Rise of the Magi (15 page)

Holding Brígh’s hand, Neve pointed with her free one to her right. “Granny Flowers’ place used to be over there, do you remember?”

Brígh’s chin quivered for a moment before she managed a smile. “Yeah. She had that circle of big rocks in her back yard.” Turning to me, she said, “She took care of us after our mom died in childbirth with our little sister. The three of us used to play pirate ship there, standing in the middle while we sailed around the imaginary world.”

Neve leaned her head onto her sister’s shoulder. “Maybe we can ask the shifters if they can create outdoor stuff, too. Maybe we can make our back yard look just like Granny Fowers’ for our kids to play on.”

“Three?” I asked, wondering who their third had been.

“Andrew.” That came from Neve. “He was a few years older than me, and he started following me around when I could barely walk.” Smiling wide, she closed her eyes as if searching for a memory, before opening them again. “So cute, even as a kid. I cut his hair when he was eight after I found a pair of scissors in Granny’s drawer, and I did such a terrible job his dad shaved him. He kept that haircut all his life.” A different smile, brighter, soft with old memories emerged. “He’d stand up in front of that pretend pirate ship with his stick sword and dream about the day he would be the captain of the guard, just like his dad. The day when the queen or king would stand among the guards and kiss him, choose him as the best man for the job.”

“Damien was Andrew’s father?” Liam asked when my shock stoppered my questions in my throat. “I remember hearing about him in Queen Arianne’s Court.”

No wonder Andrew was so driven. What had he thought when I’d picked his mate over him to lead my guard?
Don’t I feel like a shit?

“Yeah.” Neve answered Liam before touching my arm. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Lila. He knows he wasn’t ready to be captain when you chose me, and he can’t seem to do anything but piss you off, but I convinced him that maybe someday it could happen. Don’t tell him, but if he’s ever ready, I’ll step down.”

My feelings about losing Neve and hurting Andrew twisted me up into a mental knot. “When all of this is over, and we’ve taken some time to get to know one another, maybe we can stop driving each other crazy. What was his father like?”

“He was Andrew, only softer. He was an ambitious man and really good at his job. He died about fifteen years ago.” She cleared her throat. “After Arianne left, Damien worked with Gallagher and Neasa to keep the city running.”

“How did he die?”

“You know Nix’s mother and brother went out looking for you?” Brígh took over the story.

I leaned on Liam, needing his touch. “Yeah, and they died for their trouble, too.”

“Well, Nix took off looking for
them
. He was only sixteen, and Andrew went to his dad because he’d seen Nix go through the portal and was worried.”

Oh, crap.
“Damien went looking for Nix and never came back.”

“Andrew followed him out, terrified he’d be like every other fae who walked out of the portal, even though his dad had forbade him to leave the gate. He followed his dad into the woods and heard him holler before it cut off. Andrew only went a few dozen yards before something attacked him. He said it was a kid who seemed to be able to control plants.”

Liam flinched along with the rest of us, probably drawing the same connection I had. “One of the Magi spawn?” he asked. “Even back then they were stirring up the shit? To what end, though? What would they want Damien for?”

A few more questions rattled around in my head. Had it been them who’d killed Nix’s mother and brother? Had they done something to my former captain? That couldn’t be right, or he wouldn’t have looked so confused when we’d first begun hearing the name ‘Magi’ last year.

Neve shook her head. “I wish I knew.”

“And Andrew got away from them?” I asked.

“He told me he couldn’t stop time for some reason, but he kept a dagger in his boot in those days. He cut himself away before the vines could drag him into water nearby and drown him like he assumes they did to his dad. Andrew never saw him again and never found his body.”

Ideas spun terrible pictures in my head. “His reaction in the woods … you think the pond he saw is the same one where he lost his father?”

“That would be my guess, or at least one that looks a lot like he remembers.”

It was the same one; my gut knew it. “What does that mean?” I said more to myself than my company. “We already know we’re in the right place since I’m pretty sure I saw one of the Magi or their spawn when Meline broke through.” Other than discovering the dryad’s twisted enjoyment of drowning people, I wasn’t sure we’d learned anything. “What happened to Andrew after the attack? Obviously, he got home somehow.”

“All torn up, he dragged himself back to Dun Bray,” Neve said. “Nix came back a week later with no memory of where he’d been. Gallagher thought he must have hit his head or something because there wasn’t a shred of anything in his mind during that time. Gallagher didn’t find anything in Andrew’s thoughts, either, other than what I just told you.” She sighed, and the hard line of her mouth suggested she wasn’t happy with herself. “I should have made the connection between what happened to Andrew and the Magi sooner. Dammit, I’m sorry.”

“We’re not even sure there is a connection, at least not relating directly to what they’re doing now,” I said. “It could have been some random thing, for all we know. I think I understand why Andrew’s so broken right now, though. The Magi took him again as a full adult. If it hadn’t been for Liam’s intervention in Freymoor, he might not have lived this time. It must have stirred up memories of losing his dad on top of it.”

“Yeah, so can you please take it easy on him?” Neve worried her fingers together.

I kissed her forehead. “I wish I’d known all this last year, so I could have understood what drives him, but now that I know, I promise you, I’ll be more understanding of his … interesting ways.”

Brígh snorted. “Careful, blondie, that had a ring of being a politically correct sensor, there. Even six months ago you’d have said ‘fucking annoying pig-headed ways’.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go and say our piece so we can get out of this ghost city. Gives me the creeps.” I looped my arm through Brígh’s and started toward the garden while my mind reeled over Andrew. So young, alone and afraid in the woods. He’d kept his head through the fear and grief enough to survive, and I’d make sure he lived long enough to heal from those old wounds. Whether he liked it or not, he and I were going to have a heart to heart about what happened to him that day.

A few minutes of walking took us to the edge of an overgrown and shaggy grass carpet, which had lost most of its lustre. Two men, one gray-haired and one dirty blond stood in our path with their teeth bared in a snarl. Each wielded a long sword in one hand.

I traced them up and down. “What’s with the swords, boys? Doesn’t Neasa let you use your
cumhachts
in her new world order?”

They shifted filthy, bare feet. Glances exchanged between the two. “Leave before I split you in two,” the blond said, though his voice shook, ruining his demand.

Through our link, Liam said, “
Their power is fading because this is no longer a fae city; it’s just a regular place. They’ve been without the touch of their people long enough, they’re turning into mortals.”

Not that we were truly immortal, only long lived, but I got what he meant. I smiled at them, even tried to make it genuine, though I didn’t know if I’d managed it judging by the step back each of them took. “You’re welcome in Iress if you need to recharge with your people.”

“You are not our people,” a woman said from behind the two lame guards. “Let them pass.”

Minion one and minion two stepped aside, but looked none too happy about it.
“Trouble in paradise?”
I thought to Liam.

“Tell me you’re not shocked,”
he said.

“No, not really.”
I moved farther into the feathery pink trees. Most of the foliage had browned and some littered the ground. In the middle of what once had been my favorite place, I found Neasa, thinner than the last time I’d seen her, degraded to not much more than skin stretched over frail bones. The once-fine wrinkles on her face had deepened, making her seem older than the ground beneath my feet. Even her long, metallic silver hair had lost its shine, hanging in clumps around her shoulders as if she’d lost the energy to brush out the tangles.

No more than a few hundred remained in Dun Bray. The hold-outs sat scattered about the grass and trees, the garden having grown large enough to accommodate them all. Judging by their grass-stained clothing and dishevelled appearances, most of them lived there. I might have had more sympathy for them if they didn’t have a choice to leave. As it was, the sight of them left an unpleasant burning in my gut, but at least I didn’t feel like hurling.

Neasa glowered down at me from the most ridiculous throne I’d ever seen, woven from tree branches and some sort of gold chains. A hard-luck thief’s throne, if ever I saw one. She smiled, sort of, her expression more like constipation than amusement.

“Well, well,” I said, when I grew bored of our staring contest, “if it isn’t the golden calf sitting on her golden throne.”

Brígh glanced at me. “Golden calf?”

Oh, right. Duh.
“It’s a human bible reference to a false God.” They all stared at me as if I’d laid a big shiny egg. “You know, because she’s not really … you know … oh, forget it.”

“Why are you in my realm, half breed?” Neasa said, her voice a whisper of air over sandpaper. “I told your blind fool, we’re not interested in anything you have to say.”

My nape bristled at that old slur, one that no longer existed in the new world but still stung. I knew, then, she’d never listen. So twisted by hate, self-pity and stubborn-ass pride, it would be worse in her mind to accept help from me than to try and save the people who were loyal to her.

Liam nodded a silent agreement with me. I turned to the others, hoping to get through to at least a few of them. “Look, I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you all before returning your darkness to you.”

“It’s not our darkness. It’s yours!” Neasa shouted.

I didn’t have the breath to explain what the elves had taught me when I’d assumed my darkness belonged to Parthalan, that darkness and Light can’t be transferred from one fae to another, only released from within their own souls, so I pretended she hadn’t spoken. “Some of you must understand why I did it, so I could prevent thousands from being trapped as soldiers of the Shadowborn. You must feel the emotions you’ve been missing since you walked away from that side of yourself: passion, true anger, love—”

“Hatred,” the grey-haired guard said from my left, holding his sword like a dagger he wanted to skewer me with.

“Yes, hatred, too, but unless you choose to cling to the negative emotions, they’re fleeting, and can be balanced out with your Light. Believe me, I know, and if I can do it, then all of you can, too.”

Shouts from all directions filled the garden until the ruckus grew to a volume that hurt my ears and caused everyone in my company to shift closer to the exit. Tired of the bullshit, I summoned my Light, laced it with my Will and said, “Silence.”

The noise cut off with my mental chokehold on the Dun Brayans.

“I know you’re still pissed at me, and it’ll take time for me to earn your forgiveness—and yes, my forcing your silence probably isn’t helping much at the moment—but right now, like it seems to be a lot lately, we have a crisis on our hands. A giant one. All I want to do right now is warn you that the Magi have begun attacking. Freymoor Wood fell yesterday, and only one survived. We barely managed to avoid losing the selkies, too. For now, our enemy can’t get through the wards in Iress, but by the look of this place and its fading power, they might be able to get in here to you.”

Many exchanged glances. Mouths dropped open, and some raised shaking fingers to cover them.

Liam put his arm around me, sensing my fatigue and frustration, no doubt. “Trust me when I say you don’t want to die that way,” he said.

The shine of fury in Neasa’s eyes said he was nuts if he thought any of them would trust him in anything, and she was probably right.

“They’re not going to listen,” Brígh said softly, as if she couldn’t believe she needed to say it. “You’re all going to die.”

She took my hand and tugged me back the way we’d come in, and the rest followed us out. The instant we cleared the garden, I released the walking dead from my hold and made a silent plea to the Goddess to watch out for the stubborn idiots.

“Why won’t they listen?” Neve said, as we walked along Seven Gates toward the Unseelie portal, though her spaced expression suggested she was thinking out loud.

“Pride,” Liam said. “Stupid, fucking pride.” His sigh hissed upon the air. “At least they let us inside. I’ll be shocked if we get past the doors into the Black City before we’re sent packing.”

At his sudden halt, the rest of us stopped and stared at him.

“Don’t even bother saying it,” I said, following his train of thought. “I’m not going home while you go there, so forget it.”

He roughed a hand over his face before he nodded. “Yeah, didn’t think so. Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time?” Along with annoyance, a little amusement seeped into his tone.

Neve and Brígh snickered behind us.

I tugged on the collar of his black T-shirt. “Oh, shut it. I’d have thought you’d be used to me by now, and if you aren’t, I suggest you start paying a little more attention.”

“You want more attention, do you?” He winked. “Funny, I thought I gave you a whole lot of attention just last night.”

The images that ignited in my thoughts—his, not mine—made my face heat as if someone had cranked up my internal thermostat. I laughed until it died in my throat. “Stop it. I can’t … not when Thomas is probably … and … just stop.”

A solemn silence fell on our group as we finished the journey to the portal. Neve and Liam went through first, and Brígh and I followed.