Dragon Blood (Reclaiming the Fire Book 4) Page 15

  “That was intense,” I said.

  “And useful,” Davril said. “We learned much that we didn’t know before. Jereth seems to have no knowledge of who is behind the wraiths.”

  “But he did know of them, and he didn’t say anything. He probably knew they could have been responsible for the murders, but he never said a word, only used the murders as an excuse to whip up his people.”

  “I wonder when Lady Coolwater found out. And Lord Strongwall. What did Jereth tell them to allay suspicions that wraiths slew their children?”

  “He probably had some evidence planted against Queen Calista,” I said. “He used that to convince his people it was Calista who did it.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have blamed his mother for the murders. But he would have left some planted evidence implicating someone on her side. Our side. Some bit of armor or livery, perhaps.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The sun’s almost down. I can see well in the dark, but I’d rather make the most of the light while we can, especially with the wraiths out there. I think we found out all we can of Jereth and his people, at least for the moment. Let’s find Ainu.”

  “You think she’ll release us from this prison?”

  “No. But I do think she’s been spying on us, and I want to know how. Maybe she has some evidence we can bring to Jereth and the Queen. Assuming Jereth will actually take it seriously.”

  “He will. He’s sworn to.”

  I sighed. “So you keep saying. Okay, let’s do this.”

  We pushed on through the forests of Home Isle. Night had fallen before we’d gone very far, and it deepened all too swiftly. Shadow seeped into the glens and copses and hills around us, digging in fast, draining the land of light and hope like a vampire. I could feel them, the tainted presence of the wraiths, even if I could no longer see them. Still, I half-expected them to jump out at us at any second.

  “You do know where you’re going, right?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve never been there,” Davril confessed, “but Commander Gleamstone showed me where Ainu’s compound is, at the northern edge of Home Isle, near one of the drop-offs.”

  So it was. We crept at last out from the forests into the clearing around a cluster of low houses set upon a hill which overlooked the drop-off. I shuddered to see it, and to feel the winds coming up from it (because the Veil didn’t block light or wind). To live on the edge of the world! Ainu had more courage than I did.

  Guards sprang out of the undergrowth as we approached. Submachine guns pointed at us. The figures wore modern body armor. For some reason, I was relieved to see some vestige of the modern world after being so immersed in the medieval. But my mouth went dry as the guns leveled at us. It was dark, but my shifter eyes could see well.

  “Who are you?” demanded a guard.

  “No ‘Who goes there?’” I said and laughed—probably not the smartest thing to do right then. “Sorry. I mean, I’m Jade McClaren and this is Davril Stormguard. We’re knights of Queen Calista.”

  “Buzz off!” said the guard. “We’re not to let any of you bastards near. What the fuck have you lot been up to?”

  “I’d always thought Fae were peaceful and enlightened,” said another of Ainu’s henchmen. Actually, this one was a woman.

  “Guess not,” said the first.

  “We’re known to Ainu,” Davril said. “We need to speak with her. She’ll see us, I believe.”

  When the guards hesitated, I said, “Do you want to put an end to this madness or not?”

  That motivated them. One rushed off to deliver the news while the rest waited with their guns pointed at us. I tried not to feel the chill of the wind and the bite of the cold but failed. At least Davril was with me. There was that, if nothing else. And I knew that he felt differently now. He was still stiff, still awkward, but his hostility had gone, and once again I would take what I could get.

  Wow, that did sound pathetic, I thought. I needed to step up my game. I shouldn’t be happy that Davril could now tolerate my presence. Sheesh! He should be running to me, tripping over his own feet in the process. Except that him tripping wouldn’t be sexy. It would be funny, though.

  So I amused myself as we waited. At last Ainu herself came out, surrounded by three mages. They didn’t fly their carpets, but they still looked properly majestic and exotic, all dressed up in colorful robes and wearing glittery rings.

  “You two,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “A word in private,” Davril said.

  She studied us. “You’ll have to leave your weapons behind.”

  “As long as you promise to return them.”

  “Very well. Come. I am eager to have you lot out of my home.”

  Her guards took our weapons. Davril looked regretfully upon his blade of light as he handed it over, but he did, and we followed Ainu into the compound. Low buildings surrounded us, some twinkling with light. She led us into one building, larger than the others, and to my surprise we went down a stairwell and found ourselves underground. A spacious dark chamber opened before us, and I marveled at what I saw there. Glowing trees loomed here and there through the room, providing light, and stone basins like birdbaths stood all around, while mages and what looked like Fae tended to them. Were these the fabled Lost Fae? I looked at them in wonder. They looked just like regular Fae, only less formal, maybe, and they didn’t appear particularly lost. They spared Davril a few glances but otherwise ignored us.

  “So,” Davril said, coming to a stop. “You don’t even try to hide it.”

  Ainu spun to face us. “Hide what?”

  “That you spy on us. That you spy on all your guests.” He swept his hand at the many water-filled basins.

  With a start, I saw that in each one was a moving scene. Some were locations I knew, some were locations I didn’t, but all seemed to be places from either the Home Isle or one of the Outer Isles.

  “Scrying pools!” I said.

  “I’d wondered how you managed to keep tabs on your guests,” Davril said. “I didn’t think video cameras would work here, what with all the magical activity, and I doubted you had your own dedicated satellite, and that’s just about what it would take to keep track of a place this large. You have great resources, but that seemed a bit much.”

  “No,” Ainu said. “No satellite. It is not needed. As you can see.”

  I whistled. “So what’s it all about then? You spy on your guests, then blackmail them? That must lead to a pretty penny to judge by your clientele. You must know all the dirty secrets of half the rich people in the city.”

  “Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t,” Ainu said. “That’s my own affair.”

  “I’m just surprised you don’t hide it,” Davril said. Then he tensed. “Unless you don’t mean for us to leave this place.”

  My hand flew to my hip, meaning to grab my crossbow, but then realized my holster was empty. I suddenly felt exposed, surrounded by enemies. I took a step closer to Davril. He widened his stance, bracing himself for battle.

  Surprisingly, Ainu laughed. It was an oddly gentle sound. “I don’t wish to kill you, Davril Stormguard. Indeed, I hope you’ve come to tell me how you mean to resolve this nightmare. I’ve had guests have fights before, but this is ridiculous!” She gestured at her many scrying pools. “And I brought you to this place deliberately so that you could see how much I know, and that you can’t conceal much from me. Not to waylay you, as you feared, but to impress upon you the power of my knowledge.”

  “Which is obviously vast,” Davril said. He relaxed his stance, and so did I. “And you’re right, that is why Jade and I are here—to end this.”

  Ainu nodded. “Very good. Then how may I help?”

  “Drop the Veil!” I blurted.

  She smirked. “And have your people bring your war to the other isles? I think not. No, you must end this feud here and now. Or all die in the attempt.” Her face went still, her eyes pitiless.

  “You’re all heart,” I said.<
br />
  “No. I’m not. But what I am or am not is a story for another day. You’re the ones that came to me, and you have abused my goodwill and damaged the property I am custodian of. I don’t own this place, of course, and if I don’t resolve the situation the Board that does will surely fire me, as they should. I would in their place. So, Davril, tell me how you’re going to end this madness.”

  He was frowning at the scrying pools. “The murder,” he said. “We were hoping that, if you were indeed spying on us, that one of your spying devices—these pools, I suppose—might have picked up the murder itself.”

  “Well, naturally. One did.”

  “Really?” I said. Could it be this easy? “Then why didn’t you bring it do our attention?”

  She showed us through rows of various birdbaths, beside what appeared to be a mushroom grove, then over a small stream, and finally to a particular scrying pool along one wall. She waved her hand over it. I hadn’t known she was a magic user, but it didn’t surprise me when the water rippled, and the scene reflected in the liquid dispersed, then began to reform.

  “This is the pool that captured it,” she said.

  She continued waving her hands. What had been a dark lawn of today became a dark lawn of yesterday. I saw two figures standing beside each other, locked in an embrace. I swayed backward.

  “Therin and Neva!” I said.

  “Steady, Jade,” Davril said.

  I resisted the urge to slug him.

  The two lovers kissed, then separated. Therin, standing on the lawn, watched her go, a wistful look on his handsome, youthful face. Then suddenly he seemed to hear something. He turned. There before him stood a figure in dark armor—Lord Taron Deepnight’s armor.

  Therin said something to the figure, but I couldn’t hear the words.

  “Can’t you turn the sound on?” I said.

  “There is no sound, not for this pool,” Ainu said. “Watch.” Her face was grim.

  It didn’t take long. The dark figure in armor fell on Therin, who didn’t even have time to scream. It all happened so quickly that I couldn’t tell what happened, exactly, because the armored figure didn’t appear to wield a sword or other blade. In any case, Therin fell to the ground, dying. The dark figure stood over him for a moment, then stalked out of view.

  “Come,” Ainu said.

  She moved to another pedestal, gesturing. Trembling, I came with Davril. Ainu waved her hand over the pool, then showed us the dark figure in the armor vanishing into a hedge.

  “That’s the last we saw of it,” Ainu said. “My people searched the hedge and found the armor, but there was nothing inside it. My Fae friends tried to get a read on it, but it made them sick.”

  “A dark power animated that suit,” Davril said. “It was a wraith, it had to be.”

  “Therin’s wounds were analyzed,” I said. “A wraith killed him, and later Neva.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Ainu said. She rolled her shoulders. “But you see why I didn’t bring this to your attention, as you say. There was nothing in it that could have benefited you. Nothing that proves your Fae friend innocent or guilty. I forget which one it was that was accused.”

  “Lord Deepnight.”

  “Yes. Him. It’s hard to know for sure, since my scrying pools don’t record sound, generally speaking. It takes too much magic, too many spellgredients.”

  Suddenly a thought occurred to me. I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it!”

  “What is it, Jade?” Davril asked.

  “Well, we can’t prove anything based on the murder video, Ainu is right. But she wasn’t looking at Deepnight, I bet. She didn’t even know who it was that was accused.” I glanced at her hopefully, and was encouraged to see her biting her lip in thought. “Well? Can you do it? Can you find which of these pools were keeping track of the Deepnights and see if Taron was around and, well, not killing anybody, at the time of the murder?”

  A long moment of silence passed, and then she inclined her head. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I think I can.”

  Davril flashed me a smile. “Well done.”

  “Show the way,” I told Ainu.

  She led us down mossy paths, over another little stream, to a bank of scrying pools. She interacted with them for a while, sometimes consulting with one of the so-called Lost Fae (what was their deal, anyway?), while Davril and I waited. Finally she beckoned us to approach and said, “This one seems to have what you’re looking for.”

  She showed us the vision in the pool: Taron Deepnight with his family at their bungalow.

  “This is exactly at the time of the first murder,” she said.

  “Ha!” I said. “I knew he was innocent!”

  Davril raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you so happy about it?”

  “Uh, no reason. I’m just a naturally happy person.” Tell that to Ruby, I thought.

  “How can you prove that this takes place during the time of the murder?” Davril asked Ainu.

  “Touch it and you’ll feel the magical timestamp. Any Fae or magic-user will be able to feel it.”

  Davril reached out a palm and laid it on the pool. After a moment, he nodded. “Okay, I’m satisfied. This completely exonerates Taron Deepnight of Therin’s murder. If he’s innocent of this, he’s innocent of Neva’s murder, too, since they were killed the same way. We need to bring Jereth and Queen Calista here so that they can see this for themselves.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Ainu said. “You can simply take the scrying pool with you?”

  “How would that work?” I said.

  Quickly and deftly, she lifted the basin of water off its pedestal and spilled the water out. I cried out as it splashed on the floor.

  “Hey! Don’t do that! You’re destroying evidence!”

  She smiled thinly at me. “Don’t worry, the memories in the pool are safe. You need only pour some water into it for the visions to return. The water is just a medium; it’s the bowl itself that is enchanted.” She held the stone bowl out to us. “Take this. I will fashion some leather straps that will hold it to one of your backs.”

  I looked at Davril. He valiantly resisted rolling his eyes.

  “I’ll bear the burden,” he said.

  I started to smile, but then I frowned instead. “Now all we have to do is take it, through the wraith-haunted Isle, to Jereth. And we have no way of defending ourselves against them. And if we fail …”

  Davril laid a hand on my shoulder. “If we fail, all is lost.”

  “You’re a comfort.”

  To my eternal surprise, he smiled. “At least we won’t be alive to see it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A cold breath whispered through the forest. I shuddered, feeling it raise gooseflesh along my arms and the nape of my neck.

  “This is a bad idea,” I whispered. I didn’t want anyone, or anything, to overhear us. But I knew I could whisper very softly and that Davril’s Fae hearing could pick up the words. I didn’t fear being overheard by anyone, or anything, else.

  “Did you have a better one?” he said. He didn’t even grunt at the strain of the empty stone basin strapped by leather thongs to his broad back. He moved swiftly and deftly through the forest one step ahead of me. He had retrieved his sword from Ainu’s people, and it hung sheathed at his hip.

  “Well, I think Ainu could have spared some troops to go with us,” I said.

  “And risk her own people? For us? I don’t think that’s the sort of person Ainu is.”

  I sighed. “No. I guess not. We’re lucky she helped us at all.”

  “It was your quick thinking that led to us finding the exonerating evidence.”

  “Thanks. But we’re still hoping Jereth is honorable enough to desist his hostilities once he sees it.”

  “He is. He will.” But I got the feeling Davril was saying this in order to make himself believe it, not because he already did. I resisted another sigh.

  The night was black and cold all around us, and the forest see
med closer and more claustrophobic than I had ever remembered it being before. It had always been light and airy, an arboreal playground for the rich, a fantasy of what the natural world could be when combined with magic. Now it was forbidding and ominous, and every skitter of leaves or rustle of tree limbs made me flinch.

  On the edge of my vision, something moved. I tugged Davril’s arm and we both crouched. I indicated what I’d seen, and we both looked.

  Wraiths.

  Dark, formless, hard to discern in the darkness, they flitted from tree to tree, shrub to shrub, vague wisps of shadow. Cold seeped out from them. There were three of them, I thought. No, four! Four wraiths, and us with no weapon that could fatally wound them.

  I said a quick spell under my breath, deepening the darkness about us. I doubted it would work, though. The gazes of wraiths could probably pierce any darkness.

  We waited, tense, both our hands on the hilts of our blades. Mine wasn’t as badass as Davril’s, but it was magical and could help in a pinch. Man, someday I was going to have to get one of those blazing longswords. Maybe when I finally graduated cadet school.

  That is, if I lived to see that day. It wasn’t looking likely at the moment.

  The wraiths tore in our direction, on some grisly errand, I was sure. Davril hunkered even lower, and I darkened the area around us even more, for what good that would do. Finally the horrors drew level with us, then passed.

  We watched them go, waiting breathlessly, and when at last they were safely gone, I said, “Whew.”

  “They may come back,” Davril said. “And there are others. Come.”

  He led, and I followed. We passed over a hill, then down into a little valley, then up a long slope and over rolling plains of high tall trees. My heart slammed against my ribs. I’ve got to get out of here. The wraiths weren’t doing anything good for my blood pressure.

  The trees grew further apart, but more wholesome, and a scent teased at my nose. Curious, I breathed deeper. Pleasant thoughts and feelings entered my head, and I saw fair vistas and smiling people in my mind. Light filled me, buoying me up, and I realized I was smiling, too. Glancing sideways to Davril, I saw him smiling, as well.