The Crown of Bones (The Fae War Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Allene sat at the table by the fire where Eamon had taught me rudimentary healing skills. It had been barely two days since I’d sat with the Sidhe healer and practiced my stitches on white cloth, but it felt like a lifetime had passed. The new weight of the Sword on my back was nothing compared with the gruesome scenes of the battle, the stench of death and the screams of the dying that stained my soul.

  Eamon stood by a bed close to the fire, holding a roll of bandages in one hand as he spoke to the occupant of the bed. Whoever it was, they were sitting on the edge of the bed rather than lying down, boots shifting restlessly every now and again. With a strange jolt in my stomach, I recognized the boots and started forward before my mind properly caught up with me. Allene looked up from the table, where she was rolling bandages with her long-fingered, deft hands. She paused, watching me as I strode toward Eamon. I glanced at her, and she looked back down at her work. But I didn’t have time to worry about Allene’s feelings.

  “Eamon,” I said as I neared him.

  The healer turned, his eyes lighting up when he saw me. “Ah, Lady Bearer! To think I was critiquing your stitches just the other day.” He smiled, still standing between me and the bed.

  “You wouldn’t be much of a teacher if you let me get away with sloppy work,” I replied with an answering smile, counterpoint to the knots tangling my stomach.

  “That’s very true,” he agreed.

  I stood awkwardly, wondering why Eamon was so reluctant to let me past. “Can I…?”

  Eamon’s face smoothed into that strange Fae look, devoid of visible emotion. I almost took a step back but forced myself to stand my ground.

  “It’s all right, Eamon. She knows.”

  Finnead’s voice sounded tired and his words were tinged with pain. Eamon stepped aside, and that was just as well because I was on the verge of pushing past him. I stopped short when I saw Finnead.

  “You look terrible,” I said to him. And he really did: his lip was still swollen, a jagged cut arcing down across his chin; an ugly black bruise curved beneath his eye, stark against the pallor of his skin. His eyes had lost a bit of their drowning-deep blue, making him look very tired—almost human, in fact.

  He arched one eyebrow slightly, a small smile pulling at one side of his ruined lips. “You seem to be telling me that a lot lately.”

  I smiled at him a little, swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat. “Did they…did they punish you, after I escaped?”

  Eamon set the roll of bandages on the bedside table and tactfully moved away, joining Allene at the table by the fire.

  Finnead shrugged. And with that small movement, I realized that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, a swathe of white bandages encircling his ribs. I’d been so focused on the damage to his face that I hadn’t even noticed. I tried to suppress my blush, not knowing if I succeeded. Finnead gave no sign that he noticed.

  “They made sure I would bruise,” he said, touching his eye lightly with two fingers. His wrists were bandaged, too. I remembered the blackened burns from the iron in the rope Carden’s men had used to bind him hand and foot.

  I had the feeling that it took awful force to make a Sidhe bruise, and I shuddered. “I’m sorry you were hurt because of me.”

  Finnead smiled, the blue of his eyes deepening. “It was worth it.”

  Worth it because I had gone free, because he cared for me? Or worth it because I had returned with the Iron Sword, smiting Malravenar’s Shadow-forces with a roaring wall of emerald fire? I decided not to ask. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer anyway.

  “Vell just went out hunting. She says we should have a hot meal before we start on the road to the Seelie Court,” I said.

  He nodded. “She is a good hunter, and knows the ways of travel well.”

  “She helped remove the iron trap. That’s what I came to tell you, actually. It’s gone. Wisp and the other Glasidhe marked the shards, and we dug them up.”

  “Did you dispose of them?” Finnead asked. I wondered if I imagined the slight tension suddenly hardening his shoulders.

  “Yes.”

  “How?” He regarded me steadily.

  “The Sword. It took care of it.” I was suddenly very aware of the weight of the polished stones in my belt-pouch. I had no idea if they held power, like the stones Gwyneth had used to protect me in the forest; or if they were just ordinary stones. I caught Finnead’s gaze lingering on my right hand, where the whorls of my new green markings swirled down over my wrist and spilled onto my palm. Holding up my hand, I pulled up my sleeve and showed him with half a smile. “It marked me while I was doing it, too.” The war-markings shimmered faintly in the dimmer light of the healing-room. For a moment, I thought I was seeing things, but the intricate designs were definitely fading, still visible but not flashing emerald fire as they had been just after the Sword had laid them on my skin.

  “War-markings are a mostly Northern tradition,” Finnead said after a moment of studying my forearm. “But I doubt the Sword does anything without a purpose.” He paused. “And they are beautiful.”

  We gazed at each other for a long moment in silence, Finnead looking up at me from the bed steadily. I lowered my arm and pulled down my sleeve. His shoulders were broader than I had realized, hardened with muscle from long hours of sword-practice, archery and riding. His torso could have been carved by a Greek artist from marble. But then I glimpsed the white, knotted scars spilling over the tops of his shoulders, and my stomach tightened. So that had been why Eamon was standing in front of Finnead, blocking him from view. That was why Finnead was sitting with his back to the fire, no-one but the two healers able to see his scars.

  “Will you be well enough to leave this afternoon?” I asked.

  “Sidhe are quick healers. Especially the Named Knights.” One of his hands drifted to his side, touching the hilt of the Brighbranr, its long length settled against his leg.

  Despite his stoicism, he still looked awful. I’d talk to Eamon before we left, I decided, so that I could get an unvarnished version of his injuries. We’d need Finnead to be at full strength during the journey to the Seelie Court, especially when we arrived. I had no idea what kinds of creatures Malravenar would send out to dog our path, or what traps he had laid for us when we arrived at Titania’s court. “Are you sure that it’s all right for you to come? Mab won’t disown you for traveling with me?”

  His eyes flashed. “She cannot strip a Named Knight of their power until they are found guilty of treason, and executed by her own hand before the throne of Darkhill.”

  The sudden image of Mab, resplendent in her star-set diadem, holding a sword in her slender hand, standing before her throne and gazing down at a kneeling Knight, flashed into my mind. It had the precise clarity of a vision, or a very good memory. It was as if I had watched Mab execute one of her knights the day before. I reflexively gripped Gwyneth’s pendant. It was vibrating slightly, humming almost like the Sword did when it was sending me a thought or an image. I knew somehow, instinctively, that Gwyneth’s pendant was giving me one of the last Bearer’s memories. I gasped involuntarily as a thought struck me: if the pendant contained Gwyneth’s memories, did it hold the memories of all the Bearers? Could I stretch my mind back to the first Bearer, the first to grip the hilt of the new-forged Sword and wield it against the darkness? I shivered a little, and I wasn’t sure whether what I felt was excitement or fear. I watched, still gripped in the vision, as the doomed Knight bowed his head, and Mab stepped gracefully to his side, her face beautiful but terrifying in its emptiness. I clenched my jaw and felt my entire body tense as she raised the sword one-handed, with a strength and surety that was at odds with her slender frame. I didn’t want to watch the Knight die. I didn’t want to see Mab behead one of her subjects, but the vision wouldn’t release its hold on me. I reached out to the Sword blindly, grasping for its power as an anchor against the vision, but instead I found myself drifting farther away, the awareness of my body fading around the edges as I was pulled
deeper into the memory. The pendant heated in my hand and I heard myself give a strangled little sound, my knees buckling.

  Then it was as if I was standing in the throne room, an invisible observer. I felt as though I was Walking, but I could only see a slight shimmering in the air where my incorporeal form should have glowed. It was a dizzying feeling, having no visible body at all, and I had to fight through a moment of disorientation. I felt my body as though it was there in the throne room, and finally I just decided to watch whatever the pendant wanted to show me, setting my worries about my invisibility aside for the moment.

  Two other Knights stood on either side of the kneeling Sidhe. I looked closely at their faces and vaguely recognized the Vaelanseld. He looked much younger, without as much weight in his eyes. He stared straight ahead, as if he, too, didn’t want to witness the execution. The other Knight I didn’t recognize, but I saw the sheath by his side, and I recognized the Brighbranr. The old Vaelanbrigh was shorter than Finnead, slimmer, but he possessed that same cat-like grace, a lithe strength apparent in his body even when he was standing still. I studied his face. He was handsome, but not in the beautiful, wild way of the Sidhe who would one day take his place as the Vaelanbrigh. His eyes, though, were a striking blue, bright as a robin’s egg, and he gazed without flinching at the condemned Knight.

  So if these were the two other Named Knights, Mab must be executing the old Vaelanmavar, I realized. I shivered. It was strangely fitting that Carden had received the Mavarbranr after its last master had been put to death. I couldn’t see the face of the old Vaelanmavar, but he, too, was smaller and slimmer than the Sidhe who would inherit his title. The old Vaelanbrigh and the Vaelanseld each put a hand on the shoulder of the Vaelanmavar, and then they took two smooth steps backward in unison, releasing their companion to his fate. The Unseelie Queen took one long stride forward, gliding across the distance between her and the doomed Knight. She pivoted so that she was facing his side—the appropriate position for the executioner.

  Mab raised the sword, the stars on her crown blazing. I didn’t want to see. The young Vaelanseld kept his eyes averted and I felt a strange sense of relief, that he wasn’t going to witness the ugly death. But the old Vaelanbrigh said softly, “Vaelanseld, tend to your duty.”

  The Vaelanseld clenched his jaw and raised his eyes, gazing at the raised sword and the waiting neck of the Vaelanmavar. The sword gleamed in Mab’s hand, and impossibly white fire streamed from the star on her diadem, sheathing the blade of the sword in blazing power. I tried to close my eyes, tried to wrench myself away from the vision, but the power of the ancient pendant held me captive.

  “By your treason to us, your Queen, your life is forfeit,” said Mab, her many-layered voice cutting through the bright blaze of the sword in her hand, sounding of hounds and bells and howling wind.

  The brightly burning sword swept down in an arc of white fire, and its light was extinguished with a sudden spurt of blue-black blood. I pressed my hands against my mouth to keep from screaming, though I doubt they could have heard me. Mab’s sword sliced easily into the exposed neck of the old Vaelanmavar, the pendant released me a heartbeat after, and I slammed back into my body with a shuddering gasp. My eyes flew open and I saw Finnead leaning over me, saw his mouth moving, forming my name, but I couldn’t hear him past the roaring in my ears.

  I had seen death on the battlefield, but the execution was even more terrible—so cold, so calculated and calm. My stomach twisted and I had to close my eyes for a moment, fighting the impulse to be sick.

  “Tess.” Finnead’s voice sounded as if it was coming from far, far away. I swallowed and took a deep breath, focusing on the feel of my fingers wrapped around the curve of Gwyneth’s pendant. My back hurt. I realized I was lying on Finnead’s bed, the Caedbranr digging into my spine. The pain brought me fully back, anchoring me to my body. I took a deep breath and swung my legs over the side of the bed, fighting against a rush of dizziness as I stood.

  Finnead watched me silently as I gripped the bedside table for balance.

  “You fainted,” he said quietly.

  “No.” I shook my head, swallowing thickly. “The pendant gave me a memory. The old Vaelanmavar’s execution.”

  Finnead stiffened slightly. As the black spots cleared from my vision, I saw the new stain of blood on the bandage wrapped around his ribs. He’d leapt up and caught me when I’d been pulled deeper into the vision.

  “Where’s Eamon?” I asked quickly.

  “They left, when your—vision—first started,” he said. A sudden, quick look of concern flashed across his face, so rapidly that I almost missed it. He took a step forward. “Are you injured?”

  I shook my head, testing my balance without the support of the table. “No, but you are.” I motioned to the fresh blood seeping through his bandage. He glanced down and cursed softly.

  “I’ll go get him,” I said, adjusting the Sword’s sheath.

  “No.” Finnead sat down again on the bed. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You aren’t fine, you’re bleeding,” I pointed out. “You should’ve just let me fall.”

  He looked at me silently, almost reproachfully.

  I sighed. I had such a way with words. “Thanks for making sure I didn’t knock myself out. But please let Eamon look at your side.”

  He was silent for a moment. I crossed my arms over my chest, taking his silence for refusal. I was readying my next argument when he said, “You should look at it.”

  “What?” I uncrossed my arms. “I’m not a healer.”

  “Eamon trained you. You should get some experience before we start traveling.”

  His unspoken reasoning was clear: You should get some experience before we start traveling, because both you and I know that we have no idea what we’re going to encounter on the road to the Seelie Court.

  I knew he was right. I had to put what I’d learned from Eamon into practice at some point, but I didn’t quite understand why he thought now, with him sitting shirtless on the bed and me trying not to blush when I looked at him, was the most opportune time. But I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath, hardening my resolve. I would look at his wound like a healer. I would not think about the feel of his skin upon mine, or the closeness of him, or the impossible drowning blue of his eyes as he watched me.

  Glancing about the healing room, and finding that the only other occupant was asleep (or drugged, I couldn’t particularly tell), I lifted the strap of the Sword over my head, leaning the sheath carefully against the bedside table. My hands were still stained with soil from digging up the iron shards, so I walked over to the pitcher and basin by the fire. The small sounds of the water soothed me as I scrubbed the grime from my skin. I turned my right hand over in the light of the fire. The war-markings were almost completely invisible now, glimmering only when the golden light danced over them. Maybe the Sword had decided to compromise with me, I thought in slight amusement. The designs were beautiful, but I’d been unprepared for such a permanent addition to my body. It seemed like the Sword had found a middle ground for me.

  Drying my hands as I returned to the bed, I studied Finnead’s ribs with a critical eye. Retrieving my slimmest dagger from my boot-top sheath, I carefully cut through the first layers of bandages, and then unwound the rest. There were probably scissors somewhere in Eamon’s kit, but I was almost as comfortable with my daggers now. I could probably, as Forsythe liked to say, take out the eye of a spider at two hundred paces. If there were spiders large enough to warrant killing with my dagger.

  I couldn’t help the small sound of sympathy that escaped me when I pulled the last of the darkly stained bandage away from Finnead’s side. Bruises blossomed across his ribs, a shocking color of blue in some places, mottled with a deep purple and violent crimson around the wound. It looked like he’d blocked a sword-stroke, or maybe a small axe, that the enemy had intended to cut down through his shoulder. He’d deflected his opponent’s blade, but not enough to escape a slash acro
ss his ribs. “This happened during the battle?”

  “The cut did,” he replied.

  A small row of neat stitches followed the curve of his side, stopping just short of his hip. I wiped away the blood. Sidhe blood, when it was all said and done, looked remarkably similar to human blood. It possessed that same dark viscosity, just with a slightly bluer undertone. I tried to ignore the sweet, metallic smell of it.

  “Well,” I said, my voice a bit thicker than usual, “you tore a few stitches.” I delicately removed the threads of the now-useless stitches. As I worked, the bleeding slowed. “Does it feel any different than before?”

  Finnead smiled slightly. “A bit more uncomfortable, but not significantly.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, unsure if he was being serious. “I can put the stitches back in, but the bleeding’s almost stopped and I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “Do as you see fit, then.” His voice was very smooth and cool, as though I wasn’t poking around a terrible wound on his side.

  I worked quickly, sorting through Eamon’s satchel to find the correct salve for the wound. Finnead gripped the blanket on the bed with white-knuckled hands as I gently applied the greenish salve to his wound. I wiped my hand on a rag and bandaged his ribs, proud of the steadiness of my hands and the detached glance of my eyes. But then I finished and sat back, and the air tightened between us again.

  “Serviceable, for a novice healer,” Finnead told me, looking down at himself to examine my handiwork.

  “Thanks,” I said dryly, smiling a little. I reached out to tuck in an errant edge. Finnead caught my hand in his own, and I froze, my heart suddenly jumping in my chest like a frightened bird.

  “I haven’t forgotten my promise,” he said softly, his unfathomable eyes gazing into mine.