Part 35 (1/2)
Ulrich sat back, his legs bent, forearms propped on his knees. The single candle's flame, set on the floor before the window, shadowed long lashes across his forehead.
”You have no answer for that.”
”I don't know what to think. You have a relations.h.i.+p with this pin man that you call him by name? You know him well enough to trust his word?”
”I did once. We were...in love.”
”Oh?”
”Mv father would not allow him to court me because he was not Glamoursiege but rather a Rougethorn, I told you that. The two tribes have warred against one another. And yet, they were to wed...” Impossible to imagine that s.h.i.+nn might have once agreed to marry the Red Lady. And yet, she knew so little, mayhap it had been an easy agreement.
”But he did not marry her. Instead, he took a mortal wife. This mortal pa.s.sion makes one do crazy things.”
”Indeed. It will set a man on a deadly quest to find a hornless beast of myth.”
Gossamyr sniffed and, only now realizing she cried, pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. ”You see I have emotion. Mortal emotions that run afoul with the merest of problems. Don't look at me.”
”Be you mortal or be you fee you are still the same, Gossamyr. A beautiful warrior-”
”Sent by lies to exterminate my father's banished lover!”
Ulrich gave a low whistle.
”b.l.o.o.d.y elves, does s.h.i.+nn banish every fee who gets close to him and his own? Mayhap Veridienne was banished, too!”
”You don't believe that.”
”I don't know what is truth anymore.”
”You know your mother was mortal.”
”Yes, but is Veridienne my birth mother or merely a foster mother?”
The clank of an iron pot below silenced them both. Armand must be to the evening meal. Counting her heartbeats, Gossamyr squeezed her eyes tightly shut to avoid the steady blue gaze bent before her.
”There is a way to know for sure,” Ulrich said. She looked up at him. ”Call out your father.”
”To Paris? The Red Lady would scent him in a moment. s.h.i.+nn would not be so foolhardy.”
”Can you send the fetch to him?”
”I haven't seen s.h.i.+nn's fetch for a time. But you!” She lunged and clamped her hands upon Ulrich's shoulders. ”You can work a spell to see my truth? Yes?”
”I am but a mere shepherd of-”
”You can! You studied with a mage. Your spell in the cathedral was successful.”
Vacillating with a noncommittal shrug and then a defeated sigh, Ulrich offered, ”You are quick to use magic now.”
”If I be mortal, it is my right.”
”I would have to check my leech book.”
”Then do it! Where is it? Here!” She dived for the saddlebag and upended its contents. The mortar and her sigil scattered. A small book of folded parchment slid out beside the candle and she paged through the st.i.tched sheets. Black lines of flowing text darted from side to side of each page in a tilted manner that made it difficult to decipher the words. She knew the mortal script, yet this was erratic. Why did everything have to be so complicated?
From behind her, she felt Ulrich's arms embrace her and his hands move over hers, closing the book in her lap.
”Does it truly matter, faery princess?”
Do you know the truth of yourself?
”I am not fee. It was...is, and always has been, a mortal love.”
”I understand now, the mortal pa.s.sion you speak of.”
”What of it?”
”It is love, Gossamyr. Love is the mortal pa.s.sion!”
”I-” But it made sense, so much sense. s.h.i.+nn's mortal pa.s.sion for Veridienne. Her mother's love for her home. And she, she had always known that she could love, but had pressed it back as the mortal pa.s.sion. ”I think you are right, Ulrich.”
Silence pounded in her ears. Her mortal soul beating within, seeking escape? Your truth will be your end. ”But I must learn the truth. Help me, Ulrich.”
”Very well.” He drew her onto his lap and, looking over her shoulder, the two paged through the leech book. ”There must be something in here.”
”We must hurry. The pin man will tell his mistress who I am.”
”Think you?”
”Yes. Though I did leave him with the truth of us, I wager he shall not remember. If only I could recall his name complete I might break the erie. Ulrich, as Faery slips from me, so too do my memories.”
”You remember your father.”
”How could I forget s.h.i.+nn?”
”It is akin to asking how he could not love a child he has raised as his daughter.” Turning in Ulrich's lap, Gossamyr looked into his truth. Her Dancer.
His presence in Faery had forged her curiosity for the Otherside. Had he not danced, she might never have attempted to convince her father to allow her this mission. It could not be coincidence that had placed them together on this path to change their futures. Or be it the mortal pa.s.sion that held her in its thrall?
She waited in the attic, twilight s.h.i.+mmering a thin silver line across the window. Cross-legged, she sat, and closed her eyes. Those three words from the dilapidated castle returned to her. Vengeance, valor, truth.
What word had vengeance replaced? Charity? No, there had been a single ”r.” Honor? And why had she claimed valor when all along the truth had dodged her like a fetch's flight?
She had not succ.u.mbed to the dreaded fee curse called the mortal pa.s.sion. She was the ant.i.thesis of the malady. For in her heart, she already loved. A mortal who could love. So many unexplained things from her childhood could be answered with the simple statement: You are mortal.
She did never heal as did the fee; scars abounded on her legs and arms. Glamour had to be learned, 'twas not innate. No wings. Unable to twinclian. Not so tall as the lithe fee and not slender. Muscular and well formed, and as Avenall had remarked, b.r.e.a.s.t.s far too large to accomplish flight. Brown eyes. And how she had lumbered in the Faery air, not like here, where she positively fit.