Child of Darkness-L-D-2 (13 page)

A flash of black caught her eye, and she looked beyond the cart, where a merchant had set up tables outside of his stall. There was a girl there, a Vampire or a mortal doing a good job of pretending to be a Vampire, and she watched Cerridwen and Fenrick with bored hostility.

“Who is that?” Cerridwen asked, her bones turning suddenly to ice. Then, she shook her head. There was something important that she must tell him, and she did not want to dwell on trivialities now. “No. I came to tell you something, and it cannot wait.”

“Then tell me.” He seemed more irritated now. The girl tossed her black hair lazily, turned away as though she were annoyed, but unworried, at Cerridwen’s intrusion. There was so much to confess to him first, before she could tell him of the events that drove her here. She supposed she could spill all to him standing right there on the Strip, but it seemed that to rush such an announcement—“I am the daughter of the Faery Queene and I have learned that you are in great danger”—would make it seem a joke, at best, or a lie, at worst.

“I cannot tell you here.” When he made a noise of impatience and moved as if he would go, she grabbed his arm to stop him. “Please! Please, this has as much to do with your father, your family, every Elf you know, as it has to do with you. I cannot tell you here, on the Strip. But if we go away somewhere, I can explain.”

He looked as though he were considering, his expression moving from angered to uneasy and back as his gaze moved from Cerridwen to the girl at the table. “Stay here,” he said suddenly, and was gone before she could protest. He went to the Vampiress at the table and bent down to speak to her. That he did not touch her, did not appear to show any affection to her, soothed Cerridwen’s bruised heart a bit. The girl pouted, twined her arm around his and tried to pull him down to a stool beside her, but he resisted, and with a cry of outrage, she stood and left. Fenrick threw some coins onto the table and lifted the tin cup that had been sitting beside the girl, downing the contents in a long swallow.

When he returned to Cerridwen’s side, he seemed larger. Or perhaps that was just because she felt so very small.

Without speaking, he took her by the wrist and maneuvered through the crowd smoothly, until they came to a Darkworld entrance. They were barely inside when he stopped and let her go, demanding, “So, what is it you wish to tell me?”

Before she could speak, though, he said, “You look like the worst bits of the Darkworld, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in such disarray. And you seemed so…worried. It’s frightening me a little, Cerri.”

“Cerridwen,” she said stiffly. “My name is Cerridwen.”

He shrugged. “I always assumed it was short for something.”

“It is. Short for Cerridwen. Do you know much about the Faery Court?” She bit her lip and waited for him to answer, bracing herself for the rejection that was soon to come. Another elegant shrug. “I know that they are Lightworld traitors. That they exiled my kind a century ago, and fought against us in the war when we sided with the Humans.”

“And of their Queene?” As she spoke, she unbuttoned her shirt, her fingers trembling. “Do you know about her?”

“I do not know what game you are playing,” Fenrick said with a slow smile. “But you play it better than the mortal I was just with.”

She did not give him the benefit of a blush. “This is not a game.” She let the garment slip from her shoulders and reached for the binding that held her wings in place. She pulled it free, finding the work awkward; Governess usually did it for her. “The Faery Queene, Queene Ayla, has a daughter. The Royal Heir. Got on her by her former mate, King Garret, who ruled only a few days before he was killed by his Queene. He was fully Fae, but the Queene is not. She is half Human. Her daughter…she can pass for Human, if she truly tries.”

The binding fell free, and she stretched her wings, the feathery black things always bound to her back as part of her mother’s obsessive need to make members of the Court appear more Human. They stretched wide and heavy, nearly upsetting her balance, and then she closed them around her nakedness.

“Cerri,” Fenrick said, his usually arrogant, knowing expression obscured by a mask of shock.

“Are you saying that you…you are a Faery?”

“A Faery, and the daughter of Queene Ayla.” She took a deep breath and reached for her shirt. “I did not tell you before, because it was easier to pretend that I am a normal…that I am not destined to live out my life in my mother’s Palace. I did not mean to lie to you, I swear. I would never seek to deceive you out of cruelty. I just wanted to have an adventure, to have friends outside of the Palace walls. You must understand, I did not lie to hurt you.”

“I am not hurt,” he said, his gaze falling to a place near her feet. “Is this the news you had for me? I thought you said it concerned—”

“No, there is more. And it does concern your race, and mine as well.” She had thought it would be more difficult to confess her charade to him than to tell him of the coming danger, but now, she found that was not true. “A visitor from the Upworld came and warned us that Elves in the Darkworld would take action against us. I do not believe it, of course…they accuse your people of being in league with monsters. But my mother and her council believe it, and they intend to come into the Darkworld and kidnap some of you, torture someone of your kind into telling them what they wish to hear. And then they will declare war against you.”

Fenrick said nothing.

“I know that your father is important among your people. You’ve told me as much, before. Perhaps he could do something, to warn your race to take care, to hide for a time.”

Still, Fenrick did not respond.

“Fenrick?” She pulled her shirt on, held it closed over her chest as she stepped closer to him.

“Have I made you angry?”

He looked up then, sharply, and all the warmth he had shown her before this horrible night had returned to his face. “I’m sorry. Cerri, I’m sorry, I’ve been a brute. I should not have been talking to that girl on the Strip. It was stupid of me, especially when I know how much you care about me, and…how much I care about you.”

She did not know why he did not run directly to his father, why he felt the need to say this to her now. In truth, his apology hurt her all over again. But his admission of his feelings, to hear that he cared for her, quickly eclipsed her confusion and hurt.

“I should not have come looking for you in such a state,” she blurted, wondering at the same time what she had to apologize for. But the elation at his confession filled her to bursting. “I should not have scared you.”

He took her into his arms, tucked her head easily beneath his chin. “No. You were right in coming to me. And brave. And noble. Truly, I don’t know anyone who would do such a thing, risk so much to come to my aid.”

She did not think she had risked all that much. Nothing that she cared about losing, at any rate. “I cannot go back to the Palace. Not now. I cannot stand to be there, knowing the way my mother feels about your kind, and how hateful she is.”

“We will worry on that later,” he soothed, his hands smoothing over her wings through her shirt. “Now, we must go to my father. He must hear of this immediately.”

She pulled back and nodded her agreement, and let him lead her farther down the tunnel. It occurred to her to mention his knife, tucked safely in her trousers, but the silence between them was so nice, companionable as they set off to save his people together. She did not want to spoil it.

“He has allowed you access to the creature?”

Ayla smirked to herself at Cedric’s question. “If you had not disappeared so suddenly last night, you would have been able to watch Flidais in action against the Ambassador. She was quite impressive.”

Behind her, Cedric’s footsteps halted. “Flidais dealt with him?”

His ego was wounded. Good. “If you had been here, the task would have fallen to you. But you were not. And Flidais proved herself just as effective.”

Perhaps this would curb his ridiculous urge to disappear without warning or explanation. Flidais was no threat to Cedric, and he well knew it, but his pride would not tolerate important jobs falling to someone of a lesser station.

Perhaps he no longer cares, she nagged at herself. He had been distant, it was true, but she could not believe that he no longer cared what happened in Court. He followed her to a room near the guards’ barracks. They had separated the poor, maimed creature from Bauchan’s retinue, though Ayla thought it might have been more to Bauchan’s comfort than the creature’s.

“You are keeping him here?” Cedric sniffed, looked up at the low ceiling. “You could not find a place for him in the dungeon?”

“I wanted to keep him as far from Bauchan as possible. I thought perhaps it would do him some good and influence what he would tell us.” She nodded to the guard who waited outside, and he moved toward the door reluctantly, as if frightened to open it.

“Oh, Morrigan’s acorns,” Cedric cursed, pushing the guard out of his way. He opened the door onto a room that was not, as Ayla was sure he expected, a prison cell. It was furnished as nicely as the rooms where Bauchan was being kept, with a brick hearth and oven for heat, a cabinet stocked with bread and a cistern of clean water. A rough bed frame, like the ones the guards slept on, covered with soft materials for comfort, stood against the far wall, and the creature sat, motionless, on a stool in the center of the room. His hood covered most of the deformities. Ayla thanked the Goddess for that. She did not know if she could have forced herself into the room if his scars were on full display. As she and Cedric approached, the thing’s head tilted, like a bird taking an interest in something on the ground, but it made no other move.

Cedric looked to her, as if she should speak, and when she did not, he gave a heavy sigh.

“Please rise, the Queene has come to see you.”

The pitiful thing stumbled to its feet and swayed there a moment before attempting a clumsy bow. The jerky movements reminded Ayla of the puppets in the shows she’d seen on the Strip as a child. She swallowed. “You may be seated, if you are more comfortable.”

The creature sat, seemed to stare quizzically at the two visitors despite the hood over its head. Cedric again observed him in silence, rubbing his jaw. “Can you speak?” he asked finally, and the creature shook his head. Then, uncertain, nodded. And shook its head. It could have been daft. But Ayla thought otherwise. “Is it painful to speak? Do you prefer not to?”

The creature nodded twice.

“There is no need to speak, then,” she assured him. “I wished to speak with you, alone, and away from Bauchan. That is why you have been brought here. Is this place comfortable?”

He made a shrug that seemed to say, “As comfortable as any other place.”

“You must tell us if you wish to be moved. After this conversation, if you wished, you could be returned to the Upworld, or back to Ambassador Bauchan’s cell.” When the creature made no indication of preferring either, she continued. “We wished to know more about your…well, about your deformity. How you came by it.”

“Namely, we wish to know if you were injured by the creatures known as the Waterhorses. Were you?” Cedric leaned against the closed door and folded his arms across his chest. The maimed Faery hesitated. He nodded slowly, then stopped.

Ayla looked to Cedric. It seemed the creature wished to tell them something, but could not.

“Can it write, do you suppose?”

The creature nodded vigorously and held out its hands.

“I will go and find some parchment,” Cedric said, turning to the door.

“No!” Ayla could not stomach the thought of being alone with the thing, and her fear was so great that she could ignore her shame. “No. Send the guard to do it.”

Cedric’s expression suggested he thought she was being absurd, but he did not argue. He addressed the creature with some impatience. “Stay here. We will return when we have what we need.”

He opened the door and motioned for Ayla to follow him. “Paper, and pen,” he snapped at the guard waiting outside, who hurried to do as he bid. Once the door was closed, Cedric smoothed his antennae against his head. “Do you think there is anything he can tell us, truly, that we do not already know?”

Something in his manner was agitated, and Ayla did not like it. Cedric was usually so calm. It was her place to be agitated, not his, and she felt as though they were doing a dance to which she had not yet learned all the steps. “I think,” she began carefully, “that he can tell us whether or not these Waterhorses are a threat to us, now. Who knows how long this pitiful thing has lived this way. I would be absolutely sure before I did anything rash,” Ayla reminded him, as he had advised her so many times. “Do you not think that caution is best?”

He opened his mouth to say something, and only got as far as “I—” before the guard jogged back, a ripped notebook in one hand and a broken blue pen in the other. Ayla took the instruments from the guard, then handed them to Cedric, thinking ahead to who would finally touch them.

“Is this all you could find?” he growled at the guard, frowning down at the scraps in his hands.

The guard beamed as if unaware of Cedric’s mood. “Found them on our excursion into the Darkworld, when were looking for—” he broke off, remembered he was in the presence of the Queene, and bowed. “They had some mortal writing on them, and I found them curious, so I kept them. I hope I have not offended, Your Majesty.”

“As long as it is a curiosity about the mortal world, and nothing more.” She turned away, took a fortifying breath, and pushed the door open again.

The creature stood, began to bow, but Ayla bade him sit down. He did, and reached for the edge of the hood that covered his face.

When his countenance was revealed, Ayla did not shrink away. She had seen a great many horrors worse than this in the Darkworld, during her time as an Assassin. But when she remembered that this was a Faery, or had once been, her stomach went weak again. Cedric’s face was grim as he approached, the writing implements held out before him. “Here. Please tell us what you wish about these Waterhorses, and what happened to you. Leave no important detail out. We will wait for as long as it takes you.”