indigo court 05.5 - night shivers (6 page)

After a moment, Druise reappeared, clothing in hand. “Yes, Your Majesty. There is little else being spoken of.”

“And what are they saying?” I was hoping not to hear what she said next, but I wasn’t surprised.

“That perhaps Myst is back, her spirit returned. That perhaps…the Vampiric Fae have a hand in the disappearance of the crew. There is much fear, Your Majesty, and very little trust that we will find out before whatever it is comes for the Barrow.”

And there it was. They still didn’t trust me. Their Barrow had been taken from them once, and they feared it would happen again. While I had led the fight against Myst, and we had killed her, they didn’t trust me to rule them and keep them safe. I was an outsider. Every day, in some way, I was reminded of that one fact. And every day, I tried to make inroads on it—to do something to bring the people closer to me.

Some were welcoming, but others were openly hostile. Oh, no one was deliberately rude to my face—Check would gut them for it, and he was always by my side when I was out and about. But the looks…the whispers…I knew what people were saying. And I also knew that barring assassination, they had little choice but to grudgingly accept me.

“I know they don’t trust me, Druise. But it still hurts when I hear it.” I sighed. There wasn’t much I could do about it, either. They were stuck with me, and I was stuck with them. I couldn’t abdicate. If I did, I’d start to age immediately and have to journey to the Golden Isle. And I just wasn’t ready for that.

“Oh please, Your Majesty—I didn’t mean it like that.” The look on her face made me jump to reassure her.

“I know, Druise. I know you didn’t mean it—please, don’t worry.” I had learned the hard way that Druise had an extremely soft heart, and she also had a deep sense of responsibility, which meant she often assumed guilt that wasn’t hers to assume.

I let her lace me into the corset after I slid on my jeans. She brushed my hair and fixed on my crown as I put on my makeup. Grieve was still asleep, but given we always had to appear at breakfast together, I motioned to Druise.

“I’m ready now. You can go. Thank you.” I never forgot to say thanks, given how roughly I knew some of the nobles treated their servants. That was next on my agenda—creating a special set of rules for how servants and workers were treated, though I knew that would go over like a lead balloon and there would be a lot of backlash. The Fae were not the most congenial of people to begin with, and the Winter Fae? Even less so.

She curtseyed, then quietly withdrew from the room. As she closed the door behind her, I leaned over Grieve and kissed his cheek. “Wake up, sleepyhead. We have to get down to breakfast and check on how things went at the village of the Wilding Fae.”

He blinked, then flashed me a lazy smile and held out his arms. “Why don’t we take a break first?”

“As tempting as that is, I don’t think we have the leeway this morning. Not with the way the news about
The Wave Chaser
has gone over.”

As he pushed back the covers and slid out of bed, I told him what Druise had said about the rumors going around. “We have to quash the idea that Myst is back. I don’t want wholesale panic.”

Grieve stretched, his naked body an invitation to run my tongue along his chest…and other places. But I restrained myself. “But…is it?” he asked.

I stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, is it a rumor? Could there be any truth to the idea? I think that before we go blowing smoke away, we’d better make sure there isn’t truly a fire to worry about in the first place.” The look on his face terrified me. He was actually considering the chance that Myst might have returned.

As he dressed—the clothing that appeared were his royal togs, which told me he was taking this seriously—I wandered over to the mirror and stared at my reflection. Myst, the Queen of the Indigo Court, had been my mother in a different life. My soul still bore energy from the Vampiric Fae. Grieve and I had been on opposite sides in that lifetime, but we had still met and fallen in love, and we had died for our love. The thought that the cruel queen might have returned stabbed my stomach like the tip of a sharp dagger.

“I can’t believe that she might be back. I can’t let myself believe it. I destroyed her heartstone. I killed her. She has to be gone because I don’t know if I could take her on again.” My voice was barely a whisper.

Grieve took me by the shoulders, pressing against my back as he nuzzled my neck, then turned me around for a full-on kiss, deep and passionate and darkly reassuring.

“I
don’t
think she’s back, but we must make certain. We have to look into all possibilities. What happened to the hundreds of people aboard
The Wave Chaser
—we can’t let any stone go unturned in our investigation. So, we will look into the chance that Myst has returned, or that someone among the remnants of her people has taken up the banner. We won’t assume it so, but we will check it out to eliminate the possibility.”

His voice was no-nonsense, and his practicality cut through the haze of fear that had risen. He stroked my cheek as I took a deep breath.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“For what?”

“For being you. Come on, let’s get down to breakfast.” I took his hand and we headed out of the room. Check was waiting outside—he slept in shifts and was always with me when I went about the Barrow in public, but today instead of Fearless, he was with a guard whose name was Truce.

“Fearless requested a personal day. His mother is ill and he wanted to go see her. She lives in a village far out on one of the floes—Shinetown.” Check jerked his head toward Truce. “So Truce will be taking over for today if that’s all right with you, Your Majesty.”

“That’s fine.” Technically, he should have checked with me first, but Check knew that I was lenient, especially given family matters, and I had the feeling that when he said Fearless’s mother was
ill
, he meant
gravely ill
. Otherwise, he would have okayed it with me before letting the guard take time.

We headed toward the dining hall. “Check, Druise said the mood following the announcement of the ship sinking was restless and that rumors are going around about Myst?”

Check cleared his throat. “She’s correct. Unfortunately, people will talk and there’s not much we can do to stop it until you make some sort of official proclamation regarding the validity of the speculation.” He paused. “Your Majesty, I’m worried…”

His pause froze me in my tracks. “You don’t think she’s back, do you?” I kept my voice low. Grieve paused by my side, and Truce stood back, his jaw set as if he were deliberately keeping his ears to himself.

“No, I don’t, but there’s something out there. The guards returned from Whitecroft—the village of the Wilding Fae. Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but we’re shit out of luck, as you would say. What they found was brutal and terrifying.”

“Why didn’t you wake us when they returned?”

“Because I knew you’d be up soon—they’ve only just returned this past hour.”

I glanced at Grieve, then back at Check. “Order breakfast to be brought to us in our council room. Send for Strict, and for Captain Shell. Also, I may need to visit Thorn, to see what he has to say. On the chance, prepare for a trip into the shamans’ lair.”

Once Strict and Shell—Captain of the Guard—arrived in the council chamber, we settled in around the table. Check was there, and Truce. We also asked Shell to bring Warring and Hezemie—his lieutenants. They worked directly beside him and were his right-hand men. Check would have had Shell’s job if he hadn’t been assigned as my personal guard. I’d asked him once if being passed over had bothered him. His only answer was, “Whatever pleases you most, Your Majesty, pleases me.”

After the food had been brought in, and the servants dismissed, Truce took his place outside the door. Check guarded the inside.

I spread butter and jam on fresh, hot bread and relaxed as the yeasty warmth exploded in my mouth. Even my taste buds had changed since I had undergone my initiation—food tasted stronger, more vibrant to me, and my hunger for meats and breads and fruits and cheese had strengthened, while my desire for all the junk I used to love had—not vanished, but lessened.

“So, tell us. What did they find?”

“About a mile outside of Whitecroft, there’s a stone ring the Wilding Fae use for ritual. A couple of the Fae were out there when something attacked them. Your Majesty, the attack was brutal. Whoever perpetrated it wasn’t focused on simply killing them, but on ripping them to shreds. I can see why rumors might be circulating that the Indigo Court has risen again… This does remind me of the Vampiric Fae’s attacks. But there was something else, something we never saw with Myst’s followers. There were scorch marks—ice burns.”

“Ice burns?” I wasn’t familiar with the term.

“Ice magic. The Elementals can cause ice burns, but they won’t, not unless they are provoked. These were on the trees, on the snow, on the remnants of the bodies that were left. Something blasted through there, something that either has an innate ability, or the knowledge of how to use the magic of ice. We questioned the Wilding Fae as best as we could. There were sightings of a fierce, large shadow of a wolf. This wolf stood as tall as man, and was a smoky black with glowing blue eyes.”

I frowned, sitting back. “That sounds
nothing
like what Myst had up her sleeve. Ice spiders, yes, though those abound through the realm on their own. She just harnessed them into her service. But a shadow of a wolf? Where did they see it?”

“On the outskirts of Whitecroft, at evensong. Never a clear view, but several sightings over the past few days.”

As we paused to eat—I was famished and Grieve was hungry, too—I thought over what they had said. Finally, after finishing my steak and eggs, I pushed away my plate.

“Could it be some strange Cambyra Fae? A wolf-shifter gone mad?” Truth was, not every member of the Fae race could be trusted. In fact, the ones who went bad, usually went very, very bad and caused far more damage than the average human sociopath.

Captain Shell shook his head. “Your Majesty perhaps forgets the nature of the Wilding Fae. For some creature to not only surprise
two
of them, but actually manage to kill
both
without being heard and stopped…”

“Good point.” Most of the Wilding Fae were strong enough to take on every person in this room. And most of the Wilding Fae would come out victorious. Two of them? Should have been able to handle any ordinary attacker.

“What about the Wilding Fae themselves? Anyone reporting a troublemaker in Whitecroft? Did anyone say anything that might point to this being one of their own?”

Again, Shell shot me down. “No, and you can be certain that if they thought it an internal incident, the killer would have been dispatched without coming to the Barrow. The Wilding Fae take care of their own. That they sought out Your Majesty’s help shows they’re frightened.”

“He’s right.” Strict shrugged. He had picked up the gesture from me. “The Wilding Fae fear very little, and they have no patience for anyone who disrupts the flow of their world. They couldn’t take on Myst and her entire army, so they worked with us. That they petitioned the Crown for help tells us they fear this is a problem beyond their scope to handle.”

“Not a good sign, then.” My heart sank. I didn’t want to deal with a sociopathic wolf, but it looked like we had one on our hands.

At that moment, there was a tap at the door. Check opened it while we fell silent. A whisper or two later, he quietly closed the door.

“Your Majesty, I do not wish to interrupt you, but Truce says that one of our men has news of
The Wave Catcher
. Shall I escort him in?”

I rubbed my head. Everything always seemed to happen at once. “Please do.”

Check opened the door and a young guardsman entered. I recognized his face, but couldn’t quite place his name. He dropped to one knee, then slowly rose and stood at attention.

“You have news for us?” I motioned for him to take a step closer. Check shadowed him to make certain that he behaved himself.

“Yes, Your Majesty.
The Wave Catcher
…I don’t know how to tell you this, but the ship is back on the water, sort of.”

“What do you mean? It sank.” The day was just getting better and better.

“That’s the thing. We know it sank, but I’m telling you—we can see it sitting next to the dock. The hole is in its side, and the whole galleon looks…misty. Translucent. Not only that, but the crew and passengers seem to be there. They are disembarking…then they walk up the snow field a ways and vanish. We can see through them, too. They’re spirits, Your Majesty.”

I stared at him, unable to comprehend what the hell was happening. “You saw the ship rise?”

“Yes, we were there. The ship rose out of the water as a great howling—like that of a hundred wolves—filled the air.”

Ghosts? We had a ghost ship full of spirits on our hands? I motioned for him to leave.

“Say nothing about this. Wait in the hall with Truce. If you’re hungry, ask for a tray.” After he left, I turned to the others. “Apparently the ship wasn’t happy staying beneath the waves. Let’s go. We need to find out what’s going on.”

Captain Shell, his lieutenants, five of the elite guard, Check, and Truce accompanied us as Grieve and I led the journey, setting out for the shore of the Crashing Sea.

As we hurried along, racing over the snows, I flashed back to before my initiation, before my body had changed as the heartstone emerged from me. I had been weaker then, and much more vulnerable, but one thing this stint had taught me:
nobody
was immortal, without chance of dying. And as the saying went: no one here gets out alive. While I felt myself still transforming, changes came slowly, and probably with good reason. Become a different person in the blink of an eye and it’s easy to lose the person you were. Slowly shift, and you keep the best of both worlds. At least, that was how I hoped it would play out in the end.