Fragile Eternity Part 22

"Ash?" He stared at Sorcha in confusion.

She held her hands out. "Let me help you."

"I feel wrong, Ash. Sick," he muttered, weaving slightly on his feet as he tried to look around. "Where'd you come from? Missed you."

"I've been here all along," Sorcha told him.

Few truths were more complete than that revelation.

"Need to sit down." He stretched a hand out for a wall that was not there.

Sorcha stroked his face. "Mortals have no business playing in this world. Sometimes they attract the wrong attention...."

"Just trying to keep your attention." He leaned his forehead against hers briefly and then pulled back with a puzzled look. "You're not this tall."

"Shhh." Then she kissed him while his mortality was pushed out by the new faery energy coursing into his body. She let her own calming breath slip into him. It wouldn't take away all the pain, but it would help. Sorcha could remake the world in Faerie, but she couldn't change everything. Pain, pleasure, sickness, longing, there were things that even the High Queen couldn't affect.

Sorcha found herself hoping that the Summer Queen was worthy of this mortal-no-more's pa.s.sion and sacrifice.

Because he's my subject now.

And like any good queen, Sorcha did what was best for her subjects whether they asked it of her or not.

Chapter 23.

Donia waited at the fountain on Willow. This late at night the mortal saxophone player was long gone, and the crowds of children who had frolicked in the water were tucked into their beds somewhere. Matrice, one of the Hawthorn People, perched in a tree nearby. The white-winged faery was one of the only fey in the area. Her tattered wings fluttered like ripped spider webs as she sat watching the sky on the edge of a branch. On the ground at the other end of the courtyard, Sasha crouched attentively. Somewhere farther out, several glaistigs roamed the perimeter.

Donia wanted answers, and of the four faeries she could ask, only one seemed likely to be helpful. Sorcha was unquestionable; Keenan was silent; Bananach was mad. That left Niall. After Seth's sudden disappearance and the whispered rumors coming from Faerie, Donia had little reason to doubt that Seth was in Faerie, a place from which mortals-and more than a few faeries-didn't return.

The High Queen was inflexible, cruel in ways that sometimes made the Dark Court look meek. Or maybe I'm swayed by my own fears.... Summer's rising strength made her melancholy. Winter had no business being out in the increasing heat of the season, but inviting Niall into her home felt like a betrayal of Keenan. Even now that their chance at a real relationship-however brief-was gone, she couldn't bear the thought of hurting him.

Niall arrived, alone and moving with the fluid grace of shadows stretching over the earth. His stride bespoke the same easy arrogance as his predecessor; his hand held a lit cigarette, a habit he'd adopted along with the responsibility of the court. Violence and temptation, he was the embodiment of the court he'd once rejected. The hint of it had been there when he was with the Summer Court-it was a part of why Keenan had kept him near, in her opinion-but the comfort he had with his own shadows was new.

Niall said nothing as he sat on the bench beside her.

"Why is Seth in Faerie?" she asked by way of greeting.

"Because he's a fool." Niall scowled. "He wanted to become fey. Bananach took him to Sorcha."

"Do you think Sorcha will keep him? Or turn him or-"

Niall cut her off with a look. "I think Sorcha has a habit of stealing away Sighted mortals, and Seth is likely in trouble."

"And Keenan?" She didn't stumble over the question, even though it stung to ask about him just then. She'd had her hopes raised, heard him tell her he loved her, and mere days later, he told her good-bye. Solstice was approaching, but she wouldn't be in his arms.

Niall ground his cigarette on the underside of his boot before answering her. "Seth's been missing and unfindable by all of the Summer Court. There's no way Keenan can't at least suspect where he is...especially as I expect that Ash told him of Seth's desire to change."

Idly, Donia let snowflakes fill her palm and shaped them into a small statue of the lone kelpie that lazed in the fountain. Niall sat silently in the dark beside her, waiting for her to steer the discussion. He wasn't pushy, even now that he was the head of the court the faeries feared almost as much as they feared hers.

Things had started shifting when Beira died. They'd changed as Keenan grew stronger. They'd gone off-kilter when Irial stepped down from his throne. Everything had become tentative. Not for the first time since she'd realized where Seth must be, Donia wondered if telling Aislinn was better or worse for the impending conflicts. If Aislinn knew, she'd go after Seth and into a conflict the Summer Court would lose. If she knew where he was, Aislinn would be furious with Keenan for hiding the truth-which would further weaken the Summer Court. Yet, not telling her seemed cruel and would inevitably drive another wedge between the Summer Court and the Winter Court. She'd not forgive Donia or Niall or any of them should she learn that they all knew where her beloved Seth was. And if he were killed in Faerie...the consequences of Aislinn learning that everyone had kept silent could be disastrous.

"Should we tell her?" Donia asked.

Niall didn't need to ask for clarification. "I'm not sure. She's grown closer and closer to-" He stopped and gave her a tender look.

"I know."

Niall lit another cigarette. The cherry glowed a warm red in the almost lightless night. "If we do, it'll complicate things. Ash will want to pursue him. Bananach tells me things are already poised for true violence."

Donia tried to separate her own desire for Seth to return to Aislinn from her awareness that war could follow Aislinn's knowing. The consequences of conflict with Sorcha were unfathomable. Then again, the consequences of Aislinn learning that the Winter Court and Dark Court both knew weren't pretty either.

Or of learning that Keenan knows.

Niall sighed. "I don't know. I'm going to see Sorcha. I'll see how he fares, retrieve him if I need to. It's probably past time to go visit Faerie anyhow...."

Donia crushed the snowy sculpture she'd been making and let the flakes drift to the ground where they melted immediately. "We aren't her subjects."

"Sorcha's not like us, Donia. She's without our possibilities for change. She's the essence of Faerie." He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles. "If the stories are true, she's the first of us. If she came here, we'd all be her subjects. If we went back to Faerie, we'd be her subjects. Showing her respect is the least we should do."

"I've read her books, Niall. I'm not sure if we'd all be her subjects if we went there. Your court was her opposition."

"Centuries ago, Don." Niall's shadow-maidens danced beside him in glee, belying the meekness of his words. They writhed in the bluish haze of Niall's cigarette smoke. "Right now, your court is stronger. Mine isn't able to oppose her."

"I don't know. Somehow, I suspect you'd fare better than you're admitting."

Niall's lip curved into a smile, and despite their history of conflict-his working with Keenan and her working against their goals-she felt a loosening of the tension inside her. He seemed happy. Over centuries longer than she'd drawn breath, he'd been sorely abused by Keenan, by Irial, by Gabriel's Hounds. It was soothing to see him lighter in heart for a change.

"You are kind," he said. "If Sorcha spent much time here, it wouldn't matter what we know now. She re-creates the world as easily as we breathe. Once, forever ago, I used to stay near her when Miach was my king, but after Keenan was born"-Niall shrugged as if it wasn't a loss, although his near-reverent tone revealed the extent of what Sorcha's presence had obviously once meant to him-"duty called. Miach's court needed me. Tavish and I held what order we could until Keenan was old enough to escape Beira's house. She let him have his visits to his father's court, but...a court needs ruling. We did what we could."

Donia was silent, thinking about the years Keenan spent in Beira's home, about the court without a true king, about Niall trying to rule a court not his. That wasn't something either of them needed to talk about just then. She redirected the conversation. "How long do you think Seth's been there?"

"For him? A few days. Not long enough for Seth to panic, but...out here, it's been weeks. I've arranged what I need here to go see him. I won't have him injured if I can protect him."

Donia nodded. "Bananach came to see me." Until that moment, she hadn't been sure she would tell him, but instinct was a critical part of ruling. Hers told her that Niall wasn't a part of Bananach's machinations.

"And?"

"She showed me the future." Donia folded her arms over herself. "I thought we had a chance, but then this happened. She showed me...I am not unlike Beira."

"It's only a possible future," he reminded her.

"If war is coming, I don't want to be the cause of it," she whispered. Being the Winter Queen didn't mean that all of her doubts and worries had faded. If anything, it meant that the consequences of her doubts and worries could be catastrophic.

I am not Beira. I will not be the cause of a return to ugliness.

It was Niall's voice that was ugly. "Why do you think I restrain myself against him? I have the power to strike him. You have the power to do so. Yet we don't. I don't want peace, but war is not what's right for my court now. If it was..."

Donia shuddered at the cruelty in Niall's voice then. "So why do you let Bananach run free?"

"I don't. I try to keep her leashed enough to prevent all-out war. Why do you think Irial saddled me with...I'm trying to do the same thing you are: find a balance that doesn't weaken my court. Unlike you, I want to strike him. I don't forgive as you have, yet war is not what's best for our courts."

"So we don't tell Ash about his suspecting-or possibly knowing-where Seth is." Donia hated it, but the discord that would result from Aislinn knowing Keenan misled her would put all of them in an even more untenable position. And the anger Keenan would have for Donia or for Niall would be dangerous to the already tentative peace.

Niall nodded. "And you let him go."

"I'm trying," she whispered. Uttering those words hurt like a physical pain. To come so close to the love she'd dreamed of and lose it was worse than if she'd not known it was within her reach. "Given time, Ash will accept him. Given time and a few wise choices, perhaps we can still avoid war."

"There was a time when this was what I planned and hoped for-Keenan with his missing queen, happy, strong. It was all that mattered." Niall looked bereft. His shadow-maidens stroked his shoulders soothingly.

"Me too." She thought-but didn't say-that it was still what she wanted, not the being with Aislinn part, but his happiness. Even now. Despite everything, that's what she wanted. She only wished that his happiness didn't mean her sorrow.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, until Donia looked at him and said, "I would prefer that Bananach is contained, but if there is war, Winter will hold to the past."

Niall was mortal-slow as he turned to look at her. "Meaning?"

"Meaning my court will ally with the Dark Court." She stood, letting the snow she'd held in her lap fall to the ground, and waited for him to join her. "Whether it be against his court or the High Court. I want peace. I want...a lot of things, but in the end, I need to do what's best for my court."

"If I could let war reign just long enough to make him suffer"-Niall smiled, looking so deadly in that instant that it was hard to remember that he hadn't always been the Dark King-"I would be sorely tempted, but fighting Sorcha...none of us wants that, Donia."

"I'd rather fight Sorcha than Keenan." She laid her hand on Niall's shoulder. "Seth is an innocent. Would you let her harm Seth? If you had to side with Keenan to protect Seth, would you?"

"Yes, though I'd much rather fight against him."

"But for Seth?"

"He is as my brother," Niall said simply. "Sorcha will not keep him against his will."

Donia felt herself swaying slightly. This much time in the heat was wearing on her. "You need to go to Faerie."

"And if it's not Sorcha we need to fight? Would you stand against Keenan?" he asked.

"Not happily, but I will if need be." She held his gaze. "No matter which way we act, Seth's being in Faerie complicates everything."

"Which is precisely why Bananach took him there," Niall murmured. Then, he took her arm and escorted her from the courtyard with a comfort that felt familiar. It wasn't time to dwell on the past, on the losses that she should've accepted years past. It was time to prepare for the future-deadly though it might be.

Chapter 24.

Aislinn stood nervously outside the door to the formal dining room. Lately she'd had dinner every night with Keenan. Some nights, other faeries joined them; sometimes, a number of the Summer Girls were with them; but tonight, it would be just the two of them.

Choose to be happy. That's what Siobhan had said, and Aislinn had been repeating it like a mantra since that night. For weeks, she'd been attempting just that: not giving up but trying not to wallow either. It wasn't working.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Keenan was waiting-which wasn't unusual. She knew he'd be there. What was unusual was the change in the room. Candles were lit everywhere. There were also tapers in the wall sconces and fat pillars on tall silver and bronze stands.

Aislinn crossed to the table and poured herself a gla.s.s of summer wine. The decanter was old, something she'd not seen before.

Keenan didn't speak while she sipped her wine.

She looked not at him but at the candle flames flickering in the draft that came through the room. She didn't want discord between them, especially not as he was her lifeline as of late, but she had to know how much Keenan had hidden from her. She asked the question she'd been pondering since Siobhan's lecture: "Did you know Seth had a charm to protect him from faery glamour?"

"I've seen it."

"You've seen it." She let the words drag out, let the silence build, let him have the chance to say something to ease her hurt at not telling her this.

He didn't apologize. Instead he said, "I expect Niall gave it to him."

Her hands tightened on the wood of her chair until it started to splinter into her palms. "You didn't mention it...because?"

"I had no desire to mention anything that could drive you further from me. You know that, Aislinn. I wanted you as my true queen. You felt it too." Keenan came and stood beside her. He loosened her hands from the chair. "Will you forgive me? And him?...And yourself?"

Tears were streaming down her cheeks again. "I don't really want to talk about any of this."

And Keenan didn't point out that she'd brought it up, or that not-talking wasn't a solution, or any of the things he could've said. Instead, he said, "All I want in this moment is to help you smile."

"I know." Aislinn lifted a napkin from the table and studied the embroidered sunbursts that wound into vines.

"It'll get easier," he continued. He was like that since Seth left, constantly rea.s.suring her.

She nodded. "I know, but right now it's still awful. I feel like I've lost everything. Just like it was for you every time one of the Summer Girls refused the test...and when each Winter Girl risked the cold. Either way, each time they came to that point, you lost."

Keenan's expression was guarded then. "Until you."

They stood there in awkward silence for several moments until Keenan sighed. "This conversation is not making you any happier, Aislinn."

"It's not the...romantic stuff that I miss...I mean, I do." She paused, trying to figure out how to explain this to a faery who-for all his years-didn't seem to have any true friends. "Seth was my best friend before he was anything else. He was the only one I could talk to when you and Donia were...when you picked me."

Keenan waited.

"Best friends don't leave without a word," Aislinn said. Now that the words were there, they started bubbling out, and she was saying the things she'd been hiding inside. "I don't need a boyfriend. I don't need a mate or partner or any of that. I need my friends. Leslie's gone. I can't talk to my other friends about anything in my life. Donia stabbed me...not that we were close, but I thought we were becoming friends. And now, my best friend has left me."

"And you feel alone." Keenan came closer but didn't intrude in her s.p.a.ce. "So let me be your friend. That's what you offered me when you became my queen. The approach of summer has added something else to it, but that's...I need you to be happy, Aislinn."