Dockalfar (44 page)

Every instinct he possessed clamored over and over at him that Azeral had no intention of honoring his request. That the promise the Unseelie lord had made him was no more than words to pacify his worry. To get him out of the way while Azeral did exactly as he pleased. The doubts came hard. He wanted to trust Azeral. He wanted to believe that what was done had merit and purpose. Azeral’s wisdom was ageless and not to be doubted.

Another part of him instinctively hammered away at the devotion.

Screamed desperately at him that those were the thoughts Azeral wished him to have. That he never forget the overwhelming blockage that Azeral had placed in his head. He ‘knew’ it was there. He surreptitiously felt along its edges every day and still he had to fight to dredge up even small disfavor with his host. It was maddening.

He drifted down from the battlements along the outer stairwell and ended up in the turmoil of the courtyard. A mass of confusion greeted him. Great ogre bodies milled like herd animals. He kept them at a distance. A slight aversion magic. Their minds were easy to invade. They moved from his path, not even guessing why they did. It was another stolen skill. The sidhe were stingy in their lessons, so he picked up things on his own.

Weapons clinked and he started. A stockpile of axes and spike lined clubs were being distributed. The ogres demonstrated their prowess with glee against each other. Troops preparing for war. War. His nightmares used to revolve around it.

Leanan, if nothing else, had stopped that plague. But he still dreaded the thought of it. Of uninhibited combat. Of wholesale bloodshed without a care or a conscious. That was what was expected in war. Morality was not an excepted word.

A small figure darted past him, carrying an overwhelming armful of weapons. It hesitated, then stopped, whirling to pin him with its beady stare.

The eyes were all that were visible above the pile of weapons. They were crowned by a overhanging slab of bristly flesh.

“Lookin’ to join the campaign ‘gainst the Seelies, human?” a gravely, sneering voice questioned. Alex blinked at the little man in bewilderment. Was the creature offering him a weapon?

He shook his head slowly and an explosive snort escaped the other’s lips.

“Can’t see why not, since I figure you’re mostly ta blame for it.” Alex gaped, more confused by the moment.

“What are you talking about?”

The little man turned and stalked away without answering. Alex stood for a dumbfounded second, then followed. The weapons were dumped unceremoniously on the decreasing stack that supplied the ogres. The little man turned around. He was a spriggan. Alex was hardly adept at telling one spriggan from the next. His association had been strictly with sidhe and bendithy servants. But he thought this one might possibly be the one who had brought him to this keep in the first place.

“Bashru?”

The spriggan sniffed and brushed past him, going most likely for another armful of weapons. Alex caught the bony shoulder and demanded.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

The spriggan snarled at him, lips drawing back from yellowed, carnivore teeth. “Nasty hands off, human!”

Alex kept his hold, contemplating magic to force an answer. The sidhe had affected him that much, that he was willing to bend another will to his own by simple right of power. But he had no need, for the spriggan spat at him, “Girl came ‘cause of you and left ‘cause of you. Now his Lordship is willin’ to tear the world apart to get her back.”

“That’s not true. He’s worried for her safety. She’s not thinking right.”

A harsh laugh escaped the little man.

“Who been meddlin’ in your head, human? He sent the assassin after her. If she lasts the week the fates will have shined on her. All this is just in case the Ciagenii fails.”

Alex released him, stunned. “No. He said he wouldn’t harm her.” He looked around in desperation at the troops and had no easy explanation for their existence. They were an appeasement to the court. An appeasement that entailed taking war to their ancient enemies. But not to Victoria. She would be safe from harm. Azeral had promised.

He did not quite flee. He felt the spriggan’s scorn at his back though. He found the closest entrance to the keep proper and used it, relieved to be back inside the shadowed coolness of age old stone.

Azeral would not lie to him. Azeral was to be trusted. Azeral’s purpose was for the benefit of his world. His people.

Azeral had violently snatched him from his own world. He had taken Victoria and thrust her into this mad swirl of events. But for a purpose. Alex searched his memory for what that purpose was. What had Azeral told him?

Earth magic disrupting the worlds in its disuse. He needed a human magic wielder to relieve the pressure. Yet, he had asked Alex for great usages of power infrequently. How did such a minimal use of human magic of his human power alleviate a situation that had been festering for centuries?

He squeezed his eyes shut, head pounding. No matter how desperately he clawed at the coiling thing inside his head, he could not dislodge it. He could not shake the obstinate refusal to rebel against Azeral. Even thinking about it hurt.

Pushing himself from the wall he leaned against, he stumbled back into the keep proper. The halls were quiet.

Abandoned things compared to the courtyard outside. The servants were all busy preparing field rations, or seeing to their master’s outfitting. He took a curving, architecturally impossible stairway, wanting nothing more at the moment than to find the solace of his rooms.

He almost made it unmolested.

Leanan found him before he could hide behind the insubstantial barrier of his door. Her lovely, fey face was twisted with anger. She flounced into his room behind him, glowering. Very carefully he faced her, blanking his mind of all thoughts of Victoria or Azeral’s deceit.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “You look upset.”

“Upset?” she hissed. “What a miraculous ability you have for understatement. The court is being torn to shreds and for what? My father’s foolishness. Chasing after some human girl that he should have killed in the first place. I told him. You know I told him not to trust that creature. Now she’s fled and likely to cause us all ruin if Azeral insists on this lunacy.”

“You’re not going on campaign?”

“Not if I can help it,” she snapped, an injured look crossing her face. “He will not insist. He does owe me that at least. But I might as well go. Everyone else is. I knew I should have taken matters into my own hands.”

He watched her stalk across his room and sensed she wanted something of him.

She was gazing at him with an arched brow, long arms crossed over her breast.

Knowing he was treading dangerous ground, he moved to join her by the window. The sounds of the mass below drifted up even here.

“What will he do?” he asked, wishing the subject to stay far away from Victoria and what he thought of her escape.

“He will crush them, surely,” she predicted. “It’s just such an inconvenience.”

“Oh.”

“He’ll kill her, you know.” Her gaze pinned him without mercy.

He could not quite form the words to agree with her. “But I thought he wanted her alive.”

“With that uncontrollable power of hers? No. She’ll not let him bind her again, I think. He’ll have her dead. Do you regret it, Alex?”

She was in his mind suddenly, with no warning whatsoever. He thought of the ogres in the courtyard and the preparations for war. He fought to keep her away from her shattered control without letting her know he was actually doing it. It required a delicacy of touch that he was not trained to practice. Her mental fingers were long and powerful. Stopping them outright would have been a declaration of war. He had to guide them where he wanted with her none the wiser. He planted a thought.

A lack of concern for Victoria. No particular interest in what was done to her. And a stronger thought. A desire for Leanan. He recalled the last sensuous moment they had shared, let it slide through his mind like bait on a hook. She swallowed it. Her lips turned up in a catlike smile. Her body leaned in against his, her hands active in their pursuit of him. He let her push him down on the sleeping cushions, amazed at just how well he had eluded her original query. It occurred to him that she had not come here with sex on her mind. He had managed to do to her what she regularly did to him.

Guide emotions and instincts to a path different from the one they were taking.

He had overcome her psychic probe.

It was such a shocking victory that he laughed. He lay back and let her have her way and reveled in such an unexpected conquest. It was surely a sign of good things to come.

~~~

The night was alive with voices. Fey lights bobbed through the darkened gardens, the vine-covered walks, the lower halls of the white keep itself. The whispers and speculation abounded over what had happened to have Ashara rushing madly about the keep, opening portals, and bringing back her gravely wounded mate along with an exhausted party of sidhe and the human woman. No one knew for sure.

The rumors had not succumbed to fact. All they could do was murmur in anticipation over the appearance of the battle-marked group, and the alacrity at which the elders spirited them away to conference.

There was something amiss. They all knew that. Their heightened senses tingled with it. Those among them with prophetic tendencies shook their heads with dread.

They hovered in family groups, holding children or lifemates, hoping for dawn’s light to shed some truth to the situation.

The refugees from the frantic forest flight took what rest they could in the round, glass-roofed tower chamber used by Ashara and her elders for council.

They sat alone, nursing steaming herbal tea, waiting for the appearance of someone who might tell them the fate of Okar or what Ashara intended to do for the situation at hand. It was a long wait.

The tea had gone cold, and nerves stretched taut by the time Neira’sha glided into the high-ceilinged room. Two of the elder Seelies followed her, grave and foreboding looks on their ageless faces.

The nausea Victoria had been fighting for the past hour rose to an unbearable pitch. There was no hiding or denying what she had done. At least it was Neira’sha and not Ashara who came to confront them. Neira’sha stopped in the center of the room and stood silently. Her eyes took in every detail. Victoria wanted to shrink in upon herself. If Keirom was nervous he hid it well, but Aloe was pale and fidgety. It was her, finally, that Neira’sha settled her gaze upon. A tremor ran through the sidhe girl before she stubbornly stiffened her back and lifted her silver eyes to meet the elder’s stare.

“You went against Ashara’s wishes,” Neira’sha finally said. “You planned and executed this disastrous effort in disregard of your liege Lady’s desires. You may beg the earth fates to forgive you, but do not expect Ashara’s benevolence.”

Aloe’s lower lip trembled. Her narrow jaw thrust out. “I did not go by myself. And it was not a totally disastrous effort.”

Neira’sha’s gaze flickered to Victoria. Her lips tightened. “No. It was not. You managed to come back with only one casualty. But tell me, my dear child, did you think the Unseelie court would allow you to snatch their guest away with no resistance? Do you expect Azeral to sulk in his keep over a lost opportunity while you merrily return to this one?”

“I never did,” Aloe exclaimed. “But I chose and I’ll live with my decision.”

“Will you?” A new voice entered the fray. A tired, frustrated voice that emanated from the pale-faced lady who stood at the door. Ashara stepped into the chamber. She had changed from her light night robe to a sterner gown. Her eyes were icy. “And will this keep live with your decision, Aloe? If Azeral chooses to take back what you stole from him, how will this keep fare?”

Aloe stared at her, lost for words.

Victoria could stand it no longer, the persecution of her staunchest ally. “Don’t blame her. This is my fault. I caused this to happen. And God, I am so sorry.”

Ashara fixed her with a glare.

Victoria wrapped her arms about her self and shivered. Just shivered and cast her gaze floorward. In a small, helpless voice she asked, “How is Okar?”

The breath hissed between Ashara’s teeth. Her patience was clearly stretched beyond endurance. “Okar is a fool. Much like Aloe. And believe me he will hear every bit of what she hears when he is able.”

“He’ll be okay, then?”

“He will be very, very sorry for some while for this escapade. But I think,” and her voice softened somewhat at the last, “that he will recover.”

A prayer of relief passed Victoria’s lips. Some small bit of the apprehension faded. She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking. Against her will, a tear slid down her cheek.

“Do not mistake my anger, Victoria,” Ashara spoke in a calmer tone. “I rejoice that you are safe and unharmed. But the method this one,” she swept her hand in Aloe’s direction, “and my idiotic mate used to achieve that goal is likely to cause more trouble than this keep can manage.

This is not a court. This has not been a court for some long while. I employ no troops and my folk are not fighters. If Azeral chooses retaliation I do not know if this keep can defend itself. And worse yet, I have no doubt that he knows this.”

“Maybe he’ll just let me go. Maybe he’ll just forget the whole thing.”

Ashara shook her head sadly. “Azeral has a long memory. He does not forget or forgive.”

Victoria looked about her desperately. At the solemn faces of the elders, at Ashara’s exhaustion. At Aloe’s crumbling determination.

“Then I’ll go back. He won’t have reason to bother you then.”

“Mother Earth!!” Aloe snapped in exasperation. “And you call me a fool.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Ashara threw out her hands and stalked across the chamber. She looked out over the dawn streaked gardens and forests of her domain.

“You are not pledged in loyalty to me or this keep. I cannot demand you to give me the respect or the obedience I might expect of Aloe. I gave you advice once not to seek the Unseelie court. You ignored it. Yes, Victoria, you are the root source of this problem. But you are not the instigator of this particular ensnarement. I do not hold you responsible. You were given little choice in coming to our land, and you have made the best of a bad situation, I think. You have survived. You have the gift of a great power. It is that which Azeral seeks. Going back would achieve little more than your domination by him. It would not alleviate his anger or his greed for power.”