Veil of Shadows (23 page)

As if the creature could answer her! She stood, laughing at herself. “You are the only company I have had all day. And you have given me the only smile I have felt in ages.”

The animal raised its head sharply, made a huffing noise, its great wide nose flaring. Its tongue snaked out and lazily probed one nostril. Then it turned, the whole of its mammoth body wobbling as though it would collapse, and strolled around the corner of the cottage.

“Oh, do wait, please,” Cerridwen called after it, feeling more than a little foolish. But the creature was fascinating, and she had rarely seen actual animals before, not counting the rats and bugs of the Underground. She rose and hurried after it and found it had paused at the side of the house, as if waiting for her. It turned its dim gaze to her and made another low groaning noise, then jerked its head back and turned the corner to go behind the cottage.

It was almost as if the thing wished her to follow it, but in all the stories Cerridwen had heard about animals, they had never seemed to display any sort of intelligence. Still, it was an interesting diversion.

At the back of the cottage, a tangle of thorny ivy crawled up the stone. The beast stood well away from it, and Cerridwen slipped between the plant and the animal. “Is this what you wanted me to see?” She scrubbed her hand over the animal.s back. “I do not think you should eat this. It does not look pleasant.”

A strange shushing sound caught her ear. It was the wind, yet not the wind, and it grew stronger as it approached, and gained a growling undertone, punctuated by squeaks. “What is that?” she asked the bull, though she had the sense to know that it could not tell her.

She crept to the corner of the cottage, intending to peek around it, and the bull made a high, panicked sound. The beast stepped sideways, giving her no choice but to flatten herself against the prickly ivy.

“I only want to see,” she protested, pushing on the animal.s hide, but the creature would not budge. She twisted in the small space and rose up on her toes to peer over the windowsill. Through the glass, she could see the light of the open door. Beyond that, the shape of a Human machine bouncing its way down the long-forgotten road.

Without knowing why it did so, Cerridwen.s heart pounded. The machine, similar to something she.d seen in a Darkworld pit once, stopped beside the breach in the stone fence and grew quieter. Humans exited it, dressed in clothes that made them almost invisible against the trees, hefting Human weapons similar to the ones the Elves had used in the battle underground, climbed out of the vehicle and made their way through the gap. They examined the ground and one of them lifted something from it to his mouth.

Something wet dripped down Cerridwen.s arm, and she realized she gripped the thorn-dense ivy tightly in her fingers. She gasped, then covered her mouth. Could they have heard her?

The Humans went back to their machine, where all but one of them climbed inside. This one, a man, came up the hill, marching purposefully toward the house.

Cerridwen.s entire body trembled. She knew that she should duck down from the window, but she could not move. Someone whimpered, and it took a moment to realize that it was her.

The bull made an impatient sound, and she turned to hush it, only to see its huge body come crashing toward her. It slammed her against the wall, and she fell, the wind crushed from her lungs, head swimming with starlight. The animal ran, far more gracefully than she would have expected from such an enormous beast, bellowing, and the Human shouted.

Cerridwen struggled to keep her wits about her, but her thoughts swam, as did the ground beneath her feet. She slumped down, and in the last moment before she lost consciousness, she heard the sound of the Human car-machine roaring to life, then growing fainter in the distance.

Fifteen

T he campsite was dark and abandoned, even by the guards who had stayed there. Amergin kicked aside a bundle of flowers that had been left at the mouth of the clearing. Danae had done that, to pay tribute to the fallen Queene. Her great sorrow had been expressed by a

bunch of wildflowers left behind, and a simple prayer urging the Court to move forward

“with their conscience.” So long as their conscience would lead them to elevate her back to her former status, Amergin had no doubt.

He did not know why he had come here. There would be no evidence, nothing tangible to hold against Danae. She was too clever to leave behind any traces, and this was not the true scene of the crime, anyway.

He must have come looking for inspiration, he reasoned, for he did not accept that he ever did anything without a specific meaning behind it. Even if that purpose was unknown to him, it would reveal itself in time.

He went up the steps, trained his flashlight on the wood beneath his feet. Splashes of her blood lingered there, brown and copper-smelling. So, the Queene was mortal, at least in part. He had thought that another of Danae.s slanderous rumors.

The floor creaked inside the tent, and he whipped his light up. “Who goes there?”

Another creak, but no answer. The clearing was silent and still, the eerie kind of silence that contained a person who did not want to be found out. Amergin threw the tent flap back and swung the beam of light around inside.

Crouched on the floor, behind a trunk, was Mothú, that ridiculous spy. She shielded her eyes from the unnatural light, and Amergin clicked it off.

“What are you doing there?” He strode across the floor, caught her by the wrist. She cried out, like a wounded animal, as if the motion hurt her.

“There is so much pain here!” she sobbed, fists clenched, knuckles white as she clapped her hands to the sides of her head.

He dropped her, the desperation and pain in her clinging to his skin.

She continued to babble, lying motionless on the floor. “I only did what my Queene asked of me. I only did it because she asked. I told her what I knew, I did my duty. There is so much pain.”

Amergin gazed down at her, not certain how to proceed. He had known only a few Empaths in his considerable existence, but he had not envied them for their rarity. It was a blessing from the Gods that more of them did not exist. “What did you do for your Queene?”

Mothú looked up, a haze of confusion over her eyes. “Did you feel it when he killed her? You can still feel it here. All around. All there is…pain.”

“I will take that pain away,” Amergin promised. “You only have to tell me what you did for Queene Danae.”

“What, a spell?” Mothú laughed and clapped her hands together, her eyes filling with tears.

“You know a spell that will take the pain away?”

“Yes, a spell.” Gods forgive him. “But you must tell me what you did.”

Mothú laughed again, tears spilling down her face. “He loved her. He loved her so much. Danae is brilliant. The plan is brilliant.”

“What is the plan, Mothú?” He dropped to his knees before her, tried to look her in the eye, but she would not hold still. She swung her head from side to side, agitated, a hand pressed to her mouth.

“She knew it would kill him.” She looked him in the eye then, a terrifying clarity coming over her. “I told her that they loved each other. And they didn.t know. They thought they were pretending, but…I told her, and she used it against him. She knew it would kill him. She knew it would kill me, when I did it.”

“What did she do?” He knew, though he had to hear the confirmation himself. The filthy spy had told Danae all she had needed to know to form a cruel plan.

“Corpse Water.” Mothú laughed again. “Do you think she knew? Do you think Her Majesty knew that it would hurt me, too? When he did it? Do you think she knew what would happen?”

No doubt she had, and that added another depth to Danae.s cruelty. She knew the Empath would feel Cerridwen.s pain, and Cedric.s, and that it would drive her mad. All the better to cover her tracks, for who would believe a Faery gone crazy?

“No,” he lied smoothly. “I do not think she intended you any harm.”

Mothú smiled gratefully, closed her eyes. “She is a good Queene. She is kind.”

Amergin rose to his feet. “No. I am kind, though.”

“Are you going to do the spell now?” Mothú asked, as hopeful as a child.

He did not answer her, did not offer any further platitudes, before he thrust his dagger through her neck.

The sound of raised voices woke Cedric. It was not the ranting he had become so used to hearing, the screaming that ensued of late whenever Danae didn.t get something she wanted.

She had not always acted that way, the crow had mumbled to him when she brought his last dinner. Just since the Undergrounders had come. Cedric had found that hard to believe, but he had not argued. The woman was the only company he ever got, and she had only grudgingly begun to speak to him.

No, the voice that shrieked hysterically now was not Danae.s.

“He knows I have done something, and now Mothú has gone, as well.” Danae.s voice hiccuped in panic. “Find him. Find both of them. I.ll have their eyes put out. I.ll roast their tongues on a spit!”

The tent flap pushed back, and Danae stormed into the room, the sleeves of her nightgown slashing black arcs in the air before her face. “There is no end to the torment I am to endure, of that I am more than certain.”

“Your plans are coming unraveled.” Cedric could not help but relish this small victory over her. “Soon, everyone will know what you did. To me, and to Cerridwen.”

Her name cut him like glass, like the blade that he had used to kill her. He pushed the pain down, not to ignore it, but to keep himself focused on his task: humiliating Danae, forcing her to crack so badly that all of her secrets spilled from her at the slightest pressure.

She laughed. “No one will know! They ask me, over and over, why haven.t I put you to death yet? Why have I not given Cerridwen the justice she deserves?” Danae stopped, breathing hard. “I will. I will give her the justice they think she needs.”

When Cerridwen had wanted to die, when she had said the words, Cedric had thought he would never be able to imagine that longing, that desperation. But now, knowing almost certainly what Danae would say, his heart finally returned to him, let him feel something other than loathing and self-hatred. Say it, he urged her silently. Say it, and end this.

“You will be put to death,” she said simply, folding her arms. She looked for some reaction, some fear.

She did not expect the laughter he gave her. “Do it now. I welcome it.”

Her face flamed red, her antennae buzzed audibly. “I will give you no such quiet mercy! You will be executed publicly—so that I might weep anew at the loss of our precious Queene, and decry the evil that you have done. So that you can listen to your crime recounted, and I can watch it break your heart in hearing it.”

“Danae, I relive those moments with every breath.” He forced himself to sound bored, to rob her of her pleasure in her cruelty. “Nothing you can do now, short of forcing me to live forever, will be more of a punishment.”

With a cry of fury, Danae stormed from the room, to immediately put her plans for his execution into motion, he had no doubt.

But he could no longer contain his joy, and he laughed, squeezed his eyes shut tight against the tears that filled them. There was nothing to dread, anymore. No fears of an eternity held prisoner to Danae.s whims. The ax would fall, and nothingness would await him. A nothingness in which he would no longer be tormented by the memory of Cerridwen.s screams.

It could not come soon enough.

Clutching the cold cloth to her throbbing head, Cerridwen tried for the third time to tell the story of what had happened to her that afternoon. “And when the Human came up the hill, the bull became scared and ran. It knocked me into the wall, and I fell.”

Trasa nodded, a kind face on her disbelief. “I understood that part. But there are no bulls around here, Your Majesty. The Court raises their animals in clearings in the woods. And there hasn.t been a Human farm around here for…hundreds of years, at least.”

“Maybe it was a wild bull,” Cerridwen insisted stubbornly. “It was here! It was all white, and had—”

“Red eyes, I remember.” Trasa patted her knee compassionately, as if assuring a child that no monsters lurked in the dark. “In the morning, I will look again, but I saw no tracks, no dung. Are you sure that you were not simply feverish again? Perhaps you should take the healing brew….”

Cerridwen turned her face to the hearth. She had refused the bitter tea that morning, and again at nightfall when Trasa had returned to find her lying behind the cottage. She could bear the pain easier than she could bear being senseless.

“I will not press you,” Trasa said, quiet but firm. “Can I get you something to eat?”

“No.” Cerridwen dropped the cloth and tried to rake her hand through her hair, but found it too matted. “Perhaps I am going crazy.”

“I do not think the Fae suffer from insanity,” Trasa told her with a smile. “Though it would certainly explain the actions of some.”

That was too close to the subject they had not spoken of since Cerridwen had woken the first time, and she took a shaking breath.

“I.m sorry. I don.t know why I said that.” Trasa stood and went to the bed, straightened the covers needlessly.

Cerridwen was grateful for the space between them. She was not used to being so close to Humans, with their uncanny ability to say the wrong things, and the too-right things, and their strange concept of forgiveness. She leaned her chin on her hands and gazed into the flames.

Trasa suddenly darted to the window.

“What is it?” Cerridwen stood, pressed her hands together in front of her mouth. She hoped it was the bull, back again, feared it might be the Humans again.

“Someone is coming,” Trasa said, waving an urgent hand at her. “Cover your wings, quickly!

And your—” She gestured frantically at her forehead.

Cerridwen pulled down her hair to cover her antennae, and folded her wings tight to her back, flipping the back of her robes down.

Whoever had approached rapped urgently on the door. It did not seem likely that the Humans, with their brute weapons, would not have simply used force to enter.