Author's Note: hey, guys. I know it's been a while but with the new year comes new resolve to stick to my deadlines. The last few months have been rough - what else is new? Which is why this chapter was so hard to write. That, and I was off my antidepressants from around October until the week of Christmas. Depression can manifest in different ways; for me, it combines with other issues to create sheer exhaustion both mental and physical. Plus I got the flu. Yay. Anyway, good news, though! I now have access to my antidepressants and I've already written about 2/3 of the next chapter. So the next chapter should arrive on February 7th as scheduled. Cross your fingers.
Onward!
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Last Time on Once Upon a Time: Nuada was forced to flog Tsu's'di, who barely managed to make it through the punishment. Dylan's sister Pauline was thrown in the stocks because (having sworn a vow of fealty to Nuada and becoming his vassal) she played the legal maneuver of taking on the punishment of the bean sidhe child that Balor had initially intended to execute. Dylan's sister Petra (Pauline's twin), rattled by the last couple weeks, had a tender moment with the gentle Prince Dastan, who asked permission to court her. Just as they were about to kiss, they were interrupted by the arrival of Petra's young son Russell and the half-Elven child Tiana, who'd managed by chance to get there after finding Dylan's lost magical travel ring...
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Once Upon a Time
Chapter One-Hundred-Thirty-Two
Dragging Me Down
(Strike a Match and I'll Burn You to the Ground)
that is
A Short Tale of a Wounded Warrior, a Monster's Offer, a Mother's Problem, a Prince's Thoughts, a Token Returned, a Sister's Betrayal, Golden Stars, Sight-Blessing, the Mark of the Black Lion, the Mark of the Silverlance, Phone Calls Quickly Made, a Prince's Amusement, a Prince's Offer, a Mother's Laughter, a Prince's Obligation, Mercy on a Traitor, Battle Lines Drawn, a Prince's Warning
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Dylan knelt beside where Tsu's'di lay on his belly on a narrow bed, his flayed back bare to the cool air as it oozed golden blood into his fur. Someone, she saw with no little relief, had shaved the tawny fur along his back before he'd been flogged. Good. She could tend his wounds without worrying about infection from that quarter, then.
The cougar youth groaned and cracked one eye open. The smoke-gray eye was dull with pain. "A'ge'lv?"
She leaned in and kissed his forehead, ignoring the spasm of pain in her bad leg. Smoothing back his long mane of hair, she whispered, "You are very brave, Tsu's'di Ka'ta."
A wan grin curved his mouth. "Neat." He tried to shift and grimaced. "Can I have some poppy juice? Or cherry bark syrup?"
The mortal wasn't sure if it was allowed; this had been a royally sanctioned punishment for a "crime," though that was a load of horse dung. But seeing the pleading in the teenager's face, Dylan thought, Screw it. What could Balor do? Flog him again? For taking a painkiller? Nuada would gut him and they'd never have to bother with him again. The only reason Balor was still alive now was because Tsu's'di had more courage and more wisdom than anyone had expected of someone that young. The king might not be grateful for that, but Dylan was, and she knew Nuada absolutely was.
Before she could even open her mouth to ask someone to bring her poppy juice, Becan appeared at her side. The tiny brownie offered her a cup larger than his entire torso, floating it with a little magic. Milk steamed inside it, but swirls of garnet told her he'd added the juice already. There was even a reed straw so Tsu's'di wouldn't have to lift his head in order to drink.
"Becan, I adore you. Here, Tsu's'di," she murmured, holding the cup up to him and setting the straw against his lips. "This will help."
He sipped slowly from the milk and poppy juice, and as the minutes ticked by, Dylan saw a lot of the tension drain from his body as the flower's essence began to work on him. As a healer, Dylan preferred cherry or willow bark; they were easier on people, typically having fewer side effects, and were very unlikely to become addictive. But for something like severe burns or a flogging, both of which Tsu's'di had suffered (though the burns were a few weeks old now and almost healed), she used the stronger poppy juice.
"Is…is the prince…okay?" Tsu's'di slurred. "He came in with me but…but he just…just left after I…laid down. Didn't say anything."
Dylan hesitated. She hadn't seen Nuada when she came in after settling A'du and 'Sa'ti in the tavern stables with the unicorns again. Was he with the king? She didn't hear any yelling or shattering dishes. And after what Balor had done, threatened to do, she didn't see her prince escaping a conversation with the king without both of those things happening.
"I don't know," she said at last. "Try not to worry about it, okay? You need to just focus on resting and healing." Dylan bit her lip, then touched her brow to the brow of the boy she'd taken in as her guard. He was more than a guard. They'd both known it, and so had Nuada, from the beginning. "Milady mother," he called her, and during the flogging, "Mom." She still couldn't fully process the wonder of that, or the responsibility of it, or the grief at seeing him like this. Trying to fight tears, she whispered, "Tsu's'di, I'm so sorry."
"S'not…your fault," he mumbled. His eyelids began to droop. "S'king's…fault…I need…sleep now."
She kissed his forehead again. "Then sleep, sweetheart. Try to get some rest."
When she leaned back, he was already asleep and snoring. Dylan let the tension drain from her body almost completely. He was just a kid. He was just a kid. How did Balor live with himself?
"Dylan, my darkling," a soft, ever so slightly nasally voice with a clipped, British accent caught her attention. She glanced at the door to the hall as it creaked open slightly and a thick, scaly body striped in black and white scuttled in on toothpick-thin legs, shutting the door after. Dylan offered Oblina, one of her childhood monsters, a wan smile.
Monsters—the sort that hid in basements or closets or under beds, who scared the pants off young children but would never truly hurt them, monsters like Oblina, Ickis, and Maurice—didn't venture past human suburbs usually, but all three of them had had their reasons for being at the institution where Dylan had grown up. Maurice had followed his own human child, a boy named Brian who'd begun cutting and burning himself to deal with his father's abuse. The blue-skinned, horned monster had been fascinated by nine-year-old Dylan's ability to discern the pile of laundry on the floor by Brian's bed was actually a supernatural being. Ickis and Oblina, along with their old partner Krumb, had been dared to sneak into the institution while still in school. They'd met Dylan and her friends, Allison, Ruby, and Gunther. The Blackwood brothers' victims. Children they couldn't scare because they were more frightened of the doctors, the orderlies, and Patrick and Xander. And the three monsters kept returning.
Oblina had found Dylan years later after she'd escaped the psychiatric ward at eighteen and then ended up in a much safer, much healthier rehabilitation facility at twenty-one. Oblina had been there for another child, a young girl with anorexia, but when the girl was asleep, Oblina would visit with Dylan.
Monsters didn't try to scare adult humans (usually). Adult humans couldn't even see monsters (usually). But Dylan had the Sight and the three monsters—and Krumb, when he'd been active in the scare-field—had always been good to her.
"Hey, Oblina." Dylan held out her arms to the snake-like monstress, who quickly scuttled onto Dylan's shoulders and settled there like a striped boa. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, fine, darling. Just fine. Good morning, little snackling," she added with a wave to Becan. The brownie scowled and gave her a curt nod. "I came to offer my services," the monster added to Dylan.
She frowned. "Services?"
"Yes, of course. Your lovely young man here is wounded and vulnerable, and that giant stone bitch might try to sneak in anytime and do away with the poor boy," Oblina said. Dylan realized she meant Captain Sáruit. "Your guards answer to her and the little morsel is…little. And you're no match for her, my girl. So I'll stay here. If she tries to hurt this boy—if anyone tries to harm him—I'll kill them for you." Oblina said all of this with a flutter of her dark lashes and a wide, scarlet-lipped grin, while Becan gave her the stink-eye.
Oblina had always been sweet and kind, almost maternal to Dylan, but she did like to eviscerate people who annoyed her. And monsters weren't fond of faeries, for the most part.
Dylan was tired. She was heartsick. Her leg ached. Which was why she only sighed and mumbled, "Exercise caution and be discreet with the chunky bits, please."
Oblina pouted. "If I must. You should take a nice long nap, sweet girl. You look exhausted."
"I am," she said, scrubbing at one eye. "I could sleep for a mon—"
The door lurched open. The coils of Oblina's thick body tensed against Dylan's neck, then relaxed. It was only Dylan's sister.
"Dylan!" Mary poked her head into the room, but flinched just a fraction when she saw the sleeping ewah boy. "Oof, sorry. That poor kid. Geez." Then Mary blinked, as if she'd just remembered why she'd come in. "Gah! Dylan, we need you!"
The mortal healer immediately surged to her feet, wincing when she put weight on her bad leg. It didn't hurt as much as she'd expected after the day she'd had, but the ache buckled her knee for a moment before she managed to steady herself, leaning on a bedpost. It wasn't as bad as expected, but it still felt like waves of fire flowing over her body like hot magma. With a muttered order to Onóra and Ailís to stay with Tsu's'di—once Oblina had brought up the possibility, she realized she didn't trust Captain Sáruit not to come in her and torment the kid—and letting Oblina slither onto one of the posts of Tsu's'di's bed, she started to follow Mary into the hallway, but stopped when Uaithne touched her shoulder.
Right. She was so tired, she'd forgotten that she was supposed to let them go first. It was unlikely anyone could harm her here, but…
Uaithne, Ailbho, Gráinne, Fionnlagh, and Loén peeled away from where they'd stood at attention against the walls and moved into formation in front of and around Dylan and her sister. With the king and Sáruit in the tavern, the Butch Guards assigned to the prince's betrothed—but not, Dylan had noticed, the ones assigned to protect the prince himself—had become stricter and sharper than she'd ever seen them, even back in Findias. Dylan had to wonder if it was merely the king's presence…or if it was what he'd done to Tsu's'di, who was technically the leader of her guard.
She shot one last look at her boy as she headed into the corridor - her poor boy, drugged and bandaged and sleeping - and tried to ignore the throb of guilt about leaving him.
"Okay," she said as she shut the door gently, "what is it?" Mary grabbed her wrist and yanked her down the hall. "Ulp! What? Is somebody hurt? Is it Pauline?" Pauline had only been out in the snow in the stocks for less than an hour, but some anti-human villager could easily have harmed her…but with Balor here, with his guards, with the small contingent of army soldiers he'd brought? Would anyone risk it?
But Mary shook her head. "Pauline's fine, I think. There's…a problem."
"Wow," Dylan said flatly. "A problem? For serious? I never would've guessed."
Her older sister jabbed her in the ribs with an elbow. "Sarcasm isn't very Mormon of you. There are two humans in the tavern," she hissed, glancing around to make sure nobody was there to hear her.
Dylan sobered. "Bandits?" She asked, sotto voce.
Mary shook her head. "Kids."
Unease whispered along Dylan's spine at the thought of human children, wholly human children—where had they come from?—somehow finding their way into Lallybroch, into the tavern itself, in such a way that it would freak Mary out like this. She asked, "Are they hurt?"
"Nooo…" Mary said slowly, then hesitated. "No," she said again. "That's not the problem."
"For pity's sake, don't be cryptic. Not today. What is the problem?"
At this point, the sisters had managed to make it up two flights of stairs and come to a door Dylan didn't recognize. Mary rapped on the smooth, golden-hued maple wood to the beat of shave-and-a-haircut. Dylan heard the locks disengage, simple bolts undone by an old-fashioned wooden rod-key. Only a few of the tavern rooms had any sort of lock one them. Hers was one, and so was the room on this floor where they'd kept Iúile locked away. But who else would warrant a room with a lockable door? Any and all of them were occupied, she'd thought.
"Whose room is this?" Dylan asked.
The door opened just wide enough to show Petra's pale face and the half-frantic gleam in her eyes.
"It's Dastan's," she hissed. She reached out and grabbed Dylan's arm, adding, "Get in here! Now!" and yanking her inside, slamming the door after Mary and the guards came in and throwing the locks. Dylan opened her mouth to say something, to ask what the heck could possibly be going on. Before she could get any words out, a wide-eyed Petra pointed vehemently toward the room's sole bed, a large wooden thing draped in the same quality of bedclothes Dylan herself had in her own room. Two figures occupied the bed.
Neither of them were Prince Dastan.
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Prince Dastan, son of Sultana Tamina, heir to the Sultanate of the Dreaming Desert, the Black Lion of Shahbaz, studied the small boy hugging Lady Petra with thin arms. Not clinging, not as if he were frightened or uneasy, but merely hugging her out of affection. The boy was young, perhaps just old enough to begin learning to use a sling if he were common-born, maybe old enough to help an older sibling or parent tend a small herd of goats or sheep. He had wavy dark hair that looked as if it wanted desperately to curl like his mother's but couldn't quite manage it, and solemn, gentle, slightly uncertain eyes the bluish color of good Onibi steel. Freckles scattered across his round, little face. He wore mortal clothing, of course, and carried a pack on his back in the shape of a multicolored tropical bird.
He gazed up at Petra, looking both happy and a bit suspicious. Suspicious because of course the boy had interrupted the Elven prince trying to kiss his mother, and happy because the child had stumbled into a strange place but at least his mother was there. Dastan understood the feeling from his own childhood; in new situations, ones that could sometimes be confusing, parents made things better.
Usually, he thought with a sudden surge of old anger. Unless you are the Silverlance and your father is old King Balor the Coward.
With an effort, he pushed the thought away. Now wasn't the time, and he didn't want to scare the boy by scowling at him. This was Petra's son. Dastan needed to make a good impression. He didn't want to scare the little girl that had accompanied him, either. So he smoothed his features into a soft, courtly smile.
The boy looked much like Petra. The girl did not, and Petra had made it clear she'd never seen the child before. None of Dylan's sisters knew her. But the girl was half Elven. Half Bethmooran, to be specific, and half human. Her Sight-blue eyes and golden blonde curls and round, chubby face gave away her mortal blood. The paleness of her cheeks, the small points of her ears, and the golden flecks spiraling through her eyes told him her other half came from the Tuatha de. They were the only pale-skinned humanoid fae with golden eyes and pointed ears and that number of teeth (he'd seen the little girl's beaming smile).
Those golden flecks pin-wheeled slowly through her irises, like aurulent stars journeying through twin skies. The flecks showed her blood but the movement showed even more. The child had some unique magic. Unique, but not powerful. There was too much that was human in her to tolerate strong magic.
Who was she? Dastan had heard the rumors, of course, about Nuada Silverlance and his mortal lover. Could this little girl possibly be…
Petra yanked open the door to Dastan's bedroom when the special knock sounded, breaking his concentration, and the mortal pulled her two sisters into the room from the hallway. The guards, being expert at their work, managed to squeeze through the barely-opened doorway in mere moments, allowing Petra to slam the door again.
Lady Dylan opened her mouth to say something to her eldest sister when Petra pointed at the bed, fear obvious on her face. Dylan's gaze, the same Sight-blue as the little girl's but without the golden stars, landed on the children. Her eyes widened.
"Russ—Tiana?"
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Dylan stared at the two children huddled together on the edge of the bed and somehow managed to croak, "How?"
"I don't know," Petra snapped. "I don't know and I really don't care. Just fix it. Do some Elven magic or Sight magic or whatever. Bibbity-bobbity-boo this crap, abracadabra or whatever, make sure he goes back where he's supposed to be before that royal dick weasel finds out my son is here!"
This entire tirade had been delivered in a voice taut with panic so quickly that Dylan was almost positive the eldest Myers sister had yet to take an actual breath. She peered at Petra. Saw the barely restrained terror in her steel-gray eyes.
"I…" Dylan squeaked. What exactly did Petra expect her to do? She wasn't fae, she couldn't actually do any active magic. The Sight was an entirely passive gift unless glamour was involved, and that just involved a lot of headaches and minimal effort on her part but she couldn't use it to teleport people. What was she supposed to do? Most fae couldn't actually just teleport people.
"You said 'dick weasel,'" Russell said softly. Petra winced. "Are you talking about Daddy?"
Dylan raised her eyebrows as her sister growled, "No." To Dylan, she said, "Can the prince get him out of here? Dastan," gesturing to the crown prince of Shahbaz, who'd taken an unusual interest in Petra and was currently standing guard by the room's sole window, "says he can't do anything without involving other royal people I haven't met yet and I'm not comfortable with that. So can Prince Nuada do something?"
Maybe. Probably. All he had to do was use the travel-ring to take the children to the sanctuary and then walk them back where they were supposed to be…but he couldn't afford to be gone for the amount of time it might take. What if the bandits attacked again? What if King Balor demanded the prince attend him and then Nuada wasn't there? After this morning, with Tsu's'di and Pauline, with everything, Dylan didn't know what the old king might do if that happened. She didn't want to risk it.
But aloud all Dylan could manage to say was, "How did the two of you get here?" Because Petra might be mostly concerned with Russell, but Dylan had to worry about her nephew and the little girl sitting next to him.
Petra Myers was a mother, among many other things. When Russell had first burst in on her awareness, shattering the moment of hesitant tenderness between herself and Prince Dastan – a prince had really been seconds away from kissing her – her brain had instantly shifted to Mama Bear Mode because this was essentially a refugee camp in the middle of a warzone being overseen by a mayo-white douche-prune with antlers and an attitude problem – the same mayonnaise-prune that had tried to murder a little girl for defending herself against a grown man, then whipped a teenage boy bloody and unconscious and tried to call it justice – and now her son was here.
So, ostensibly, she could be excused for mostly ignoring the little blond girl with the delicately pointed ears and the puffy wool coat that had arrived with Russell. Dylan, on the other hand, couldn't ignore either child. That they were there in Lallybroch made no sense. That they'd apparently arrived together boggled her exhausted mind.
She caught an odd look on Dastan's face, but he quickly banished it. Well, whatever. She didn't have the energy to wonder about it now.
"Tiana," Dylan said with a small sigh. The half-Elven child blinked up at her with those big blue eyes like an ocean flecked with golden stars. Dylan forced herself to ignore the odd pang the sight of those eyes gave her. "Tiana, sweetie, how did you get here? This is the Faerie Realm. You're supposed to be with Anya. What happened?"
The little girl held up one small hand dusted with a few freckles. A golden band gleamed on her small thumb, clearly much too big for the digit. Dylan's heart knifed sideways in her chest at the sight of it. The gold band had been etched with wild Irish rose designs and set with tiny glittering rubies. Recognition twisted in the mortal woman's stomach.
"W-where did you…did you get that?"
"An owl gave it to us," Tiana replied without any hint that she understood what a bizarre statement that was. "Russell said I could have it because finders, keepers. Then we accidentally teleported."
Russell offered his aunt a hesitant smile. "Hi, Aunt Dylan. Do you know whose it is? We'll give it back if they want it."
"It's mine," Dylan murmured. Petra and Mary shot her baffled looks. Dastan remained impassive, that same bland smile on his face. If he thought she was lying—being a greedy human—he didn't show it. Dylan continued, "My fiancé gave it to me. It's called a travel ring. It lets me travel between wherever I am and wherever he is. I lost it when…" She trailed off, but the other adults didn't need her to finish. She'd lost it when the bandits had taken her. She'd lost all four of her most precious treasures: the engagement ring, the travel ring, her Young Women's medallion, and her courtship dirk. Prince Nuada had found the dirk and medallion the very night she'd been kidnapped and returned them to her days ago. That sadist Sréng mac Umhor had the engagement ring. Dylan had thought the travel ring was gone forever.
"Can they use it to go back to the human world?"Petra demanded. "Russell can't be here, Dylan. It isn't safe."
"But Mommy—"
"End of discussion," she said firmly. "You're going to go back and stay with Aunt Simone—"
"No! I don't want to stay with her!"
"Russell—"
"She hates me!" The little boy cried. Dylan's brow furrowed. He shouldn't have been this upset about not being with Petra. Russell didn't have, so far as she'd ever seen, any kind of separation anxiety that would cause this kind of unhappiness. And he wasn't given to unusual exaggerations, either.
"No, she doesn't," Petra assured. "Baby, Aunt Simone loves you very much."
Dylan touched her sister's arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear, "Petra, does David or Arianna have any issues staying with Simone?"
"Not that I know of," Petra whispered back. "And Russ has never protested like this before. I don't know what's gotten into him."
"Has he ever stayed with Simone this long? Or anyone?"
"He's stayed with Gardenia and Francesca for this long before, but not Simone, no. Why?"
Dylan straightened up and studied her nephew. A cool whisper of unease in her chest and the tickle of professional instincts had her nibbling thoughtfully on her thumbnail before she asked, "Russell, why do you think Aunt Simone doesn't like you?"
Russell glanced at Tiana, who put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a small squeeze.
Interesting, Dylan thought. But it also worried her, for more than one reason.
"She called me a loser," Russell whispered, staring at his knees. "And she said nobody would like me because I had Rosedust," Dylan remembered Rosedust was the stuffed flutterpony John had given to Russell when he was very little, when he showed interest in My Little Ponies; she was Russell's favorite stuffed animal, "and playing with Rosedust and reading all the time meant I was a sissy and nobody would play with me!"
Mary made a strangled squawking noise. Dylan said nothing, only looked at Petra. Petra stared at her son for a few long moments while her eyes slowly grew wider and wider and wider and her eyebrows crept toward her hairline.
"She said what?" The exasperation had all but vanished from her voice. Now a cool, sharp demand took its place. "When?"
"This morning," Russell said in a very soft voice. "And a bunch before. Yesterday and stuff."
In Petra's ear, Dylan whispered, "To be honest, Pet, that sounds a lot like something Simone would say about someone else's child, and there's no reason to think she wouldn't say it to Russell, if she thought it might toughen him up. And Russell doesn't lie."
That, Petra thought, was nothing but the absolute truth. Her boy didn't lie. Sometimes she wondered if he even knew how. He could be secretive or even sneaky, and he'd done things he wasn't supposed to do, of course. He was a kid. But he'd never lied to her that she knew of.
Which meant when this trip was over, she was kicking Simone's butt. Thoroughly.
In the meantime…
"Okay," Petra said, smoothing back Russell's hair. "Okay, baby, not Aunt Simone. She should never have said that to you and I'm going to make sure she never says it again, okay? But it's not safe for you here, Russell. Or you, either, uh…?" She trailed off, realizing she didn't know the little girl's name.
"Tiana," Dylan, Tiana, and Russell all said at the same time. Russell put an arm around the girl and said, "She's my pal."
Petra raised an eyebrow. "I see."
"As far as going back to the human world," Dylan said, "I have a friend who can watch him for a few days. I just have to call her. My friend Peri. She has a little boy Russell can play with, too, about his age."
At least Bean looked the same age as Russell and Tiana. Being a sídhe changeling child, Dylan had no idea how old the flame-haired boy really was. Each changeling born aged at a different rate. Some never aged at all, at least by human reckoning.
"Tiana can stay there too, until I call my friend Anya to pick her up. Anya's been taking care of her," Dylan added. Considering Tiana was supposed to be in protective custody to keep whatever monster had killed her parents from finding her, Anya was no doubt frantic to locate the little girl.
Petra flapped a hand at Dylan, waving away the details. "Okay, fine, whatever. How do we get them back to our world in the first place before King Douche Breath finds out Russell is here?"
Dylan blinked. That was why Petra was so worried? Not the bandits, not bad faeries in general, but Balor in particular? "Petra…the king wouldn't hurt Russell."
Her sister shot her a scathing look that clearly snarled, Ha. Good one. Tell me another.
"Russell is human," Dylan reminded her. "And he's just a kid. It's not like Balor's going to take him hostage or something. Okay," she added when Petra shot her another look. "Okay. Well, I know how to get him and Tiana out of here. Becan can take them. They'll be safe with him." Especially if she asked Maurice or Ickis to go along, but she'd need Nuada's permission for that because of of how Becan would be getting the children back to the human world.
"You're sure?" Petra demanded.
Gently, Dylan said, "Yes. I am absolutely sure." Because if she ordered Becan to keep the little ones safe, the brownie would move Heaven, mortal Earth, and the Twilight Realm to do it. Petra needed not only to hear that, but to know it the way Dylan did. Dylan didn't know why, but Petra was more afraid of Balor knowing Russell was here than about the fact that he was in the middle of a warzone just now. Becan would protect the kids, even from Balor. With an order from his mistress—not a request, but an actual order, which Dylan had only ever given him once before—a brownie could go toe-to-toe with a fae monarch of Balor's caliber.
Dylan didn't think Balor would hurt Russell. The treaty would protect the little boy, if nothing else. But she also knew nothing she said would make Petra believe that.
"Okay," Petra muttered, hugging herself. She didn't look at Dylan or at Russell or even at Dastan, who stood protectively near the little boy. Russell kept glancing between his mother, his aunts, and the man with the calm black eyes, obviously curious. "Okay," Petra said again. "Baby, you need to go. Okay?"
Russell stared up at her. "Mommy…what's the matter? Why are you scared?"
Petra bit her lip and slipped an arm around his skinny shoulders. "This isn't a safe place, sweetie. Mommy needs you to be somewhere safe. Okay? I just…I just need you to be somewhere safe."
"But you're here. You're not safe?"
She hesitated. "Mommy has training, remember? I learned how to fight in the Army. I'll be okay. But you need to go home to New York." She ran a gentle hand through the boy's dark, wavy hair. She loved touching his hair. He'd been born with wisps of midnight curl and he'd been the sweetest little thing she'd ever seen—except Ariana and David, of course. And then, later, Rowan. Thoughts of Rowan made her add, "You don't have to stay with Aunt Simone; Aunt Dylan's friend is nice and there will be another little boy for you to play with. But you have to go."
Russell slipped his arms around Petra's waist, dropped his head to her hip, and sighed mightily. Dylan studied her nephew as the little boy turned his face into his mother's side. Why didn't he want to leave? Were things at Simone's apartment really that bad, that he detested the thought of leaving his mother again? He'd been there with his sister, twin brother, and four cousins for about two weeks. But Russell was different from the other children in the family. Dylan rarely managed to spend more than an hour or two with any of her sisters' children, but she knew that much.
He didn't want to leave Petra…or was it that he didn't want to go back to the mortal realm, and couldn't articulate why? He was only six years old. He might not have the vocabulary to explain at this age why he wanted to stay in the Twilight Realm, especially if…
She's my pal, Russell had said of Tiana. Petra had lamented before that Russell had difficulty making friends. That children often teased him. That he was "sensitive." But he'd bonded with Tiana so quickly…and he didn't want to return to the human world, even though he didn't have to put up with Simone's abuse…
Dylan tapped Petra's shoulder and leaned in again.
"Before I send them back with Becan, let me call Nuada."
Petra frowned. "Why?"
"I…" She paused, considering the human child clinging to her sister and the half-Elven child with the delicately pointed ears and eyes spangled with aurulent stars. "I have a hunch, and if I'm right, it's better to know now. Just…Loen," to the youngest of her guards, the one she had rescued from Balor's dungeon. "Please go tell Prince Nuada that I need him now. Preface that by telling him no one is hurt and there's no danger, but we have limited time, please."
The young Butcher Guard offered her the standard fist-to-chest salute and left the room. Dylan sat on the bed between the two kids. Tiana immediately cuddled against Dylan. The mortal, almost as if out of habit, draped an arm around the little girl. Petra raised an eyebrow and her little sister mouthed "later" before focusing on Russell.
"Russell, sweetie, I want to ask you some questions. You're not in any trouble, okay? I just need to double check some things. Tiana's eyes—what do they look like?"
From the corner of her eye, she saw Dastan give her a sharp look.
Before the little boy could answer, Mary interjected, "They're blue."
"Just blue?" Dylan asked.
"Uh…yeah?" Mary said. But she sounded unsure now.
Dylan turned her attention back to Russell. "What do you think, dude?"
Russell glanced at Tiana, who'd draped herself like a needy baby sloth over Dylan's shoulders and was now watching the proceedings with the quiet interest of a child who kind of needed a nap. She smiled sleepily at Russell, who grinned at her.
"They're blue and gold," he said firmly. "The gold parts are spinning."
Petra snapped around to stare first at the little girl, then her son, then her sister. Understanding the silent, nervous question in Petra's eyes, Dylan nodded.
"He's probably Sight-blessed, but Nuada will be able to tell for sure." She shot an apologetic look at Prince Dastan, who watched Tiana sprawling on her with an odd expression. "I read that discernment isn't a strong magical ability in the royal family of Shahbaz, when that sort of magic shows up in them at all, or I would ask you to test him, Your Highness. That's one reason I called for Prince Nuada. I mean no offense."
Dastan smiled, and the honest warmth in it brought an answering smile to her face automatically.
"You give none, Lady Dylan. As for Master Russell possibly—probably—being Sight-blessed, that is a dangerous thing, as is being a mortal child in the Twilight Realm. Perhaps precautions ought to be taken to protect him?"
"Protect him from what?" Petra asked in a surprisingly calm voice.
Dylan hesitated. "Um…"
"Bad faeries might try to rip out his eyeballs," Tiana said matter-of-factly.
"What?"
Russell hugged her. "Mommy, it's okay! Monsters can't get me if you're here. You'll kick their butts. Or shoot them."
Petra turned stricken eyes on her youngest sister. The expression was as easy to read as her last. Not another of my babies, it said. Please, I can't.
"That's another reason I'm bringing Nuada," Dylan assured her. "He can mark Russell as protected. Nuada has enemies, yes, but he's also a legend in the Twilight Realm and no fae could hurt Russell and get away with it. Even to just try to scare him on purpose would be an act of aggression against the Bethmooran Crown—"
"And the Crown of Shahbaz and her Sultanate," Dastan said, coming to kneel in front of Petra and Russell. He barely glanced at Dylan now, which the mortal found very interesting, but she filed that information away for later. The Elven prince gazed up into Petra's worried face and added, "With the mark of Nuada Silverlance and the mark of Dastan the Black Lion, your son will be the safest anyone save perhaps the gods themselves could make him, my lady. And the marks will not hurt him in any way. I would never hurt a child of yours, Lady Petra, or any child."
Dylan fought to keep her expression neutral. Dastan was…remarkably friendly and human-like for a fae, especially one of his age, rank, and power. But this went beyond friendliness. This was…it almost seemed to be…
Russell looked at the kneeling prince, obviously curious now.
"Are you helping because you were about to kiss my mom?"
Dylan's gaze slashed to Petra's mortified face. Dastan, on the other hand, looked neither to Petra nor embarrassed. Like Nuada, she thought. If someone had asked him a straight question like that, the Silverlance wouldn't have avoided the question or acted embarrassed, either. Dastan merely canted his head ever so slightly and said, "In part, yes. Your mother is my friend and I am very fond of her. She would be very sad if anything were to happen to you. You are also a child, and the geas on my mother's bloodline is to protect children when I can. So I offer you my protection, Master Russell."
The little boy looked quite pleased to be called "Master Russell." But he also wouldn't be distracted. And Dylan wouldn't forget that apparently there was a geas in the world powerful enough to bind the reigning monarch of a great fae kingdom.
"Are you her boyfriend? Or just her friend-friend?" Russell asked.
Now Dastan looked to Petra; her choice, what to tell her son. Petra said, "Boyfriend, I…I guess. Is that okay with you, hon?"
Russell thought about it for a moment. Shrugged. "Yeah. And I don't want somebody to take my eyeballs."
"Regardless of anything between your mother and I, I will not allow that to happen," Dastan said. "If I may, Lady Petra?" She nodded and Dastan looked at the solemn little boy. "And do you consent to this, Master Russell? You do not have to let me. It is your body, your fate. No one will hurt you or be angry with you for saying no."
If Dylan had any doubt that her nephew had the Sight, it faded as Russell took the time to consider everything Dastan had said before answering. Sight-blessed children were usually far more cautious in many ways than mundane children; the things they saw taught them to be so. Dylan had been cautious, too. It had saved her young life many times.
The little boy nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I'll do it."
The crown prince of Shahbaz laid the palm of his right hand against the spot between Russell's eyebrows, laying his left hand against his own heart. Russell blinked, then crossed his eyes trying to focus on Dastan's hand. The prince recited something in a language Dylan didn't know, the same one he often spoke with Petra. Farsi? Petra only spoke once, when Dastan said Russell's name and she corrected the surname. Then he spoke in English and she realized it was probably a translation.
"By the Lionesses of the Stars and the Horned Sultan Shahrayar, Rulers of the Dreaming City of Afsana, I lay upon your mortal brow the mark of Shahbaz, Master Russell Bleddyn-Myers, the emblem of the Royal House of the Desert of Crystal Fire. I gift you and your kin the protection of the sultanate until the western wind flings the sands of the desert to the stars and my kingdom is no more."
Dastan pulled his hand from the child's head and for a split second Dylan thought she saw a glowing copper symbol in the middle of Russell's forehead. Then she blinked, and it vanished, right as Nuada entered the room with Setanta.
Russell, solemn and quiet and serious as a miniature priest until now, went ramrod straight, then sucked in the kind of squeaky, gasping, delighted breath one usually heard from a cartoon character. Nuada stopped short, halted just as much by the gasp as by the sight of the two children.
Setanta cocked his head, and his dark tail gave a quick swish.
"I-Irish wolfhound," Russell breathed. Dylan and Nuada both blinked. Dastan got to his feet and went back to his position guarding the child as if he hadn't just been kneeling at the little boy's feet. Russell looked to the blonde prince and whispered almost reverently, "Your wolfhound. Can I pet them?"
The prince of Bethmoora raised an eyebrow, then looked at Dylan. Dylan, who had a sheepish look on her face and a strange, half-Elven child sprawled across her upper body, while Dastan and Petra and Mary watched to see what he would do about all of this. The guards, doing their job, said nothing and made no move.
Nuada turned his gaze to Russell's rapturous face. "How do you know he is an Irish wolfhound?"
"Well," Russell said, and to Dylan's surprise he didn't sound at all shy. More…in love, the way a child falls in love with a pet or their hero. He turned his eyes to Setanta again. "He's built like a greyhound, but he's got a rough coat. Wirey. And he's taller than a Great Dane, but he's not thick like a Great Dane. His tail has that little curve at the end, too. And he's a sighthound."
Nuada's brows rose even higher. "And how do you know that?"
"He's got a big chest—a deep chest," Russell corrected himself. "Long legs, but skinny. He's got a whippy tail and wiggly hips. His head is oval instead of normal dog-shaped. And he's tall. That means he's a sighthound. And I know what Irish wolfhounds look like. They're my favorite hunting breed. They're so smart, good for ranging and solitary hunting, and they're fast and strong. They're loyal, too. They're good dogs."
At the kid's words, Nuada's expression began to change. Almost as if he didn't quite realize it, a slow smile began spreading across his face and the shadows around his eyes began to lighten just a little. He asked, "You like dogs?"
Petra opened her mouth, but Dylan caught her eye and shook her head.
"I love them! I read all about them! Sometimes after school, my mom or Aunt Pauline or Aunt Mary takes me to the animal shelter and I get to help feed the dogs and brush them and play with them so they don't get sad."
Nuada's smile widened. "Who are you?"
The boy never took his eyes off of Setanta, whose tail had begun to wag in earnest now. "You can call me Russell," the child said.
Nuada looked to Dylan, who smiled. "He's my nephew."
Russell pointed at Petra. "That's my mommy." Nuada blinked. Russell gestured to the half-Elven child. "That's my friend. She said to call her Tiana." A final vague swish of fingers in Dastan's direction. "That's my mom's boyfriend. I don't know his name."
Petra dropped her face into her hands, laughing a little almost helplessly. "Russell…!"
"What?" He asked absently, studying the dog.
The prince's smile slipped a little bit. "Perhaps…I should sit down. And of course you may pet Setanta. He would probably enjoy that immensely."
*Oh, yes! Yes, I would!* The dog scampered forward and dropped his chin onto Russell's knee. Tiana slid off Dylan to sit next to them and start petting the hound while Russell stared at him in amazement. *Petting for me?* Setanta asked the little boy.
"You…you talk!"
*Yes,* Setanta said, and licked the boy's fingers. *I talk. Pet me now please?*
With a grin, Russell set to petting the hound with both hands and Setanta slipped into a dream of canine ecstasy.
.
When everything was explained, Nuada immediately agreed to give Russell the mark of protection he had once considered giving Dylan, moons and moons ago in her cottage before the cheerful little fire, and chosen not to. Before he'd learned how much he loved her, that he could love anyone the way he loved her after all the loss and the rage and the grief. Before he'd learned of it, Nuada had considered marking her with his protection as a Sight-blessed mortal in service to a royal. He'd decided against it, considering her (in his own jumped up pride) unworthy of it. Now she didn't need it, but her nephew did. With Petra's permission and the boy's request, he left the silvery hawthorn tree symbol on Russell's brow, wreathed by the copper mark of Dastan's favor.
There was something about the child. Nuada couldn't put his finger on it. He'd felt such…exhaustion and despair the last few days, save for rare instances of amusement or hope, even with the purging done on his soul by the unicorn in the glade. Yet now this child made him smile. A human child.
A human child who spoke of hounds with the same love and happiness Nuada himself always had.
While Dylan explained how she would have Becan take the two children back and how they'd even arrived in the first place, a thought began to form in the back of the prince's mind. A silly thought, a ridiculous idea perhaps, but…but he wanted to do it. He wanted to create something, some bright and unshadowed moment for someone.
"That is a sound plan," the prince said. He turned to Russell. "As for you, Master Russell, I have a question for you."
Russell perked up.
"Would you like to have an Irish wolfhound of your own?"
Russell's eyes widened and he whipped around to look up at his mother, who made a face Nuada understood well enough: uncertainty, wanting, wondering how to make something work out for everyone. Could they not afford a dog? If not, Nuada would see that the hound's care was paid for. The child clearly was enamored with dogs, with having one. And any child with the Sight was a careful, responsible child…or a wild, wicked, reckless one that often died early. Clearly Russell was the first one.
"Please, Mommy? Please?" He looked back at Nuada. "One of these wolfhounds, right? The ones that talk?" The prince canted his head. Those big, pleading eyes turned back to Petra. "Mommy, please? Please, please, please?"
"I don't know, sweetie—"
"But it's a talking dog!"
For some reason, this made Petra laugh aloud. Dylan smothered a giggle. Mary just rolled her eyes.
Petra said, "First I name you Russell, then you fall in love with that balloon movie, then you make me get you that bird backpack, and now you want a talking dog." She leaned down and kissed the top of her son's head. "You're my boy, you know that?"
"Yeah," Russell murmured, hugging her. "I know." A moment of silence, and then, "So can I have a dog?"
Petra laughed. It was the first real, long, unburdened laugh anyone had heard from her all day.
.
Russell had distracted Nuada from the little girl with him—or rather, he'd allowed the boy and his love of hounds to distract him. Of course, he'd been fascinated to see Dylan with her young kin. And Petra! The harpy shrew had been a completely different woman around her young son. He wondered if all mothers were like that.
But then there was the halfling girl. He hadn't wanted to look at her, after that initial shocking glance. It had struck him too hard, hurt too much. She was the adolescent version of Iúile Uí Níall's halfling baby. The gold-and-blue eyes, the golden hair that fell in loose curls, the dimple in her left cheek, the bright smile she'd blasted him with when he'd walked into the room…
She looked so much like what he imagined his and Dylan's children would be like. So much like the shadow-younglings in his dream that Dylan was so certain was a vision of the future.
He did not allow his unease to keep him from bidding both children goodbye, as Ickis and Becan came to take them back to the human world. Dylan had called the Lady Peri, of Roiben Darktithe's Unseelie court, and she would be waiting for the children at Dylan's cottage. Dylan had also called her friend Anya, the halfling girl's caretaker, and told her to find the girl at Peri's apartment. Finally, Petra had started to dial her sister Simone's number on Dylan's phone—the only one of those mortal junk pieces that actually worked in Faerie—when Mary, of all people, had plunked the phone out of her hand and insisted she do the calling and not Petra.
"Save the murder-fest until we get home. It'll stop her from having time to come up with a good excuse," Mary had said. Petra had hesitated, then agreed, and Mary had made the call. It offered the barest information: Russell had found Mary and Petra and Petra had decided to send the lad to a friend's house so he could spend some time with the friend's young son. Nuada didn't know why they were changing the arrangements (none of the Myers women would tell him) and he didn't care how Simone felt about it. Dylan thought it was best, Petra agreed, and that was all he cared about.
But those children…Russell made him smile. When he grew up, he would be another Dylan: compassionate, gentle, strong, responsible, ready to defend the fae. The girl, though. She reminded Nuada of the future in a different way. She reminded him of his own hopes, his own responsibilities toward the Crown, the throne, his kingdom. She reminded him of Iúile's baby, and the children in his vision, and Uilliam McBás and the young ones he'd rescued, Siobhan the bean sídhe child.
But mostly, his own future children.
His father was king still. He and Dylan would be wed—not on the Frost Moon in February as they'd hoped, thanks to that wretch Shaohao, but soon enough. In May, under the Blossom Moon, perhaps. And once she was immortal, once they made their daring bargain with the kings of Mag Mell, he would do everything in his power to give her the children she wanted, the ones he'd dreamed of.
But the king. Ah, the king. How dangerous was it, truly, to give Dylan a child while Balor still ruled? Already King Balor had threatened the people Nuada loved again and again, nearly murdered Siobhan, flogged Tsu's'di, shamed and punished Pauline, tried to give Iúile back to her abusive father. What would King Balor do, what might he be tempted to do, once Dylan was with child? Would he threaten to harm their children? Threaten to take them? Try to take them?
Dylan had told him Petra was afraid of Balor learning about Russell, although she had seemed unconcerned. Nuada wasn't so sure. After all of this, what was Balor truly capable of?
He supposed the true question was, what was Nuada Silverlance truly capable of when his loved ones were threatened or hurt?
He'd killed the humans that had burned Shinakin's home and murdered her and her son all those centuries ago. He'd killed the humans that had imprisoned and tortured Vassa and her brothers to death. He hadn't been able to kill the Golden Army soldiers that had killed little Gwynlia and her siblings, or the poisonous mortal fire that had led to Yukihime's death, but if he could have, he would have. With relish.
He hadn't killed the king for all the lives he'd wasted because he lacked any semblance of honor. Balor was his father and Nuada loved him almost more than anything in the world. But there had never been so much to lose before.
And so Nuada waited: for the children to go back to the human world where Balor could not possibly reach them, for a stiff and aching and shivering Pauline to be let out of the stocks and escorted to her room and the warm fire and delicious meal the tavern owners had prepared free of charge for her. He waited until the tavern quieted, people sitting down to their suppers. Only then did he knock on the king's door.
"Enter," Balor called, and Nuada obeyed.
.
Nuada studied his father with careful indifference. Tsu's'di's screams had begun to echo in his head again the moment he laid eyes on the king sitting in his velvets and soft leathers in the plush armchair. He smelled the boy's blood now, felt the hot fluid sprinkling his hand every time he drew back that accursed whip for another strike. Was this what Balor had felt the first time he'd had Nuada flogged as a young man?
Except…the king had never been the one to wield the whip. Maybe Nuada would've been flogged less often if he had.
"What do you want, Crown Prince?" Balor demanded, sounding both weary and wary where he sat in the plush armchair the tavern owners had provided their king. Nuada had no such chair in his room, no such luxuries. The old clurichaun and his Elven wife who owned the tavern had tried to insist but when the children of this village slept on hard, wooden benches with too few decent blankets to share and too few pillows, no stuffed or carved companions to hold back their nightmares? How could he, their prince, their sword and shield, accept such things as if he had any right to them?
How could Balor sit there, warm and comfortable and fed, while his own people froze and sickened and suffered and starved? While Nuada labored to aid them and hardly anyone at court listened to him except…
"What do you plan to do about Naya?"
It wasn't what he'd meant to say, and the old nickname bruised his heart and tongue like sharp stones. The question clearly caught the king off guard. Unlike his heir, Balor had lost most of his skill at schooling his features.
"She has committed treason, Nuada." Was that pity in his father's voice? Grief, perhaps? "You know the penalty for treason."
Nuada swallowed. It felt as if he'd drunk a goblet of salt water. "Naya is…" A traitor. An enemy. A liar. A sneak. "Naya is family," he finished. "Sister to your children. Your own foster daughter."
"Nuada," Balor said, "she committed treason."
It was the gentle, heartbroken way he said it that splintered the icy crust of calm around the Bethmooran prince's heart. Naya, his Naya, had allied with the monsters ravaging the northern villages, laid a trap that would have seen an innocent woman—his own beloved, Naya's future princess—brutally murdered and Nuada led to the executioner's block for avenging her…but…but…
But she had been the first, always—always—to welcome him home on those rare occasions when he'd returned from exile for a night or two or three. The first, always, to side with him in council about the need to aid their people, and had been since they were young. The first to beg him to stay whenever he found he could bear court life no longer and had to return to the freedom and obligation of his exile. The only one to write to him as a friend or kinswoman might while he was gone from court, instead of writing him after the manner of his cold, remote monarch. The one who'd stayed by his bedside when the mortal weapons had made him so sick those decades ago after Yukihime's death and he had nearly died of the poisons.
Naya, who'd never once blamed him even for a moment for the lives lost at the Battle of Scarlet and Gold.
Maybe it was the king's surprisingly gentle tone, or the heavy sorrow on Balor's worn face, but Nuada dared to say, "Father…please. Naya is guilty, Nuala said she admitted it herself, but…you cannot mean to kill her. Not Naya. Please, Father, I…I beg you…"
Perhaps he, Nuada Silverlance, was as selfish as the One-Armed King. Or else why did he argue for the life of a traitor when the poisonous fruits of her labor festered all around him? His people still suffered, ground into the mud by Sréng and his horde. Dylan still bore the bandit leader's marks, on her back and face and in her mind. But Naya, with her silvery laugh like a bell and her eyes always bright and warm with love…
He remembered her arms around him, holding him so tight as if to stop his trembling while he wept like a child all those decades ago when mortal poisons sickened his body and grief sickened his heart for Yukihime.
Naya, his midnight star, his snow poppy, his snowflake, and once upon a time his shadow lover. She had betrayed him, gutted him, carved out his heart…but he could not simply turn away from her and forget all that had been.
"Father, I beg you, please. Please do not kill Naya."
Balor stared at him for a long time, then sighed. "I don't want to execute her, my son…but the law is the law."
"You are the king," Nuada said. "You can change her sentence. Imprison her until the end of her life. Exile her to Zwezda, never to come home again. But could you truly kill her, Father? Could you watch the executioner swing his ax and stand there while he brought it down upon your foster daughter's neck?"
"Nuada—"
But he couldn't stop the words. He could see it, in excruciating detail—the silver arc of the wicked blade, the silvery spurt of Naya's blood as her head fell. It was all so sickeningly clear in his mind's eye because it had been playing again and again in his head ever since he'd understood the reason for Balor's pity.
"Could you bear it, Father? Could you bear to watch our Naya, your own daughter, as she's forced to her knees, the ax blade falling, her head—"
"Enough!" Balor shouted, surging up from the chair. Desperation strained his voice. "Enough, Nuada! I'll hear no more of this. Do you think I want to murder my own child? Is that truly what you think of me?"
The prince had no earthly notion what cruel imp of the perverse possessed his tongue then, but he said, very softly, "It seems to arise as an option for you with surprising regularity, Your Majesty. Perhaps I am a special case."
It was a cruel thing to say, true or not, and it struck home. Nuada saw it in the hurt on his father's face, the wounded surprise that reminded the prince of a kicked dog. Nuada looked away. Sighed. There was no point in cruelty. No point even in truth, really. Balor would hear none of it. Naya was lost to him, by her own actions and soon by her death, and-
"I love all my children," Balor said softly. When Nuada looked back at his father, to his surprise a few tears glittered on the weathered cheeks. "All of you. The ones I have lost, the ones I may yet lose, all of you. You are each a piece of my very heart made into flesh, Nuada. Each and every one of you, whether we share blood or not, whether we are allies or enemies or friends or not. No matter what may happen, no matter what may come, I love all of you."
"I know," Nuada whispered. And he did. But love could be such a brutal, vicious, complicated thing and it excused nothing. "I know. I…" He wanted to save Naya from the executioner. To do that, he would have to retreat a little. "I was being cruel, Father. I'm sorry. But Father…" He groped for words, for reasons, for excuses. Anything that would save one of his oldest friends because there could not be a world without her in it, no matter what she'd done. "Will you not at least stay your judgment until I might speak with her?"
"And what do you hope to accomplish, my son? Do her excuses matter so much? Does any of it matter?"
Nuada swallowed again, hard; his throat felt full of seawater.
"It matters to me."
Balor sat back in the well-appointed chair and sighed again. Closing his golden-gray eyes, he rubbed his left shoulder as if it ached. Nodded wearily.
"All right," he muttered. "For you, my son, and for the sake of a treacherous daughter, I will withhold judgment for now." His gaze roved over Nuada's tired face and something like concern came into his eyes. "Nuada." Even more gentleness now. Where was this accursed gentleness coming from? "My poor boy, you look worn to your very bones. Are you all right?"
The prince wanted to be angry at the question, but he was so very tired. His bones had turned to granite, his blood to frost, his heartbeat to a slow cold drum. This was only the first village and already so much that was terrible had happened. He could still feel Tsu's'di's blood wetting his skin. Still hear A'du and 'Sa'ti screaming their brother's name. Still hear Dylan begging the king to stop. Balor had granted Naya some reprieve and so Nuada found he could breathe again, a little, but so much else hung over him…
"Can't you leave us alone?" Nuada asked. The question tasted of grief and wormwood. "By the Fates, just go back to your grand palace and leave us alone, Father, for the love of the gods and the stars."
The question obviously stung, but less than the jibe he'd had to apologize for. Balor actually looked more confused and hurt than angry.
"What have I done to arn such a lack of hospitality from my own child, my own people?"
Tired. The crown prince of Bethmoora was so tired. He hesitated, exhausted, afraid he would lose what ground he'd won. His father sighed at him; such an infuriating, patronizing sound.
"Whatever you say to me here," Balor said with no little asperity, "I will punish no one. My word as king of Bethmoora and your father. You will not be punished, nor will I rescind my promise regarding Naya. Speak freely and plainly; I would know why my people, my own son, would delight so in seeing the back of me. What have I done to deserve such…such ostracizing? I have offered no lasting harm to anyone since coming to this backwater. Why do you treat me like some embarrassing, unwanted, impoverished relative you wish to pack off to the country?"
It was a stupid question. Such a stupid, stupid question. Nuada's anger pulsed in him once, twice, like a spasming heartbeat. How could his father be so oblivious? So incomprehensibly, unutterably stupid?
"Speak freely? Aye, I shall do that. What have you done, you ask? What have you done. How dare you? You allow monsters to brutalize your own people, the people for whom you are supposed to stand as sword and shield. You abandon your people to the monsters and then punish those innocents for defending themselves and their families. You—I am not finished, Balor mac Buarainech!"
There had been quiet pain and shards of ice under the words but in that moment as his father attempted to interrupt him, Nuada's voice suddenly carried the howling rage and weight of eons. It was a fae king's voice, a voice of ancient growing things and impossible grief and the cold implacable fury that burned for centuries.
Balor's open mouth snapped shut and he stared at his son in stunned silence.
"You come here to my village with my death in your heart when this hell is of your making. For centuries, our people have fallen, ground into the muck and filth by human animals, and it is your fault. The truce, the Golden Army, the bandits—you seek to lay the blame anywhere else but you did it all. And then you come here, frighten my people, and come with the intent to slay me, to murder innocent children, to snatch a babe-in-arms from her mother, to sell a brutalized young woman back into a life of abuse, and mutilate and torture the people I love, the people I am sworn to protect. And then you dare to ask me if I am all right and demand to know what it is you have done to deserve your own people wishing you elsewhere?"
The silence sat heavy then, thick with things Nuada would not say and Balor could not. Thick as poison, a morass of blame and truth and hurt, denial and rage and pleading. The prince hadn't meant to say all that. He hadn't known it was in him until the words left his lips bleeding from phantom wounds. But it was said now. There was no taking any of it back.
His father did not speak. Only stared at him. Nuada finally realized his father was too stunned to say anything and that he would have to actually continue. Well enough.
"I will not offer you rebellion this night, my king, nor any threat of violence or treason. Not tonight. You have broken my honor enough that I will not fulfill my duty as crown prince tonight. But hear this, King Balor, and heed it very well. None of my vassals are to be punished again as Tsu's'di Ka'ta was today. If you attempt such a thing again, I will consider you forsworn as king. You are my liege, it is true, but my vassals are owed my protection, even from you."
At this, the old king protested, "But Nuada, the truce—"
"I don't care."
"The honor of our family, of our people! The honor of our kingdom—"
"We have none left," the prince said, "and all the denizens of the Twilight Realm know it now, after the innocent blood you have spilled."
Weakly, the king said, "But…but I am your king, Nuada."
The prince's voice was utterly empty when he said, "If you spill a single drop of my vassals' blood again, you will no longer be my king."
"Are your oaths so weak, then?" Balor demanded. "I offend you once, and you break your vows to throne and crown?"
"I break no vows if you are forsworn, and you will be if you ever touch my people again. Any of my people: Wink Ironfist, Liam and Iúile Uí Níall and their daughter, Tsu's'di Ka'ta of the Ewah, A'du'la'di and U'de'ho'sa'ti of the Ewah, Uilliam McBás, Mabry McMahon, Sorcha Uí Tuatha de Úll, Siobhan of the bean sídhe , Finbar mac Gawain, Amaryllis ingen Gawain, Colleen ingen Gawain, Pauline Myers, Petra Myers, Niamh Greenman, Lady Dylan's guard detail, or any other vassal I may call to my side. If any harm comes to them—even the mere nick of a blade—by your order or your hand or your machinations, you will be forsworn as king of Bethmoora and my liege lord. Do you understand?"
Balor seemed only able to stare. Perhaps the list of Nuada's household—a household made up almost entirely of infants, children, and teenagers—had shocked him. Perhaps it was the idea that his son would challenge him over common-born infants, children, and teenagers.
"And you would go to war with your king over such a thing, Prince Nuada?" Balor asked finally.
Prince Nuada's voice was icy in its calm when he replied, "There would be no war, Your Majesty." His father's eyes darted to the sheathed magical spear at the prince's back, then to Nuada's face, and Nuada knew his meaning was quite clear. There would be no war, no violent coup, no public execution. The next time the king harmed any of the vassals under Nuada's protection, Nuada would strike him down.
The king tried another tack. "What would your mother say to such threats?"
To his own vague surprise, Nuada didn't flinch at the mention of his mother. "I would like to think Queen Cethlenn the Wise would have been wise enough to stop this madness centuries ago. Do not think to use my mother's memory against me, King Balor. If she would have stood by and allowed this, she was not the woman I believe her to have been, the woman you claim she was. Because the woman you claim she was, the woman I remember? She would have torn up that blasted treaty the moment innocent children were butchered by the humans."
"As you butchered their children?" Balor snapped.
It was the soul purging he'd received from the unicorn, the prince decided, and sharing the horrible tale of the final war and the Battle of Scarlet and Gold with Dylan. That had to be why his father's cruel words only stung, but did not bleed him to death.
"I owe you no explanations, King Balor," he said softly. "You do not care to hear the truth and I will not lie to you to salve your conscience."
Balor swallowed, obviously unnerved by the calm response. He tried again. "Nuada…" Gently now, as if speaking to a half-maddened dog. "I am your father."
"Yes." Only that single, soft word. Nuada allowed no sadness into his tone, though he couldn't banish it from his eyes.
Finally, the old king asked, "Is your pride worth so much blood and dishonor, my son?"
Still, the prince thought. Still deluding himself that the private war between them was all Nuada's doing, because of vanity, because he was the mighty, legendary Elven warrior who bowed to no one…instead of the truth.
He was Nuada Silverlance, son of King Balor One-Arm and Queen Cethlenn the Wise, heir to the Golden Throne of Bethmoora, War Chieftain of the Tuatha de Danaan. He was a slave to his crown, to his home, to his people, to his honor. And he would kill his father and tear out his own heart if he had to.
"My people," he said, "are of greater worth than every last drop of my blood, Your Majesty."
With that, he turned and headed for the door. At the threshold, he stopped.
"One more thing. As I said, Siobhan of the Bean Sídhe is now my vassal and under my protection—"
"Nuada—"
"And you will offer her formal apology," the prince continued coldly. "And Iúile Uí Níall is now both wedded and bedded, and now my vassal by moon promise, blood oath, and hawthorn vow." At that, Balor's jaw dropped. "Her father has no more claim on her, nor on her child. Iúile is my vassal; by law, she belongs wholly to herself and, in only a small part, to me. You will leave her and her family alone."
Balor sputtered, "She's an empty-headed child! She can't marry a gancanaugh! She cannot raise an infant! And her father says the wretched boy has no claim to the babe, nor shares blood with it. The girl is clearly a vain, empty-headed light-skirt if she's wedding a gancanaugh, especially after birthing another…man's…"
Nuada knew why Balor's vitriol had dissipated. The prince's eyes blazed scarlet as human blood and his dark lips twisted into a feral snarl. His father stared at him and the sudden whisper of fear in the king's eyes brought a vicious edge to Nuada's snarl.
But all he said was, "You will leave her alone."
He walked out and slammed the door.