Copper Ravens (5 page)

“Sara!” he rasped. “His head!”

“What about his head?” I didn't get an answer, since the warrior had gotten to his knees and was raising his other, non-melty arm to strike. I screamed, Max bellowed, and assorted patrons and shopkeepers ran for cover. Then, the warrior clunked over sideways, as lifeless as a car without its engine. Behind him was the dancing pixie from the bar.

“You are safe now,” she said. “I've taken the spark that allows him to be.” She opened her hand, and nestled upon her palm was a small, glowing orb.

“Thank you,” I said; Max was too battered and burnt to do more than nod. “But, why risk yourself for us?”

“Do you not remember? Not so long ago, you saved me.” I took in her appearance, her long, silky hair and glimmering wings, and noted the two gaping holes in her wings.

“You're the pixie from Ferra's camp,” I said, and she nodded. “Will your wings heal?”

“They've healed as much as they will,” she replied, waving her hand as if the disfigured state of her wings hardly mattered.

“Why were they torturing you?” I remembered how she had been chained to a wooden plank, manacles around her wrists and metal spikes through her wings, and how I had used my ability to loosen her restraints. She had leapt into the air and flown away, and I hadn't seen her since, not that I'd expected to, especially not dancing in a bar. Or rescuing us from yet another iron warrior.

“They did it because they are beasts,” she replied. “Filthy, reprehensible beasts. Iron warriors have taken many of my kind. I'm one of the few who ever returned home.”

Just when I thought the Iron Court couldn't be any more terrible, I learned that they were trapping pixies like lightning bugs. “I'm glad you're okay.”

She inclined her head. “Since you freed me, I've learned the metal warriors' weakness, and how to exploit it. They'll not trap me again. And I've told all I've encountered to spread the word of how the new Inheritor of Metal saved me, and how she will be the one to restore order amongst the Elementals.”

“I'm not the Inheritor,” I protested. “My sister, Sadie, is.”

Her brows furrowed. “But it was you who freed me, you who destroyed Ferra. Surely—”

“She's right,” Max interrupted, levering himself to a sitting position. “Sadie, not Sara, is the Metal Inheritor.”

“No matter,” the pixie said. “I have owed you a favor since you freed me. We are now even.”

“I feel like I owe you now,” I said, but she shook her head furiously.

“In our world, it does not do to owe another,” she said. “If it pleases you, I will call on you if I am ever in need. But do not think that you are obliged to answer.”

“It does please me.” With that, the pixie smiled and flew away, leaving me and a slightly battered Max in the square. Since his burns had been caused by hot metal rather than fire, his chest was already healing.

“Well, that was interesting,” I said, watching her fly away. “Do you think anyone else feels like they should be doing us favors?”

“Us? No—
you.”
I looked quizzically at Max, so he continued, “I'm here every day, getting beat on, shoved in the dirt, and no one has ever offered me anything. Not once, not ever.” He made an awful noise in the back of his throat, then spat. “Yet they all talk about you, the copper girl that lives in a house of silver.”

“Huh.” I took this in for a moment. “But—”

“But nothing.” Max stood, wobbled a bit, then dusted himself off. “C'mon, it's not even lunchtime. Let's see how much more trouble we can get into.”

As it turned out, Max and I had already reached our quota of trouble for the day. After an uneventful afternoon and evening spent in the village, mostly in taverns (all devoid, to Max's disappointment, of barely clad pixies), we returned to the manor. I'd just gotten myself washed up and into bed when Micah returned, shedding articles of clothing as he neared the bed; I suppose, when you've grown up with an army of silver critters constantly picking up after you, it's an unavoidable habit. Then he was beside me, wrapping his arms around my waist as he kissed the back of my neck.

“I missed you,” he murmured. I didn't roll over just yet; the feel of his warm belly against my mark was amazing, and I think he knew it. “Tell me about your day.”

“I went to the village with Max.” Micah withdrew my hands from underneath the blankets and made a show of counting my fingers. “What are you doing?”

“Ensuring that he returned you to me in one piece. Toes next.” Micah dove under the blankets and proceeded to count my very sensitive toes. He was lucky I didn't kick him in the head. When he emerged, after much shrieking on my part and laughter from both of us, he was serious again. “If you travel with Max again, take the silverkin to guard you.”

“Max wouldn't let anything hurt me,” I protested. I left out how, if it hadn't been for the pixie, that would have been a moot point.

“He does not have to let them,” Micah replied. Then he gathered me close in that way of his that made it nearly impossible for me to remain angry with him. “I cannot bear the thought of you harmed. Please, for my sake, take them along.”

“Micah…” I looked into those silver eyes, so wide and accepting of me and my wackadoo family. “I can't.”

“Why?” he asked softly, tracing my cheekbone. “Why can my Sara not promise to be safe?”

“Max is looking for Dad.” Micah's brow furrowed, and I misinterpreted his expression as anger. “I'd have told you, if I knew before today,” I babbled. “It's what Max has been doing, raising hell and—”

“Hell?” Micah repeated, alarmed.

“Not real hell,” I soothed. “When Max started brawls or gambled all night or—”

“Or destroyed parts of my home?”

“He was looking for Dad,” I finished in a small voice. “He…he thinks that if he makes a spectacle of himself, word will get to Dad, and that Dad'll come find us.” As I said it out loud, I realized how stupid Max's plan really was. Of course I'd known it was a foolish endeavor from the get-go, but I'd ignored my misgivings, hoping that Max was right. He wasn't, and we were just two stupid, stupid kids.

“You think this plan is sound?” Micah inquired, and his soft, nonjudgmental tone made me break down in tears. After much holding me close and stroking of my hair, I was calm enough for him to ask, “So, not sound, then?”

“No,” I snuffled. “Not sound.” I didn't offer any more, and Micah didn't press. I stroked Micah's mark, and in the process found hard knots in his neck and shoulders; he always carried his tension there. “How was your meeting?'

“Curious,” he replied, rolling onto his back. “I saw Oriana.”

“She's well, then?” I asked. The last time I'd seen the Gold Queen she'd just been lifted out of the Iron Court's oubliette and was little more than a cadaver. A screaming, filthy, furious cadaver.

“Well? No.” He brought my hand before him, playing with my fingers. “I suspect her captivity has driven her to madness.”

“She can hardly be blamed for that,” I murmured, shuddering as I recalled the stinking hole of darkness she'd been hauled from; Micah and I had the honor of attending, being that we'd caused the Iron Queen's demise and had thus inadvertently restored Oriana to the throne. Ha. Some honor. “What did she do?”

“First, she proclaimed that we were all sent to kill her. Then, she announced that she suspected one of us of sewing poison into her clothing, so she stripped naked. Then, she danced and laughed, quite pleased with herself that she'd thwarted her poisoner.”

Can you sew poison?
I kept my musings to myself and prompted him to continue. “Then she demanded that we all expose our marks to her, to prove that we are, indeed, Elementals. Shapeshifters cannot duplicate Elemental marks, you know,” Micah added, then laughed mirthlessly. “She went so far as to touch each mark, to prove our authenticity.”

“She touched your mark?” Jealousy rose like bile in my throat. Micah was mine, his beautiful silver mark off-limits to everyone but me.

“For the barest moment,” Micah replied. “She was far more interested in the Inheritor of Fire.”

Ayla was the Inheritor of Fire's name; I'd made a point of meeting her, since she was human like me. She was tall and lean, with a head of hair such a bright shade of red she made me look like a mere brunette. “Why was Ayla there?”

“Oriana requested her.” Micah rolled again, now onto his side as he pulled me into his cocoon of Micahness. “I do not know how we of metal should proceed, if our queen proves mad. Our queen is meant to symbolize wisdom, not weakness.” He fell silent, his fingers caressing my back in long strokes.

“She doesn't sound mad,” I said. “So she's a little shell-shocked from her ordeal. That's to be expected. And, after what the iron warriors did to her, I'm not surprised that she'd prefer a woman's company. Maybe…maybe she just needs a little more time,” I suggested.

“Time. Yes, perhaps time is the proper balm for her ills.” Micah considered my words for another moment, then he drew my face to his. “My wise consort,” he murmured, his gentle caresses becoming a bit more urgent. “Truly, your words soothe my mind. Now, let me soothe you.”

I bit my lip; I'd taken my last contraband Mundane birth control pill yesterday. Since I couldn't exactly tell Micah that, mostly because I'd never told him about them in the first place, I let him roll me beneath him and concentrated on loving him.

5

M
icah had learned pretty early on in our relationship that I was liable to say anything at any moment, regardless of present company or future consequences. Much to my well-mannered consort's chagrin, he had witnessed me unintentionally insult everyone from Shep right on up to Old Stoney, though neither of us had really minded pissing off the old rock. Shep, though, that was another story; all I had said was that the stairs weren't as shiny as the main floors, and Shep took that as an insult against his housekeeping skills. I hadn't meant anything like that—in fact, I liked that the stairs were a bit duller, especially for those occasions when I was wearing a dress—and I'd felt so guilty I'd ended up helping clean the manor for weeks. However, what I asked Micah the morning after my trip to the village with Max surprised even me.

“Can you teach me to fight?” By the time I'd gotten up the nerve to ask that, we'd been up for almost an hour, lounging away in bed. Micah hated mornings nearly as much as I did.

“Fight?” he repeated, one silver brow halfway up his forehead.

“Yeah. With a sword,” I added. For the past few weeks, Micah had been offering me and Sadie instruction on how to better utilize our power over metal. He had also offered his services to Max, who had snorted and stomped out of the room. Nothing like being an ungrateful ass to the man who fed and housed you.

Micah took my hands, examining my knuckles before carefully turning them over. “Have you ever used an edged weapon in the past?” he asked, grazing his thumbs over my palms.

“No,” I admitted, “but I'd like to learn.”

“You are able to halt any foe with your Elemental abilities.”

“But what if something happens, and I can't use my awesome Elemental powers?” Micah began protesting, but I kept going, “What if I'm out somewhere, without you, without any silverkin to protect me? What if I'm captured and put in a place like Max was, and all that's nearby is concrete and plastic? Then I'd be helpless.”

Brows now deeply furrowed, Micah mulled this over. “I do not like that my consort may need to fight.”

“Neither does your consort, but if I'm forced to defend myself, I'd at least like to know what I'm doing.” For a few heartbeats Micah just looked at me, and I thought I'd have to appeal to Max for help, or worse, to Shep. Then Micah sprang upward, leaping out of bed as he threw the blankets over my head.

“Your first lesson is to never, ever drop your guard,” he said while I clawed my way to the surface. “Not even in our home, where I personally guarantee your safety. Always remember, love, that a foe's best hiding place is in plain sight.” Undaunted, I climbed out of bed and affected my best fighter's stance. Okay, it was a yoga pose, but whatever. I was learning. Amused, Micah dropped into a stance that looked slightly more effective, and we began circling each other.

“Got it. What's my next lesson?” I'd asked a perfectly reasonable question, and wouldn't you know it, that elf responded by throwing a silver teacup at my head. Arms flailing, I knocked it away just as Micah tackled me. We landed on the bed in a heap of limbs, the teacup lodged under my back.

“That anything—
everything
—is a weapon,” he answered. “Never think you are helpless, my Sara. Always use your surroundings to your advantage.”