Firebrand (16 page)

Chapter Thirteen

There was a half moon. Just enough light to show the way. The path dipped to the right and, not as sure footed as the Mage and Teezal, Amber walked slowly. She felt something just beyond the fringes of her consciousness whispering to her. Her face twitched and she cocked her head but the voice remained indistinct. She gave her head a barely perceptible shake and focused on Tolhram’s voice.

“Teezal has spoken to you of the fairy world and of your cradle of humanity,” he said as he walked with Amber toward an opening in the brush, “but she neglected telling you how a third world affects you.” They entered a clearing, Tolhram acknowledging the bows of those ringing the center with a nod as he passed each one.

“If you mean the trolls, I know about them.” Amber pressed her lips together as the image of the troll who invaded her home formed clearly in her mind. “First hand. You needn’t worry about that.”

“It was Teezal’s charge to first protect you and then to prepare you. Not for an underworlder to assault you before you are ready.”

Amber put a hand on her grandfather’s arm. “Maybe she didn’t think I was ready to handle it.”

“She was to make you ready. She put emotion before duty and, in turn, she put the Triad at risk as well as the lives of the beings in all three worlds. She knows the cost of such…” he paused briefly as though measuring his words carefully before lifting his chin and continuing, “such human feelings.”

She met his eyes and sighed. “You don’t like humans very much, do you?”

“Only as much as necessary considering we need them to survive.”

“We humans…” she began assiduously. He silenced her with a wave of his hand. “You are not human, Amber.”

She visibly prickled before lowering her head and looking away from him. “So people remind me.”

“Do not be afraid of the Becoming,” Tolhram advised her. “Embrace it. Feed on the knowledge it brings.”

“I know more than I would like already,” Amber replied, capturing his gaze once again.

The Mage glanced at Alara who stared back with a great sadness in her eyes. “No, you don’t.”

Before Amber could react to the foreboding she saw in his eyes, Tolhram stepped aside. Behind him, in the middle of the copse, a tall, handsome, heavily muscled man with skin the color of a pecan hull stood. Long braids of jet-black hair hung down his back, reminding her of those Teezal wore when she morphed into her fairy being. When he raised his hand in a salute, she could see the muscles of his arm ripple through the light leather body armor. His other hand gripped what looked to her like a spear with a curved barb at the end of it.

“This is Kubla, the captain of my royal guard and my bravest most trusted warrior,” Tolhram said.

Amber stared at her grandfather. “Okay.” Skepticism shaded her voice.

“He has been summoned to teach you the art of the
hookra
.” Kubla extended the spear toward her as Tolhram spoke. “It is a formidable weapon which you must learn to use to protect yourself and others.”

Amber looked from Kubla to her grandfather. “You want me to fight him? He’s twelve feet tall,” she said incredulously.

Tolhram shook his head.” I see the human in you is quick to exaggerate. You must learn to control that whim. It could cloud your judgment during battle.”

“My judgment is just fine,” she countered, looking the warrior up and down. “I’m just not very good at estimating,” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He is kind of big, though.”

“His dimensions are unimportant. What I want you to do is learn from him.”

Amber pursed her lips. “Okay but what is he?”

As Kubla assumed a fighting stance, Tolhram continued, “He is a blend, like you. His fairy blood has been tainted with that of an Orc.”

One corner of Kubla’s mouth lifted in a sneer, clear disapproval of Tolhram’s assessment. Amber’s breath caught as a guttural growl rose, overtaking and then muting the voices inside her in her head. Everything surrounding her blurred and she could not take her eyes from Kubla. He was clearly agitated by Tolhram’s words, his musky exotic scent rising to her senses and bringing every cell in her body to screaming awareness as a different kind of heat rose within her belly. Her breathing deepened and her eyes fixed on the weapon in his hand.

“A
hookra
.” She narrowed her gaze, her eyes becoming hooded like those of a hawk. “So do I get one?”

“Indeed, princess.” Kubla’s timbre befitted his stature well as he addressed Amber. His left hand curled into a fist and he struck the
hookra
across the strange markings etched on the wide barbed blade. A blue-white flash proceeded what sounded like a blacksmith hitting iron hot from the fire before a second
hookra
appeared suspended in front of him. In one fluid motion, he snatched it from the air and threw it to her.

Seemingly by its own volition, Amber’s hand lifted and she caught the weapon in the center of the handle. The light weight of the spear surprised her and she bounced it up and down in her palm a few times to test its thickness and stability.

When she looked up from the weapon, Kubla was circling her, twirling the spear in front of him and then over his head. Moonlight caught first the metal barbs on the weapon’s blade and then the beads at the ends of his braids mesmerizing her.

“You must watch all of me Princess. You must anticipate the angle of the strike by the way I move and the moment it will happen by the way I look at you.” He circled her, an aura around him becoming visible and seeming to ripple as the blade cut the air.

He locked her gaze with his. “Sometimes you will expect that I will come from one place, when in fact it will be from another.” With lightning speed he thrust the weapon forward toward her legs but with an equally quick motion, Amber brought her
hookra
down and blocked the blow.

Kubla’s eyes glanced over to the Mage, a slight smile curving his mouth before he countered with another blow aimed at Amber’s head. She ducked and slid down to her knees while sweeping her weapon at his legs. Kubla jumped, avoiding the blow and brought his weapon down toward her. Rolling away, she dodged the blow, the blade of his
hookra
missing her by mere inches.

Amber jumped to her feet and quickly engaged him. Suddenly, they were locked in the fierce and rapid movements of battle. For every thrust Kubla made, Amber was able to block the blow. She jumped over the spear shaft when he aimed it at her legs and leaned away, almost bending backward in two when he lunged at her chest.

Dust rose from the ground as they battled, nearly obliterating the combatants. Amber struggled for air, her lungs expanding until she thought they would burst but she kept fighting. She watched him warily, her gaze moving from his eyes to his hands, waiting for him to commit. They circled and parried and traded blows and blocks, each waiting for the opening to attack.

Kubla moved in a stutter step, kicking up a rain of small rocks. As Amber moved to block them, Kubla nicked her arm with the point of his blade. “You must ignore tricks and focus on the task,” he challenged.

As a warm rivulet of red ran down her skin, anger filled her, spreading through her faster than a breaking dam but with as much force as the river surging through it. With a scream that mimicked that of the Dullahan itself, she attacked. Strikes that left a silvery path like lightning splitting the air came so quickly that Kubla could do nothing more than defend himself.

She saw nothing but him and went at him like a demon, her mouth curled in a teeth-baring snarl. A chorus rose inside her head. Die! Die! She reorganized the loudest voice as her own but was powerless to stop it.

Kubla struggled to stay on his feet but she was too fast and soon found himself on his back. Amber stood over him, her spear poised at his throat, her heart racing. Kubla released his spear in a universal sign of surrender.

End it!
A voice inside her commanded. Now! She inched the blade down and parted the upper layer of his skin. A thin point of blood appeared, making the heat inside her rise and the blood in her veins seemed to boil.

The urge to push the blade completely into his throat was nearly all consuming. She wanted to kill him, sever his head from his body and let the blood color the ground crimson. The feeling infested her like a million ants, all moving up to one purpose. Her chest heaved with her deep breaths as she gripped the weapon with both hands, elbows bent ready to strike him.

All eyes focused on the man at the point of Amber’s weapon. He showed no fear, not on his face nor in his eyes. He waited. They all waited.

Finally Teezal stepped forward, hand extended. “Amber, hand me the
hookra
.”

Teezal’s voice calmed her. Amber looked from Kubla to Teezal, who nodded. With great difficulty, she slowed her breathing, the snarling anger slowly dissipating from her face. She threw the spear aside and straightened.

Kubla stood and bowed to her, then walked away.

“I wanted to kill him,” Amber said, watching him leave. She turned her gaze first to Tolhram and then to Teezal. “I could have killed him. When I drew his blood, smelled its coppery scent, I wanted see it pour onto the ground.” She drew in her brows. “Why did I want to do that?” Why?”

Tolhram stepped forward. “Because within you there is another bloodline, stronger than the rest if not controlled,” he said. “You are also part troll.”

Amber’s eyes widened and suddenly she knew. The way the blood pumped inside her when she became agitated, the exhilaration she felt when she’d wanted above all else to take the warrior’s life, the sensation of battle that had been so heady it had almost been erotic, there was no other explanation.

She folded her arms across her stomach. “A troll,” she whispered. “How can that be?” She looked from Teezal to Tolhram and to the beautiful woman they said was her birth mother.

“You carry the bloodlines of the humans, the fae and the trolls. You are a tri-bred. The first. The only. The Child of the Triad,” Tolhram said.

Amber looked down at her hands. The slender fingers and softly curving palm belied nothing of what she had just learned. “No, you must be wrong.” She looked up, shaking her head in denial.

“What your grandfather says is true.. The blood of trolls also lives in me.” Alara reached out to her but Amber pulled back.

“But you’re beautiful. Trolls are hideous.”

“Some less than others if the tainted blood comes from generations long ago.”

Amber looked at the Mage. “You?”

He shook his head. “No, Tari Turinun, your grandmother. My wife.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s gone.”

“You cast her out? Like me?”

Tolhram took a deep breath filled with obvious pain. “No. After your birth, she chose a fate that cursed her forever.”

“What happened?” Amber asked in a whisper.

“First, know that your grandmother was beautiful, Amber. Never doubt that. She wore rose petals and white feathers and had the green wings of a butterfly. As gentle as a summer breeze, she loved to sit and look up at the clouds in the sky. But that all changed when our daughter--your mother…” he gestured to Alara, “became with child by the human Brian McKenna. When Tari found out she withdrew, began to dress in black feathers and ventured out only on moonless nights. I knew something was wrong but she would not talk to me about it.

“When Alara began her birthing pains, Tari fled. I found her on the barbican of the castle, standing near the stone edge. She had cut her hair and slashed her wings to pieces. I tried to help her but she would not even let me touch her. As she began to inch backward, she told me that eons ago, during one of the Terrible Wars, members of her family had been captured by trolls. Survival required those captured to do things, terrible things. After the war was over and those confined were set free, some delivered the spawns of their captors. A few of these children survived, some heavily deformed, some with barely perceptible troll markings. All were hidden and carefully protected. Over the generations, some were able to blend into the fae. Tari’s ancestors were those.”

“And you never knew?” Amber breathed.

“No, but on that terrible day when she explained that she had never expected her own daughter to mate with a human and the issue of that pairing would bring about the end of everything.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?” Amber questioned.

“She was crazed with grief and stepped up onto the parapet ledge, begging my forgiveness for her deception. I tried to tell her that I loved her but she would not listen. She knew that the divination had been set in motion. She knew of the pain to come and it was too much for her. Before I could reach her, she stepped off. Without her wings to sustain her, there was no chance for her to survive. I rushed down but by the time I got into the courtyard, her body was gone.”

“What do you mean gone?” Amber asked, her voice shaky.

“Fae who end their own lives become murks. Neither alive or dead, they are shadows that live between the realms where time cannot touch them. They are doomed to an existence that will never end.” Tolhram’s chest heaved. “And my existence is empty without her. I love and mourn her still.’

Amber spun to face Teezal. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she shouted. Suddenly an even more terrible realization washed over her. “Does David know?”

Alara stepped forward. “He does.”

“How could he keep this from me?” Amber spun in a circle, directing her words to them all. “How could all of you?”

“There is no other like you, Amber,” Tolhram replied. “No one knows the extent of your power or even which ones would manifest upon your full maturity. It began with your puberty and Teezal could do no more than wait for the Becoming. We did not know if you were intrinsically able to contain those feelings of the blood lust by a conscious choice of your own will until you were tested.” Sadness mixed with pride fluttered across his face. “And because Kubla lives, we know that you can.”

A slight wind caught tendrils of Amber’s hair and they eddied about her face like an aura. “Is there a chance that it make overtake me?” she asked, a shakiness in her tone.