Gossamyr Page 10

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  Because the dangers of the Otherside had been preached to her since she could understand. They capture and keep faeries. A truth illustrated not two jigs earlier. Should she have tried to free the caged fee? For what hope but death, for the Disenchanted, upon return to Faery, could never hope to regain Enchantment.

  Yet you left her to live a tortured existence. Could she have given the fee death to end her suffering?

  Gossamyr shivered. No, likely not.

  "So many lost souls," she noted, "each wanting your complete attention."

  "Exactly. Once again we change the subject. Well! Neither are graveyards a pretty spot to wander."

  "You bury your dead."

  "A wise observation for a mortal."

  "No questions, Ulrich, not.. .now. Please?"

  "Yes, we are, both of us, exhausted."

  Gossamyr nodded. "Onward then."

  "I require rest, my lady. I wager you could slip to Nod if only you'd admit such."

  "What of that castle ahead?"

  Ulrich stared off toward the horizon. A jagged line rose above a lush forest of trees. The single tower of a large castle—what once might have been a formidable stronghold—drew a black blot in the gray sky.

  "Looks to be abandoned." He squinted. "On second thought, it looks to have been torn from its ramparts. Let us cross the meadow to that copse of trees and make camp."

  "But if the castle is abandoned it may provide shelter." Gossamyr strode ahead while Ulrich trundled through the tall grasses. "A wall or two is all we need. Mayhap a bed?"

  "My lady of the annoying questions," he called as his steps took to jumping dashes to navigate the meadow. "The few things that see a castle abandoned are plague, famine or siege. Either of the three

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  leaves a heap of dead in its wake. And where there are dead, there are souls. Dozens of them, surely. Just.. .waiting."

  "I see." Gossamyr turned and skipped after him. She would not subject him to further horror. She overtook Ulrich and rushed up to the trees. "Then we camp here, and I'll scout the remains in the morning."

  "I've a blanket in my saddlebag."

  A nest of thick moss at the base of an ax-tormented oak tempted for but a moment. Gossamyr settled down and tucked her feet under her legs. "The evening is warm. I am not accustomed to night coverings." Actually she often slept nude. And wouldn't bare skin feel much better right now than this itchy cloak? "I will keep the cloak if you would grant it."

  "Please do. I shouldn't wish your virtue compromised."

  "My—" She snapped her jaw shut. Virtue. Yes, the mortals were not so accepting of bared flesh.

  "Sweet dreams ."Fabric snapped. Ulrich laid out die blanket on the opposite side of the trunk. "I wonder, do you dream of mortals?"

  With her staff clutched near to ready, Gossamyr closed her eyes. "Cease, Ulrich."

  But her thoughts remained busy.

  This information about Ulrich and his skill with souls intrigued. Gossamyr sought a woman who stole essences, which were similar to the mortal soul. Could the soul shepherd see a fee essence? And if he could, would it serve her a boon or merely a belated warning to an already stolen life?

  Either way, he may prove valuable to her quest.

  Now, to dreams of.. .Paris and mortals.

  The decimated ruins of what had once been a great castle lured Gossamyr from the red dirt pathway. She had woken this morning to find the midportion of her pourpoint crumbled, where she'd bent her gut to curl into a comfortable position. The bottom half

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  had fallen away as she stood. Ulrich's whistle had prompted her to tie the corners of his cloak about her waist in a wrapped manner that didn't so much conceal her bared belly as keep the cloak to hand should the remainder of her clothing sift away to dust.

  Disenchantment attacked her Faery vestments. Yet, the braies remained complete. Her staff, the arrets and the Glamoursiege sigil were also whole. A curiosity. How soon before all fell from her body in a glimmer of dust?

  The fetch darted ahead of her, veering back and skimming overhead, then turning to bank tightly toward her. Fancy wandered the border of the castle wall, picking amongst the fallen stones and charred ramparts for a choice blossom of her favorite, clover.

  "Hasn't been abandoned overlong!" Ulrich called. He remained a good distance from the ruins. What he determined a "safe zone" from the lost dead.

  Again the nuisance fetch darted at her. Wings flicked the crown of her head. Gossamyr batted at the insistent insect. "Be gone!" It was as if the dragon fly did not want her to go up to the castle.

  Which only made Gossamyr all the more determined to do so. Dodging the fetch's incoming flight, she bent and ducked under the insect and ran up and over a pile of fallen limestone blocks.

  Her feet melding to the moss-frosted stone, she stood at the entrance to what might have once been the bailey. Rusted iron spikes stuck in a charred length of wood. The clawed bottom of a portcullis? Gossamyr stilled and closed her eyes. The caw of a raven soared overhead. She could scent but the grass and a patch of nearby clover. Nothing unseen brushed her flesh. (Not even the fetch. Wise creature.) Which merely proved she could not sense what Ulrich had been born to see. Intriguing, his skill, though it be a vexing burden to bear.

  No more vexing than the burden of half blood.

  Desideriel has agreed to the marriage. Be that the reason for Shinn's need to pair her so quickly? Did he not want a half blood ruling

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  Glamoursiege? It was a startling thought. One Gossamyr had not before considered. It made sense. But that Shinn had not expressed such concern to her hurt.

  The gentle hum of wind softened as she entered the destruction. Ignoring her conscience's dreadsome notions, Gossamyr poked through the rubble with her staff. Ulrich's guess might be correct; this castle had not been abandoned for more than a few years of mortal seasons.

  A tattered tapestry, lifted with the end of her staff, displayed vibrant indigo and amber threading in the crease where the sun had not found purchase. A pod of bronze beetles were shook to the ground. She watched their haphazard scurry to find a shadow; pretty how the sun reflected on their hard iridescent shells like animated jewels.

  A deep breath drew in the lightness of the world. Stretching out her arms, Gossamyr teetered playfully as she jumped from one stone to the next. Flight was hers in this lightness of being. No need for wings, merely a breath lifted her high from the usual.

  She kicked aside a dented steel bascinet and squatted beside what looked to be human remains—a skull, the jaw cleaved in two to separate the teeth with a perfect line. Only a heavy slicing weapon could have done such. Much as she craved danger, Gossamyr said blessings she had not been raised when Glamoursiege had been a warring tribe. Shinn had intimated to his violent history in his attention to her training. Strife was far and rare in Faery, for the mortals thrived on opposition.

  But tendrils of strife had now seeped into her home. What may become a full-scale battle of revenants versus her people must be stopped.

  "What do you suppose happened?" she called as she marked what might have been the length of the keep. Wood beams spanning a thickness to match her torso bracketed the fieldstone hearth,

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  the remaining rib-work that had supported what must have once been a formidable fortress.

  "War." Ulrich's voice echoed easily across their distance. "Indifference. Greed. It is a common thing."

  "Yes, the mortal war," she murmured, knowing from Veridi-enne's bestiary that near to a century had ensnared the Other-side in war. How many years formed a century? Had Shinn lived so long?

  "Shall we be off? There is nothing of value to be had from the remains of another man's suffering."

  "Anon," she called, disinterested in leaving just yet.

  Gossamyr approached a burnt wood piling that might have once supported a ceiling beam. Thick as a
man's body and charred at an angle on both ends, it stood upright, rooted in the rubble of stone and defeated pride. Faint smoke and coal tinged the air. A damaged shield had been fixed to the beam, literally pinned there with a rusted sword.

  The fetch landed on the blade of the weapon, tucking its translucent wings against its streamlined body and eyeing her with wide golden orbs.

  "You are not Shinn's conscience," she warned. "I will not be dissuaded. Merely record and be gone with you."

  A flicker of wings glinted in the sunlight.

  She touched the leather hilt of the sword; it bounced against her palm, setting the fetch to an abbreviated flight—up, then back to settle upon the blade. A fine, heavy sword—had it served a warrior? A tug proved it was fixed into the wood. Fine and well, she had no desire to touch mortal steel.

  Gossamyr stepped up and traced her fingertips along the jagged edge of the shield, not touching, but close. The dexter corner had been torn away but did not destroy the faded white lettering mastering the shield. She had learned the mortal language from Veri-dienne in her youth; it was very similar to her own. Painted across

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  the top were two words written in mortal script. Valor. Truth. An "r" preceded valor; mayhap the end of the first word.

  "Valor," she whispered, feeling the need—verily, a compulsion—to trace above the letters.

  To the side where the shield had been torn, the stone hearth had been marred with charcoal. Someone had written a word to replace the one that had apparently been ripped off the shield. Vengeance.

  Gossamyr pressed her spread palm over the word but did not touch it. She verily felt the anger emanating from that vile word. Glancing up to the crumbled walls that were now crenellated from damage, she sighed. Great suffering had befallen this castle and its inhabitants. Vengeance, indeed.

  A glance to the fetch. Did it wink at her?

  Drawing in a breath, Gossamyr suddenly struggled with insistent thoughts of worry. Her heart felt heavy. She mourned for... something. Something lost.

  A tilt of her head studied the shield, but her eyes unfocused and she merely listened to her heartbeats. So vigorous.

  Vengeance, valor, truth.

  All were not lost.

  Stretching out a finger, she tapped the middle word—no sting from die steel. She would claim valor as her own battle standard.

  As for the truth, she had it. 'Twas buried in her name complete—Gossamyr Verity de Wintershinn.

  Ah, but she dallied and Ulrich waited. One day, her journey thus far. Paris was close. She felt the loss of strength, of Enchantment, as one might feel a layer of clodiing peeled from their back. Time would not prove her boon. Even now Shinn must battle more of die relentless revenants.

  She turned and strode out from the ruins. "I must be to it."

  Ulrich hustled after her. "You are most urgent, my lady!"

  "And you are not? I thought there was a damsel in need of resdie?"

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  "There is, but timing is not of import."

  "What is?" she called as she reined in Fancy and tugged the mule back onto the path.

  "Luck. I seek an elusive end."

  "Care to elaborate?"

  "No."

  "Has it to do with lost souls?"

  "I pray the damsel is not lost. But you may help my quest."

  Quirking a brow and swinging a look over her shoulder, Gos-samyr maintained pace. "How?"

  "You are a faery," he called.

  "I have only denied that claim."

  "Not very effectively, Faery Not."

  As she plodded forward, the mule slowing her pace, Gossamyr struggled between confession and keeping her secret. What was the harm? At the least, the truth would defeat that vicious name Faery Not. The man could not think it any more than a silly nickname, but oh, did it cut deep into Gossamyr's soul. A mortal soul? Or half-mortal soul half-fee essence? All her life she had been Faery Not, something lesser, not equal to any other.

  "What think you to wed my daughter?"

  Desideriel Raine sneered at Gossamyr. "Oh?"

  That sneer could not be put from her memory.

  'Twas time to accept and move on. Had not a good portion of her desire to come to the Otherside been to learn about that part of herself she did not know?

  "Very well," she said, more to herself. Ulrich shuffled to catch her pace. A man she could trust, for he held more than enough trouble in his heart to make any more for her. "If you must know, I have come from Faery."

  Ulrich punched the air with a triumphant fist. He skipped around in front of her, the talismans about his neck chinking. "I knew it! You are not the same!"

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  Grinning at his delight, Gossamyr left the road and trod through tall, cool blades to stop beside a massive stone. She squatted before the jagged granite lump and twisted a long ribbon of grass about her finger, then plucked it, pressing the wide blade upon her upper lip. Planting a foot upon the stone, she then offered, "But I am nearly so mortal as you."

  "I don't understand." Ulrich dropped Fancy's reins, leaving the mule to graze. The man seated himself upon the rock, crossing his legs and pressing the heels of his palms behind him. "How can you come from Faery and not be a faery? You look like one."

  "Have you ever seen a fee?"

  "Hell yes! I danced, remember?"

  Indeed. And something about his Dance seemed familiar to her. She had witnessed but the one...

  "As well, I've the sight now, much as I'd rather trade it for a fortnight standing dead center at a crossroads." He entreated the skies with a grand gesture of arms. "How to get Faery from my eyes?"

  "I do not know of a way."

  "You sparkle—"

  "Merely remnants of Faery." Gossamyr slid a finger over her wrist, noting the residual glamour was only visible when she tilted her arm and the sun glanced upon her skin.

  "What of there on your neck. It looks a pattern."

  And so she would confess all. "My blazon. It is the mark of the fee."

  "So all faeries wear similar markings?"

  "Yes, but not in the same places on their body. It is a tribal marking. Though some elders are marked overall with the blazon. Glam-oursiege blazons the neck and upper chest. My father's chest, shoulders and back are entirely marked. One can determine which tribe the fee hails from merely by locating his blazon. But as you've said, it fades on me?"

  He gestured she tilt her chin up and studied. Lost in thought,

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  his lips parted and she noted the bulge of pink tongue pressing through the gape in his teeth. "Yes, it is difficult to see unless—oh! Do not stand in the sunlight, my lady."

  "That bright?"

  "The cloak will serve if you tug it closed." He reached to pull the cloak close about her neck. His finger brushed under her chin. The two met eyes and held.

  Utter awareness crowded out all other sensory litter. Blue, so deep as the sea in which the merfolk swam, she wondered of the eyes so intent upon her. Gossamyr watched the heavy bob of Ul-rich's throat as he swallowed. Different, in a manner that enticed. Yet again, mortal touched. And yet again, pleased for it.

  "That is bone." She touched her chin, and at the same time Ul-rich pulled away. Whatever they two had just shared in the silence of their eyes she wanted it kept silent. "The Disenchantment sets in slowly. Any fee glamour I have gained through shared blood widi my father will be shed from me until I appear merely mortal."

  "Don't knock mortality until you've tried it."

  "I am trying it right now, Ulrich." She sighed and settled upon the rock next to him. "It is different. Yet the same."

  "Much remains the same."

  "Will you explain to me your need to label things the same and not?"

  "If you will tell me how you did come to live in Faery? It makes little sense. Unless you stepped into a toadstool circle and danced the endless dance of joy? Oh, poor thing. Have you lost all your family an
d friends then? Are they old or dead?"

  "I did no such thing. I was born in Faery! But you did visit, yes?"

  "Danced twenty years, Faery Not."

  "If you do not stop calling me such I promise to push you into the next circle of toadstools we pass."

  "Touchy, touchy. Very well." He held up his hands. "So explain your life, lady Gossamyr. Faery or not?"

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  "Both. I am half-blooded. My mother was completely mortal, my father a fee. Though birth granted me more mortal attributes than fee. I've no genuine glamour."

  "So your blazon is... ?"

  "Attribute it to years spent in Faery. Should a mortal spend a length of time there, they would eventually develop the same. As did my mother."

  "Interesting. How did your mother come to live in Faery?"

  "Shinn—my father—" Had he ever truly loved? Had lust been the origin of Veridienne's coming? How to judge the difference between lust and love? Itforges deep into jour heartjixes there and never relents. Indeed. Love. Devastating. "Veridienne went to live as his wife in Faery."

  "I have heard tales of mortals who fall in love with faeries. One cannot leave Faery without first bargaining for their very life."

  "That.. .is not right." Gossamyr had not heard such. "My mother left Faery. The mortal passion led her home—here—to the Other side. There were no bargains made."

  "Ah, so that be your mission? You seek your mother?"

  Gossamyr twisted her gaze to the man. Seek her mother? No. Well.. .no. She'd never considered such. Shinn had always told her Veridienne was dead; there was no sense in seeking a trail that would lead to nothing. "No."

  o

  "So why are you here? Is not Faery a far better place to be?"

  "You say so? When you were so disturbed by the possibility you might be taken back by me?"

  He shrugged. "I just thought, for you, one who has always lived there, it would be better. Such as this land, my home, is better for me."

  Indeed. And yet Faery had never felt so right on her body as did this Other side.

  Tracing a finger along the carved ribbons on her staff, Gossamyr stared off toward the flock of crows that swooped overhead. Bet-