The Dark Throne (6 page)

“During my time at the Saemhradall, I tried to find some spark of hope to drive me onward in a world without the one I loved. But all I felt was anger and emptiness.” She raised her gaze to me. “Until the creatures attacked. I killed a few of them, before they bound me, and the feeling of fighting against them….it was the first time I felt alive. And I thought it was a cruel twist of fate that I would die mere moments after realizing that I wanted to live again.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, absentmindedly rubbing my bandaged hands with light fingers, transfixed by Calliea’s voice.

“And then you appeared. You saved my life, and I knew that my purpose was to serve you and your allies in the fight against Malravenar.”

“You’re the first one in a long time to say his name out loud.”

“I am not afraid of him, or any of his creatures.”

“So why Vell, then?” I crossed my arms. “Why not just swear your sword to me and be done with it?”

“Because I feel it in a way I have not felt anything in a long while,” Calliea replied, emphasizing her words by touching her closed fist to her chest over her heart. “I
feel
her thirst for revenge against the darkness. And I feel that the Bearer and the High Queen…you are as sisters. To serve one is to serve the other.”

“You’re feeling a lot of things all at once,” I said.

Calliea nodded. “Yes.” She paused. “But it is better than not feeling anything at all. I have a purpose.”

We gazed at each other for a long moment. Then Calliea lowered her golden head and returned to whetting her blade.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, “for answering my question.”

Calliea didn’t reply, sending the whetting-stone down the length of her dagger with fierce concentration.

“So,” I said, lightening my voice to a conversational tone, “how long until the healers’ rotation is secured?”

Calliea shrugged with one shoulder but smiled a little. “Trust me, we have no interest in prolonging it.”

“That doesn’t make me feel like a burden at all,” I deadpanned. Then I paused, the murmur of voices outside the closed door filling the silence.

Calliea listened for a moment. “It is the Vaelanbrigh, I believe.”

I cleared my throat. “I would’ve thought he would be busy with his duties to the High Queen.”

“Not so busy that he hasn’t been getting regular updates. Your
ulfdrengr
may have been standing guard at your bedside, but the Vaelanbrigh was no less concerned,” she said slyly, sliding her dagger back into her boot top.

“You’re just as bad as Vell,” I grumbled.

Forin flew through the Glasidhe-sized circular entrance above the door. He hovered above the bed and gave me a half-bow. “The Vaelanbrigh wishes to know if you would allow him to visit you, my lady.”

Calliea raised an eyebrow at me. I wrinkled my nose at her, and then turned back to Forin. “Yes, that will be fine, just give me a moment, please.” I slid out of bed, pleased to find that my legs supported me just fine despite Calliea’s look of alarm, and sat on the chair by the bed. Somehow I didn’t relish the thought of Finnead visiting me while I lay in bed. I didn’t examine the feeling too closely. Calliea stood and strode over to the door; I gave her the barest suggestion of a nod, suddenly breathless as she opened the door and the Vaelanbrigh strode into the room.

Chapter 3

F
innead walked into the room with the same lithe cat-like grace that I remembered so well. He wore a simple midnight-blue shirt that set off his eyes impeccably, and the sapphire in the pommel of the Brighbranr pulsed with a new, brighter light. I drew my shoulders back, suddenly aware of my bare feet but thankful that Vell had braided my hair at least.

As Finnead stood beside the bed, I realized too late that there was nowhere for him to sit, but he didn’t look ill at ease. Instead he merely looked down at me with those drowning-deep eyes, and we stared at each other for a long moment. My face heated and the suggestion of a smile touched one side of his gorgeous mouth before he lowered his gaze and inclined his head, the firelight rippling through his dark hair with the blue and green sheen of the aurora in the night sky. Calliea murmured something about getting more water for the kettle and slid out of the room.

“It is good to see you with some color in your cheeks,” he said in a low voice.

I raised my eyebrows. “Were you afraid you wouldn’t be able to make me blush anymore?”

He chuckled. “Not at all. I meant to say that many were concerned for your well-being, Lady Bearer.”

“It’s good to know people care, I guess.” I softened my words with a small smile.“Why so formal?”

“Many things have happened since last we spoke,” he replied enigmatically, each word pronounced carefully, like a step taken down a dangerous path.

I nodded. “Yes.” I took a breath, willing my heart to stop its stuttering. “I take it to mean that nothing has changed though, between us.”

A shadow passed over Finnead’s face briefly. “In what sense, Tess?”

I looked down at my bandaged hands, rubbing the white cloth with the pad of one thumb. The ache of my hands faded into the background of my consciousness as my blood pounded in my ears. “In the sense that you do not want to…pursue…anything, until this war is over.”

For the first time I could remember, Finnead looked unsure. He rested one long-fingered hand on the hilt of the Brighbranr, the sapphire in the pommel whirling with its new bright light, like snow swirling in the wind beneath a full moon. “Please understand,” he said in a low voice, “I am not….” He stopped and took a breath, eyes downcast, long lashes drawing coal lines on his pale skin. When he raised his gaze to me, the maelstrom of emotion in his eyes rendered me breathless. Calliea’s words echoed in my head:
we are living, breathing, feeling creatures
. “It is not any fault of yours,” he finally managed to say tightly.

I frowned. “So what is it, then?”

He took a breath, stilled, and gave me a little half-bow. “Forgive me. I should not be troubling you.” And he turned as if to leave.

“Wait!” My body moved before I could command it consciously. I was out of my chair, one hand outstretched, covering the scant distance between us in one long stride. Then my legs remembered that it had been over a week since I’d last used them, and I reached for the bed as my knees buckled.

But I found myself caught with gentle strength, graceful hands pressing against my ribs and arresting my fall. Finnead helped me sit back in my chair by the bed without a word, his eyes downcast again as he knelt to settle me into the seat. I was absurdly grateful that he hadn’t tucked me into bed like a child. I took a breath to thank him but his closeness stole my voice. His hands lingered for just a moment on my sides, sending a shiver down my spine.

“So what is it, then?” I whispered finally as his hands fell away and he lowered his dark head, still kneeling.

A shudder rolled through his body. One of his hands gripped the hilt of the Brighbranr so hard that I saw his knuckles pressing through the skin. Worry rose up in me like a tide. Had he been wounded at Brightvale after I’d crowned Vell? Was there some terrible news about another of our company that he had no words to tell me? Had the poison from the
syivhalla
at the barracks in the Royal Wood resurfaced somehow, to take him from me forever? My hands moved of their own accord, reaching out for him. Heedless of the ache of my burns and the sharp stab of pain at the sudden movement, I laid one hand on his shoulder and with the other covered his hand on the hilt of the Brighbranr. He shuddered again.

“Finnead,” I said, “please. Is there something wrong?”

For a third time his shoulders heaved, and I thought with terrible certainty that he was about to tell me of the death of a dear friend, or his own impending doom. I leaned forward, fear seizing my heart…and then that fear dissipated, melting into another emotion entirely as Finnead wordlessly turned his face into the hand I had laid on his shoulder; and his other hand released the hilt of his sword, guiding my other hand to his face with a feather-light touch. His cheeks were damp beneath my fingers, and his long black eyelashes glistened wetly in the flickering light.

“Oh,” I breathed, the sound somewhere between a word and a sigh and a moan of empathy. Pain rippled through my hands, and I gently shifted so that only my fingertips touched his face. Finnead shuddered again with his silent, agonizing grief. I brushed away one slow tear with my thumb. “Please,” I said, sliding down slowly out of my chair, kneeling with Finnead on the wooden floor. I lowered my face so I hoped he could see me, gazing earnestly up at him. “What’s wrong? Please tell me. I can’t bear to think that someone….that someone else…” My own throat closed, choking off my words.

“No,” he said quickly. “No one has been killed…not yet.” He clenched his jaw as another soundless tremor passed through him, and then he took a deep breath. I could see the struggle in his eyes, now framed by my bandaged hands. “I am being selfish,” he said, barely concealed disgust coloring his words. “With you barely awoken—”

“Stop,” I interrupted him firmly. He looked down. I realized he was trembling with the strength of his pent-in emotion. I leaned closer. “Finnead. Look at me?”

With slow control, he raised his eyes to mine, unshed tears brightening their blue depths. I held his gaze, refusing to let him look away. “Everyone needs someone,” I said softly. “You can’t be a stone pillar of strength all the time. Just….talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

He looked at me for a long moment. “I am…a difficult man to love, Tess,” he finally said, words broken over the tears gathered in his eyes. “I have lived the lives of ten men, and it has made me strong. But it comes at a price.”

I pressed gently against his face with my fingertips, as if by the small movement I could make him understand that I was listening to him, that I could understand as much as anybody, that I would try to understand as much as I could without having been through his trials. The wounds on my palms stung beneath the bandages. “Tell me,” I said softly.

He shuddered again, his hands convulsing in his lap like separate creatures. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and his eyes became haunted. “I cannot sleep for the dreaming, sometimes.”

“Nightmares,” I repeated quietly, nodding. I thought of the sudden flash of memory as I slid beneath the water in the stronghold among the trees, the sharp silver of siren scales cutting into my consciousness without my permission.

“Dreams so real I swear I can feel them peeling the flesh from my bones again…and hear their laughter as I screamed…” His voice trailed off, his eyes distant. “I see them killing her, again and again. They tortured her, and her ladies…forced me to watch no matter how I fought…drugged me, and used me in hideous ways…” He choked on the words. “Helpless. I was so helpless.” His gaze sharpened as he emerged from his memories. “As I felt helpless when you were dying, when we ran from the ruins of Brightvale.” He took a huge, hitching breath and the words poured from him like water sluicing from a shattered bowl, quick and violent. “When I thought I had lost you…I didn’t think I would have been able to bear losing a woman I loved for the second time. It is a fate crueler than death to watch those you love travel the path before you.”

I stared wordlessly at him, wishing I could erase the agony in his eyes as his beautiful face twisted again into a rictus of nameless sorrow.

“I feel so guilty,” he said in a voice so low I had to strain to hear it, “that I survived. That I love again, after they all died such terrible deaths….”

I closed my own eyes against the elegant clarity that suddenly dawned on me. My heart tightened with sorrow and guilt at my own anger at him, felt so keenly over his perceived coldness. He was trembling again with the strength of his grief, and silently I guided his head to my shoulder.

“Everyone needs someone,” I said gently into the blackness of his hair, “and I will always listen.”

I sat back on my heels and let him lean into me, his shuddering breath warm on my neck as his sorrow wracked him with silent devastation. Tears slid down my own cheeks at the strength of his emotion and the depth of his pain, and the terrible cost of hiding it from us all. I understood now why he always took the watch. I understood, as much as I could without seeing what he had seen, why he held himself apart, careful to trust and quick to withdraw. I reached my arms around him, lightly resting my hands on his lithe muscular back. He rested his head on my shoulder but kept his hands free, clenching and unclenching them as the waves of emotion crashed over him like floodwaters escaping a splintered dam. I wondered how much Vell could feel…but then carefully tucked that thought away, focusing instead on the Unseelie Knight falling apart silently in my arms.

After a while, the shudders wracking Finnead’s body subsided. I found one of my hands had traveled to the back of his neck, one finger idly stroking the bare skin just above the collar of his shirt. Little jolts of electricity prickled up my arm as I realized what I was doing….touching him so casually, as though we sat entwined on the floor every day. Finnead’s breathing steadied, and I prepared myself to encounter the cool, icy wall of indifference now that he had ridden the tides of his grief to their conclusion. But he held himself very still, and moved very slowly as he raised his head from my shoulder. I kept my hand on his neck, struggling to keep what I hoped was a neutral expression…until his eyes met mine and drew me into that whirling storm of feeling, desire and gratitude tempered with still-present sorrow.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“No need to thank me,” I replied in barely more than a murmur. Drawing breath with him this close posed a significant challenge. My entire body felt as though a million small fires were lit beneath my skin. I was painfully aware of his closeness, yet the distance between us seemed like an insurmountable barrier.

“I have not talked to anyone about that in a very long time,” he said. One of his elegant hands found my face, pressing coolly against my cheek in an echo of my motion towards him. “I have been resisting the urge to talk to you, for fear of burdening you.”