Chapter Three
Cian
MY INSTINCTS SCREAM, but I can’t determine the source of my alert.
None of my men seem unsettled. They feast and amuse themselves beneath the fond eyes of the highest does in Cerf-Biche without a care.
My personal guard are battle-hardened and ready, their instincts honed, but they sit back in their chairs as if naught is amiss.
But there’s... something. I feel it in my marrow. My phantom points twitch.
The Duke of Freeborn lifts his cup to me as my gaze roves over his table.
Next to him, his daughter, who keeps trying to find her way into my bed, graces me with a sullen look.
I’ve no interest in Fawn Freeborn. Despite her sweet name, she’s all hard edges; the strongest doe in Cerf-Biche.
It’s not ridiculous that she should want me.
I’d rather lie with a snake.
With a little nod, I acknowledge her father.
The pale-brown-haired and hazel-eyed duke always looks sly, like he’s plotting against me, but unless he’s ready to face me point to point, there’s not much he can do to take the Antler Throne.
Eighteen points on his antlers... if he was man enough to match his rack, he might give me pause.
“Cian? Problem?” Hunter leans behind the back of Lady Ingrid Tailwinds, Countess of Fir Forest, and touches my shoulder. She’s so busy fluttering her big brown eyes at me, waiting to be reflected in my irises, she wouldn’t notice if he sat on her lap.
My lips twitch at the thought. Well, perhaps she’d notice then.
She hopes I’ll mate her and make her queen. Rounder and lusher than Fawn Freeborn, she wears the same look of avarice on her pretty face.
Cernunnos save me from a strong doe.
My gaze trails to the delegation from Tauro. There are three comely cows among the pack of bulls. Better one of them and the alliance she would bring than a grasping doe.
My gaze travels to the Phoenix delegation.
Their lady birds are lovely, as delicate and graceful as our own does, but fire-filled in temperament.
Tomorrow, I’ll meet the women at a reception and see if any piques a deeper interest, which is possible.
I favor sharp, intelligent women with humorous edges to their tongues, fire in their bellies, and magick at their fingertips.
The few birds I’ve bedded have been quixotic experiences I don’t regret.
But for now, my senses don’t alert in that direction.
“Cian?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Something.”
Hunter’s green eyes tighten into lasers as he surveilles the room, but when his gaze again seeks mine behind Ingrid’s back, he shakes his head.
“Nothing.” Suddenly, he smiles. Lowering his voice even further to a level a doe can’t hear, he says, “Is the great king unnerved by the thought of marriage?”
“The great king intends to fuck around with abandon and see his wife only long enough to get a fawn from her loins, so what can mating matter?”
He taps my back again. “Probably shouldn’t call her cunt ‘loins’ if you’re intending to enjoy the body part.” He winks before sliding back and facing forward again.
Well, he should know. He’s all about the pussy, running through available does like water through a sieve. As my First, he’s got no lack of conquests.
Conversation swirls around me, and I answer briefly what I must to maintain the semblance of politeness as I sip my wine. A furtive movement in the doorway catches my attention.
A female partly hides behind the jamb of the rightmost set of three double doors. Her attention lies squarely on me before she retreats, only to pop out again a moment later.
There. Like the bolt of lightning that took out the cross of ley lines last week, a shimmer of fire washes up my spine. My balls seize with the sensation, and my stomach hollows.
What in Cernunnos’s name?
I track her expression, noting the exact second she becomes aware my gaze has centered on her.
Widened eyes—I can’t make out the color from such a distance—with an oval face, small features, and pale hair more blond than brown.
She darts again behind the jamb, but I can tell from the tip of her worn red boot and the edge of her pale blue hem that she’s still there.
That, and the fact my blood runs cold.
What in Dubnos is going on?
“Has Your Majesty decided on the theme for next week’s ball?” Lady Ingrid asks, batting her lashes.
“Impossibility.” The word slips through my lips in reply. Impossible to find threat in the slip of hiding doe. I can’t even find a solid thread of magick in her, and one of my gifts is to see people’s connection to Earth magick.
It's what makes me a formidable opponent, even more than my twenty-four-point rack. I know where the magick falters and where it thrives.
The doe darts her head around, gasps, and withdraws.
Turning my head just enough so it seems I’m looking at something to my left other than her, I drag my dessert closer, pick up my fork, and bring a hunk of flower-shaped cake to my lips. I’m swallowing even as I realize the taste is unexpected. Fruity? Peppery?
What the...?
When I look down, I blink. It’s not pale yellow as the cake should be, as court cake always is, because I’m allergic to so many spices. No, there’s an undertone of gray to the batter, like ash.
An aftertaste stays on my tongue. Sharp.
Bitter. I reach for my glass but only knock it forward as my muscles seize.
I try to turn, to grab for Hunter and alert him, but my throat closes fast, and my fingers swell like boiled lentils.
Even my vision contracts to a small circle amidst an ever-widening fog.
My gaze latches onto the girl in the doorway.
Her.
I try to speak, but can’t. The room blackens around the edges, and the center grows watery. Conversation jumbles into a monotone as I try to hold on, but instead, I feel my forehead smack against the plate with its ash-gray cake.
People scream. Commotion.
Too late.
+++++++
“Hold on, Majesty. Merwyn, I’m losing him to Albios.”
The voice fades as the gray becomes tangible.
The world is without form or function, but somehow, I feel I’m moving through it.
A sudden bright light shines in the distance.
I’m drawn towards it, pulled by a tether, until suddenly a new world forms around me.
I’m in stag form, and beneath my cloven hooves, grass like green jewels springs up soft and dew-filled.
The sky hangs in sapphire splendor. Trees dark as the finest chocolate spread leaves of jewel-toned tenderness.
I’ve got no name for the colors. I don’t think they exist in the real world.
But the scent... the scent I recognize as crisp baking apples, vanilla like a cake, and sweet flowers.
I lift my head to taste the foliage, but a sudden brighter light pulls me forward towards a stone wall comprised of a thousand kinds of gems. The wall stretches tall, taller than any building I’ve ever seen, tall enough to touch the stars that hang in a blue-black firmament above the pale blue sky and wispy clouds.
An old man with grayed hair and a beard hanging long to his middle leans against the wide wall within the span of the open gate. He wears a white gown made of the finest weave I’ve ever seen and a gold antler crown. “Ah, Cian, how lovely of you to visit me.”
“Where am I?” But I think I know. “Albios?”
At least I haven’t descended to Dubnos, not that I feared damnation. I’m a king, after all. I’ve sacrificed enough to ensure my place in the heavens.
“Albios proper lies beyond the gate. You’re in the in-between. I wished to catch you before you crossed within, never to return.” He pushes off from the wall and gestures toward a lazy stream I only now notice flowing under the wall and far into a distant, unseen point. “Come. Let’s chat.”
“Are you a god?” I ask, falling into step beside him. Even though he’s in human form and I’m in stag, my pace measures without problem.
“Some have named me such, yes. The woman I love normally calls me a fool.”
When we reach the stream, we stop. He waves his hand, and the waters still. There, inside, I see a bird’s-eye view of my court, with each image startlingly clear and magnified as I focus upon it.
This court isn’t what I’m used to. Duke Freeborn sits upon the Antler Throne, wearing my crown of gilded branches.
The land around the palace is blackened and charred, as if all magick has been pulled from the soil by its roots.
Inside the walls, the highborn frolic in human forms as if drunk from too much mead.
They copulate in orgies of over-indulgence, while outside the building, lower does and stags stagger, yoked to odd turning devices that seem responsible for pulling all magick from the Earth.
These people bow like slaves of old, before my great ancestor Cedric freed all to live by their own strength, with dignity befitting the stag-shifter species.
These unfortunates wear ragged clothing and despair.
“This,” says the old man, “is the future should you not return and vanquish your enemies. Look with eyes that see and know that even if you decide to go back, this is what Fate has decreed. The Earth without magick. Your people, unable to shift, caught in human guise. A grave disparity in circumstance, with slaves made of those the strong are meant to protect. But I think, my boy, that if you have the will and are wise, you’ll be able to pull a different future from the stone it’s meant to be. ”
It's easy to turn from the vision. I don’t want to see any more of it. “What do I need to do?”
“Beware the snake in your midst. When you act, act bravely.”
“Freeborn?”
“You will forget his identity. You must find your path with your own skill and devices.”
I nod. “Of course.” The first rule of leadership is to make a decision and move with it, but only after ascertaining the way the land lies.
He rubs the earth with the toe of his gilded sandal. “Do you remember the story of the mad king, by the sage, Zibiah Stagmond?”
“There is a tale as old as tails of a great king captured by the lowliest of does.” I quote the story, which every child knows by heart.
“Yes. ‘It is said she will bring him to the edge of the grave and take him to madness before he will curl at her feet in defeat. With the great goddess Cerfwynn, all is possible, even the conquering of kings by those without racks.’ Of course, you serve me, not my beloved, but I wonder if it isn’t time to put aside such differences?
Ah, well. Perhaps I’m being too ambitious. Still, a god must have his hope.”
And suddenly, I realize who stands next to me. It’s the great god I worship, that all stags worship: Cernunnos.
My knees buckle. I fall upon them and lower my face as flat upon the ground as my antlers will allow. “My lord. I didn’t recognize you in shifted form. Forgive me.”
“Rise, my boy. No need to stand on ceremony.” He waves his hand, and suddenly, I’m on all fours and upright once more without the least effort on my part. “Will you choose of your own free will to return to your people and lead them through the coming trouble?”
“How can I not?”
He nods. “Then help will be placed before you at crucial junctures. Remember to see.”
He touches the tip of my highest point, and the world spins.
I jolt back to the land of the living, only to find myself locked in unsupportable agony.
Pain flares through my blood, in my limbs and joints.
My throat feels like it’s been rubbed by fire, and my lungs burn.
Grit lines my eyes, and when I open them, I’m blind.
I hear, though. The shouts. The exclamations, as those in the room notice I’ve returned.
“Majesty!”
A bright light blinds me even in the darkness, but slowly, my vision resolves, and I see a flame.
The flame spouts without heat from the fingertip of a man I immediately recognize.
Murdoch, the best healer the monks at Mayhaven possess, and the greatest practitioner of Earth magicks outside my court.
“T-the ley lines?” My words emerge as chopped and grated wood.
He looks at his finger and douses the flame. “Not quite back to full force, but enough for the strongest of us. You had us worried, Your Majesty. Can you follow my finger?”
“Depends where you intend to stick it.”
The joke falls flat. The monks of Mayhaven are a humorless lot. When I tell Hunter later, though, he’ll laugh.
“What. Happened?”
“Poison, I’m afraid.” Murdoch straightens. “You’ve been unconscious for seven days. We feared we’d lost you to Albios. But never fear. We’ve jailed the poisoner in your dungeons, there to await sentencing.”
Tawny hair, nearly the color of golden wheat. “Doe?”
His eyes widen with surprise. “Er, yes, as a matter of fact. The under-baker. Frankly, I don’t know how she imagined she would get away with killing you and not be put to antler soon thereafter, but.
..” He sighs. “Not all are happy with the peace you’ve wrought.
Some prefer the chaos that reigned with the old ruler.
More chance of personal success, you know. ”
Unfortunately, I do. Three years it’s taken me to weed out the immoral and gain control over the lot of fractus nobles.
Well, they can wait another day. Exhaustion pulls me under.
Poison. And here I thought she wanted to bed me.