by Ann Gimpel
“It wasn’t specific to the two of you. Murdering a unicorn drives home vicious intent. You have no enemies,” I replied.
“We do now,” the unicorn who sat on the court muttered. He nudged Soir. “Leave now. Get some rest.”
With a toss of her mane, she trotted out of the chamber. I tested the sound shield to make certain my next words would remain within. “The other problem I bring is Oberon. He is far from gone. He hired a mage to spy on me. Actually a series of them. Only reason I know is I apprehended the current one.”
“Why bother to spy on you?” Aedan’s question held a tortured note. He’d always idolized the Fae king.
“That I do not know,” I told him. “Another wrinkle is Titania. She appears to be missing. She isn’t with him, like all of us assumed. Have any of you seen or heard from her in, say, the last fifty years or so?”
One of the satyrs stamped his hoofs. He didn’t quite hang his head, but neither did he meet my eyes. “She and I, we, uh, well… I was one of her favorites. I figured Oberon found out and forbade further dalliances, but this casts a much darker light on things.”
Interesting. It did, indeed.
“We face multiple challenges,” I told the group. “The most pressing is finding the one who violated our defenses and is actually running amok in Faery.”
“It must be one of us,” the unicorn said flatly.
I nodded agreement. The same conclusion had kicked me in the guts when I listened to Dariyah.
“But that’s terrible,” a female Sidhe cried out. “What are we supposed to do? Quiz our friends? Our relatives? Neighbors we’ve had for centuries? What if we don’t like their answers? Do we quietly turn them in to the court? Or maybe not so quietly.”
“Not quietly at all,” the other satyr said. “It won’t take long until everyone knows we’re on the hunt for vigilantes in our midst.”
“Which is why we must do this with subtlety.” I raised my voice to be heard over the melee. “If word leaks, whoever is responsible will go to ground.”
“Wouldn’t that solve our problem?” The Sidhe tossed hair over her shoulders.
The unicorn swished his mane in agreement. “We put the word out and watch for who disappears.”
“Maybe they disappear,” I said. “If they don’t, we’re back to square one.”
“What are you going to do about Oberon?” Aedan asked.
I blew out a tight breath, but it didn’t release any tension or alter how shitty I was feeling. “I have no idea, but we can’t deal with him until we get the primary problem under control.”
“What if he wants to come back?” the unicorn asked. After a pause, he added, “It was a great relief to many of us when his departure became permanent.”
“I know.” I left it at that. The only ones who hadn’t felt threatened by Oberon’s policies were other Fae, but labeling him as a racist bastard wasn’t productive.
“How does one secure permission to speak?” one of the dragon seers asked.
I hadn’t forgotten about them, but making certain to list all our problems had taken center stage. “You have the floor,” I told the seer. “I’d planned to hear you first, but the unicorn was in distress. Thank you in advance for traveling all this way to—”
“Once I’m done, you’ll curse the day I was hatched.” The dragon’s voice rustled like dry leaves.
My stomach twisted into a knot; I spun one hand in a circle to encourage him to begin speaking. Faery hadn’t been without problems, but they’d been minor for all the millennia since its inception. All that was about to change.
Nay, one of my inner critics corrected me. It already has.
The seer turned to his companion, and the two of them blew steam at one another accompanied by a series of clicks, clacks, and muted bugles. I’d never heard their private language before. It was eerie and unnerving.
The one who’d spoken waddled the length of the room until he stood next to where I sat. “I will be brief,” he said. “You’ve already discovered there are enemies in your midst. Aye, more than one. You cannot stop searching until you’ve ferreted them all out. Oberon is behind this incursion. He never relinquished his hold on Faery. Your land is dying because the regent—and by that I mean you—does not control the link to it. If you cannot rectify this mismatch soon, the world that succors you will wither and die a horrendous death. She is already experiencing pain beyond your worst imaginings and lashing out.”
The dragon turned and started to shuffle back to the other two. “If you will,” I called after him, “hold a moment.”
He swiveled his head atop his long neck. “I have naught more to say. You must fix this.”
“Do you know how many enemies reside among us?”
“Nay. Only that there are more than one.”
“One more question?” I waited.
“One more, Regent, and then I must be gone.”
“Did you mean Oberon is behind the traitors too?”
“Aye. He is angry and powerful. Growing more so with each passing day.”
“Why?” a satyr cried.
The dragon shrugged amid rattling scales. “Who can say. He always had his own agenda. It was one of our reasons for not spending overmuch time in Faery during his long reign.”
“We report problems. It is not our task to solve them,” the other seer had begun moving toward the door accompanied by the red dragon.
“Thank you for telling us.” I bowed low before the dragons.
“Anytime,” the red dragon said. “We never cared for Oberon. Best of luck finding a way to eliminate him. Let us know if you require our assistance.”
“We did not come here out of a sense of misplaced altruism,” one of the seers said.
“We most certainly did not,” the other added. “If Faery dies, so does Fire Mountain, and we will lose our precious home.”
I waited until the dragons had left and looked from one crestfallen, dejected mage to the next. None of us welcome disputes or tension. It was a good starting point. “Conflict doesn’t come naturally to us,” I began, “but we cannot turn our backs on this problem.”
“No one said we were going to.” A Fae sounded surly.
“The floor is open. Before we leave this room, we will have developed an overarching plan to identify and eradicate the traitors,” I said and waited. It took a long while before anyone spoke up, and an even longer one before the bones of a viable strategy began to emerge.
9
Chapter Nine, Dariyah
Dragons! I still couldn’t believe I’d seen dragons. Noble and majestic, with incredible wingspans, they’d captivated me. As I broke through the veil between Faery and Earth, I recreated them in my mind again and again. What would it be like to talk with one? To ride on a dragon’s back? Did they ever accept riders? If the lore books were to be believed, a scant handful of rare mages had ridden one.
I corrected course, returning to the spot I’d searched for the rift. I wasn’t certain how time flowed in Faery, but my guess was it would be far too early to apartment hunt. At least today, the two worlds appeared to share a timeclock. Dawn was breaking as I walked through my spell and emerged near the far point of last night’s exploration.
A bevy of raucous bleating accompanied by heavy hoofs churning up mud suggested I’d scared the crap out of a small herd of mountain goats. “It’s all right,” I called and sent calming vibrations outward, but they were a quarter of a mile away by then. Damn. They moved fast when they wanted to.
Driven by a new urgency, I picked up where I’d left off and walked due north along the base of cliff-riddled foothills. I’d let my attention linger on the dragons because the scene in the dead unicorn’s mind had been so upsetting. I wished Cyn and his court well as they crafted plans to address the disaster before it claimed more souls and more magic.
Deep in thought, a blistering bit of insight brought me up short, and I slapped a palm against my forehead. Talk about missing the obvious. I hadn
’t checked, but I felt certain whoever had orchestrated the deadly charade had drained Rona’s magic to strengthen themselves.
I punched the cliff. Fuckers. The side with the most magic was sure to win; they’d probably been systematically draining everyone they came into contact with. Oberon had tippled from me like as not, but he’d been subtle about it. Or maybe he’d turned up his nose at Witch magic. It’s viewed as inferior with its reliance on charms.
If I ever saw him again, I’d take care to build a wall around my magical center.
Longing swept through me. For Faery. For Cynwrigg. To finally be what I should have been born into. I was sick of skulking on the sidelines, of pretending to be a Witch. Not that there’s anything wrong with Witches. I could have picked any iteration of mage but had settled on Witches because of their commitment to sisterhood.
If I had my way, I’d retire my habitual glamour, lay it aside. I wanted to fight for Faery. It had been my magic that had raked through Rona’s memories. Mine!
No one else had thought to do such a simple thing. Maybe not simple. It had taken a buttload of magic, but the casting itself was straightforward. I’d stopped walking, and I urged myself to keep going, pausing every few feet to check the integrity of the boundary.
I could do a lot of good in Faery. They needed me. They—
“Stop. Just stop.” I spoke out loud to emphasize my words. Faery had gotten along very nicely, thank you, without my august presence. To talk myself into them requiring me now was the worst kind of hubris and posed a major risk to Mother.
Something about the hole I’d just drilled into the cliff didn’t feel right, but I was too wound up to be on top of my game. Sinking into a crouch, I splayed my hands against smooth, cool granite and drew power from the earth beneath my feet and the stone under my fingertips.
Clearing my mind of everything, I focused on breathing. Just breathing until my single-minded obsession with returning to Faery retreated. I could have gone there anytime all these years. I’d stayed away out of respect for Mother. She’d sacrificed her life so I’d have one. Marching into Faery hadn’t been particularly smart, even under Cyn’s watchful eyes. If I’d been detected, Mother would have felt the ripples as life left my body.
Brave words. Noble, even, but I suspected I’d return as soon as an opportunity presented itself, no matter what the downside entailed. My observations—and my magic—had been a huge help. Despite my short stay, the place had gotten its hooks into me, and I longed to spend much more time than I had.
Meh. I was at it again. Mind-fucking myself to dredge up righteous reasons to go back.
“They do not need me.” I repeated myself. “They do not need me. I might need Faery, but I’m stronger than this.”
I said it a few more times in a failed attempt to make myself believe it. If I’d realized a quick transit through my homeland would have spawned such angst, I’d never have accepted Cyn’s offer…
Bullshit. My favorite internal commentator was back. Yeah, I would have because he fascinates me. I was flattered by the invitation. No way would I have turned it down. The issue is what will I do next time?
Wincing, I forced myself to think about the question I’d posed. The wisest move would be no more Faery until they altered their longstanding policy about killing those like me. Cynwrigg would do his best to shield me, but if we were caught, his days as regent would be numbered.
The best thing for us both would be for me to strap on a set and say no. And mean it. He’d understand. He’d asked me because he was smitten, not because it had been wise.
Now that I had that little snippet straight, I stood and moved my hands up the wall as I searched for the spot that hadn’t felt quite like all the other ones. I could have imagined it, but it was worth a second look.
Yes! I probed up, down, and sideways, identifying three places where my power bounced back at me differently. Drawing a protective shield around myself, I prepared to enter the cliff to investigate, but then I remembered Cyn’s instructions.
I was supposed to find him. His reasoning had been Faery would be appalled by my mixed blood, and it would make things worse. Standing in place, fingertips still glued to the wall, I considered it. I’d been in Faery. The land hadn’t reacted at all. Cyn seemed to think it had accepted me, but I had no idea how he’d come to that conclusion. Might have been wishful thinking, but perhaps he’d been right. Otherwise, my presence would have spawned a far greater reaction than what I’d sensed.
The more I played it back and forth, the fewer reasons emerged on the side of waiting until I could alert Cynwrigg. His plate was full, overflowing. This was a small potatoes operation. I’d go in, have a peek, see if this place really led to the rift, and if it appeared amenable to closure from this angle. Once I had a few answers, then I’d hunt Cyn down.
It should have decided things, but I remained mid spell, still debating if I was being smart. I’d given Cyn my word I wouldn’t do this. The argument “he’ll never know” didn’t apply since I’d tell him everything I found.
I shook my head to clear it. What in the hell was wrong with me? I wasn’t a coward, not by a longshot. If he couldn’t accept that I’d done something in the interest of making his life a little easier, we had zero future together. I’ve never been the type to wait for anyone to give me permission to move forward, and I wasn’t about to start now.
Gathering the tattered edges of my casting, I wrapped myself in a version of a teleport spell and ordered it to move me inside the rock wall. If I was correct, the inside would be hollow and lead to the space between worlds. I’d been to a few of those over the years.
It might have been part of my reluctance. The holes between worlds were singularly unpleasant. If I were just traversing it, all I’d feel would be a slight tug at the transitional point. But I needed to aim for its center and examine it. A ghostly wind howled, whipping around me. Something clattered alarmingly; hail pelted me with sharp particles about the time I figured out what was making the racket.
At least I’d been right about the hollow part. No wind or hail inside solid rock. My eyes were wide open, but the space was pitch black. I tried my third eye with no better success before giving up and bringing a mage light to life. I kept it muted in case I wasn’t alone. I hadn’t sensed anyone else, but many things can conceal their power.
A flickering candle appeared far less threatening than a floodlight, and my goal was convincing someone I was harmless. Most assumed weak light equaled weak magic. A cavern came into view around me. Peppered with stalagmites and stalactites formed from coal-black rocks, it was narrower than I’d expected. Shielding my eyes from both wind and hail, I perched on a rocky outcropping since the cave had no lower surface. In its place sat a jagged schism that had to be what I hunted.
Water was everywhere. Dripping, rushing, cascading through the bottom of the raggedy opening where a strip of dirt should have been. I felt the pull of Earth from behind me, and the inexorable draw of Faery from the other side of the rift. Low moaning joined the wind, the sound so full of misery it gutted me.
I wanted to help, but I had no idea what to do. I returned my attention to the ruptured spot, assessing how much magic it would take to draw the edges together. In the spirit of collecting as much information as possible, I sent a tentative thread of enchantment to the far side of the gorge and spoke the word, “Close,” in a very old form of Gaelic.
Mother trained me to weave magic. We had nothing but time, and she was a strict taskmistress. She’d taught me this spell. Had she known I’d need it one day? Anything was possible. She was clairvoyant as hell. Her skill had allowed her to stay two steps ahead of the Fae pursuing us until they finally gave up.
The wind shrieked louder. I grabbed hold of my perch so I wouldn’t end up blown off it. My pants were wet through from the rock. Probably nothing was ever dry in here. Hail pelted me, sharp as knife points. I tugged my jacket over my head, but it was woefully inadequate.
I diale
d up the lumens on my light and peered at the spot I’d targeted. Yeehaw! What I’d done had worked. A land bridge about two feet wide spanned the schism. Afraid it would break apart if I didn’t add to my good work, I sent more magic to the same spot. This time, instead of “Close,” I said, “Grow.”
Totally unprepared for what happened next, I scrambled to reverse my spell. Breath swooshed from me. The harder I tried, the worse things became. Power rushed out of my core as surely as if someone had installed a spigot dead center in my magic. The land bridge expanded by leaps and bounds. That part was great, but I couldn’t keep this up. I’d end up running on fumes without sufficient magic to crawl back to Earth.
I tried several things to modulate the outflow of magic. Nothing made the slightest difference. Panic rode me like a deranged hag, too close to the surface for comfort. I began to shiver; my breath came fast making clouds in the chilly air. The wind still pummeled me, but it had quit hailing.
Could I stop the spell?
It sure wasn’t looking that way. Someone liked what I’d done, and they wouldn’t be satisfied until they took everything I had. From the looks of things, I might barely have enough power left to close the gap. Whether the fix would be permanent was anyone’s guess, but it wouldn’t matter if I ended up stranded down here, cut off from the place I regenerated my power.
No matter how bleak things appeared, I had to try to stem the outflow while I still could. I shouted, “End.” Then I shouted, “Stop.”
An answering, “Nooooo, you are mine. You are finally mine again to heal my hurts. I will release you when I choose.”
“I was never yours. You are mistaken.” I tried again to clip the cords that bound me to that infernal hole. An opening that had reduced itself by perhaps three-quarters. A quick internal assessment told me I had nothing left to spare. Whoever was pulling the strings was parceling out my power in such a way I’d be done when the chasm was closed.
“You are mine! It is why you came to heal me,” the gravelly voice, lacking gender clues, continued.