"Keelyn, look out!"
It was more the sharpness of combat reflexes honed over years of hard practice and practical application than it was the shout that had the petite woman turning gracefully to meet the sword thrust of her opponent. She felt rather than saw his grimace as her blade struck his and sparks flew. Recognizing his weakness, Keelyn turned once more and thrust the blade home. There should have been the harsh scrape of steel on bone, the wet sounds of flesh parted by magic, the metallic tang of blood on the air. Instead, Keelyn felt a searing pain rush through her body as she crumpled to the ground.
"Well done, Keelyn, well done! I haven't seen you wield a sword with such purpose in months. And you, young lady, would do well to remember that Keelyn doesn't need your help to see a blow coming." The voice was brisk and good-natured and had the pain slowly easing from Keelyn's limbs. She blinked and groaned softly, stirring against the cold stone ground, trying to get her bearings.
"Oh bother, Edana. I saw you step toward her to help, too." This voice held laughter as hands reached down to bring Keelyn gently to her feet. She frowned and tried to concentrate as the two women continued to bicker good-naturedly over her head. Blinking once more, she brought the room slowly into focus. The dizziness and disorientation immediately faded.
"I had forgotten how much I hate fighting with magic. Damn rebound."
At the sound of her voice, thready and weak, both women paused in their bickering to focus on her face. They both looked so concerned, Edana, with her midnight black hair and too knowledgeable hazel eyes, Deena with her pale, slender hands and wary blue gaze. Watching them watching her, Keelyn wondered, briefly, if they saw what she did every morning in the mirror: the expressionless eyes, the paleness in her cheeks, the blank slate of her face that seemed to be waiting for someone to write upon it. Sighing, trying to smile, she gently shook off their restraining hands and took a few steps.
"Yes, well, it doesn't help that you conjured the illusion, either. You should know better." Edana sounded even more brisk than before, and Keelyn knew she was trying to hide her own worry. With each illusion conjured to keep her sword and knife skills honed, Keelyn ran the risk of injuring herself permanently.
Keelyn chuckled dryly and shrugged. "You know as well as I do that no one else has been willing to fight me or conjure the illusion for me in years. I cause too much pain, take a little too much magic, when I win."
"Too bad Jason isn't here, then; he wouldn't be afraid to take you on." There was a hint of pride and something else in Deena's voice when she mentioned the Swordmaster's name that had both Keelyn and Edana eying her narrowly. She blushed, her fair skin pinkening very becomingly as she suddenly found her fingers very interesting. "Well, he would take you on."
Keelyn felt her heart lurch, just a bit, and sighed. So that was the way of it, then. It seemed to be happening more and more frequently, her friends falling in love. She didn't begrudge them their feelings, not really, but each time it happened, another little piece of her heart broke. Tugging hard on the end of her braid as if to clear her mind, Keelyn grinned and nudged Deena. "So it's like that, is it? Explains why you were 'cleaning' in the Room of Swords last night. Sending him a message, were you?"
"Oh, sod off, Keelyn. Can't you see little Dee is embarrassed?" Edana laughed when both Keelyn and Deena glared at her, then broke into giggles themselves.
Even as Keelyn laughed, she knew they were being watched.
"So, my Queen, does that set your heart at ease?" Blythe, Mistress of Blood and Fire, Queen of the Unseelie Court, turned from her scrying mirror and the three giggling women to smile slightly at the handsome man sprawled elegantly among the silk sheets of their bed. Zane, Master of Wind and Sea, King of the Seelie Court, somehow managed to look every inch the ruler despite his languid pose. That they ruled separate courts meant little to the heart; they had been lovers for decades.
"It does a bit. You know as well as I do, though, that she will not be smiling when we tell everyone our news." She paused, and Zane watched as she conjured fire at her fingertips. It was an old habit, her 'playing with fire', one that often made them laugh. Today, it made Zane sigh softly and slide across the bed to take her hands gently into his, snuffing the little flames.
"It is the right thing we are doing, Blythe. We can not lock her away and pretend that her powers belong only to Faery." His voice dipped, and sadness swept across his sea-green eyes. "She doesn't even really belong to Faery."
Blythe squeezed his hands, the coolness of his skin soothing her as nothing else could. "I know. And you're right. Just because I'm asking this of her doesn't mean I love her any less. But..." Blythe paused and sighed deeply, her dark brown eyes troubled as they searched his. "Zane, you've seen how she is. She's hurting and she won't talk to me."
"She won't talk to me, either. She hasn't talked to anyone, as far as I can tell, since she returned from America."
Blythe grimaced. "I wish I knew what had happened. She was so excited and hopeful."
Zane nodded and leaned in to brush a gentle kiss across Blythe's cheek. "Yes, and apparently not in vain. You wouldn't be sending her to Dumbledore if her mission in the United States had failed."
Blythe only looked more troubled as she pressed her soft, gently lined cheek to his rougher one. Her arms slid around his shoulder, and he suppressed a shiver as he felt her using her magic to draw little patterns on his back. "Yes, and that makes the whole situation so much more unbearable. She succeeded so brilliantly. Why is she sad?"
"I think because she succeeded so brilliantly."
Neither King nor Queen had heard the door of the chamber open, nor had they seen the tall, slender man smile softly when he saw them holding each other. While he had not been in favor of all of the changes slowly coming to fruition around Faery, this one made his heart lighter. Blythe and Zane had been forced to keep their liaison in the shadows for much too long.
"Wendall! Don't you know to knock?"
Smirking, the Master of Birds as well as the King's First Advisor, shrugged one shoulder before propping himself languidly against the doorframe. "I do, yes, but there's always the chance that if I don't knock, I'll catch the two of you en flagrante delicto."
Blythe rolled her eyes as Zane chuckled. "You have your own harem, Wendall. Stay away from my woman."
"But she's the most beautiful woman of the Unseelie Court."
It was Blythe's turn to laugh merrily. "I notice you make the distinction between my beauty and that of the women of your own court."
"Well, I wouldn't want to anger my harem, dear Blythe." They all three laughed this time as Wendall poured himself almost bonelessly into a chair near the door. It was Zane who sobered first.
"Explain what you mean about Keelyn, Wendall."
Wendall was silent for a long time. He had learned through many years of service to his King that it was in his best interest to consider his words carefully before he spoke. That was perhaps doubly so in this case; Keelyn was a sensitive subject for the King and Queen. The two had been forced to send away their own two children as there had been no magic in their offspring. Keelyn, who had come to them at fifteen, scared, unsure and slightly desperate, had soothed the ache in both would-be parents' hearts.
"Faery is built on tradition. Since before time remembers we have been ruled by Kings and Queens. Even before the rift in Seelie and Unseelie there was a royal couple. However, we are not a hereditary monarchy. It has always been our way that politics and power go hand-in-hand. Keelyn has the power to rule. She does not, however, have the heart."
It was Blythe who would have objected, though Zane looked puzzled. Wendall held up a restraining hand, searching for the words to explain the lack of ambition to rule to two who had fought epic battles to hold their thrones. "Keelyn has finally, after all of these years, come to terms with who she is, though it is an uneasy truce. It has not been a easy road for her. She has always been afraid that the only way for her to complete the task destiny has set as her own is to become Queen of a united Faery. However, in the secret places of her heart, she craves a different life. By succeeding in this new task she has set for herself, by proving that she has powers beyond Faery's ken, she has merely, in her mind at least, cemented the fate she does not crave. To Keelyn, to be Queen has become another necessary burden in a load already made heavy."
When neither Queen nor King had a response, Wendall said gently, "You are doing the best thing you could for her by sending her to Dumbledore. He sees her as a way to help his own prophesied hero, this young Harry Potter, fight a battle he is slowly losing. She will see in Harry and in the fight against Voldemort the possibility that her power is not a burden but a gift." Wendall paused, once again testing the waters before he added, "Though I wonder if sending her to Hogwarts will be good for her heart."
"I would that you not speak of me when I am not present. It makes me feel fifteen once more, when I have earned the right to my thirty-three years."
Keelyn knew her voice was sharp with anger and pain but it was the guilt that chased across three faces that had her heart hitching. She had known Blythe was watching her train with knife and sword but she had thought the time long past when she would find King, Queen and advisors discussing her as if she were too delicate and simple-minded to care for herself. So she was to be sent away once more, to brood and worry that she shirked her duty to Faery because she had no heart left for the task. That she felt excitement and yearning to be away only added fuel to the flame of her temper.
Zane watched his adopted daughter stalk into the room and tried to suppress a smile. Keelyn was a beautiful woman and while she cared little for compliments, she took some measure of pride in her appearance. Petite in stature but not fine-boned, curvy despite her long hours of physical training with blade and magic, Keelyn had often been described behind her back as more a maid to bed than a woman to fear. Waist-length honey colored hair that she did not always have braided as now and a heart-shaped face comprised of high-cheekbones, a full, pouting mouth and wide, exotic eyes added to the illusion of sex that Keelyn exuded. She looked like a woman you could drown yourself in, for an hour, a day, forever. Until she turned those chameleon eyes on you. Keelyn's eyes were normally a slate gray, unfathomable and serene. However, Keelyn's eyes were truly a window to her soul, and they could swirl from deepest indigo to softest green to pale as death with her power. Because he loved her, because he saw the pain moving through those eyes more often than he would have liked, Zane's tone was sharper than he intended.
"We only do what we think is best for you, Keelyn, no matter your years. You will go to Hogwarts, take Jason and Helias with you, and do what Dumbledore asks you."
Keelyn felt one dark blonde brow wing high and tried to take a firm grasp on her temper. "You will not order me about as if I were five, Zane. And I will do what Dumbledore asks only if it is within reason." She paused, frowned, considered, firmly setting aside memories of one who served both Darkness and Dumbledore at Hogwarts. She would not think of him, not now, not ever. "Why am I to take Jason and Helias? Jason is the Master of Blades, Helias the Master of Beyond. I have an inkling of what Hogwart's Headmaster wishes me to do. What does he want of them?"
"Dumbledore thinks it will be a good idea if he adds work with blades to the Hogwarts curriculum. I have finally persuaded him that magic is not always enough. As for Helias, he is the most powerful Faery of the Unseelie Court save myself, so who better to be a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"
Keelyn turned to Blythe, still frowning, still willing herself not to remember haunted black eyes and a Dark Mark that burned under her touch. "Yes, indeed, who better? Especially since the Darkness is creeping into our own halls, my Queen."
Blythe reached out, took Keelyn's callused, slender hands into her own small ones and said softly, "Yes, Voldemort creeps closer, and some have already gone to follow him. You may save Faery as per our prophecy, but what good will that do if this self-proclaimed Dark Lord destroys the children of Merlin? You are Sidhe, Keelyn, not Faery. Your power does not belong to only us."
"Then I must go."
When Zane, Wendall and Blythe only regarded her with equal parts resignation and agreement, Keelyn once more felt the unwelcome burden of what she was upon her shoulders. She wondered if Harry Potter felt the heaviness of fate as keenly as she did, and railed against it as she wished to do.