Truthseeker

“For most of you,” Merrick said softly, “there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others between yourselves and absolute sovereignty. For me there are four. It’s a surmountable number, and most easily achieved through war.” His voice sharpened. “A war that should have been met within hours of my ‘death,’ were it not for mortal interference.”

“Mor—I didn’t get to the Barrow-lands for almost two weeks.” Lara turned back to Merrick, her hands clenched with worry.

“But Oisín made his prophecy and stayed Emyr’s hand for those critical few days until my dear brother could bring you from the mortal world to ours. How is Dafydd?” he added, voice gone oily and smooth. “Shall we see, Truthseeker?”

He made a familiar gesture, fingers clawing the air to rip a shining door between one world and the next. Lara’s breath caught and she started forward, but Merrick lifted an imperious hand. “Do you know what a scrying spell is, Truthseeker?”

“It lets you see across—” “The Barrow-lands” was how the sentence was meant to finish, but Lara swallowed it along with bitter recognition. “Across space,” she said instead, and Merrick’s smile turned pointed with approval.

“Very good. It’s no small feat to turn the worldwalking spell to a scrying window, but let us see what’s to be seen. Think of Dafydd, Truthseeker. Think of your love.”

Anger and fear stung Lara in equal parts. Merrick knew more than she did, as if he’d been watching them all along. The frequency of the nightwing attacks struck her, and she thought perhaps he had been, right from the moment she’d crossed into his world. She didn’t want to give him an even greater advantage by playing his game, and yet …

She’d escaped the Barrow-lands through a twist of magic she had no idea how to command, much less replicate. Merrick’s torturesome offering could far too easily be the last chance she would have to see Dafydd ap Caerwyn. She crept forward, gaze locked on the glittering window between worlds.

The image on its other side swam, blurring with the thickness of melting glass, then slowly came clearer, focused on a single man. Dafydd lay in a bed of ermine, impossibly pale against the soft black fur. He didn’t move, not even to breathe, so far as Lara could tell. She muffled a cry, inching closer, and became aware that she was almost within Merrick ap A

His surroundings were semi-familiar to her, the Unseelie palace’s black opalescent walls reflecting light from the scrying window. A white-haired woman moved into the image, tall and confident in her moon-silver armor: Aerin, who in no way belonged at the heart of the Unseelie palace. She knelt beside Dafydd, then slipped an arm behind his shoulders, helping him to sit, and offered him a drink from a goblet like the one Ioan had shared with Lara.

Childish envy made Lara’s eyes hot. She dashed the heel of her hand against them, trying to turn misery into anger. “She shouldn’t even be there. What’s she doing there?”

Answers flooded her without Merrick speaking aloud. Aerin was one of Dafydd’s oldest friends; Ioan might well have sent for her, or even stolen her the way he’d done Lara herself, so that someone Dafydd knew would be there to care for him. Someone of his own people, rather than an unknown Unseelie. Ioan might even be wary of showing himself to Dafydd; he had no way of knowing that Lara had already betrayed the secret of his change to the younger Seelie prince.

And the more hateful answer was even more obvious than those. They were lovers, Dafydd and Aerin, perhaps even meant to wed someday. Lara was an ephemeral thing to them, barely lasting a moment. She could never offer what Aerin might: a lifetime of intimacy for a man whose years spa

Dafydd took a wracking breath, doubling against Aerin’s side. Hope leaped in Lara’s heart: he was alive, at least, and she hadn’t been at all certain he would be. He’d been so weak, so close to burned out entirely, all for the sake of protecting her and her world. A life like his lost for a planet full of mortals who would neither know nor care would be criminal, and that ache rang true in Lara’s breast. Aerin helped him to lie down again, smoothed his hair, and stood, leaving the scrying window’s frame.

Lara whispered, “No. Follow her.” Dafydd was sleeping; he would remain that way without her worried supervision. The window, at Merrick’s command but at Lara’s wish, trailed after Aerin until she entered another room, more grandiose and brighter than the one she’d left.

Ioan ap A

Merrick made a startled sound as Aerin said, “Ioan,” and for an instant Lara’s gaze strayed to him. She’d told Dafydd of Ioan’s transformation, but Merrick, true son of the Unseelie king, hadn’t known about it. He must have expected a man as pale as Dafydd to appear in his scrying window, and a strange twinge of sympathy jolted Lara. He had been traded away and now it was revealed to him that he had been replaced more thoroughly than he ever would have dreamed. No one would take such a change of fortunes easily.

His crimes, though, had been developed well before he had made this discovery. Lara tightened her stomach muscles, trying to literally harden her heart, and turned her attention back to the window between worlds.

“He’s dying,” Aerin said in response to something Ioan had said. Then she shook her head and sat gracefully, as though she wore a court gown rather than armor. “Worse than dying. His fire is gone, Ioan. Everything that makes him Seelie is burned away. He’s … mortal.”

Something akin to disgust filled the last word, but Lara’s hands went icy with hope. Mortal meant a life span like hers, a lifetime that could be shared. Her heart hammered with a painful, misplaced joy. If she could return to him even briefly, then she might convince him to come home with her, where they could be together without magic or monsters to confuse their future.

Selfish, she whispered to herself, but repugnancy crossed Ioan’s face as well. Wouldn’t it be better, she reasoned, to make a home and a life in a world where everything was mortal, than to always be an object of pity and disgust in the land that had once been his?

“I can open the door,” Merrick said. Truth shivered through it, proof of his royal blood. “You could bring him back here. It would be the end of everything you tried to do in the Barrow-lands, but it would be a future for both of you.”

Without thinking, Lara breathed, “Open it,” and the window winked back to Dafydd’s chambers. Light exploded everywhere, gold and blinding, but she ran forward, staying just out of Merrick’s reach as she dove across worlds.

She hit the black mother-of-pearl floor with as much dignity as she’d landed in a sandbox weeks earlier, but this time she was able to roll to her feet and run to Dafydd’s bedside. The furs were soft, so soft she wanted to bury herself in them and hold Dafydd forever. She could, she promised herself. She could hold him, but not here. His skin was cool beneath hers as she caught his hand and brought it to her lips.

Like a fairy tale, his eyes opened at her touch. They were brown now, such an ordinary mortal color, and confusion rose in them as he frowned. “Lara?”

“Come with me. Merrick’s holding the door open—” She glanced over her shoulder, making certain it was true. Merrick stood in her world, grim with concentration against a backdrop of stones and mountain grass. He made a gesture: hurry, and she twisted back to the exhausted man on the bed. “Dafydd, you used too much power. You burned out your magic, but you’re alive, and you’re … you’re mortal, Dafydd. Come with me,” she whispered. “We can be together in my world for the rest of our lives. But we have to hurry. It’s a terrible thing to ask without any warning, I know that, but there isn’t much time.”