Nobody's Lady (24 page)

In love?
“Were you ever concerned about me falling in love with you?”

Ailill slapped the armrest with one hand. “You doubt that? After all you now know about me?” My heart felt almost like it’d stopped beating. Then the hope that lingered there in that breath between beats floated away as Ailill shook his head and turned away. “After a hundred or more lifetimes, I was ready to be done with this curse. And I would not get there by vanishing the moment you saw my face.”

Of course. He wanted me to love him to free his own soul. Not because he loved me.
“But that’s what happened anyway in the end, isn’t it?”

Ailill shrugged. “I had given up by then. It was not the first time I had. But I had hoped it would be the last.”

I felt a sharp pain in my chest, even if I couldn’t stop the anger that invaded my body every time I stood near him. “You lived this long only to give up? It shouldn’t have mattered what I thought of you! That’s no reason to give up on living.”

Ailill laughed harshly, but I knew it wasn’t because I’d said anything amusing. “I am surprised to hear you talk so! You, who became a shell of herself at the idea of her beloved marrying her sister. A beloved you were not even compelled to love, a beloved you had hope of one day no longer desiring.”

I squeezed my arms tight across my chest, swallowing back tears. “How would you know how I was before Jurij and Elfriede’s Returning? I thought you weren’t ‘always watching’ after all. You seemed surprised when I first arrived in the castle.”

Ailill pointed to the book on the stand and nodded. Without waiting for his instructions, I walked over and flipped it open. A man sat beside the fire in his home, a woman at his side, a child at his feet. Whether one of the few remaining families from the curse or a new one formed in the days after, I couldn’t say. I flipped again to a random page, seeing Darwyn’s mother sweeping out her bakery, a smile on her face, her lips moving. She must have been talking to someone off page.
Roslyn
. The two had found happiness in their new arrangement, as friends and bakerwomen. It seemed like weeks ago, but it was really just earlier that evening.

“I did look,” said Ailill from behind me. “I watched this village evolve for countless years on those pages. A mere echo of what was going on out there, but all I would be able to see.”

I didn’t say anything. I turned a page again and saw a man sleeping in a bed. Another page had a man and woman clinking their mugs together and drinking a toast. After a few moments, Vena appeared on the page, dropping off more mugs on the table between them.

“I saw my sister on those pages,” continued Ailill. “Silently, she worked. Organizing the village after the curse. Guiding the women to gain more confidence. Blessing newfound families.” I heard him sigh. “She never created one of her own. Not that it surprised me. She did not seem the type to forget, and there would be no man worthy of her forgiveness, even if he was altered.”

I turned the page again, trying not to think about Avery’s bloodlust and trying to imagine her settling down as a leader. I couldn’t picture her with her own children, either.

“She never came for me.” Something in Ailill’s voice seemed about to crack. “I wondered if she even knew I was alive. Or if she even cared.”

I stopped. “But they must have known they were left with a lord?”

Ailill waved a hand. “They knew the castle shook when they looked at it. They were scared. Or maybe they did not think they had left behind anything worth going back for.”

“But your servants—”

“Did not yet exist.” He drummed his fingers on the throne’s armrest and smiled, haltingly. “I had not died yet. They could have sent their men after me, but no one thought to. They could have come even if the ground shook, but Avery did not try.”

“I added the earthquakes to protect you. I was worried after Avery stabbed your—stabbed
him
. I thought she might hurt you.”

“Who knows? To me, that would have been preferable to isolation. Even if she had killed me, I would have sprung to life once more.”

“I … I’m sorry.” I turned back to the book, more out of shame than a real need to flip through its pages.

“Sorry for the earthquakes that kept my sister from me, or sorry for the whole appalling mess you made of things?”

I flipped to another page. My mother. Alone in bed. Her brows furrowed even in slumber. Alive because of him. “Both,” I said at last.

“Of course—” Ailill stopped himself. It was as if he had expected me to say “neither” and had readied himself for the argument we almost always had. “Well. I do not expect Avery would have sought me out regardless.”

Mother tossed and turned in bed. I felt bad that even her dreams couldn’t offer her peace. I saw the foot of Elfriede’s bed in the image. Her sheets were all crumpled.

Ailill continued his story. “I grew older, clinging to that book, living for a time off food stores my brother and father had prepared for some unknown purpose. And when it ran out, I had the food they gave—well … I had food at least. I saw my sister die. I watched as everyone I ever knew faded into thin air. And when the day at last came for me to join them … ” He stopped, and his leather attire squeaked uncomfortably in the silence behind me. “Well. I came back. This time with a pale old man for company.”

I traced my finger across the dancing ink on the page, wondering what it’d be like to only see those you love on its pages, to watch them fading away until you were left with nothing but strangers. I wanted to ask so many questions, but I wasn’t sure if dredging up memories of what I’d done would set my friends free. I wasn’t even sure what was so important about keeping the cavern’s “heart” a secret that he would summon me to stand beside him even after all our fighting.

Ailill’s voice was closer when he spoke again. “In any case. The story repeated itself, only with strangers filling that book’s pages. And repeated itself. And repeated itself, only, the women fell into a comfortable routine of being objects of worship after a few ages. There was no need for anyone to organize the village. ‘The lord’ was the leader. The leader they hardly needed or cared about. But their lack of caring emboldened me. I stopped relying on food from the same sources and sent the servants out shopping. I had no lack of copper with which to pay for it. My father had stockpiled quite a bit, and his father and grandfather before him.” An arm clothed in black reached over my shoulder, and a dark-gloved hand rested a mere hair’s breadth from mine. He turned the page. “I had the servants collect all the weapons, tossed aside in trunks and sheds, forgotten generations earlier. Nobody alive recognized their purpose or cared that we took them. I made sure the idea of swords faded into the realm of myth, so person would never harm person again. An ideal world for all, in a way. Just take the free will of all men away and imprison me. Life was very peaceful.”

I thought of Elgar, guiltily, and wondered how he’d found the blade at all, when I’d left it in a tree for Jaron to find for me. The sword seemed to exist outside of reason, like there were two in the village at once, one over Ailill’s throne and the other in the tree.

Before I could ask, Ailill spoke again. “Eventually, I stopped caring.” He turned the page. This one showed the crowded tavern, Vena running across the book, men’s heads thrown back in laughter. The page followed a man with his arm around a woman’s waist, his other hand holding hers as they swung around the crowded room dancing, tripping, and nearly tumbling over with laughter. “I would open the book on occasion, but I tended to find it hurt too much to look. To pretend I meant anything to the people in these pages.”

It was my father. My
father
dancing with some other woman. Who was she? I couldn’t put a name to her face, but I really didn’t care. To see the look of delight on my father’s features when he held a woman besides my mother made me gasp and turn away.

By turning, I found myself perfectly positioned in Ailill’s arms. The torchlight danced and flickered across his brown hair. His dark eyes bore into mine, and I felt his arm shift behind me, move ever closer to the center of my back.

“Do you blame me for so seldom looking?”

“No.” I swallowed and tore my eyes away. My hands gripped the sides of my skirt. I was unsure what to do with them. How to move away—or if I even wanted to. Ailill dropped his arm and took a step back, taking with him a raging blaze of something powerful between us I hadn’t even realized he’d brought with him.

A glint of light caught my attention on the floor just beside the stand. I bent down and picked it up—it was the coin I’d lost. I held it out between Ailill and me, letting the firelight dance off its luster. “When you took that bangle away,” I said, nodding at the bangle around his arm, “you said it would have saved me from a lifetime in prison. So what does this coin, or any golden copper, mean?”

Ailill ran a hand over his bangle. “It means you have the right to know. To see. To rule over this village.”

I twisted the coin this way and that, not believing that even something so bright and beautiful could give me the right to that. “Like your bangle?” I asked, thinking of the one Elric wore.

The corner of Ailill’s lips twitched. “And the dozens of others like it.” He removed the bangle and held it out in front of him in echo of my stance with the coin. “I got so bored with receiving them, I started to use them for practical purposes.” He smiled, and I thought of how the golden rings held the veil over the table aloft, how they clattered as they fell to the ground when I ordered him to rip it. “And then I began to leave the remainder behind. I thought it dangerous to populate one village with over a hundred such tokens, solely because I was sent back time after time after time.”

I gripped the coin tightly in my palm and lowered my hand. “You keep talking about our village as if there are others.”

Ailill smiled again, and it didn’t feel like he was mocking me. More like he was impressed his pet could perform new tricks. He slid the bangle back over his arm and gestured around with both hands. “We are surrounded by mountains, Olivière. Everywhere you look, there are mountains.” He stepped back, walking toward his throne. “And people are born, and live, and die in this village, and they never seem to think about what is on the other side of them.”

“But … ” I frowned. “How can there be? The mountains end? And other people live there?”

Ailill sat back on his throne, crossing his legs so one ankle rested on the other knee. “Not quite, but close enough.”

“So why haven’t any of these people noticed us?”

“Who says they have not?” Ailill gestured at the book behind me. “Where do you think I came by such a tome, a book that shows the people of this village at play?”

“
At play
? Is that what our lives are to someone like you? Just a game?”

Ailill rested his fingertips together, always looking somehow both bored and in charge whenever he sat there. “There are greater forces than a simple lord in a single village, Olivière. Even one who frustratingly will not die.” His eyes seemed to search the ceiling, as if looking for a person who might be listening. “And whether my vexing immortality is still in place remains to be seen.”

“What do you mean? Because you found your goddess, you … ” I stopped. It was only my not being born yet that had kept him alive.

Ailill shook his head and waved a hand. “Do not worry yourself. I might be freed from the curse at last. It is exactly what I wanted for many, many years.”

I gripped the coin harder and felt its smooth edges push into my skin. “But you can’t die!”

Ailill raised his eyebrows. “I am touched you care.” His voice betrayed his meaning, his sarcasm back in full force, dripping over the sentiment.

“I
do
care!” I stomped a foot, feeling like the little elf queen not getting her way. “Must you continue to be so frustrating?”

Ailill stood and stepped down the platform. “My sentiments exactly.”

“I caused this. I caused all of this, I know.” I looked up as Ailill stopped moving, the surprise clearly written on his face. “I want you to have a chance to live this time.”

Ailill froze but said nothing.

“I want all of the men to have a chance to choose what makes them happy. And the women understand that the happiness they had before was never
really
happiness. Not when there wasn’t a choice. Although I don’t want things to go back to the way they were, either.
Everyone
in the village deserves to be treated well.”

“Olivière—”

“No, let me speak! For once, just let me talk without misunderstanding and berating me. Give me some answers!” I threw my hands up. “The hole behind the throne. That leads to this place beyond the mountains?”

Ailill took a step closer, his hand outstretched. “Yes, but—”

“And knowing about that is the danger?” I held out my coin again. “Unless you hold a golden copper, knowing that there’s a world beyond the mountains somehow justifies imprisonment? For
life
?”

“Olivière,
yes
, but not now.” Ailill brushed past, laying his hand on my shoulder for the gentlest of shoves.

My eyebrows furrowed at his look of concern. “What is … ” The last word died on my tongue.

The moving ink drawing of the tavern had erupted into chaos. Man after man came to blows with each other, some with bare fists, others with broken glasses or even chairs raised over their heads. Things moved so quickly, tables turning, plates crashing, the silent fury screaming across the page, and I couldn’t find my father. The page was supposed to be centered on him.

Ailill furrowed his brow, one hand marking his place while his other raced through the pages. “I was afraid something like this might happen.”

“Like what?” I asked stupidly. “A fight in the tavern?” It looked worrying, but it was nothing like the battle I’d caused in the village of the past.

Ailill continued to scan the pages. “Too much freedom. Sometimes men cannot be trusted with it.” He grunted. “As you have seen.” He stopped flipping the pages, and his eyes widened.