The Iron Sword (The Fae War Chronicles Book 1) (19 page)

The Vaelanmavar’s footsteps slowed, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him staring at me. Then he stopped, shifting to the center of the passageway so I couldn’t pass by him. I stopped a few paces away, and looked up at him, trying to keep my face carefully blank.

The Vaelanmavar was handsome, in a harder sort of way than most of the other Sidhe men. His dark hair, worn long, framed a sharply chiseled face, and his eyes were a startlingly pale blue. I suppressed a shiver as his eyes deliberately traveled up and down my body. It was a look I’d received at bars and parties, and I’d grown immune to it…but this wasn’t a bar or party, and the man looking at me was no fraternity boy or graduate student. He wore the Dark Sword at his hip, and one of his black-gloved hands strayed to the hilt as he finished his leisurely perusal.

I stiffened and forced myself not to jump backward like a frightened rabbit as the Vaelanmavar took a step forward. He seemed to sense my instinct to back away from him, and he smiled a cold, frightening smile. I clenched my jaw and fought to maintain a perfectly neutral expression, a blank slate.

“You are certainly a beautiful young thing,” he said in a soft, velvety voice that made my skin crawl. I decided I would have rather him challenged me to a duel, rather than rake his gaze over my body like I was an object he could possess. I chose to say nothing, keeping my calm gaze fixed coolly on his face. I hoped he couldn’t see the slight tremors beginning to make my hands shake. Adrenaline coursed through my limbs, boosted by the leftover glow of my frantic sprint.

“I can see,” he said, taking another step toward me, “why the Vaelanbrigh would want to bring you here, sweet little mortal.”

I fought the temptation to open my mouth and release the retort crouched on my tongue. Somehow I knew that nothing I said would have any effect on those cold blue eyes and that small, frightening smile. The Vaelanmavar surveyed me again, a distinctly predatory look on his coldly handsome face now. Perhaps he was taking my silence for weakness, I thought. Although I knew I was probably in very real danger, I was able to push away the limb-numbing fear that would freeze me on the spot. I couldn’t afford a misstep like that in front of a very dangerous Sidhe such as the Vaelanmavar. I concentrated on keeping my breathing even and my gaze steady. I brought my awareness to the dagger at my hip, knowing that if it came down to weapons, speed and surprise would be my only advantage…and even with an advantage of surprise on my side, the Vaelanmavar could probably still kill me without a second thought.

The Vaelanmavar took another small step forward, that small smile appearing again. He was enjoying himself. I felt a prick of intense disgust.

“Tell me, tender mortal,” he said slowly, pausing between each word and letting the sound of his voice caress the air between us, “how often has the Vaelanbrigh had you in his bed?”

I knew too late that I hadn’t been able to contain my flash of surprise and anger, that it had swept through my eyes before I’d been able to clear my expression. But I also noticed that the Vaelanmavar had pronounced Finnead’s title with a considerable amount of distaste, narrowing his eyes. I wondered whether the Vaelanmavar resented Finnead’s power and skill, whether he disliked the younger Knight for his rise to favor in the Queen’s eyes. Maybe I could use that to unsettle him.

“Ah, yes,” said the Vaelanmavar in a low voice that was very close to a purr, or a growl, “you thought your affair with the Vaelanbrigh was a secret.”

I kept my breathing slow and even. Obviously the Sidhe was utterly convinced that I’d been sleeping with Finnead...and a small part of me pointed out that I wouldn’t resent the opportunity, and I might have even taken it, if Finnead had made the offer. I felt a blush rising in my cheeks at the thought, and let that be my answer, however the Vaelanmavar wanted to interpret it.

He gave a low chuckle of satisfaction. “Oh, your surprise is delicious. I saw the look between you, when you were standing before the Queen.” He took another step, closing the distance between us, and I had to clench my fists at my side to stay still. I heard him taking a deep breath, and when I realized he was
smelling
me, my stomach clenched with sudden nausea.

The Vaelanmavar was standing slightly to my right, and thankfully I’d buckled my dagger at my left side. I moved slightly forward and to the left, so I could put my back to the wall of the passageway. The Sidhe moved with me, and took another step forward. I took a step backward, unwilling to let him touch me, and felt the coolness of the wall against my back. A slow wheel of profanities started turning in my mind, but I refused to let any of them cross my lips. I refused to let him see my fear.

“The Vaelanbrigh looked at you and I saw it in his eyes,” the knight said, his lips bare inches from my ear. One of his pale, spidery hands came up and stroked my hair tenderly. I pressed back hard into the wall, revulsion making my stomach churn. “He would give everything up for you.” His hand stroked my hair again. “And I can see why he finds you so alluring.” I felt his lips brush my ear, and I clenched my jaw so hard I thought my teeth would break.

I wanted to push the Vaelanmavar away and tell him that Finnead didn’t give a rat’s ass about me. But maybe I could use Finnead as protection, if the Vaelanmavar really thought that I was sleeping with him. I swallowed and hoped my voice would come out smooth. “And so what would you have me do, Vaelanmavar?” I asked in a low voice.

He leaned back, one hand on either side of my shoulders now, keeping me pinned to the wall. His pale blue eyes searched my face. “I would have you for myself,” he said, his voice half a growl.

“Do you think,” I said slowly and carefully, “that the Vaelanbrigh would appreciate you
poaching
his mortal?”

The Vaelanmavar’s eyes narrowed, and then he chuckled again. “That young upstart does not deserve a mortal lover. And in any case, he is absent at the moment, trying to impress Her Majesty by mounting a rescue attempt for those that are already lost.” He smiled mirthlessly. Then his eyes turned calculating. “I hope, for your own sake, that you are not…rejecting…my advances.”

A small cold thread of fear pulled on my heart, but I thought hard. Play the mortal card. “Of course not,” I said, almost in a whisper, “but Finnead is very jealous, and I would not want to make him angry.”

The Vaelanmavar’s eyes darkened. In a sudden movement he gripped my jaw in one of his hands, hard, and I gasped involuntarily. “Trust me, tender mortal, you would not want to make
me
angry,” he hissed into my ear, and then he crushed me against the wall so hard that I couldn’t breathe, and his mouth was on mine, his tongue thrusting into my mouth, his lips pressing with bruising force, his other hand gripping my shoulder in an iron vise, and then clawing down my body with seeking fingers, squeezing one of my breasts brutally.

After the first shock I felt the rage rising within me again, beating against the glass walls I’d built scarce moments before. Anger flushed my face, pushed back the desperate tears pricking against the corners of my eyes. I bit down hard on his tongue, gagging at the rush of sweet blood that flooded my mouth. The Vaelanmavar shoved me away hard, and the back of my head hit the wall jarringly, but my left hand went to my dagger.

“Bitch,” gasped the knight through the blood pouring from his mouth. I had caught part of his lip, too, and it was torn badly. It made me sick to think that my teeth had done that, but before he could recover, I pushed myself off the wall, dagger flashing up to his neck. I gripped his tunic and with all the strength I could muster spun and used my momentum to shove him up against the wall, where I had been pinned seconds before. I think it was shock that kept him from killing me. He stared at me with those pale blue eyes, dark blue blood running down his chin. I pressed the edge of my dagger hard against his throat, hard enough to draw a line of blue-black blood from his skin.

“Yes,” I said, “I am rejecting your advances.” I leaned in as close as I dared, pressing the dagger harder. The Vaelanmavar stared at me, an oily darkness filling his eyes. “If you touch me again,” I continued softly, “I will kill you.”

Part of me protested loudly that I should kill him now, that there would be nothing but trouble from him. He would be a powerful enemy. But I didn’t know how Queen Mab would take the death of one of her Named Knights, at my hands especially. Not that I was even sure if I was capable of killing him in the first place, because after all I was a young mortal woman with a few weeks of sword-training, not a knight or even a guard.

“If you knew,” said the Vaelanmavar thickly, his pale eyes burning with rage, “what a powerful man I am, you would not have done that.”

“What’s done is done,” I said. He shifted against the wall a little and I pressed the dagger harder against his skin in response. “It would be best,” I heard myself say in a low voice, “if you just let me walk away, right now, and never so much as look at me again.”

The Vaelanmavar, wiping dark blue-black blood from his pale skin, smiled at me, his perfect teeth gilded with gore. I saw his right hand shift ever so slightly toward the hilt of his sword, and as intrinsically as I knew that my skin would burn if I put my hand into a fire, I knew that if I let the Vaelanmavar draw his sword I would die, whether I was a guest of Queen Mab or not. And quick as thought I brought my dagger from his throat and slapped him across the face with the flat of the blade, hard enough that both edges cut into his skin and left deep gashes across his face. I realized that one of the edges had cut across his left eye as he screamed, a sound of both pain and rage that sent a chill skittering down my spine. I half-turned, keeping him in my sight as I walked back the way I had come, making my strides as quick as I could without breaking into a run, still holding my dagger.

The Vaelanmavar’s scream echoed in my head as I rounded a bend in the passageway, and then I ran as fast as I could, knowing in the deepest part of me that I had just made a very, very powerful enemy at Queen Mab’s court.

Chapter 17

A
s I ran down the passageway I lost my grip on coherent thought. My jaw burned where the Vaelanmavar had gripped me, and I still felt his hands raking down my body. I had no idea where I was running, but I knew that if I stopped I would probably start screaming, or my stomach would win its surly and insistent insurrection. So I let my feet carry me where they wanted, rounding bends and choosing turns at will. Then I felt a slight cool breeze, and I followed the feel of the fresh air. I came to an open doorway and stepped through it, out into a garden. A stone path meandered away from the doorway, disappearing amid wildly colorful flowers that even in the moonlight shone red and blue and yellow, pink and pale white. I stood for a moment, just gazing at the soft beauty of the garden. Then my hands started shaking, and with a grimace of despair I lurched behind one of the beautiful bushes as my stomach rebelled.

The grass behind the bush was soft, cool and slightly wet with dew. I reflexively gripped the lush blades with each spasm of my body. I heard a small sound of helplessness, and realized that it had come from me. So I coughed and spat, and sat up shakily. That was enough of that. Even though my hands were still shaking and I wanted badly to run back to my room and scrub the feel of the Vaelanmavar’s touch from my skin, I sat quietly and forced myself to take several breaths of fresh night air. I leaned back on my heels and looked up at the sky. The stars in Faeortalam shone brighter, seemed nearer, than the stars back home, and the darkness of the sky was different too, a deep velvety purple that hung down to the horizon like a great heavy curtain. As I watched, a spark of light split from one of the stars, and the light turned a pale, delicate blue, unraveling into a long string of color. Then the string swept into a sheet of dancing light, and I gasped at the beauty of it. After a heartbeat, another star emitted a little pulse of light, and this one turned as green as a peacock’s tail, shimmering and dancing, swirling alongside the blue light. Within a moment, a golden sprig of light sprung from a different star, and the lights covered half the night sky. I leaned back on my hands and watched, utterly entranced.

“The stars are singing to you.”

I jumped and barely managed not to yelp, swallowing the sound back down just in time. I scrambled to my feet and turned sharply. Guinna stood gazing at me from the path. I took a breath and let my shoulders relax. A look of puzzlement drifted across Guinna’s lovely face like a cloud drifting across a clear sky; and then comprehension dawned in her starlit eyes. I hurriedly stepped away from the mess behind the bushes, walking back to the path.

“Hello, Guinna,” I said. To my dismay, my voice wavered. I tried for a smile and failed completely. Before the dead smile could wobble and turn into a grimace of anguish on my face, I looked away, swallowing hard. I cleared my throat and then tried again. This time my voice was stronger. Not perfect, but almost. “Why are the stars singing to me?” I turned my face up into the velvety darkness of the night, watching the play of light above me, a dance that my soul longed to join. “It’s breathtaking.”

“Yes,” agreed Guinna.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her looking at me intently, but I kept my gaze on the star-song.

“Would you like to sit with me, Tess?” Guinna asked, motioning to a bench. I hadn’t seen the bench when I’d first come out into the garden because it was delicately carved of a pale wood, and situated amid low trees that bloomed with nodding white flowers.

After we sat down, Guinna smoothed out the skirts of her pale blue gown, her pale hands moving like a mirage in the moonlight. We watched the stars for a little more, and my heart ached at the solemn magnificence of it. I started to get a familiar feeling, and when I tried to place it I realized it was the same feeling I’d gotten when Finnead had carried me through the Gate and I’d glimpsed Faeortalam for the first time. Every fiber of me ached with the fierce beauty of the alien land, and underlying that sweet pain was a pull, like a threat wrapped around my heart and tugging through my breastbone. I wanted so badly to be a part of the wild splendor of this untamed world, and I didn’t exactly know why. All I knew was that something in the untamed riotous beauty and danger of the place stirred my soul deeply, in an unsettling and insistent way.

“The stars sing for those whom they love,” said Guinna softly in her mellifluous voice. Her words drifted slowly through the dark air, mingling with the sweet perfume of the heavy-headed white flowers.

“How can the stars love me?” I sat back against the bench. “They don’t know me.”

“Sometimes, knowing a person is quite different than loving them.”

I shook my head. “That’s something I can’t say I’ve heard before.”

“And the stars,” continued Guinna serenely, “might know you, Tess, much better than you might think. They’re very different than the stars in your world, you know.”

I nodded, watching as a sheet of lavender fire wrapped around a glowing, pulsing blue orb in the sky. “I know.”

“The stars in Faeortalam, they’re…alive. The stars in your world have grown distant. Ours still come close and sing to us on summer nights.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just sat silently, enraptured.

“It is written in the old books that the stars can see into the soul.” Guinna smoothed her skirts again. The star-fire shone on her hair and made her marble-pale skin glow. She turned and looked at me. “I think they are seeing your soul, and they are singing to you because they love you for what they see there. I think they know you are…upset. And they want to make you happy again.”

I blinked sudden hot tears away from my eyes, clenching my jaw resolutely. I tried to push the thought of the Vaelanmavar from my mind, but his hate-filled gaze burned in my mind’s-eye as if he were still staring at me.

“Would you like to talk to me?” Guinna asked gently. “Perhaps I can help.”

I took a deep breath. Maybe confiding in Guinna would make the Vaelanmavar’s stare disappear from my mind. Maybe then I could forget the feel of his hands gripping me like a vise. “Only if you promise not to tell anyone else.” I didn’t want the story getting out, becoming just a piece of everyday gossip. From what I’d seen, the Sidhe were just as prone to gossip as mere mortals, and I didn’t like the idea of becoming a part of their daily tabloid—or becoming more a part of it than I was already.

“If that’s what you want, I will hold your words in confidence.” Guinna looked up at the stars serenely, waiting silently for me to speak.

“I was…taking a walk,” I started. My involvement with the glows wasn’t necessary to the story, and I didn’t want to stir up the incandescent rage that was still lurking somewhere within me, waiting to be triggered. It still felt a little wrong, that pulsing ember of anger, but I pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the best words for my story. “I couldn’t sleep. And I ran into the Vaelanmavar.”

Guinna stiffened slightly. It was a minute movement, but I was very good at reading Sidhe body language after my weeks in Faeortalam.

“He tried to—convince me—to be his lover,” I said, trying to keep my voice as level and emotionless as possible. “And I said no.”

“The Vaelanmavar isn’t familiar with rejection,” said Guinna quietly. “He is a favorite of the Queen, and one of the named Knights, and so to be connected to him is to gain some measure of power.”

“I don’t want power,” I said, unable to keep the disgust from my voice. “Not like that, at least.”

Guinna nodded. “I can see why that wouldn’t sit well with you, Tess.”

I didn’t know exactly what that meant but I decided not to ask. “He got very angry and tried to force himself on me.” Guinna made a low sound, and I thought I heard a similar revulsion in her voice, but I kept talking. “I didn’t let him do what he wanted. I…” I paused, wondering what Guinna would think of my fighting tactics, and decided that I’d started the story so it stood to reason that I should finish it. “I bit his tongue, hard. He was bleeding pretty badly. And then I held my dagger to his throat, and told him not to look at me ever again.”

“Ramel told me you were bold,” said Guinna with an undertone of something like wonderment in her voice. “Now I believe him.”

I smiled a little, then sobered as I thought of the end to my tale. “I told him to let me walk away, but he went for his sword, and I slapped him with the flat of my dagger. I only meant to sting him, maybe cut him a little, but…I think I cut his eye,” I said, trying to keep a pleading note of desperation out of my words. I wanted Guinna to understand that I hadn’t had such dark intentions when I’d hit the knight with my blade, even if he had tried to…force himself on me. My mind tried to use another word, but I violently pushed it away.

“Did he hurt you?” Guinna asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure, Tess?”

“I’m fine,” I said, even as I knew how ridiculous that sounded. But Guinna had the grace to accept that time-worn defense, and we sat for a heartbeat looking up at the stars.

Then Guinna said, “I was going to come to your chambers, later. I know that you are worried about Ramel and the others.” She hesitated almost imperceptibly after naming my sword-teacher, as if she had been about to say another name. I silently blessed Guinna’s tact. I didn’t know if I could have handled stirring up that particular maelstrom of emotions. I was content to let her gloss over the name that had almost passed her lips.

“Well,” I said, leaning back against the bench again, “I’m glad that you found me here.”

“I’m grateful that you trust me,” Guinna replied.

I looked up at the sky, at the vividly colored star-fire dancing on the stage of the night, and I said to the stars, “I’m glad I saw your dance, and your song.” After a moment, even though I felt a little silly talking up to the sky, I said, “Thank you. It was beautiful, and I feel better now.”

The dancing lights flashed golden in an explosion of beauty. My heart caught in my throat, and then the golden light faded, leaving the night sky velvety-dark. And even though the lights no longer played on the cathedral-vaulted expanse of the heavens in this strange world, I looked up at the stars in their alien constellations and felt oddly comforted as they twinkled, larger and closer than stars in the earth’s sky. I smiled a little. “I feel like they’re watching over me,” I said. “Is that strange?”

“No,” replied Guinna, “because they are.” She paused. “You have more people watching over you than you think, Tess.”

“A lot of good that did,” I said, unable to keep a strain of bitterness from entering my voice.

“We can’t watch over you all the time. Ramel is the one whom the Queen charged with keeping you safe.”

“What?” I turned to look at Guinna in surprise.

“It’s his task, to move up in the ranks of the knights.”

“So the Queen assigned me a babysitter. Wonderful,” I said dryly.

“I was the one who spoke to her about it,” Guinna confessed. “A few of the men expressed their concerns and asked me to speak to the Queen.”

“A few of the men?” I asked. “And who would those men be?”

“If you would like to know…” Guinna trailed off, as if she expected me to answer.

“I do,” I said firmly.

“Finnead came to me first, just after your encounter with the Queen. He didn’t particularly like the outcome, especially the Vaelanmavar’s comment. And then Ramel spoke to me about it the next day, after the celebration. Donovan and Emery mentioned it to me as well, but Finnead and Ramel were by far the most insistent.”

The cool night breeze delicately brushed against my skin as I leaned back, crossing my legs. So Finnead had asked Queen Mab to protect me, and Ramel had followed hot on his heels. I licked my lips, remembering suddenly the feel of Ramel’s kiss; except instead of picturing Ramel in my mind, an image of Finnead rose to the forefront. I knew what it felt like to kiss a Sidhe, but I desperately wanted to know what it felt like to kiss one in particular. I’d been propositioned by a Named Knight, but not the right one. I shook my head slightly at my unwittingly spun web of intrigue. “You know, it’s funny, Guinna. In the mortal world, I’m really nothing special. I have trouble connecting with men. It always seemed like there was something missing, whether they were my own age or older or younger, it didn’t matter. There was always something that I wanted that they couldn’t give me.”

“And do you think a Sidhe man may give you what you want?” Guinna’s voice wove through the darkness, brushing against the nodding white flowers all around us.

I sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know whether I even want to find out, because…I mean, I have to go back to my own world eventually, once I’ve satisfied Queen Mab and this whole mess with Molly is resolved.”

“Do you still tie up your fate with the fate of your friend?” Guinna tilted her head slightly, considering me with cat-like eyes.

“She’s the reason I’m here,” I said. “I haven’t seen her in a while, but…I guess I just thought we were both busy.” I shrugged.

“Tess, you must realize something. Do you know of Molly’s soul, of how the Fae half was bound so she could survive in the mortal world?”

“Yes. I was told it wasn’t a pleasant process.”

“Not in the least. It is painful, but that pain is quickly forgotten by a young child. But the pain of unbinding…that marks a person. It brands their soul, and some do not recover easily from it.”

An uneasy feeling of foreboding blossomed in my stomach. Guinna spoke in a voice that was too gentle for my liking. I’d heard it before, and it stirred vague recollections in the back of my mind, hazy decade-old memories of when a state trooper and our parish priest had stood on the front doorstep speaking to my mother in soft tragic tones.

“Is Molly all right?” I asked, sitting up straight. I stared at Guinna for a long moment.

“Mostly,” replied the Sidhe woman.

“And what does that mean?” I demanded, standing up from the bench.

“Tess, please sit down again,” suggested Guinna.

“No. I’d rather stand, thanks.” I looked down at Guinna, one hand on my hip as I waited for an explanation.

“She is not as she was when you knew her,” Guinna said carefully, her hands folded serenely in her lap, her heart-shaped face turned up slightly toward me. “She is struggling with many things, and I do not know if she will ever be as she was when you were her friend.”

“Stop talking about our friendship in the past tense,” I snapped. “I haven’t seen her for the past few weeks because no one told me where she was, and I thought she was too busy learning…everything, just like I was.”

“She has more to learn than you, Tess,” said Guinna.

“Right, because the fate of Faeortalam depends on her, etcetera, etcetera,” I said acidly. A small bubble of anger drifted up my throat. I tried to swallow it down but instead it traveled up into my skull, burning behind my eyes like a hot stone. The delicate sweet scent of the beautiful flowers drifted around me, and the stars sparkled reassuringly in the sky, but I felt my eyes narrow, burning with resentment. “And I’m a mere mortal so I’m not worth her time.”