The Dark Throne (4 page)

“Darkhill,” I said.

“The Court of Night and Winter has defended itself most valiantly,” Farin said, diving in a dizzying arc from one of the crossbeams.

“Does Mab know you’ve been crowned?” I looked at Vell intently. She gave me a wolfish smile.

“Tess, there’s no way she
doesn’t
know.”

Luca crossed his arms. “The Seelie say that Brightvale collapsed because of the magnitude of the power.”

“The power that I used to crown you?”

“It’s a wonder we’re not all dead.” Vell gazed at me intently.

“I had help,” I said, reaching out one hand to brush the hilt of the Caedbranr with one finger. The simple contact sent a shiver of pain up my arm. I grimaced. “The Sword, and Titania….” I frowned. “Is she all right? Titania?”

“She’s more than all right,” Vell said, perching lightly on the edge of my bed as she wiped her hands with a damp cloth. “She’s gathered the Court. And she’s been teaching me.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You? Being taught by a Sidhe Queen?”

Vell raised an eyebrow at me. “No need to be sarcastic, my Bearer. Unlike you, I don’t have a sentient weapon of power to teach me about my limits and abilities.”

I snorted. “If that’s what you think the Sword does, then you’re sadly mistaken.” The Sword gave a strident tone of indignant protest. I chuckled. “So what are the new queenly powers then?”

“Well,” Vell considered. “The main thing I had to learn was controlling the connection with my Three. That’s new…and strange.”

“You mean to say you didn’t have telepathic connections with others before you were crowned?”

Vell made a face at me. “The pack is similar. But not exactly…we can’t really
draw
on each other’s power in a concrete way.”

“So what you’re saying is that you have three juiced-up battery packs ready for you to take their power,” I said.

“I have no idea what that means but I assume it’s an accurate mortal metaphor,” Vell replied drily. “And I think that’s why I didn’t quite get along with Mab. She isn’t really…
discriminate
…when she draws on her Three.”

I tilted my head. “So can you hear their thoughts? Or see what they see? How does it work?”

Vell chuckled. “I’m probably not supposed to be telling you queenly secrets.” She shrugged and drew her legs up to fold them beneath her, sitting cross-legged on the side of the bed. “But, seeing as how you’re the Bearer…it depends on how wide I have the connections. I’m the one who controls how much I can feel or see.”

“So it’s a one-way conduit? They can’t feel you or hear your thoughts?”

“No, they can to an extent,” Vell said thoughtfully, “but mostly I control it. Or I had to learn to control it. It was pretty chaotic the first couple of days.”

“I’d imagine it would be confusing to have someone else in your head. But I know what that feels like…sentient weapon of power and all.” I frowned as I suddenly remembered the slim child’s hand atop the Crown of Bones. “Do you know what Arcana is now that you can hear her thoughts?”

“Well. I should have explained better.
Normally
with a Queen and her Three, or at least the way Titania tells me, the Queen has a connection to each of the three. I do have a connection with Arcana, but because of what she is…it’s different than with Finnead and Gray.”

“We still don’t know what kind of creature she is, only that she has great power,” Luca said. A low growl rolled from Kianryk.

“I take it you’re still not a fan,” I said.

“Anything that wears another’s skin…I am
not a fan
, as you say.” His ice-blue eyes went distant and he flexed his scarred hand.

“Why those three? And how do you think Mab will react when she finds out that Finnead is one of
your
Three, now?”

Vell smiled again. “So many questions, so soon after awakening. I suppose I should not have expected any less from you.”

I smiled in return. “What can I say, I hate to disappoint.”

She looked at the candle on my bedside table, staring into the flame contemplatively. “Even though I’m the High Queen, I still don’t have all the answers.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…overwhelm you.” I sighed and settled back into my pillows.

“As for your question about Finnead…just because I’m connected to my Three doesn’t quite mean that I understand them.” Beryk slid around the end of the bed and laid his head in Vell’s lap, eyes half-lidded in lupine pleasure as she scratched behind his ears. “Sidhe are much more complex than wolves.” Beryk gave a grunt of agreement.

Weariness settled into my bones and I tried to stifle a yawn unsuccessfully. I gave a little sigh of frustration.

“I know you just woke up, but your body needs to heal,” Vell told me. “Next time you wake up, you can eat some broth.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Broth, I can’t wait.”

Vell gave Beryk a last rub behind the ears and then playfully pinched his nose as she pushed his head from her lap. The black wolf yipped and Vell tackled him, rolling to the floor. Kianryk gleefully threw his substantial bulk into the fray, eliciting a wordless exclamation from Vell.

“You’re not going to join in?” I asked Luca as he stood by my bed, watching with crossed arms.

“I haven’t been in a
playful
mood lately,” he answered.

“Good thing Kianryk still has enough playfulness for both of you, then,” I muttered. That coaxed a smile from the big Northman. “Ah, I was afraid you’d lost your sense of humor back in Brightvale.”

He looked down at me with earnest blue eyes, golden hair gleaming bright in the candlelight. “I was worried.”

His gaze sent a crackle of electricity through me, despite the tiredness tugging at my eyelids. “About me?”

“Yes.” He looked down at his hands. “I was very afraid, when you closed your eyes.” He swallowed and looked at me again. “I thought you might never open them again.”

I remembered the desperation in his voice, the last thing I heard as I slipped into the blackness as we fled Brightvale. The intensity in Luca’s eyes made my throat tighten with emotion. “You know I’m too stubborn to die.” My attempt at a smile wobbled but I managed to keep it from capsizing into a grimace.

Luca let my charade stand, answering my wavering smile with his own. “In that way, I’m glad you’re stubborn, Tess.”

The sound of my name on his lips sent a shiver down my spine. I swallowed as he leaned closer. Then the bed shuddered with a sudden impact and a stream of Northern curses erupted from the tangle of limbs and fur. Luca leaned back with a rueful smile, watching in amusement as Vell disentangled herself from the two wolves. Beryk still snapped playfully at Kianryk, but the two wolves tactfully moved their wrestling away from the High Queen. A livid red weal crossed her cheekbone.

“That’s going to be a beautiful bruise,” I commented, yawning again. “Whatever are your loyal subjects going to think?”

“Whatever they think, they can keep their mouths shut about it,” said Vell unconcernedly, fixing Beryk with a baleful look. The black wolf merely grinned, pink tongue lolling over glistening white teeth. Vell shook her head. “They aren’t used to being indoors still.”

“They’re wolves. I’d be worried if they were used to being indoors,” I said sleepily.

Vell looked at me sharply. “Are you sure you don’t have some
ulfdrengr
blood somewhere back in your ancestry?”

“My uncle helps train German Shepherds for the Marines, does that count?” I yawned again.

Vell grinned and shook her head, rubbing her cheek absentmindedly. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you when you wake up again.”

“Go do queenly things,” I murmured as my eyes closed, and I heard Vell chuckle as I drifted again into sleep.

Chapter 2

W
hen I awoke again, it felt like morning. I blinked and yawned, surprised that I didn’t have to fight my way through a tide of pain to open my eyes. The rhythmic sound of a whetting-stone sliding down a blade silvered the air. Calliea sat on a chair drawn up by the fireplace, the light of embers shining scarlet on one of her short twin swords, which she held across her lap as she drew the whetting-stone down its length with careful concentration. Forin sat cross-legged on the nearby table, his own small blades arrayed before him. He set down his blade and gave a courtly bow in my direction, luminescent wings carrying him aloft.

“How are you feeling, my Bearer?” Calliea asked without taking her eyes from her blade. Her hair was bound up in braids as it had been before the battle at Brightvale.

“Better,” I said, my voice scratchy but usable. I swallowed and glanced at the bedside table. There was a cup and pitcher set within reach; I carefully sat up in bed, enduring a few stabs of pain from my hands but nothing like what I’d encountered when I’d first awoken. “How are
you?
I heard you almost died.”

“Nasty poison, that shadow-creature had,” she replied, underlining her words with another slide of the whetting-stone down her sword. “But the
vyldretning
burned it out of me.”

“
Vyldretning,
” I repeated.

“The Wild Queen,” said Calliea, glancing up at me with a hungry glint in her eyes.

I took a deep breath, looking down at my hands. Vell had wrapped them akin to how I would have wrapped them before boxing class, leaving parts of my fingers exposed and allowing me to move my hands. “That’s the High Queen?” I asked.
Well, here goes nothing
, I thought, grasping the cup awkwardly with my left hand and grimacing as I curled the fingers of my right hand around the handle of the pitcher. It was rather light—I realized that Calliea had purposefully left it about a quarter full—but it still took concentration to make my wayward hand obey me as I poured. Calliea kept her attention on her blade. I splashed water onto the nightstand, my hand shaking as I set down the pitcher, but I clenched my jaw and levered the cup to my lips, lifting it with both hands. It was less painful if I used my fingertips and thumbs, so that the cup didn’t touch the raw spots on the center of my palms.

A sense of triumph filled me as I finished the last bit of water in the cup, and I smiled wryly. Calliea looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. “Feeling accomplished over pouring my own water,” I explained.

“It is an accomplishment,” contributed Forin from overhead, near the rafters.

Calliea set her blade to one side and lifted her shirt, showing me a jagged dark scar arcing from her ribcage across onto her stomach. “I felt the same way when I was able to pull my own shirt over my head.”

“Looks like that was nasty.”

“Well, it wasn’t pleasant,” she replied drily. “Forin, would you please let the
vyldretning
know that the Bearer is awake?”

Forin nodded to Calliea. “Of course, my lady.” He disappeared through a small circular hole cut above one of the crossbeams—the Glasidhe’s version of a door, I realized with a smile.

“So courtly,” Calliea murmured. “Unlike his sister, the fierce little thing.”

“Don’t let her hear you call her little,” I cautioned. Calliea laughed and stood. She retrieved a copper kettle from over the embers of the fire, bringing it to the bedside table along with a bowl and spoon. “I’ll pour the broth, just because the kettle is a bit warm, but then you’re on your own.”

I made a face at her. “I’m not sure how good I’m going to be with a spoon.”

“You need to use your hands,” she replied, pouring a stream of steaming broth into the bowl. “It helps with the healing.”

“Is that so,” I muttered, looking balefully at the spoon, which seemed to me a foreign instrument of immeasurable delicacy when I considered my clumsy bandaged hands. If I sat on the side of the bed, I’d be able to use the bedside table as, well, a table, so I carefully swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Calliea watched for a moment and then returned to her seat by the fireplace, picking up her blade and whetting-stone again. I stared at the bowl of broth and the spoon by its side. My stomach growled loudly as I inhaled the deliciously scented steam. I saw a small smile tip one corner of Calliea’s mouth, but she kept her eyes on her sword. I balanced the spoon between my first and second fingers, with my thumb adding some stability; and on my second attempt I managed to carefully ferry some broth to my mouth. I sighed as I swallowed.

“Did you burn your mouth?” Calliea paused and looked at me.

I shook my head. “No. This might just be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

She smiled. “If you finish the broth, I can see what I can do about getting you something a bit more solid. Like maybe stew.”

“That sounds delicious too,” I said honestly. It took most of my concentration to keep the spoon steady, and my stomach complained again. Apparently I was too slow at feeding myself, but I doggedly spooned the broth from the bowl until it was empty, resisting the urge to forego the silverware and drink right from the bowl. I dropped my spoon on the bedside table with a grin. “Small victories.”

Calliea chuckled. “Indeed.”

Forin glided back into the room through the little porthole. “The High Queen is finishing her duties and will be along shortly.”

I stretched my legs idly and eyed the distance from my bed to the other chair by the fireplace.

“How about that stew before you try walking?” Calliea suggested.

“My hands were burned, not my legs,” I grumbled, but the prospect of more solid sustenance was enough to convince me to stay seated on the edge of my bed while Calliea went to fetch the promised stew. Forin alighted on my bedside table.

“It is good to see you awake, my Bearer,” he said.

“Forin,” I said, “you know to call me Tess by now.”

He shifted his wings. “It is just that, with the crowning of the High Queen and the choosing of the
vyldgard…
there are many strangers about, Tess. It is easier to be…formal. My apologies.”

I waved one hand. “No need to apologize. I was just reminding you.”

The Glasidhe smiled. “Yes, my lady. Tess.”

I sat back against my pillow. “The choosing of the
vyldgard
, what is that all about?”