Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After (8 page)

Allie tugged a particularly stubborn tangle. “Rhianne’s grief at losing her speaker ran so deep. The summoner stopped talking, nearly stopped eating. Months and months later she had a daughter, and once her daughter was born, she decided she was done with life and love and with
everything
, which is the saddest thing I ever heard. Rhianne left her daughter and her people and her body behind, and she sent her shadow wandering, which was stupid, because that meant she was all alone with her grief. Rhianne wandered far and wide, through all
of Faerie, while her people waited and watched over her body and hoped maybe one day she’d come back.”

The tangle wouldn’t give. Allie let it go. “Eventually Rhianne’s body grew old and died, because faerie folk died younger then, like I said. Her flesh melted into the soil, and the tree, well, the tree ate her, like trees did, even Before. It was only after that that Rhianne’s shadow returned, her grief used up at last. She searched for her body with her magic but found only the tree. And—this is the strangest part. Rhianne sent her shadow into the only shelter she could find for it, the tree’s bark and branches and leaves. The tree didn’t fight her. Maybe it couldn’t, or maybe it recognized her, after eating her skin and bones and all. Karin thinks it welcomed her. No one knows, because this was so long ago. All we know is that Rhianne’s shadow and the quia tree’s shadow became all jumbled together, and no one could tell, after that, where the woman ended and the tree began. They were the same.” Allie leaned against me. “I’m not sure what that means, Liza. Are you?”

I thought of Matthew, wolf and boy at once. “I think it means their shadows were tangled together. Like a shifter’s shadows.”

“It was only after
that
that Rhianne’s daughter came to the tree where her mother had died.” Allie pressed her fingers against her eyes, as if to keep them open.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Go ahead. Sleep. I’ll wake you if anyone comes.”

Allie hunched in on herself. “I sound all stupid and scared, don’t I?”

“It isn’t stupid to be scared when the danger’s real. And the moment I hear anything, I’ll wake you. I promise.” I could at least do that much.

“All right.” Allie sighed, a sound troubled as the wind before a storm, and shifted to rest her head on my thigh. It took a while, but eventually her eyes closed, and her breath relaxed into sleep.

I kept watch, listening for noises in the dark, long past when the purple light dimmed and went out.

Chapter 6

I
t was smell, not sound, that warned me of Nys’s approach, the aroma of some roasted root vegetable. I nudged Allie awake as purple light flickered in the dark and Nys stepped out of another tunnel that hadn’t been there before. I put myself between him and Allie, gauging the distance to that tunnel. The ache had left my hip and leg. We might have a chance, if we ran.

Nys followed my gaze and raised an eyebrow, as if my thoughts of escape amused him. He touched the wall, and the tunnel closed. He wouldn’t have done that if he truly believed escape impossible.

“I said I would bring food.” Nys held the bowl out to us.

Allie grabbed my arm as she backed away, pulling me with her. The amusement drained from Nys’s face.
“Eat it. Or must I enchant you to make you do even this small thing?”

Allie’s grip tightened, but then she let go and stalked forward. Not under glamour—the anger in those steps was every bit Allie’s. “Give it to me. I can eat on my own.”

Nys handed her the bowl. “It is good to see one of you thinking sensibly. Humans are fragile enough when they do eat.”

There was no fork. Allie shoved a pale white tuber into her mouth with her fingers and chewed, glaring at Nys all the while. I thought of stories from Before, about the dangers of eating faerie food—but surely the food wasn’t the greatest danger here.

I met Nys’s stony gaze. “If you knew Allie at all, you’d know you don’t need magic to get her to heal.”

“I know she has said as much. I know, too, how little human words can be trusted. The humans who asked to meet with us before the Uprising assured us they meant no harm.”

I stayed close to Allie’s side as she ate. “No one with magic can lie.”

“This is so among my own true folk,” Nys said. “It may or may not be true among humans, and besides, truth is a slippery thing. Given freedom to act, the healer could as easily use her magic to kill as to heal.”

“I’d never do that!” Allie’s cheeks flushed with anger. “There’s only two times it’s okay to kill with healing magic: when someone is in pain and when someone’s causing it.” Allie handed me the half-empty bowl, but her glare remained fixed on Nys. “Magic is for help, not harm. You of all people should know that, living in the place where magic began.”

Magic had done harm enough during the War. Allie knew that as well as me. Yet she went on. “The oath came from your people, didn’t it? It didn’t come from mine. Until the War, we didn’t have any magic to make oaths about.”

“An oath. About magic.” Nys’s arms moved to his sides, one hand resting on his stone belt. A watchful posture, like mine when I was thinking of drawing my knife. “Tell me about this oath, Healer.”

Stones
were
weapons for Nys. I set the bowl down, leaving my good hand free. Allie pressed her lips together, angry still, and she repeated the words I’d spoken for Karin when I became her student, words Allie must have once spoken for Caleb, too:

“If I do any harm,” Allie said, “it’ll be by accident or because you make me do it. But I’ll never do harm on purpose, never.”

“Tell me, child. Where did you learn that?” So cold, Nys’s voice. It made the room feel colder, too.

“From my teacher,” Allie said.

“And who would your teacher be?”

Allie glanced at me. I shook my head. There were faerie folk enough who blamed Caleb for starting the War.

“I could compel you to tell me, but in this case there is hardly the need.” Nys’s hand left his belt. “I know my eldest son’s work well enough, for good and for ill. I hear him in every word of this oath you speak. Tell me, is Kaylen well?”

“You’re Caleb and Karin’s
father
?” Allie blurted. I stared at Nys, knowing my face showed how startled I was as clearly as Allie’s words.

“Oh, not Karinna’s.” Nys sounded affronted. “I’m nowhere near that old. But I asked you a question. Answer it.”

Information was a weapon, too. “Promise you won’t use glamour on either of us,” I said. “Only then will we tell you how Caleb is.”

“I could make the healer answer,” Nys said. “I cannot control her thoughts, but I think I could draw information from her.”

“But Caleb wouldn’t want you to.” Allie’s hands went to her hips. “You know he wouldn’t.”

“Do not attempt to shame me, child. I know my son’s mistakes well enough. All the Realm knows Kaylen’s mistakes, just as all have known his true name since those mistakes became known. Much harm followed, when he withdrew his glamour from a human. Has he told you that story?”

“The War followed.” I knew the story better than Nys could imagine, because the human was my mother; knew, too, that no war was so simple as to be caused by any one person. “Your promise,” I said. “You can compel Allie with glamour, but you cannot compel me, and as a seer I know things about Caleb she does not.”

Nys turned away. Allie picked up the bowl, held it out to me. I ate what remained of the tubers. They held an overripe sweetness, near to rotting, that made me want to gag.

Only as Allie set down the bowl did Nys turn back to us. “So long as you do as I say, I’ll not use glamour
on either of you.” He spoke slowly, as if the words came at some cost.

“So long as we do no harm,” I insisted.

“And how does a human account harm? No. I have offered more than you deserve. I’ll offer no more—and Elin and I
will
have words about her keeping this from me.”

Allie looked at me, and this time I nodded. “Caleb was fine when we left him,” she said. “He teaches humans now. Not only me.” She stopped there, with no mention of Mom or the baby. Good.

Silence. I waited. I’d learned, as Karin’s student, that faerie folk didn’t feel the need to fill the quiet with words as so many humans did.

Something in Nys’s expression thawed. “For this news, much thanks. Though Kaylen is no longer welcome in the Realm, nor within the shelters I built for our people here, knowing he survived the human Uprising means a great deal to me. My visions have been unclear on this matter, but they don’t reach as far as they once did. Those visions told me Kaylen survived for a time, but not how long. What do your seer’s visions say of him, Liza?”

“Caleb’s coming here.” I made no mention of Matthew, told Nys no more than I had to.

Allie’s eyes grew large, hopeful—and then Nys’s
hands snaked out to grasp my shoulders. “Why would he do such a thing?”

I drew my dead hand to my side, knowing I’d have little chance if I fought him here, with unbroken stone all around. “He comes looking for his student, and for his sister, and for—” What relation were Caleb and I? “And for me.”

Nys’s fingers dug through my sweater, bruising me. “Kaylen and Karinna are not friends. He would not come for her.”

“Yet they’ve always tried to protect each other.” I knew that from my visions.

The links of Nys’s belt shifted, clinking restlessly against one another. “Kaylen ought not to return. He’ll not live long if he does. The border protections the Lady put in place shortly after the Uprising will destroy him and any who enter the Realm with him.”

“Border protections?” My voice echoed off the stone around us, unnaturally loud.

“The ruler of the Realm is tied to this land in ways the rest of us can scarcely imagine. If she truly wishes to keep someone out, she can do so. No doubt the Lady had her reasons, just as she had her reasons for seeing to it that seers can no longer leave the ways between our worlds idly open. You won’t hear me suggest it was something so simple as anger at her youngest son, or
anything aside from the good of the Realm, that dictated her actions.”

Allie and I exchanged a look. Caleb was walking—no, running—into a deadly trap.
And any who enter the Realm with him
. Matthew, too. The cold light couldn’t lessen the room’s chill. “We have to stop him.”

“We need do no such thing.” Nys released my shoulders. I stumbled back. “Kaylen made his decisions long ago, and if he suffers the consequences of them, he is hardly alone in that.” Nys reached for Allie. “Now. Show me that humans can keep their promises.”

Allie bit her lip. “It doesn’t have to be one thing or the other. We could go after Caleb when the healing’s through.”

“Through?” Nys said, as if he didn’t understand. “You do not appreciate the extent of the harm your people wrought. This will never be through, not until the Realm itself crumbles away. We ease the worst of their suffering, nothing more.” His fingers closed around Allie’s wrist. “Since the War, I have done all I can for my people. I will continue to do so, and if there are prices to be paid, I will pay them. Come, Healer.”

“Wait,” I said. “The border magic. How can it be undone?” Maybe we could save Caleb and Matthew, even if we couldn’t get free ourselves.

“Undone?” Nys’s laughter was rough as stone
scraping stone. “It cannot be undone, save by the Lady or her heir. The one is gone and the other lacks wit enough to act. Unless you’d like to attempt to slit Karinna’s throat, as I have vowed to Elin not to, in hopes that the power will fall to the weaver. I would not stop you. Karinna and I are not friends, either, for all that I’ve thrown my lot in with her daughter, who believed Karinna’s presence might be of use to the land. Kaylen would have been a far more suitable heir—but the time for such maneuvering is past. Until very recently, I was not aware Karinna lived. Now, Liza, must I bind you to the wall again, or will you allow Allie and I to depart in peace?”