Child of Darkness-L-D-2 (32 page)

“If this is a trick, I will kill you,” Cedric growled. Never mind that he would kill her, anyway. They followed the trail, found the stand of trees thin and nowhere near as daunting as the forest they had emerged in. A squat, brick building stood out as a black shape against the darker sky, dotted with stars.

Cerridwen clung to his arm and whispered, “What is that sound?”

It struck him as painfully tragic that she had never heard it before, and it hurt doubly to remember that Ayla had not, either. “The waves against the shore. Nothing to fear,” he reassured her.

They followed Flidais to the doors of the building, rusted from the salt in the air, and waited as she knocked what appeared to be a code on the hollow metal.

“No trickery,” Cedric warned her under his breath. The doors swung open, and a Human woman, short and round, with white hair pulled back from her face with combs, stood before them brandishing a Human weapon that she kept leveled at them. Her expression was friendly, despite the weapon in her hands. “Oh, goodness, I thought you would be Enforcers.”

Cedric stood in front of Cerridwen to shield her. “We are not. We seek Ambassador Bauchan and the rest of the Faery Court. We come with Queene Cerridwen, and seek safe shelter and healing for her.”

“A Faery Queene?” The woman lowered the weapon and made a clumsy curtsy. “This is truly an honor. I wish my Edward were here to see this, but he’s taken the rest of your kind off already.”

“We are too late?” Dread tightened Cedric’s stomach, and behind him, Cerridwen whimpered.

The old woman nodded, her head tilted slightly to the side, as though it pained her to hold it up straight. She kept on bobbing her head as she spoke. “Off in the ferry with the evening tide, I’m afraid. Meeting up with a boat moored up in Old Maine Country somewhere.”

Cedric nodded as though he understood. “And when he returns, will he ferry us there, as well?”

“Oh, I don’t see why not. Bauchan told us there would be more of you, he was dead certain of it. Said this one would deliver them.” She inclined her ever-nodding head toward Flidais.

“Not as many as he expected.”

“No, that I am certain of,” Cedric agreed. “In the meantime, is there a place where we can stay? We have had a long day of travel, and a trying night before then. And the Queene is wounded, as I say.”

“Of course, of course, come in.” The old Human stepped back, held the door open wide.

“Right in here, and mind your step.”

The building had two levels—the one they had entered on and, below the metal grates that made up the floor, another, arranged like a dormitory with beds on one end and a long dining table at the other. The woman led them down a set of rusting stairs, chattering all the way.

“Not much, I’m afraid. Edward and I, we don’t sleep here. We have a trailer back the way you came…used to be the office when the ferry still ran to Boston. But people didn’t stay there long after you all went underground. The place was deserted by the time I was a little girl. But Edward did love his father’s boat, and we’ve kept it running nice all these years. Now and then we take some people out for a fishing trip, but we do most of our business now with your kind. Oh, not just your kind, specifically, but you understand. The ones who live Underground.” She pointed to the beds, indicated one in a corner beside a table stacked with Human medical supplies. “I can tend to her here, if she doesn’t mind a mortal’s hands on her.”

“She will not mind,” Cedric assured the woman. “What can I call you?”

“Patricia,” the woman answered readily, laughing as she wiped a few strands of her white hair back. “Sorry, I’ve got the manners of an old fisherman, myself. And you are?”

“Cedric. I am…” And there he stopped. He did not know what he was, anymore. Advisor to the Queene, but perhaps not, anymore, now that the Queene was no longer Ayla.

“He is the Royal Consort. My betrothed,” Cerridwen said, the authority in her voice mimicking her mother exactly.

“Oh,” the woman said, her hand fluttering to her chest as she dropped into another curtsey.

“Your Majesties.”

Cedric left Cerridwen with the old woman, hoping Patricia’s hands were more stable than her appearance, and took the guards aside.

“Sleep now, for four hours. Then, fly back to the Lightworld and collect as much as you can, if the Waterhorses have left. We will need food, clothing, goods to trade. Bring these things back before first light.” He looked into each of their faces, knew they must think him out of his mind. “Scavenge new clothes for yourself, if there is time. I do not wish to appear before Queene Danae with only guards. I am appointing you all advisors to Queene Cerridwen. Is that understood?”

The absurdity of the announcement was not lost on them, and they laughed softly to themselves, but all agreed, to a man, that they understood.

“What about her?” One of the guards asked, gesturing to Flidais. Cedric took a deep breath. “Gag her again, and put her in a bed. I do not wish for her to tell lies to the Humans, but I am too tired to deal with her tonight.”

It was not a reprieve, he reminded himself as he watched the smirk grow on her traitor’s face. It was merely a delay.

By morning’s light, the guards had returned, and they’d done more than recover the treasures of the Faery Court. They also brought with them the bodies of the former Queene and Royal Consort.

“It did not seem right, to leave them there,” one of the guards, a young one, not just in appearance, but in years, told Cedric. Cerridwen had listened, curled under her blankets, trying to control the wild hitching of her breathing and the sobs that jerked her chest, so that they would not see her crying. She was Queene now, wasn’t she? She should not weep in front of her subjects.

When the sun came up, Cedric came to wake her. The guards had brought clothing back from the Palace for her, and Cedric tried to present it in a way that would cheer her, though she could not play her part and accept it happily.

“Your mother and…father—” he stumbled over the word “—have been brought. The Humans want to know how you wish to…lay them to rest.”

“Lay them to rest?” she repeated slowly. Understanding followed sluggishly. The Humans believed some sort of ceremony was needed. Cerridwen had never known another Faery to die. “What should we do?”

After a long moment, Cedric said, “Faeries do grieve, but our mourning customs are informal. When Mabb died, she lay in state for quite some time, so that Courtiers could pay their respects.”

“That will not be necessary, now,” Cerridwen said, feeling a bitter smile cross her lips. “I want to see them.”

Cedric hesitated. “Your mother died battling the Waterhorses. She is…not whole.”

The nightmare thoughts that crossed her mind then made her mind up even further. “I would rather see her than spend the rest of my life tortured by visions that are likely far worse than reality.”

Something flickered across Cedric’s face, almost like admiration. Her heart twisted inside of her. How much more meaningful that simple look was, considering how much he should hate her.

Cedric helped her up to the beach. The Human had used mortal healing arts on her, but the wound in Cerridwen’s leg still ached, and she needed his help to limp through the bed of pebbles that led to the sea.

“No good for the little dear to see her parents this way,” Patricia said to one of the guards, as though Cerridwen would not hear her. “When my father passed, the morticians did such a terrible job on him. He didn’t look like himself at all. That’s not a good memory to have.”

The shrouded figures of her parents lay on the stones, and Cedric held her elbow, holding her up, as they approached. He motioned to a guard, who drew back the shroud covering Malachi. He appeared much the same as the last time she had seen him. His features so mortal, but still noble in death. She nodded to the guard, and he covered him again, then moved to uncover Ayla.

In the same horrible moment, Cerridwen wished she had never looked, and wished she never had to look away. Her mother’s beautiful hair was gone, transformed to a cascade of fallen autumn leaves. Her face was blue in death, slashed across the mouth by a Waterhorse’s claws, and the torn flesh lay blackened and curled. Her eyes were mercifully closed, her limbs the bark-covered branches of a tree.

“What should I do?” she asked, tears creeping into her voice. “Cedric, what do I do with them?”

“I will ask that they are properly disposed of. Discreetly.” He looked toward the boatman’s wife, then back to the bodies. “I do not believe they would try to profit from the possession of these remains.”

The thought had not even occurred to her that they might, and it was that notion that tipped her grief over the edge. She turned her face into Cedric’s chest, not caring who it was that held her, only caring for the comfort he offered.

The boat returned with the morning tide, chugging blue smoke into the air and churning water with a sluggish roar.

“We must leave quickly,” Cedric told her, helping her toward the wooden pier. Flidais stood at the edge of the water, unbound for their journey. Perhaps she had been there all the while, and Cerridwen had not seen her. She turned as Cerridwen and Cedric approached, and bowed meaningfully. “Your Majesties.”

Though the mocking was not audible in her tone, only a fool would have thought it absent from her mind.

Cerridwen moved, though she could not feel it. She looked to the bodies of her parents, covered once more, waiting to be left behind. She felt her hand going for the knife—she had not remembered taking it with her, yet there it was—before she decided to reach for it. It slashed across Flidais’s throat, and Cerridwen knew that blood poured down, turning to garnets that tumbled down the skirt of her gown, though she did not see them. Her eyes stayed on Flidais’s face, took in her expression of shock, of disbelief. Oh, yes, you are so clever. And you did not see this coming, Cerridwen thought, her rage swelling within her to impossible size, forcing a scream from her throat, one that Flidais could no longer utter. You did not believe that anyone would catch you out. You thought you could topple a Queene and live to tell of it.

Flidais’s skin crystallized, turned to stone as she fell, her eyes shining as glass as the light in them died. Cerridwen tossed the knife aside, Fenrick’s knife, the last bitter reminder of the Underground and her failure, then reached up to smooth her hair. The guards did not move; the Humans stared. She did not look at them, but fixed her gaze on the open sea, watching the waves through eyes misted with tears.

Cedric spoke as though he had not just stood by while she murdered another Fae, as though that corpse did not lay at their feet. “It will be better for them to believe that I am your Consort. That way, when we arrive at Queene Danae’s Court, she will not believe you are a friendless, unprotected, exiled Queene.”

A single tear escaped now, to roll in solitary mourning down her cheek. “I do not mind.” She took a deep breath and hitched her shoulders back. “I am ready now, Cedric.”

He nodded. “We must connect with Bauchan’s ship before the evening tide.”

“No, I do not mean the boat,” she said, taking a tentative step onto the dock. Another, and another, until she walked fearlessly toward the open water, toward the sky that she had never seen.

“I am ready now for what comes next.”

ACK OWLEDGME TS

Without the guiding hand of spellcheck, Mount Gay rum and Adam Wilson, this book would be a mess.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-4247-4

Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Armintrout.

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