Veil of Shadows (29 page)

“You may do this, by staying here, and abiding by these laws that I have set before you today. Or you may leave. I care not what you do once you are beyond the borders of these woods. But if you stay, and you seek to undermine me, you will be charged with treason, and banished as I banished Danae.”

“Our choice, then, is banishment, or banishment?” a male Faery called from the front of the crowd. Encouragement rose from those near him, and Cerridwen let them have their moment of victory.

“Your choices are to stay, and be a part of this wondrous new life, in which Human and Faery work together, and to be present when we find our way back to the other side of the Veil, or to leave here, and settle for this Earth for the rest of your days. The choice is yours. I hope you do not make it lightly.”

She turned and did not meet Cedric.s eyes as she strode back into the tent. Behind her, the angry voices dwarfed the few claps and cheers her speech received.

She went into the sitting room and found her robe, also new, from the seamstress, lying over a chair. She fumbled with the ties of the dress, then heard Cedric.s footsteps, felt his warm hands brush her skin as he untied the knot for her.

“You spoke well,” he said, pushing the strips of fabric over her shoulders. As she slipped the gown off, he seated himself cross-legged on the floor. “How many do you think will leave?”

“From the sound outside?” she asked with a dismayed laugh. She let the gown whisper into a pool of red at her feet and took up the white linen robe, wrapping it around herself like armor.

“All of them.”

“It will not be that bad,” Cedric told her, not encouraging but stating what he truly felt. If he had lied to her to keep her calm, she would have been able to tell it in an instant. He continued, “Half, I would say, of the Faeries. Less than a quarter of the Humans.”

“The Humans? Why would they leave at all?” She rustled her wings to ease the fabric down that had become hung up on them.

“I think there will be some less scrupulous Faeries who will entice the Humans to remain in their bondage and leave with them.” He considered a moment. “And I think there are some Humans in this camp who are Elf-struck.”

“Ugh, I hate that term,” she said with a shudder. “I should outlaw it.”

Cedric laughed and motioned to her to sit with him. She knelt beside him and leaned into his arms. “Do you really believe I did well?”

“You are your mother.s daughter, that is no doubt,” he whispered against her ear.

It had taken twenty years, innumerable tragedies and a journey by sea to make her see it for the compliment that it was.

In the days that passed, Cedric.s estimate had proven so accurate that even he was surprised at it. Slightly more than half of the Fae had left, none without first airing their grievances loudly in the central clearing, so that all could hear. Cerridwen had let this go on for three nights before asking that the practice cease.

“I hate silencing them,” she had grumbled when Amergin suggested it. But she had seen the point behind it, easily enough. If they were allowed to carry on for as long as they wished, eventually they might win over those who had resolved to stay of their own accord.

It was the Humans who left that made Cerridwen.s heart ache. They viewed her with more hatred than did the Fae, because they were being uprooted from the only home they had known, the only life they wanted. They resented her for their freedom, and she could not fathom why.

One fear that had plagued her, silly though it was, was that the Humans would continue to shoulder the chores of the camp, to the point that there was nothing for their Fae counterparts to do. Sure enough, as the Humans left, the operations of the colony stuttered and nearly ground to a halt, until Faeries began to shoulder more of the load.

Cerridwen, included. Though Cedric had balked at the idea of a Queene doing menial chores, Cerridwen had begun spending her days tending to the animals in the livestock yards. She took particular pleasure in tending her white bull, which received more attention and comforts than the rest of the animals.

She had managed, despite his grumbling, to enlist Cedric.s help in the gardens, working alongside the other Fae to create false sunlight and encourage the plants to grow.

In the evening, they took their supper with Trasa and Amergin, and occasionally they invited a Human laborer to eat with them. All of their meals were cooked by the Humans who had served them before, but now the meat and vegetables were provided by the Queene and her household, rather than harvested by the Humans who also worked to cook them. The portions made were large enough to share with those same Human servants, and Cerridwen had granted them the huge, round room at the center of the tent for sleeping quarters, as well. Cedric had vowed never to set foot in that room again, and Cerridwen had not wished to see it, either, knowing that he had been tortured there for so long.

The nights were what Cerridwen looked forward to most of all. She cherished the little time she had alone with Cedric. Even though their bones were weary and their bodies ached by the time they retired to bed, they did not forsake intimate relations in favor of sleep. It was very nice, Cerridwen had learned, to let go of that dizzying passion, to go slower, to discover what pleased him and, in turn, show him what pleased her. More exciting than physical pleasure, though, was the time spent after, lying in his arms. He told her stories of his past, of what life was like on the Astral Plane, of the fun Faeries had in the days when they did not worry about scratching out an existence, when all was provided for. He told her things about her mother, and things about her father, which she treasured above all.

If they were not too tired, they would walk in the forest after dinner, and he would show her some new trick of the other sight, a new magic that, simple though it might be, felt as though it bound her closer to her Fae heritage. Occasionally, he taught her something from his days as an Assassin, and she fancied herself a promising fighter, once she learned to best him in combat.

She suspected he let her win, a few times.

The days passed, and the camp returned to, if not normal, a more compact version of normal, that everyone had begun to grow accustomed to. Weeks went by, and the weather grew warmer. They celebrated Midsummer with a feast and dancing, and Cerridwen delighted when the Humans performed a masque in her honor, portraying her as the Goddess, belly ripe with child. That was, until she saw the light in Cedric.s eyes, the longing for what he had lost, and what he clearly hoped to have again.

But those tensions aside, life as Queene was more than she could ever have hoped for. Even the daily activities of planning rations and monitoring the situation with the Enforcers, which could be mind-numbingly boring, seemed far easier than she had expected.

It was at such a meeting that Cedric brought up her most hated subject of all.

“I think we need a stronger military presence in the camp,” he warned, sounding as tired of repeating himself as she was of hearing him.

Amergin tapped his fingers on the tabletop, and Trasa groaned audibly.

“I do not wish to discuss this again,” Cerridwen said in a light voice, reaching for the parchment that reported the latest yield of summer berries.

“Whether you wish to discuss it or not, I would not be doing my duty by this colony if I were to let such an obvious hole in our defenses go un….” He balled that hand that lay flat on the table into a fist, a telltale sign of his frustration. He loathed misspeaking, or speaking badly.

She hid a smile behind her hand as she tapped her lips as if in thought. “The Assassins have increased their number, have they not? And the training is coming along well? Let them handle things. If the Enforcers were to intrude into the forest—”

“Does Your Majesty believe that our Assassins outnumber the Enforcers? That is, I beg your pardon for my frankness, laughable.”

“I do not see how it would be to our benefit to pull laborers away from the livestock, and the gardens, and the woodcutting and weapons-making in order to form a militia.” She shook her head. “I am sorry, but I do not wish for us to be a war-minded people. You were in the Underground, as I was. You were in the battle against the Elves and Waterhorses, as I was—”

“Yes! You were in one battle!” he shouted, standing. “One single battle, and you have discounted any notion of protection because of it.”

“I did not see the great protection that battle resulted in! Rather, I remember you running with me, through the woods, away from our home.” Her voice wavered slightly. She was not being fair to him. The war against the Elves was her fault. But she would not admit that now.

“Your Majesty, I ask only for the means necessary to protect our lives here. I have come to care about this place. It is my home, as the Underground once was, the Astral before that. There are families here. Would you have me leave these families at risk?” As he spoke the words, his meaning was clear. He wanted the colony safe, for their family. Her heart lurched, but he continued. “Let me take those who have a skill in and an inclination toward fighting.

That is all I ask. They will train, in addition to the duties they already perform, and no resources will be lost.”

She waved her hand, beaten into submission by his words and her lack of desire to argue the point any further. “Fine. Do what you must.”

“I will. I will go now, and spread the word that I am looking for skilled warriors.” He stood and gave her a springy bow, as though he were a fresh, new thing, not ancient as he was.

Trasa watched him go, then leaned forward and hissed, “You have not told him yet?”

“Berries,” she said, shuffling the sheets of parchment with a pointed glare. “And what we are to do to preserve them.”

“Wine,” Amergin said at once, then, with less enthusiasm, “Or, jam.”

Trasa sat back and listened to the discussion, but Cerridwen could not meet her piercing gaze.

The trouble was, Cerridwen reflected a few weeks later, having escaped to the gardens to do the hard work of pulling up carrots, that she did not see a family in her future.

She frowned as she tugged on a particularly stubborn root. No, that was not it at all. She saw a family, Cedric and herself, and that was all the family she was interested in having.

There was so much more to life than simply bearing children. At least, she thought there must be. With her twenty-first birthday months away, she was not sure yet of what exactly there was to life. Cedric was impatient, because he had made the choice to become a father long ago. So long ago that his children were grown, and spread to the corners of the world. But they were immortal, and there would be plenty of time. Now seemed a poor moment in the history of their species to start adding to it.

Trasa believed it was unfair to believe such, and Cerridwen found no reason to argue that it was not, to feel this way and keep it from Cedric. She simply did not wish to cause him pain. Not after all the heartbreak they had already endured, certainly not after they had settled into their comfortable routine. Perhaps she would someday wish for a family. But that day would not be in a year, perhaps not in ten, or fifteen.

A noise in the trees caught her attention. The flight lines, long ropes that indicated clear paths through the trees—she would not make the others learn from her airborne mistake—

shuddered, and the sound of foliage rustling grew louder and louder. The Humans working near her did not notice it. Humans, she had come to learn, did not observe things as quickly as the Fae did. The Faeries tending the rows of cabbage noticed, and they looked skyward.

The Assassins flew into the clearing and dropped down, landing in a ring around her, their weapons drawn. Gods, they have come to murder me, she thought, remembering how her mother had feared a coup in the years of her reign. But one of them, the Pixie, shouted,

“Secure the Queene,” and the group began rushing her toward the path that would lead to her Palace.

Cedric had been working in a neighboring garden, too far away to have seen what took place. He ran toward them now, discarding his sleeveless tunic and reaching for the dagger in his belt as he raced toward the Assassins.

“No, no!” she shouted, pushing her way past them, to put herself between her rampaging mate and her Assassins. “They have not come to harm me.”

With a sheepish look, he sheathed his weapon. “I apologize, brothers,” he said. The tight set of his jaw pushed his veins against the tattooed skin of his Guild Mark.

“Enforcers. They have camped out on the rise behind the forest,” Fionnait said, breathless from her flight.

“You have left the woods?” Cerridwen looked to Cedric for confirmation. “When did this happen?”

“Scouts, from the militia,” he clarified, and, as if summoned, a Human ran into the clearing, his large, dark eyes casting everywhere until he spotted them.

“Charles? The piper?” Cerridwen asked, wrinkling her nose. “Really, Cedric, how can musicians be a help to us?”

As he drew nearer, Charles slowed. “They spotted me,” he gasped. In the V-ed neck of his tunic, his skin dripped with sweat. “I tried to lose them, but they know we.re here. The spells are not holding. If I did not know better, I would say they.re using magic to counter our own.”

“They will advance,” Fionnait warned. “Your Majesty, we must go.”

“Go where?” She laughed, because it was better than bursting into tears. “We cannot outrun them. Not with the Humans and their children.”

“We leave them behind,” Prickle spat. “You need to worry about our skins, now.”

“Enough!” Cedric shouted, and his voice disturbed the birds who slept in the trees. They flew upward with a tremendous chatter, and he cursed. Then, he took her hands and held them tightly in his own. “I did not wish to tell you of this, until there was an emergency. We all thought it would be best, not to tell you.”

“Oh, you know how I dearly love secrets,” she hissed, snatching her hands back. “Tell me what is going on!”

“Tunnels, Your Majesty,” Fionnait said, her voice flat, emotionless. “Amergin told us about them.”