Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  “I would, yes.” The smile was still on Thomas’ face. “I say he has excellent taste.”

  Arrow felt an unexpected blush scorch her face and heard Kester’s soft laugh.

  “Thank you, uncle.” Kester made a small bow in Thomas’ direction and the older warrior’s posture changed at once, wariness fading.

  “She will not come back to the heartland,” Serran complained, apparently still believing that Thomas would support him.

  “She is right here,” Arrow stuck in. Not the first time she had needed to remind the Erith she was there.

  “The heartland.” Thomas’ shadows were back. “It is not the easiest place to be.”

  “Serran, there is a full bar not that far away,” Kester said, bluntness drawing a sharp glance from Thomas. “Providing the six have not already drunk it dry.”

  “That is possible,” Serran conceded, sounding more like a grumpy old man than a furious mage. He turned a glare on Arrow. “You are ungrateful. Ill-mannered. When you come to your senses, we can begin your training.”

  With that, he stalked out of the room, shutting the door behind him with snap.

  “Come to my senses, indeed.” Arrow bit off the rest of her words before she could express some of the many curses that came to mind.

  “I like your manners,” Kester told her.

  “They seem perfectly fine to me,” Thomas added.

  “Thank you both. Shall we sit?” Arrow indicated the large bay window which had a window seat bit enough for a cadre to settle on. She had a feeling that Thomas was here for a reason. “If you want me to stay?”

  “Yes.” Kester and Thomas said together.

  They settled on the window seat, Arrow close enough to Kester that she could catch his scent.

  “Eimille wants me to oversee the new treaty,” Kester said into the slightly awkward silence.

  “She does?” Arrow’s mouth curved. “Does that mean you will be staying in the human world for a while?” She sensed Thomas’ keen interest, even if the older was keeping silent.

  “A little while, yes.” He hesitated. “Longer, perhaps, if you like.”

  She turned her head to look at him, the amber sparks bright in the dark depths of his eyes, silver brilliant in hers. Many, many things. Possibilities to be explored.

  He had also phrased it carefully. Eimille had asked him. The request direct from the acting head of the Taellan. Not something that Juinis could, or would, interfere with. It placed a great deal of responsibility on the youngest of the Taellan, and took him outside House Halsfeld’s shadow. She wondered how much more freedom he could have. From the glint in his eyes, he may well be wondering he same thing.

  “I am going to travel. The Prime has given me a month,” she told him, the plans she had kept to herself for a long time held behind her teeth. She paused, biting her lip. “Would you like to come with me?”

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation. He smiled, eyes bright with amber. “Where shall we go?”

  “Juinis seems to have a tight rein on you,” Thomas interjected. The shadows were gathering on his face again.

  “He thinks he does,” Kester answered easily, smile playing around his mouth as he shared a glance with his uncle. He turned back to Arrow, smile fading into something more intense. “There are some things more important.”

  Arrow’s breath caught, heart skipping. He would go with her, against his House’s disapproval. She was sure the smile on her face was quite silly. She did not care. He would go with her.

  “I have maps. And brochures. And a long list of things to see and do. In the human world.” The two parts of her that had argued in the ballroom the day before, the adventurer part and the cautious part, sang together. The human world had its own dangers, but she was sure that a trained warrior and mage could deal with them. And there were those possibilities to be explored.

  “I have never travelled in the human world.”

  “It has its own beauty,” Thomas put in unexpectedly. “As do the shifkin territories.”

  “I was hoping to visit you again,” Arrow told Thomas. “We could try and repair another fridge.”

  He smiled, shadows fading for a moment. “That would be most welcome. And you, too, Kester.”

  “Fridges?” Kester seemed confused.

  “Thomas has a very large collection of things needing repair,” Arrow said lightly, tangling her fingers through Kester’s. “There is always something to do.”

  His fingers tightened around hers.

  “That sounds interesting.” And he would be far more keenly aware than she was that the White Guard often gave their older warriors, the ones who had seen one battle too many, things to repair. It kept their hands and minds busy. Arrow judged, from the extent of the broken things around Thomas’ cabin, that he was as damaged as any warrior within the heartland. And also that the Prime was aware of his friend’s difficulties. She did not think that the broken bits and pieces had been collected by Thomas himself.

  They talked a little more, Thomas tensing and relaxing seemingly at random until he suddenly decided that he had spent long enough with them, bidding them goodnight and leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

  Arrow had risen to bid Thomas farewell, hesitating to follow him. Wondering if Kester wanted to leave, too. He turned the key in the lock again and turned back to her. Warmth coiled under her skin again. Perhaps there were other things they could do.

  “You like saying no, it seems,” he said, voice low and warm. She bit the inside of her lip. He had been watching her more closely than she knew.

  “No.” Her mouth curved into a smile.

  “Do you think we should join the others?”

  “No.” She did like the word, smile reaching further, backing up slowly until she was against the bookcase. He followed, smile lighting his eyes.

  “Perhaps you would like to go for a walk?”

  “No.”

  “Then-”

  “Kester,” she said, one of the few times she had used his name. She curled her hand around the front edge of his coat. “Shut up.”

  “As my lady wi-”

  CLOAKED, THE TAELLANETH - BOOK 5

  CHAPTER 1

  The beach stretched on as far as the eye could see in either direction. Soft, pale sand slid under her feet as she walked. The waves lapped the shore nearby, frothy white edges creating lacy designs before the water retreated, replaced moments later by another edge with another design, patterns always changing. Brilliant sun shone around, the heat of a midsummer afternoon seeping through her clothes, warming her bare arms.

  Startled, she looked down and realised that she was wearing her nightclothes. Bright red pyjamas, in a soft t-shirt fabric, the sleeveless top leaving her arms exposed to the sun, the ends of the wide-legged trousers catching the sand as she walked. Perfectly acceptable for sleeping. Not appropriate for a walk along a beach.

  She stopped, toes digging into the sand, and looked around.

  There was the sun overhead. The endless blue sky. The vast ocean. The pale expanse of beach. And the enormous cliff-face at the other side of the beach that somehow cast no shadow at all and did not reflect the echo of the waves. She was apparently all alone.

  And did not know where she was, and could not remember how she had come to be here, in her nightclothes, barefoot and unarmed. Not even her kri-syang strapped to her forearm.

  Wards flared around her, bright silver even in the daylight world, and then died. She tried again. The wards failed again. As they always did in this place.

  Always did. Her mind snagged on those words.

  She might not know where she was, but this was familiar.

  She had been here before.

  “Not again,” she said aloud, and grit her teeth for what came next.

  It started quietly. So softly that if she had not been listening for it, she would not have heard it at all. A woman’s voice. Crying out in pain.

  The cries grew louder, echoing off t
he cliff face, reverberating in the air around Arrow. Her wards flared again and died again.

  The noise grew until it was all she could hear. There were no words in the cries. The pitch and tone changed, ranging from helpless crying to screams that hurt her ears. Pain. Agony. Fury. Grief. Helplessness. But no words.

  The sound swelled until it drilled into her skull, a piercing agony that she could not escape. Until it drove her to her knees and then onto her side, huddled on the warm sand, knees against her chest, crying tears of her own, wanting it to just stop.

  And then the worst part.

  Silence.

  Not a sound in the world.

  She lifted her head, unable to help herself, even though she knew what would happen.

  The waves were still coming in, making no sound as they broke on the shore. There was air against her skin, the sun still warm overhead.

  The edges of her vision were fading.

  She turned her head. No, it was not the edges of her vision. It was the edges of the world. The beach was shrinking. The sky above was condensing into itself. The ocean fading at the edges.

  Around the edges, where the rest of the world should be was nothing. Empty space.

  The world shrank further and further, falling in on itself until she was huddled on a tiny patch of sand, no longer warm from the sun.

  Then even that patch of sand faded and there was nothing.

  No up. No down. No sensation against her skin.

  Then she fell. On and on into inky, endless dark, her mouth opened in a silent scream of her own.

  Nothing.

  She woke to a cut-off scream, body heavy, heart racing.

  Wards flared. Blinding silver.

  Her face was wet, air cool on her skin. Her hands hurt. She looked down, unable to see for a moment. Her wards were too bright in the first world. They were holding, though.

  She dampened her wards and murmured a spell to enhance her sight.

  Her fingers were clenched into the bed sheets, knuckles white. It took a considerable effort to loosen her grip, to let go, uncurl her fingers. Even sitting up in the middle of the bed, she was scared of falling.

  She looked around the room, wary of the shadows, and saw only the now-familiar shapes of furniture, the floor solid and real in the first world.

  Her heart was slowing. A little.

  Her skin was prickling, cold after the summer sun she could still feel in her mind.

  There was no sun. It was the middle of the night. Pitch dark outside. Dark inside, only her enhanced sight letting her see anything.

  She sent her senses out automatically, checking for threats. The cottage around her, old enough to have settled into its place in the world, was serene in the night, wards dormant. A building owned by the shifkin, it was now layered with her own wards. Everything was quiet and still.

  The only disturbance was in her mind. A nightmare. Again. Ten days or more of waking mid-of-night with a sense of dread, and fast-fading impressions of whatever had disturbed her sleep. This night was no different, her mind giving her the barest trace of salt on her skin.

  She forced herself to move, to approach the edge of the bed, and looked down. Wooden floorboards. Not endless dark. She made her body, slowly, to sit on the side of her bed, feet dangling over the edge, head hanging. There was no bottomless black under her. Just floorboards. She stretched one of her feet until her toes touched the polished wood. Solid and real. She moved again until both feet were flat on the floor, her heart racing too fast. She caught sight of ends of the pyjama trousers and had a disorienting moment remembering fine, pale sand catching on the edges. Here and now she saw only plain red. Soft t-shirt fabric around her. Smooth wood under her feet. Crumpled sheets under her hands. She had clenched her hands again. She smoothed them again.

  She was tired. Worn out. Nerve endings stretched. Nauseated from lack of sleep. Night after night of not sleeping was wearing her nerves.

  She glanced across at the bedside table. There was a large glass of water and an empty potion bottle. The strongest sleeping potion she knew how to make. And it had not worked. The clock dial told her she had been asleep for a bare few hours. More than the night before. Still not enough.

  The impressions of the nightmare were fading further. Sunlight. Sand. Salt air. Not the stuff that nightmares were usually made of. And not something she had ever encountered in her daylight, waking, world.

  She was sure there had been something else. Something that was a nightmare in itself, but her waking mind did not remember it.

  Quite why her mind needed to conjure up new things to give her nightmares she had no idea. Her head was stuffed full of enough actual, real, memories to disturb her sleep for years to come.

  She dimmed her sight and turned on the bedside light, glaring at the clock face. Past experience told her that she would not get back to sleep now, no matter how tired she was. There were several hours before she was due to meet the Prime for the day’s task.

  Still, if she could not sleep, extra preparation would be no bad thing. The shifkin had left her a pile of papers the day before that she had only read once. She sat for a moment, body heavy and worn, then pulled herself to her feet to get ready for the day.

  CHAPTER 2

  Some hours later, the sun was up, the cottage still serene around her. After the destruction of the workplace by human mages, the shifkin had offered her alternate accommodation. She had been startled at first by the number of properties they owned in Lix, a human city, and then not surprised. The ‘kin had been in the world as long as the Erith, and were far more curious and involved in the human world. This cottage had been the first building they showed her and she had not bothered to go further. It was small, only a bedroom, bathroom and living space, with thick, stone walls painted bright white inside and out. She did not need much space. Not with an outbuilding at the back that she could use for a workspace and space to park her vehicle.

  The size did not matter. What mattered was that the moment she had seen the cottage she had felt welcome, the feeling only stronger when she had stepped through the front door. The building was old enough to have settled into its surroundings, a gentle presence in the world. She loved it.

  For a few days she had been happy. The cottage settled around her, a place she could call her own for a while.

  And then the nightmares had started.

  Her coffee was cold. She looked up at the machine in the kitchen area and realised she had drunk an entire pot whilst looking through the papers the ‘kin had left her.

  She was debating whether to make more when the building’s wards flexed, alerting her to a new arrival. She opened the door just before Zachary Farraway reached it. The Prime was dressed for combat, in the close-fitting black that the ‘kin favoured, a handgun holstered at one hip. He lifted a brow as he saw her.

  “Rough night?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “I did not sleep well. I am functional,” she assured him.

  “I don’t doubt it.” He looked at her a moment more, frowning. “Brother Edward might have something that could help.”

  Sanctuary was not far away. Arrow’s feet had taken her there more than once in the early mornings when she could not sleep. The doors were never closed, and even in the darkest hours of night there were always a few people about, quietly settled into the space, absorbing the sense of peace. She had sat with Brother Edward for what felt like hours at a time, the two of them saying little. He was one of the most peaceful people she had ever met. She had never thought to ask Brother Edward for help sleeping, despite the extensive herb garden around Sanctuary.

  “Thank you. I will ask him.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “A moment.”

  She left the door open as she went to get her messenger bag and coat, assuming her human glamour before she stepped outside onto the narrow pavement, locking the door behind her. This was an entirely human neighbourhood and her new face, shaped by the Erith heartland, woul
d be too noticeable. A bit like the shifkin vehicle parked nearby. Large and sleek and black, it stood out among the far more modest human vehicles outside the nearby residences, engine purring quietly. Shifkin had lived in and around this area for decades, though, and a human woman accompanied by a shifkin was not unusual enough to draw more than a casual glance.

  So, outside the cottage, she wore a glamour that looked like her old face with its familiar freckles and rounded cheekbones. The more angular face the heartland had made for her still looked like a stranger in the mirror, the few times she had tried to make sense of it.

  Zachary held one of the back doors open for her with old-fashioned courtesy that was as ingrained as his power. As she settled in the seat, she was not surprised to find Rose driving and her mate Paul in the front passenger seat. They seemed to be the senior pair in Lix, just beneath the muster leader. As usual, they were both dressed for combat in the same manner as the Prime.

  “Morning,” Rose said cheerfully. “Looking forward to another boring day finding nothing?”

  “We will find something eventually,” Arrow countered. She understood Rose’s frustration. In the two weeks since the summit at Crossings Abbey, they had searched numerous residences and offices used by the human conspirators and their associates. And found nothing much of interest. Various electronic devices had been seized and were being investigated by a mix of human authorities and shifkin technicians. But there had been no more surjusi stones uncovered, and apart from one item, nothing to show how any of the human conspirators had known how to contact the surjusi lord or use blood magic.

  Zachary was convinced there was evidence somewhere that would lead them to others involved. Despite the large numbers of human magicians and politicians currently being held in isolation in prison by the authorities, the Prime was confident that they had not found the full extent of the conspiracy yet.

  The only significant discovery, the one item that suggested more than one human had known blood magic, had been made the morning that Arrow and Kester were supposed to leave on their holiday. A month off, the Prime had promised her, and Kester had managed to secure the same from Eimille vel Falsen.