The Court of Mortals (Stariel Book 3) Read online

  She turned back to the foreman, who was staring at her with his mouth half-open. She gave him a bright smile. “Well, as you can see, the bats will no longer be a problem.”

  He shut his mouth. “Er…yes, my lord.” He said something else, but she didn’t hear it, distracted by the sudden knowledge springing to the front of her mind as Stariel tugged at her attention: Wyn had just crossed the border.

  4

  Reflections

  Wyn rolled his shoulderblades, feathers rustling with the motion. Somewhere out of sight along the river bank, a frog croaked. Well. That could have gone worse, he supposed. On the one hand, he still owed Sunnika, but on the other, she’d inadvertently given him new information about the Spires. Worrying information. He hugged his wings tightly against his body before unfurling them with a snap.

  Magic rushed out with them, flexing alongside feather and bone. His mortal form had felt more and more like a prison of late, ever since the Maelstrom and ThousandSpire. How had he gone nearly ten years without taking his true form, before the fae found him? He wasn’t sure he could have managed it if he’d had access to his full powers, but he hadn’t known then what he was missing. Youth and a broken oath had made him a shadow of what he’d been meant to be.

  He flexed his wings, examining that thought. What was he becoming? He’d been Mr Tempest, mild-mannered butler, for so long. Who was Prince Hallowyn? Did he even want to be him?

  He took flight in a rush of air magic. But everyone knows what I am, now, he thought as he flew low over the woods and then swooped up above the lake. It didn’t stop him from wrapping himself in glamour to make himself invisible to anyone chancing to look up. Glamour warped people’s perceptions, but it had no effect on the physical world, so his blurry reflection arrowed across the lake below, an unfamiliar streak of silver and blue.

  To his surprise, he reached the Stones before Hetta did, landing inside the stone circle with a commendable imitation of grace thanks to the lack of wind. He hadn’t taken this form enough to regain the flying skill of his youth, and landings remained tricky.

  It was peaceful up here, with only the distant sounds of sheep, and he turned in a slow circle, grounding himself in the familiar greens and browns of this mortal landscape. Despite the snow still dusting the foothills, the air had changed, holding a tantalising, earthy promise of rebirth. He smiled; he’d always liked spring here.

  Inevitably, his gaze sketched higher, catching on the jagged peaks of the Indigoes, where King Aeros’s bones lay deep in the earth, where Stariel had swallowed him. Wyn hadn’t been up there since. The smile slipped from his face, and he turned back to face the Stones.

  He’d built a portal here to ThousandSpire last year—where Hetta had saved him, hauling him back to Stariel before the Spires could claim him. Sometimes he woke, feeling the Spires’ claws closing around him, digging into his soul. Other times he relived the moment the Maelstrom had snapped his wingbones. He’d never forget the sound of them breaking, felt rather than heard.

  Suddenly cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature, he changed back to his mortal form. It felt a little like stepping from a wide, wild vista into a small, tidy room. Known. Domesticated. Safe.

  Smoothing down his hair, he extracted the rest of his outer garments from the bag he’d snatched up before his flight from the house. But does this count as donning a costume or removing one? he wondered as he twisted his bowtie into place.

  The gentle crush of footsteps drew his attention, and he turned towards the sound and met Hetta’s eyes just as she crested the hill. Her cheeks were pink with cold and exertion, and strands of flyaway auburn hair had escaped from beneath her hat.

  A dizzying, soaring happiness bubbled up in him. “Hetta,” he said, drawn to her as helplessly as iron to a lodestone. She was in his arms the next moment, eyes grey as stormclouds.

  “I’m annoyed with you,” she said absently as she twined her hands around his neck and tugged him down. “Just so you’re aware.”

  He made a wordless, urgent sound of agreement as she kissed him. Heat arced between them, magic and desire both.

  Kissing Hetta had become an exquisite torture over the past few months. Familiarity had only intensified it. Now he knew the intimate curve of her mouth, the way her breath would hitch when he kissed his way along her jawline. He knew the shape of her body, and the small, helpless sound she made if he ran his knuckles very lightly over her curves.

  Fae politics could be damned.

  Stariel hit him with the force of an enthusiastic wolfhound, and he reeled back. “Stormwinds-cursed faelands!” Magic fizzled under his skin, a frustrated crescendo.

  Hetta grimaced, and the faeland’s affectionate nuzzling abruptly subsided. “Sorry. You’re still it’s new favourite toy. It’s because of me, isn’t it? My emotions.”

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “Though I cannot be sorry for…stirring your emotions.” She looked even more kissable now than before, with her pupils blown wide and colour brightening her lips. He gave a very heartfelt sigh.

  She chuckled and sat down on one of the long-fallen stones, and her gaze went distant in the way that meant she was prodding at her land-sense. “I feel like Stariel’s trying to tell me something with all these antics, but the gods only know what.”

  “It could be the season,” he suggested. “Springtime is traditional for…antics.”

  “I’m not a bird,” she said crossly, drumming her fingers on the stone. “Tell me about Princess Sunnika. What did she want?”

  Ah, right. Thoughts of fae politics came rushing back, almost as effective for cooling ardour as an ice bath. He sat down next to Hetta on the stone, leaving a careful inch of space between them.

  “She wanted information.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Information I did not have to give. Someone has closed the borders to ThousandSpire; no one has gone in or out since…we were last there, including DuskRose’s spies.”

  Hetta frowned. “You’ve always said ThousandSpire had powerful wards against translocation.”

  “Even if they survived my Father’s death, there have always been passage points, heavily monitored though they might be.” It was fiendishly difficult—though not technically impossible—to make spells that would outlast the death of the caster. Had his father gone to such lengths? He hadn’t thought King Aeros would acknowledge in even so tacit a fashion that his rule might one day end. “But all the ways have been sealed. Even the overland borders.” It explained why he’d heard nothing, and why his godparent hadn’t answered any of his summons in the last few months.

  Hetta’s expression shadowed. “What or who could close the borders like that?”

  He looked towards the lake, where on the far horizon the distant peaks of the Saltcaps rose to mark the other side of the wide valley, outside Stariel’s territory. “I don’t know. It would take extremely powerful magic—or someone very gifted with portal magic, specifically.”

  Did Aroset have the power to do that? She’d shown an uncanny ability with portals, the last time he’d seen her. It might be possible. His heart squeezed. If she’d closed the borders, what did that mean for his other siblings?

  “Aroset,” Hetta guessed, echoing his own thoughts. She put a hand on his arm. “Would you know, if she were Queen of ThousandSpire now?”

  “I’d know if the others were dead.” He’d feel the shockwaves of his siblings’ deaths through his bloodline, even in the Mortal Realm.

  Hetta’s hand slid down to his, interlacing their fingers in silent comfort. It felt impossibly selfish, to be here, to have this, when who knew what chaos reigned in his home court. Again, his gaze fell on the stones where the portal had formed, and he remembered the heady relief he’d felt when Hetta had dragged him away from ThousandSpire.

  A needle of guilt wriggled towards the surface. If he’d let the Spires take him…but he pushed that thought down. Why should ThousandSpire’s fate rest on his shoulders? Even discounting Aroset, he had four other o
lder siblings all eager to take on responsibility for it.

  Well, maybe not Koi, he amended. The High King knew what Wyn’s oldest brother’s desires were, but Irokoi had never been ambitious. Wyn wondered suddenly about Torquil, the brother closest to him in age, who he hadn’t seen for more than ten years. Rakken had said he’d defected and left the Spires. Perhaps he too was somewhere outside it still, also wondering what was happening in their home court. Or perhaps he’d returned before the borders closed, tempted to try to claim the throne for himself. But perhaps he doesn’t want a future dominated by the Spires either. Wyn had never had much in common with Torquil, but the thought that he might not be alone in his self-chosen exile from his home court cheered him nonetheless.

  An optimistic blackbird flew to one of the stones and then hopped down onto the grass, searching for worms whilst watching them out of one eye.

  “How was the lesson, this morning?” Hetta asked softly, and he knew her thoughts had gone from Aroset to the compulsion she’d used on Alexandra. “Are they helping, do you think?” He could see the worry in her, no less than his own, but he could not give the unqualified reassurance he knew she wanted.

  He sighed. “I wish I knew a way to make her immune to compulsion entirely, but in truth I do not think such a thing is possible. However, her resistance is improving, and even a small advantage may be helpful, if the situation arises, which I intend to do all I can to ensure it does not.” The dark shapes of the Indigoes drew his gaze once again.

  She squeezed his hand. “We will do all we can. You’re not solely and wholly responsible for our safety, you know.” He turned towards her, and her grey eyes met his, a challenge in them.

  “My Star,” he said, bowing his head, knowing the non-answer would provoke her.

  She poked him in the ribs. “Wyn!”

  “Very well; I acknowledge your claim on this land and its people.” He could not do otherwise; it was as much a part of her as her pragmatic nature and passion for coffee.

  She huffed, but her eyes sparkled before going distant. “Speaking of this land, I invited a flock of piskies to live in the Tower Room.”

  He gave a startled laugh, and she told him of her day’s adventures.

  “Well, that will certainly be an interesting thing to explain to the new housekeeper,” he mused when she’d finished. The new housekeeper had joined the staff only a month ago. So far, she’d proven a hard-working and pragmatic woman, much less concerned with his fae nature than with him not interfering with her management of the household. Hopefully piskies would be met with a similar attitude.

  One couldn’t see the house from the Stones, but they both looked in that direction anyway. Hetta’s expression tightened. Was she imagining the same scene as him, of one or other of the household coming upon the piskies unprepared? The various obligations they both juggled jostled around them, unspoken but acknowledged.

  We should get back. The words sat on the tip of his tongue, unspoken.

  But Hetta straightened, a steely determination in her expression. “Well, if we’re going to be playing fae politics, we’re going to need more practice.” She smiled, with a hint of wickedness. “Besides, no one knows we’re up here yet.”

  5

  Lightning Experiments

  “This is not what I thought you had in mind when you said ‘practice’,” Wyn groused down at her, the weak spring sunshine glinting in the white-blond of his hair. He stood a few feet from two of the taller Stones, on the opposite side of the hilltop to her. “I thought you wanted to experiment more with your land-sense.”

  “I do, but you’re the one who’s most worried about your control, and this is practice for both of us. Maximum efficiency,” she pointed out from her seat. She drew her feet up and crossed her legs, glad the skirt she’d worn was loose enough to allow it. If she’d known she was likely to be tramping about the estate, she would’ve worn her work trousers. With the sun at its peak above them, it was almost warm, despite the bite in the breeze. Deciding to enjoy it while she could, she shucked off her coat and put it neatly beside her.

  He sighed. “I won’t forgive myself if I electrocute you.”

  “I don’t think that’s at all likely. I have complete faith in you.” And he had to stop hiding from her—and more importantly, from himself—or this thing between them was never going to work, regardless of the soft, sugary happiness that welled up in her whenever she saw him. It seemed to be one of the irrational side-effects of love.

  He eyed the space between them. “Do you realise exactly how unpredictable and powerful my magic has been these past months? How utterly unprepared I was to deal with it? How dangerous I could be if I lost control over it?” His voice had gone tight and angry, not at her but at himself, she knew. In counterpoint to his words, a bumblebee weaved drunkenly around his head before deciding there was no nectar to be had there and continuing on its way.

  “We’re all dealing with new and untried magic. And you’re no more dangerous than I am,” she continued. “Less, on Stariel’s lands, in fact.” A fact she preferred not to dwell on, though it was true enough. On the estate, she had more raw magic at her disposal than anyone, though raw magic was not as useful as, say, insulation or linesmen, when it came down to it.

  “You’ve never accidentally called down lightning,” Wyn argued.

  “You were unprepared then and it was still fine,” she disagreed. “It’s therefore even more likely to be fine now, with both of us prepared.” That was how it had gone the first time his new magic had surfaced unexpectedly: lightning on a clear day, and Stariel snapping it out of the air like a dog catching a stick, leaving both of them wide-eyed with shock, and Hetta’s hair standing on end with the static remnants.

  Wyn took a deep breath and measured the distance between them again. After a moment, he muttered: “I don’t trust my control in this form.” He shrugged out of his coat, folding and placing it on top of the nearest stone. His expression was carefully neutral, which meant he was feeling self-conscious.

  Between one moment and the next, he shed the proper steward and became fae, complete with wings, horns, and pointed ears. It changed the aspect of his face subtly, his features sharpening, the colour of his eyes deepening. Hetta couldn’t help mentally overlaying his two selves, trying to find the man who made her heart sing in the face of the impossibly beautiful prince before her.

  She shook her head; she was being ridiculous. It wasn’t as if Wyn in this form was unappealing—if anything, there was a trueness to him like this. It was only that he was less familiar, and unfamiliarity, she thought matter-of-factly, was a problem easily solved by exposure. Speaking of which—

  “What a pity I had all those shirts specially made for you,” she reflected. The shirts she’d given him as a Wintersol gift were made to accommodate wings and meant that he didn’t need to go bare-chested anymore when he changed shape. Why had she thought that would be a good idea? Wyn’s supply of such shirts had increased over the last few months, so he’d clearly commissioned more, probably feeding the spreading rumours about him, inside the estate and out. But still not any modified coat. Perhaps he didn’t think it worth the bother to get one tailored.

  “My love, I’m about to undertake a potentially dangerous experiment that depends not only on my focus and self-control but on your quick reflexes if something goes awry, and you are complaining about a missed opportunity to ogle my shirtless self?” His wings shifted restlessly. He was easier to read in his fae form, unable to keep his feathers from betraying his emotions.

  She leaned her elbows on her knees and took a moment to consider. “Yes, that’s exactly my complaint.”

  His eyes danced. “Hetta. You aren’t helping my concentration.”

  “Isn’t that the whole point of this exercise?” she teased. “So you can prove to yourself you won’t lose control of your magic under pressure? Who knows, perhaps Stariel’s only been so troublesome because it needs reassuring that you’re not about to
explode into a lightning storm the minute you get excited.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “The minute I get excited? And what about the effect of your emotional state on the land you are magically bonded to?”

  “Well, that’s just more reason for me to practice communicating with Stariel, isn’t it?” she pointed out. “It has to grasp the concept of privacy eventually, doesn’t it?” This last was a skyward plea to her estate, which so far had shown a disheartening lack of comprehension on the subject.

  “Both our existences support that conclusion.”

  She wrinkled her nose. On the one hand, it was reassuring to know it had to be possible to have a normal relationship whilst bonded to a faeland. But on the other, she’d much rather not consider either his father or hers from that angle. Instead, she reached for Stariel.

  she told the land, supporting her words with images. It was better with images.

  A feeling of willingness.

  “Stariel and I are ready,” she told him. “So you can stop delaying.”

  He rubbed one of his horns, a physical tell that she’d never seen from him in his mortal form. It was oddly endearing, how much easier he was to read like this. “I worry,” he admitted.

  “You worry too much. Think of the rewards, instead!” She put her hands behind her head and leaned back against the flat rock, knowing it would emphasise the curves of her breasts against her blouse. Wyn tracked the movement, unable to help himself.

  “You’re doing this on purpose,” he accused.

  “Well, if your control over your magic is fractured by only very mild flirting, you’re of no use to me,” she pointed out.