He flinched, my words like physical blows. “Faerie must have a ruler, and the Mad Prince wants many things, but he has never wished for the throne. A Faerie under his direction would be… a wild thing.”
“Must Faerie have a ruler at all?”
Sirius again rubbed his face and breathed in, expanding his chest. While holding that breath, he looked me over, deciding how much to trust me, and then he sighed, tired of me, or perhaps resigned to the fact I wasn’t going away anytime soon. “You are saru, so you cannot know… The guardians were forged by Faerie to protect Her and all Her creations in a time when the magics were wild and monstrous. Creatures of power and time roamed this land, making life secondary to mayhem. Time would eat itself. Power would destroy life. Order came when two factions formed, seelie and unseelie, the light and the dark. Time bowed before the chosen leaders, and Faerie became tame. With no ruler, no control, the world will slip back into madness. Someone must always wear the crown or everything the fae have built will crumble to time and power.”
Considering every time I’d seen Eledan in the dreams he had presented himself atop a pretend throne, I figured he had his own ideas about who should wear the crown, but I wouldn’t argue with Sirius, not when the conversation was heading in a promising direction. “Eledan knows where the polestar is. If we free him, he’ll tell us where, and we can stop Faerie’s demise. He may not even kill Oberon. Most of Faerie consider Eledan a hero anyway. Maybe he will rule? But with the polestar… we’ll have a choice. We can stop all this madness now.”
“You are the Wraithmaker, and you want me to help you find Faerie’s greatest weapon so we can save Faerie?” Sirius’s lips tilted downward, turning his smile crooked. “How desperate do you think I am?”
Was this a trick question? “Very?”
“Desperate enough to put the polestar in the hands of a killer?”
“Yes?”
He huffed. “I had nails driven through my hands, not my head.”
“Your king is letting Faerie die. He does nothing. You said it yourself, he’s insane. You saw those fae baying for my blood. His people will topple him soon if we don’t, and there will be no ruler to take his place. He nailed you, a Royal Guardian, to a cross. What are you waiting for, Sirius? Because Faerie needs you to fix Her, and all you do is whine about a missing arm and bitch about babysitting a worthless saru girl. You can do better than this.”
“You have no idea what I can do. You do not know me, calla.”
“I know enough. You’re a guardian who has lost his way. Find your path again and fight for Faerie, like you were forged to do eons ago. Help me free Eledan. Help me find the polestar. And if you think I am deceiving you, then what is a worthless saru against a guardian? Take the polestar from me and wield it for Faerie.”
It was a risk. He could do exactly that. But everything on Faerie was a gamble.
He looked down at his broken tek arm and flexed his twitching fingers. The arm was a weakness and a curse. Given everything he’d been part of, he likely felt like a failure, but this quest could change that. I didn’t have a hope of knowing everything going on inside his ancient head, but I bet he figured he had much to prove, if only to himself.
“Do you know where Eledan’s heart and body are?” I asked, watching his doubts churn in his eyes.
“Oberon gave them as gifts to soothe the restless Wild Ones.”
The Wild Ones? Old aspects of Faerie, half of which weren’t even humanoid. His heart and body could be… anywhere. The impossibility of it all had me swaying on my feet. Of course Oberon had given them away, because nothing on Faerie was ever easy. The Wild Ones were the sidhe who had shunned the court and roamed freely through Faerie’s wild lands. They were tricksters, merrymakers, and fiends, or so the vague and romanticized saru legends said. And they were all dangerous. They were as likely to eat me as they were to return Eledan’s pieces.
I had to get those gifts back, and I couldn’t do this alone. The Wild Ones would not speak with a saru. Sirius could open doors that would otherwise be shut in my face.
“If you are Faerie’s guardian first, as you proclaim, you need to start acting like it. Faerie is at war, a war most of its people don’t want, and while the humans might be millions of light years away now, Oberon will not stop until he reaches Sol, and those humans—those Earthens—will fight back, just like they did before. Millions more immortal fae will die. More ancient bloodlines will be wiped out. And for what? Because Oberon fears his own creations?”
“He must have more reason—”
“He killed the vakaru. All of them. Not because Kellee dared to listen to an Earthen woman. He killed them because they began to think for themselves. They realized the fae aren’t gods. The vakaru, with free thought, were becoming dangerous, and so Oberon wiped them out.” I clicked my fingers. Sirius winced. “Then the humans of Halow built tek cities in the stars to rival any city Faerie could produce, and so Oberon wiped them out too, and with every sweep of his scythe, more people die in pursuit of his cleansing. Soon, when there is nothing left, his gaze will turn inward, to the saru, the namu, and anyone who doesn’t fit his mold of what Faerie should be. You know his crusade is madness. You know it’s not Faerie’s wish. How could it be? I know nothing of Faerie, but I do know She’s a mother to all Her children, and no mother wants to see her children die.”
He closed his eyes on my tirade as the words sank in. When he opened them again, he looked at me, really looked, as though he were seeing me differently.
He nodded. “You are right. I have lost my way. This is not Faerie’s wish. Oberon must be stopped, and with the polestar, it can be done, even if that means freeing the Dreamweaver.”
“We have until nightfall to find Eledan’s body and heart.”
I can’t do this. It’s impossible.
For Arran. For the saru. For everyone the fae have wronged. It must be done.
“You still wish to save your misguided champion?” he asked.
“I do.” I couldn’t let Arran die for me. Not again.
The guardian closed his damaged fingers into a metal fist. “Then we must leave before Oberon summons us back to court.”
He snatched his cloak off the back of a chair—the one I’d discarded at the Seat—and threw it around his shoulders as he left the room.
Wait. We were going now? We couldn’t just leave… The saru here would be blamed if we vanished and punished for not holding us. Oberon would likely kill them to spite my sacrifice at the Seat.
I rushed after him. “Wait.”
He was already striding ahead, parting saru like a ship carving through the sea. “Sirius! Wait. We need a plan… I didn’t do all this so more saru could be tormented. If we leave now, these people—”
He halted near the open front doorway.
The girl from earlier stood in his path. A little thing, her head barely reached his belt. She held a daisy in her hand. Its head drooped like she’d been holding it too tightly for too long. A single daisy was a worthless gift. Worse, it was an insult. And why wasn’t she kneeling? I looked around me, panicked at the thought of what might happen. Saru looked on. None of them kneeled. None seemed concerned that the saru had just insulted a Royal Guardian. The fools looked smitten. Did they not fear his fury?
But as I inched around him, fury was not what I saw on his face. Sirius gathered his cloak in one hand, drew it aside, and lowered himself to one knee, kneeling to her height, and he smiled at the foolish saru girl.
This was… impossible. What, by Faerie, was happening here?
“Thank you.” He took the sad-looking daisy, and the girl beamed up at him like he was a god.
No! This was exactly the behavior I wanted to stop. I wanted to shake her and slap her out of this madness. What was wrong with them? Their love was a twisted, ugly thing, forced upon them by generations of deliberate breeding. Could they not see the lie inside them? How could they love a monster like Sirius?
“Why are you
treating them like this?” I hissed, failing to whisper. The girl hurried back to a man, who I assumed was her father, standing with the saru behind me. He tucked her against his side, saw me, and inclined his head in a respectful nod.
“Like what?” Sirius turned in the doorway while the saru watched on.
Did he want me to spell it out? “Like you’re… nice?”
I’d deliberately placed myself between him and them. Although he didn’t seem poised to lash out, I wasn’t about to let anything happen to these people, despite their foolish love.
“I am nice.” A strange alien mischief sharpened his smile and made it… playful. But that couldn’t be right. “Just not to you.”
A saru snickered behind me and another hushed them. “We can’t just leave. Oberon will punish them—”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
We were being watched. Everything we said, every move we made, Oberon would surely hear of it. The saru behind me would either tell the king out of love, or he would torture the information out of them.
Sirius leaned toward me. “He won’t punish them because he doesn’t know we’re here.”
“Of course he knows. He had them bring us here.”
“No, calla.” His green eyes smiled. “I brought you here.”
I watched him step out into the cool, purplish light of dusk. Wisps glowed and bobbed in the warm Faerie air, rippling light over him as he strode into the gloom and away from the house.
“Go, Messenger,” Sonia signed, appearing alongside the others, all watching with strange, gentle smiles. “Be with him. We are safe.”
Sirius had brought me here, to this saru household, in secret and against Oberon’s wishes? That seemed too kind of a deed for him. He could have left me on the cross. I touched my chest again, over my heart, rubbing at the ache, and then I pressed my fingers to my forehead to thank the saru. The entire family mirrored the gesture, and some other guarded part of me broke off and fell away.
I followed Sirius, wondering if this was where free will in the minds of the saru began. Wondering if this was what I’d been fighting for. If this was the bud of change. Dare I hope?
Chapter 10
Kesh
“Stay behind me. Keep your head down. Do not question me. Do not speak to me. Stay silent and invisible like a good saru.”
Sirius led me down a winding rural path hidden deep inside a ridge of shrubs and trees that must have been on the outskirts of the city. Or the path had moved in for him, as paths sometimes did for me around the palace gardens. Wisps glided along with us, lighting our way and giving me a fine view of the guardian’s broad back and his liquid-like cloak. Apparently, I was to act like his saru traveling companion while he sought transportation out of the city. I wore the correct clothes, but one close look at my wrists peeking out from beneath the cuffs would reveal my warfae markings. Hopefully the low dusk light would help conceal them.
“Can you do that, saru?” he barked.
Jerk. “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, He Who Must Be Obeyed.”
“No,” he snapped, then added, “You may address me as such in private, but that is not my correct title in public.”
I arched an eyebrow. You may address me as such in private. He wasn’t even joking. He didn’t know how to joke. Did he really expect me to fawn at his feet? Did he even know me at all?
He glanced behind him, and in the wisps’ bobbing light, a smirk appeared to dance on his lips. And then it was gone, replaced by that hard guardian line, making me doubt I’d seen it at all.
Ahead, where the path ended, a township glittered. The smell of briny water and sweetness dampened the air, reminding me of the sea and the crates of tropical fruits delivered to the palace when the Summerlands was in power. Ship rigging clanged in harmony like far-off bells. We were close to the docks.
Sirius loomed at the end of the path, illuminated by the town’s warm glow, all dark Autumnal colors and rigid scowls.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Again. With conviction.”
Seriously? Faerie kill me now. “Yes, my lord.” I bowed low and kept my saru mask up and eyes averted.
“Better.” He turned, hid his tek arm inside his sideways cloak, and stepped into the street. Naturally, like a good saru, I followed behind, gaze downcast and hands in, looking the part. Common fae lingered in groups, drinking wine that could probably get me blind drunk with one sip or something much, much worse. Excitement was high. It buzzed in the air, racing alongside the drifting wisps and fae laughter, showing itself here and there with a fizzle of light, like tiny lightning sparks. The houses here were all huddled together. Some even leaned over others, like members of a crowd trying to get a better view of the docks. Gravity didn’t have as solid a grip on Faerie as it did elsewhere in the stars, hence things moved when the laws outside of Faerie claimed they shouldn’t. Those houses likely could move, if they wanted.
Few paid Sirius and me any mind. We were just another master and slave going about our business among a thick crowd.
We made it to the docks in good time. Ships were stacked against the quayside with planks running between them. I’d never seen the docks so busy, but then I’d never been this close to the quay before. Most of my life had played out inside a cell or in the arenas, with sojourns in the palace, tucked behind the scenes. I’d only seen the docks from afar and sometimes heard the ships ringing in their arrival. My imagination had fallen far short of the real thing. Life thrived everywhere. The fae gathered out in the open, their saru moving silently among their number. Colored banners flew from windows and rigging. Faelights had been strung across the street from house to house. The docks glowed and glittered like a Halow carnival.
There had to be thousands of fae here. I couldn’t decide if moving among the throng was a good or bad idea. We were unlikely to stand out among so much activity, but if any fae recognized us, we wouldn’t last long. I should have been afraid, but this was a side of Faerie I’d never seen, and it was all I could do not to gaze in wonder. Ribbons of magic danced with wisps in the air. The little creatures darted and buzzed. Fae laughter tinkled, like a song that dove into my soul and stoked it to life. I wanted to dance, even though I didn’t know how. I wanted to fall into this beautiful thing until it coated me from head to toe.
Sirius’s cool metal fingers snagged my arm and pulled me back into line. “Resist its call.”
Oh cyn. I hadn’t even realized Faerie’s magic had burrowed beneath my skin. “I’m trying.”
There were so many fae, and they were all so… tantalizing. I wanted to run my hands over them and soak up their magic. But it wouldn’t end with a touch. Something about being among so many fae and feeling their magic brush up against me had me wanting to fling myself into their midst. Part of me didn’t even care that it would likely be the last thing I ever did.
Sirius’s grip tightened until it hurt. “Focus.”
A female fae caught my eye. Rings pierced her elegant ears and colorful swirls like vines painted her cheek. Like my marks but without the thorns! My happy human mind thought. I would very much like to meet her. She has eyes like stars… so pretty.
“Kesh?”
“Hmm…”
Sirius sat me down on a barrel. I liked the barrel too. So round! And hard. Marvelous. This place was full of wonders. Why had Oberon never allowed me to come here before?
The guardian peered into my eyes, scowling. Did he have any other expression? I poked my finger into his cheek and tried to lift the corner of his mouth into a smile, but he only scowled harder and batted my hand away. “Sit here. Do not move.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He was gone, and for a few moments, I mourned the loss of his fiery hair and green eyes—until I spotted her sashaying through the crowd toward me. She moved like something tantalizing captured in fae form. She moved like Talen, like she was made of liquid and light and all things I could ne
ver hold for long, but I so wanted to reach out and touch and stroke and kiss and love.
“Is this your saru?” Her voice was sharp and brittle.
“Regrettably,” Sirius replied. He was back and had placed himself in front of me, blocking my view of the wondrous creature, and that was a crime.
“Why does she not avert her eyes?”
“She’s broken. In the head.”
“I’m perfectly fine.” I peeked around the guardian-shaped wall and smiled at the beautiful fae.
Sirius added, “If you did not throw out an abundance of glamour, she would not be so drawn to you.”
“You mean like this?”
Warm magic poured over me, reached inside, and strummed every desirable point in my human body, stirring lust to life. I wanted to bite at it and her. I wanted to grab her and kiss her like I could swallow her all the way down.
“You look delicious.” I started to get up.
Without looking behind him, Sirius shoved at my face, trying to push me down. I nipped at his finger instead. He jerked back, making our audience laugh.
“Why bring a saru to the docks if we cannot play with her?” she purred, coming in close. Her eyes were like swirling pools of magic I wanted to dive into.
“I’d like that.” I smiled, thinking about the things she and I could do together. We would dance, and fuck, and dance some more, and it would be glorious.
“You would, dear thing?” She leaned over, coming close enough that I saw how her teeth had pointed tips like her ears. “You remind me of someone, someone in my dreams… someone stirring up trouble in the dark. But that could not be you, could it?”
I wanted to kiss her. All over.
She pulled back too soon and regarded Sirius. “Well, will you share her?”
“No.” His refusal crashed down with all the finality of a portcullis slamming home.
“Yes.” Oh, that was from me. And it sounded like a wonderful idea.
“Oh darling, I could positively eat you up.” She licked her lips. Her tongue seemed too long for her mouth, and it was lengthening, turning thin and barbed, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to kiss her anymore. Oh… this was very wrong.
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