Veil of Shadows (7 page)

Within moments, Fae surrounded them. Ones who had heard the commotion from the deck and had come to investigate for themselves, and ones who had seen the confrontation begin only seconds before and had followed. Rough hands grabbed Cedric, jerked him backward with his arms pressed up tightly between his wings. Cerridwen tried to fight her way free with the knife, but lost it embarrassingly quickly. Two Faeries gripped her by the shoulders and forced her to her knees. The meaty sound of a booted foot connecting with flesh cut through the riotous noise, and Cerridwen.s cry cut through him more effectively than her blade ever could.

“What the hell are you lot doing?” A Human fought his way into the fray. Stocky body, hard, lined face. He would not choose sides. He was afraid of all of them, and that was far more dangerous, Cedric realized, than the murderous horde surrounding them.

One of Bauchan.s retinue, a sickly thin-looking thing with long, green ropes of hair, called out, “This is none of your concern, Human!”

Her vehemence startled Cedric; he feared what reaction the Human would have now. He might produce one of those Human weapons, with the devastating projectiles, and kill them all out of fear or malice. He might be moved to contact the Enforcers.

More Humans arrived. One of them seemed to have more authority than the others, as the rest of them stood down when he barked his command. “Where is Bauchan? I demand to see him!”

“Then see him, Human!” the green-haired Faery hissed, sweeping her arm and brushing the other Fae away as though they were flies.

Cedric followed the Human.s gaze to the ground, where Bauchan.s robes lay in a puddle of melting ice that used to be his body. But it was an uninteresting sight, and he used the distraction of the crowd to look for Cerridwen.

The Fae that had taken hold of her had dropped her. She lay, unmoving, on the floor, her body turned in on itself so that he could not see her face to tell if she was conscious.

Anger churned in him, flaring red at the center of the tree of life force inside him. Some of it was still directed at Cerridwen herself, for her rash actions. Some was reserved for Ayla, for forcing him into a promise that he could not keep since she had not bothered to teach her daughter to rein in her temper and recognize the consequences of her actions. But those were diminished in the face of the rage that made him wish he could do to these Faeries exactly what Cerridwen had done to Bauchan.

“What is this? Is this some sort of joke?” The Human looked to Cedric on the ground, at Cerridwen, and back to the green Faery. He recognized her as the representative of the Fae. Cedric ground his teeth.

The green Faery straightened her long back and tossed her matted hair over her shoulder.

“This is no joke, Human. Bauchan is dead. Killed by these traitors. And we will punish them as we see fit.”

“Bauchan owes me money,” the Human said. How like a Human, to be unconcerned with anything but monetary gain. “Is this a trick?”

“You will be paid,” the green Faery spat. “Do not trouble yourself with that worry.”

The Human.s gaze moved over Cedric and Cerridwen again, and he flicked nervous eyes back to the green Faery.s face. “I can.t have any nastiness aboard my ship, you understand?

What.s to stop their people from coming after me if they die here?”

“They have no „people..” The green Faery sneered down at Cedric. “They will not be missed.”

The cold efficiency in her voice told Cedric that she truly believed this, and he could no longer idly watch. “You can explain to your Queene, then, why she has been denied her prize.”

The green Faery turned flashing eyes toward him. “Have I asked you to speak?”

“You know that Danae would not permit the death of the Faery Queene. Not when she could parade her in chains for her own pleasure.”

The Faery.s eyes narrowed. Her lips pursed. She said nothing.

“Queene?” The Human frowned. He.d lost control of the situation when he.d lost the green Faery.s attention, and he aimed to get it back. “This one here is a Queene?”

“A Pretender Queene,” the green Faery snapped.

“Queene of the Faery Court, descended from the line of Queene Mabb.” This would mean nothing to the Human, Cedric realized. A bolt of inspiration struck him. “One of your Human poets told of her. Shakespeare? Do you know what I speak of?”

The man made a noise, which was neither an affirmation or denial. It did not matter to Cedric which it was, because now the Human.s focus was trained on him. “She killed Bauchan?”

Cedric nodded gravely. “She did. He committed a great offense against her, and it was her royal right.”

“Liar!” The green Faery struck his cheek with a stinging slap.

Moving faster than Cedric had ever seen another Human move, the man stepped between them and grabbed the green Faery.s arm. She hissed and thrashed and spat, but he kept ahold of her. “There.s going to be none of that!” he roared, pushing her backward. She stumbled against the rail of the stairs and glared up at him. “This is my ship, and if anyone.s going to be dealt with, it.ll be me doing the dealing. Understand?”

The man considered Cedric for a moment, then turned his attention to Cerridwen. “She hurt?”

“I do not know,” Cedric answered truthfully. If she was, he would make those who had done it pay.

The Human nodded to his crew. “Get her up. Check her over. Then throw her in the brig.”

Cedric did not know what a brig was. “She cannot be separated from me.”

“Fine. You go, too.” The Human gestured to another man. “Take him, too.”

“And when we arrive at our destination?” The green Faery climbed to her feet, still seething.

“Will they be returned to our custody?”

“Once you are off my ship, I don.t care what you plan on doing with them. So long as I get my money.” He nodded to Cedric and Cerridwen. “Get them out of here. And the rest of you, clear off.”

Cedric locked eyes with the green Faery. Hatred and malice blazed in her eyes.

If they were friendless before, he realized, things had become far worse for them.

Five

C louds covered the sun, made the world a gray-white that was neither night nor day, but a perpetual in-between time that pricked the edges of consciousness as though in warning. Mist shrouded the floor of the clearing, as if the forest had come to life and exhaled too-warm breath into the chill air.

Blinking as she strained to see through the sinuous vapor, Cerridwen rose from the grass, felt the cool, wet air envelope her as though she.d dived into a pool.

A dark shape materialized in the mist, growing more distinct as it moved toward her. It was a female, a Human female, or so Cerridwen thought until she saw its face, flanked by two identical ones on either side of its head. The thing that was not a woman, but three in one body. It wore a long cloak of black feathers that rustled in a breeze Cerridwen could not feel. Beneath the blanket of feathers, metal armor glinted. Tall, armored boots rose past the woman.s knees. In her hand, she carried a spear tall enough to touch the ground at her feet and rise above her head, the gleaming silver of it stained with rust-colored rivulets of dried blood. Under her arm, she carried a helmet of silver, shaped like the head of a raven and so finely detailed that it must have come from the Court of the Gnomes. A strip of feathers rose from the crown of the helmet and spilled down its back in a mimic of the hair on the woman.s head, which was shaved but for a knot of ebony in the center that fell in a gleaming tail behind her.

It spoke with all of its mouths at once. “Do you enjoy killing?”

An aura of menace surrounded the thrice-faced woman, but it did not touch Cerridwen, and she spoke without fear. “I do not enjoy it. But it was necessary.”

The head nodded, all six eyes closing in slow appreciation. “This is a lesson many warriors take time to learn.”

“I am no warrior.” It embarrassed her to be called such, after seeing the bravery displayed by the Guild members in the fight at the Elven quarter.

“You are a warrior.” The answer brooked no quarrel. “You have blood on your hands, three times, blood on your hands.”

More than three times. This woman with three faces did not know that she stood before the Faery who had destroyed her own kind, killed her own mother and father through her foolishness. She did not need a blade to kill.

The three mouths continued to speak in unison. “The blood of your enemies. The dark one. The traitor. The deceiver.”

The Elf, and Flidais, and Bauchan. “They all had to die.”

“I will grant you a boon.” The woman dropped her spear and used a finger to trace the symbol of three spirals, connected in a triangle, the same as Cerridwen had seen in her dreams, in the air. Mist conformed to the shape, twisted into something more tangible. It turned to fire and steel, cooled to a stone and dropped into the woman.s open palm. She held it out, as if offering it, but when Cerridwen reached for it, she turned with sudden violence and threw it into the trees. It was lost in the mist and the darkness on the forest floor.

“Why did you do that?” Cerridwen cried, feeling entitled to the thing that had not been hers a moment before, had not even existed.

The woman shrugged, three bland expressions on her faces. “You will find it when you need my aid, and I will come.” She turned and walked toward the darkness of the trees, the fog clearing like courtiers bowing out of the way for their ruler to pass. She halted and cocked her head so that one face looked back, shrewd eyes looking Cerridwen up and down. “Wake up, Sister. Wake up.”

Cerridwen woke to darkness. There was a disconcerting moment in which she did not remember what had happened, and then the memory returned, horrible in its clarity.

She had killed Bauchan. She had done the right thing. No one would convince her otherwise. But when they.d seized her…when they.d hit her, the last thing she.d heard was Cedric, shouting her name.

Her hands were bound, but she tried to grope through the darkness, her breath coming faster and faster as she remembered the words that had drifted to her through her semiconscious fog. They had wanted to execute her, and Cedric; and the Humans had been concerned only with money.

“Cedric!” The panic she felt overrode any thought to what dangers might befall her if they discovered her awake and alive. If they had killed him—

“I am here.” The sentence was cool and perfunctory, no attempt to comfort or reassure her.

But he did not sound damaged, and that outweighed any concern she might have had for his demeanor. “Where are we?”

“We are in a prison.”

Had she slept that long? “They.ve taken us off the ship, then?”

“We are in a prison on the ship.” His words seemed to come from behind clenched teeth.

Vaguely, she remembered him chasing after her, shouting for her to stop, but her head ached and she did not want to examine her actions, or his reactions to them, now. “Why would someone need a prison on their ship?”

There was a rustling in the darkness, and the sound painted a picture in her mind of Cedric, wriggling against his bonds in an effort to free himself. “Perhaps in the event that someone loses all sense and reason and murders a fellow passenger?”

Absorbing that anger, she said softly, “You could have stopped me.”

A spot of red flared in the blackness. His antennae. The illumination gave her a clearer idea of where he was. Close to her, but not close enough to touch if she stretched out her bound hands. He sat upright, and the red glinted off the metallic surface of the wall behind him. In the glow, she could see the top of his head, but nothing else, none of his expression.

It was probably best that way. “You could have stopped yourself! You must learn, Your Majesty, that only you are responsible for your actions. Your stupid, rash actions!”

Though he meant to chastise her, she could not feel guilt over her actions. She ran the moment of Bauchan.s death through her mind once, twice, a third time. Her palms remembered the vibration of the blade in her hands as it sank into Bauchan.s body. The scent of his blood, dried onto her skin like war paint, tainted each breath. It had all been real, and it had all been her doing. But she could not lament it.

“I take responsibility for what I did. Of course, I do. But you must have wanted him dead, as well. He knew the one thing that you did not want him to know. His death must be a great relief to you.”

“A relief? To be imprisoned?” His voice rose in pitch, almost comical in his outrage.

“A relief, because now we are safe when we arrive at Danae.s Court. Bauchan can tell no one what he heard!” They were not safe from execution for murdering Bauchan. How to avoid punishment for that still escaped her.

Metal thudded dully. Cedric had kicked the floor in frustration. “There were other ways, ways that might not have gotten us killed!”

“Bauchan could not have been bought.” As if struck by lightning, a realization came upon her. “No one can truly be bought. If they are willing to trade their loyalty for gold or power, someone will always have a better offer.”

“So, all enemies must die, is that what you.re saying?” Cedric.s bitter chuckle sounded as though it would gag him. “I had no idea you were so naive.”

If he had looked into her most private fears, he could not have found words more able to wound her. “I did what had to be done!”

“Yes, I.m sure Danae will accept that at our trial—if she bothers to have one!”

Their anger filled the silence with hollow, rasping breaths. As if she.d brought that coiling, insidious mist with her from the dream world, something nebulous expanded in her, pushed out words that did not need to be said. “What do you think Danae will do to me? Imprison me? Execute me? Permit her to do it! I would welcome anything that would take this burden from me!”

“A burden you created!” he snapped back.

At once, the heady vapor that had fueled her rage fled her. She was empty, nothing but a husk of sorrow again. She.d forgotten that she.d felt this way before the exhilaration of Bauchan.s murder. Would it always take being the instrument of death to fill that void she.d created?