Bloodfeud (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 3) (15 page)

Roots be damned!

Rhin shuddered as he breathed, as warm air found his lungs. He was on his knees; he could feel it now. He arched his back and neck, letting his head loll backwards, and with every inhalation of cool air, he felt his face come back to life. Lips, then cheeks, and finally his eyes. With a great effort he cracked them open, peeling his eyelashes apart to find a vast dome of marble hanging above him, and a chandelier of wrought iron, gold-flecked root, and mole-bone.

There was only one queen in the world who would own something so disgustingly audacious: Fae Queen Sift.

Rhin let his head fall back until it felt level, and focused his eyes on what lay before him. There she was, just as expected; lounging casually in her beetle-horn throne, fingers resting against her lips, golden eyes narrowed in amusement.
She was thoroughly enjoying this
. It was plain as day.

With a crack of his neck, Rhin looked to his left and right, and found he was surrounded by the
bean sidhe
, grinning with their black mouths and decayed teeth. Their misty rags crept over the marble like sentient tentacles. Their sickly-green glow ebbed and flowed about them, emanating from the mist that wrapped their brown bone in gristle and sinew. They whined ever so softly in discordant unison, no doubt moaning at their collective wounds. Rhin had battled them the length of the pier and back again. The pine-knife had been splinters by the time their magick had felled him; their bones and ethereal flesh gouged and scraped. Rhin vaguely remembered his sword snapping at the hilt before the darkness had taken him.

One after the other they spoke, wailing in distant voices, jawbones scraping out the consonants.

‘The errand is fulfilled.’

‘We have delivered our prey.’

‘The one called Rhin Rehn’ar is yours.’

Sift waved her hands. ‘That you have, traitors. You may go back to your tunnels, until I have need of you once more.’

There was an awful moment where the banshees didn’t move. They just wafted back and forth, rasping to themselves, dripping vapour on the stone floor. They looked angry, jilted, like mercenaries discovering their coin-purses were lighter than usual. One even floated forward, hissing like an over-boiling pot. It placed a hand on Rhin’s shoulder and the faerie felt the cold spread through him again.

‘I command you to go!’ Sift snapped.

‘And so.’

‘We.’

‘Shall.’

The
bean sidhe
rasped one by one. Slowly, they faded into the air, screeching as they departed. Rhin and the Fae Queen were all too swiftly alone.

Sift turned to look at him, and he at her. Their eyes duelled for a time.

‘Rhin Rehn’ar,’ she said. His name was the scrape of a knife-tip over slate. ‘Returned to us at last. Put up quite a fight, so I see. Impressive.’

It took a while for Rhin to make his lips work, but when he did, they dripped with sarcasm. It made sense to get the jabs in while he still could.

‘Started referring to yourself in the third person have you, Sift? That’s rich, even for you.’

The irritable flash in her eyes was so very satisfying, Rhin went for another; a coarse dig, unrefined, and cheap, but sometimes that’s exactly what a witch like her needed.

‘And I see you’ve got fatter since I escaped your clutches.’

That brought her rearing up out of her throne and marching towards him. Her hand clouted him around the face, again and again, back and forth, until he was back in the void and struggling for air.

Rhin came round to find Sift back in her throne, hands still bloody, a tight little grin on her face.

‘I cannot tell you how enjoyable that was, Rehn’ar,’ she said, picking some of the blood from her fingers. ‘I had expected better of you. Some manners, at least.’

‘It’s my pleasure to disappoint.’ Rhin spat blood on her marble.

‘Fascinating creatures, are they not, the
bean sidhe?
Succeeded where the White Wit failed. I should have gone to them first, instead of wasting a perfectly good mercenary.’

Rhin chuckled, thinking back to the night of the storm in Fell Falls, and seeing Finrig punched through with a bullet. ‘He was almost as foul a soul as you, Sift. The world’s one faerie better off.’

Sift leaned forwards in her throne and clapped her hands to her knees. Her wings buzzed irritably.

‘Ah yes, your little righteous speeches! How I’ve missed hearing them. Tell me again how I’ve lost my way, and become corrupt in my years. Or was it that you were a coward and couldn’t handle the pressure of being my general? As I told you many years ago, Rhin, it takes a queen to give the order, but a soldier to wield the sword. Both our hands are drenched in blood, my little hypocrite.’

Rhin’s teeth were clenched so tightly he could have made diamonds. His words barely made it out.

‘You turned us into something barbaric. Something twisted and broken. I would not be a part of it. That was why I left.’

Sift exploded. ‘AND TOOK MY HOARD WITH YOU!’ she bellowed, making Rhin flinch. There was magick as well as volume in that shout; raw and angry, pushing him backwards. ‘No Fae steals from me and lives!’

‘And I’d do it all again,’ Rhin shot back. ‘That reminds me, how are your little wars going?’ He half-expected another barrage of blows, judging by the dark shade of Sift’s cheeks. But instead she laughed, filling the throne room with cackling.

‘Why do you think I brought you back?’

‘Hopefully because you’ve seen the error of your ways and want to apologise before setting me free, never to bother me again?’ When all he received was a fierce stare, he shook his head. ‘You want to hang a blade over my neck and see my head in a basket? Toss me into the Hollow for the moles to eat? Dangle me from the Coil until I starve to death? Am I close?’

‘No, Rhin, you are not,’ Sift hissed, eyes afire. ‘The very definition of property is something you own outright, no contest. You, Rehn’ar, are now my property, and as such I can, and will, do anything I please with you. You think you have seen barbaric things as a soldier of mine? They will pale in comparison to what I have planned. I have
years
of fun to have with you. Not even your little pet boy can help you now.’

Rhin couldn’t help but twitch at that.

‘And when I finally grow bored, perhaps a decade from now, you will beg me to end your life, and ask for my forgiveness.’

Rhin bowed his head. His tongue was suddenly parched. No wit would come forth; no words to make a mockery of the fate that had been so eloquently illustrated for him. He could see it in Sift’s eyes; she meant every last damn word, and after several centuries of knowing her, he was sure she would see it through.

She would do everything but kill him, bringing him back from the brink, time and time again, until he was a broken shade of the faerie he had once been. Rhin saw it all spread before him, and it chilled him more than a banshee’s gaze.

As Merion would have put it:
this would simply not do
. Rhin had two choices left, as far as he could see. He would escape or he would die; and in either case, Sift would not be given one ounce of satisfaction.

Rhin narrowed his eyes, and, with effort, met Sift’s gloating gaze.

‘Do your worst!’

‘Oh,’ Sift chuckled. ‘I shall.’

A CHANGE OF PLAN

2nd August, 1867

M
erion tapped the feather of the quill to his chin and pondered over his words.

C,

I’m bored of waiting it out. I know W is in Clovenhall. Have you found him yet? Or the deeds? Three days and still no letter. Planning for 10th.

M.

There wasn’t a spelling mistake in sight. He just wondered if it was a little too rude. He pulled a face, and dipped the quill in the ink-pot.

P.S. Hope you are well.

He knuckled his forehead.
Doltish
.

After a moment more spent grumbling, he blew the letter dry and found an envelope. Then he placed it into the tiny drawer hidden under Calidae’s desk. (No surprise that it was sat directly next to her father’s. Ever the studious one, that Calidae. He wondered if she had ever known a childhood.)

The boy left the study and worked his way through the bare halls once more. A few sticks of furniture had been left behind, standing wrapped in white sheets, like children playing ghosts. Seeing their ancestral home in all its dusty glory revealed a different side of the Serpeds. A handful of portraits watched him creep along. Distant or dead family, even one or two of Calidae, boring into him even through ink and oil.

It was an odd feeling to be there alone, left to pry. He had made enemies of the Serpeds before he had truly known them. On his first visit, he had still held them as sharp shapes in his mind, painted them in black and white. This was the third time he had trudged their halls, and now those images had been filed down, smudged into grey. Merion understood it all now. Castor Serped and Karrigan Hark were the same. Opposite sides of the same gleaming coin; each working for their family’s success, doing whatever it took to get there. Castor simply occupied the opposite end of the moral spectrum, and that was why Merion did not regret killing him. Calidae was another matter, one he refused to entertain for now.

The Spit was a jut of land poking into the Thames estuary. Slickharbour was the town around it, and Slickharbour Spit was the Serped estate, all sweeping walls and square towers. It looked completely out of place.

Merion snuck back along the beach, dodging into the woods here and there to disguise his tracks. He was getting good at this, after two days. Rhin would be proud. He was helped no end by the complete lack of guards. All of Castor’s staff and lordsguards had accompanied him to Fell Falls; as had all his riches and prized possessions. Both of those had turned to ash. Slickharbour Spit was now a shell; abandoned, locked up tight like a rabid dog.

From the Spit to the road was a short walk, and from there, another quick jaunt along the high street to the rumbleground station, the most isolated in the new network. Both he and his feet thanked the Almighty. He had seen far too much of London flagstone and cobble. His feet were so calloused he might as well have had hooves. The rumbleground train meant he could get to Slickharbour and back in under two hours, and with minimal walking. It cost a pretty penny, but he had a few of those to spare.

Merion let the rattling of the aptly named trains lull him into a broken sleep, full of the hissing of clockwork doors and garbled announcements from the hoarse conductors. Before America, he had loved these journeys, pressing his nose up to the glass to glimpse the lights, soot-painted workers, and the over-sized rats scurrying through the dark.

As always, sleep was a thief, stealing away the concept of time. Merion almost missed his stop and had to snatch his cloak from the snapping doors to avoid being dragged along the tracks. These new trains might have been fast, but they came with their dangers.

Fading through halos of darkness and light, he wound his way up the spiral staircase to the street. Other passengers crowded around him. The tramping of their feet on the iron stairs became a shared, monotonous beat; a silent march of people sharing an escape from the depths before dispersing. Each to their separate ways and lives, probably never destined to meet again. All of them mere threads in the tapestry of city life, interwoven for that one moment. In the city, it was as much connection as a lone stranger could hope for.

Merion thumbed his nose, sighed and took a moment to stand in a doorway, sneaking looks to the empty patch of brick down by his side.
Lone and strange, indeed
. His tongue felt bored from the lack of conversations shared, his cheeks unaccustomed to smiling. Powered by determination though he was, Merion felt lonely. With only his thoughts for company, and so far nothing but silence from Calidae, he was beginning to play host to doubt.

The young Hark pointed himself back to the river. He’d developed the habit of taking a route past the airship docks. It seemed to be the only sort of recreation he could afford, staring up at the colourful beasts as they flitted and hovered around three tall docking towers. He enjoyed eyeing them, and despite the apparent chaos, he had begun to notice their patterns. One tower dealt with the major cargo zeppelins, or the heavies as he had dubbed them, whilst the other two juggled everything from airships to airskiffs, two at a time and in rapid succession.

Merion watched a grey and red airship swing away from the closest tower at a fair clip, soaring off into the clouds, southwards to Port’s Mouth, or so he guessed. He always like to try and guess.

Once the distraction of airships and other such gravity-defying wonders had dried up, Merion pressed on, sloping down a cobbled hill towards a nest of capillary streets that stood apart from the main thoroughfares. It was a warm day, and the stench of the gutters almost made his eyes water. At least there was shade beneath the crooked roof-tiles and disjointed water pipes.

Between two factories whose chimneys were battling to see which could produce the most smoke, was an alleyway that curved at an odd angle. Merion checked over his shoulder before ducking into it. Any other passer-by would have missed the rusty plaque just above the cobbles, etched with a faint six-pointed star. It had taken Merion several passes to notice it.

The alley led him left, right, and almost back on himself, until he stood before a small doorway. The light was on, thank the Almighty. He had no desire to wait about in the stink. Pushing the door inwards, he strode into the cool darkness of the little shop.

The walls were festooned with an assortment of tools, from the new to the old and the practically ancient. Pots of nails and bolts sat around the counter like old drunks clinging to a bar. A woman with short, cropped hair waited behind it, and offered him a half-hearted wave.

‘Morning, Miss Ferrit,’ he bade her.

‘Back again?’ she asked, not overly pleased at the sight of him.

‘Indeed I am,’ said Merion, dropping a little coarseness into his voice to hide his high-born accent.