Radiant Shadows tf-4 Read online

  “Do not interfere again—”

  “—based on what you know—”

  “—of what they are.” They each spoke a part of the sentence.

  Rae squared her shoulders to hide the shakes that threatened her.

  They moved closer in tandem, as if they were parts of one body. “No one knows their own future.”

  “Not even him.”

  “Especially not him.”

  They all stepped back. Two retreated farther, so the translucent one stood in the forward point of their triangle. “We allowed you to know. That was more than fair exchange.”

  “It’s not.” Rae fisted her hands.

  “Your knowing saved the Hound’s life, and without her, he cannot become what he is to be.” The leafy one rustled with each word. “If you speak what you know, you will die, and he will fail.”

  And they were gone again.

  And I am not dead. For that, Rae was grateful.

  The first time she’d met them had been after a day of experimenting. She and Devlin had not yet figured out the limits of possession and had spent the day in the cave. He was unconscious, and Rae—still inside him—saw a vision of a girl, Ani, whom he would be ordered to kill. Almost invisible threads wove Ani and Devlin’s lives together. In a disquieting moment, while Devlin was asleep and Rae was awake, she’d seen the cave wall vanish.

  Three creatures stood in the cave.

  “He’s not to know such things.”

  As one of them extended her hand, the other two matched the movement. Thread spindled out from Devlin’s body, from the body that Rae was currently animating. It didn’t hurt, not truly, but it felt curious. In the center of her, she could feel the tug as the fibrous strands of the vision were guided out of flesh and into a seemingly bottomless basket.

  “Stop,” she said.

  They did. The fibers stretched between the basket and the body, suspended in the air.

  “You are—”

  “—not—”

  “—him.” They each spoke part of the words, but the voice from each tongue was the same.

  Rae didn’t answer. She reached a hand to the thread, feeling the truth in it, seeing the possibilities that Devlin hadn’t.

  “That’s his future,” she whispered. “The Hound… he is to”—she looked at them—“kill. Does the High Queen know? When she orders the death…”

  “He cannot know that you know,” one said.

  The three exchanged a look. In perfect synchronicity, they nodded.

  “You must never tell him—”

  “—or her—”

  “—what you know.”

  Rae wasn’t sure what to say. These were the first creatures other than Devlin that she’d seen in Faerie—and they were nothing like him.

  “Without you, he will fail—”

  “—and if you tell either of them—”

  “—you will die.” The three women smiled, and it was not a comforting smile.

  “Silence or death?”

  “His success or his loss?”

  “Your cooperation or not?”

  So Rae had made her choice. When Devlin woke, she’d stayed silent. Knowing his future was a gift and a burden.

  Years later, she begged him to spare Ani. She’d threatened to return to her mortal body. She’d threatened to expose herself—and him—to Sorcha.

  “You are hiding something from me.” Devlin faced her in the cave. “The Hound isn’t anyone to you.”

  “She is,” Rae insisted. “I ask one thing. You promised me years ago that I could have three wishes. I asked to be allowed to share your flesh; I asked to be kept safe. This is the last I will ask of you.”

  “You would ask me to disobey my queen? If she were to ever know…” Devlin crouched at Rae’s feet. “Don’t ask this of me, Rae.”

  Rae stretched out her hands, laying them atop his as if she could truly touch him. “She matters more than I can tell you. I need you to do this one last thing.”

  “Don’t ask me to be foresworn. My honor. My vows… Don’t ask this.”

  “You promised me.” Rae felt tears slip down her cheeks. As insubstantial as she was, the tears vanished into air as they slid off her face. “Please, Devlin. This is my last wish.”

  “I cannot keep my vow to you and to my queen.” He stood and looked down at her. “Don’t ask me to choose.”

  She hated herself for doing the very thing that his sisters had done to him, but she lifted her gaze and said, “I am asking you to choose.”

  After he left, they hadn’t spoken for months. He didn’t come to her, didn’t let her possess him. In time, he’d returned, but they’d never spoken of it without discord. She hated the secrecy, hated the Eolas for creating the conflict, and hated herself for not knowing a solution.

  Without him, she would be alone in Faerie, ethereal without respite, never to have physical sensation again. She’d considered the possibility. It was impractical to ignore it.

  Now the future that the High Queen had tried to stop was upon them, and Rae had to help assure that it came to pass as it was meant to be.

  Without violating the Eolas’ restriction.

  With a fear she couldn’t repress, Rae closed her eyes and let herself drift toward Devlin. She’d never told him she could visit dreams in the mortal world. Aside from Ani’s dreams, she hadn’t done so, but she could find Devlin anywhere. Following his threads was how she’d found Ani that first time: his emotions had cried out at the thought of killing Ani, at the choice Rae had foisted upon him. Without meaning to, Rae had gone to him, racing over some whisper-thin trail she hadn’t known existed, but had been too afraid to slip into his mind. His rejection would be only slightly less awful than his death. Either would mean losing him.

  But she couldn’t sit and do nothing. She wasn’t powerless in dreams. There she had voice and strength—so she slipped into the dream he was having far away from her in the mortal world.

  “Rae? What are you doing?” Devlin watched Rae walk into his dream calmly—as if nothing were amiss. “Are you mad? You can’t be here.”

  Instead of being cowed by his words, she smiled reassuringly. “It’s not like I’ve never stepped into your dreams before.”

  “In Faerie. Not here.” He took her hands in his. “Are you in danger?”

  He studied Rae, but no signs of distress were obvious. In truth, she looked as lovely as she did in her true mortal form. Oddly, though, she was wearing the plain dress her mortal body wore. Her hair was as long as it was in reality, tightly bound in the long braid he’d woven it into.

  “I’m fine.”

  “What are you doing?” He didn’t let go of her hands. “What if dreamwalking here is fatal? What if being here means you return to your body?”

  She paused. “I needed to see you.”

  “Rae…” He took one step back and caught her gaze. “Is that it? Is your body failing? Did you feel it? Some sickness? I can go to it—”

  “No. I just needed to talk to you.” She looked wistful and lost for a moment. Hesitantly, she asked, “Can I see it? My body?”

  Devlin re-created the cave where she’d fallen asleep so long ago. Behind her, a glass and silver coffin appeared. It took no concentration to fashion the details with precision: he’d made it himself. Every mortal year he opened it and checked on her body, which remained in a state of stasis since she’d stepped out of it. She’d lived in Faerie for over a mortal century, and as a spectral being within Faerie, she seemed able to live without aging. Her body, without her dream self inside of it, did not age, but if she returned to her body, all of the years she’d lived would become real, and her body would age—and die.

  “I look the same,” she murmured, “but the cave has changed a bit.”

  “I added some stabilizing beams. It was logical.” Devlin didn’t look behind him. He visited the real thing often enough that seeing the image of her body encased in glass was unnecessary. “I think the dress is still looking
fine.”

  “It will fall apart too. They all do.” Tears glistened on her charcoal-dark lashes. “Maybe I should finally change it.”

  “If you prefer.” He’d suggested as much for years, but Rae had always insisted on being re-dressed in replicas of the dress she’d worn when she’d lain down in the cave that day. He thought it an odd insistence, but Devlin didn’t understand the mortal mind.

  He had carried out her requests, refastening her into newer versions of the exact same dress when the old one fell to pieces, decaying like her body did not. They lasted longer since he’d picked her up from the damp cave floor and encased her frozen body in the glass box. Even though Rae and therefore her dresses were protected from the damp and the vermin in the cave, the material still fell apart over time, albeit slower.

  Rae slipped her hands from his. “I have been visiting the mortal world for… what I think is fourteen mortal years.” She paused and looked up at him. “I visit Ani.”

  He was suddenly grateful that this was a dream. In the waking world, he’d never allow himself the luxury of the extreme emotions that overtook his logical mind. Terror and envy and betrayal filled him.

  A chair appeared behind him as he started to stumble. He sank into it. “You walk in the Hound’s dreams? Why, Rae? How could you… I don’t believe… why?”

  Rae had removed the cave from his dreamscape and replaced it with a snowy field. “I want you happy. I want you to have everything you need. I want to tell you things I… cannot.”

  “Rae?”

  “I want to tell you so much,” Rae whispered as she sank to the snowy ground that stretched as far as he could see and peered up at him. Tears rolled over her cheeks. “You must keep her safe, Devlin, from those who want to hurt you both.”

  Devlin brushed her hair back from her face. “Rae—”

  Rae clutched his wrist in her cold hand. “Protect her, but be careful of yourself. Do you hear m—”

  Her words stopped as Devlin startled awake. He was on the too-short sofa in the train, and something pressed on his throat. He felt like he was choking. He opened his eyes to see Seth’s serpent. The reptile’s attentive presence was disconcerting.

  Devlin muttered, “Begone.”

  It watched him through unreadable eyes for another several heartbeats and then slithered to the floor.

  He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been drugged, and while the medicinal draught had rejuvenated him, it had apparently led him to have ridiculous dreams.

  Devlin stood and took a clean shirt and jeans from the stack of clothes on the chair where Seth had obviously left them. I’m here too often if he has extras of my clothes on hand. He was the assassin of the High Court. For all of eternity, Faerie had feared him, yet a recently-made-fey creature had drugged him and apparently looked into his future.

  A faery Sorcha hadn’t told me was a seer.

  Devlin hadn’t ever responded well to surprises.

  The door opened, and the seer in question stepped into the room. He dropped a threadbare satchel onto the kitchen table. “Good morning, brother.”

  “Stop calling me ‘brother’ and”—Devlin pointed at the coiled boa—“put that back in its cage. I dislike it crawling over me.”

  “Boomer likes you.” Seth scooped the snake up into his arms and carried it to the terrarium. He glanced at Devlin assessingly. “You’re looking much better. A few more days to recover before you leave would—”

  “Cease.” Devlin dropped the clothes back onto the chair and walked over to Seth. “I’m here to look after you.”

  “No, you’re not. You were, but your purpose has changed.” Seth closed Boomer’s terrarium.

  “You will not leave again,” Devlin snarled. The urge to wrap his hand around Seth’s throat was pressing, but violence was illogical at that point. I am High Court. He shoved those temptations back into the recesses of his mind.

  Seth smiled placidly and walked over to the clothes. Without any visible indication that there was ill will between them, he set aside the ones on top and carried the rest to the table. “There’s hot water by now.”

  “You will not leave the house while I bathe.”

  “Correct.” Seth opened the satchel he had dropped on the table in his tiny kitchen and shoved the clothes into the bag. “I went out for a few supplies while you were sleeping. They’re in here too.”

  “Supplies?”

  “Your trip. You’ll be leaving sooner than I expected. Things change.” Seth turned away, but not before Devlin saw the flash of worry on his face.

  Chapter 12

  Ani pushed the covers off and stretched. She was even less rested than when she’d arrived at Irial’s. The house was silent as she went downstairs. At the door to the parlor, she paused. Inside, she heard the low murmur of voices. She felt the tangled threads of longing and disgust—and left.

  She stood on the top step, with the gargoyle knocker sleeping behind her, and faltered. A Ly Erg was standing in the street.

  “Where do you go?” he asked.

  “Not with you.” Shivering despite the midday sun, Ani turned the opposite direction from the Ly Erg.

  The red-palmed faeries worked to support whatever machinations Bananach devised—to the point of regularly threatening mutiny in the Dark Court. It was inevitable: they were warriors, and any excuse to create true war pleased them. Not the faeries for me. Even if she had her doubts about the new Dark King, Ani had too much loyalty to Irial to support plots against the king he’d chosen for their court.

  She went walking down the first shadowed alley; her court typically waited in such places. Instead of the faeries she found reassuring, another Ly Erg stood watching her. She turned down another and yet another alley until she was in what many deemed the least attractive part of the city. Oil and chemicals rolled through the puddles of brown water that collected in the dips and holes in the asphalt. The world was reflected back to her there—a bit less bright, a touch less sharply defined. To Ani, it was beautiful. Like her own court, the dark water could seem to make things ugly if a person didn’t look closely, but she’d been born out of those shadows: she saw the beauty where some saw only grime.

  Of course, not everything wrought of darkness was lovely, any more than everything in the light was. That truth was frighteningly clear as Bananach appeared. She stood in front of Ani like she’d stepped into existence, darkness given form in between an inhalation and a scream. The Ly Ergs had steered Ani toward her.

  “Girl. Gabriel’s child.” The raven-faery tilted her head expectantly. “I require you. Come.”

  One of the Ly Ergs from earlier was standing behind Bananach.

  Ani swallowed a cry of fear. Few faeries frightened her, but the raven-haired warrior did. Talons and beak, ashes and blood, Bananach unsettled the Dark King himself. The growing unease and mistrust between the faery courts had strengthened her enough that she could stand against even the strongest faeries.

  “Lady War directs you to follow.” The Ly Erg gestured. “Do you resist?”

  The hopeful look on his face made clear to Ani that resisting wasn’t likely to be a successful option. “No.”

  “Good pup,” Bananach said.

  Neither the raven-faery nor the Ly Erg spoke another word as they walked toward a building that looked as if it hadn’t been inhabited during Ani’s lifetime. The windows were painted black with iron fencing stretched over them like hurricane shutters. They weren’t but a dozen blocks from Niall’s house. Would she kill me on his step? The answer to that was, like all things with Bananach, impossible for Ani to fathom. War was both capricious and bold by nature.

  Bananach pried back the metal and gestured Ani inside.

  Ani’s heart thundered so that she could feel it under her skin. What she couldn’t feel was any emotion from Bananach. That’s no good. Before she would cross the threshold, Ani asked, “Am I guest or prisoner?”

  “Maybe.” Bananach gave Ani an inscrutable look and motioned
toward the window. “Go now before my soldiers’ security is compromised.”

  The Ly Erg turned away, presumably to return to his post, and Ani crawled through the window and into a room that looked like it belonged in a medieval warlord’s castle. Swords and other sharp-edged weapons were being forged; others were being repaired. Yet as soon as Ani had started to process the odd anachronism of the inhabitants’ activities, she caught sight of the curious contrast on the facing side of the room. Computer monitors and work stations sat on vast wooden tables. Ani stared at them.

  “You are not part of the Hunt. You are not truly part of their court.” Bananach’s dark eyes were familiar enough to seem comforting even as her words were insulting.

  “I am.” Ani tilted her chin up. “Our king—”

  “Your king. Not mine. I want no king.”

  “You made an oath,” Ani whispered.

  “I did. It’s why Niall hasn’t died at my hand. Why Irial has lived so long.” Bananach looked beyond Ani to stare into emptiness. “Will he come for you, Gabriel’s Daughter? Would he save you from my talons?”

  Ani wasn’t sure which “he” Bananach meant. Gabriel? Niall? Irial? Some other “he”? With Bananach, clarity was elusive.

  Bananach was beside her then, her lips against Ani’s ear. “Your father won’t approve. You mustn’t tell him. You mustn’t tell them anything.”

  “Tell him I… I don’t even know what you mean.” Ani tried to keep her tone respectful and even, but following the raven-faery’s comments was impossible.

  “That’s a good answer, Gabriel’s Girl. You tell them that when they ask. Pretend ignorance. I’ll speak for you.” Bananach nodded once, as if to affirm something. “Women’s secrets. You give me what I want, and I will give you much.”

  “What do you want?” She was sure she was respectful now. Rabbit had taught her the importance of the right words and phrases, the right tones and gestures, all of the right ways to speak to the mad or the dangerous. Bananach was both mad and dangerous.

  She cackled and tilted her head again. “I require your strength and your blood, little Hound.”