The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (25 page)

Nial glanced at Alanna as he pounded out the bar of metal she’d brought him. She’d found a stool and seated herself on it near the fire. She did look cold, the sil y woman, probably not used to the harsh clime of the Irish west coast. The Faerie realms, he’d heard, were warm and soft al the time, which was why she wore flimsy silk robes and let her braids flow. Fae women didn’t have to bundle their hair out of the wind.

After a few quick looks at her, he realized that Alanna wasn’t staring sightlessly at the forge, or watching him beat the blade. She was studying
him
.

Her gaze roved his bare back and the muscles of his arms, as though she’d never seen a half-clothed man before. She probably hadn’t. Fae were cold people, not liking to be touched, preferring robes, jewels and other fussy things to bare skin. They rarely did anything as crude as coupling, bodily seduction being almost as distasteful to them as iron. Shifters, on the other hand, loved breeding and loved children, children being al that more precious because so few survived.

“Are you a virgin, then, lass?” Nial asked her.

Alanna jumped. “What?”

“A virgin. If it doesn’t hurt your pristine ears for me to ask it. Are you?”

“No.”

Interesting. Fae women didn’t lie with males unless they absolutely had to. “You have a lover then? A husband?”

“No.” The word was more angry now. “It is none of your affair.”

“You like to say that, lass. Did you have a
gasún
?”

“A child? No.” Again, the chil anger.

“I’m sorry, love.”

“Why?”

“That must have hurt you.” When a Shifter woman was childless it was an impossible sorrow to her. As dangerous as breeding was for Shifters, females were happy to risk it to bring in cubs. “I imagine ’tis different for a Fae woman.” The Fae were so long-lived they didn’t need to bear many children. Fae women who did like children often stole them from humans, rather than bearing their own, raising them to be their doting little slaves.

“It did hurt me.”

Nial saw the pain in her eyes. She looked so out of place, sitting in his forge, her strange, elegant robes already soiled from the dust and soot. He never thought he’d feel sorry for a Fae before, but the sadness on her face was real.

“Did your lover not want a child?” Nial asked gently.

“My lover, as you cal him, died.” Alanna’s jaw was fixed, rigid. “We tried to have a child, but I don’t know whether it was even possible.”

“Fae do breed. I’ve seen your wee ones.” Even cruel er than the adults, unfortunately.

“My lover was human.”

Surprise stil ed Nial ’s hands. “A human man? Let me guess. A slave?” He couldn’t keep the disgust out of his voice.

“He had been captured, yes.” She met his look defiantly. “But not by me.”

“Oh, that makes it al right then. Whose slave was he? You’re royal brother’s?”

“Yes. It was a long time ago.”

One of her brother’s slaves, made into her lover. A typical story of Fae cruelty except for the grief in her eyes. He wasn’t imagining that.

He bent over his task again. “How long ago?” he asked.

“One hundred years.”

“And you loved this man? Or pretended to?”

Her silence was so flint-hard that Nial raised his head again. She was glaring at him. “Did you love your mate?” she asked in a sharp voice.

“I won’t apologize for my question, love. You are the one coercing me into helping the bastard who stole my children. I’l answer yours – yes, I loved her more than my own life.”

“My answer is the same.”

She met his gaze without flinching. The pain in her dark eyes wasn’t false and neither was the loneliness, and Alanna didn’t look ashamed of either.

Nial went back to pounding. After a time he asked, “So what happened to this human male so worthy of the love of a Fae woman?”

“My brother kil ed him.”

Nial stopped. “The very brother who sent you here? Why?”

“Because Dubhán dared to touch me.”

“The man was your slave, love. He wouldn’t have had a choice.” Alanna’s face grew cold again. “You see everything through Shifter eyes. Dubhán was my brother’s slave, so of course you believe I forced him to service me. I told you, I loved him. I freed him, I fled with him to the human world, and we became lovers. Until my brother found us.”

“You sneaked out of the Faerie realms to become lover to a human?” Nial ’s astonishment and respect for her rose. “You are an amazing and brave lass.”

“I was foolish as it turned out. I should have sent him off and not tried to stay with him. Kieran would have forgotten about one slave in time, but he never forgave me for letting a lesser being touch me.”

“Which is why he sent you here to become hostage to a Shifter.”

“I’m my brother’s prisoner and in disgrace. I’m forced to do his bidding.”

“Does he not fear that while you’re in the human world you’l break away and flee him?” Alanna shrugged. “I have nowhere to go, and, unlike Shifters, I cannot pass for a human. The spel that lets me resist iron wil wear off.” She shivered. “And it is so cold here.” Nial rose, fetched the wool en cloak he’d thrown aside when he’d started to work, and draped it over her shoulders. She looked up in surprise, jerking her hand away when his brushed hers.

He’d thought her overly slender when she first walked in, but now he saw that this was a trick of the loose-flowing garments. Her bosom was round and ful , her waist nipped in above strong hips.

Her face was delicate, a little too pointed for Nial ’s taste, but her dark eyes drew him in. Her braids outlined her pointed ears, but the ears didn’t look as strange and unnatural close up. She was flesh, not cold marble, her skin flushing as she warmed from the fire and the cloak.

“You could pass for human,” Nial said as he went back to the forge.

“Unlikely. Look at me.”

“I just did.” Nial took up the heated bar with his tongs and tapped the rapidly cooling metal. “If you wore your hair loose to hide your ears and dressed in human clothes instead of fancy frippery, no one would look twice.” He considered as he flipped the bar. “No, they’d look twice, because you’re a beautiful woman, but unless you shouted it, I don’t believe they’d realize you were Fae.

Most humans don’t believe in the Fae any longer, anyway. They pretend to – they avoid the stone circles at night and put out milk to appease the sprites – but deep down, they believe only in hard work, exhaustion, and God, bless them.”

“You care for them,” Alanna said, sounding surprised. “But you’re Shifter.”

“If you lived in the human world before, you might have noticed that Shifters are not thick on the ground. We might be stronger and more cunning than humans, we might be able to change into ferocious beasts when we wish to, but we need humans to survive.” She regarded him in curiosity. “Do the humans in this vil age know you’re Shifter?” Nial shrugged. “They know I’m different, but as I said, they don’t much believe in the
other
any more. But they know I’m a good smith and that the vil ages round about get left in peace now that I live here.”

“You’re good to them.”

“It’s survival, love. We each have what the other needs. ’Tis the only way Shifters are going to last.”

“The Fae chose to retreat.” Alanna said it almost to herself, as though she didn’t expect an answer. “We sought the mists of Faerie.”

“Aye, that you did.”

She fel silent, but Alanna was difficult to ignore as he continued work, and not just because of the distinct Fae smel , which didn’t seem so terrible now. Perhaps he was growing used to it.

Nial sensed her presence like a bright light – her beauty, her sorrow, her courage in coming here when she knew she’d likely lose her life. Fae princes could be mean bastards, and the fact that she’d defied this Kieran with the human slave spoke much of her.

Once Nial had the metal thin enough, he heated it again, ready to shape it. As he set the blade on the anvil and took up his hammer, he felt her breath on his shoulder.

“Wait.”

“Metal’s hot, lass. It won’t wait.”

“I need to layer in some spel s.”

His eyes narrowed. “What is this sword for? For ceremony, I know, not fighting, but what sort of ceremony, exactly?”

“I’m not certain myself. Exactly.”

Nial ’s grip tightened on his hammer. “Don’t lie to me, lass. If you’re putting in the spel s, you know what they do.”

“I cannot tel you. Please, if you know, then your sons wil die.”

“I think they’l die anyway, and I think you know that too. Tel me this much – is the sword meant to hurt Shifters?”

Alanna said nothing, but the look in her eyes spoke volumes. He read guilt there, anguish, grief, anger.

Nial shoved the bar from the anvil with a clatter. He sat down on the floor, his hammer fal ing to his side. “You’re asking me to save my sons by forging a weapon against Shifters? What kind of monster are you?”

Alanna sank to her knees beside him, her silks whispering across his skin. “Nial of Baile Ícín, I ask you to please trust me. Make the sword. Al wil be wel .” Nial growled. “Your bastard brother wil slaughter my boys the minute he gets this piece of metal in his hands. He knows I’l kil you in retaliation, and then he’l kil me, and laugh about it. That is how things wil play out.”

Alanna shook her head, her braids touching his bare shoulders. “Not if you trust me. I cannot tel you everything, but you must make the sword the way I have instructed.” She put her hand on his shoulder – Fae, who didn’t like to touch. “Please, Nial .”

“And why should I trust you? Because you once bedded a human? Should I believe you have compassion for the whole world then?”

“Because of a vow I once made. I wil never let your children come to harm. I promise.” Fae had a way of enchanting, of charming. Nial knew that, had experienced it first-hand. But Alanna’s pleading look was different somehow from the Fae who’d once spel ed Shifters to be slaves to them. Fae charmed by being too brightly beautiful, too desirable, stirring a person into a frenzy before they knew what happened. Alanna didn’t make Nial feel frenzied or dazzled. He was angry and sick, tired and sad.

When Shifters lost loved ones, they retreated from the rest of the pride or pack to be alone with their grief. A survival instinct, he supposed, because in that gut-ripping sorrow, they had no desire to fight or hunt or even eat. A Shifter might weaken the pack by refusing to fight, and so the he took himself away until the worst passed. Or he died.

Alanna’s hand on Nial ’s shoulder was cool, cutting through his instinct to seek solace. Her fingers were soothing to his roasting skin, and her fragrance no longer seemed cloying, but fresh like mint.

“Please,” she said again.

Nial got to his feet and pul ed her up with him. “You ask much of me, lass.”

“I know.”

Alanna’s eyes weren’t black, as he’d thought, but deep brown with black flecks, her wide pupils making them seem darker. Her hair was like fine threads of white gold, metal so delicate that the merest touch could break it.

Nial stepped away from her, fetched the half-formed blade, and thrust it back into the fire. “And you wager your life on me trusting you?”

“Yes,” she said again. “Wil you?”

Nial shrugged again, his insides knotting. “Looks as though I’l have to, doesn’t it, lass?” She gave him a smile of pure relief. “Thank you, Nial .”

Nial turned back to work, wishing her damned smile didn’t warm him so.

Four

Alanna let her hand hover over the red-hot blade Nial laid on the anvil, the metal’s heat touching her skin. She murmured the spel , watching the curled Fae runes sear into the metal and disappear.

Nial did not trust her, and she couldn’t force him to, but she was relieved he’d at least let her do the spel s. Alanna couldn’t ask more of him, not without fear that Kieran would discover what she was doing.

Nial beat the sword after the runes faded, as she instructed, then put it back into the fire. Again and again they repeated the pattern – Nial hammering the blade, Alanna chanting her spel s.

They worked side by side, shoulders brushing, both sweating from the fire, both breathing hard from their exertion. Spel casting, especial y casting spel s as powerful and far-reaching as these, took stamina. Alanna soon set aside the cloak and pushed up her long sleeves.

The stench of sweating Shifter didn’t seem as bad now. Nial had, wel , an
honest
smel , one that came of hard work and caring. He protected the people of this vil age like he protected his children, a fact Alanna wouldn’t tel Kieran. If her brother thought the vil agers were important to Nial , Kieran would find some way to use that against him.

When Nial said the sword needed to rest, he shoved it into a barrel of ash, wiped the sweat from his face, and led her from the forge. The dirt track outside hugged the cliffs above the sea, Nial ’s shop being at the very end of the high street – if the muddy track between the houses could be termed a high street. The western ocean pounded away below them, the moon glowing on the black bulk of the nearby island.

At first Alanna worried that Nial had brought her to the cliffs for some nefarious purpose, but he simply stood looking out over the dark ocean, breathing in the bracing air.

“You know we’l never finish on time,” he said. “Blades have to be heated and rested a number of times to make the metal strong, and then I have to grind the blade and make the hilt.”

“You’l finish.”

“You sound certain.”

“The spel s I’m using wil temper the blade faster than your process by hand,” she said. “When we go back, you’l be ready to grind it.”

Nial ’s voice went low. “I’m not ready to go back yet.”

He had to be freezing out here without a shirt, the icy wind from the sea whipping his short braid.

His eyes were green even in the faint moonlight, hard green, not Shifter white-green.

Alanna didn’t flinch when he cupped her neck with his big, rough hand. The touch of others had always sickened her, until she’d met Dubhán. She wondered what sort of strange Fae woman she was that she’d fal en in love with a human man and now didn’t mind that a Shifter pul ed her into his embrace.