Child Of Darkness

When he moved back, it seemed to have been finished in a blink of an eye. For another blink, she waited, wondering what he would say, if this was when he would declare some feeling for her. Her heart stuck in her throat, or it might have been the bit of bread, but while she gaped at him wide-eyed, his serious, intense expression changed into one of laughter.

“Come on. The night isn’t that long.” He tugged on her hand and she followed him into the tunnel, bracing herself against the stench of decay that lingered in the Darkworld.

So, that was not what he meant by the kiss, though she did not know what he had meant. It did not matter. She could laugh and dance and be young, unencumbered by the strictures of Palace manners, the seriousness that pervaded every facet of her life in the Lightworld.

She let him take her hand and pull her deeper into the Darkworld, and she thought she could already hear the pulse of the music that awaited her.

“Your Majesty?”

Ayla looked up, away from the revelers who crowded the Great Hall. Cedric, seated at her side, turned his attention to the guard who had approached her, as did Malachi, who stood at the foot of the dais, in deep discussion with two other Faeries on her council.

Angry as she was with her daughter, she would not show it. Nor would she show any concern, though in the back of her mind it crept in to spoil her annoyance. “Yes? Have you found her?”

“No, Your Majesty. We did find a dress, which her servants have confirmed belonged to her, and shoes.” He cleared his throat, obviously nervous to have to speak to his Queene thusly. “Is it possible that she has left the Palace? We do not wish to presume—”

Ayla cut him off with a glare. “If she is not in the Palace,” she began, her voice low and serious, “then she has left the Palace. You do not need my permission to think so. Organize your men and find her!”

Cedric cleared his throat. He did not approve of her tone, or what she had said, that was certain. But she did not give him leave to speak. Nor would she meet Malachi’s concerned gaze.

It was all too appropriate that her daughter would demonstrate her willful disobedience tonight, of all nights. It proved that she needed guidance, and if she would not listen to her mother, she would have to be influenced by someone far wiser, and more patient.

It had not been an easy decision to make. Ayla had first thought of assigning her a position on the royal council, but Cedric had warned against it. There would be too many opportunities for her to discover the truth about Ayla’s past, too many chances for an untrustworthy member of council to flaunt their knowledge in an attempt to hurt the Queene.

A Guild, then, seemed far more appropriate. When Ayla had come to the Lightworld, the Assassins’ Guild had taught her discipline, and respect for her race. But she could not choose the life of an Assassin for her daughter. It was too dangerous. The Healers’ Guild accepted only those with an established gift for healing, and Cerridwen had not displayed such a talent. The other Guilds also fell under Ayla’s harsh scrutiny, and were rejected.

Her only course of action, the only sensible course of action, was the one she had determined to take long before this royal feast had been planned.

“Perhaps,” Cedric began quietly, “we should put it about that the Royal Heir is ill, and cannot attend this evening?”

Ayla drummed her fingertips on the table. Whenever Cerridwen went missing, there was some lie about her health to cover the disappearance. Doubtless, no one believed the stories any longer. “No. We’ve made her sound as sickly as a changeling as it is.”

The servants cleared away the plates from the meal; already members of the Court stirred, restless for the dancing and merrymaking to begin. There would be no other opportunity.

“Cedric, tell the herald I wish to make an announcement.”

An announcement her advisor would not, she suspected, be enthused about. But he was dutiful. He would obey her and put on a good face before the Court. She was sure of it.

As if sensing some unpleasantness to come, Cedric nodded warily and pushed back from the table. Though their wings were bound, the Faeries in the great hall perched upon low stools, so that the tips were not bent by the torturous contraptions that were Human chairs.

Within moments, the herald sounded the call that would bring the entire assembly’s attention to their Queene. At the loud, metal clanging of the bell, Ayla rose and fixed her face with a serene smile.

As she opened her mouth to speak, panic hit her full in the chest. How could she do this? Only a handful of years separated her from the babe who’d snuggled at her side, the gangling, near-mortal child who had nestled clumsily in her mother’s lap after a scrape. If she could have, she would have kept her daughter from growing at all.

Kept her from growing into the alien creature who had seemed to replace that sweet child overnight.

The anger at her daughter’s ill-timed “disappearance” flared to new life and fixed her resolve.

“Friends,” she began, her throat constricting as though to prevent her from speaking the words she was sure to regret. “My daughter, high-spirited as she is, seems to have slipped away from the festivities. That is unfortunate, as she is unaware that there is so much more to celebrate on this night. More than the reminder of her joyous birth, more than our gratitude for the continuance of the royal bloodline she descended from. Tonight, we celebrate her betrothal.”

There was a rumble of approval. Every Faery present would be delighted to hear this news firsthand, and relate it to those who were not fortunate enough to be there for the historic announcement themselves.

Ayla continued, “As I have said, my daughter has a reputation for high spirits, and that reputation is well earned. She is a creature more Fae than many of us, in many ways. Her mate should be, then, someone who remembers how to be the way we were. Someone who knows how to live with and appreciate the gentle nature that she exhibits, and who will respect her position as heir to a cherished bloodline.” She took a breath, which others almost certainly judged a dramatic pause. Truly, she teetered on the precipice of a moment she could not reverse, words she could not revoke. “That Faery is my chief advisor and close personal friend, Cedric.”

A mixture of murmurs, gasps and applause rose from the hall, but all of it sounded pleased, and the ball of anxiety in Ayla’s chest unclenched.

And then she caught sight of Cedric, standing in the crowd, ignoring the congratulations of those who gathered around him, staring in shock and—anger? Was he angry—at his Queene?

Ayla looked away, too uncomfortable under Cedric’s glare—for that was what it was, an angry, disbelieving glare—and found Malachi. His expression was much the same.

When she looked away, to Cedric again, her advisor pushed through the crowd, brushed aside all of those Faeries who wanted to congratulate and envy him, on his way to the doors.

Ayla waved to the leader of her musicians, and they began a lively dancing tune on their bells, harps, and whistles. The commotion around Cedric’s departure wouldn’t be forgotten, but for a moment, the dancing would take the place of the gossip.

Ayla looked for Malachi. But he, too, had disappeared from the gathering.

He stalked through the tunnels almost without seeing, so blinding was his anger. How could she have done this? Without consulting him, without warning him, at least?

He would not take this. For twenty years now, he’d stood by her side and played the faithful servant. When her regard had faded to expectation and every day she took him a bit more for granted, he had ignored it. When she had begun to question his advice, then blame him publicly for decisions whose consequences could have firmly been laid at her feet, he’d stayed silent. And after all he’d done. Without him, she would have been executed, or rotted away for the rest of her immortal life in King Garret’s dungeons. This was how she repaid him.

No more. She would regret this callous disregard she’d dealt him.

He’d already passed through the Strip, into the tunnels of the Darkworld, more familiar and welcoming now to him than the place he called home. Perhaps it was because the menace here was on display, not hidden beneath layers of pretty trinkets and vapid treasures. Here, he could slay those who harmed him and not be fooled by his own sense of loyalty.

In the darkness ahead, a figure moved. Small, almost shrinking from the shadows, its voice called out in a ragged whisper. “Cedric?”

“It is,” he called back, in the mortal tongue he had learned but not fully mastered. He often wondered if he sounded foolish or stupid to the Humans, the way the Queene’s Consort sounded to his ears when he attempted to speak the Fae language. But his self-consciousness was forgotten when the figure broke into a run, and he braced himself for the slight weight of her body colliding with his, her arms twining in his hair.

Dika. An ugly, mortal-sounding word for such a creature. Soft, and somehow clean when all around her was sordid and filthy. Cedric buried his hands in the coiling fall of her dark hair, pressed his lips to hers, finding her mouth hot and eager under his, as it always was when they had been apart.

“I worried you would not come,” she gasped against him, her hands clutching to fists in the fabric of his shirt. “That you no longer wanted me.”

He would have laughed at her if he hadn’t known that such an action would anger her. She, like many of the Humans he had met through her, did not enjoy being laughed at. But how could she have thought he would abandon her? The only thing that pushed him, mechanical, through his days and nights was the prospect of being with her.

“That is absurd. I would never wish to be parted from you.” He inhaled the perfumed scent of her hair, wanting to hold the fragrance in his mind so that he would remember it in the smoke and spice of the Lightworld. He was never able to.

“I am glad to hear it,” she whispered, still clinging to him. “Because we have confirmation from our Upworld contacts. We are leaving.”

He stepped back, though all he wanted was to pull her closer. “When?”

“Soon.” She reached up to touch his face, smoothed her hand over his antennae, which he knew glowed with his anxiety. “I want you to come with us.”

They had discussed this before. He did not wish to do so again, and especially not now, when they had been apart for so long.

But later, as they lay together, awake but not speaking, in the tangle of rough bedding in the secret room that was for them only, for their meetings, the unavoidable notion of her leaving the Underground could not be ignored. The thought nagged at him, like pain from a wound seen but not yet felt.

And yet, it was something of a relief, too. If she left the Underground, there would be no longing for her after the Queene’s ridiculous proclamation was carried out. No wondering if she still felt for him, as he surely would, always, for her. And most importantly, no need to lie to seek her out. That was something he could never do, no matter how repulsive the thought of the marriage would be. Though his race might view the mortal concept of fidelity as antiquated and quaint, Cedric had lived long enough to know that lies, of any kind, destroyed one’s self faster and more efficiently than a blade ever could. Though murdered, Mabb had brought on her own end through constant duplicity. Her brother, her murderer, Garret, had gone in much the same way. Cedric would not repeat their missteps.

“You could come with us, you know,” Dika said quietly, her breath teasing the skin of his chest where her head lay. “I know you’ve said that you don’t want to. But you could pass for Human, and my people will protect you. We protect our own.”

“I will give it thought.” He wanted to believe that were true. That he could go with her, escape what life had become all those hundreds of years ago when the Veil first tore in half. But he could guarantee her nothing.

He could guarantee himself nothing.

Two

The music thrummed through her veins like a secondary heartbeat, an all-consuming imperative to move among the seething mass of bodies around her. They were all different shades and varying species, not like the uniformly lithe and perfect forms of the Faery races.

Cerridwen had lost track of the time, and she did not care. She had lost track of Fenrick, too; that was more worrying. But the part of her that cared was enslaved by the part of her that wanted to remain where she was and dance. Fenrick would turn up. She did not want to stay at his side like a mewling kitten.

Unless someone else was at his side.

She stood on tiptoe to see above the heads that bobbed in time to the music around her. It was dark; she would not be able to spot him, another degree of darkness in all of the moving shadows.

The tunnel where they gathered was another of those crisscrossing tunnels that comprised the Underground, holes once made by the Humans above for their great trains to rush through. This one was not decorated with tiled patterns, or arranged like the Great Hall in the Palace. Here, they danced wherever they could find the space, and the music came from loud, Human machines, not tin-sounding whistles and bells. This music was alive.

Though she was loath to the leave the dancing behind, Cerridwen could not shake the thought that Fenrick might be one of those shadows, in one of those corners, with another. And what will you do if he is? she chided herself. Demand that he turn his attentions to you?

She shoved the voice of self-doubt away and pushed through the crowd. It was much harder to move in the room if one was not dancing, like pushing one’s hand against a current of water. She reached an edge, the platform where the big trains would have stopped to let Humans on. She came upon it faster than she’d thought she would, and for a dizzying moment realized she could have easily stepped over. She felt her way to the ladder and followed something vaguely mortal—she hoped it was not a Vampire—down to the next level. Beyond the reach of the lights, a bit of a Human train remained, though the tracks had been scavenged by Gypsies and Bio-mechs long ago. There was a door, and crudely constructed steps leading to it, and someone inside.

She knew, without actually knowing, that she would find Fenrick there. Once up the wobbly set of steps, though, she faltered. Did she knock, or simply barge in, trusting that her bravery and brazenness would impress him as it had in the past?

If he is with someone else in there, he might not appreciate the intrusion, the doubt crept in again. Before she had time to force it aside, the door popped open, nearly toppling her from the steps. She backed down as Fenrick emerged, his expression angry for the barest of seconds, then pleased and surprised.

“I’d thought I’d lost you,” he said, the flash of his silver teeth the only indication of his smile in the darkness.

Cerridwen smiled back, to show she had not taken his disappearance too seriously. “I thought you were trying to lose me.” Movement in the dirty windows of the train caught her eye. He had not been in there alone, nor in a romantic engagement. The movement was accompanied by a muffled shout of voices in unison. “What were you doing?”

Fenrick came down the steps, his body language easy, but he did not look behind him. “Just chatting with a few old friends.”

A cry went up from the dance floor above their heads. Not the enthusiastic shout that sometimes came from a group having a good time. The screams of a crowd interrupted by something unexpected, unpleasant.

“Watch out,” Fenrick said, strangely calm as he pulled her out of the way of a large, furred beast jumping down from the level above. He backed them into the safety of a narrow space between the train car and tunnel wall, even as those inside the train rushed out.

As they watched, more creatures jumped from the upper level, some landing on their feet and running off down the tunnel, others falling roughly, only to be crushed by the next creature who jumped down. The less-brave partiers swarmed another ladder, and slipped down it in a hurry to get away from whatever pursued.

“What is it?” Cerridwen whispered, aware, but only fleetingly, that their bodies were startlingly close together in this space, and that he had not let go of her.

“It could be anything,” he whispered back, his breath stirring her hair. “Wraiths, maybe. Or Demons. But Demons are running from whatever it is…they would fight another Demon.”

She shivered, from the fear and from the proximity of him.

And then, the pleasant shivers faded. Shouts, in the Fae language, angry male shouts, drifted to her ears, and soldiers, wearing her mother’s seal, followed the crowd over the edge.

If not for the confusion of the scene, they might have spotted her, but they pursued the Darklings down the tunnel, away from her hiding place.

“Lightworlders!” Fenrick rasped vehemently in her ear. “What are those scum doing here?”

She knew what they were doing. She could not let them find her.

“Let’s get out of here,” she insisted, trying to move past him, down the tunnel blocked by the train. “Come on!”

She’d expected him to mock her. “Are you afraid?” she’d thought he’d say. But he did not. He gripped her arm and pulled her, inching their way past the train car, to the open tunnel where they could run. And he pulled his knife, a wicked, curved thing, from under his shirt.

They ran until they were out of breath, until her legs ached and her wings strained at their binding, as if arguing with her that flying would serve her better. She forced herself onward, until she could no longer stand it, and collapsed to her knees, her breath coming from her in loud, frightened sobs.

Fenrick knelt at her side, and tossing his knife away, put his arms around her. “It’s all right. We’re safe,” he assured her between panting breaths. “It’s all right.”

He kissed her hair, held her head to his chest, kept her close to him. All she had to do was catch her breath, and tilt her face up….

When she did, he kissed her, hard and furious, as if he could expel all her fear and exertion of their flight by channeling it into himself. And she melted under his mouth, his tongue. Melted into him.

She pushed her hands under his shirt, found the blue-black skin beneath warm under her fingers.

“You’re shaking,” he said against her mouth, and he reached for the ties of her shirt.

She caught his hands, her heart thumping hard. “Did you hear that?”

“I didn’t hear anything.” He leaned to kiss her again, trying to shrug aside her hands, but she resisted him and climbed to her feet warily.

Down the tunnel, where a shaft of light from another, intersecting route pierced the darkness, something moved. Cerridwen thought of Wraiths and the destruction they could wreak.

“What are you afraid of?” Fenrick asked, an edge of impatience in his voice.

It was not a Wraith. It bobbed as it moved, as though it were walking. The Wraiths glided above the ground…. At least, that was what she had heard.

“I am not afraid of anything,” she stated boldly.

He rose to his feet and pulled his shirt over his head, tossed it aside. “Then come here, if you aren’t afraid.”

She looked away, for although she could not see his, he would be able to read her expression in the dark. And she spied his blade on the ground.

She stooped to grab it and walked slowly down the tunnel, toward whatever the creature was that continued toward them.

“Cerri, what are you doing? Come back,” Fenrick called.

The creature in the shadows halted.

“Cerridwen?”

Her heart lurched in her chest at the familiar voice.

“Cerridwen? The Royal Heir?” The creature stumbled closer, two spots of angry red light forming in the darkness, where his antennae would be. “Is that you?”

He stumbled close enough to see her, and she looked over her shoulder for Fenrick. He was invisible in the darkness, or maybe he’d left her there. She hoped that he’d left. She did not wish for her game to be given away so soon, just as things were becoming interesting between them.

Cedric gripped her by her arms and shook her, nearly knocking the knife from her hands. “What are you doing here?” he shouted, his hands crushing painfully. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this area is?”

Now, she knew that Fenrick had gone. He would not have let someone lay his hands on her this way. She pushed Cedric back. “How dare you!”

“I should do worse,” he threatened, coming a step closer, looming over her.

She laughed, tried to make it sound as scathing and bitter as she had heard from Courtiers. “No, I mean how dare you follow me here, like my mother’s obedient dog! How dare you show yourself such disrespect!”

“Your mother?” he asked, his expression suddenly confused.

Something mean and vicious blossomed in Cerridwen’s chest. “Yes, my mother. She’s sent soldiers here to find me. Her soldiers, into the Darkworld. And you…you didn’t know?”

“If I had, be assured I would not have let it happen.” He grabbed her arm again, and pulled her toward the crossing of the tunnels.

“You didn’t know, and you didn’t know to come look for me,” she accused. It made more sense, now. Why he’d been so surprised to find her. Why he’d been in the tunnels with no guards. “You were here on your own business.”

“Of a sort,” he admitted sourly. They reached the intersection and he started off in the wrong direction.

She yanked him the right way, preferring to glare at him rather than argue, and tucked the knife into her belt. “And what business could you possibly have in the Darkworld, oh shining beacon of loyalty?”

“My own,” he snapped. “This is not the right way.”

“I was unaware that you were so knowledgeable about the Darkworld.” She pulled free from his grasp. “I will be sure to tell my mother about your expertise.”

“Your mother already knows.” He followed her; she heard his boots splash through a puddle, and a curse. That made her smile.

“You could tell your mother about how I found you.” He sounded no less angry, but it seemed as though he tried to mask his wrath. “Or I could tell her about how I found you.”

“And you would be admitting to your own guilt,” she reminded him, turning a corner. He was not expecting the bend, and she heard a loud exclamation as he collided with the wall.

“Which is why,” he seethed through his teeth, “I suggest we reach an agreement. I will tell her I found you on the Strip, and you will not contradict me. The consequences of that accidental meeting will be far less than the ones attached to the truth.”

“She will still wonder why you left the Lightworld,” Cerridwen pointed out, feeling very satisfied to have the advantage.

But the advantage disappeared as he muttered, “Your mother will be aware of my reasons.”

It was cryptic. Cerridwen did not like cryptic responses. But ahead loomed the path to the Strip.

“Do we have an agreement?” he asked her, no urgency in his voice, no pleading.

She crossed her arms, pretending to consider. But this manipulation failed, as well, for Cedric said nothing, made no further offers.

“We do,” she said with a sigh. It would have been so sweet to catch her mother’s favorite in a useful web, but he was right. The punishment her mother meted out to her would be far less severe if she’d been caught somewhere else.

They proceeded to the Lightworld and passed the borders without further speech, but when they approached the Palace, he stopped her.

“When we enter, go straight to your chambers. Wash all of that off your face, and change into something respectable before you are presented to your mother.” He would not look at her.