Mairi’s face was drawn and worried. “’Tis none but I can do this for you,” she said. “An’ I hope I am doing ye right. The things I saw do not bode well for ye, and yer mother did command me to keep ye safe.”
Commanded her to keep me safe.Warmth blossomed in my breast for both my mothers at the thought.
The infant—I!—shook her tiny fist. A curl like a blood-dipped rose sat upon her forehead.
Mairi cooed and held me close. “I would protect ye all I can, for yer mother’s sake and yer own.” Her eyes darkened; traces of green were smeared around them, like some sort of ointment or salve. “They were all so ready to believe ye dead. And who was I, a mere mortal, to contradict ’em?” She smiled with such mischief and trickery, it might have belonged to one of the fair folk themselves. “But for the mortal blood inside of ye, it might have been true.”
Iron is poison to the fae, even to be in its presence had ever made me ill. But ill is not the same as dead; as a cunning woman I knew that well.
Behind Mairi, I saw a shadow, hunched over and so stooped it barely retained even the fae semblance of human form. My eyes would not focus upon it, but I had the impression of something hideous, misshapen, glistening like wet blood beneath darkened skies. And all at once, its long arm shot out towards the infant, and clawed fingers raked against Mairi’s clothing and hair.
The water grew cloudy and I let out a cry of dismay.
Rumbles in the distance, or was it all in my head?
Lileas put her hands on my shoulders. “I am sorry if the vision upset you, Your Majesty.”
“Did you not see it?”
She shook her head. “These visions are not for a mere chatelaine like me. They are for the queen alone.”
Then the vision was further proof of my legitimacy as Una’s heir. “’Twas what I needed to be shown.” Because even now, though she had passed, I trusted Mairi Grieve as I had trusted no one else. She had revealed to me what I very much needed to know before choosing my council and personal staff.
Someone close to Queen Una had wanted her dead.
Thirty-Five
I had summoned to the palaceall those who had served as council to Queen Una, as well as a select number of younger fae recommended to me by Lileas. I trusted her judgment better than I trusted my own.
Both my mothers likely died by foul play.It gnawed at me inside, while I struggled to maintain my veneer of calm.
Outside, the rain had turned to hail.
I waited in the hall outside the council chamber, dressed in a gown of pale green, the branched crown heavy upon my coiled hair. About my shoulders, Lileas had draped a rich cloak of green velvet, with lining of the softest ermine within. I breathed deep and rubbed my rose torc, missing the warm flesh of the birthmark that bloomed there once. I missed being invisible and flawed and not responsible for anything but my not-mother’s health, and whatever else my conscience might dictate. Where I stood now, my conscience seemed a foolish mortal liability. I truly ought to leave it behind.
“Your Grace, Your Grace!” Lileas came running down the hall, breathless, cheeks becomingly flushed.
I smiled to see her. “Have you come to accompany me? I could use your advice in there.”
She shook her head. “Nay. Lyel will go there, not I. I am a mere servant, after all.”
I frowned at that. A chatelaine was a position of no small status or responsibility, certainly worthy to be at my side whenever I wished. I could not abolish the feeling she and her kinsman avoided being in the same place at the same time.
She undid the clasp of my cloak. “I realized I had put your cloak on the wrong side out. Allow me to fix it.” Deftly she flipped the cloak around, so the ermine faced outwards.
I stared at her in surprise. Surely the velvet was meant to be on the outside, and the ermine next to my skin? Mayhap this seemed more regal to her.
“Much better,” Lileas said, patting clumsily at my shoulders while she stared through me as if I weren’t there. ’Twas very peculiar indeed.
I shook my head and entered the council chamber. Here the carpet of grass spread rich as velvet and the ceiling appeared open to the sky. I knew this for glamour only, for the dome of this sky glinted with stars and the moon, which in Faery I had never seen. Likewise, there seemed to be no walls, only the thriving wildness of the gardens, and trees vaulted upwards, branches forming archways above.
Walls there were, though invisible to the eye. Walls of privacy and silence, and most importantly safety, for none could bring their weapons into this sacred place.
The walls would keep out the storm, except the one ever raging inside me, a swirling whirlpool of confusion and doubt.
A group of handsome Aos Sith gathered around the table in the center of the room, conversing among themselves. They did not even bother to look up as I entered.
“The weather we are having,” said a green-skinned elder fae to his neighbor. “Never before has Faery known such storms and unrest.”
