Part 36 (2/2)
s.h.i.+nn turned a stern eye on her. ”I did not want you to leave.”
True. But he hadn't been overly aggressive at making her stay. Mayhap that is how he erased his mistakes, by sending them to the Otherside? To think of herself as such, a mistake? No, if she truly was a changeling, that would mean she had been chosen. Yet, would not s.h.i.+nn have expected her to perish? They take sick mortals. ”You knew the Disenchantment would be permanent. That, as a mortal, my return to Faery could prove devastating.” ”I took a vow never to reveal your truth.” ”But why?” ”To keep Time from you!” ”Time? I-I don't understand. s.h.i.+nn, you sent me off for ever!” ”The rift will allow your return-though it may yet prove dangerous.” ”Then why did not Veridienne return?” ”She is dead.” ”So you say.” Did he keep that truth, as well? This man she had trusted! ”I made a vow to Veridienne, Gossamyr.” He closed his eyes. The muscles on his face tightened, the vein in his temple pulsed. ”Veridienne so wished to break our marriage vows that she would sacrifice for her return to the Otherside.”
”Sacrifice?”
”The mortal pa.s.sion was strong, so strong.” A falter in his voice.
Gossamyr stepped closer. ”The mortal pa.s.sion...it is love, yes?”
A smile, so small, but tremendous in meaning, curved s.h.i.+nn's mouth.
”You are right about that. Veridienne loved the Otherside. I...loved her. I did not want her to leave me. But even more, my mortal pa.s.sion for you was great. I could not bear to see her take you away from me.”
”My mother-Veridienne, she wanted to bring me to the Otherside with her?” s.h.i.+nn nodded. ”Of course.”
Such discovery made Gossamyr wobble. The air, once so light, settled heavily in her lungs. She had always thought Veridienne had not cared. Yet she had loved her so much as to- ”Why did she not?”
”It was her sacrifice. You for her freedom. She sacrificed one love for an even greater love.”
And the stunning realization of her father's cruel dichotomy cleaved a sharp blade into her heart. The Faery prince took my sight for the wonders I had seen. Twenty years stolen for a few moments of revelry. A child sacrificed for the freedom of one's homeland.
”You forced her to leave her child behind? How dare you!”
”You are my child, too!”
Shaking her head vigorously, not wanting to allow the truth to settle in, for then it would be so, Gossamyr stomped against the pain. ”I am not your child! I am not Veridienne's child! Why keep this cruel secret for so long?”
Still so utterly emotionless, s.h.i.+nn answered, ”Before she left, Veridienne begged me to keep you safe. To not reveal the truth, for she feared such knowledge would hurt you more than help. She feared knowing your mortal heritage would increase your risk of succ.u.mbing to the mortal pa.s.sion.”
”And so you allow me to believe I am something I am not? You have known of my mortal pa.s.sion with the Otherside. It is as if my very being were trying to make me understand. I am what the fee so fear!”
”I could not have prevented you from leaving. I thought to keep the truth from you would keep you safe. So long as you never left Faery your Enchantment would remain.” He sighed. ”You would have never stayed in Faery. Admit it.”
”I did desire adventure.” Drawing a staunch face, Gossamyr wrestled with the inner struggle of emotions. Yes, emotions.
Fear was key. So little she knew, and yet, had thought to know! What now would become of her? She could never regain her Enchantment when returning to Faery.
Anger swirled around the fear. If she had known before leaving that she was mortal, would she still have left Faery? To fight for a land that was not even her own? So many lies told, all to keep her from knowing love. The mortal pa.s.sion. A crime to the fee, but to a mortal? Was it not a birthright?
As well, pity and a very slippery bit of hope fought with Gossamyr's darker emotions. Self-pity was not a familiar mien; yet it stabbed at her gut, weakening her stance. Why her? Why had the Faery lord chosen to toy with her life?
”I should not have left.”
”You wanted to prove yourself,” he quickly answered.
”Could you not have sent me to a dangerous task in Faery? A quest to defeat a root lamia?”
”Gossamyr, you pleaded for this chance. You were the only choice to send after the Red Lady.”
”You mean, your disgruntled lover.”
He lifted a gray brow. ”You have spoken to her?”
”Spoken? You say it as if I would converse with the b.i.t.c.h before I destroy her. Curse you, s.h.i.+nn! I have not. But I know all. That you two were to be wed. That she was the reason for my being brought to Faery. That you banished her. It is all because of a lovers' spat that I now find myself neither here nor there. She- she is a Rougethorn!”
”Yes.”
”I thought her a Netherdred.”
”Why?”
”I don't know, I a.s.sumed. Where else could something so evil reside?” In a fee lord's heart? The flickering thought gave cause to wonder. ”I thought it because the Rougethorns practiced magic- but the only reason you hated Avenall was because he was from the same tribe as your lover?”
”That is not fair.”
”But it is true!”
He splayed his hands between them. Blue-black raven feathers listed in the breeze. So close she stood, and yet, not too close for Faery. It was hard for her to step into s.h.i.+nn's air. ”Why did you two not marry?”
”She dabbled.”
”An excuse! You had to have known such before the two tribes were even brought together with the banns!”
He nodded and sighed, unwilling to speak. Difficult for him? She would not relent until the truth was hers. It was owed to her. This may yet be her greatest challenge.
”You must have once loved the Red Lady, to have agreed to wed.”
”l.u.s.t, Gossamyr, no more than that. The Red Lady...I was drawn to her. Compelled by the succubus's song. She is a dangerous lure to any fee male. But I will not claim lack of defense; I wanted her. It was a time when the Rougethorns had only begun to dabble. Discussion to unite the tribes was so new. The Faery elders believed uniting the tribes would bring the Glamoursiege morals to Rougethorn, prevent them from following the darker arts of dabbling. They are no lesser than we...only very few have established alliances with mortal wizards and witches.
”My sudden distaste for my betrothed had nothing to do with her dabbling-she did not partic.i.p.ate in magic at the time. It was, as you have learned, the sudden onset of my mortal pa.s.sion that turned my l.u.s.t from her. I had visited the Otherside and fell in love with Veridienne. 'Twas the first time I knew my feelings for a woman were true-in the deepest way, the way mortals love-so unlike the l.u.s.t I had felt for Circelie.”
”Circelie?”
”The Red Lady.”
Gossamyr swallowed to hear her father name-so personally- the enemy she had stalked. An enemy, she realized, who had dabbled in Gossamyr's very fate.
”Circelie was persistent,” s.h.i.+nn explained, ”and sought my continued affections. And so, when Veridienne was with child Circelie kissed her; a cursing kiss, you understand. When our child was born 'twas a changeling.”
”That was the child-”
”That I placed in your mortal mother's cradle,” s.h.i.+nn said.
That he had not named her as the child broke the truth wide open. Gossamyr began to sink below the surface, groping blindly for hold, but sensing no matter how hard she struggled, or how long, she would never simply float. Never again would the mortal air feel light.
”In exchange, we took the female babe lying in the cradle back to Faery. You, Gossamyr.”
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