Part 37 (1/2)
She could not conjure the scene. A mortal babe lying alone in a cradle. Was there not family about? Not a mother's watchful eyes to protect her babe from mischievous faeries? How had s.h.i.+nn decided Gossamyr would be the one?
”You...knew I was healthy?”
”No, we expected you would live but a few days, so sickly you were at the time. You surprised us both. Never doubt my love for you.”
Turning away from s.h.i.+nn she looked up to seek the sun, but as it set so its color was muted and pink. Not bright enough to bring tears to her eyes. The tears were there, but she sought camouflage. Faery love was false, a device modeled after the real thing, but never equal. Not the same.
”You know it is not the fee nature to love as the mortals do.” s.h.i.+nn's voice trickled over her scalp. So strange the fee lilt sounded to her now, and here on the Otherside. Alien. Not right. She craved the rumbling tones of Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III. ”We are...fickle.”
”Oh, I know that now.”
”But you...you knew love, Gossamyr. You have always had the capacity for it. I saw it in your eyes when you spoke of him. He- Avenall-woke the love buried in your mortal heart. Which is why I discouraged your courts.h.i.+p. To love as a mortal, and have your heart broken, would have proved painful.”
She spun on his erratic explanation. ”Should that not have been my decision?”
”I only wanted to protect you. Desideriel Raine is a good man.”
”I know that!” She turned and lowered her head. Picking at the fur flowing over her left wrist, she could but summon anger. A bold and furious rush that made her jitter and fist the air. He had thought it all through so carefully. Thinking to protect her from a broken heart? s.h.i.+nn thought only of the political alliance her marriage would promise Glamoursiege. Desideriel was Wisogoth; the ancient faery tribe aligned to Glamoursiege only promised a brilliant future.
To ever keep the Rougethorn taint from s.h.i.+nn's life had meant keeping it from hers.
”He excels in battle,” s.h.i.+nn continued. ”Desideriel takes command- -has even bested me more than once-and shows no hesitation to do so. He is the only choice to lord over Glamoursiege when I am gone. We have discussed this.”
”I do not doubt Desideriel's qualifications-” ...to lord over Glamoursiege... ”You just placed Desideriel to the throne instead of me? I understand now.” She approached him, anger keeping her stiff, sharpening her words. ”You cannot have a mortal sit the throne and so you must marry her to a full-blood fee. Have you planned this since the day you brought me to Faery, s.h.i.+nn?”
”Not so long as that. Gossamyr-”
She put up a hand, hoping to silence his insincerity in her booming heart. But those violet eyes gazing upon her with such sadness, and that sweet hyacinth aura, betroubled her and challenged her need to remain angry with him.
”I begin to understand the strange workings of your twisted faery love,” she said. ”That is why you wish me to marry a man who can never love me -because I shall never love him. Hence, the mortal pa.s.sion would remain buried.”
s.h.i.+nn nodded. ”It is for Glamoursiege.”
”Indeed. Isn't it always for Glamoursiege? Unless Lord de Winters.h.i.+nn finds a mortal woman he can love over the chance to unite two tribes.”
”That is...”
”Not fair? Oh, yes, the fee always require balance. For every good there requires ill. For every trick a trade. For every broken heart...what? It is too late. I know love, s.h.i.+nn. The deep, gorgeous, and yes, even painful love that faeries fear. You could never stifle my truth, yet in attempting to do so, you caused the very tragedy you sought to prevent.”
”It was done to protect you, Gossamyr. Should you learn the truth Time will catch up and... The glamour-”
”You worked a glamour on me? Is that why I wore a blazon, because of faery glamour? Why? Why not simply return me to my mortal parents after you saw I was not to die? Should they not have had the right to raise their own child?”
”The d'Ange family was carefully chosen. They were not to survive long after your birth.”
”Carefully- They did not- D'Ange?” Unsettled, Gossamyr groped for purchase on nothing more than the air, but stood without falter. Ulrich, where be he to? She needed him to stand by her, to support. It could become romantic, should you allow it. ”That is the name of the family you stole me from?”
”Not so much stole, as-”
”Be honest! It is a Faery rite to steal mortal infants to replace sick changelings. Give and take! Good and ill!”
The feathered cloak fluttered out; beneath, s.h.i.+nn's wings coiled open and beat the air once. Trying to maintain calm. Gossamyr knew that telling sign. Please, Father,just open up and give to me my truth!
He gripped the air before him, clenching-keeping back his truths-but spoke yet with calm. ”If Circelie did not tell you, how then came this knowledge to you? Who revealed your truth?”
”Avenall.”
The Faery lord gaped. Not an expression Gossamyr had ever before seen.
”Yes, my banished lover-to-be has joined forces with your banished lover. Marvelous, eh? But he does not remember me. Yet you left your lover with her memory intact, for that is the reason you now battle the revenants. To think you could have prevented this war with but your own discretion!”
Yes, wince, she thought. Show me emotion. Confess to your indiscretions! To your lies!
”Avenall Eloi Papilion,” s.h.i.+nn muttered, marking each name slowly. ”I made it so.”
”Of course...”Gossamyr whispered. ”Papilion. That is his name complete. I had...forgotten. The succubus has him in her erie. Circelie?” She must remember. And: Avenall Eloi Papilion. ”Avenall does not remember me. And he's changed so much. And how...how were you able to banish him from Glamoursiege when he was a Rougethorn?”
”I have command over all who have settled in Glamoursiege. Avenall has been there since he was very small.”
As she had suspected. ”Yet, you deemed him unfit for me with so little time as a Rougethorn?”
”Forgive me, child of mine.”
”How can you name me that after all has been revealed?”
”I love you.”
”Oh?” His admission meant so little right now. It felt little more than a tap from a damselfly's wings to her nose. Irritating, if truth be confessed. ”Well, I hate you, s.h.i.+nn. I hate you for your lies. I hate you for sending me away. I hate you for your smugness and your supremacy. And I hate you for the truth!”
The commander lifted his chin, catching the setting sun in a glitter across his throat. ”Your hate, it is just.”
Gossamyr stepped around to catch his straying gaze. ”So I will wither and die as a mortal? Is that not the way of all mortals? Such a truth is not so fearsome.”
”Remember, I have always told you to believe.”
”Yes, yes.”
”You believed you belonged in Faery and that is all required. The blazon of glamour was yours with Belief. But now...to know the truth...”
”I have not aged since arriving in the Otherside. Time has not touched me.”
Gossamyr turned away and twisted her head down against her chest. Tears flowed freely. s.h.i.+nn would be horrified. Ulrich would dance a merry jig at her plunge into emotion. But it felt right to cry. Because she hurt.
Deeply. So deep it seeped from her chest and swelled into her heart and gut. Oh, but the ache had been put there by the only person she had ever trusted! How many more times would he wound her with his mistruths and abrupt reactions?
”I should leave,” s.h.i.+nn said softly.
Gossamyr stretched out her arms. ”No! We are not finished. There is much to be said. Twice now you have hurt me with your indifference. Look at me! You witness my pain. A pain you put here.” She pounded her chest with a fist. The inability to squelch emotion made her lips s.h.i.+ver as she spoke. ”It seeps from my heart, s.h.i.+nn.”
He tilted his head inquiringly. So dispa.s.sionate. ”Does not your hate for me close the wound?”