C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

Dismay twisted the words, and the staff, quiet for so long, gave a sentiment very like chuckling. Lara resisted elbowing it as if it were an annoying person only because its location across her back made the action impossible. She twitched toward it, though, and her shoulder shrieked an objection, providing another reason not to react to the object’s teasing.

Aerin said, “Yes,” without seeming unduly disturbed by it. “Emyr and Hafgan are the oldest of Rhiannon’s blood. Their sons are her children and grandchildren both, while we others are farther removed, and less exalted.”

Contradictory truth ran through it, jarring Lara’s skull bones. She put a palm forward, stopping Aerin. “All right. Okay. Faith is simple. That’s what’s complicated about it. And truthseekers probably shouldn’t try dissecting it. What’s relevant is that the magic is there, Dafydd. Compulsions can be laid against your will. Everyone saw you draw and fire on Merrick, and saw him die, but none of it was real. ” The language, she thought grumpily, wasn’t well suited to determine between things that had happened under coercion and things that were voluntary. “He was trying to sow the seeds of civil war,” she finished. “And he’s succeeded. If he can get the rest of the royals to kill one another …”

Dafydd hadn’t moved from in front of the tomb he’d stopped at, though he finally looked back toward Aerin and Lara. “Here lies Hafgan, king of the Unseelie court. Now we are four, we royals, and Merrick only one. The warmongering will end, and Merrick pay the price. This I swear.”

Resolution rolled through his words, deep and comforting. Aerin, though, snorted with humor. “A worthy oath, my prince, but there is one flaw. We have no one to waken Hafgan with love’s kiss, and without him your truthseeker’s quest will fail.”

“Love’s kiss.” Dafydd turned a slow smile on Lara. “Is that what wakened me?”

A blush began below Lara’s collarbones and rushed upward, so her shoulder ached anew and her face blazed with heat. Dafydd’s smile grew larger still, wicked delight dancing in his eyes. “I was right. There are things I would like to say to you, Lara Jansen.” Say, and, from his bright, lascivious examination, do. Lara blushed harder, blood stinging her cheeks to painful prickles and making her shoulder throb so hard she whimpered and put a hand over it. Outside pressure made the pain flee inward, twisting her stomach, but at least it was different.

Dafydd’s smile fell away, concern replacing it as he truly saw her for the first time. His gaze lingered on her shirt’s bloody stains before coming up to meet hers. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ll live.” Lara tested the phrase for veracity, then shrugged her shoulders. Close enough for government work , Kelly would say.

“These are healing chambers—”

“And if we’d come in the right way I might be willing to ask for help.” Lara shook her head carefully, trying not to jolt the renewed discomfort in her shoulder. “But we came in through the back door, magically speaking, and I’m afraid calling any more power than we absolutely need to will have consequences.”

“I’ve missed rather a lot, haven’t I,” Dafydd said after a few heartbeats of silence. “I’ll want to hear it all.”

“Let’s wake Hafgan up and get out of here first. I want to get away from the Drowned Lands before Emyr contacts Aerin.”

“I’m sorry, Truthseeker.” Aerin sounded as though she spoke from a great distance. Lara turned on a heel, dread sickening her belly. Aerin stood rimed with ice, more invasive than the cold that had gripped them on entering the chamber. This seeped out from her, freezing the air into thin crackling lines, a reminder that only Llyr’s power allowed them to breathe.

Emyr . His icy scrying spell was meant for a recipient who was surrounded by air, not water. Here, in the heart of the Drowned Lands, the magic was bound to go wrong, freezing what it touched. Hoarfrost crackled and fell, new stuff forming as Aerin turned her head to glance at Lara and Dafydd. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I fear it’s already too late.”

Lara jolted forward a step, stopped by Dafydd’s hand on her elbow as he murmured, “This isn’t right. Scrying shouldn’t ice the air.”

“It’s not air ,” Lara hissed, but bit back the rest, still uncertain of how the pressing sea might respond if she voiced truth aloud. “If it keeps up it’ll freeze us all, Dafydd.”

“No. Only me. I can do that, I think.” Shards of ice buckled and folded in as Aerin spoke, digging against her armor. Frost patterns appeared where they touched, cold spreading inhumanly fast. Her sword’s hilt went dull with layered cold, icicles forming on her gloves when she reached for the weapon. “The magic is not right,” she agreed hoarsely. “It grips me, struggles to hold me. It is not the window it’s meant to be.”

Lara, shrill, cried, “Then why doesn’t he stop ?” and Aerin gave her a hard smile.

“Because he must press on until he’s certain I’m dead. He’ll have no excuse to invade otherwise.”

“He’d kill you for the chance to invade?” Lara whispered, suddenly numb. She had simply not considered the possibility, but Aerin showed no surprise as she looked to Dafydd.

“Pass me quickly, Dafydd. Go now.”

Dafydd gave one grim nod and caught Lara’s right arm. Pain staggered her, a guttural cry tormenting the air, and he released her again. Lara dropped to her knees, catching herself with her left hand, but jarring her body hard enough to shoot sickness through her. Her elbow collapsed, bones and muscles useless as water, and she put her forehead against the floor, unable to move further.

“I thought you said you were all right!”

“I said I’d live.” The tiniest whisper of humor went through the correction, though it did nothing to push back waves of pain. Concentrating on a different worry helped: “Dafydd, what’s Aerin’s element? How can she stop the ice?”

“Stone.” Worry flattened his voice. “Stone endures. Cold can be drawn into its center.”

Lara lifted her head the few inches she could manage, face tight with horror. “Stone cracks, Dafydd.”

“Hence the necessity for your escape to come sooner rather than later.” Aerin managed a degree of amusement, though the edges of her voice broke apart. The air around her was thick with slush now, swirling against her in grasping patterns. Ice built up around her feet, working to encase her shins, but even as she worked to draw it in, it pooled out, encroaching on the chamber floor. Every breath Lara drew was colder, a welcome relief in subduing her throbbing shoulder, but increasingly dangerous in terms of their survival. “You saved my life, Truthseeker. Let me save yours.”

“I didn’t save it so you could kill yourself an hour later!” Lara made it back to her knees, though she cradled her right arm. Letting it dangle hurt too much. She’d thought when she faced the nightwings that she was becoming a warrior, but a warrior would have to face pain better than she could.

“I told you.” Aerin smiled again, ice cracking around her mouth. “The Drowned Lands are deadly to the Seelie. I think it was never my fate to leave them.”

“Enough.” Warmth rushed the chamber. More than warmth: genuine heat swept from behind Lara toward the entrance. It splashed against Aerin in a visible wave, steam hissing and the sharp scent of warmed metal billowing off her. Ice turned to drizzles, and in seconds she stood in a pool of water. Violent pops echoed around the room, like glaciers calving, and Aerin shuddered from the bone outward. Her armor shattered, blackened fragments falling to the stone floor in a rain of metallic music. She stood among them, not daring to move for long moments before she, like Dafydd and Lara, looked at their savior.