AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I followed her into the hall, and then through an utterly silent house. The place was usually a subtle symphony: light fey laughter from the backyard, the clang of pots and pans from the kitchen, SpongeBob shrieking from the living room, bits of conversation from everywhere, and the country music one of the twins inexplicably liked drifting up from the basement. Tonight, all I heard was the tinkle of a wind chime getting tossed around by a faint breeze as Efridís pushed open the back door.
Outside was more of the same—the porch dark and empty, the garden still except for a fire guttering in the fey camp. There were a few people around it, getting splashed by the low red light, but no one was talking. Or moving.
One of the guards had a stick in his hand, like he’d been using it to poke at the embers. His eyes were open, with reflected flames dancing in the irises. More flames were slowly eating up the stick, the bottom half of which was already black. The next second, it collapsed into nothingness, sifting away on the wind. He didn’t flinch.
Not even when a sudden gust of wind caught the back door of the house, slamming it against the old boards like a gunshot.
I jumped, and Æsubrand grabbed my arm. “Are you satisfied?”
“At what?” I demanded harshly. “What did you give them?”
“A fey drug,” Efridís said, shrugging. “You would not know of it.”
“Then how do I know you haven’t killed them?” I’d finally spotted Claire, slumped over one of the picnic tables, her bright red hair cascading over the weathered wood like a spill of firelight. I wanted to run to her, to feel that pulse beating under my fingertips. But that would mean shrugging off Æsubrand’s hold, and right now, I wasn’t sure I could do that.
And weakness wasn’t something he admired.
“If I had wanted them dead, I would not have used poison,” he sneered. “It is a coward’s weapon.”
“That’s real convincing coming from someone who makes war on children!”
Silver eyes flashed. “It was not my doing that put the child’s life in danger. He should never have been born.”
“According to you.”
“According to treaty,” Efridís said, her voice a sweet note on the air.
“Come again?” I said, trying not to look like I was scouring the surroundings for help. Marlowe should have had a crap ton of his boys around the house. So where the hell were they?
And why do you care? I asked myself bitterly. They couldn’t get through the house shields, and I couldn’t get to the charm that collapsed them. Not with two fey to watch and lives at stake. I couldn’t do anything but stand here, trying not to sway on my feet, and listen. And hope they needed something I had to offer.
Although I’d be damned if I could think of what that might be.
“There was a great war once, between the two leading martial houses of Faerie,” Efridís said. “You know of it?”
I nodded. I’d seen a flash of it once, in her brother’s mind. A fact I didn’t see the need to mention to these two. “I understand it was…pretty severe.”
“It almost annihilated us both,” she said flatly. “But a truce was finally arranged, sealed by a marriage alliance. My brother—Caedmon, as you call him—offered me to Aeslinn of the Svarestri as a bride. Aeslinn accepted, but not merely to end the war. He was hoping for a child who might one day unite all Faerie under one ruler, one throne.”
“And this didn’t worry Caedmon?”
Efridís smiled slightly. “My brother gambled on my being as infertile as he was himself. He has only ever sired the one child, and that with a human.”
“Heidar.” Claire’s fiancé.
Efridís inclined her head.
“But at his birth, my uncle began to scheme,” Æsubrand broke in angrily. “What if he used his half-breed in a liaison with another? Their human blood would render them more fertile than he had ever been himself. And if he could find one who possessed more than half fey blood, he would have a successor from his direct line. And cut me off!”
“Leaving you with only one throne. What a tragedy.”
“It may well prove a tragedy—for us all!”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Because you’re as shortsighted as the rest of them.”
“Say rather ill-informed,” Efridís said smoothly, cutting in.
