Chapter Ten #4
A woman with round, beady eyes; a long, furry nose; and thin, spindly, almost-rat-like hands bustled about the small cottage, but it wasn’t her appearance that drew my wide eyes. Well, in a way it was, since her accessories were a sight I’d never seen before.
No less than six infants hung in slings on her person.
Four sleeping on her back, and two babies in front freely nursing.
It suddenly made sense why Alisdair had us go to her.
Not even he was cruel enough to make a mother trek miles through a dark, frozen forest with six babies hanging off her shoulders.
Despite the dark and gloomy outside, inside the cottage was warm and inviting. A crackling fireplace dispelled the chill from my bones—prompting me to shed my coat. Paintings of rolling meadows, sunny skies, and crashing waves covered every wall, showing her babies the world beyond Wind and Wild.
“Well, don’t stand on ceremony,” she said, beaming brightly. Treasa was tall, thin, and flitted around on the balls of her toes as if she was a dancer in another life. “No need for formality here. Get comfortable, my lord, my lady. I’ll start the tea.”
“Please, ma’am, let me.” Foalan guided her to a seat by the fireplace and took charge of the tea.
Alisdair and I joined her at a slower pace. It was only the four of us—actually, ten of us in the cottage. Obviously, we didn’t need everyone knowing our plans.
“There are no cribs,” I murmured quietly. “Opossums carry their babies everywhere. Don’t tell me the call of the animal is so strong, she can’t even allow herself the rest of putting them down.”
“This community was among the first to change.” He spoke under his breath like me. “By now, the instincts are so ingrained, the entire town is made of only women and their children.” He noticed my confused look. “Opossum fathers don’t stick around after mating. The mothers are on their own.”
My brows blew. I couldn’t imagine that. Yes, I looked after Mama and my siblings, but the only baby in our cottage was Savia. Six infants at the same time was a humbling that would bring me to my knees.
My eyes suddenly narrowed to slits. “And what about the kind of beast you are?” I hissed. “Instincts or no, you better not have it in your head that you won’t stick around after mating.”
Alisdair chuckled. “If such a thought were in my head, the immediate thought following it would be that my fierce and brutal queen would hunt me down, and bash such a foolish notion out of my skull.”
“Too right she would.”
“Is everything okay?” Treasa asked, catching the end of my reply.
“Everything’s fine.” I kept my voice low out of respect for the sleeping babies.
Long, furry noses and bony, clawed hands poked out of their slings. If the curse took this community first, it explained why there was no preamble with the next generations. They were all born cursed.
“We’ve come to ask for your help,” I continued, dropping down in the armchair across from her. “Although, I admit I don’t know how you’re meant to help us.”
Alisdair took over. “Treasa is the only one to help us. She is the spymaster of Lumenfell.”
I gaped at the beaming, barefoot woman covered in babies. “I beg your pardon?”
She laughed. “My lord flatters me with such an important title. I am merely a go-between for him and his loyal servants within the other kingdoms. You see, Mother Meya saw fit to bless me with a gift.” Treasa pressed her finger to her temple and turned to the side.
“What am I—?” I lurched back, clutching the chair arms.
A mirror appeared before Treasa’s face, and the reflection in it... was mine.
My round eyes, hanging jaw, and whipping head as I tried to see how she was doing that.
“I pierce through the veil of distance and space,” Treasa said, “allowing me to keep a concerned eye on the nations. I can also do—” Treasa picked up a pillow and tossed it through the mirror. It appeared out of the air and plopped on my lap. “This.”
“Amazing,” I breathed. “I’ve never heard of such an incredible power.”
She smiled serenely. “It is my honor to be blessed by Meya. It is incredible the gifts that can develop when our magic is allowed to grow and change freely.”
Foalan took that opportunity to bring out the tea. I sat back and sipped while the three of them made idle conversation.
For centuries, Elvans have cursed their inability to defeat Shadowsoul, and for centuries, they didn’t know it was because they continued to underestimate him.
The wealth and power he hoarded in his small, barren, freezing corner of the world was staggering.
A spymaster that could freely and discreetly watch King Salman while he plotted, planned, and took a shit?
Elva had already lost the war, they just hadn’t accepted it yet.
But what about my war? I paused bringing the cup to my lips. Isn’t Treasa the key to everything? She could look in on my family. She could pass them a message. She could help me break this curse.
“Aya Treasa,” I blurted, breaking into the conversation.
“Can you check on some people for me? Olene, Meliora, Gisela, Jaclan, and Savia. I—” I tossed my head.
“Actually, forget Jaclan. I don’t know why I said that name.
I don’t know who that is, but the other four,” I pressed, leaning in.
“Can you look in on the other four? Just to—” make sure they’re okay, was stolen off my tongue.
Of course, Emiana wouldn’t care in the slightest about the well-being of a few peasants. “Just to check,” I said instead.
Treasa shook her head. “I’m sorry, Lady Ana.
” It stood my hairs on end that she already knew I preferred to be called Ana.
“I can’t look in on people I’ve never met, but I can tell you which of your loyal servants would do well inserting themselves into key positions and places around Elva. That I can do easily.”
“One would need to pose as a temple priestess in Rajadom,” Foalan added.
She whistled. “You do bring me the most interesting challenges, Foalan. As you know, priestesses are chosen from birth. One doesn’t simply walk in and request the job.”
“Is my spymaster telling me she means to fail me?” Alisdair’s voice dropped the freezing temperature another twenty degrees.
One of the babies stopped nursing and stared at him, as if sensing danger, and knowing exactly where to look.
Treasa’s smile went nowhere. “I have never failed you, my lord. I have no intention of doing so now. Give me two days. Assignments will be handed out and assets moved into position by then.”
“Very well.” Alisdair stood to leave.
“What about the siren?” I asked. “We have another strategy. A better one. Send her back to her home.”
“She goes nowhere until after we’ve won. A general goes to war with a thousand strategies, not just one. Should our plan fail, we will need her and her power.”
“But, Alisdair—”
“I would worry less about a fish woman, and more about yourself.”
My expression told him I didn’t know what he meant.
He smirked. “You’re about to earn your second name, little bird. They call me Shadowsoul. What will they call you? Kinslayer? Slaughterer? The One Who Ended the War Shadowsoul Began?” Alisdair laughed. “Queen Ana, Destroyer of Elva.”
He backed out of the door, the shadows claiming him and his open delight. “I do so look forward to finding out.”
I sat there for so long—silent and shaking—that Treasa came over, squeezed my shoulder, and handed me a baby. Even as the sweet little furry face nuzzled against me, drifting off to sleep, I couldn’t shake away the vision that my hands were staining her with blood.
EVENTUALLY, I DRANK my cold tea, gave Treasa her sleeping babe, thanked her, and went out to meet the silent party waiting for me. It was just Alisdair, Foalan, Eadaoin, and three guards.
“We sent the litter and the bearers on,” Eadaoin explained. “Hope that was okay.”
“Of course, it’s okay. No reason for them to stand around in the cold.
” I pulled my coat tighter, shivering in the strange, silent village.
“Can we not do something for the women here?” I asked.
“I know they can’t control their instincts, but it’s not right that all of the mothers have been abandoned to raise a litter of children, just because it’s what a skulking rodent would do. ”
Alisdair hummed. “It is already law that I’ll rip out the throat of every faeriken that uses instinct as excuse for running out on their responsibilities.
Served as a deterrent for a while, but then they learned to run faster and hide better.
” He bowed over my hand, dropping a kiss on my frozen knuckles.
“But Foalan is ready and willing to organize a squad to hunt them down. Per my queen’s wishes. ”
My fist clenched within the folds of my sleeve. I knew Alisdair enjoyed this. Horrifying me with his cruelty, and then delighting when I threw it back. He said on the very day of our true mating that his deepest wish was to corrupt the crown jewel and hope of Lyrica, but—
Is it me he’s corrupting? I thought, gazing into his eyes. Or is he merely drawing out the cold and cruel nature of his true soulmate—Emiana.
The day before, that rant about hating Salman and rising higher than a son of his ever could, was all her.
It was my plan to use silent assassins instead of genocide, if it meant innocent people wouldn’t die to give Alisdair an easy victory.
But the delight in what that victory would bring. .. that wasn’t mine.
But Alisdair loved it.
I was trying to make the man fall in love with the true me, and all I was achieving was his infatuation with the bitch who destroyed my life.
“No, Foalan. You needn’t send out any death squads. There’s no point,” I said, pulling away from Alisdair. “It won’t deter anything or help anyone.