Page 7 of Connal

Fiacail sat up, yawning and stretching before she rose from the comfort of the feather bed. She stopped when she saw her chambermaid draped over a footstool, her head at an odd angle. On the floor beside her sprawled Magnus himself, making her sigh with real regret. The silly mortal had frequently vowed to adore her forever, which she personally hated, but had also showered her with luxuries, which she didn’t mind at all. The ornamental dagger he liked to wear lay buried in his gut, explaining the dark pool of blood under his fat arse.

She leaned over to assure the burgess no longer breathed. “Huh. I didnae end you, did I? No, you’d have your throat torn out. Who gutted you, then? Surely no’ that wee maid. She quailed at a sharp look.”

“Mistress.” Their cook burst into the bed chamber, her apron, hands and face spattered with flour and blood. “Save me, I beg you–” the rest became a liquid gurgle as she fell forward onto her face, revealing her killer.

Fiacail’s jaw would have dropped, had she not been paralyzed with astonishment.

“I see you’ve finally crawled out of bed. I thought I might be forced to set fire to this shanty.” A tall, dark-cloaked figure shook blood from her hands before she stepped over the cook’s twitching body. “The wife of a fish merchant? That was the best you could manage for yourself?”

The resonant voice made Fiacail drop to her knees and bow until her brow touched the floor.

“How did you escape Elphyne?” Fiacail gritted her teeth as a boot slammed into her ribs. “Forgive me, my princess. I didnae ken you’d returned to the mortal realm.”

“Of course you did not. Rise before I rip that ridiculous face off your skull.” Derdrui removed her cloak, using it to wipe clean her hands before dropping it to the floor. “Where are the others?”

Seeing her sovereign set free from the Fae king’s enchanted dungeons, the most inviolate of prisons in existence, did not shock Fiacail as much as her question.

“They’ve scattered, my princess. When last you came you bid us live as ordinary mortals.” That had been over a thousand years ago, just before Derdrui had been imprisoned for a transgression so dreadful no immortal would speak of it. Time, however, did not move in Elphyne as it did in the mortal realm.

“So I did.” Tall and imposing, with the perfectly lovely features of a woodland princess, Derdrui stared at her with eyes like jewels of a dozen colors. She sat in Magnus’s favorite chair by the fire as if it served as her throne, and made a languid gesture. “Summon them. Now.”

Fiacail closed her eyes for a moment, sending out a frantic message through her thoughts to her many sisters across the city and the north lands. Our sovereign lady has finally come for us. Gather at my dwelling in Aberdeen at once. She then pulled on a dressing gown and cautiously approached the Fae enchantress.

“Shall I make brew, then, my princess?” she asked. As Derdrui’s upper lip curled she quickly added, “Or bring you a living mortal? Ah, do any of my household yet breathe?”

“I did not come here to endlessly drink mortal swill.” She dropped her glamour, which made her somewhat mortal appearance grow darker. Long white teeth stretched out from her red lips, and the glittering gems of her eyes became too vivid to behold. “I sensed Prince Mar’s magic come alive. A spell he cast before dying rippled through Elphyne like a tidal wave, and smashed through all the wardings. That allowed me to at last escape my imprisonment.”

That meant Derdrui would likely not return to the Fae otherworld, at least until after she placated the king. Which, Fiacail was fairly certain, would take eons.

“We shall provide you with whatever you need or wish, my princess,” she said quickly.

Derdrui’s lips peeled back from her gleaming fangs. “You know well what I need. What I wish. What you and your cursed sisters have never bothered to deliver to me. Why I bother with you idiot halflings, I shall never understand.” She studied the blood drying on her long fingers. “Do I become maudlin? Or is it too much trouble to slay all of you wretched abominations?”

Fiacail dropped down on the floor again, quivering now. “We shall find the MacMar Clan, my princess.”

A large, panting fishwife hurried into the room, her rosy round face turning white as she beheld Derdrui. She dropped on all fours. “My lady––I mean, my princess. You yet live.”

“Of course I yet live, Speal. I am immortal.” The Fae regarded her for a long moment. “Your girth is quite remarkable. Tell me, do you now devour mortals whole, and digest them slowly?”

“Ah, no, my princess.” Speal quickly shifted into her birth form, which turned her eyes, hair and flesh black except for a white patch just beneath her throat.

Fiacail did the same, although she hated how awkward and spindly she appeared without her fur, which she grew and shed only on the night of the full moon.

“You halflings shall always be unsightly creatures.” Uttering a disgusted sound, Derdrui averted her gaze. “I require a large vessel worthy of the sea to set sail at dawn. Do you possess such? Astonish me and say yes or aye or whatever passes as an affirmation by you bald little skinks.”

Fiacail glanced at Speal, who shook her head a little. “We shall obtain one for you by nightfall. We can hire sailors at the docks. To where wish you sail, my sovereign?”

“I shall find the source of Prince Mar’s magic, and use it to locate his brats. You and your sisters will serve as my crew.” She rose to her feet, waving a long hand in front of her nose. “I cannot abide this stench. Dispose of the bodies before I return.” She took the finest cloak from Magnus’s armoire as she shifted into his short, corpulent form, covered her new body, and swept out of the room.

Speal sat down on the floor, shifting back into her fishwife form, and stared at the scales stuck to her well-worn boots. “I shall puke.”

“Dinnae act the bairn.” Fiacail retrieved the chamber pot, dropping it in her lap before she went to watch through the windows as Derdrui left the house. “You know our lady doesnae trust mortals. ’Tis prudent to bid us crew the boat.”

“Prudent.” Speal said that as if she’d never heard the word. “We’ve one weakness, sister, and ’tis water. We cannae swim. It took me months before I could stand on the docks without showing fear flesh.”

“Gooseflesh,” she corrected. “Find your spine, or she shall.” As two herbalists who dwelled in Aberdeen came into the room she shifted back into Rona’s form and went to fetch a gown suitable to wear for her errand. “I shall leave you in charge here. See to the bodies before the princess returns, or she will add yours to the pile.”

“Derdrui’s returned to the mortal realm?” Teine screeched, and then ducked to avoid her twin sister Mace’s fist. “I mean, the princess, she’s come back?”