The Drowned Tomb (The Changeling Series Book 2) (36 page)

Robin didn’t know what to say to this. It was odd being called a strange creature by this beautiful alien being, with translucent skin beneath which light rippled and unfathomable oversized eyes.

“But you remind me of him. Of your father. You have the same jaw, the same cheekbones, and most tellingly, the same fire behind your eyes. Tamped down, by years in the human world no doubt, but it is still there. Like glowing embers, waiting to be rekindled.”

Robin smiled despite himself. “You knew my father well?”

She nodded. “I was chief handmaiden to the Lady Tritea. Long before the war. She moved in the circles of your Fae court. As such, I knew all of Oberon’s Fae Guard, the Sidhe-Nobilitas. Your father was a brave and striking man, Robin Fellows. You are very like him in so many ways. I see his strength in you, his values.”

“I … I never knew him,” he said haltingly. “Or my mother.”

“War takes everything from us,” she nodded in agreement. “It is a bleach which washes away family and life, leaving little to cling to. But we find the finger holds we can, do we not? Your friends. You value them more than they know. I see this in your eyes. I hear it in every beat of your heart. We all of us long to belong.”

She crossed to the screen of leaves and brushed a portion aside. Behind, nestled in amongst the branches and twigs were bottles and books.

“Take caution however, in the company you keep, Robin Fellows,” she said, selecting a dark bottle with a rounded base and long neck. “It is not only the legions of Lady Eris who wear masks.”

Robin frowned. “You’re talking about Karya?”

The Undine turned, the bottle clasped in her hands, and shook her head gently. “No. I speak of the other Fae. The disfigured one.” She held a hand up to the side of her head by way of explanation. Jackalope and his missing horns. “He has trouble in his heart, and blood on his hands.” She frowned deeply. “Such dark blood. It stains his soul. I feel it pour from him in a keening wail. He carries such pain with him.”

Robin didn’t know what to make of this.

“He has seen and done terrible things, that one. And they haunt him. He must take care.” She handed Robin the bottle. “It is so easy to fall into darkness, and you must take care of him. No one else will. There are few free Fae in the world since Eris came into her throne. Those who remain at large must look out for one another.”

“What do you mean, blood on his hands?” Robin wanted to know, examining the bottle. It seemed to be filled with a dark and brackish liquid.

“That is his tale to tell, not mine,” she said.

“What is this?” he asked, looking at the bottle.

“Black kraken bile,” she told him. “I smell it on you already. You have tasted the kraken, yes? To become more one with the water.”

Robin blinked in surprise. “Well, yes actually, when I first started learning the Tower of Water. I couldn’t swim, you see, and my friend said if I took some—”

“You did not take enough,” she interjected. “Taking enough of the essence of the kraken will allow you not only to navigate the water, but to merge with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Drink these contents, and you will be able to become one with the water. You will need this, where you are going.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Robin insisted. “It’s like Woad said. If Ker’s troops are coming through that wall, we’re not going to leave you and the rest of the Undine defenceless.” He didn’t know what exactly he could do, other than be slaughtered in a show of winning solidarity, but it didn’t feel right, escaping the coming wave of invasion. His blood ran a little cold at the thought of encountering Strigoi once more however. It had been bad enough in the snowy, bleak camp of his enemies. But at least that had felt a fitting setting for his dark and powerful presence. Meeting the Wolf of Eris here, in the sun dappled and verdant lake of the valley of Hiernarbos, surrounded by beauty and peace, would somehow be more nightmarish. He couldn’t help but picture Eris’ chosen one, stalking through the lush grass, jagged sword in hand, numberless Peacekeepers at his back.

“You are brave to offer to stay, Robin Fellows, but we are not entirely without defences here,” Flue told him, with a small smile. “The tree closes fast. And the ice of its bark is harder than permafrost. The Undine can make this into a bastion if needed. I will protect my sleeping brothers and sisters until you find what you are looking for. It is my duty, not yours.” She noticed his worried face and smiled. “You cannot save everyone yourself, Son of Wolfsbane. Yours is, I think, another path. Now drink. Before the moon rises.”

The sun had indeed grown low in the sky, and the shadows in the valley beyond their screen of leaves were growing longer. The beautiful valley was painting itself in the orange blazes of sunset, and the surface of the lake began to shimmer like fire.

Robin uncorked the bottle, trying not to wrinkle his nose at the brackish smell. Steeling himself as bravely as he could, he swigged deeply from the bottle.

“What are you doing?” a voice said behind them.

Henry pushed through the leaves, swishing the silver curtain aside. “We’re all wondering what happens now. It’s getting dark out there.” He looked at Robin suspiciously. “What are you drinking?”

“Kra … ken … b’uh … ile…” Robin gagged unintelligibly.

“This is a deep magic, and a path which the Scion must tread alone,” the Undine said to Henry. “It may be very dangerous.”

Henry frowned, thinking for a moment, then crossed quickly to Robin and snatched the bottle out of his hand. It was already half empty.

“Henry!” Robin was shocked. “What are you doing?”

The brown-haired boy ignored him. With eyes screwed shut, he upended the bottle and glugged down the remaining half of the liquid in three big swigs, gasping and wiping his mouth with the tattered sleeve of his shirt when he was done.

“Wow,” he grimaced, coughing. “That muck is … seriously … vile.” He looked from Flue to Robin, who were both staring at him confused. He handed the now empty bottle back to the Undine, who took it from him with her glassy hands.

“Robin might be the Scion,” Henry explained, stifling a belch. “But he’s not alone. None of this prophet ‘solitary chosen one’ nonsense. If it’s dangerous, what kind of a friend is going to let him go off on his own, eh? Wherever old blue eyes goes, I go too. End of story.” He folded his arms stubbornly.

Robin looked at Henry bewildered.

The taller boy gave him a sheepish grin. “Well, you did travel miles to rescue me when old Strife and Moros kidnapped me last year, didn’t you?” he said, a little gruffly. “Fair enough, it was a massive trap and you kind of played right into their hands, but still. Friends look out for one another. They don’t let friends go off into danger alone. Plus, you’ve got no common sense, you.”

The Undine glanced between the human and the Fae curiously. “Perhaps I was wrong,” she mused to herself. “Maybe war does not only destroy families. Perhaps it also creates them.”

She beckoned for the two boys to follow her, and they left the chamber of bottles and returned to where Woad and Karya sat waiting for them, both cross-legged on the floor and staring out at the deceptively peaceful valley through the vast open window of branches. The sun had set entirely now, and the sky was a bruise. Cobalt shadows were creeping between the rocks of the cliffs, and tiny pinpricks of light were appearing everywhere, green and bright, in their hundreds. The tiny lights danced and soared over the surface of the lake far below them.

“Pyreflies,” Woad said, looking at the strange fluttering insects. “Beautiful. They come before a battle.”

“Where’s Jack?” Robin frowned. The older Fae was nowhere to be found.

“He left us,” Karya said, not looking up. Her golden eyes were fixed on the barrier across the lake. The great wall of water seemed thinner, as though it was only just managing to hold its shape. “He wants treasure, that one. Not companionship. Only what he can use.” She shrugged. “I can’t blame him, I suppose. It’s a practical approach. He wandered off into the branches down one of these walkways. Said he was going to find something of worth. Who are we to stop him?”

“Something of worth? Yeah, clearly not us then,” Henry observed. “Good bloody riddance then. I know he helped us out and all, but—”

“He followed a butterfly,” Woad said absently, his own gaze still trained on the mesmeric pyreflies. “It was on his shoulder. Followed it like a white rabbit down a hole.” He shook his head. “Shame for him, he’s missing the pyreflies.” The faun looked at Robin. “Where have you been then?

“The Scion, and his friend here, were making preparations to retrieve the Shard,” the Undine said. “As I told you, Tritea is here, but not here. Our Lady, not long after the war began, left the valley. We were safe, we were hidden, and she knew that if she remained, she would eventually draw evil here with the Shard she carried.” She looked at Robin, eyes a little narrowed. “She loved a Fae. And their love was deep and true. She left to live out the rest of her days with him. Under secret names, quietly, far from Eris and her reach. And there she died, and there she is buried, in a tomb long since drowned.”

“It wasn’t my father then,” Robin said, a little relieved. “We knew that she had this big love affair with one of Oberon’s guard, but we haven’t been able to figure out which one it was. I was worried that … well, you know.”

“Wolfsbane Truefellow only ever loved one woman in all his life, Scion,” Flue said reassuringly. “You mother was a remarkable woman. Steeped in mystery, very alluring. How could he have had eyes for anyone but the woman he loved? No, it was another that Tritea loved. Another she escaped the war with.”

“There are no facts,” Karya said suddenly. “There are no books left, I remember so little, here and there, like snippets of a song remembered in a dream. It’s so frustrating. All we have to go on are scraps and riddles!” She reached into her coat and drew out a piece of parchment. “Irene Fellows has had me working on a translation for this scrap of gods alone knows
what
for months now. She says it’s important. But I can barely read two words of it. And the history of what happened to everyone after the war is so muddled. How are we supposed to make sense of it? Who was Tritea in love with? How can she be here but not here? Did she elope and go into hiding or didn’t she? Was it Peaseblossom, Hawthorn? Who?”

The Undine held out her hand calmly in the face of the girl’s evident frustration. “May I see?” she asked. She took the parchment from Karya’s fingers and read it in silence for a moment.

“Do you realise what you have here?” she said at length. She was holding the scrap with something close to reverence.

“Well, no, we don’t,” Woad said. “That’s kind of the problem, haven’t you been paying attention? It’s always best to when Boss is doing what I call her quiet shouting.”

Karya was staring at the Undine. “You … you can read it? she said, haltingly, her eyes wide.

Flue nodded slowly. “I am old, little seer. This is an ancient tongue. Used only in the very first times. Even the Fae do not speak it now, but they did once. This,” she told them, “is the writing of Titania herself.”

Robin boggled. “Titania? As in
the
Titania? Titania and Oberon? The rulers of the Netherworlde? That’s her actual handwriting?”

The Undine nodded. “It is a letter she wrote, in this ancient tongue that few Fae even could read, and fewer Panthea. A good way to use a secret code. It is a letter, Robin Fellows, from Titania, Queen of the Fae, to your father.”

Karya scuttled over to the Undine, visibly excited. “Robin’s father?” she asked. “Really? I’ve only managed two words, and they both mean the same thing. Dark-dark. Although we also figured out Pax, we think,”

“What do you mean, a letter to my father?” Robin was stunned.

“Your father, Scion, was the most trusted of all the Fae Guard, first amongst equals in the Sidhe-Nobilitas. Titania wrote this coded message to him. Wherever your aunt obtained it, I can understand why she would deem it important. It may even give clues as to why Oberon and Titania disappeared from the Netherworlde in the first place.” She looked at Karya. “And you were very close with your translation, girl. Good work. But this word is not dark-dark. It names the Fae who our Lady Tritea loved and left us for. Two types of darkness yes. The night, and the shade.”

“Nightshade?” Karya gasped. “Of course. Of bloody course! That’s who she ran off with, when the war came.” Pyreflies danced around her head like fairies in the deepening gloom. Glittering on the frozen branches in the twilight. “So, she was in love with Nightshade of the Fae Guard.”

“What does it say? The note?” Robin wanted to know. “What was Titania telling my father about Nightshade for?”

The Undine shook her head a little. “I am not fluent, but from what I can gather, the Queen of the Fae was instructing your father to hide something. A map, a story, I’m not sure which. ‘Take it to Nightshade’, it says. ‘The locked box must not find its way to the hands of the usurper’.”

“She wrote this before Eris won,” Robin said. “So Nightshade had something hidden? Something important to Oberon and Titania? And then when the Arcania shattered, his lover, Tritea took a Shard, and they disappeared. To a tomb long since drowned?”

“Somewhere you need black kraken bile to reach,” Henry added woozily. He belched discreetly, pulling a face.