“We’ll take a pound of perfume in exchange for a ticket,” said the captain.
My throat spasmed, and I held my breath, not wanting them to see my triumph. The pound we saved could pay for our transportation from Caledonia to Hibernia. “All right.”
When the younger woman had given me back a pound in change, she pulled out a quill and wrote out a receipt. “What name should I write?”
“Cruachan. Neara and Ailill.” I spelled out the names and hurried out of the inn. The mist had cleared a little, letting in streaks of sunlight. It would probably be a thin covering by the time I reached the forest. As I needed to make a start on the perfume and healing salve for Eirnin’s wife, I couldn’t delay.
After returning home to hide the rest of my shillings in the iron money box, I headed to the forest with two empty burlap sacks and a baldric I had stitched out of leather scraps to hold an iron sword and dagger. Father hadn’t been home, so I assumed he had set himself up at the tavern to write letters. It wasn’t well-paid work, but even literate people would pay him to pen missives in his elegant, cursive script.
“Neara,” said a cultured voice.
I turned around. Mayor Mulloy stood behind me, wearing his red cloak and ceremonial gold chain. It wasn’t a festival day, so I guessed the attire was meant to intimidate. My throat dried. “Yes, sir?”
“I’ve heard all kinds of things about you and Shona. My daughter won’t talk, and villagers are avoiding me like I’m King Balor himself. What in the name of all that is holy did you do?”
My hackles rose, skin prickled with irritation, and I sucked in a breath. How typical of the people around here to think I was to blame. Just because I ignored the slurs and innuendos Shona had spread about me, they thought it was an admission of guilt. None of them had been cursed to see faeries and the misery they wrecked.
Gossip meant nothing in a world where new mothers held bundles of twigs enchanted to look like babies or where men were drained to husks by long-nailed, deer-hoofed, baobhan sith. If anyone had seen the hunters who plagued the forests on Samhain, they wouldn’t entertain themselves with wicked rumors.
My lip curled. “Actually, it was—”
A trio of tall men rode toward us. They were in my peripheral vision and I hadn’t gotten a good look at them, but years of being cursed with the sight had told me something was off. I drew in a sharp breath through my nostrils. The gancanagh must have reported me to his superiors. Why else would otherworldly horsemen invade our village?
Mrs. Martin crossed their path, heading toward the grocer. She hadn’t seen the trio. Nobody could, except me. A sailor’s terrier barked at them, only for one of the horses to roar like a demon. The little dog bolted away, whining high enough to rattle the skeletons in their graves.
My anger morphed into a sort of tranquil terror that permeated my skin and seeped into my bones. The type of terror that wraps around the limbs and pulls them underwater to drown in trepidation. The type where the wrong reaction would mean death.
Their faces turned and lingered on us, and I clenched my teeth to suppress a shriek. This was the first time I’d seen faeries on horseback since that Samhain night. My eye rotated to the corner of its socket, and they snapped back to the mayor when I saw what the trio were riding.
Capall.
Pale, winged horses, whose hoofs didn’t reach the ground. Pale, winged horses, carrying males with pointed ears.
The high fae.
“Well?” spat the mayor. “What did you do to her?”
“I don’t have the words to describe what I saw,” I replied. It was cruel, but I needed to keep him talking. To make those high fae on their monstrous horses think I was like everybody else who couldn’t see them. “If I did, it would be crude.”
Mayor Mulloy’s face turned the purple of helleborine petals. He waved a fat finger under my nose. “You will tell me everything you know, or I will—”
“Ailill?” shouted an incredulous voice.
I turned around. Who would call Father by his first name? Everyone in the village thought he was an old man and addressed him by his title. Beyond the horsemen, a stooped figure hobbled across the cobblestones toward the tavern. It was Father.
The horsemen were all looking at Father.
My heart stopped. My breathing stopped. Everything stopped because I had to know what the faeries wanted with Father.
A rough hand grabbed my arm, but I felt nothing. My entire world condensed into the horsemen and their fascination with my frail, innocent, old father. One of them rode ahead, the hoofs of his steed cutting through the mist like sickles. Panic expanded in my chest, crushing my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. How did they know his name?
Father tried to run, but he was too slow, too old. The horseman leaned down and grabbed him with the ease of a hawk snatching a mouse from a field.
My heart shattered into a million shards.
The other faeries moved, and the procession headed toward our cottage. With a strength that I had never demonstrated until now, I shook off the mayor and followed the horsemen.
“Neara?” asked a soft voice.
All the blood that had drained from my face gathered in my roiling stomach. I had to do something, now!
“Who’d have thought Ailill would be reduced to a withered old man?” sneered one of the faeries. His hair was the color of blueberries, and he wore a jacket of the deepest navy velvet.
Father slumped in the man’s grip with a feeble protest, but the horseman barked at him to be quiet. I passed the tavern and picked up his fallen walking stick. Right now, I needed that iron to fight.
“Neara?” The voice became insistent.
I kept to the doorways, stopping every time the faeries so much as twitched. How did they know Father? And how could Father see them? Had the fae also cursed him on that Samhain night? He had been the village’s only survivor but had never explained how he had escaped the massacre.
A hand touched my arm, and I jolted. Reverend Donal stepped into my path, looking down at me with furrowed brows. “Neara, dear child. You look like you’ve seen the devil himself. What happened between you and Mayor Mulloy?”
I grabbed his thin arms. “R-Reverend, you have to sound the church bells. They’re here!”
“You mean the folk?” he asked in a whisper.
“Three of them,” The words came out in a rush. “Too many for me to handle.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “W-what should I do?”
“Ring the bells!”
He stared back at me, eyes bulging out of their sockets, face pale. My pulse thudded in my ears in time with my clattering heart. I needed those church bells to ring—the sound of iron clanging repelled faeries, which was why they always disappeared on Sundays. Reverend Donal was one of the few in the village of Calafort who knew of my cursed sight. He and I had worked together a few times to help parishioners troubled by faeries.
Reverend Donal gave me a sharp nod and ran into the mist toward the church. My shoulders relaxed a fraction, and I clutched the walking stick. It was only a matter of time before I could attack.
“This is where you’ve been hiding,” said the second faerie, whose hair glistened like freshly spilled blood. He turned to his black-haired companion. “Didn’t you search Calafort?”
“It’s the first place we looked.”
“Not hard enough.” The blue-haired faerie holding Father threw him to the ground.
Father fell on the cobblestones with a groan. Panic lanced through my heart. I sucked a breath through my teeth and stepped forward. There was no time to wait for the bells to start ringing. I had to act now!
The faerie dressed in black leather jumped down from his mount. “You’ll kill him if you carry on like that.”
I stopped.
Blue Jacket shrugged and slid off the capall. “He’s still twitching. I won’t snap his neck until we get what we want from the thief.”
The wretched faerie picked father up like
a sack of grain and slung him on the back of his capall, remounted, and the trio continued toward our home. I clenched my teeth. That gancanagh must have discovered where we lived and told his high fae overlords.
Anger burned the edge off my fear, and my heart reformed, beating so hard, its vibrations shook my ribs. This was it. This was the moment I had trained for. The high fae had found us, although I still didn’t know what they wanted with Father.
I walked through the rest of the street, not seeing, not hearing anything but my thoughts. It was too late to get help. Only Reverend Donal knew I could see faeries. Eirnin suspected, I was sure. But nobody could fight what they couldn’t see.
I peeked through the window of our home. The faerie in the navy-blue frock coat shoved Father to the ground, and the one wearing red kicked him in the stomach. I flinched. What was Reverend Donal doing? The bells should be ringing by now!
The third, the male in black leather with long, obsidian-black hair, stood to the side with his arms folded, watching his comrades batter an old man. Every blow, every kick fueled my wrath. Until those bells rang, I was powerless to act against three high fae. Tears burned in my eyes, and rage roiled in my belly, building like a kettle with no spout.
The bells rang.
All three faeries clapped their hands over their ears and doubled over. Triumph exploded through my insides, and I pushed the door open.
The faeries’ cries muffled the squeak of the door. The two who had attacked him bent with their backs to me, their bodies contorted with pain, their attention consumed by the ringing of the iron bells. The black-haired one stopped by their side nearest to the door.
My lips curled into a sneer. They didn’t look so powerful now.
Gripping the heavy, iron walking stick, I clubbed the black-haired monster on the head. He fell back, and I grabbed him by the waist and eased his heavy weight to the wood floor so his thud wouldn’t alert the others.
The bells stopped.
I froze. What in the name of all things holy was Reverend Donal doing?
“What was that?” Blue Jacket straightened.
Red Jacket groaned. “Let’s finish here in case they start up again.” He prodded Father with his foot. “Where is it?”
Father didn’t react.
“Ailill,” hissed Blue Jacket, “If you don’t speak, we’ll pluck out your eyes and make you swallow them whole.”
His companion rubbed his temples. “Let’s take him back.”
The bells restarted, and the two faeries clapped their hands over their ears again.
My lips pulled back into a silent snarl. I swapped the walking stick for the iron poker at its stand with a sharpened tip. I snuck behind Red Jacket, and raised the poker, and drew in a deep, fortifying breath. Sending a silent word of thanks to Eirnin for creating the weapon, and another to Reverend Donal for weakening the faeries, I drove it into Red Jacket’s back.
The creature screeched, arching his spine in a backward curve. I released my grip and stumbled back, fumbling for the iron shortsword in my baldric.
“Abrus!” Blue Jacket whirled and turned his gaze to me. Anger burned in his eyes, hot and sharp and crimson.
I stood, stance widened, ready to kill.
The twisted figure raised a long-fingered hand. Whatever he tried didn’t work. Not when the church bells were ringing loud enough to invoke the saints. Not against someone wearing iron jewelry.
“What sorcery is this?” he shrieked.
“You’re nothing without your power,” I snarled.
Baring his teeth, the blue-haired faerie hobbled toward me.
I gripped the sword, its thick handle a reassuring weight. The creature’s blue eyes burned hotter than a forge, his lips lengthened into a beak, and his fingers extended into black-tipped claws.
Sluagh.
A spasm of fear sharpened my senses. This was the bird-like faerie that accompanied the hunters on that Samhain night. I stepped back into a low crouch, focusing every ounce of attention on his approach. Time stilled for the seconds it took the creature to cross the room, talons raised. Before he could tear at my eyes, I brought up the short sword, driving its iron blade into the creature’s gut.
With a burbling screech, black blood bubbled from his parted lips, and he fell to his knees. I pulled an iron dagger from the baldric and rammed it into his skull.
The bells stopped.
Every ounce of tension left me in a single, gasping breath. Spine sagging, I stepped toward Father’s prone form on legs that wouldn’t stop shaking. He had to be alive. I couldn’t lose him now.
Strong arms wrapped around my chest and waist, then a harsh voice whispered, “Very good, but your carnage ends here.”
My relief evaporated, along with the confidence I’d gained from fighting with the help of the church bells. In the heat of the battle, I had forgotten to kill the first faerie!
Gritting my teeth, I pressed my iron bracelet into his flesh. It sizzled, and the stench of burning seared my nostrils. The creature grunted, placed a hand over my nose and mouth, filling my sinuses with a pressure that stole my breath.
No amount of gasping and struggling could send air back to my lungs, and the scream in my throat disappeared into the void of his magic. How could the iron jewelry have failed?
As his power engulfed my senses, my eyes bulged, my head swam, and before my first tears could fall, he stole away my consciousness.
Chapter 4
I awoke to the blue-haired faerie’s open-eyed corpse gaping into my face, his eyes wide with terror. A lightning bolt of fear struck my gut. With a silent gasp, I reared back, only to bump into another immobile body. My muscles seized, making my teeth clack. That third faerie had laid me in between his dead comrades!
A harsh chuckle broke through the pulse reverberating in my ears. “Welcome back, Neara.”
Pressing my lips together, I held back a demand to know where he’d learned my name. It was obvious. I cursed the gancanagh through clenched teeth. If I ever survived this ordeal, I would stab the wretched monster through the gut. He brought this trio into our village.
I shook my head. That wasn’t right. They had known Father by name and called him a thief. Fear struck again, alighting my body with prickly heat. Father! I scrambled to my feet. “What did you do with—”
“Ailill?” The raspy voice curled with amusement. “Slumbering under the effects of the healing tonic I found in your cupboard.”
The black-clad faerie loomed in the darkest corner of our cottage, arms folded, resting his back against the wall. The faerie stood nearly six-and-a-half feet tall, with thick, black hair that hung past his shoulders. In the gloom, it was hard to see his features, but his skin was paler than death.
I pulled myself upright and whirled around to the sleeping area. Father lay on the straw mattresses, his lined face bruised purple from jawline to scalp a harsh contrast to his pale skin. An iron fist clamped around my heart, squeezing out a cry of anguish. It stuck in my throat. As much as I wanted to rush over to tend to Father’s wounds, I couldn’t leave my back exposed to that creature.
“What do you want?” I spat.
“I have wanted to meet you for nearly seven years.”
So, he was one of the faeries from the wild hunt on that Samhain night. I stepped back, hand twitching toward my baldric, which held my last dagger. “Who are you?”
“I am King Drayce Salamander.”
The shadows parted, and he pushed himself off the wall, revealing a face covered in large, ivory scales. My stomach plummeted, and my hand flew to my mouth, suppressing a cry. He was monstrous. No trace of deceptive, fae beauty graced his features. Smooth, iridescent scales curved around high cheekbones over a gentle, aquiline nose, and down to his mouth. They formed triple rings of smaller scales around slitted, aquamarine eyes. Eyes that blazed with feral hunger. Eyes that looked like they would swallow me whole.
Bile rose to the back of my throat. What manner of creature was this? I’d never
read about such a monster in the leather book. He couldn’t be a faerie. They hid their evil under veneers of beauty. This King Drayce Salamander wore his wickedness on the outside.
He advanced with a sinewy, serpentine grace, each step soundless as a wraith. Shadows followed him like a shroud. This was no ordinary predator. He was death incarnate.
I skittered back toward where Father lay. “You’ve met me, now get out.”
His mouth spread into a grin that revealed surprisingly blunt teeth. “Ailill, however, is a different matter.”
A silence hung between us, punctuated by the quickening of my heart. If I could lure him close, I’d stick the dagger through his heart, wake Father and escape before the high fae sent reinforcements.
“He’s just an old man,” I whispered.
“With an execution warrant signed by the queen.” He pulled a silver hilt from his sword belt, and the shadows surrounding him coalesced into a blade of shining obsidian.
I shook my head, edging toward Father so I could shield him with my body. My pulse boomed louder than any church bell. “I won’t let you kill him.”
Something shone in his reptilian eyes. It might have been regret, but it disappeared so quickly that I dismissed it as a trick of the light. “I have no hatred toward Ailill, and that is why I must slay him here. It is far kinder to present his corpse to the queen than to bring him alive for a slow, humiliating death.”
He sidestepped, raised his sword, ready to deal a killing blow.
“Wait!” I jumped into his path, placing my palms on his leather breastplate. “You don’t have to tell anyone that you found us. We can leave the Island. No one will ever know!”
His eyes slid to the patch on the wooden floor where the other faeries lay, slain. “That may have been possible had you not murdered two Lords of the Shadow Court.” He turned back on me. “To lie to my Queen, I will need a bigger incentive.”
Hope quickened in my chest, making my breath catch. “Like what?”
Curse of the Fae King Page 3