Read The Falconer (Elizabeth May) Online
Authors: Elizabeth May
Up another flight of stairs, and then I reach the top, finding the narrow wooden platform to be much smaller than I expected. I teeter on the edge and my arms flail. A
cù sìth
howls outside.
Calm
, I tell myself.
Be calm
.
With a narrowed gaze, I scrutinise the working gears below me, how they weave and circle each other in a regular pattern. The rope of the driving weight hangs from the ceiling to the bottom of the shaft. If I don’t catch the rope when I jump, I’ll have a few short seconds to fall and pray that I don’t break something when I hit the lower cog. If I take longer . . . well, that won’t be a pleasant outcome either.
I look behind me.
Tick tick tick
. Time is running out. The taste of faery power is so pungent in my mouth that it hurts to swallow. I tear more fabric from my petticoats and wrap my single bare hand. The taste grows, a burning dryness that spreads inexorably down my throat.
Tick tick tick
. I’m gasping for breath now. If I don’t jump soon, the others will be waiting outside the other door to tear me to shreds by the time I get down there. I don’t have a chance of fighting them blind; there are too many.
Something snaps at my dress. Invisible teeth or claws shred the material around my thighs. I cry out and kick reflexively. My boot connects with the faery I can’t see and it yips in response.
Tick tick tick
. Too late to change my mind and run back down the steps. So I whirl and throw myself off the platform.
M
y grasping fingers close around the rope of the driving weight. Friction burns through the fabric wrapped around my hand and I grit my teeth as I slide down, coming to a halt above a massive rotating gear. My legs dangle in the air, toes barely brushing the thick metal below me.
The biting pain in the palms of my hands is almost enough to slacken my grip. The muscles in my arms bulge with the effort of keeping me in place as I stare down at the turning cog below my feet. It moves in and around smaller cogs, revealing a small opening during each rotation. Beneath it is another flat cog that spins.
In . . . around . . . out. There’s the opening. I follow the pattern until I memorise it, until I’m certain I’ll get the timing right. At the precise second the opening appears, I release the rope and let myself fall.
The moment I’m airborne, I close my eyes. The first person I think of – completely without reason – is Kiaran. Of his rare almost-smile, and those brief, extraordinary glimpses of vulnerability that he shows when he momentarily loses control.
My body crashes hard onto the metal cog in a graceless heap.
Hell and blast, it hurts
.
I struggle to my feet and stand unsteadily at the edge of the cog. As the cog rotates, I notice another opening below through which I can see the wooden floor at the bottom of the clock tower. Another drop, not terribly far at all. I scan the walls of the shaft to see if there is anything to help me climb down.
A series of metal bars project from the tower’s interior wall. When the gear circles again, I leap. My hands close around one of the bars, and I swing my body to the next, then to another, and drop to the wooden floor in a crouch. My teeth click together hard from the impact.
For once, I’m grateful to Kiaran for the endless practice fights. If he hadn’t trained me so ruthlessly, I wouldn’t be at all able to plunge down clock towers or ignore the pain of landing. I get up, like he always tells me to.
The maintenance door is where I thought it would be. It takes me two tries to kick it open, until the hinges groan and the wood cracks. Dust flies into my face as I hurl myself outside and suck in the cold night air.
Across the road, I spot the scaffold-covered ivory monument in memory of Sir Walter Scott at the edge of the Nor’ Loch. Princes Street, finally.
‘Almost there,’ I mutter.
The muscles in my legs ache in protest as I race towards Charlotte Square. The rain is falling even harder now, spilling from my hair onto my forehead as I pass blocky white buildings containing small stores. My breathing hitches when the smoky dryness overwhelms my mouth again. The hounds bay once more, so close. I never thought they would find me again this quickly, and my fire-starter won’t be as effective in this kind of rain. But I still have my pistol.
I jerk the weapon from its holster. The conductor spines rise and the core rods open as I spin and aim for a spot that makes the taste in my mouth scorch my tongue. Praying my instincts are correct, I pull the trigger.
The invisible hound yelps and I grin in triumph, watching as the electricity snakes outward from an invisible point. I would savour the kill, but I don’t have time.
I dash up the street, breath heaving, and the welcome sight of my ornithopter encourages me to run faster. Gavin is already inside.
‘Aileana.’ He sounds relieved to see me.
I sling the crossbow and satchel off my back and toss them inside. Then I jump into the leather seat, flipping switches to start the machine, and press my feet down on the pedals for an emergency take-off. The ornithopter lifts quickly with a strong flap of its wings.
On the ground below, the hounds howl, their frustration echoing across the square. I only hope that Derrick and Kiaran can kill them, since I couldn’t.
Rain batters the metal-boned wings as we rise over Charlotte Square. I tilt my face to the falling droplets and exhale a long breath. My body relaxes.
We soar through the misty skies over Edinburgh. Clouds cloak the buildings in New Town, but the orange glow of city lights filters through. The air is colder up here, wetter. It seeps through my soiled dress and I shiver.
I stare at the hazy city below and let my muscles slacken, content to never move again. I long to close my eyes and let the flying machine take me far away, away from my responsibilities and a broken seal that threatens the lives of everyone I care about.
After a while, we rise up over Leith and the machine’s rocking soothes me. The flapping wings sound vaguely like a heartbeat, soft and reassuring.
Whoosh-whoosh, whoosh-whoosh
.
‘Thank you,’ I tell Gavin once I’ve calmed my breathing. ‘For helping me.’
‘Always prepared to come to the aid of a lady in need,’ he says. ‘It’s my gentlemanly duty.’
I glance at him in amusement and lean back in my chair.
‘They were looking for you,’ he says softly. ‘Weren’t they?’
It’s so quiet up here, no sounds except falling rain and heartbeat wings. I swing the helm towards the Forth and study the masts of ships protruding through the fog.
‘Aye.’
‘You’re not a Seer,’ he says.
His features are unreadable. I wish I could understand what he’s thinking. It would help me decide how much to tell him, how much danger I’m willing to put him in.
Gavin stares out at the calm sea fog, his breathing shallow. ‘I don’t know a damn thing about you any more, do I?’
It hurts to swallow. My throat tightens and I think I might choke on my response. ‘I’m the same person I’ve always been.’
I don’t know why I feel compelled to lie to him. Gavin has seen the fae, he knows what they do to people. He helped me at great risk to himself. Yet I want him to look at me the way he did earlier at the ball before Derrick came back from the kitchen, without a question in his eyes. With a certainty that I am precisely the same woman he left two years ago.
Instead, I’m sitting in a dark flying machine, wearing the torn remains of a gown that’s covered with blood and dirt. I lost count of how many fae I just slaughtered. I’m a ruined girl who made her choice. This is who I am, a night creature who thrives on death and destruction.
‘No,’ he says. ‘You’re not the same person. So what are you, Aileana? I deserve to know after that.’
I unbuckle the fire-starter from my arm and jerk the gauntlet off my hand. I toss it into the back of the ornithopter.
What are you?
I don’t even deserve to be a
who
any more. He must think I’m no better than the creatures I hunt.
‘I’m human,’ I snap. ‘That’s what I am. Just like you.’
‘Like me?’ Gavin says. ‘I would never have been able to move as fast as they do. I can’t fight like that. You killed those things without—’ He sucks in a breath. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to sound accusatory.’
My anger fades. I grasp the hem of what remains of one of my petticoats and tear off a section to bind my injured hand. ‘I understand. You’ve been quite calm, all things considered,’ I say.
‘A mere façade,’ he says, waving a hand. ‘It wouldn’t be very manly if I screamed like a wee bairn, would it?’
‘Not very.’ We’re both silent again. I continue steering the ornithopter, higher above the mist, closer to the stars.
‘What happened?’ he asks.
He shared everything with me, told me what it means to be a Seer. I responded by changing the topic and keeping my secrets. I treated him the same way I do Kiaran, the same way I treat Catherine. What kind of woman does that make me, that I don’t trust anyone any more? Not even the people I love?
‘My mother,’ I say quickly, before I regret it or change my mind and lie again. ‘She was killed by a faery. That’s why.’
That’s why I’m like this
.
I hear his breath catch. ‘Not an animal attack, then.’
‘No.’ I try to stop the memories from resurfacing, to keep them in the empty space where they belong. ‘Not an animal attack.’
‘And now you enjoy killing them, don’t you?’ He says it so quietly I almost don’t hear him.
My cheeks burn. ‘Aye.’
I’m surprised by how ashamed I am of that admission. If this were Kiaran, that fact would have been a point of pride. But Gavin must be realising that his childhood friend has traded femininity for brutality. That the lass he knew is utterly gone.
‘You’re what the pixie called you – what was it?’
The word. The word that changed everything. ‘A Falconer.’
‘This doesn’t change anything, you know. I still care for you.’ He sounds hesitant now. ‘But you scare the hell out of me.’
Under normal circumstances, my chest might ache at his words. Gavin’s childhood friend was the very epitome of proper. She had no secrets, experienced all the appropriate emotions. She would have run from the faery when Gavin had asked her to. She would have relied on him to protect her.
My apathy ought to be an impenetrable thing, a wall that keeps me safe and protected. I shouldn’t care what he thinks. I want to pretend that he’s a silly boy who simply doesn’t understand me any more. Except he isn’t a silly boy. And this truth is as sharp and painful as any blade.
‘I don’t blame you,’ I say.
His gaze feels heavy in the darkness. ‘This is going to kill you. Hunting them.’
‘That may be,’ I admit, ‘but I can’t go back to what I was. Planning for parties and marriage – that’s not for me any more.’
Hunting is in my bones. The voice in my head that commands, the force that drives me. It is a part of me that will never leave, not until I die.
‘I don’t think,’ he says, ‘it’s for me, either.’
I almost tell him
I’m sorry
, like I did back in the gardens.
I’m sorry for getting you involved. I’m sorry you feel like you need to protect me. I’m sorry you can’t go back, either
. But I don’t. I’m about to try something light and cheerful when Gavin grips my hand.
‘Gavin?’
‘There’s something behind us.’
I
’m reminded immediately that I don’t have the thistle necklace on any more. Thank goodness for the spare bundles in the ornithopter. I pull out a fresh plaited strand and knot the end. When it’s secure around my neck, I look out behind us. My fingers dig into the leather seat and I gasp. Damnation.
Sluagh
. A dozen of them.
The ghostly creatures sweep their enormous, graceful wings, mist gathering around them. They look almost dragon-like, with skin an iridescent, glimmering shade of pale grey, so thin that their angular, pointed skeletons are visible beneath. They’re more powerful than the
cù sìth
, though not physically strong. The skin covering their necks and wings is thin enough to cut through with a blade.
‘What are they?’ Gavin asks.
‘
Sluagh
.’
‘That’s impossible,’ he says. ‘The
sluagh
haven’t been spotted for—’
‘More than two thousand years,’ I finish for him. ‘There’s something else I might have kept from you.’
‘Really?’ he drawls. ‘I’m shocked.’
One of the
sluagh
shrieks and speeds towards the ornithopter, flapping its translucent dragonfly-like wings so fast they blur. The others flank the leader on both sides. As they draw closer, a cold, slick, heaviness slides along my tongue.
Gavin says, ‘We should run this time. We really, really should—’
The middle
sluagh
opens its mouth and a breath of pale white mist bursts towards me with surprising speed. I grab the rain visor, throwing it up just in time to block the
sluagh
’s vapour. The heat of the blast is powerful, hot enough to incinerate flesh, and the metal visor burns my fingertips. Only after the
sluagh
flies past do I drop the visor, biting my tongue against the pain.
‘What the hell was that?’ Gavin says.
I pull myself to my feet, hands shaking. ‘I should have mentioned they breathe burning mist, shouldn’t I?’
‘Your ability to communicate is atrocious, did you know that?’
I ignore him and sit in the front seat again, flipping the switch to increase speed. As the wings flap faster and faster, the machine begins to strain with the effort it takes to fly this quickly. I have never tested the ornithopter under such extreme conditions, but the engine should hold. The ornithopter shudders under my feet a little more than usual but continues to fly smoothly.
The acceleration puts us slightly ahead of the
sluagh
, but we’re still not moving fast enough to outrun them. I shove the pedals to the floor with my toes. The machine jolts and the wings flap harder.