Bound by the Vampire Queen (40 page)

She remembered Tabor’s words as she recognized most of the spirits were Fae, reflecting the many species that traveled with the Unseelie and Seelie processions. Within the sacred space that Rhoswen had spun, the Fae of the living world now moved forward, reaching out so the corporeal and incorporeal touched. Lyssa saw one of the young Fae who’d been allowed to come in the carriage, reach out toward the spirit of what was obviously a father and mother she’d lost. Their expressions of joy and grief were so closely mingled, Lyssa couldn’t hold back the tears that spill ed from her eyes, already gathered and waiting there from watching Rose and Arthur reunited. She looked to King Tabor, and he nodded. He’d wanted her to see, because they all shared this. Mortals and immortals both understood the loss of loved ones.

“Lyssa.” Jacob’s whisper pul ed her attention away, as did the shock that filled him to the depth of his soul, overflowing to her. When she followed his gaze, more tears ached in her throat, a sob and a cry tangling there.

Three people stood at the side of the cemetery, watching them. As Jacob slid off Firewind, he held up his arms to bring her down, but neither one of them tore their gazes from those three, as if they might disappear if they looked away. When they moved toward the spirits, they held on to each other, not queen or servant in this moment, but two lovers needing the reassurance and support of the other.

The man and woman stepped forward first. In their faces, Lyssa saw separate and shared elements of Jacob’s physical appearance and character. When the man reached out and touched Jacob, a blue light flared at the contact. Jacob’s knees gave out. The man and woman caught him together. They held him the way they would have held him as a child, instead of the much larger man he was now. The woman reached out to Lyssa to bring her to them as well, her touch cool and reassuring at once. She was glad Lyssa had brought him to them, that the path of his life had led to this. Lyssa didn’t know if Jacob’s mother knew the other things this path had brought him, but that didn’t matter, did it? She let herself be drawn into that circle, a part of that family.

We love you, we love you, we love you… tell Gideon.

It was simple, short, forever, all at once. No other words needed, just that essential touch, that contact between worlds. Feelings were all that mattered in the afterlife.

Perhaps a breath passed, perhaps an hour. Either way, the magic knew when it needed to end. As they faded, Jacob’s mother left a last whispering kiss on his mouth, her eyes so full of love.
We’re happy, we’re safe. We watch over and love you both… tell Gideon.

When they disappeared, Jacob was still on his knees. Lyssa knelt beside him, her hand on his shoulder, her lips pressed to it as her tears wet his bare skin. As he kept his head bowed, a new hand came to rest upon it, a tactile blessing. “Turns out that you were far more appropriate for her than ever I imagined.”

Lyssa looked up to see the familiar, dear spectacled face of her former servant. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and had jumped on him, as driven by emotion as a young girl. Her arms locked around his shoulders, holding Thomas in the tightest grip possible, no thought of queenly reserve in her mind. More tears spill ed forth to wet his monk’s cassock while his always surprisingly strong arms closed around her.

I’ve missed you, my lady. Has this young miscreant been treating you properly?

Had he known how it would feel, to have his beloved voice in her mind once more? That it would make it almost impossible for her to speak either way for a few moments?

“Not at all,” she whispered at last. “He’s impossibly insolent and disobedient. I think it has to do with his teacher.”

Thomas pressed his face into her hair, his mouth against her temple, as much a blessing as his hand on Jacob’s head had been. “You may be right.” When he let her feet touch, she still kept a close hold on him, staring up at his face. “I’m so very sorry.”

“There are no sorries to be said. Not in this place.” His eyes were swimming, and it was an amazing thing, to think there were tears where he dwelled, but these were tears of joy and love mixed with the regret. “You are speaking to my soul, just as Jacob was speaking to his parents’ souls. A lingering part of our unconscious, because of course in the years that have passed, they have transitioned to other lives, other roles. But the soul is eternal, multifaceted, capable of reaching out through time and dimensions separate from where our physical bodies are now, from the lives we’re leading now.

“One day, when we are all together again, these memories, these moments, will return to the forefront of the soul, and we will remember. The past and present will come back together. Right now, it will enrich our unconscious selves, wherever they are, offering an unmistakable sense of comfort and joy.” He met Lyssa’s gaze. “There are those who have much atonement to do, so much that they could not be here tonight. But he thinks of you, my lady, and he weeps.”

Lyssa trembled in his grasp, another sob fair choking her. Jacob had come back to his feet now.

Putting one hand on Thomas’s shoulder, he laid his other on

Lyssa’s waist, connecting them, strengthening her. Thomas turned his gaze up to him fondly, since Jacob was several inches taller. “I see things took some unexpected turns.”

“It’s to be expected, with a Mistress like this.” Jacob managed the spirited reply, though his voice was thick. “It’s so good to see you.” The fervency to his words belied their simplicity, and Thomas gripped his forearm, nodding.

“My time is short. This night only allows a glimpse, a moment, for to risk more than that is to unwisely draw the living too much into the embrace of the dead. But there is one more I brought you to meet.” Turning away, he beckoned with a gentle motion. Out of the mist that still swirled through the cemetery, hiding as well as revealing, a toddler came. A tiny, doll-like child, her thumb in her mouth. She had eyes as blue as Jacob’s. Hair as dark as Lyssa’s fell in fine silk to her shoulders. Thomas squeezed both of their hands, a mute regret to let go of them, before he picked her up, cradling her on his hip. She studied them both with curious, big eyes.

“This is another soul who has gone on to other lives, quite a few of them in fact. She’s become a remarkable person. However, this is the child she would have been in her first life, as beautiful a spirit as the two who created her, with the help of a loving God.”

A sweet smile curved the child’s lips when she looked toward Jacob. When she reached toward him, he took her, but let her lower body slide into Lyssa’s arms so they were both holding her. The child laughed, putting her palms on each of their faces.

“She recognized Jacob first, because the knight did take care of her in the afterlife, my lady. Just as you hoped.”

Lyssa nodded, letting her daughter press her little fingertips to the tears on her face. The toddler made soft, childish noises, too young for words, but no words were needed. Jacob put his mouth to her forehead, as Lyssa’s hand slipped to his nape, her other holding her daughter. Hers. Her family. Almost all of them. She ached for Kane, so hard it was a contraction in her womb, a painful memory of birth.

Feeling it, Jacob held her closer, held them both closer. “He’s here,” he murmured. “Just as Thomas says. Some part of his soul is here, with us, feeling this. And we'll tell him all about it.”

“God be with you both.” Thomas put his hands on them once again. In that instant, Jacob felt the sweet weight of memory binding them, a link that would never be broken. Then the monk slowly faded and the child with him, a slip of her laughter left behind, making the leaves swirl around their feet.

All about them, the mist was lifting, showing the scenes like theirs drawing to a close. For a few precious seconds, they’d all been caught in a joyous and sorrowful paradise. He saw the same types of tears, smiles and pensive looks he and Lyssa had shared. For some Fae, their tears sparkled on their cheeks like the dust that came from their wings.

When he looked at his lady, Jacob saw her looking toward the cemetery’s edge. Sitting apart from everyone else, Rhoswen squatted on her heels on the top of a large tombstone, her fingers resting on the stone’s edge as if she were a white angel sculpted there. Energy still pulsed around her, her concentration obvious as she held open the Veil.

However, as the last spirits faded, her eyes cleared, shoulders easing. Jacob started forward, but Cayden and Tabor already anticipated, catching her as the strength left her body and she slid off the tombstone into their ready grasp. There was a murmur of conversation between them, and then Cayden ceded her to Tabor with obvious reluctance.

The Fae king lifted and carried her to a covered carrying chair. Tabor had given his horse’s reins to Dahlia. It appeared the four chair supports were to be carried by himself, Aidan, Leigh and Keldwyn.

Lyssa moved in that direction. Jacob followed, feeling how fragile she was right now, how fragile they both were. While the cemetery was no longer utterly silent, conversations were quiet, a somberness that fit the moment, punctuated by the music of bell's as the horses shook their manes, or the Fae expressed their feelings through their love of music, with lute, pipe and muted drum beats. Many Unseelie still wore the monstrous guises they’d donned, but now, as they perched in trees or on tombstones in their trappings, they had a sad, macabre look. They sat in contemplation or comforted companions overwhelmed by the experience.

He noticed the group of young Fae formed a center cluster, holding on to one another in silence, rocking as Robin Goodfellow, balanced on a nearby marker, played a song to make them smile through their tears.

When Lyssa stopped beside the carrying chair, Jacob reached tentative fingers into her mind to find she was dwelling on how Rhoswen had given them this. Yet the Fae queen had stood apart, taking no comfort from any past loved one herself. As if there was no loved one in her past she would be willing to see… or who would step forward to see her.

The curtains around the chair had not been lowered, Tabor and his honor guard standing at a respectful distance. Cayden stood next to them, holding his horse and Rhoswen’s. Lyssa nodded to them all, then knelt at the side of the Fae queen.

While she didn’t take the woman’s hand, she did touch the pill ow near her head, so Rhoswen turned toward her.

“Thank you,” Lyssa said quietly. “You gave me a gift without measure. All of us.”

Rhoswen closed her eyes, her face weary. “Fae don’t like to be thanked. We consider it insulting, empty platitudes. You thank with gifts, trinkets.”

“Since the only thing I have of value is something I’m not likely to offer twice, you'll have to make do with a simple, sincere thank-you.” Lyssa’s tone was mild, however, a gentle note in it.

“Selfish bitch.” The queen’s lips twisted, but there was no heat to the words. Jacob sensed she actually appreciated the goading more than the hovering, concerned presence of the males.

“So I’ve been told.” When Lyssa touched the pill ow again, her fingers settled on a lock of Rhoswen’s hair, a stroke. “Rhoswen, we are the only close blood family we each have left. Aren’t we?”

“We are related by blood. That does not make us family or close.” Rhoswen opened her eyes again, stared at her. “While I don’t know all the spirits that press through the Veil on Samhain night, some of them I anticipate ahead of time, because their desire to come through, their anticipation of the night, is so strong. That is why the young Fae who have lost parents in the last year attend with us. They are given an opportunity to see them once more before the children must move on, go on living. This is our gift of comfort, to them and their parents.”

She put her hand up between them then, pressing against Lyssa’s forearm to push her touch away. “He was there, on the other side of the Veil. I could have allowed him to step past it, Lyssa. He has never waited there before, not for the many years I have done this. But he knew you were coming. I could have let him through, but I didn’t. Because if he stepped out of that Veil with her at his side, your mother… If he stepped out and the first person he looked for was you, which is of course what he would do…”

Her gaze became hard and empty. “Then, queen or not, whatever I am supposed to be, it would not matter. I would have to kill you, because I could not bear that pain. I’m sorry.”

Chapter 15

AT her imperious motion, Cayden stepped forward and drew the curtains around the chair. Lyssa knelt there an extra moment, making him work around her, until Tabor came to her side, slipped a hand under her elbow and helped her up, Jacob on the other side. The procession was mounting up again. Jacob took her to Firewind, helped her onto his back. When he put his arms around her to take up the reins, he noticed she was cold.

As they moved away from the cemetery and reentered the mist that would take them back to the Fae world, the mood shifted with that fog.

Conversation turned into ripples of laughter, then a more festive song trill ed from a pipe. As they emerged into the Fae world, that current rose even higher, responding to the lights and music spread out below them, each castle trying to outdo the display of its neighbor. Fireworks were happening, triggered by their return, those aerial displays of Fae, dragons and other flying beasts interspersed with explosions of lights in the sky.