Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series (74 page)

He squeezed her tighter as well. “I want to be there for you when you need me most.”

“You are,” Memory said, sniffling away her sobs. “You’re here with me now.”

Will held her like that as the snow fell on them. After a few moments, Memory stood back, wiped her nose and took a deep breath. “I need to fess a few things to Lory and Roen. Will you come with me? Moral support?”

Will simply nodded. Memory held out her hand to him and led him back inside to the joining door between the sisters’ chambers. She paused there for a moment.

“What will I do if it was Roen who murdered Hayes?” she asked in a small voice.

“Do you think it was?”

“Most of me says no. No way. But part of me knows that we weren’t finding any other way out of the marriage contract. Roen and Eloryn had to be getting desperate.” Memory looked at the wall between her room and the corridor as though she could see straight through it. She knew if she could, she would see a troop of guards out there, keeping Roen confined in Eloryn’s quarters until the investigation was complete.

“I’m Roen’s friend. He’s like a brother to me. But I’m also queen and I have to be fair and treat any crime as it should be. Ugh. If this isn’t just the shittiest shit-tastic shit storm ever.” Memory wiped her face again and puffed out a long breath. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Memory opened the adjoining door without knocking, and found Eloryn and Roen holding each other in the middle of the room.

“Aw, come on! I was hoping to catch you guys up to something much naughtier,” Memory said, waggling her eyebrows at them.

Roen smirked. “What’s happened? Have you heard anything about the investigation?”

“Not yet. I actually have something else I wanted to talk to you both about.”

Memory panicked as everyone quieted to listen to her. She prolonged the task by getting everyone to sit down, and asking if anyone needed something to drink or eat, or more cushions, until Will gave her a stern look. Memory stopped fussing and stood still in front of her friends.

Then she told them everything about her past in the other world. Her time in the group home. The abuse she suffered there. She glossed over most of the details, until she got to the time right before she was brought back to Avall. The time she was beaten, and her magic killed the man who had been abusing her.

Memory shifted on her feet. They felt numb underneath her and she stared at them instead of looking at her friends. “Anyway, I had to tell you. You might have already known, or guessed, but I had to say it out loud. I know it’s the big cliché thing. Poor girl sexually abused in her past. But that’s because it happens all the time. Happens too much. When it shouldn’t happen at all. Never. Ever.
Ever.
And if I could do anything to stop it happening again, to anyone, I would. And now I’m a ruler maybe I can.”

With a deep sigh, Memory dared to look her friends in the eyes again. “Now here I am, meant to be a ruler, someone who decides right and wrong, creates laws and defends justice. How can I do that when I’m a murderer?”

Eloryn had been sitting very quietly, staring at her hands in her lap. A long teardrop wound down one of her cheeks. She looked up at Memory with enormous sadness in her eyes. “I saw it happen. When I shared spirits with you, I saw flashes of your past. I didn’t know for sure, then, because it was all so horrifying and confusing, but now you’ve explained the details it makes more sense. It wasn’t murder, not hardly. It was self-preservation only. You did nothing wrong.”

“I believe Eloryn. I saw how you looked when you first came to Avall. Beaten all over.” Roen stood up and took her hands. “You’ve got an amazing heart, Memory. A quality many rulers overlook. I trust you to make just decisions.”

A knock at the door startled all of them.

Memory answered quickly and found a page waiting there. He announced that the investigation had been completed, and they were all required in the Round Room immediately.

The troop of guards, including those escorting Roen and Memory’s normal bodyguards, led them to the Round Room where Bedevere and a number of other wizards waited for them.

Memory saw another young man standing in the center of the room, bound in shackles. From a distance, the shade of his hair and angle of his jaw made him look just like Roen.

“Dylan?” she said.

He turned to look at her. His eyes were wide and eyebrows low, a combination of terrified and furious.

Bedevere gestured to an older wizard beside him “Madoc has completed the investigation and proof has been found of Sir Dylan Faerbaird’s guilt in the matter of Hayes’s murder. The fugitive was then captured whilst trying to steal from Hayes’s chambers and flee.”

Memory glanced at Roen beside her, worried about what reaction he’d have to seeing his brother like this. Roen seemed more confused than anything.

His voice was low and sharp when he asked, “Dylan, why have you done this? Are you trying to hurt our parents even more?”

Dylan’s head bowed, but with a shake he lifted it again, staring furiously at Memory. “Hayes ruined my chances at having a comfortable life by his scheming to set me up with her. A life for which I’d already sacrificed a lot in order to keep.” Dylan’s glance flicked briefly to Roen before he turned on Memory again. “It was all Hayes’s idea, he forced me into relations with you, Your Majesty. I was trying to get him to clear my name but he refused. He spoiled my future. He had to pay.”

Memory gaped. “You killed him for revenge?” Her brain ached, trying and yet unable to comprehend.
Can any desire be so destructive as vengeance?

“I don’t care whose idea it was to pair the two of us up. But what you’ve done now, there’s no coming back from that.” Memory walked forward to stand in front of Dylan. “Even after what you did to me, I could have forgiven you. Truly. I’m really into forgiveness these days. You had a chance to reconcile with your family.
Your family
, Dylan. But now I must sentence you for this terrible crime.”

Dylan rasped out a rough laugh, his eyes growing wider, wilder. “Why? I did you a favor! I know the old man was trying to marry the princess. I removed your problem. I was trying to help you.”

Roen spoke from beside Memory. “You were only trying to help yourself. It’s all you know how to do.”

Memory turned to look at Roen and thought about how he would have to deliver this news to his parents and her heart broke for him. Five of his brothers had been lost in battles, and Dylan had left them by choice, wanting riches and comfort over a life in hiding with his family. And now he was more of a criminal than Roen ever had been. She wished she could simply remove all the anger and greed from within Dylan, and return him to his parents as a beloved son, and no one would have to suffer. But she knew in her heart no magic could do that. But maybe time could.

She sighed. “Would I be right in assuming the standard punishment for murder in Avall is some sort of execution?”

Bedevere nodded solemnly.

“Not any more. Dylan, your crime is one of the worst, but you will learn nothing from dying and teach nothing to others. And I couldn’t live with myself if I took another of Isabeth and Brannon’s sons away from them. You will be imprisoned, and you will work to help make Avall a better place. We’re going to introduce Avall to some things called community service and rehabilitation.”

Memory called the guards to take Dylan away. He craned his neck as he was taken, watching Memory. The look on his face was confused, possibly even relieved. She hoped he would take her mercy and use it well.

Roen put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. For all that he is, he is still my brother.”

Memory still watched the empty doorway. “I know. But I didn’t save him for that reason. I believe people deserve a chance to right their wrongs.”

“I hope he lives up to your expectations. Even as a child, he was always selfish, deceitful, and even cruel. What if some people are born that way and can never change?”

“I have to hope that they aren’t. To bring myself away from the darkness inside me, the darkness that almost killed me, I have to try and always see the best in people. Maybe if I can see it, I can reflect it back for them, to let them see what they could be. Maybe that is all they need to change.”

Roen squeezed Memory’s shoulder and then strode across the room into Eloryn’s waiting arms. He lifted her off her feet and she giggled in utter joy and relief.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Clara asked.

Memory shifted the skirts she’d gathered into her hands to get a better grip on them and clear them away from her legs. She picked up her pace, her friends following along. They were already more than fashionably late. “Good idea? No. It’s more the kind of idea that would make a bad idea feel good about itself.”

“It is a good idea,” Will said. “Just be careful.”

“It would be better if I weren’t running late,” Memory said. Roen had been giving her sword fighting classes, and the two of them got too caught up in training, forgetting the time. Changing from the fencing uniform into a formal gown wasn’t a short procedure either. Clara was still adding accessories and finishing Memory’s look as she chased her along the corridor.

Memory stopped outside of the Round Room and wriggled her gown back into place. Eloryn helped brush some crumbs off her shoulder from the last minute snack Memory had scoffed down on the way.

Memory peeked around through the entrance and saw the King of the Unseelie Fae, the Queen of the Seelie Fae, and the room full of their followers, seated inside. The circular table, which Eloryn had finally completed repairing, was laid out in a range of the castle’s finest delicacies, fruits, candies, and treats that both human and fae could eat, interspersed with tall, happy floral arrangements overflowing with multicolored roses from the palace gardens. Memory could already hear the larger party started downstairs in the grand ballroom, and wondered how it looked at that moment, filled with humans and fae mingling under shining chandeliers.

She sighed. “There are these movies back in our world with this super-secret agent who always meets his nemesis face to face and sizes him up at some big fancy do. I figure holding a big mixer like this, having a bit of a formal meet and greet with the fairy nobility in a friendly and diplomatic environment is a good way to get our eyes on Finvarra and maybe even get some info out of him.”

“Do these meetings normally work well for this,
super-secret agent
?” Eloryn asked, her head tilted in a curious, if long-suffering, expression.

Memory cleared her throat. “Yeah. Uh. All the time.”

Will frowned at her. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

Memory felt the urge to throw her arms around him, to kiss him or do something that showed him how grateful she was of his presence, both there now and in her life as a whole. She swallowed hard and thanked him awkwardly before turning away and entering the Round Room.

Aine and her companion Lugh both stood as Memory and Eloryn strode into the room. Nyneve matched them on their feet, but it took a few longer moments for Finvarra to get off his chair, groaning and struggling at the effort to stand for the entrance of the human ruler.

“Thank you all for coming,” Memory said, trying to sound confident and warm. “It’s my intention to build better relationships between our races, and have asked Your Majesties here tonight to help me in that cause.”

Memory took her seat around the table from the fae rulers so she could face them both. Aine smiled graciously as she took her seat.

Finvarra grumbled as he returned to his. “Words. Just words. Heard them all before from your predecessors. What are you going to do that’s different? You’ve already got unseelie blood all over your hands.”

Memory bristled and clenched her jaw to keep her mouth shut.

“Father, please,” Nyneve gripped his wrist and he grumbled more beneath his breath, but soon quieted.

Aine folded her elongated golden fingers on the table in front of her and looked across at Finvarra. “It is true, that more fae blood has been spilled recently than for a long time before. But the fault is not human alone, that is obvious.”

Memory paused for a long moment, letting the fae watch her and wait. “The Pact is being violated more and more often. I’ve seen fae who don’t give a damn about it or whether they are Branded. Humans are defending themselves more violently because they are seeing the fae becoming more threatening. If we’re going to fix this, I need to understand why. Why are so many fae now willing to break Avall’s laws?”

Finvarra and Aine both stared, mouths closed into thin lines.

“Because we are dying,” Nyneve said. Her voice was deep and hard edged with pain.

Memory bowed her head to her. “I’ve heard the rumors, and seen evidence. It’s all the iron, isn’t it? Out in the rest of the world, drawing all the magic away from Avall.”

Nyneve’s eyes narrowed slightly and she nodded. “Avall is meant to be our sanctuary. Our own world, the lands of Tearnan Ogh, are a timeless place. Eternal, but lifeless, it has long ago lost the natural magics of life needed to sustain us. That’s why the fae needed Avall and why we formed the Pact. But as this land too is sapped of all its life force, we will surely die.”

Aine waved her hand dismissively. “Great human civilizations have come and gone before. The expansion and progress of the other human lands that is causing this imbalance may end at any time now, burnt out in war or plague or any other form of human weakness. This will not be the end of the fae, despite what those who are behaving rashly believe.”

“We’d cling on a lot longer if the humans of Avall weren’t using up what little magic is left,” Finvarra said, spattering out the words.

“What do you mean?” Memory asked.

He eyed her up and down, distaste curling his lips. “Humans and their magic, their
behests
, using up what we need to stay alive on their frivolities. And you, the worst of them, all that magic stored within you. It’s an atrocity.”

Like you can talk. You made me this way.
Memory glared back at him until Eloryn cleared her throat and Memory tried to form a more diplomatic expression.

Eloryn said, “Have the fae truly known all along that the rest of the world did not become a hell?”

“It did become a hell,” Finvarra replied with a fierce wave of his clawed hand.

“Maybe to the fae, but not to humans.” Eloryn shook her head. “You openly misled the people of Avall all along.”

Aine shrugged her delicate shoulders in a graceful roll. “Have the people of Avall suffered in some way? I am sure Avall is much better off now than it would have been without the Pact. You’ve lost nothing from being disconnected from the iron hell.”

Memory watched wisp light fall onto the glittering cheekbones of the fairy queen and wondered how something so beautiful could be so empty of heart and reason.

“That shouldn’t have been your decision to make,” Memory said. She felt like banging her head on the table in front of her. Any chance of uniting the races had been lost the minute they started talking, and she’d learned little other than just how selfish and oblivious the fae could be. “If you’d told humans earlier, let them know all along what was happening, we could have worked with you in finding some sort of solution.”