“Well, if we wait for you to list all the things you’re not afraid of, we’ll be here some time. I want to know what’s going on in your head, Wyn. Are you going to tell me, or am I going to exhaust myself talking in vague circles till dawn?”
Abruptly he let the tension go, collapsing back into his chair, magic fading. “I wanted so badly to get this right, and I seem to be making an absolute mull of it instead.” He snuck a sideways look at her. “If you make some remark about my manipulative tendencies, I will, I will—” He growled in frustration. “I will be mildly and momentarily put out.”
Hetta giggled; she couldn’t help it.
“It’s not very nice to make fun of my inability to use hyperbole,” he groused.
“It is quite funny, actually,” she said. “Why didn’t I notice your deliberate avoidance of such sentence constructions before now?”
“Several of the villagers do think me painfully literal,” he admitted.
“Well, I think it’s very good for you to realise that there are limits to your own omnipotence. You can’t control everything, Wyn. And I’m a little concerned that you think of me as something you ought to be able to manipulate according to your own goals.”
“I wasn’t talking about controlling you.” He paused. “I know you worry about Stariel influencing you, but note that of the two people on that tower, you were the one who found your way back to yourself, not me. If it was a test, I’m not sure I passed. I could not control the magic. I am not safe. You haven’t seen my father’s court, Hetta. You don’t understand what he is capable of; what I might be capable of.”
Hetta stared at him, nonplussed. “I’m beginning to think I have a much greater idea of what you’re capable of than you do, if you’re truly worried about that.”
It had never occurred to her that Wyn’s self-doubt would take this particular form. Him fearing he lacked self-control seemed particularly ironic given that Hetta had been waging an unsuccessful campaign to get him to shed his self-restraint.
But Wyn shook his head. He moved, supernaturally fast, and suddenly he was in front of her armchair, hands on the armrests, caging her in. Their faces were only inches apart, his eyes cold and boring into hers. The smell of thunderstorms spiked thick enough to choke on, and when he spoke his voice held dark echoes of the night.
“I am stronger than you, faster. I could snap your spine if I wished. I know fae magics that would let me ensnare your senses, bind you to do my bidding. I am not tame, Henrietta Isadore Valstar.”
She leaned forward and kissed him and, in direct counterpoint to his harsh words, his lips were soft and hesitant. She had to coax the kiss from him, and even when she managed it, he refused to let it deepen, just holding himself over her and letting her brush butterfly kisses over his mouth. She pulled back a little and rubbed her nose against his affectionately.
He gave a deep sigh and sagged down to the floor. “And apparently, I’m not even scary.”
She petted his hair, and he leaned into the sensation like a cat. “Well, it was a good effort,” she said consolingly. “But as I’ve seen you carefully transfer spiders to the garden rather than squash them, it was rather a pointless one. You can’t be heartbroken over kittens and still expect people to see you as the big bad wolf.”
He made a grumpy sound, delighting her. She kept twining her hands through his hair and he let her, settling back against the chair.
“If we’re going to have further arguments, I think I ought to win at least some of them,” he groused.
“Of course, darling,” she said, trying out the pet name. My love, he’d said to her twice now without her returning the sentiment. But Wyn couldn’t lie; Hetta could. That meant she had to be very, very sure of what she said before she said it. “Though…as my next argument is going to be that you should tell everyone what you are, I would prefer to win that one too.” He stiffened under her hands. “I think you underestimate them. After all, who knows already? Me, Jack, Marius, Caroline. Gregory,” she added. “And Grandmamma. It’s getting silly pretending it’s really even a secret anymore, isn’t it?”
He was so still and silent that she couldn’t tell what he was thinking except that he wasn’t enjoying it much.
She worried at her lip. “In any case, I have something for you. Under the chair.” She gave him a prod with her toe.
His lips quirked, and he gave her a curious look but obediently extracted the wrapped package for her. She shook her head when he tried to hand it to her.
“It’s for you. Happy Wintersol.”
Wyn blinked. “We agreed we don’t do gifts.”
“Ten years ago,” Hetta pointed out. Wyn had been the hall boy then, the agreement a way to navigate the difference in their respective positions. After she’d left for Meridon, the question had become moot. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to sulk because you didn’t get me one. Open it!”
Her enthusiasm made him smile. Gently, he untied the strings of the package, the brown paper rustling as it fell away to reveal the garment. She knew the moment he realised what it was, his fingers stilling on the extra seams.
“I asked one of my costuming contacts in Meridon,” Hetta said, trying not to immediately launch into What do you think? Do you like it? “She does a side-line in unusual requests.” And heavens knew what she’d made of Hetta’s, but she hadn’t questioned it.
Wyn held up the shirt, shaking out the fabric so that the extra slits in the back gaped open—the space for wings. Maybe Hetta wasn’t yet used to him in his fae form, but that wasn’t going to change if he kept hiding it from her.
His expression had gone unreadable. Was he annoyed? “This wasn’t an attempt to railroad you into revealing yourself. In case you thought that it was,” she added.
He looked up, eyes brimming with amusement. “Hetta,” he said accusingly.
“All right, maybe it was a tiny bit of a railroad attempt, but think how much less awkward it’ll be if you need to give my family a demonstration of your other self! But that wasn’t the only reason, you know. I don’t want you to feel you have to hide from me. Or that you have to leave me because of what you are.”
Amusement deepened to something warmer as he set the shirt aside and rose, reaching for her. Sadly, he aborted the movement as he remembered himself, perching on the arm next to her instead and twining his fingers with hers. “I…thank you.”
“I hope it fits,” she said lightly. She hesitated, a panicky feeling fluttering in her chest as she added, “And that you have reason to wear it.” He’d agreed to let her bargain, but Hetta wanted more than that slim inch of compromise. After Wintersol, she’d said, and meant it. She couldn’t keep dancing to this uncertain tune forever.
Wyn fingered his bowtie. “Well, I would try it on now, but that would rather defeat the purpose of my protective armour.”
Hetta was about to suggest that protective armour was vastly overrated when he paused and said quietly, “Actually, I do have something that I would like to give you also.”
He swallowed, looking uncharacteristically nervous, and released her hand. Reaching into the pocket of his coat, he withdrew a feather.
It was Hetta’s turn to blink as he handed it to her. It was one of his, unmistakably; no bird she knew had feathers so large or so obviously magical. It glimmered with faint luminescence, the silver frosting each white filament catching the light as she turned it in her hands.
Wyn watched her intently; clearly there was some significance here that wasn’t immediately apparent.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s lovely.”
His solemn manner fractured, and he began to laugh.
“That was a compliment!” she protested.
“I know,” he said, eyes bright. And he kissed her swiftly, there and gone before it had really begun, as if he couldn’t help himself. It made it quite hard to be annoyed with him.
She held the feather up. “All right, what does it mean, then? Is this the fae equivalent of g
iving someone a lock of hair as a token?” Though wasn’t that something people did when they anticipated being apart from each other?
His gaze turned thoughtful. “It’s a stormdancer tradition. It denotes a depth of…sentiment,” he said, skittering around the word he’d clearly intended to say in its place. “Of trust.”
She thought suddenly of how he’d destroyed the remnants of his blood from the office at the bank. A sufficiently skilled illusionist could use a piece of someone’s essence to personalise a spell, though it was considered a slightly old-fashioned, distasteful branch of the magic. What if fae magic could work in the same way—fae magic of a much more destructive sort than illusion? What would it mean, in Faerie, to voluntarily give someone a piece of yourself, to hold that power over you?
A depth of sentiment indeed, she thought, brushing her fingertips over the softness of the feather. “Oh.”
He looked down at her, weighing something. “Tomorrow,” he said suddenly. “I will tell your family tomorrow.”
Her heart burst with relief, but before she could respond, he tensed and pulled away from her hands. There was something in the movement that put her on instant alert. She scanned the room instinctively and found the wyldfae he’d reacted to lurking behind the chesterfield across the room.
“Come here,” Wyn said to the wyldfae, his voice deep and commanding, shivering with a thread of compulsion. She wasn’t sure he even realised he’d reinforced his words with magic until he repeated the words, this time without the compulsion. Interesting.
Something shuffled out from behind the sofa, and Hetta found herself staring into a pair of overlarge indigo eyes.
“Oh!” she said, entranced despite herself. Her exclamation startled the wyldfae, and it ducked out of sight. She made her tone softer. “Please do come out.”
Slowly, it emerged from the safety of the chesterfield. It was about the size of a collie and had a dog-like quality to its face. The long streamers from its mane and tail and many-tufted ears gave it the appearance of moving within a cloud of fine sparkling mist. Its fur was a deep cobalt, run through with shimmers of purple and silver. From the centre of its head rose the reason for its name: a shining curved horn about a hand span in length.
Hetta couldn’t help the small noise of delight that escaped her. “Hello,” she said, stretching out her hands towards it. “You are adorable.”
“Hetta,” Wyn chided, but he sounded amused rather than alarmed, so she paid him no heed.
“Can you understand me?” she asked the small creature as it picked its way towards her, nose outstretched and trembling. “I’m sorry if the ‘adorable’ remark offended you, by the way.”
“They don’t speak,” Wyn said. “But they understand intent. She knows you’re admiring her.”
“It doesn’t seem to like you much,” she observed, for the starcorn stopped and eyed Wyn balefully. Wyn sighed, levered himself up, and walked over to the far wall. The starcorn blinked at him for a bit before deciding he was at a safe enough distance. It shook itself and trotted happily over to Hetta on delicate hooves and proceeded to snuffle her palms. It was hesitant at first but grew bolder as Hetta crooned to it. “Oh, aren’t you a beautiful thing?”
There was a statue of a starcorn at the bottom of the house’s main entrance, which she now realised was startlingly accurate, though the sombre grey stone hadn’t done justice to the riotous colour of the little creature, nor to the soft texture of its fur. It accepted Hetta as a long-lost friend, wriggling under her hands like a cat, demanding attention.
“I thought unicorns had a fondness for virgins?” she couldn’t resist saying, shooting Wyn a sly look.
He wasn’t ruffled by the sally. “That is a starcorn, not a unicorn,” he said from his position against the wall. “And they’ve a fondness for innocents, not virgins.”
“It thinks I’m innocent?” Hetta frowned down at the starcorn, not sure how to feel about this.
“Unicorns have a fondness for innocents. That’s a starcorn. They’re far more worried about intent than their larger brethren. She knows you mean her no harm, that you are her lord and feel a degree of responsibility towards her.”
“Don’t tell me you mean her harm?” Hetta couldn’t imagine anyone wishing ill upon the beautiful little creature, least of all Wyn.
“No, but she can likely tell that I’m fighting an urge to strangle my brother.” When she looked up in question, he folded his arms and nodded at the starcorn. “That’s who sent her to you. Rakken’s always had a gift for making the lowfae do his bidding willingly. Starcorn are very intuitive; she won’t understand our speech, but she knows I’m not feeling particularly happy with the person who tasked her with carrying a message.”
“Message?” She ran her hands over the starcorn. “It’s not like she has pockets, and if she can’t speak…?”
“Ask her,” Wyn said.
“All right, lovely,” she said to the starcorn. “Do you have a message for me?”
The starcorn stopped rubbing itself against her to lift its head and blink big eyes at her. Then it snorted, and a small puff of dense green smoke appeared, smelling strongly of tangerine. Hetta sneezed.
When the smoke faded, a single piece of parchment lay on the carpet, and the starcorn was gone.
“It’s good to know you come from a long line of melodramatics,” Hetta commented as she picked up the parchment, making Wyn chuckle. She read the letter aloud:
“Forgive me my stratagems, Lord Valstar. I assure you they are intended to extricate my brother from this mess alive, which I presume is a goal you also desire? I shall look forward to seeing you again. I will of course abide by guestright.”
“It’s the pact between host and invited guest,” Wyn explained before she could ask. “Basically, both parties agree not to harm or dishonour the other for the duration of a visit. It’s an old law in Faerie, and about as sacred as anything gets there. It’s so ingrained that most fae would not bother to spell it out, but he’s making a jab at me and my broken oath.” He sounded tired.
“But I haven’t invited him,” Hetta pointed out.
“No, you haven’t.” He looked troubled. He glanced at the curtained windows. “It’s nearly time to wake everyone.”
“Kindlemorn in the snow—is that a good omen or a bad one, do you think?”
“Regardless, I’m glad I planned a vast quantity of hot drinks.”
People woke with a mixture of excitement and feigned reluctance. The nostalgia of the night before returned in full force. By the time they made their way up to the Standing Stones, the snow was falling thick and fast and the sky had become a vast whiteness. Hetta stared up at it thoughtfully and then mentally suggested to Stariel that it could fall somewhere other than where everyone was walking. To her satisfaction, the faeland accepted this request without a blink, and the snow parted before them, creating strange white waterfalls in the air to either side of the path.
The reactions to this ranged from shocked to delighted. The younger family members thought it was a great trick and ran to the side of the path with outstretched hands, catching the diverted streams of snowflakes. Aunt Sybil made a clucking sound of generalised disapproval. Jack merely looked thoughtful.
Dawn was still some time away, and the way was lit by Hetta’s bobbing magelights. The snow had a muffling effect, and they proceeded in a cocoon of humanity amidst the vast emptiness of the dark estate.
The
last time Hetta had been to the Standing Stones had been for the Choosing Ceremony. She’d stood alone in front of a crowd of Stariel’s people, having overturned every expectation of who would inherit the lordship. It hadn’t been a particularly pleasant experience. This morning, she was once again the centre of attention, but the crowd’s focus was much less hostile than that night.
Outside of Stariel, Kindlemorn was usually done with candles, but here their own variation on the tradition went back as far as the Valstars did. Hetta was abruptly aware of that long weight of history, of that unbroken chain all the way back to the first lord of Stariel. He’d dealt with the fae too, as had all the lords after him up until three centuries ago. What did it mean that the fae were coming back again now, for the first time in generations? And why had the High King made them leave in the first place? And why am I the lucky lord who gets to deal with them again? Had Stariel really known what it was doing when it chose her?
She pushed the unhelpful musings aside as they reached the Stones. A fire had been laid on the central plinth, as yet unlit. As dawn approached, the general murmuring of the crowd—composed of Valstars, staff, and villagers—began to hush. Those bearing torches, lamps, and light-spells made their way to the front, and as the sun came over the horizon, they began to douse them, one by one.
Hetta reached out with her land-sense. All across the estate, those who weren’t gathered here were following suit, dousing fires across the land. In the heart of winter, this was an act of faith that humbled her. For a moment, she worried that something would go wrong, that she wouldn’t be able to complete the tradition, that the power of the Valstars would end with her. Which was ridiculous; she was a fully-fledged mage in her own right and thus probably the most prepared of all the lords in living memory. The others would’ve had to rely purely on Stariel’s magic.
The Prince of Secrets Page 22