At least this time, no one would be blasting deadly magic at him while he worked, and Albigard was probably too wiped out right now to accidentally poke Len in the hip with his dick.
“Doubtless you never foresaw this degree of demand for your lock-picking talent,” Albigard murmured, though he still sounded utterly exhausted.
“Nope,” Len agreed, deadpan. “It’s safe to say I did not, in fact, foresee any of this.”
THREE
SOMEONE HAD already relieved Albigard of the dagger he’d taken from the female Fae during the fight, but within moments, a teenage girl in a shapeless thigh-length tunic approached and handed Len a small knife with a slender blade, along with a twisted bit of wire. Again, he was aware that he should probably be insulted by these people’s complete dismissal of him as a threat, even while armed. But... they could also blast his head off with magic if he tried to threaten them, so fair enough.
“Go on. Sit down before you fall down,” Len said under his breath, nudging Albigard toward a conveniently flat rock that was only partly covered by vines.
Albigard sat without comment—more proof, if any were needed, that he was running on fumes at this point in the proceedings. Len wanted to ask him about the dead guards. Specifically, he wanted to ask why their animus had hit him upside the head like a pair of frozen two-by-fours. The most he’d ever felt before when someone died in his presence was a wispy breath of chill brushing his skin. He restrained himself, though, cognizant of the watchful audience of Forsaken surrounding them.
“Hold still,” he said instead, and set to work on the iron padlock securing the collar around Albigard’s neck.
It took twenty minutes or so to get all three of the locks picked, probably because Len’s hands were shaking the whole time. Eventually, though, he removed the final shackle from Albigard’s left wrist and tossed the chains aside. He’d expected some expression of relief as the iron fell away, but the Fae just continued to sit motionless on the rock, staring at nothing.
The male Forsaken leader had been keeping a casual eye on Len’s progress, but now that the job was done, he frowned. “Nezri,” he called in a foreboding tone, and the female leader turned to look at him.
Then her attention moved to Albigard, and she frowned, too. “Oh. I see. That’s... certainly a complication.”
With an unpleasant jolt, Len realized that in the absence of the iron shackles, the other Fae could now sense Albigard’s lack of magic. The last hope he’d been holding out that Albigard had somehow been mistaken about what had happened to him drained away.
Len rose cautiously, not sure what he thought he’d be able to do if the Forsaken suddenly turned on them, but feeling like he at least needed to be on his feet for whatever came next.
“He sacrificed his magic to protect me,” Len said, trying to put force behind the words as he met the woman’s eyes. “You were there, in the Courtroom. He was trying to keep me safe.”
For the first time, the moss-haired Fae seemed to look at him properly, rather than dismissing him as unimportant. Len imagined he could see calculations running behind her cool gaze. Then she turned her attention to Albigard again.
“Well, Mab’s tits. How are you even functioning right now, Unseelie?” she asked, only to shake her head briskly. “Ah, never mind. As I said before, this complicates matters... but perhaps it doesn’t affect the ultimate goal so very much.”
In other words, the Hunt can still eat Albigard whether he has magic or not, Len translated in the privacy of his thoughts. Lovely.
“Bring him inside,” said the male leader, addressing Len directly. “He’s not the first to show up here with his magic ripped out by the roots. We can at least help him rest easier.”
Len wavered for a moment, but the truth was, if Albigard stayed where he was for much longer, he was going to end up passing out where he sat and tumbling straight off the rock he was perched on. There was some reassurance to be found in the fact that their rescuers didn’t seem to be openly judgmental about Albigard’s situation—and also that they’d apparently had some previous experience in dealing with it.
He slung Albigard’s arm across his shoulder and levered the Fae to his feet, only to hesitate. “Hang on. What if the Hunt shows up while we’re inside your cave?” he asked, suddenly unsure if this motley group had properly thought this plan through. “Your people could be in danger.”
“We can’t control what the Wild Hunt decides to do,” said the woman—Nezri. “Normally, it would not be a concern, as it only attacks those it’s been sent to execute. Whether that will still be the case is anyone’s guess, now that it’s had a taste of fresh blood in the other realms. Regardless, the sooner your companion recovers his strength, the sooner we’ll be in a position to act.”
Act how? Len wanted to ask. Albigard slumped against his side, and he swallowed the question in favor of tackling one step at a time. “If you say so. I think he’s about to pass out on us, by the way; where do you want him?”
Nezri turned to the male leader. “Danon, find him a sleeping place in the cave and do what you can for him. Afterward, we need to have a meeting.”
Danon nodded. “Agreed.”
He gestured for Len to follow and led the way into one of the caves. Albigard’s feet dragged, but he went where Len steered him. The natural cavern was much larger inside than Len would have guessed. It was lit by the flickering glow of several campfires bounded by stone rings and spaced evenly around the area. The inescapable, out-of-control plant life had crept past the edges of the cave mouth to gain a foothold inside, though the vines showed definite evidence of having been recently hacked away.
Danon led them to a low pallet near the back. There were other, similar pallets scattered around the cave—a few of them now occupied by Forsaken that Len recognized as having been among the injured from the earlier rescue operation. Poorly buried instincts made him itch to check on them and make sure they were getting competent medical care for their wounds in these primitive surroundings. Realistically, though, since they were Fae, Len gathered they’d heal up just fine without any help from him.
More importantly, he was needed elsewhere.
He helped Albigard onto the low pallet. The Fae curled onto his side in a fetal position, still in obvious agony after having his magic ripped from him.
“Stand away,” Danon said, after giving Len an odd, sidelong look.
Len stepped back with reluctance, folding his arms to keep from fidgeting as the other man bent over Albigard, repeating the same odd procedure he’d done inside the tree cell before breaking Albigard’s bonds. His hands hovered above the Fae’s hunched body, sweeping over him in slow arcs without touching.
The arcane process took considerably longer this time, but eventually Danon placed one hand over Albigard’s forehead and the other over his heart. Albigard arched and cried out, writhing as though trying to escape the contact. Len started to lunge forward, only to be brought up short by a slender hand holding him back with effortless, inhuman strength.
“Wait,” Nezri said.
Len gritted his teeth, every muscle tense as Albigard made a bereft noise and went abruptly limp. Danon straightened away, and Len jerked his arm out of Nezri’s grip.
She let him go without comment.
“What did you do?” he demanded, crouching next to the pallet and stroking Albigard’s hair out of the way so he could get two fingers on his pulse point.
“Cauterized the damage,” Danon said tersely.
The words had a finality to them that sent a shiver down Len’s spine. This wasn’t a temporary magical injury that could be undone with a spell, or with true love’s kiss like some kind of childhood fairy tale. Albigard’s magic had been ripped away, and now the bleeding stump had been... cauterized. The Fae’s heart beat fast, but strong and steady beneath Len’s touch. It slowed to a more normal resting rate by gradual degrees, and Len eventually took his fingers away.
As he contemplated the reality
of exactly what Albigard had done in an attempt to protect him, the chest-squeezing, out of control feeling that heralded an oncoming panic attack began to narrow his vision to a gray tunnel. He swallowed hard.
“I... um... I’m sorry, but I need one of you to influence me to be calm,” he managed. “Preferably without any other deals or agreements attached.”
He looked up, Nezri’s green eyes catching and holding his as his vision wavered. She looked faintly confused, but something in his expression must have convinced her that doing what he’d asked would be simpler than dealing with an irrational human having a meltdown in the middle of her camp.
Her expression narrowed, her gaze pinning Len in place. “Be calm, human,” she said, her Fae will swallowing his until the band of panic snapped, replaced by abrupt serenity.
She was strong. Stronger than Albigard, even. But the chilly cloak of fresh death draped over Len was also strong—more so than the animus of Yussef and Rosa and all his other human ghosts had ever been. He shook his head briskly, breaking free of her influence while maintaining his grasp on the calm she’d offered him.
“Thanks,” he whispered, swallowing hard and licking his lips to moisten them—his tongue catching on the familiar metal ring piercing his lower lip.
Both of the Fae were looking at him intently now, brows furrowed. The similarity in their features struck him, making him wonder if they were siblings, or—
Twins.
The realization struck him all at once. Powerful twins in their prime... who’d fled into the wildlands, rather than be used as weapons of mass destruction in a never-ending cold war. Len blinked a couple of times and set aside that particular eureka moment, figuring that blurting it out might not be the most diplomatic idea right now. That assumed he was even right about it in the first place.
He looked down at Albigard instead. The Fae appeared to be deeply asleep, or possibly unconscious. Without attempting to wake him, it was difficult to tell which.
“Will he be all right?” Len asked.
“No,” Nezri said bluntly. “But he will be better able to function after a few hours of rest.”
Len cursed himself silently for an idiot. Of course Albigard wasn’t going to be all right.
“I understand,” he rasped.
“You seem very protective of him,” Nezri observed neutrally.
Len glanced up at the pair of Fae flanking the pallet, but did not rise. “Well... he doesn’t really have anyone else left, at this point.” He drew a deep breath and plowed forward. “Look—I need to give you some information. It may be important for you to know. But before I do, I need your word that as long as we both agree to help against the Hunt, you won’t harm either of us because of what I’m about to tell you.”
Albigard stirred in his slumber, a wordless, unhappy murmur slipping past his lips.
The two Forsaken shared another of those speaking looks, communicating without words.
“As long as you agree to help us, and do nothing to hurt anyone in the camp, no one here will harm you,” Nezri said carefully.
“As long as we do nothing to physically hurt anyone in the camp,” Len insisted, painfully aware of the dangers inherent in bargaining with Fae. “Not hurt feelings or causing offense.”
Nezri raised a slanted eyebrow at him. “Agreed. You have our word as leaders, on behalf of everyone here.”
“Okay.” Len swallowed again. “First off, Albigard is my... friend. We’re close, even though he’s Fae and I’m human.”
Rans’ ghost whispered across his memory. That word you keep using... I don’t think it means what you think it means...
“How very odd,” Nezri said.
“Is it going to be an issue?” Len pressed.
Danon frowned. “Why would it be?”
Some of the tension eased from Len’s shoulders. “A number of Unseelie seem to think it’s additional cause for contempt,” he said. “That’s all.”
Nezri shrugged. “A number of Unseelie are piss-addled idiots. Go on... I gather there’s more.”
“Yeah. There is.” Len steeled himself, still uncomfortable with saying the next part aloud. “This next part’s actually the big one. You already know I have some ability to control the Hunt, or at least repel it, right? Well, that’s because I’m a—”
Albigard inhaled sharply, his eyes flying open. His hand darted out to grasp Len’s wrist, the grip tight enough to be painful. “Don’t,” he hissed.
“—necromancer,” Len finished.
FOUR
“YES,” NEZRI SAID, still giving Len a rather odd look. “We’d noticed. It is rather difficult to miss. You reek—”
“Of death,” Len finished for her. He sighed. “Right. Silly me.”
“For what it’s worth,” Danon told him, “I didn’t notice the stench until after we came through the portal to the staging location. But, yes, in here it’s very... pronounced.”
“You get used to it,” Albigard said weakly, his grip sliding away from Len’s wrist.
“I’ll admit I hadn’t considered the idea of using necromancy against an archetype of Dhuinne’s destructive power,” Nezri mused, obviously more intrigued than outraged.
“Believe me,” Len said, “I was as surprised as you are when it attacked me but didn’t kill me.”
Danon snorted. “A good deal more so, I would imagine. It makes a kind of sense, though...”
Albigard was struggling to hold onto wakefulness, but he rallied long enough to say, “You’ll hold to your word... you will not harm him?”
Nezri gave him a severe look. “We’re not the ones who sacrificed magic for a lie, Albigard of the Unseelie,” she retorted sharply.
Len winced as smoke rose from the verbal scorch marks.
“It’s fine,” he said, placing a hand on Albigard’s shoulder. “They don’t care, beyond the fact that it might turn out to be useful. Go back to sleep.”
“Not yet,” the Fae insisted. His hazy eyes moved between the twins. “You mentioned a meeting.”
“Yes.” Nezri eyed him, assessing. “We will convene here, since I doubt your ability to stand up at the moment, much less walk. I will gather the camp.”
Len made a quick calculation. “The water in the river. Is it safe to drink?”
“Of course it is,” Danon replied. “But there is water here.” He gestured at a gourd sitting next to the fire, similar to the one that had been left for them in the tree cell.
Len gave him a strained smile. “Save it for someone who needs it more,” he said, and was rewarded with a covert nod of approval from Albigard.
After the better part of a full day without food or water, Len was starting to feel the effects. However, he also had no idea if he was once more vulnerable to becoming a Fae’s vassal, now that Albigard no longer had the magic to maintain their existing connection. As long as he could manage it, he figured it was safer to avoid finding out the answer to that question.
He gave Albigard’s shoulder a quick squeeze of reassurance and rose, exiting the cave. Again, he was struck by the multigenerational nature of this small group of outcasts. Outside, children crouched by the riverbank, scrubbing clothes in the fast-moving water. Farther away, two women were busy butchering some kind of deer-like animal hanging by its back legs from a tree branch, their heads bent together in intimate conversation as they worked. They appeared middle-aged, maybe pushing the half-century mark if they’d been human. They weren’t human, though... and for all Len knew, they might have been around to witness the rise and fall of Ancient Greece.
Curious gazes fell on him as he walked to the edge of the river, some way upstream from the kids washing clothes. He knelt on the uncomfortable pebbles forming the bank and drank from cupped hands, just as he had in the pocket realm. Then he fished out one of the energy bars Vonnie had given him and ate it, stuffing the foil wrapper back in his pocket when he was done.
He had a feeling that littering wouldn’t go over too well in this place.
After washing his sad excuse for a meal down with more of the sweet river water, Len hurried back to the cave. He must’ve missed some kind of subtle signal in the camp, because the rest of the Forsaken were finishing up their tasks or putting them aside, and heading for the cave as well.
As he entered, he noted with a shiver of disquiet that the vines snaking around the edges of the cave’s mouth had made noticeable progress since they’d first arrived, barely half an hour ago. He kept a nervous eye on the creeping greenery as he skirted it and returned to Albigard’s side. Once there, he gave the Fae a critical onceover in the firelight.
He was still awake.
He still looked like shit.
But, in defense of whatever procedure Danon had used on him to cauterize the bleeding stump of his magic, he at least didn’t look like he was in unbearable physical pain anymore.
“You want an energy bar?” Len asked quietly. “I’ve got one left.”
“Save it for your own use,” Albigard told him. “I will take advantage of our hosts’ hospitality... when I can stomach the thought of food.”
Len took that to mean Albigard was in no danger of becoming another Fae’s vassal if he accepted a gift, even with his powers gone. Or... possibly he was, but it didn’t matter because he expected the Hunt to get to him before it became an issue.
“All right,” Len said, and settled into a cross-legged position next to the pallet. His hips and knees creaked in protest. It struck him that he’d spent more time sitting on the ground during the past week than during the previous five years combined.
Meanwhile, the other Forsaken had filed in and found places around the fire. Even the children were present, watching Len and Albigard with wide eyes. Once they were all settled, Nezri rose and cleared her throat, drawing everyone’s attention.
“This human and this Unseelie have agreed to help us in our attempts to heal Dhuinne,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “We will extend them our hospitality and protection in the meantime.”
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 38