by L. V Russell
“Still a little sore,” I replied. “Is everyone else okay?”
“Nothing that won’t heal quickly.” Laphaniel glanced behind him, listening for something I wasn’t aware of. I tilted my head but heard nothing. “Would you like something to eat? The fish aren’t too bad, but you have to eat them raw.”
As lovely as food sounded, my head still had a strange heaviness to it. “Can I sleep a little longer?”
“As long as you need.”
He helped me lie back down, tucking me under his cloak until I was almost unbearably warm. The fabric smelled like him, comforting despite the filth coating it.
“I can stay with you if you want me to.”
“Are you needed elsewhere?”
Laphaniel looked out into the darkness, to the sound of voices down the tunnels. “I am…”
“Go, I’ll be fine here.”
“I won’t be far away.”
“Laphaniel?”
He turned, waiting.
“I love you.”
“You first told me that in another damp cave,” he said, candlelight dancing over his eyes, making the blue glow.
“I remember.” I closed my eyes. “Beats saying it for the first time drugged up on troll poison.”
I heard his laugh, felt the warmth of his mouth on mine as he brushed the ghost of a kiss onto my lips. “I meant it, though.”
Sleep settled over me like a safety blanket. Quick and warm and heavy. Dreams floated through the darkness, of soft sunshine and blossom-heavy branches within a house of stone.
“Queenling?”
I winced at the jabbing to my arm, groggily swatting it away.
“Queenling?
Another jab, harder this time. Then a pinch.
“Teya?
I opened my eyes, my wonderful dream disappearing as quickly as it had come. “What?”
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Cole whispered, his face so close to mine that I startled. “Where the hell are we?”
Dark bruises still mottled his face, the left eye still swollen shut. “We’re in some cave, having narrowly missed being eaten by dragons. You took a nasty blow to the head.” I took a breath. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
“Did everyone else make it?” He moved back at the look on my face. “Who?”
“Liam,” I answered, and he brought his head down into his hands. “I’m so sorry, Cole—there was nothing you could have done.”
“I chose the wrong path.”
“You weren’t to know,” I said, sitting up. “This isn’t on you.”
He shook his head. “I made the choices; the blame lies with me.”
I touched his hand again, and he let me take it. “How are you feeling? You were in a pretty bad way when they carried you in.”
“Everything is spinning, and I feel like I’m going to hurl my guts up.” He pressed a hand over his good eye, wavering. “I need to go see what’s going on.”
He tugged his hand from mine and made to get up, but I grabbed his arm and forced him down again. “Laphaniel is handling it, lie down.”
“I need to get up.” His voice rose, and somewhere in the darkness, someone stirred.
“Shh, everyone is asleep. Calm down.”
“I don’t know where I am.”
“Sit down.”
A snarl rumbled up from his throat, black swallowing up the green in his eye. I sensed his growing panic; gone was the imposing captain of the Raven knights, gone was the sureness of an immortal who had lived within the shadows and nightmares of the Unseelie Court. Fear coiled around him like smoke, and I was wary of frightened and vulnerable fey, especially those in pain. It brought out the barely concealed feral nature of faeries.
“Shh, Cole,” I whispered, wincing at the sudden hold he had on my arm. “You’re safe here.”
“I don’t know where I am,” he repeated.
“You’re…”
His fist cracked against my face, and I swallowed my cry of pain, catching his hand when he made to strike again.
“Don’t,” I said, shoving him back. “Lie still, listen to me.”
I wove the temptation into my voice, tasting it against my tongue like a lullaby. I remembered the feel of it, the warmth at my lips, the buzz against my skin. I remembered how it felt to listen to it, to allow that softness in. I remembered how I had made Laphaniel’s feet move against his will, while I inched him closer to an open window. I had almost forgotten how good it felt.
“Listen to me.” My voice was a song on my lips. “Are you listening?”
Cole nodded slowly, the fear and panic ebbing from his face.
“Let go of me.” He dropped my arm, swaying slightly. “Lie down, that’s it. Slowly, don’t hurt yourself. Close your eyes, and keep listening to me. We are safe here. I am the Queen of Seelie, and I will not let anything happen to you or your knights. Go to sleep. Sleep until the bones in your skull heal until everything stops spinning. We can wait.”
I brushed his hair from his face while I spoke, listening to his heartbeat slowing within his chest. Glamour continued to weave its way into my words, threading them through with the desire to rest, my entire body tingling with the power it wielded.
He snored a little, mouth open, fast asleep. I covered him with the cloak and hoped that the next time he woke, he would be functioning better, because as good a job as Laphaniel was doing, we needed Cole. We needed him to navigate us across the bleak Unseelie lands, to stand with his knights to face Luthien.
I stood up to the eerie silence of the cave, the lingering aches, and pains in my body, all gone. My stomach grumbled loud enough to echo, and hunger gnawed at my belly like a beast. Searching the shadows for Laphaniel, I carefully stepped over sleeping knights stretched out upon the cavern floor. I wondered who was on watch…and where they had gone.
The three remaining horses lay unmoving upon the cold ground, candlelight glinting off their curved black horns.
It shouldn’t have been so quiet.
I called his name, my voice too loud within the heavy silence, finding him close to a curving tunnel with his head propped against Fell.
“Laphaniel?” I shook him gently. “Something’s wrong.”
I shook him again when he didn’t stir, pressing my hand against his chest to feel the slow thud, thud, thud of his heartbeat.
“Wake up.”
I nudged Fell, my fingers digging into his shoulder as I shook him too. He didn’t move but slumped forwards against me.
“Fuck.” The curse echoed in the silence, lonely and pointless. “Laphaniel? Wake up…please.”
I tried to pull the Glamour back into my words, but it wouldn’t come. Swallowing the panic, I tried again and again until sweat broke against my skin, and my throat felt raw.
“Open your eyes, for me, please.” My breath hissed through my teeth when his eyes flickered open, and I slapped his cheek before they rolled back again. “Stay with me, okay?”
He nodded very slowly, his eyes closing.
“No, no, no, I need you.” I propped his head up, tapping his cheek. “I think I’ve put everyone to sleep.”
“Yeah?” he murmured, the single word thick and heavy.
“I don’t know how to fix it.” My voice caught. “What do I do? No! Stay awake, I need you!”
He forced his eyes open, leaning a clumsy hand against me. “What?”
“What did I do?”
“Hmmm.”
“I Glamoured Cole to get some sleep, and I think it spread to everyone.” I shook him when his head lolled against my shoulder, and he groaned as he pushed himself back up. “Keep your damned eyes open.”
“When?” The word slurred over his lips.
“Just now, about five minutes ago.”
“Until…until when?” Laphaniel forced out, blood seeped from his nose as he fought the compulsion to close his eyes. Perhaps the lingering whisper of Glamour he held onto recognised the power now within me, making it possible to resist.
<
br /> “Until he’s healed,” I said, “How long will that be? Laphaniel? When will he get better?”
Fear suddenly brightened his sleep-addled eyes, breaking through his haze for a split second. “Don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
He took a breath, leaning his head against my shoulder. “Tunnels.”
“What’s in the tunnels?”
It was then that I noticed the two swords lying beside Fell and Laphaniel, the sharp blades red with blood.
“What’s in the tunnels? Laphaniel?”
But he didn’t answer, his body slumping awkwardly against mine. Easing his head to the floor, I stood and looked around the cave, noting all the shadowy corners where things could hide.
Backing away, I didn’t dare linger too close for fear of disturbing whatever Laphaniel and Fell discovered within the tunnel. The rest of the knights slumbered on, and nudging them, shaking them, pinching them, did nothing to stir them. They stayed asleep, unmoving and uncaring, and, although I knew it was all my fault, I felt abandoned.
Making my way back to Cole, I knelt beside him and checked his wounds, peeling away the old bandages to wash the bloodied mess of his head. Pink flesh was beginning to show, the wound slowly knitting itself back together.
“Hurry up,” I whispered to him, stroking back his matted hair. “I need you to wake up quickly, Cole.”
“Teya.”
My head shot up at the sound of my name, the disembodied voice echoing with malice around the too-quiet cave.
“Teya.”
I rose, tensing my shoulders, flexing my hands to feel for the spark of Glamour I knew was there.
“Come down here, Teya. We can see you. We can see you are all alone. Come down here with us, Teya.”
“What are you?” I shouted back, fighting to feel the familiar surge of power at my fingertips. Nothing came. I grabbed for one of the discarded swords beside Fell and Laphaniel.
“We are hungry.”
With the sword clutched in my hand, I swallowed the rising fear and gripped the hilt tight. Wrongness seeped from the tunnel. A wrongness that hadn’t been there before.
“What do you want?”
“We are hungry.”
I stood in front of Laphaniel and Fell as if I would have any success in defending them against whatever lingered within the darkness.
“Feed us.”
Something screeched past me, a whip of stale air and rotted cloth. It flew around the cavern with a shriek at its lips, a sound brimming with fury and hunger.
“Feed us.”
It shot towards my face, barely a breath against me. Hollow eyes, buried within grey skin that hung from its skull like the rags from its body bored into me. With my own scream joining the cacophony of echoes, I slashed down upon it, my sword jolting as it struck bone.
It hissed, mouth unhinging to let a howl of rage escape. Blood dripped from the slash I created, dripping from my sword and the mouldering cloth covering its body.
Staggering back, I swung again, aiming higher. The head sliced from its body as if made from butter, bouncing once on the harsh ground before rolling to a stop at the centre of the cave.
Before I could draw breath, before my triumphant shout had finished echoing, the headless wraith floated towards its severed head, picked it up from the ground, and forced it back into the ruined tendrils of its neck.
“So hungry.”
It turned, sweeping back over the sleeping forms of Fell and Laphaniel. A clawed hand hovered over them, nails black and long and so very sharp.
“Don’t!”
It retracted its fingers, a snarl forming over its maw as it twisted its head back to me, dark blood seeping from the edges of its neck.
“Empty.”
“What?”
“Empty.” It repeated the word, hissing it through thin, needle-like teeth. “There is nothing within.”
Those long fingers moved away from Laphaniel to run across Fells’ face. It trailed them down his neck before splaying them across his chest.
“I can almost taste this one.”
“Taste what?” I knew the answer before the word slipped like a caress from its hideous mouth.
“Soul.”
My world stopped. “Laphaniel has a soul, I feel it.”
“Empty,” it rasped. “Even hell will not take those without a soul.”
I wouldn’t believe it, even when some distant thought rose up unbidden. He had come back different, distant…lost. He had come back to me saying something was missing.
And I hadn’t noticed.
Warmth spread to my fingertips, a surge of strength and magic flooding down through my veins, as the Glamour lying dormant within my body, began to stir at last.
I snarled the next few words. “I’ll get it back.”
“You can try.”
“What will happen to him?” The words escaped my mouth before I could stop them.
A smile stretched over cracked lips, a horrible glee dancing within the hollows of its eyes. It stretched its arms out, beckoning more and more wraiths from the shadows.
“Hungry.”
My desperate cry rebounded from the walls, echoing back my fury, my pain, my desperation to prove it was wrong. Glamour spilled from me, a wave of magic I had no control over. It fled from my fingertips, feeding off my horror, off the fury that had clenched around my heart so tight I could scarcely breathe.
I held the wraith within that power, hatred pouring from it like spilled ink, oily, and black. Without a second thought, I tore it to pieces until there was nothing left but a dark stain on the cavern floor.
There was a collective hiss around me, hungry mouths widening over the still forms of the sleeping knights, clawed hands outstretched to cleave away the souls encased within.
Red mist settled over my eyes, Glamour threatening to consume me as it had done back at the Unseelie castle. I sucked in a trembling breath. Another, straining against the flames coiling at my fingers, forcing them forwards. Every burning thread of Glamour struck out. A rope. A noose.
The storm within me soared until I lost the battle with myself, the rush of Glamour pouring over me so euphoric, I let it consume me.
I drowned in it.
There was nothing but the heat of magic, my tempest crashing around me. It stole away my breath, my reason.
Everything but the need to set the world on fire.
With fingers outstretched, the threads curled tight around my wrists. I pulled. Tighter and tighter, looping the glittering strands around my hands. The sounds they made were exquisite, low moans joined by the snapping of brittle bones.
With my screech following theirs, I thrust out my hands until nothing was left of the wraiths but black dust and a dying echo.
Chapter Thirty
For three days, I sat alone in the cave, drawing water from the shallow river that trickled through, gnawing on the tough jerky I found in one of the camping bags. I had managed to drip water into the mouths of the sleeping knights, into Laphaniel’s. Most of it had dribbled over them, but they had swallowed some. Just enough.
The blast of Glamour had left me aching and exhausted. A weariness settled into my bones, along with a creeping unease at how much I had enjoyed it all.
The revelation about Laphaniel had left me hollow. I wanted to believe that his soul still sang within him.
I needed to.
Cole began to stir late in the afternoon, just as the sun hit the glittering stone on the far cave wall, the only slice of light save for the candle stubs. I only lit them when I could bear the darkness no longer, when it felt like the shadows would reach up and smother me if I did nothing to banish them.
During those long hours in the pitch, I had clung to Laphaniel, not daring to close my eyes in fear of what nightmares would come to torment me. It made me powerless, and I hated it.
“Cole?” I knelt beside the knight, having spent the morning unwrapping the new bandages on his head, relieved to see
the skin beneath white and shiny. “Cole, wake up.”
He opened his eyes and glared back at me, swatting my hand away. “I am awake.”
Slowly, he ran his fingers over the left side of his face, touching the coils of scar tissue running from what was left of his ear, to his cheek, and finally to the scars that pulled up his lip into a permanent snarl.
The swelling was gone, the bruises fading, but his left eye had clouded over to a milky haze.
“Girls love scars,” I said, reaching to pull his hand away from his face.
“Even if they’re half blind?” Anger lingered in his voice, and shame.
“You can wear an eyepatch, like a pirate. Everyone will swoon over you.”
His gaze flicked to his knights sprawled over the floor, some just beginning to stir now my Glamour was slowly wearing off.
“What did you do?” A sharp accusation.
“I was trying to help.”
He groaned as he stood, placing a hand on the rough wall to steady himself. “How long have they been like this?”
“Three days.”
He whirled on me. “Three days?”
I flinched. “I Glamoured you to get some rest. I didn’t know it would put everyone to sleep.”
“You couldn’t undo it?”
“No.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“I couldn’t reach it…my Glamour. I panicked and I couldn’t reach it.”
“You could have killed everyone.”
Tired, pitying tears pricked at my eyes. “I know.”
“You are a foolish girl,” Cole hissed. “Playing foolish games. Get them all up, now.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this.” I forced myself to meet his livid stare. “None of it.”
“You are incredibly lucky you don’t have my knights’ deaths on your hands,” Cole began, voice soft and lethal. “Or your husband’s.”
With equal simmering calm, I replied, “You are incredibly lucky, Cole, that a foolish girl took pity and refused to leave you as a buffet for the dragons.”
Shock flashed across his face. “My knights were under strict orders from the king to keep you safe until we reached Luthien. You were the priority.”