A Glimmering Girl (22 page)

“I can better lay wards on the castle from outside it,” she said. “But I need to go to Igdrasil to draw strength.”

This could well be my last day,
Ross thought, pulling her close, smelling her hair, memorizing the look of her apple blossom jewels. No kiss in the history of kisses was so short.

He couldn’t say good-bye, and he wouldn’t test his luck by wishing the battle brief. He watched her ride away, heading fast toward the world tree. He kept her in his sight until he had no choice but to turn to his duty. He mounted his horse, and
Excalibur
felt good and right in his grip. Perhaps it was enchanted, the real
Excalibur
, after all.

It was real. Early on, Ross stopped counting the men who fell before him—not to him but to
Excalibur
. At some point well past noon he met Eustace on the field and begged him to yield.

Then he saw Quinn for the first time all day, charging toward them from about a hundred yards in the distance. The man was impeccably dressed and the bishop’s robes under his armor were entirely clean. A peregrine falcon sat on his forearm. Insufferable affectation.

“You can’t win,” Ross said to Eustace. “Look around. Your men are almost gone.”

“These?” Eustace scoffed. “They’re nothing. This isn’t a battle. It’s an errand.” He raised his sword. “Prepare to die, baron.”

Stephen’s son urged his mount forward, and with a weary heart Ross raised
Excalibur
once again. But he didn’t have to use the enchanted weapon, for Eustace’s head had been severed from his body and was sailing through the air toward the dirt.

Faintly cognizant of a frenzied scream ringing in his ears, Ross looked around and saw Henry, his eyes wild, swinging his bloodied sword in triumph, dancing his horse around the body of his fallen cousin.

Before Ross could sort the scene in his mind, Quinn’s voice broke through. “Igraine!” the bishop cried as he charged past Ross and Henry, headed toward the cliffs—and Igdrasil.

Ross started to follow, but he was stopped by Henry’s cry.

“Lord Tintagos, help me!” The enemy was upon the lad, and it was four to one. Too much for an exhausted seventeen-year-old. Even one who wielded a sword of Dumnos steel and was overstimulated, having just killed his future rival for the throne of England.

If it had been anyone else, Ross would have left him to his fate. But Henry was his future king, and Ross couldn’t abandon him. His love would have to wait; the well-being of all Dumnos was at stake.

Four to one. Too much of a match for Henry, but nowhere near a match for
Excalibur
. Together, making quick work of it, Ross and Henry dispatched the attackers. Then, before the fourth knight hit the earth, Ross spurred his horse away with Henry’s thanks hanging in the air.

Sun and Moon, don’t let me be too late
.

Igraine kept her left palm flat against Igdrasil and stretched her right hand toward Tintagos Castle. From the world tree, she drew more strength and energy than she had known was possible, and she funneled it all into forming the wards surrounding the castle walls.

She averted her gaze from the battle and instead looked out over the waters of Tintagos Bay. Until this moment, war had been a romantic word in her mind.
Battle, campaign, siege, agon, crusade
… the glory of the struggle to establish what was right and good and to destroy what was evil.

But now she heard the screams, the surprised cries of the dying, shrieks of warriors anxious for the fight, thirsty for blood and more blood, some equally and in good faith as eager to make Stephen their king as others were to see Mathilde on the throne. It was horrible.

No,
she told herself.
All is not equal.
Both Zoelyn and Ross feared a world with Stephen on the throne. She had to trust their judgment.

Mathilde must be kept safe. Tintagos Castle must be kept impenetrable.

But everything in her screamed out to leave Igdrasil, right this moment, to ride into the midst of the fighting, throw a boundary around her love and take him away from this terrible mundane life. They could go to Avalos. Surely Zoelyn would accept him. They would live in her cottage, and she’d heal all his wounds, physical and spiritual. They would have children together and love each other always…

“Igraine, come away,” said someone behind her, and a chill ran down her spine. “Come away with me.”

She saw Bishop Quinn over her shoulder, mounted on a black stallion, a peregrine falcon on his arm. Was it a taunt? Did he know she was the falcon who had teased him at the smithy?

“I’ll make you happier than any mortal man ever could, Igraine,” he said. “Come with me now. We can leave all this behind.” His eyes flashed, jewel-like, green. Fae green.

Of course!
Bishop Quinn was fae…
dark fae at that!

Beyond Quinn, she saw Ross riding hard from the field and fast approaching. Quinn reeked of power and sexual magnetism. If she wasn’t connected to Igdrasil at this moment, she felt she might well fall under his spell. Ross would have no defense against him. She had to do something, somehow warn him.

“From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. I adore you, Igraine,” Quinn dismounted. “Can’t you see that?”

“But you could never love me,” she said. “The fae can’t love.”

Quinn’s face distorted with surprise and anger. Igraine let her hands drop from Igdrasil, twisted her body, and the world turned with her. She became a dove, Ross’s symbol of hoped-for peace. He would understand and stay away.

She rose up into the air, far beyond Quinn’s reach. Ah, it felt so wonderful to fly!

“If I can’t have you, no one will!” Quinn screamed. He whispered in the peregrine’s ear, and it was off in an eyeblink.

The bird’s talons dug into her dove heart, and its beak tore into her throat. The world began to spin and spin. She breathed in the sea air and was human again, falling, the waters of the bay coming closer and closer. She saw Ross scream and raise
Excalibur
. He ran the sword through Quinn’s heart, and the dark fae’s body disappeared in a shimmer of light.

She hit the water hard, and then silence.

« Chapter 21 »
Gobs Can Dance

21st Century Dumnos. The Fae Realm

In her first official act, Queen Narcissus ordered the regent Idris to be kept in the terrible cold iron cage of his own design. All the Dumnos fae celebrated their freedom from the regent—fairies, brownies, leprechauns, pixies, sprites, wisps… and especially goblins.

No one knew how it happened, but Idris had let the Dark into the faewood. Queen Narcissus now restored the Light.

Vulsier, eldergob of the Blue Vale, had been made serious for too many centuries during the regent’s reign, and now he turned downright giddy. He decreed a thousand nights of feasting and dancing. Sun and Moon knew that fairy had cast a long shadow over the vale.

There was a millennium of good goblinlike living to catch up on.

Now it’s a fact well known that—unique among the fae, and in spite of their cursed ugliness—goblinkind holds marriage in high regard. The past thousand years had seen a dreary pall cast over the mating rituals of the Blue Vale. Gloom had permeated and soured the natural come-hither sentiments in the women and damped the excitement and zest for pursuit in the men.

So it wasn’t surprising when, at the moment Vulsier issued his Proclamation of the Dance, pent-up demand exploded into a phantasmagoria of goblin courtship. At twilight on the first night of the thousand nights, the vale came alight with bonfires and colorful paper lanterns and alive with music.

The female gobs put on a mouth-watering outdoor banquet of meats and potatoes and squashes and puddings in a gastronomical spectacular of their homely arts.

The men brought casks of jasmine stout and honeysuckle wine and strutted before the gob-ladies with robust, testosterone-charged line dancing.

The goblin Max had ordered new clothes, finished just that day by an overworked leprechaun. He had himself made boots for the occasion, complete with breaking-in spell. Dancing in the line with his fellow gobs, Max let out a joyful
Heh!
It was good to feel the power in his thighs as he stomped the earth, to fill his lungs to bursting with fresh vale air.

It was good to be free of the taint of Idris and shout out
whoop!
and
yaw!
with the others. He could almost believe Idris alone had brought about all the goblins’ troubles.

When the line began to form a circle, Max bowed out, poured himself a tankard of stout, and watched the gobs join hands and surround the laughing ladies. The men made their circle smaller and smaller until, one by one, each gob broke free to claim a partner.

Max downed half his ale in two gulps. He was no different than the others; he longed for a companion. The Dark times had passed, right? Hadn’t—as the queen promised—love and laughter returned to the faewood?

Perhaps not entirely. Another unhappy gob left the circle and joined Max at the keg.

“Not dancing, Morander?” Max said. “Surely at least one ladygob of the vale has caught your eye.”

The young gob finished filling his mug and leaned against the table, watching the dancers. After another silent moment he said, “She isn’t here.”

There was a catch in his words. Pain Max could relate to. He wondered which goblin gal Morander pined for.

“What’s that then?” Morander stood taller and looked past the crowd to a commotion at the far end of the square.

Max put down his tankard and muttered, “Treesaps.” Someone still had to keep the peace around here.
He started to cut through the dancers, but a gasp rippled through the crowd.

Someone said, “It’s the queen!” and everyone made way of their own accord.

“Your Majesty!”

“Queen Narcissus!”

Some bent the knee, and some squatted in weird goblin curtseys. Every gob overflowed with high regard for their new queen. She basked in their adoration, taking to the role of Lady Bountiful—though the new queen had hardly become suddenly generous or ladylike.

All at once, her searching gaze found him.

Eyes green as emeralds, skin like a pale pink rose, lips like pomegranates, red hair out of an Aeolian nightmare… and the look of an imp in her expression. Cissa might be Max’s queen, but she was still a thief. She’d stolen his heart and never returned it.

Vulsier stepped forward. “My lady, welcome to the vale.” His graveled voice conveyed the dignity of his age and experience. He offered the queen his crooked elbow. “Shall we?”

After three reels, Vulsier surrendered his privilege, and Cissa found Max at the stout barrel.

“Majesty.”

“Oh, stop that, Max. We’re still friends, aren’t we?” She frowned, looking around. “Where’s my drink?”

A pixie popped in and handed her a flute of sparkling pink liquid. “Champagne, champagne, for all your reign!” The pixie popped out.

“Sounds like the pixies have been hanging out with the sprites,” Cissa said. She held the rim of the flute against her pouting lower lip, unconsciously provocative. “You never come to the faewood anymore. I suppose your sister requires much of your attention.”