Child of Darkness-L-D-2 (14 page)

And they did wait. An hour passed as the creature scratched down the words, painfully slowly, on the paper. He often paused, and a few times Ayla wondered if he had finished, but the pen still hovered thoughtfully over the page.

When he finally handed it back to Cedric, there appeared to be little written on it. But what was written there made Cedric frown. “The Queene and I will discuss this in private,” he told the pitiful Faery. “Is there anything else that we can do for you?”

It—he, Malachi would have reminded her, had he been there—twisted his head to the side slowly, once, twice, then opened its horrible, scarred mouth. The sound that came from its mangled lips was less a voice than a rattle, but the words were unmistakable.

“Kill…me.”

Ayla looked to Cedric, but it was clear that neither of them had the answer. She realized her hand was at her throat, fingering the collar of her robe in a nervous thrum, and she forced it away. She nodded to Cedric, and then in the direction of the Faery.

“It…will be done,” Cedric promised gravely, and they left the pitiable thing alone in its room. Outside of the door, Cedric spoke to the guard, imparting instructions, no doubt, on how to deal with the disposal. Ayla did not wish to hear it; she was only glad that it would be done.

“What did the paper say?” she asked Cedric when they had walked far enough away from the guard and the horrible room. “Is there any new information? Shall I call the council?”

“Not yet,” Cedric ground out, his jaw uncharacteristically tight.

“But what does it say?” She reached for the paper, but maddeningly knew she would not be able to decipher anything written there.

“I will tell you in private. I do not wish for anyone to overhear.” So, they went to the council room, but Ayla did not send for Malachi and Flidais. She waited patiently for Cedric to lay out the paper he had folded again and again on their walk, and settled herself onto the most comfortable stool while he paced.

“I will read it to you straight out, without embellishment or correction. Only what he wrote in his own hand,” Cedric said nervously.

“That would be best,” she agreed, ready to scream at him to get on with it. He cleared his throat, as though about to embark on a great oration, and smoothed the page flat on the tabletop. “‘My name is Alfric, and I was born in the Upworld after the last Great War. I have lived on the Upworld all of my life.

“‘I was maimed by the Waterhorses, but not as Bauchan would have you believe. My family lived peaceably with a family of mortals on a farm, my mother fulfilling the role of a beantighe while my father toiled as a Human in the fields outside. The mortals hid us again and again from Enforcers. They were believers in what they called the Old Way, and believed we were close to their Gods and Goddesses. They reveled in our magic, or what they believed was our magic, and we let them, because we were grateful to them.

“‘On Samhain, the Waterhorses came for us. The mortals had stupidly left out offerings and called to spirits, and the Waterhorses heard this offer and came to claim it. It was the early light hours of the morning. My father fell first; they tore him to pieces with their claws and teeth while I hid behind a Hawthorne bush. They went to the house next, and I heard the mortals screaming, and my mother. I thought I was well hidden, so I stayed where I was, in the bush. But they found me, too, and did to me what they had done to my father and mother and the mortals.

“‘But I lived. I do not know why I lived. They ate of my flesh while I still lived, and yet I did not die. They tore my skin and the foaming saliva that dripped from their jaws burned me. I did not want to live. I begged to die. But I did not.

“‘I had only come into being twenty-five years earlier. I have lived, with the memories and the scars, with the horrible burning. I do not wish to live any longer.’”

The silence that fell over them was that of the inside of a tomb, or so Ayla imagined. But there was a relief, as well. Not only that this broken, tortured creature would not suffer a day longer, but that Bauchan’s threat had been entirely without truth.

“That is good to know,” she said, her tongue thick in her mouth. “Now, do we try Bauchan for treason, or simply send him back to his Queene with his tail between his legs?”

“We will do neither,” Cedric said, very quietly. “The Waterhorses have indeed come.”

Ayla snorted. “Yes, if we were to believe that they took their time getting here. The creature was twenty-five at his maiming, and born after the Great War. Not as old as you, but he could be far older than me. I doubt that the villains in his tragic story have spent this much time trying to find their way into the Darkworld.”

“I do not know how much time it would take them,” Cedric said, his voice still maddeningly quiet. “But I know they have come.”

She made a noise of disgust. It was as if Cedric had been infected by Malachi’s disquiet of late. “Do not overcomplicate this, Cedric. We have no reason to believe that the Waterhorses are coming. The only proof Bauchan has—”

“It is not Bauchan who has proof. It is I.” Cedric paced before the table a few times, his hands rubbing his face as though he could bend the flesh there out of shape. “I must confess something to you, Your Majesty, that I did not wish to trouble you with.”

There was a current in the air now, something sinister and anticipatory. It prickled Ayla’s skin. “Best to have it out. Trouble me,” she responded, but whatever it was that Cedric had to say would come in its own, maddening time.

“I have a mistress.” He quickly amended that. “A mortal mistress. A Gypsy.”

It was certainly not the confession Ayla expected. Cedric, who never seemed to care for the creatures at all, dallying with a mortal? If it had come from anyone else’s lips, she would not have believed it.

“I…” she began, but there was nothing to say.

Cedric, however, had more to speak of. “The Gypsies are leaving the Underground, fleeing to the Upworld to get away from the creatures who are stalking them. The creatures are the Waterhorses. They have come to the Underground and, as they are confining themselves to the Darkworld, I can only assume that they are there at the behest of the Elves, as Bauchan warns.”

“You are certain of this? They are not…confused? Mistaking a lesser Demon or another creature—”

“No.” He did not meet her eyes. “Their leader is a mortal woman who deals in magic. She has seen a vision of them.”

“Their leader?” Another unexpected blow. “You have spoken with their leader?”

He did not deny it. That nearly made the insult of it worse.

So, he had spoken to the leader of these people. That was involvement far beyond a simple affair. It showed that he belonged, in some way, that he was accepted by them. That he had somewhere else he could go. That was most frightening of all.

Had he intended to tell her this? No, otherwise he would not have bothered with the charade of interrogating the misshapen Faery. If the creature’s tale had been different, he would never have confessed.

“Thank you,” Ayla said, her voice scraping out painfully. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“Your Majesty, I must also confess—”

The door to the council room opened, and Malachi entered without knocking. He held Cerridwen’s governess by one arm, and she dangled at his side, sniveling helplessly.

“She is gone,” Malachi said, pushing the Faery to the floor. “And this creature will answer for it.”

ine

“M alachi!” Ayla stood, took a few steps toward Governess, and then seemed to realize that the Queene could not help a commoner off the floor.

For once, Malachi was grateful for her pretensions.

“What do you mean, she is gone?” Cedric did not ask Malachi, but the sniveling Faery on the floor. “I saw her only hours ago.”

“She must have slipped away as we met with Bauchan,” Ayla said, her voice hollow. “I should have let her stay.”

Cedric shook his head. “No. I went to see her after we disbanded the council. She wanted to know what took place there, and I promised her I would tell her.”

“Your promises to her now mean something?” Ayla snapped, suddenly all wrath and fire.

“I have never made a promise to your daughter, Your Majesty,” Cedric said coldly. “Any promise you may have made on my behalf is not mine to keep.”

“Cerridwen is missing!” Malachi could not believe they would become consumed in petty arguments over betrothal at this moment. “She has been missing for some time, and this creature has not reported it to anyone! She has been slinking around the Palace, trying to leave, herself! She probably helped Cerridwen to escape!”

“No, Your Majesty, do not believe him, I beg you!” Governess crawled on her hands and knees toward Ayla to collapse to the floor, prostrate before her. “It is true, the Royal Heir is missing. But I had nothing to do with it.”

The fury in Ayla’s demeanor did not die, but redirected. “Then why would you run? Several times now, the Royal Heir has left the Palace without my consent. I say it is you who is responsible, else you would not flee!”

“I flee because I am frightened!” Governess climbed to her knees. “I have served you well, these past twenty years, and yet you would wish me to stay here, to be slaughtered by monsters?”

Ayla turned to Cedric. “What did you tell her?”

Malachi did not like to intervene in arguments between the Queene and her advisor. He tried to only speak out when one or both of them seemed to lose all grasp of logic. And that time seemed to have come. “There were at least a hundred Courtiers present when Bauchan made his initial announcement. She could have heard this from any of them.”

“I meant Cerridwen,” Ayla roared, advancing on Cedric. “What did you tell Cerridwen, to make her run away?”

“Everything, my lady!” Still in terror for her life, the governess inched her way forward on her knees to interject. “I heard all. He told her of your plans to invade the Darkworld, to capture Elves! No wonder she was frightened—”

“Enough!” Ayla screamed. “Get this traitor out of my sight. Lock her in the dungeon, lest she contaminates anyone else with her fear. I will not allow a mass retreat before the battle even begins!”

As the governess wailed in terror, Malachi stepped forward to do Ayla’s bidding. It was right, and sensible, of her to think of the effect such hysteria would have on her Court. But as he approached, she called out, “Not you, Malachi. I will need you to help find Cerridwen.”

“I believe I may know where she has gone, Your Majesty,” Cedric said quietly. Ayla did not look at him as she spoke. “You are as good as a traitor yourself, Cedric. Take this one to the dungeon and be glad I do not order your incarceration, as well.”

Without a word, Cedric hauled Governess to her feet and pulled her toward the door. In his face, every ruthless emotion that Malachi knew the Faery to have warred for dominance. If Cedric were not such an honorable Faery, Ayla would have made a very powerful enemy with her words.

The door closed, leaving both of them in silence, a silence Malachi knew better than to break. But knowing that something was foolish did not always prevent him from doing it. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Perhaps he did know where Cerridwen was. If he was the last to see her, before she ran off.”

“I do not believe he was the last to see her.” Ayla did not react with the anger she had displayed before, the anger that Malachi had fully expected. She sounded tired and resigned, and utterly hopeless.

“Where do you suggest we begin looking for her, then?” He would not ask her why she had called Cedric a traitor, or why they had been so tense when he’d entered. Probably more fighting over the betrothal, and Malachi could not take Ayla’s side in that. Sighing, Ayla moved toward the door. “We’ll look over her bedroom, first. If she is leaving permanently because of what Cedric told her, she will have taken things with her, I suspect. She is intelligent enough to do that.”

“And if we find that nothing has been removed, then we can conclude that she will return on her own?” He followed Ayla into the corridor, where she waved off the guards who had automatically flanked her. That simple gesture moved something in Malachi; she still felt safe with him at her side, did not see the need for further protection. Ayla did not answer his question, though, and they went to the royal chambers, straight to the door to Cerridwen’s room. Malachi had not been inside since it had been called the royal nursery. In those early days, he’d visited his daughter, cradled her tiny body in his arms. As she’d grown, he’d still gone to see her, but not as often. It was too painful to follow protocol that kept him a safe distance from her at Court when all he wished to do was put her on his shoulder and proclaim that she was his. When the child had begun to question his presence, he cut himself off from her entirely.

Cutting off a limb would have seemed painless in comparison.

The royal nursery had been much tidier before it had become the chambers of the Royal Heir. How Ayla would be able to tell anything missing from the ill-organized collection in the antechamber, he had no idea.

But she did not bother with the antechamber. Instead, she went farther into the room, beyond a screen to where the Royal Heir should have slept the night before. The wardrobe doors were open, the contents rifled through. But clothing remained. The bed had not been made, but it did not look slept in, either. It looked slept on, as though she had not intended to go to sleep at all. A trait she shared with her mother. Ayla went to the wardrobe and pushed some of the dresses aside, then righted them. She opened drawers, and flung back the bedcovers. She looked around the room, then her shoulders sagged and she sank to the bed. “I cannot tell. She could be gone for a day, she could be gone for an hour.”

There was a small writing desk. “Would she have left a note?”

“For me?” Ayla scoffed. “No, she knows I would not be able to read it. She has made it a point to mock me and my lack of intelligence.”

Malachi lifted the edge of the bedclothes and stopped to peer beneath the bed. He retrieved a crumpled ball of paper and smoothed it. “Perhaps she tried to write you, and thought better of it. I will take these to Cedric, and have him read them to me.”