Gossamyr Part 36

"A mortal with the power to enchant," he whispered, utterly beguiled.

But there, blood and dirt on her knee. The sudden jar of that foul evidence followed a rude tap from Gossamyr. Ulrich shook his head. "What was that for?"

"The spell worked." She bent to retrieve the gown. "And you were starting to drool."

"Was not." He dashed out his tongue across his lips. No drool. A man had to check. "Sorry. Gossamyr, you are wounded."

"It's from the revenant." The gown fell to her knees. A tug of the braies completed her renegade attire; the entire right leg was stained brown from dried blood.

"You must let me tend it. It looks bad."

"No worse than a bite from a werefrog. You did put a mustard plaster to your bite?"

"Anon."

She bent and ripped the front of the skirt all the way up to her thigh to allow her legs ease of movement, then grabbed the half staff leaning against the wall. A fistful of arrets was retrieved from the floor in a clatter of obsidian.

"Where be you off to?" He followed her down the ladder. "Shall I saddle up Fancy?"

"I go alone. Ulrich, you must tend that bite or it will fester."

"My uncle has prepared a plaster. Will you stop?" He sprinted to meet her at the front door. "There is danger. You need protection."

"From Shinn?"

"You go to call him out? But the city...the Red Lady... Will your father not be in danger?"

"I ride out from the gates of Paris. I must have answers, Ulrich." She smiled, a brief yet genuine smile. A touch to his hair, she drew in his scent. Ulrich closed his eyes and tried to scent her but smelled only the onions his uncle boiled over the hearth.

"You don't remember me," she said, "but I remember you."

He lifted a brow.

"When you danced. I stretched out my hand and touched your hair as you spun past me."

"You...saw me? Yet, I danced but a few days ago..."

"Faery time is confusing."

"Faery time is a b.i.t.c.h."

She nodded. "I truly hope you can get back that which was lost to you, Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III."

"Do you? I thought you against my quest to bring back the dead."

She shrugged. "I wish your twenty years returned to you. One way or another."

With that she leaned forward and kissed him aside his eye, right over the green bruise. Forgoing a farewell, she left without turning back.

"Would that you could help me, Gossamyr of Glamoursiege," Ulrich said as he watched her approach Fancy. "But I do not think a mere mortal will serve me now. If there is a unicorn to be found I shall just have to sniff it out myself."

The city gates were more willing to let one pa.s.s out of than into Paris. Reports that the Armagnacs were pillaging on the west side of the city provided little relief to the antic.i.p.ation swirling in Gossamyr's gut. She traveled south but kept her eyes peeled and ears p.r.i.c.ked for danger.

The evening beckoned with soft schusses of meadow gra.s.s and the brays of a flock of sheep waiting entry.

When Gossamyr reached the water mill where yesterday she and Ulrich had stopped, there was no need to summon Shinn. She dismounted, dropping Fancy's reins and leaving the mule to root at a patch of trampled gra.s.s. Striding toward the stream where she had bathed in the rain, Gossamyr fisted her fingers at her thighs and tightened her jaw.

Chiding words spoken by Mince visited her thoughts.

Do not react. Listen with an open heart. Your father acts only as his wisdom allows. He knows little of growing girls and their hearts.

And if their hearts be mortal?

The nemesis Shinn had bid her seek solace from had been placed there by Shinn himself.

Her strides were unhampered by the heavy gown, for the cut exposed her braies to the thighs. Arrets clicking at her hip, there was no need to call out to announce her presence.

Shinn did not turn around. Cloaked by the feathered cape, his broad shoulders squared him, increasing his presence. Hyacinth perfumed the air. So very light, the paleness of sky that surrounded the formidable Glamoursiege lord. Truly, a man who could command troops with but a word.

Gossamyr faltered as she gained him. Was that it? Shinn was a leader, not a compa.s.sionate father. He had lied to her only because that is all he could muster.

Not an excuse.

Fisting her fingers at her sides, she opened them, then closed them tight. If he did love her, then he owed her an explanation.

"I would beg your forgiveness,"he said as Gossamyr stopped behind him. He swept out an arm and lifted an entreating palm upward. His blazon, which ended in his palms, sparkled with the rays of the setting sun. Still he did not turn to face her. "But I have never been one to beg. And I fear your anger is too strong to allow such mortal emotional fumbling."

The fetch had clued him to all.

"Why did you not tell me? Ever? When I was younger?" So wanting to beat upon his shoulders, to empty out her anger, Gossamyr suppressed her rage-for the truth. But not all of it.

She gripped him by the shoulder and shoved. He turned to her. Fine lines creased from the edges of his eyes and mouth. And his hair! She had not remarked it, but-it was silver. Now the small horns had darkened and tightened in, standing out against the long strands of faded hair. Bronze glinted in twists about his crown. "Wh-what happened to you?"

"I have been battling the revenants."

"I have been gone but a few sunsets!"

"Many more moons than you can imagine have risen in Faery."

"Be time so mutable as to steal many moons from me? To do this to you?"

She thought of Ulrich's horrid dance and all the time he had lost here in the mortal realm. And Avenall; he had stated but a mortal year had pa.s.sed since his mistress had been banished; less than a moon since his banishment. How to comprehend?

Had she lost Time since Pa.s.saging to the Otherside?

"My trips to the Otherside are risky in that the pa.s.sage of Time takes from me that which Faery holds off-mortality. You will not understand, but I have mourned your absence far too long."

"An absence you could have prevented!" Clutching her chest, she gasped at the weight of her heartbeats. Such pain did pierce her there in her heart! So much she needed to learn, and yet she should have known all along.

Shinn turned a stern eye on her. "I did not want you to leave."

True. But he hadn't been overly aggressive at making her stay. Mayhap that is how he erased his mistakes, by sending them to the Otherside? To think of herself as such, a mistake? No, if she truly was a changeling, that would mean she had been chosen. Yet, would not Shinn have expected her to perish? They take sick mortals. "You knew the Disenchantment would be permanent. That, as a mortal, my return to Faery could prove devastating." "I took a vow never to reveal your truth." "But why?" "To keep Time from you!" "Time? I-I don't understand. Shinn, you sent me off for ever!" "The rift will allow your return-though it may yet prove dangerous." "Then why did not Veridienne return?" "She is dead." "So you say." Did he keep that truth, as well? This man she had trusted! "I made a vow to Veridienne, Gossamyr." He closed his eyes. The muscles on his face tightened, the vein in his temple pulsed. "Veridienne so wished to break our marriage vows that she would sacrifice for her return to the Otherside."

"Sacrifice?"

"The mortal pa.s.sion was strong, so strong." A falter in his voice.

Gossamyr stepped closer. "The mortal pa.s.sion...it is love, yes?"

A smile, so small, but tremendous in meaning, curved Shinn's mouth.

"You are right about that. Veridienne loved the Otherside. I...loved her. I did not want her to leave me. But even more, my mortal pa.s.sion for you was great. I could not bear to see her take you away from me."

"My mother-Veridienne, she wanted to bring me to the Otherside with her?" Shinn nodded. "Of course."

Such discovery made Gossamyr wobble. The air, once so light, settled heavily in her lungs. She had always thought Veridienne had not cared. Yet she had loved her so much as to- "Why did she not?"

"It was her sacrifice. You for her freedom. She sacrificed one love for an even greater love."

And the stunning realization of her father's cruel dichotomy cleaved a sharp blade into her heart. The Faery prince took my sight for the wonders I had seen. Twenty years stolen for a few moments of revelry. A child sacrificed for the freedom of one's homeland.

"You forced her to leave her child behind? How dare you!"

"You are my child, too!"

Shaking her head vigorously, not wanting to allow the truth to settle in, for then it would be so, Gossamyr stomped against the pain. "I am not your child! I am not Veridienne's child! Why keep this cruel secret for so long?"

Still so utterly emotionless, Shinn answered, "Before she left, Veridienne begged me to keep you safe. To not reveal the truth, for she feared such knowledge would hurt you more than help. She feared knowing your mortal heritage would increase your risk of succ.u.mbing to the mortal pa.s.sion."

"And so you allow me to believe I am something I am not? You have known of my mortal pa.s.sion with the Otherside. It is as if my very being were trying to make me understand. I am what the fee so fear!"

"I could not have prevented you from leaving. I thought to keep the truth from you would keep you safe. So long as you never left Faery your Enchantment would remain." He sighed. "You would have never stayed in Faery. Admit it."

"I did desire adventure." Drawing a staunch face, Gossamyr wrestled with the inner struggle of emotions. Yes, emotions.

Fear was key. So little she knew, and yet, had thought to know! What now would become of her? She could never regain her Enchantment when returning to Faery.

Anger swirled around the fear. If she had known before leaving that she was mortal, would she still have left Faery? To fight for a land that was not even her own? So many lies told, all to keep her from knowing love. The mortal pa.s.sion. A crime to the fee, but to a mortal? Was it not a birthright?

As well, pity and a very slippery bit of hope fought with Gossamyr's darker emotions. Self-pity was not a familiar mien; yet it stabbed at her gut, weakening her stance. Why her? Why had the Faery lord chosen to toy with her life?

"I should not have left."

"You wanted to prove yourself," he quickly answered.

"Could you not have sent me to a dangerous task in Faery? A quest to defeat a root lamia?"

"Gossamyr, you pleaded for this chance. You were the only choice to send after the Red Lady."

"You mean, your disgruntled lover."

He lifted a gray brow. "You have spoken to her?"

"Spoken? You say it as if I would converse with the b.i.t.c.h before I destroy her. Curse you, Shinn! I have not. But I know all. That you two were to be wed. That she was the reason for my being brought to Faery. That you banished her. It is all because of a lovers' spat that I now find myself neither here nor there. She- she is a Rougethorn!"

"Yes."

"I thought her a Netherdred."

"Why?"

"I don't know, I a.s.sumed. Where else could something so evil reside?" In a fee lord's heart? The flickering thought gave cause to wonder. "I thought it because the Rougethorns practiced magic- but the only reason you hated Avenall was because he was from the same tribe as your lover?"

"That is not fair."

"But it is true!"

He splayed his hands between them. Blue-black raven feathers listed in the breeze. So close she stood, and yet, not too close for Faery. It was hard for her to step into Shinn's air. "Why did you two not marry?"

"She dabbled."

"An excuse! You had to have known such before the two tribes were even brought together with the banns!"

He nodded and sighed, unwilling to speak. Difficult for him? She would not relent until the truth was hers. It was owed to her. This may yet be her greatest challenge.

"You must have once loved the Red Lady, to have agreed to wed."

"l.u.s.t, Gossamyr, no more than that. The Red Lady...I was drawn to her. Compelled by the succubus's song. She is a dangerous lure to any fee male. But I will not claim lack of defense; I wanted her. It was a time when the Rougethorns had only begun to dabble. Discussion to unite the tribes was so new. The Faery elders believed uniting the tribes would bring the Glamoursiege morals to Rougethorn, prevent them from following the darker arts of dabbling. They are no lesser than we...only very few have established alliances with mortal wizards and witches.

"My sudden distaste for my betrothed had nothing to do with her dabbling-she did not partic.i.p.ate in magic at the time. It was, as you have learned, the sudden onset of my mortal pa.s.sion that turned my l.u.s.t from her. I had visited the Otherside and fell in love with Veridienne. 'Twas the first time I knew my feelings for a woman were true-in the deepest way, the way mortals love-so unlike the l.u.s.t I had felt for Circelie."

"Circelie?"

"The Red Lady."

Gossamyr swallowed to hear her father name-so personally- the enemy she had stalked. An enemy, she realized, who had dabbled in Gossamyr's very fate.

"Circelie was persistent," Shinn explained, "and sought my continued affections. And so, when Veridienne was with child Circelie kissed her; a cursing kiss, you understand. When our child was born 'twas a changeling."

"That was the child-"

"That I placed in your mortal mother's cradle," Shinn said.

That he had not named her as the child broke the truth wide open. Gossamyr began to sink below the surface, groping blindly for hold, but sensing no matter how hard she struggled, or how long, she would never simply float. Never again would the mortal air feel light.

"In exchange, we took the female babe lying in the cradle back to Faery. You, Gossamyr."