The Dark Throne (13 page)

“You said you were going to rest,” Sage reminded me, still reading.

“That was before Lumina arrived. And I’ve been resting all day. You can choose to be useful and accompany me, if you’d like,” I returned in a brightly cheerful voice.

“I’d prefer to be useful by continuing my research,” he replied.

“Well, tough luck. Choose one.” I scarfed down the rest of my makeshift sandwich and stretched my legs before standing. I gave the bandages on my hands a cursory look—they’d do for a few more hours. I’d change them before I went to sleep, I decided. Flora leapt into the air, her aura fizzing as her wings carried her aloft. Without waiting for any further argument from Sage, I followed my Glasidhe guide into the hallway. We were halfway down the passageway when I heard a muffled curse and light footsteps behind us. After Sage had closed the distance between us, I said sweetly over my shoulder, “See? Being useful isn’t so hard.”

And rather than let irritation sour his mood as I expected, Sage laughed. “I must say that you have been my most eventful assignment yet, Lady Bearer.”

“I like to keep people on their toes,” I said, following Flora down a smaller hallway.

“And I get to learn such interesting phrases,” he added. “Keep people on their toes.”

“Has Lumina met with Vell and Titania yet?” I asked Flora as we continued our wending way through the passages of the Hall. Flora rounded the corner of a passageway and suddenly we were standing in front of a double door slightly larger than the other doorways we’d passed, and there were two Sidhe standing guard on either side. I recognized Gray immediately and I looked sharply up at Flora.

“My lady Lumina is meeting with the High Queen and the Bright Queen now,” Flora replied.

“Lady Bearer,” Gray said. “We were not told that you would be joining the queens for this council.”

I cleared my throat. “Well, if it’s a private council then I can—” The Sword released a strident clarion note. “–I can just allow you to tell them I’d like to join,” I finished.

“Of course,” said Gray. She turned to the other Sidhe guard, who stood a full head taller than her and had a set of broad shoulders that almost rivaled Luca’s build. “This is Niall, Queen Titania’s Vaelanseld.”

Niall bowed to me slightly. His eyes were such a pale blue that they almost looked colorless, and they would have been unsettling but for the warmth emanating from his gaze. His light golden hair was longer than that of any Sidhe I’d seen; he wore it tied back in a ponytail neater than my own. “My lady Bearer.”

I nodded to him. “Vaelanseld.”

He straightened. Gray opened one of the doors and disappeared into the room. Flora landed on my shoulder, resuming her familiar post and laying a small hand on the curve of my ear for balance. “His eyes were not so pale before the Seelie Queen was captured,” the Glasidhe warrior murmured to me.

“Please,” Niall said, “we do not call each other by our formal titles here among friends, Lady Bearer.”

I smiled. “Then it’s Tess, if you wish to be informal, Niall.”

He inclined his head gracefully. “Very well. It is good to see you looking so well, Tess.”

“I’ve been told that more times than I can count lately,” I said. “I must have looked pretty rough after bringing Titania back.”

“When I first saw you, I thought you were dead,” Niall replied.

“Points for honesty,” I said. “And to be fair, you were pretty far from live and kicking yourself.”

Niall looked down. “My apologies. A long sojourn away from the living world can sometimes make one forget the rules of polite conversation.”

I shrugged. “I’m not very polite anyway, so it’s all right.” When he looked up in surprise, I smiled, and coaxed an answering smile from him. “And what are rules if not made to be broken?”

“An appropriate statement from the Bearer of the Iron Sword,” Niall replied with a smile.

Gray reappeared. “You have leave to enter, Lady Bearer.”

Niall stepped aside and I walked past him, crossing the threshold of the room. Gray shut the door behind me with a click, and I was faced with a council of the Glasidhe queen, the Seelie Queen, and the High Queen, sitting at a large round table with their bound Knights and closest advisors. Lumina and her retinue sat at the edge of the table nearest the fire, with Vell and Finnead seated to their left, and Titania and her remaining two Named Knights to the right. Flora squeezed my ear encouragingly, they looked at me expectantly, and I stepped forward to claim a seat at the table.

I slid into a chair beside Finnead, arranged the Sword to one side of my chair, folded my hands on the table and said brightly, “What did I miss?”

Chapter 7

“W
elcome, Lady Bearer,” said Queen Titania, now resplendent in a gown the color of a robin’s egg. Soft green embroidery called to mind vines and leaves and living green things. “I trust you were introduced to Niall?”

“Yes, I was,” I said.

Titania gestured gracefully with one hand to the two men seated to her left. “This is my Vaelanbrigh, Ailin, and my Vaelanmavar, Gawain.”

Ailin was slender with a flashing smile, and Gawain fell somewhere between Niall and Ailin in stature. Both of them had the same colorless eyes as Niall, though I could tell that Ailin’s eyes had once been green and Gawain’s still held a hint of grey. The only other time I’d seen them, they were unconscious on the dais of the throne in Brightvale, defending Titania the only way that remained: by willingly giving her their life-force while her Walker form was imprisoned by Malravenar.

“I am sorry that your Walker did not survive,” Gawain said. “He was brave, and we owe him our thanks as much as you.”

I swallowed at the mention of Murtagh. “Yes, he was very brave. He gave everything to fight against the darkness.”

“As we all will, if it is required of us,” answered Gawain firmly.

I turned my attention to the Glasidhe retinue. I was surprised that Flora kept her post on my shoulder, but she seemed to have appointed herself my advisor, and I wasn’t going to argue with her. I still needed all the help I could get to navigate the politics of this new world in which Vell was High Queen and Titania a full force returned to the land of the living. “Lady Lumina, I am glad to see you again.”

“Lady Tess, it is good to be here and to be part of the Great Rising,” answered the Glasidhe queen with consummate grace. From the way she pronounced the words, I knew the Rising was the name now given to this newly formed alliance. I saw Galax, huge for a Glasidhe, standing solidly behind Lumina, and Forsythe seated slightly behind her. I gave Forsythe a little nod and he acknowledged it with a smile.

I looked at Vell and found her staring across the table into the corner of the room. Following her gaze, I spied Arcana standing motionless in the shadows. The most elusive of Vell’s Three remained silent and unmoving, her eyes gleaming in the firelight. I couldn’t see much of her in the shadows. I glanced at Finnead.

“As you were saying, Lady Lumina?” Finnead prompted with courtly precision.

Lumina inclined her head. Vell kept staring at Arcana, a small crease appearing on her forehead, even as the Glasidhe queen began to speak.

“My people will gladly serve as scouts and messengers,” Lumina said. “There is a contingent still with the Unseelie Queen, that she may send word as her Court readies for their journey and leaves Darkhill.”

“Did our sister queen set a day of departure?” asked Titania.

Lumina turned to Forsythe.

“A fortnight after the crowning of the High Queen, my lady,” he answered.

I tried to do the math in my head. I’d been unconscious for seven days, and this was the third day after I’d awoken.

“They’ll be leaving in four days then,” said Vell, gaze still fixed on Arcana.

“Are they traveling the same route? The bridge over the Darinwel was destroyed,” I said.

“That won’t be a problem for Mab,” Vell replied unconcernedly. Finally she leaned back in her chair and looked over at Lumina. “How many messengers are with you now, and how many are with Queen Mab?”

Once again Forsythe answered. It seemed as though he’d become Lumina’s master-at-arms, the expert on all the pertinent numbers regarding her army. I suppressed a smile; it was good to see my old friends rising to such positions. “A dozen scouts with Queen Mab’s main contingent, and half a dozen more afield in pairs; with us here, we have two dozen proven scouts and twice that number of warriors who will serve in any capacity required, my lady.”

“Good,” Vell said, her voice brusque. “I will require a pair of scouts to depart today with a message for the Unseelie Queen.”

“Two of our swiftest scouts will be at your disposal, my lady,” Forsythe replied.

Vell didn’t reply, her gaze still fixed on Arcana. Queen Titania turned to Gawain, giving him a slight nod. Gawain and Finnead exchanged a look, Finnead’s hand gently squeezing my elbow before he released his hold and stood, reaching for the opposite end of the map that Gawain unfurled across the table.

The Seelie Vaelanmavar spread one long-fingered pale hand on the map. Not only his eyes but his skin, too, was unnaturally pale—paler than Finnead, paler than any of the Sidhe I’d seen during my time in Faeortalam. Titania’s Three had endured a terrible trial for their Queen, proving their loyalty in the most tangible of ways by sustaining her as she’d survived Malravenar’s captivity, and now they carried the marks of their time spent frozen under her enchantment.

“Queen Titania located her prison,” said Gawain. He placed one fingertip in the north, near the border between the Deadlands and the North proper, which was a swathe of wild mountains and snow that, while skillfully depicted on the map, was not nearly as detailed as the Sidhe lands. With his other hand, Gawain marked a small “x” on the chart in red ink without any flourish or ceremony. Titania watched without expression. Vell stared at Arcana. Flora leaned forward over the table to better view the map, steadying herself with a hand on my ear. “We have also plotted all the other attacks by Malravenar’s creatures, both on our Court and the Court of Night and Winter.”

I glanced at Finnead.

“Are you really so surprised that we are working together, Tess?” Finnead asked, his eyes drowning-deep as he caught my gaze. “This is why we traveled here. Or,” he corrected himself in deference to Vell, “it was the original intention of our journey.”

“I’m glad of it,” I said. I looked at the map and saw the crossing at the Darinwel marked in red, and another mark, closer to the Royal Wood, where we’d encountered the skin-wraiths in the forest. There was a larger scarlet symbol where the Glasidhe’s Three Trees had once stood; their ancestral home had been lost to the flames of war much the same as the Saemhradall and Brightvale.

“Malravenar began sending his forces farther afield, and in greater numbers than we had seen, at about the time that the Bearer passed through one of the Lesser Gates in Queen Mab’s lands,” continued Gawain.

“And Molly,” I said, unable to stop myself though it really wasn’t pertinent to the discussion of strategy. “Finnead brought my best friend Molly through as well.”

“The half-mortal whom Mab thought was the fulfillment of the prophecy,” Finnead explained.

“It said she would be the instrument by which the Iron Sword was found,” I said, “and I only came because of her, so it was mostly true, just not in the way Mab thought.”

“Tess, let’s keep the personal history out of our strategy sessions, shall we?” Vell looked at me with a flat golden gaze, her usual sarcasm carrying a bit more of a sting than usual. But on the bright side, she was looking at me and not Arcana; and it was the first time she’d acknowledged my presence since I entered the room. I wondered if she was angry about the incident with the dagger.

But I tried to follow Forsythe’s gallant example, smiling and replying, “Of course. I apologize, I haven’t been out much in a while.” I held up one bandaged hand and shrugged.

“Here, marked in blue, are the dragon sightings,” Gawain continued, tracing an arc that swept out from the Deadlands and into the Borderlands, the no-man’s land that the Sidhe had established when the poison from the Deadlands first began seeping into Faeortalam.

“Getting closer,” Flora murmured into my ear. She was right. The arcs of dragon sightings depicted the beast circling closer to the Sentinel Stones. I wondered if the power of the Stones would hold against such a monstrous creature.

The circlet gleamed against Vell’s dark hair. “The scouts will return soon, and we will go on a dragon hunt.” Her teeth caught the light as she smiled, wolf-like.

“Crown-sister, know that although you will be testing your warriors for your Court in the way of your people, the knights of my Court will stand ready as well,” Titania said gracefully.

“Let’s hope that the choosing of the
vyldgard
does not go so poorly that we need rescuing,” replied Vell with black humor.

“As the Lady wills,” agreed Ailin in a low voice, his inflection reverent.

“He refers to the First,” Flora whispered in my ear, sensing my confusion at the invocation. “The First Queen, the one above all who spilled her blood and broke her bone to give us the Three Queens.”

“Got it,” I whispered back. The Sword hummed a little in its sheath, as if finally awakening and finding the conversation interesting.

“After the dragon is dead, we will march into the Deadlands,” said Vell. “Perhaps even to the White City, where we believe the Enemy has set his throne.”

“To the Dark One’s stronghold? Is that wise, my lady, that we place ourselves so far into his lands?” Gawain asked with a slight bow of deference to Vell.

The sharp scent of snow and pine needles suddenly swirled over the table. “No, not to his stronghold.” Vell smiled her humorless smile again. “Though I think we’d still have a fighting chance, even walking into the jaws of the Dark Throne. What I have in mind is a bit more…interesting.”

Titania listened to Vell with quiet intensity while her Knights looked at the High Queen with their colorless eyes, waiting for her to elaborate. They knew how to handle women with crowns on their heads and power that stretched its roots down into the very bones of their land.