Chapter 22
STARGAZER
SAERIS
THERE THEY WERE.
Two puncture wounds on the inside of my left thigh.
The cottage had been real.
I didn’t remember leaving the dream. I recalled eating the stew, talking some more with Fisher, and curling up in the blankets by the fire with Onyx.
Things grew hazy after that. Fisher had said he was going to step outside to get some more wood for the fire.
He had opened the cottage door, and stepped out into the night, and . . .
Ahh.
That’s when it had happened. He’d walked through the cottage door, and everything had gone black.
I had woken up on the floor, lying on a stack of pillows with a blanket draped over me that hadn’t been there when I’d set my mind to go to sleep.
My body had ached deliciously from the night’s adventures, and I had found the two small marks on the inside of my thigh, already half-healed but definitely still there.
It was still early, or late in the day, depending on how you looked at it. The shutters were drawn to keep out the fading afternoon light as I hurried through the halls of Ammontraíeth, still wrestling on my clothes.
I was approaching the foot of the stairs that led up to the library when my name echoed down the hallway after me. “Saeris Fane! Where in all five hells do you think you’re going?”
Lorreth’s shirt was damp with sweat across his chest, his dark hair fully bound back for once as he jogged after me. “I think you’re forgetting something,” he said, when he reached my side.
“I’m sorry, but I think training might have to be postponed today, don’t you? My wildly dangerous magic might just need to take priority. Unless you don’t think anyone will mind if I blow up Ammontraíeth.”
I personally wouldn’t mind.” Lorreth slapped his hands down on top of my shoulders and bodily turned me around.
He gave me a shove, pushing me back in the direction I had just come from, away from the library.
“The rest of this court is still sleeping, Saeris. No one else is awake, and that includes Foley. He won’t be able to help you for at least a couple of hours, which means—” He sniffed, and immediately took a step back.
I’d been waiting for him to notice. I had my explanation ready. “Something strange happened last night. I went to sleep like Foley told me to, and Fisher was there.”
“Okay.” He looked dubious. “We’ve all had those kinds of dreams before, Saeris. But—” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone waking up covered in their partner’s scent from a dream.”
“It wasn’t a dream. Well, it was a dream. But it was more than that.”
“How can you tell? Besides the way you, uh . . .” He waved a hand around me, gesturing in my vague direction. “Smell.”
“There’s other . . . physical evidence,” I said, staring straight ahead. Gods, this was fucking awkward.
“Okay, okay. I’m gonna take your word for it. I think I have enough information.” He cocked his head to one side. “Are you sure it was him?”
“What do you mean, am I sure it was him? Yes, it was him. I think I know what my mate looks like, Lorreth.”
A sneaky little smile hovered over his lips. “Wanna hit me yet?” he asked.
“Yes. I do, actually. You know what? Fine. Let’s go train.”
The training room was cold. All of Ammontraíeth was cold, for that matter.
When the people of a court were immune to temperature and an open fire might have them going up in flames, it was no great shock most rooms didn’t have fireplaces.
It had been enough of a problem in my own personal chambers that I’d had a fireplace constructed—I was the queen, after all—but the vast, windowless obsidian box where Lorreth brought me to train was freezing.
There was nothing on the walls. Nothing on the floor.
A soft white light glowed from a recessed gap that ran around the perimeter of the ceiling, but other than that, there were no torches of evenlight flickering in the sconces.
The room was featureless, the air oddly still, as if it had stagnated here for many years.
Lorreth tossed me a staff, and the sound of the wood hitting my palm made a dead, unnaturally flat sound that quieted as soon as I curled my fingers around the weapon. I considered the length of wood briefly. “No swords today?”
Lorreth shook his head. “A staff has its uses. You may find yourself without your sword one day. In a bar, for instance,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
“Your asshole friend might be having a bad day, and he might start a fight with two knucklehead leeches for no good reason. A tavern will always have a broom, Saeris. A mop. Something with a long handle. It’s smart to know how to utilize the items you have around you, lest you need to come to a grumpy friend’s rescue. ”
The context of his comments was loud and clear: He was feeling a mite foolish over what he had done at the Fool’s Paradise, and this was his roundabout way of letting me know he wasn’t feeling so great about it.
Who was I to judge, though? I’d caused plenty of scenes at Kala’s whenever I’d had a shitty day, which was most days in the Third.
I spun the staff, rolling it over the back of my hand, giving Lorreth a sideways grin. “There was never enough metal to forge weapons out of back home. In the desert, wood is a scarce commodity, too . . . but it’s easy enough to lay your hands on some if you know who to ask.”
I moved fast, light on my feet, taking the warrior by surprise. He still had hundreds of years’ worth of experience on me, though. I wasn’t too shocked when he swung his staff around his head and brought it around his shoulder, blocking my blow before it could land.
“Faster this morning,” he noted, his dark eyes gleaming. “Great. If this is what a good night’s sleep can do for you, then I’d say you’re going to be in good shape with a staff.”
“Oh, I won’t be in good shape with a staff. I’m going to be in excellent shape.”
The next hour whipped by in a blur. My reactions were stunningly fast. I knew where Lorreth was going to be three seconds before he got there.
Not only did my blows land, but they landed hard.
I felt stronger than I ever had. The training space filled with the hollow slap of our feet against the obsidian and our muted grunts of exertion, and by the time Lorreth held up a hand and announced that we were done for the day, I wasn’t the only one who was sweating and sore from the blows I had taken. Lorreth was, too.
He pointed the end of his staff at me, eyebrows raised as we headed for the exit. “If you can do what you just did wielding Solace, then your enemies don’t know what’s in store for them. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the swords.”
“About the sword,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow. “How attached is Fisher to Solace?”
Lorreth pulled up short. “Well, pretty attached, I’d say. It was his father’s weapon. But . . .” He shrugged. “Solace is yours now, Saeris. You can do whatever you want with it. Fisher isn’t going to mind.”
I believed that. I had just wanted confirmation.
I’d struggled with the blade and knew how to wield it well enough to take off a feeder’s head, but it was just so big.
It had been forged for a full-blooded Fae warrior, and even though I wasn’t human anymore, I hadn’t gotten any taller.
My arms were still the same length they’d always been, and carrying a sword around that was two-thirds of my body long was tricky sometimes.
“In that case, I’m going to consider my options. I have relics to make today. After we’re done with Foley, I’ll head to the forge. While I’m there, I might just have a little chat with my sword.”
A flurry of paper stargazers greeted me when I entered the library.
Their wings rustled as they flitted around my head, darting this way and that, inspecting the newcomer who had entered their sanctuary.
One of them hovered in front of my face, its tiny paper head tilting left and right as it took me in, waiting to see if I posed a threat.
“Good evening,” I told the paper bird. “Are you friendly?” I held out my hand, extending a finger to see if it would land for moment, but an emotionless voice spoke from above, startling the little thing away.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Foley stood at the top of a small set of stairs over by the window—a window that had not been there yesterday.
It was circular, around the same diameter as the hole I’d blasted in the wall, as coincidence would have it.
Whoever had come to fix the damage I’d caused had been quick about it and had done an excellent job of the repair.
“The stargazers might seem harmless, but interacting with them can be quite hazardous.” Foley descended the stairs slowly, his pale hand resting lightly on the banister rail.
I hadn’t paid too much attention to his attire yesterday.
Today, he wore a plain, tailored black shirt and plain black pants, with black boots that laced high over his ankles.
He carried no weapons that I could see, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a thin blade secreted away on his person somewhere.
“They like to steal strands of people’s hair for their nests,” he explained, as he reached the bottom step. “But a piece of hair can be used for many nefarious purposes. In the wrong hands, a single strand of hair can be a male’s—or a female’s—undoing.”
“Bargains?” I asked.
Foley shook his head. “Witchcraft. A fell witch would do terrible things to lay their hands on a strand of your hair. There’s no saying what they would be able to accomplish with it.
These birds,” Foley said, gesturing to the swarm of stargazers overhead.
“They’re pure. Trusting. They have no concept of right or wrong.
If a wayward witch were to compel one of them to bring her a strand of your hair, they wouldn’t know to refuse. ”