скачать книгу бесплатно
“You won’t lose me, Shinn. I vow it upon my fée essence.”
Gossamyr noted the twitch at the corner of her father’s mouth. Suppression always tightened his features. “This mission is deadly. Time cannot be tricked or defeated.”
A stab of her staff rang against the marble. “I am skilled.”
“A—” Shinn looked to the summer-pale sky “—champion is needed.”
A champion. “Oh.” Her bravado mellowed, Gossamyr bowed her head.
Indeed, a champion.
When had she ever proven herself in battle? Fighting dirt-casting core worms and drunken bogies? Night-creeping spriggans rarely offered more than a few moments’ struggle before scampering away from challenge. Werefrogs were vicious but stupid. Tournaments offered her but display of singular combat skills. There had not been opportunity for real challenge here in Glamoursiège. And she’d never been off the Spiral, not even a near fall from the Edge.
The touch of Shinn’s finger lifted Gossamyr’s gaze up to his. His eyes glittered. With tears? She had not thought to ever see the like. Certainly it was a mirage created by the sun and the glimmer of his blazon.
“Of course you do know champions are not simply ready and able?”
She lifted a brow.
“They are made. Truly, you are the only one for this mission, Gossamyr.” He bowed his head and clasped his fingers, the moue of his mouth frowning. But in a remarkable recovery he lifted a confident eye to Gossamyr. The former commander relayed battle details. “The Red Lady is malicious and is unlikely to rest until her penchant for feeding off fée essence restores her ability to return to Faery. She scents them out, newly arrived in the city, just as Disenchantment has begun to set in, for then the essence still retains its glamour.”
Gossamyr touched the faint blazon curling up her neck in a manner of twisting design. Would Disenchantment steal her blazon?
“But most important…” Another heavy sigh released what Gossamyr guessed to be regret and fear and the intense compulsion to protect his only child. “You are ready.”
A champion? Gossamyr straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Have at me.
Eagerness uncontained, she blurted, “How will I know the Red Lady? Is she…red?”
Shinn’s smirk teased at a genuine smile. “You will know her when you see her. Banished long ago, she bears the mark.”
The mark. Yes. Horrid memories flooded Gossamyr’s mind. She had witnessed a banishment. The curl of red pinpricks boring into flesh. A cri de terroir. The suddenness of expulsion. And her bruised heart.
“You have seen the mark,” Shinn had the audacity to remark.
A nod confirmed Gossamyr’s understanding. Bile stirred in her throat. “Speak no more on it; I will know it when I see it.”
Swallowing back memory, Gossamyr sorted the facts. A succubus fée. Red. Banished. An unmistakable mark. Paris. Her father never elaborated beyond the necessary information.
“How long ago was she banished?”
“Before your birth.”
“Ah.” And yet, only now the succubus had begun to havoc the Otherside? Hmm…
“Mortal time is different than in Faery,” Shinn commented. “You will find it faster, startling. But most important, you know much about the Otherside; that will serve well.”
“I have gleaned what I can while studying Mother’s Bestiary of Humans—” Gossamyr stopped. Shinn did not appear startled by her confession. She had ever used stealth to steal into the locked study to snoop, much to the horror of her maid, Mince.
Veridienne had been detailing the mortals, magnifying them on amphi-vellum in the most remarkable detail, diagramming their manner and social ways from memory—re-creating her natural history. Gossamyr pored over the articles any chance she could find. The drawings were marvelously rendered in gild and such pigments created from madder, azurite and verdigris. Text gave splendid descriptions of clothing, food and custom.
I know you are half-mortal, Gossamyr. Your brown eyes intrigue. You are exotic…
Shucking off the cloying memory of a Rougethorn’s enraptured voice, Gossamyr looked to her father. He studied her, his jaw tight. Ever visible, the hurt in Shinn’s eyes.
“I wanted to touch a part of her,” Gossamyr offered in a quiet voice. “It was difficult trying to get close to her. She was ever busy.”
“Veridienne loved you, Gossamyr. The mortal passion led her astray. Nothing more. You two are devastatingly alike, so…passionate about life. Rebellion runs like ichor through your veins.”
Ichor? Not in this half-blood’s veins, she thought wistfully.
Gossamyr felt her father’s sadness ran far deeper than he would ever show. Had Veridienne’s departure been rebellion? To journey to the Otherside had always been her dream, but a dream tainted by the reality of her mother’s absence.
“I have been nothing but clear regarding your never Passaging to the Otherside.”
A shiver prinkled up Gossamyr’s spine. Would he yet deny her this mission? Forbid her from yet another enticing fragment of life? Champions were made, not hired! And such an experience for the future lady of Glamoursiège! There was yet opportunity…
She scuffed her palms across her leather braies and scanned the gloss shimmering in her father’s violet eyes.
“It is dangerous. We both know that.” Shinn’s breaths settled in the air between them, heavy with something akin to dread. “But the time has come to release you from a father’s protective obsession.”
Apprehension tightened Gossamyr’s limbs so she stood boldly erect.
“Yes, you see, even I have my obsession. I cannot protect you once you leave Faery.”
She needn’t protection. With staff in hand and a keen eye for danger, Gossamyr invited the experience.
“Just remember,” he said. “Always Believe—”
“And I will Belong. I know, Shinn. Worry not, I will never lose mind of my home. Will there be revenants on the Otherside?”
“No, they flee to Faery as quickly as the essence is stolen.”
“Which is why you must remain here.”
“Indeed. A fée can only travel to the Otherside on so many occasions before Time masters his body. I have journeyed there many a time. Would that I could accompany you.”
“You mustn’t risk it.”
“I will muster my troops and prepare for a sure battle. I sense their numbers will only increase as the Red Lady remains unstopped. I have been witness only to those who return to Glamoursiège. I expect other Faery tribes have been attacked, as well.”
“These revenants, what happens when one does manage to obtain an essence?”
“That would leave an innocent fée dead, and the revenant would have its final twinclian.”
“Would not the innocent become revenant?”
Shinn nodded. “You understand this vicious cycle could cripple Faery.”
Further reason to avoid delay. Time must be faced. “I can do this.”
His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I know.”
Why did a prinkle suddenly cleave to Gossamyr’s spine? This is what she most desired.
“I should not send you alone.”
“There are none in Faery who can accompany me.” For there were none with mortal blood to protect them from the Red Lady’s seeking lure. “You’ll need your troops here to fight the revenants.”
“Perhaps a pisky guide—”
“What of Mince?”
“She is far too aged, and honestly, much too plump to keep your pace. The Disenchantment would take her swiftly.”
Indeed. Gossamyr would not risk the matron, even as she dreaded leaving her maternal influence. The only kind arms she had known following Veridienne’s departure, for Shinn did not express his concern with sympathetic touches but with stronger actions, such as teaching her to fight.
“I will fare well on my own.”
“Mayhap a fetch?” Shinn nodded, pleased with his notion. “Indeed, I will send one along to repeat back to me your successes.”
She liked that he already thought of her success.
“Now, Disenchantment occurs quickly,” he warned. “Once you set foot on the Otherside you’ve perhaps less than a day before you lose all glamour.”
“I have no glamour!”
“You’ve a cloak of glamour.” He splayed his fingers before her face, raising a sensation of warmth in her flesh, drawing the shimmer of the fée to the surface. There in the blazon tracing her collarbones and upper chest did she feel the magic, the innate being of her kind. The prinkles dancing on Gossamyr’s spine subsided.
“It has seeped into you over the years,” Shinn assured.
So she twinkled. That did not mean she could perform twinclian. Hers was a false glamour. No flight, no twinclian, no glamour. Lousy fée she had turned out to be. Half-blooded was nothing more than mortal.
Gossamyr tightened her grip about the staff and strummed her fingers across the clutter of stringed arrets dangling from her braided-leather hip belt. “What of my skills, my speed?”
Shinn set a hand on her shoulder. Violet eyes looked into hers, as if to leap into her being. “The skills you have honed over the years are yours to own, Gossamyr. Nothing can strip your physical prowess or your battle technique.”
She nodded and slid a hand upon the Glamoursiège coat of arms that she also wore on her hip belt, her family’s sigil, it was carved from the same applewood as her staff. “What of my essence, er…my soul? Do I have both? Can the Red Lady take either from me?”
“Your mortal blood—as well, the fact you are female—will serve a boon. The succubus will not have the slightest interest in you.”
Her father’s voice, deep and strung with a melodious harmony, vibrated within her. Ever and anon he had protected her—even when that protection had hurt her heart. When all other fée would look upon her with a strange reluctance that would keep them an armshot away, yet still amiable, Shinn stood at her side, his pride in her apparent in the determination that pressed back the naysayers.
“Desideriel will be glad of my absence,” she remarked.
“He is a fine match, Gossamyr. We have discussed this overmuch.”
“I do not like him. Do you not sense his distaste for me?”
“You see things only you wish to see.”
With a sigh she offered a silent agreement. So, too, did Shinn see only what he wished to see.
So little to look forward to with her marriage to a man who saw only her faults, and yet, she did anticipate taking the Glamoursiège reign.
“I have groomed him.” Reluctance cautioned Shinn’s voice. “He understands what is expected.”
“As well do I.” A marriage for Glamoursiège, her heart be cursed to suffer for it. But she did respect her father’s choice.
She would speak to Desideriel Raine. Perhaps look again into his eyes and determine if it truly was only her that thought to see his reluctance.
Shinn reached for her staff and drew it between the two of them. One toise in length, the steel-hard applewood had been carved by the Glamoursiège sage and fire-forged by dragon’s breath. Intricate ribbons weaved into a crosswork of roses and flame about the rich wood.
“I will not bid you farewell,” he offered as he pressed the staff into her hand. “Because you are unable to twinclian, you will have to Passage. There is no way to place you immediately in Paris, so a journey awaits. Take this purse of coin, purchase a swift horse and make haste.”
Slipping a leather pouch from his hip, he then tied it to her belt. His fingers lingered on the coat of arms before relenting and stepping back.
Gossamyr spread her fingers around the ample pouch, feeling rich with its weight. Never had she required coin, for her father’s steward and Mince had seen to her needs and desires. How she would miss Mince!
Shinn touched her forehead with his thumb and closed his eyes, imprinting the whorls of his life upon her flesh, connecting with her hidden eye, the all-seeing and all-knowing. No lack of glamour could dispel intuition.
“Come back to me,” Shinn whispered.
A sudden hollowness in her chest forced her to swallow back a strange sense of loss. It wasn’t as if she would never again see him. And Mince, the fretful matron, would only worry should she seek her for a farewell. Such discovery waited her on the Otherside!
“I will,” she promised. “Set me off, and I shall succeed.”
“I send you forth with my blessing, child of mine. Make right what you shall, and may you discover the solace to the ache that has been your nemesis.”
With a nod, Gossamyr silently vowed that ache—the mortal passion—would not defeat her.
The soft press of Shinn’s lips replaced his thumb. Gossamyr lifted her head and in the violet gaze looming over her she found all the strength she would ever need. “I am off, then?”
Shinn stepped back and nodded.
“Very well, but I’ve no twinclian. How shall I enter—”
TWO
France—1436
“—the Otherside?”
The droning alarm of a cicada announced her arrival. Wobbling off balance, Gossamyr swiftly recovered. She bent her knees and, hands spread, scanned her surroundings.
Every pore on her body sensed the world had changed. The air smelled verdant. Tightly sown moss, plush in density, cushed beneath her bare toes as they curled into the thickness. The musty vapor of earth rose about her. ’Twas a muted aroma of decaying wood and fetid bracken, similar to Faery but…different.
Gone, the Glamoursiège castle of blue marble.
