Desert Tales (9 page)

C
HAPTER
11

Rika wasn't sure how long it took to get Sionnach to the safety of her cave, nor was she certain how many faeries saw her carrying him across the desert. She knew it was best to hide his injured state, but trying to find a stealthy way across the openness of the desert wasn't an option. If anyone were foolish enough to further threaten the faery in her arms, she'd deal with them. Being remade as a faery strong enough to hold the weight of winter inside her skin meant that Rika—like every other former Winter Girl—was stronger than most any solitary faery. She'd never used that strength to assert dominance in the desert, never felt the need to do so, but she was willing to do so now. She'd thought she'd surrendered the anger she'd felt over Maili's behavior on the cliff and in the club a couple of weeks ago. She'd written it off as faery posturing, but now that she was lowering an unconscious faery to her bed, she wasn't feeling anywhere near forgiving.

The bed upon which she'd lowered Sionnach was nothing more than a pile of various blankets and furs. Furs weren't truly the sort of thing that made sense in the desert, but she'd never had reason to explain it to another faery. Her bed made her feel comfortable because of its familiarity; it was an admitted result of having lived in a simple home both as a mortal and as a Winter Girl.

Sionnach hadn't opened his eyes yet. Despite the jarring journey across the desert, he remained silent and unconscious now even as he rolled restlessly.

Rika started a fire. It wasn't the first time she'd tended his injuries, but familiarity with the process didn't make it any more palatable.

She filled a basin with water and cleaned away the blood and dirt. The skin around the wounds was already hot to the touch, and a fever had begun to consume him. She soaked a cloth in the water, tried to cool his feverish skin, and hoped that the fox faery's body would begin to push the metal out. Time and again, she put ice-cold water on Sionnach until the fever let up a bit. Time and again, she poured the red-tinged water into a crack in the cave floor where it would vanish into the depths below her.

“Wake up, Shy,” she ordered.

The bits of metal that had broken off the rusty weapon were caught in his body, but the natural antipathy faeries had to iron should cause his body to try to expel the iron that was battering around inside his body and sickening him. She watched for any sign of the metal and continued to work to keep his fever down.

Still, he stayed that way—thrashing in her bed but unconscious—as night fell.

Finally, a piece of metal worked its way out of his body; it writhed under his skin, and Rika tried not to flinch away as she pushed it toward the still-open wounds and extracted it.

She lit candles and sat beside his bed. At her side were a ceramic bowl, a tiny carved bone knife, a water-filled basin, and the bloodstained wet cloth. In the bowl was the small misshapen piece of metal. If he didn't wake by morning, she'd have to try actively locating the rest of the iron in his body or send for a healer.

“I hate this,” she told the unconscious faery.

Still he said nothing.

A second piece of the poisonous metal pressed against his skin as his body tried to expel it. This time, she had to cut into his skin to remove it. He gasped, but he didn't wake.

She stayed by his side, watching for more of the iron pieces. They were so small that once they were removed they didn't hurt him or her unless they actually touched them. Unfortunately, most of them were also inside his body.

By the time he finally opened his eyes, it was midday, and the cavern was illuminated by a blazing fire that cast dancing shadows over the stalactites and stalagmites, and the candles were dripping wax on various surfaces of the room.

Sionnach had dark shadows under his eyes and sallow skin. He looked around the cavern, his gaze taking in every detail before looking back at her. “Where's Jayce?”

Rika knew she shouldn't be surprised: Sionnach had been supportive of her interest in Jayce. That didn't change the absurdity of his question. He'd been stabbed, and his first question was about a mortal boy he barely knew. “Jayce is with his friends; I couldn't bring both of you.”

“I'm here. Go get him.”

Rika shook her head. “I can't leave you alone and unprotected.”

“Rika—”

“No.” She grabbed the basin and walked away from him, trying to hide her frustration. “You have
iron
bits in your body. It was rusty and parts shattered inside you.”

“You can't leave him where Maili can reach him.”

Standing in the middle of the cavern, basin clenched in her hand, she stared at the injured faery. “No. What I can't do is leave
you
here with iron in your skin, Shy. The pieces need to come out. I have two of them, but there are more.”

“So?” He shook his head. “Jayce is vulnerable. I need you to be with Jayce.”

“You need—” She cut herself off and walked away. Slowly, she poured out the water and then went to the little stream that ran through the cavern. She knelt and scooped up a basin full of fresh water. Convinced that her temper was back in check, she said, “You
need
taking care of. He's staying with friends. Just—”

“He's a mortal.”

The water was ice cold, a fact for which she had been grateful earlier when the fever had threatened to burn Sionnach's skin. She carried it over to him and resumed her seat on the ground. “He's a smart mortal.”

Sionnach opened his mouth to object, but instead, he let out a small sound of pain as the skin of his arm started pulsing, like something alive was squirming under it. He blanched as he looked at his arm. “She was clever this time.”

“No. She was stupid.” Rika tried to keep her now rising temper in check. He had confirmed that it
was
Maili who'd stabbed him. With a calm she didn't quite feel, Rika lifted the tiny bone knife and made a small incision in his arm. Her face emotionless, she plucked the minuscule fleck of rusty metal out and quickly dropped it into the ceramic bowl with the two other tiny pieces of metal already in it.

“Three for luck.” She took the bowl away, and after discarding the poison, she retrieved a new but tattered cloth and a bowl of clean water. As she walked back to his side, she said, “You know we can't ignore something like this.”

Despite how haggard he looked, Sionnach's smile suddenly became a familiar tricksy one, the expression she'd seen so often and feared she'd never see again. Even sick and on his back, he was spirited, and she couldn't help but smile back at him.

“We?”
he repeated. “There's a
we
in this, princess? I thought you were unwilling to get involved in faery politics?”

Carefully not looking at him, she sat on the ground next to the bed where he was recovering, dipped the cloth into the bowl of water, and then squeezed out the excess. His words forced her to face the part of being a faery that she had tried for years to avoid, but in the past few weeks, she'd been drawn into the world of faery politics and conflicts. First, Maili'd struck Jayce, then she'd fought with Rika, and now she'd stabbed Sionnach.

Sionnach didn't speak as she wiped away the fresh blood on his arm with the wet rag in her hand. He watched her motions, but avoided looking into her eyes. She'd had enough conversations with him over the past few years that she knew that he was merely waiting for her to admit what she'd rather not say. This alone she knew with complete certainty when it came to the fox faery: he was wily and patient.

She rinsed the blood from the rag in her hand, looking at the water rather than him, and said, “I don't seem to have many choices right now. The only other faery strong enough to hold order in the desert is bleeding in my bed.”

“And, sadly, far too weak for either of us to enjoy my being here . . .”

Her gaze snapped to him, and her cheeks colored with embarrassment. “You shouldn't say things like that.”

“Why? It's who I am.”

“But it's not . . . we're not . . .” She tried to look stern as she wiped blood from his stomach, looking at her hand rather than at his face. “You just shouldn't say things like that, Sionnach.”

“So it's Sionnach now, not Shy?” he murmured.

She met his gaze. “I can't . . . we're not like that.”

He looked serious now. He put his hand over hers, keeping her from escaping. “I know. You need a relationship without any ulterior motives. I knew that Jayce could give you that. I can't.”

She paused, processing the implications of his words and the feel of his hand on hers. If she were more fey, she'd focus on the offer that he wasn't making, at the admission he wasn't speaking, but she couldn't think about that. Her body tensed as if she were poised to flee. All she said was, “So you have ulterior motives?”

“Always.” Sionnach didn't look the least bit apologetic—nor did he remove his hand from hers.

“Will you tell me what they are?”

“Someday.” His tricksy smile returned, chasing away the seriousness that felt strangely heavy between them. “Some of them.”

“How am I to trust you then?”

Sionnach squeezed her hand once and then entwined his fingers with hers. He pulled her hand away from his bare skin but held on to her, keeping her from retreating. “You aren't to trust me . . . not on everything. Trust your instincts. Trust your judgment.”

“You're—”

“A faery by blood,” he interrupted. “Just like Keenan.”

She wasn't sure what Sionnach was admitting—that he was manipulative, capricious, deceitful?—but she did know that nothing she could think of was particularly comforting. Trusting a faery was what had gotten her into this strange world; it was why she had never had the mortal life that she'd wanted. Despite all of that, she
did
trust Sionnach. He was the closest friend she'd ever had in either her mortal or fey lives.

Sionnach used his grasp on her hand to turn her arm and then kissed the underside of her wrist where her pulse was thudding. “And, like the Summer King, I've never been prone to lingering; that's why I didn't try to get in your bed when we met. Jayce is good for you right now. I'm not. Not in that way. . . .”

Despite having known Sionnach for years, she felt off-kilter. She hadn't felt like a human girl for a very long time, but Sionnach was right in that she didn't want to be cast away as if she were unimportant. At the same time, she felt foolish that she hadn't realized that Sionnach had genuinely looked at her in any way other than as a friend. He'd flirted for years, but he was a fox faery. It was his nature. She'd thought he might have had such thoughts a couple of weeks ago on the night when he wore Jayce's face and pretended he would kiss her—and the next day—but then he'd helped her explain what she was to Jayce.

“You wanted me to be with Jayce,” she half protested. It seemed odd that he would admit that he'd thought of her in a way other than friends, yet continue to push her toward Jayce. She wasn't sure what to think, but she was unsettled by the realizations that Sionnach was eliciting—and the way he watched her.

“Go get Jayce, Rika,” Sionnach said gently as he released his hold on her hand. “I'm fine for the few moments you'll be away, and you have the mortal boy you wanted.”

Rika was silent as she watched him. She ran her recently freed fingers around the top rim of the water bowl. “I care for you, but I love him. He doesn't know, but I fell in love before he knew I existed. I just want that, to be loved—even though loving mortals is foolish.”

“Love—even with such finite creatures—is
everything
, Rika,” Sionnach said gently. “He's what I want for you, and I'm sure you're worried about him. Just go fetch him. Please?”

“Why?”

Sionnach pushed himself into a sitting position and reached out to take her hand from the bowl she now clutched tightly. She let go of it and instead busied herself putting extra pillows behind him so he was propped up on them.

“
Why?
” she repeated. “Why do you want me to be with Jayce if you . . .” She felt stupid, trying to verbalize what he didn't say.

“There's a price for spilling secrets,” he warned her.

“I know what you are, Shy. I've known since we met. ‘Fox faeries are equally loyal and deceitful,'” Rika said it as if she was reading it from a page. She shook her head. “I had a lot of time to read when I was hiding out here those first years—and even more
before
. . . when I carried winter. Cursed faeries are solitary faeries. Formerly mortal faeries are even more so.”

Sionnach looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't.

Rika picked up the knife from the floor, buying a moment to hide her hurt expression. She handed the knife to him hilt first. “I've
always
known what and who you were, but I still trusted you. I
do
trust you.”

“You probably shouldn't,” he said, but he looked happier than he usually did—not secretive, not tricksy, just genuinely happy.

Rika shrugged. “It sounds like I should. You just admitted that you cared enough not to seduce me.”

“What I need from you matters more than sex.” He gave her an impish grin before adding, “You're awfully scrawny anyhow. I usually like—”

“I know.” She held up a hand, grateful that he'd resorted to his usual lighthearted ways. “I've heard enough stories.”

Sionnach laughed, and then he promptly put a hand atop his injury. “Ouch . . . I'll stay right here and”—he glanced down at his wounds and scowled—“not laugh while you're gone.”

“I could stay,” she offered.

“No.” He made a shooing gesture. “Go get Jayce. Please?”