The Dark Throne (14 page)

“What does Malravenar
want
?” Vell asked, spreading her hands on the table, glancing at Gawain and then Ailin.

The answer came from the shadows. “The Great Gate.” Arcana stepped into the half-light, a copper spark escaping from her lips with the words.

“Opening the Great Gate is his aim,” Finnead agreed, “but if we gather at the Gate, we are giving him exactly what he needs to break the Seal.”

“And that is exactly why he will come to us, or allow us to come to him—even though it is plain it is a trap,” said Vell.

“What’s to say his creatures of darkness won’t be sent out to do his bidding, just as they are now?” Ailin asked.

Vell made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “With the power of three Queens and all the host of warriors, we will destroy any force he sends against us.”

“What exactly does he need to break the Seal?” I asked.

“The blood of those who forged the Seal,” replied Titania.

The Sword thrummed on my back before I could even ask the question. “The blood of the two Queens and the Bearer,” I said anyway, just for clarity.

Vell rose from her chair, hands still spread on the tabletop. She wrested her gaze from Arcana again and raked the table with her fierce golden stare. “So what would you have us do, cower in our crumbling citadels until the creatures gnaw through the walls and devour us?” Her voice was no longer laced with sarcasm or dark humor—every word rang with a fiery intensity. “Would you allow him to tear us apart, one by one, taking the pieces he needs to break the wards on the Great Gate?” She swept the room with her eyes again, now resting on each person for a moment, as if by boring into them with her molten gaze she could set a spark in our souls. “I say we do not sob softly in the shadows while the ones we love are taken from us for his dark purposes.”

Her voice grew louder, and I felt us all caught up in the spiral of emotion. We were climbing a mountain, Vell as our guide, and when we reached the top we would see through her eyes. My pulse quickened. “I say we do not stand by and watch as our brethren fall—for if we do not choose to stand
together
, then we will
all
fall as the Shadow devours our world.” Her hands on the table were fists now. Somehow everyone was on their feet as well, Titania and Finnead and the Glasidhe, Arcana stepping forward into the light. “I say we unite, and we ride with banners high to the Great Gate, and we face the Lord of Shadows on the field of battle, on the day of our choosing, and we decide our own fate!”

Her voice rose into a powerful crescendo and I felt my own chest swelling with answering passion. My hands itched to hold a sword again, and I could almost see the gathered host of Sidhe warriors, banners flying, blades gleaming as they rose like a tide in battle against the forces of darkness.

The room fell silent but for the breathing of all those gathered—the same passion gleamed in the eyes of every Sidhe present, every warrior large and small. Even Arcana wore a strange smile.

“By all the powers that be,” said Gawain in a low voice, “we truly have a High Queen.” He bowed his pale head for a moment and then raised his eyes to Vell. “My lady, if you repeated those words to our warriors they would gladly ride out under your banner at this very moment.”

Titania gave Vell a warm, motherly smile. Vell seemed slightly dazed by the power of her own words. Then she blinked and nodded, rapping her fists on the table. “Well, then. You all know the general idea. We’ll work out the details after the dragon hunt.”

“You cannot kill him,” said Arcana suddenly, her flat voice beautiful but otherworldly in its coldness.

“Malravenar has a body just as all on this plane do. And if he has a body, we can kill it,” said Vell. She looked at Titania. A shadow passed over the Bright Queen’s face.

“He is not as other beings,” Titania said.

Arcana nodded once, the rest of her body perfectly still. Vell straightened, resting only her fingertips on the table now, her eyes trained once again on Arcana. “Tell us what you know.”

It was a command, Vell’s voice followed by a strange tightening in the room, a ripple of tension in the air between the High Queen and the ancient powerful creature bound to her in her sister’s body. Arcana’s face remained expressionless but she bowed slightly, hinging from the waist like a stiff puppet. “As you ask. Malravenar is not his true name.”

“Just as Arcana is not yours,” Vell said. “But go on.”

“We are not what we once were,” Arcana said, a wisp of smoke curling from the corner of her lips. “The worlds drift apart and we are cast into shadow. We do not drink the blood of mortals, we do not demand sacrifice as once we did in the powerful ancient years so long past.”

My skin prickled. The Sword’s power raised its head like a wolf scenting prey. I glanced at Vell. The air tightened, stretched taut as she stared at Arcana. Beside her, Finnead tensed; and around the table the gathered leaders of the Sidhe and Glasidhe watched silently and intently.

“No more riddles,” the High Queen said. “Speak plainly. What are you, and what connection do you have with the Dark One?”

“I have been known by many names,” said Arcana, her voice thicker now as though the words were being drawn unwillingly from her. “I am but a remnant, a shadow.”

“What are you?” Vell’s power rose up like a tide, towering over us. Finnead clenched his jaw—I sensed him holding the High Queen steady with his own
taebramh
, her anchor against the rising flood of her new power. Underneath Vell I felt Titania, a warm golden glow to contrast the icy power of the High Queen, calmly protecting her Three; and then still deeper there was Lumina, and the shining power she had in her own right as queen of the Glasidhe. I let the Caedbranr’s power and my own
taebramh
flow down into my war markings.

“I am but a remnant,” Arcana rasped in a strangled voice. Vell clenched her hands into fists again, her mouth pressed into a grim line, her eyes unblinking. Arcana shuddered, her movements convulsive, reminding me of a dying spider’s legs twitching. A thin line of black blood snaked from Arcana’s nose, lurid against her death-pale skin. Vell, too, trembled now, gritting her teeth. Though she could kill her Three with just a thought, apparently it took more effort to compel them to her will, especially a being as strong in her own right as Arcana.

The room grew hot with the power of the struggle, a metallic scent like the iron tang of blood emanating from Arcana, mixing with the pine and ice of Vell’s power. Then I felt a shift, and the snow-scented power became bright with the cold sunshine of a winter morning. I glanced at Titania. The Bright Queen tilted her head, a small smile on her beautiful face. I reached for my own power, but in that instant Arcana hissed, and the tension broke like a bone snapping. Arcana dropped her head, black blood dripping onto her chest. She raised her head and for the first time I saw something akin to emotion in her dead eyes, a spark that resembled anger.

“I am but a remnant,” Arcana repeated, “but I made both of you what you are.”

I frowned, then realized Arcana looked intently at both the Seelie Queen and the High Queen. Vell’s knuckles were white on the table. Titania’s face was as smooth as a marble carving, carefully devoid of expression, but her eyes watched Arcana with a burning intensity. Then Arcana turned her strange gaze to me, and I refused to look away as she added, “With the help of the child of Gwyneth, though she was but a vessel for another shard of what I once was.”

The power wearing the body of Vell’s sister turned her head slightly, shifting her focus again to the Queens at the table. I blinked and released the breath I’d been holding, and the Caedbranr’s
taebramh
shifted between my ribs, circling restlessly.

“I am but a shadow, as is he, but in this fading world that is more than enough,” Arcana said, raising her chin. “I bore the sacrifice of blood and bone. I did not choose to be a wearer of bodies, but I have endured, though once I might have wished to pass from this realm.”

The power inhabiting the young girl’s body turned its flat gaze to me. “When the mortal priestess baptized her daughter, it was time for me to test the scales.”

“How did you escape?” Titania asked, her voice smooth. “If he had recognized you, he would have destroyed you.”

“I have hidden for millennia,” said Arcana, her words dismissive even though her voice remained monotone. “And this is not the first act of this play. We are long enemies, the Dark Lord and I, though once we were not.” She smiled a terrible humorless smile, blood trickling over her lip and onto her teeth. “And I am but a remnant, as is he.”

I was trying to decipher this revelation. Titania, at least, seemed to have some grasp on Arcana’s meaning; I felt as though I was a step behind…until the Sword plucked an image from my memory, a still-frame from the vision that had engulfed me in the sirens’ lair beneath the Darinwel: Mab and Titania, kneeling before the First Queen, her hands raised over their shining heads in benediction.
I bore the sacrifice of blood and bone.
Now, patiently, the Sword showed me the Crown of Bones, red as mortal blood, pulsing like a fiery heart in my hands. And I saw something in that memory as the Sword showed it to me that had been blurred by pain and fear in the throne room of Brightvale: Arcana in the shadow of one of the great pillars, her eyes glowing with a fire that echoed the Crown of Bones, her hand raised and lips moving once again in a benediction as Vell was crowned in the whirling maelstrom.

“The First,” Flora whispered in awe into my ear as cold washed over me with the realization. “She was called the Morrigan, the Queen-over-all, worshipped as a goddess in Doendhtalam.”

I swallowed as my earlier question to Vell rang in my ears. A deity. Arcana was the remnant of a deity.

Chapter 8

“S
o you are the Morrigan,” Vell said.

“Merely a piece,” Arcana replied.

The High Queen narrowed her eyes. “If you are a remnant of the First Queen, why do you say that you came to test the scales? Would your loyalty not lie with those you crowned?”

Arcana tilted her head in an unnerving echo of Titania’s movement. “The play is long, and this is not the first act.”

Vell shook her head. “Stop using ridiculous metaphors,” she snapped. I saw Gawain raise his eyebrows and look at Ailin, who tilted his head slightly and lifted one shoulder in the barest suggestion of a shrug.

Arcana bowed from the waist again. “As you command. The destiny of this world—or any other—is not set. There have been worlds overrun by shadow. There have been worlds destroyed by hatred. And it is what happens.”

“You blessed us,” Titania said. “You bade us keep our Court how we would, and to rule the lands of Faeortalam.”

“It is wearisome to be all-powerful,” Arcana replied simply.

“You made the Seelie and Unseelie Queens because you were tired of having responsibility?” I said in disbelief.

“Perceptive as always, Lady Bearer,” Arcana said. “I am merely a remnant. I do not remember myself entirely. There were probably other reasons as well.”

Flora gave a little snort of derision, tickling my ear. The Sword thrummed a deep tone. I felt a tendril of its power reach out and touch Arcana. It wasn’t a harsh slap like the night Arcana had appeared in the clearing by the Seelie outriders’ camp; but it wasn’t gentle, either.

“Do not try to reprimand me, Old One,” the remnant of the Morrigan said. “I am beyond regret. I am merely a shard of a shattered mirror.”

“Her mind is not all there,” Flora whispered into my ear as I frowned at the Morrigan’s last words. “The centuries have made her…strange.”

“Wearing bodies would make anyone strange, I think,” I whispered back.

“I can hear you,” Vell said, leveling a sharp look at me, “and though the circumstances are indeed strange, the Morrigan deserves common courtesy at the very least.” My cheeks heated at the reprimand and Flora hid her face behind my ear. Vell’s mouth thinned again. “I still do not like that you wear my sister’s body, and my people have never worshipped the gods of other worlds or other people. But I thank you for your benediction and your sacrifice.”

Arcana accepted Vell’s words with a stiff nod. “I ask that the knowledge of my true form does not leave this room.” Her voice was becoming hoarse; it was the most I had ever heard Arcana speak. My mind touched briefly on the thought of vocal cords burned raw with the power of the being speaking through them.

“It shall not,” Vell said, and it was again a command. Titania inclined her head gracefully, and Lumina sank into a deferent, delicate curtsey. The High Queen and the Morrigan stared at each other for a long moment. “How do you know we cannot kill the Dark One?” Vell finally asked.

“He is as I am, or once was,” Arcana said. “You may send him beyond the veil for a time, but he will find a way back to this plane.” A chilling humorless smile stretched her blood-laced lips. “He has always been stubborn.”

“Lady,” Gawain said quietly to Titania, “this creature speaks with familiarity of the Dark One.”

Titania nodded regally but remained silent, her beautiful face impassive as she continued to listen. Gawain brought up a valid point, I thought; the Morrigan spoke as though she and Malravenar were old players at a very long game of chess. It was a very casual way to look at the fate of an entire world and all its creatures. Perhaps two worlds, I thought, because after opening the Great Gate Malravenar would surely set his sights on domination of the mortal realm.

“So what would you have us do, if we cannot kill him?” Vell demanded.

Arcana made a sound that I supposed was her laugh, a gurgling wheeze that sounded more like a death rattle than any sound of merriment. “I am not the all-answering oracle. I am not what I was.”

Vell gave a little growl and sat down, leaning back and laying her arms along the arms of the chair. She stared intently at Arcana, but her gaze was thoughtful; and the way she sat made the simple wooden seat look suddenly like a throne. Arcana stood stock-still for a moment more and then faded back into the shadows, though it was more difficult to ignore her now that I knew, at least in theory, what she was. The Caedbranr thrummed again in its sheath, nudging at me. I shifted my shoulders. I didn’t know what it expected me to do. My hands stung. I twisted them in my lap. Then I frowned. “Vell,” I said slowly. The High Queen glanced at me.