Night Vision (5 page)

As the lights flickered around us, I moved to help Peyton, reaching for the tea bags. “Let’s have tea first, before we tell you what went down. It’s a cold night out there, and there are monsters roving the town.”

Shadow, a young Cambyra girl who was hovering behind me, snatched them out of my hands. “Allow me, Your Highness. A queen should never make her own tea.”

I wanted to remind her that I wasn’t Queen yet, but the Fae in the Barrow had already begun to refer to Rhiannon and me as such, and there was no going back.

“Thank you.” Feeling conspicuous, I let go of the tea, standing back as she scurried over to a beautiful ceramic pot, hand-thrown, with delicate, hand-painted holly leaves and berries wrapping around the sides. She shooed Peyton out of the way and took over preparing the tea and scones.

We gathered in the seating area. I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees. I was sitting on an ottoman, thick and comfortable, with a covering made of hand-woven linen, and for just a moment, I closed my eyes and let the warmth seep into my bones.

“What’s wrong, Cicely? Is there something more going on than just Geoffrey and Leo’s attack?”

With a glance over my shoulder, I sighed and stared into the fire.

“Yeah, a lot more. It seems that the Fang Brothers managed to free Crawl from his prison. He’s loose now, somewhere out there on the streets of New Forest, looking for somebody to drink his dinner from. Apparently, Geoffrey is looking to turn me over to him, and Leo’s out to kidnap Rhiannon.”

There was a sudden hush, then Peyton slapped the table by her chair. “Fuck and fuck again. What are Regina and Lannan doing about this?”

“They have teams canvassing the town, but the truth is…Geoffrey and Leo could be hiding anywhere. Regina’s offered to put a guard on the house. Since you guys move in a couple of days down the line, I told them yes—and I want no arguments. At least you’ll be safe while you’re at home.”

“Not necessarily.” Kaylin stretched out on an oak bench. It was polished to a sheen, and the workmanship was so detailed that I couldn’t imagine how long it had taken to create. “Remember the day-runners? They might still have yummanii helping them.”

“True. Which means we’ll also station Cambyra guards outside the house during the day. The vamps can take over night duty.” I frowned. “Before we left, Regina asked us to
watch the morning news on television tomorrow. Apparently Lannan’s going to give an announcement that they’ll be reading on air.”

“We’ll have to go out. We can’t watch TV here, that’s for sure, and the cable hasn’t been hooked up at the Veil House yet.” Luna stood up, still looking weak, but her cheeks were beginning to glow rosy again. She was a yummanii bard; her magic was in her song. She’d come to us for advice and ended up staying.

I glanced at her. “You okay? You can stand without help?”

She nodded. “So where do we go? And yes, I’m doing better. The food and wine helped a lot. But…I never want to go through that again.”

Peyton spoke up. “We can go over to Rex’s apartment. He’ll be fine with that.” Her father had rented an apartment in town not far from the Veil House. Anadey, her mother, was still lurking in the shadows, running her diner, but she hadn’t made another attempt to contact Peyton after she’d betrayed us.

“Good, I can charge up my cell phone while I’m there without worrying that somebody up at the house is going to steal it.” Even though they were working for Regina, I didn’t trust the vamps fixing up the house. Regina had paid for the restorations, though we could have gotten a loan from the Consortium—the magical guild we now rather forcibly belonged to—but for some reason, the Emissary had insisted on footing the bill.

“Soon enough, you must leave your toys and gadgets behind.” Lainule’s voice tripped lightly over the words and, at her melodic tongue, we turned. All of us rose, and Grieve and Chatter bowed, as Rhia and I dropped into deep curtseys.

“Your Highness…” I hadn’t expected to see her. Lainule had been keeping to herself the past few days, except when she had called us in to instruct us in what would be expected.

She looked tired. Regaining her heartstone had saved
her life, but it also deposed her as Queen. However, Lainule seemed content to accept her destiny gracefully. The foliage around the Barrow was halfheartedly returning to its former glory. Once we crossed through the portals that cloaked the Marburry Barrow, though, Myst’s snows and ice came rampaging back with a fury. But here…here the trees were green again, though with a faint orange glow, like we were at the end of a long summer.

And it truly was the end of summer. At least the end of the summer that had ruled here for who knew how many centuries. Lainule would preside over the initiation and coronation of Rhiannon and me, and then she and my father would leave, forever, back to the Golden Isle. Rhia and I would then be responsible for routing Myst and bringing the balance back to the world.

But for now, she was still here, with us.

She swept into the room and accepted a chair. “Regina contacted me. She warned me of what’s going on with Geoffrey and Leo, and the Blood Oracle. You must
all
be cautious until they are caught and Crawl is back under lock and key. Nothing can go amiss. You
must
undergo the initiation and coronation without delay.”

As she sat there, it almost felt like she was one of us. Regal though she might be, the aura of her rule was fading. It made me want to cry.

“We’ll watch out. I promise. I’m also asking the guards to keep an eye on the Veil House during the day to protect Peyton and the others. Regina promised guards at night.”

“It heartens me to know you are taking this seriously. Myst must be destroyed. The balance must return. And you, Cicely, must finally visit the Court over which you will be ruling. It’s time to see your new home.”

The Barrow here would become Rhiannon’s new home. When she married Chatter—Grieve’s best friend and now soon-to-be King of Summer—they would live here, in the warmth of eternal summer. My own home was destined to be colder, caught in the grips of the eternal winter.

I sucked in a deep breath. The thought of living in
perpetual snow and ice frightened me. “I wish…” But I stopped. There was no turning back, no walking away. Wishing for something that wasn’t meant to be wouldn’t make it happen.

“Yes, my child?” The Queen’s gaze rested on me, glorious and yet like fading flowers.

“I can’t wait to see my new home.” I forced a smile to my face. She knew how I felt, but I wouldn’t let her, or my father, down. I picked up the cell phone. “But I will admit, this is one thing I’m going to miss.”

“Once you take the throne, you must relinquish some of the trappings that keep you tied to the mortal world. The changes in lifestyle will take some getting used to, but there are wonders, Cicely. There are wonders you haven’t even dreamed of yet.”

With that, she smiled, rose, and passed to the door. “Your father will escort you to your new home tomorrow at noon. Be here, ready to go. Your cousin may attend. And so may your friends.” And, the hem of her dress whispering against the floor, she left the room.

I suppose this is the time for introductions.

My name is Cicely Waters. I’m twenty-six years old, and I’m one of the magic-born. Or at least, I always thought I was. I never knew my father, but had assumed he was the same lineage as Krystal, my mother. But a few weeks ago, I discovered that I’m also half Cambyra Fae—the Shifting Ones—and it threw my whole worldview into a tailspin.

So yes, I was born a witch, and I can control the wind. Or I’m learning to, at any rate. Until I was six years old, Krystal and I lived at the Veil House with aunt Heather and cousin Rhiannon.

When we were around five, Rhia and I met Grieve and Chatter out in the woods, and they secretly taught us how to increase our magic. They watched out for us, and we felt safe with them. Rhiannon and I made a pact never to tell
anyone about them because my mother hated the fact that she was born to the magic and didn’t want me meddling in it either. And so they remained our secret, and everything was fine, or so we thought. That was a wonderful summer—as good as it could get, in my opinion. Heather acted as mother to both of us, while Krystal boozed her powers into oblivion.

Then, a few weeks after I turned six, my world crumbled. Fed up with her life, Krystal dragged me kicking and screaming down the front steps and away from everything I’d ever known. I spent the next twenty years on the road—eighteen of them with her. We moved from town to town, scamming, stealing, and doing whatever we needed to survive. Krystal sold herself into the booze and drugs so deep that, by the end, there was no reaching her. She drowned herself in a haze, to get away from the clamor of voices and visions in her head. Even at six years old, I realized that the only way we’d survive was if I took over, and so I bucked up, stepped in, and—with Ulean’s help—got us through.

Ulean warned me when the cops were on our tracks. She kept me from getting raped half a dozen times by telling me to get the fuck out of wherever I was. And she guarded me in the only ways she could.

Along the way, I also had help from the odd person here or there—they just seemed to fall into my life. The most important one was Uncle Brody, an old black yummanii man who, for the first few months when we were staying in Portland, Oregon, took me under his wing and taught me as many street smarts as he could. Maybe he could tell that Krystal was going batshit crazy. Maybe he just had a premonition that I needed his help. Whatever the case, he taught me the rules of the road. He also taught me to gamble so I could make money from penny-ante street games. And he taught me how to fight dirty.

“Cicely, girl, you have to learn how to hurt people,” he told me once, when I flinched at learning how to jab someone in the nuts. “Because there are plenty of people out
there just waiting to hurt you. And trust me, if you give them an opening, they’ll take it. So don’t let them in.”

I paid attention; I learned to fight. And I used my wits and prescience to steer clear of potential situations.

And then, I’d also had my wolf…

When I was fourteen, Krystal met a man named Dane. I liked him and secretly hoped that he’d marry her and take us away from the streets. I think he would have, too, if my mother hadn’t been so skittish about committing herself to anyone or anything. But at any rate, he took care of us for a few months, until Krystal stormed out in a tantrum, and Dane got his brains blown out.

Dane was a tattooist and he inked all of my tattoos. First, came the faerie on my left breast, a little feral girl peeking out from a patch of belladonna. Second, the blackwork owls that encircled each of my upper arms. A pair on each side, over a moon with a dagger sticking through it. Matched sets, they heralded a part of my lineage I wouldn’t know about until I returned to New Forest. And third…third was my wolf.

My beloved wolf stared out from just above my navel, a vine of green leaves, silver roses, and purple skulls sprawling behind him, starting down on my left thigh, crossing my abdomen in a diagonal line, ending under my right ribs. From the beginning, I knew my wolf was a guardian. What I didn’t realize when I got the tattoo was that my wolf was a direct link to Grieve, who was a wolf shape-shifter.

The Cambyra Fae shift. All of us, half-breed or full-blood. Some of us shift into the form of an animal, but others—like Chatter—can turn into Elementals. Hence: the Shifting Fae. I’m part Uwilahsidhe, of the Owl Shifters.

My father, Wrath, is King of the Court of Rivers and Rushes—and I’ve known about him only for the past couple weeks. I’m the daughter of a king.

Wrath is Lainule’s husband, and we recently discovered that Lainule’s brother was Rhiannon’s father. It seems our very existence was planned out from the beginning. Rhiannon and I were born for this moment, born to be Queens,
born to fulfill a destiny that wasn’t even clear at the time of our conception.

Add to that a past-life connection with Myst and with Grieve, and I feel pulled in so many directions sometimes it feels like I am coming apart at the seams. Myst is a monster, and I hate the fact that I was her daughter so many thousands of years ago. But she nurtures a grudge against me that was born back in the distant past and is determined to make me pay. She wants revenge for what I did to her then, and what I’m doing to her now.

Caught between worlds, caught between powers, I’m transforming so fast that sometimes I look in the mirror and don’t even recognize myself. Oh, yes, I’m still five four, 140 pounds of muscle, and I still have long, straight, shiny black hair and emerald eyes…but on the inside, I’m changing. And I’m not sure what I’m becoming.

And that scares me. Just a little.