthew moved faster than she thought any mortal could, grabbing her arms, twisting them behind her. Her brother worked out, she knew that, but she’d never had such strength turned on her, not by someone she loved, not like this. The torch clattered to the ground, smashing on the rocks. He kicked her feet out from underneath her and held her captive in seconds.

  “What are you doing? Matt?” she cried, but he ignored her struggles and protests. Instead, he dragged her forwards.

  Light flowered in the cavern ahead of them and despite Rowan’s futile struggles, kicking out her feet and scuffing her body against the stone walls, Matthew pulled her inside. All around her the cavern filled with an unnatural brightness, the glaring light of sun on snow, of moonlight on water. Matthew dropped her and she landed heavily on solid rock. Even as she looked up, trying to see his face, he stepped back, leaving her slumped on the wet ground.

  Aynia clapped her hands slowly. She sat like a queen enthroned on a flat outcrop of rock which rose before Rowan. Two guards stood on either side of her. Rowan recognised Lorcan by his menacing glower. But she gave them only a passing glance. What did they matter now?

  Daire lay on the ground at Aynia’s feet. An iron chain pinned his arms to his side and encircled his chest. Its touch raised welts on his skin as it rubbed against him. He glistened with sweat, his body flushed, eyes crazed with pain. A horse’s bit had been forced into his mouth, securely gagging him and demeaning him at the same time. He looked like an animal, trussed and ready for sacrifice.

  Rowan lurched to her feet, intent only on reaching him, comforting him and saving him, but Matthew’s hand closed on the back of her neck, his fingers digging like barbs into her and the pain brought her to her knees once more. He grabbed the bag and ripped it free.

  The bag spilled horseshoes and pieces of cold iron across the cave floor, the jangling echoing around her in mockery.

  “I see you brought toys,” Aynia said, studying them like unexploded bombs. She dragged her eyes up from them reluctantly and fixed her hypnotic gaze on Matthew.

  Rowan risked a glance over her shoulders to see his face blank with adoration.

  “Matthew, do something for me.” Aynia’s voice flowed like a song. “I’m angry with her. What should be done with her?”

  He blinked, startled at being asked a question. “Punish her?”

  Aynia allowed herself a smug smile, her expression caught between hatred and triumph. “Punish her for me, Matthew.”

  Matthew’s hand jerked up, like a marionette controlled by Aynia’s will alone. Rowan cried out in shock, unable to believe what he was doing. It was Matthew, her brother, her little brother. He couldn’t, wouldn’t! He’d never hit a woman, any woman.

  His arm shuddered, but didn’t fall. His muscles strained, but he just stared at her, blank faced and bewildered. But the blow didn’t fall.

  Aynia’s glow of success faded. Her voice turned sharp, snappish. “Very well. Later. Leave her there, Matthew. She can’t do anything now. Come to me instead and let us show her what she does not know about power.” Aynia stretched out a slender hand and Matthew swayed away from Rowan, drawn as if by an invisible wire to Aynia’s side. He climbed onto the ridge and dropped to his knees there, his face raised in adoration.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered.

  Setting aside her pique, Aynia cast him an indulgent smile and ran her finger across his lip. “You’re still learning. Obedience will come.”

  Then she dipped her head and kissed him. All over Matthew’s body light shone beneath his skin, crawling towards his lips like a multitude of glowworms. Right into Aynia’s waiting mouth.

  Rowan’s heart lurched. Aynia could draw any amount of soul fire from Matthew for whatever purpose she wanted and, enchanted as he was, he would give it to her willingly. She could feed on Matthew, as Daire had refused to feed on Rowan. Small wonder the Sidhe witch had been able to stay on this side of the veil for so long and just seemed to get stronger and stronger. Leanán Sidhe would never grow weak while they had their willing prey to feed them.

  Seizing the moment of distraction, Rowan tried to scuttle forwards, to reach Daire again, but as she moved Lorcan gave a violent hiss and she realised that all five Sidhe stared in rapt wonder, every eye focused on her. No, not on her. On the tiny golden weight that swung, pendulum-like beneath her throat.

  Aynia pushed Matthew away and surged to her feet.

  “You!” Anger made her violet eyes blaze in the enchanted light. She stepped forwards, right to Daire’s side, her eyes following the arc of the swinging pendant like an audience member at a cheap hypnotism show. “You had it all the time.” She drew in a breath through her flared nostrils, composing herself as she crossed her arms. She tapped her polished nails against her skin and her eyes narrowed to cattish slivers. “I didn’t give you enough credit, I see.”

  Rowan allowed her eyes to fall to Daire, to the disbelief in his faded green eyes, the lines etching his brow, knotting at the bridge of his nose. The taut muscles of his shoulders drooped as their eyes snagged on each other and he dropped his eyes from her, too disgusted to return her gaze.

  Aynia pushed him onto his back with one foot so she could look into his defeated face, her toes pressing into his solar plexus.

  “Your taste in women hasn’t changed so much, Daire, for all your protestations. Although it’s a bit rich to call me a traitor after this. I never claimed to love you while hiding the one thing that could save your miserable life.”

  His eyelids closed, the skin around them wrinkling as he tried to crush the sight of Aynia’s triumph away. Instead, he turned his face towards Rowan, or perhaps he was drawn by the pendant, his one last, lost hope. When his eyes opened again, the person she saw within their depth had changed. It wasn’t Daire, not as she knew him. Not anymore. Pure hate spilled out at her.

  “Give it to me,” snapped Aynia.

  Rowan moved slowly, deliberately, tucking the acorn key back inside her blouse. “No.”

  “Defiance will get you nowhere, human. You can be made to obey.”

  Rowan barely spared her a glance. Not that she wasn’t afraid of Aynia. If she tried to square off against any of the Dark Sidhe, let alone their Lady, she had no doubt she would fail, and fail with endless pain and humiliation. If she looked at the Unseelie leader, she knew Aynia would read her terror. Instead she kept her eyes fixed on Daire’s face, and then realised her mistake. Looking at him was much, much worse.

  The bit distorted Daire’s sensuous mouth, dragging the corners back, stretching his lips until they were thin and bloodless. His body trembled, every muscle flexed in the tight grip of his control, a control close to shattering. She raised her hand to hold the key through the thin red silk of her blouse and watched rage drain all remaining colour from his face at the thought that she had hidden the key from him while he had loved her.

  And he had loved her. She had no doubt about that. He had put aside the suspicions Aynia had made an integral part of his nature to allow himself to do it—to trust her, to love her, in spite of all his fears and everything he had ever been taught about humankind. Her Sidhe prince had put aside everything to love her. Now, even as she watched she could see that love crumbling to blind hatred and wrath.

  Wrath that she could use.

  Rowan pulled the businesswoman persona around her, the one she thought she had left behind in London never to be seen again, the bitch she hated to play but would never have survived without. Drawing herself upright, her stomach tightening and her eyes becoming slits of darkness, she spoke with cold assurance and deter
mination.

  “He is mine, Aynia.” Arrogant and heartless, her voice rang around the cave, the echo returning to taunt her enemies. “By the time the full moon rises the gateway will be lost and he will have no choice but to stay here. Unless you wish to do the same, you’d better turn tail and get back to your own shadowed Realm.”

  “He was mine first,” said the Leanán Sidhe, her features sharpening with her voice. She ground her foot down on his chest to emphasize her ownership. Daire let his head fall back, his throat bared to Aynia as if he begged for death.

  “And you lost him. Now the only way you can hold him is to bind him in iron and beat him like a dog. You may have enchanted my brother but I see through you. And Daire does too, as clearly as through water. You deal in lies by twisting the truth.”

  Aynia stepped back and for a brief moment, Rowan felt the brief fluttering of hope in her chest.

  “You think you can hold him?” The Dark Sidhe kicked Daire in the side. He curled around the blow, absorbing it, and then he rolled, the chains hissing against his skin as he struggled to his feet. “Look at him, little human. He’s one of us now. He always will be.”

  Daire strained at the chains, maddened by the pain, each movement exacerbating it as the manmade metals seared into his flesh. Every word the women spoke sliced into him like a blade, a cold iron blade.

  In Rowan’s face he saw the reflection of Aynia’s. The gentle, bidding lover was a sham, a lie. She was a Blood Witch. He should have known. He should have known from the very start. She was human. No fae could every trust a human. Ask a selkie. Ask a changeling. How could he have been such a fool?

  Iron born and iron bred.

  Trust not iron, it will see you dead!

  He stretched out his fingers, the bones in them cracking. He wanted to rend her flesh and splatter her blood over that white skin. Only the chains held him back. The soullessness of the Dark Sidhe engulfed him in a wave of hatred. Hot tar filled his chest, spreading through his lungs and swirling through the channels leading to his battered heart, oozing through his veins, both empowering him and, at the same time, leaving him teetering on the edge of damnation.