“Don’t talk like that,” Rhiannon said softly. She soothed Philonous’s narrow leaves—there weren’t many left—and took one of his branches in her hand.
Vane felt ashamed of himself and kneeled beside her. “Can he hear us?”
“Yes,” Marius replied. “When he’s conscious.”
Vane winced when he saw the tree spirit struggle to open its burned eyelids, moaning with pain. He gave the jar to Rhiannon. “You put it on. A fingertip’s worth on each lid. And give him water to drink. A drop at a time.”
She glanced at him, forgiveness in her gaze, and Vane stood up again. He had caught a whiff of something that he recognized—something sulfurous and nasty. Hella would have attributed it to him, but he knew it wasn’t him because he’d bathed twice in one night.
Marius rose and joined him a little ways off. “I smell Ravelle,” Vane said immediately, keeping his voice low.
“I told you that he—”
“He’s right here, very near. We can kill him now!”
“I cannot leave Philonous,” was all Marius said. “But Ravelle is not long for this world or any world. Not if I can help it.”
Philonous lived through the night, even though they had to move him a very great distance for fear of the demon’s return. His eyelids fluttered open when the first soft rays of dawn sprang from the sun hidden below the horizon. Rhiannon leaned over the bed.
“Can you see me, Philonous?” she asked anxiously.
The tree spirit took a long time to answer, working parched lips and breathing with difficulty. He rasped out a yes. The single word took enormous effort.
“Good. That’s one good thing.”
Philonous was silent. His leaves plucked feebly at the soft blanket that covered him. He asked his next question just by looking at her.
She understood. “You are in Gideon’s pavilion—our pavilion, I mean. You will be safe here. You can rest and begin to heal.”
His old, old eyes filled with tears. He blinked them away. It would hurt too much to cry. But he had to tell them which way the demon had flown and what he’d threatened to do to Marius and his new love, Linnea. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. Philonous died at the moment the sun appeared in glory over the horizon. They buried him the next day.
L
innea awaited Marius at the base of the great oak inside the door, which was ajar. He’d told her to stay on with Quercus as soon as both of them knew what had happened, and that he would come as soon as he was able. Philonous’s terrible injuries meant that his swift death had been a mercy of sorts.
Her own demon-wound had healed when the poison was fully drawn but the scratch had left a ridged scar. A memento of Ravelle that she would carry for life. At least she still had a life to live, unlike the poor willow tree that Marius had loved so much. If only she could fly to Marius instead of waiting, take him in her arms, and comfort him as he had comforted her.
Her strange encounter with the demon had been only the beginning.
Ravelle’s malice was indeed a force to be reckoned with. He had brought her to her knees as his sexual servitor by his foul trickery and he had burned a helpless willow tree too ancient to pull up its deep roots and struggle away. Yet he would let her live. Marius was the ultimate object of his insane wrath, because she, Linnea, had chosen the centaur to be her lover. The demon’s bizarre mind had taken that as an insult to be avenged.
I want you, Linnea
. The insinuating horror of Ravelle’s voice echoed in her mind even now.
She heard the sound of trampling hooves and a vigorous crashing in the undergrowth. They’d sent Esau with a message for him when Quercus explained that a demon as powerful as Ravelle could conjure up the scrying pools of good folk in a shallow bowl of water and spy to his heart’s content. The magpie’s distinctive black-and-white plumage had been dyed by her with a brush to make him less noticeable, and he’d flown far and wide until he returned with a tiny scroll secured around his neck with a red thread.
Marius wrote back that he would travel in centaur form to reach her more quickly and carry her away to a place that was safer still, no matter the stage of the moon. Then he burst out of the woods, wheeling, rearing, looking for her, until he saw her step out of the door in the tree.
She picked up the skirts of her soft kirtle and ran to him. “Marius!”
His hooves slammed into the earth with a thunderous noise and his muscular arms enfolded her. She was unimaginably happy to see him. He kissed her over and over, the top of her head, the lips she turned up to him, her cheeks, as if she was more dear to him than life.
Quercus, biding his time until the centaur calmed down, came out at last from the tree.
“Thank you, my friend, for keeping her safe,” Marius said, deep feeling in his voice. “For all we know, Linnea might have met the fate of Philonous.”
The wise, wrinkled face showed both grief and understanding, but Quercus said nothing except something that sounded like a blessing on them both in Treeish.
Marius turned to her again. “Are you ready, Linnea?”
She nodded and he swept her up, nearly throwing her bodily over his shoulder in his haste to depart. He flipped his healing tail as he wheeled toward the woods and Linnea managed to right herself and find her seat on the broad back, leaning forward to grasp his mane.
“Good-bye, Quercus! And thank you!”
The little old spirit watched them go with a look of sad resignation, then ducked when Esau, black as coal, swooped out of the door in the tree and flew after them.
The Arcan lords gathered once more, in Simeon’s stronghold by the sea this time. Ravelle, filthy beast that he was, was known to be finicky about getting his cloven hooves wet.
A raw wind from the east, sent their way by prior arrangement with Quercus. He liked to meddle with the weather from his nice, dry tree and had whipped the waves between the isles to high, dangerous peaks after all had arrived. They were safe enough.
“I say we kill him as soon as possible by fair means or foul,” Gideon began. His wings were folded about his shoulders against the cold draft, as his eelskin suit was insufficient protection from the damp, which he hated. “What think you, Simeon?”
The selkie lord’s answer was far more thoughtful. “How will we be sure that it is him?”
“We stick a knife into him,” said Lord Vane. “If it is Ravelle, he will turn back into his real self.”
“And if it isn’t, we have harmed an innocent,” Megaleen said.
Vane scowled. “Who cares?”
“Philonous would not ask us to take a life for his,” Marius said. “We would dishonor his memory if we did, even by accident.”
“Ravelle has gone too far,” the Lord of Fire spat out. “He will not stop at the life of one old tree.” The discussion seemed to bore him. His long black hair spilled over his shoulders and he pushed it back irritably.
Linnea studied him from where she sat with Rhiannon across the great hall of the stronghold. They had risen from the table to oversee the sea-maids preparing the sleeping chambers for them and had just returned.
That look in his eyes—for all his gruffness, she had the oddest feeling that he was missing someone. It would be going too far to say that the lord of the Fire Isle might be in love—he seemed too fierce and too selfish for that tender emotion. But she sensed an essential loneliness that seemed to weigh on him. He sprawled in his seat, tapping his fingers on the table, his long legs wide apart, and she immediately looked elsewhere.
Rhiannon smiled at her. “What do you think of him?”
Linnea paused to consider Vane once more. “I think the lord of fire is as wild as he is wily.”
The other woman gave a low laugh. “It is hard to believe that you have only just met him. Precisely right. But he may be our best hope against the demon, if he is not distracted by his, ah, urges.”
“Urges. I see.” Linnea glanced his way again, feeling disloyal to her impulsive, hard-charging, good-hearted Marius. But Vane had sexual magnetism that seemed hard for him to contain.
Perhaps he saw no need to.
Responding instinctively to feminine scrutiny, Lord Vane returned it in an extremely bold way, as if he were imagining a threesome. Annoyed by his behavior, Linnea rose from her seat and extended a hand to Rhiannon. “Let us sit with our men,” she said in a low voice. “I do not care to be stared at like that.”
Rhiannon nodded and came with her. “Do not take it personally. He is who he is. He has been in a bad temper of late, but that is nothing new.”
“Reason will not save the day,” Linnea pointed out. “The demon is not going to negotiate.”
“I think you should bring that up when we rejoin the others.”
Linnea looked again at Lord Vane, whose air of genial menace reminded her in some ways of Ravelle himself. “He may be the man, as you say.”
“Yes, he is more than a match for the demon. They share a willingness to fight to the death, though Vane is not unkind. Just uncivilized. And cursed with a fiery temper.”
They came closer to the table where Megaleen was still seated next to Simeon. Marius and Gideon each had an arm draped over the empty chair next to them, as if they had been patiently waiting for Linnea and Rhiannon.
Linnea hung back a moment longer. “Has Lord Vane a lady?”
“Of a sort. When he is drunk, he tells stories of her. His beauty bare and all that. She is, I believe, made of fire.”
“Then they will be happy. But I wish he would stop staring at us.”
Rhiannon took her hand. “Pay no attention.”
They took their places by the men they loved, and the discussion continued far into the night.
Lord Vane banged his fist on the table. He’d gone down to the kitchen during a lull in the talk and from thence to Simeon’s cellars, where he’d found several small bottles of kelp brandy and smuggled them back up to the hall concealed in his tunic. He was quite drunk. There was nothing the others could do about it.
“I tell you,” he growled, “Ravelle is a rank amateur. I can match him fire for fire, dirty trick for dirty trick.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Gideon said as calmly as he could. “But—”
“But nothing. Why will you three not let me fight him one on one?”
“We are six. Seven, counting you. And we are stronger together,” Rhiannon said. She glanced at Linnea, whose drowsy head rested on Marius’s shoulder. She was still awake, though, observing the proceedings through heavy-lidded eyes but Marius was in dreamland, even though he was sitting in a straight chair. Must be the horse in him, she reflected. Rhiannon envied him the ability to fall asleep in an upright position. The discussion had dragged on for hours and, thanks to Vane’s boorish behavior, was deteriorating into masculine showing off on his part.
For the moment, he had shut up. He too was looking at Linnea, Rhiannon noticed. As a newcomer among them, Linnea had said little, sticking close to Marius. There was a love story in the making, Rhiannon thought with an inward smile.
From the windows outside, the first light of dawn was barely visible over the sea. Simeon rose. “We have talked until sunrise and come to no useful conclusions. Let us retire.”
“You can.” Vane uncorked the last little bottle of kelp brandy and put it to his lips. His gorge moved rapidly as he drank it down. “I’m going.”
“Where?” Gideon asked.
“That is none of your affair. Fuck off.” Vane sat the bottle down so hard it cracked. Marius woke at the sound, and looked around confusedly. Then he kissed the top of Linnea’s head and closed his eyes again. Vane stared at the two of them with burning eyes.
“You are spoiling for a fight, my friend,” Simeon said firmly. “I think you should sleep it off.”
“Yes,” Megaleen said. “There is a chamber ready.”
“With smooth sheets and soft pillows and rushes strewn upon the floor. Peaceful and quiet,” Vane said.
“Of course,” Megaleen began but Vane glared at her.
“Is there no woman who will warm my bed?” he asked rudely. “Can’t you send up a strumpet?”
“No.”
“Bloody hell. I’ll be damned if I’ll sleep alone.” He only glanced at Linnea this time, but both Megaleen and Rhiannon caught it, and they exchanged a long look.
They rose from their seats, a move that prompted Linnea to lift her head and nudge Marius awake.
Half awake. Enough to stand up and follow his lady to the chamber they would share for the night. His hand moved down from the small of her back, absently patting her buttocks.
Lord Vane, slumped in his chair, watched that with angry eyes. Rhiannon lost patience with him and urged him roughly to his feet. He grumbled at her, then remembered where he was, shooting a surly look at the two remaining lords of Arcan.
“What?” he snarled. “Why the stern faces? I didn’t do anything.”
In answer, Gideon and Simeon moved to the back of his chair and grabbed him together under his arms, hauling him to his feet.
“Let me go!”
His loud protest was ignored, and they half-dragged him to the stairs that led to the kitchen, bumping and shoving him down.
Megaleen and Rhiannon heard the heavy door of the stronghold groan open and the quiet voices of the men-at-arms.
“He does not deserve to be treated like a lord when he acts like a ruffian. I suspect they will bring him to the stables,” Simeon’s lady said. “He can sleep it off there.”
“In all that straw?” Rhiannon replied. “His very breath might set it on fire. Kelp brandy is potent stuff.”
Megaleen raised an eyebrow. “You have a point.” She moved toward the stairs herself to follow the men. “He can sleep on stone then. Outside.”
Lord Vane did not awaken for hours. The sun had set. He ached all over and there was a bitter taste of seaweed in his mouth. Some thoughtful soul had left him a jug of water, even if he had lacked bedding.
He got up and put it to his lips, rinsing out his mouth and pouring the rest of it over his head.
He must have been quite drunk. The other lords were generally more forgiving when he was in his cups. But then all the women had been present, which was unusual. He pissed next, in a splashing stream that betrayed how long and deeply he’d slept. Relieved but not feeling chipper otherwise, he looked out to sea and thought of the new lady. Linnea.
Something about her was deeply exciting. She had spirit to spare and an obvious, animal sensuality that intrigued him. He’d not been able to take his eyes off her. Doe eyes, lithe body, graceful walk—her dainty feet in pointed slippers reminded him of little hooves, like an antelope’s.
Marius was no match for her. The way the centaur was always crashing around in the forest—bah. He was too clumsy for the elegant Linnea, Vane thought, yawning.
He turned around, hearing distant voices coming from the stronghold that towered above him. Some friends, he thought sourly. They’d dragged him outside to sleep it off in the cold, which was why he ached.
He listened intently. The pointless discussion of what to do about Ravelle seemed to be continuing. He didn’t want to get into all that again. If they’d left him outside, then he could come and go as he pleased.
The evening torches had been lit and the windows above him glowed. In the highest one, he caught a glimpse of a female form.
The very female who’d been on his mind. Linnea. He was almost sure it was her. Vane studied the rock walls of the stronghold, not seeing a way up. But if he was careful, he could climb the rough stones themselves, row by row.