Part 40 (1/2)
The rider's dismount clacked boot and spur against cobblestone. ”My lady?” a deep male voice inquired.
Rising, but slinking backward, Gossamyr hissed at the insolent, ”How dare you?”
The rider, cloaked in black and hooded, tilted his head wonderingly. Dark stones set about the perimeter of the hood clacked, glinting in metallic rays with a strange beauty of their own.
”You ride the unicorn!”
A smile eased onto the rider's face and he stroked a gloved hand across the unicorn's braided mane. ”You are most perceptive, fair lady.” He eyed her staff and looked over her motley clothing, a.s.sessing but not judging. ”I ride Tor because he allows it.”
”T-Tor?” came out in but a squeak smaller than a mouse's sigh.
The gall of this man to be so casual about the sacred beast. Lacking an alicorn. This be the one Ulrich sought!
Or had the unicorn come to her? She had held the alicorn, had felt the power. Had that moment drawn the creature to her? But she had not thought a unicorn would ever allow a man to ride- Stepping closer, Gossamyr examined the man's face, finding his movement tilted his eyes out of the shadows and into the pale light of evening. They were deeply colored a darkest violet.
”You cannot be here,” she gasped as another awareness struck. ”You dare to approach the Red Lady's lair?”
”I know naught of a red lady, demoiselle. I go where I will. Rather, this journey finds me following Tor's path.”
”But you...you are fee?”
Another bemused smile curled his lips. A handsome man- fee- Gossamyr corrected her silent summation. Or is it Verity?
”It surprises me you know so much. You have sighted a unicorn and a faery in less than a breath. I have always thought the common man blind to our true ident.i.ties.”
Gossamyr straightened, one hand fisted about each end of her staff and leveled at her hips. ”I am not common.”
”Indeed not.” The man bowed and offered, ”I am chevalier Dominique San Juste. You have already met Tor. We've been on a journey-or rather Tor has. I suspect he seeks the missing alicorn.”
”I know he does.” Gossamyr made to pet Tor, but recoiled once again. She could not touch the unicorn. 'Twould be sacrilege. But oh, did her fingers itch for one stroke of the silken moon-bright hide. ”I know where it is.”
The faery lifted a brow. Tor whinnied and stomped the ground with a fine hoof.
Gossamyr nodded in answer to both.
And so fate had been decided for her. 'Twas destiny had brought the unicorn to her.
Goodbye, s.h.i.+nn, she thought wistfully. I do love you. But I choose to do what is right.
Gossamyr beckoned as she started down the street. ”Come. I will take you to what you seek.”
Hands clutching the air before him, his neck stiff from the tilt of his head, tears spilled down his cheeks and sweet liquid seeped into his mouth. The false child of s.h.i.+nn had thought to touch it! His!
”Mine,”he hissed.
It glowed seductively. Palest of yellow. Thick and full. Unlike the others. His mistress had not drained it. She wickedly teased him by keeping it whole and out of reach. Dare he take it back? Could he? He lingered in a purgatory of not-dead and not-life. Yet he did not dissipate or rot as he suspected he should. Nor did one of those skeletal creatures lurk within him. Mayhap.
Alive? No. But neither dead.
So long as it glowed and no one pulled it from the wall, he remained.
”Mine,” he whispered again, savoring the sound of the word, floating on the resonance of that claim. His. 'Twas all he owned. Yet even that he could not touch.
Ah, but he had gained a new possession, yes? Information. How his mind bounded with such!
The Red Lady would be pleased to hear s.h.i.+nn's false child had been here. But sporting such revelations?
I know you, Avenall. Do you not remember me?
Yes.
No?
Pretty Faery lord's daughter, pristine in her blue marble castle. Don't touch. Exotic...
No, not a faery! She is mortal. A changeling!
Exotic? Why did he want to remember those muddy brown eyes?
You are Avenall of Rougethorn...
Rougethorn? It was familiar because his mistress so often mentioned it. He muttered it slowly, over and over. Rougethorn. Rouge. Thorn. Rouge... Rogue. Torn?
Avenall shook his head, rocking the provoking memories about in his brain. Rogue? Rogue. Torn.
Avenall?
He wondered.
Hmm. Yes. Avenall.
”My name.”
A smile curved his mouth. The realization put him straighter, sucked in a breath and filled his chest with air. Yes. ”Avenall...of Rogue-Torn.”
Indeed, he had come from the place named thus. Rougethorn. The tribe whence his mistress had hailed. Yet, there remained a missing piece of his name...
He had courted- The clatter at the door bent him into a crouch. All productive thought dissipated. The Red clamped hold of his volition and he hobbled over to greet his mistress. Regal and lovely, she stood in the doorway, alabaster shoulders erect and one long leg bared to reveal a slender ankle ringed in silver chains of mail. Something dangled from the fingers of her right hand. A...head. Attached to a body.
She deposited the limp body of a man near her feet. He rolled down the step, arms slapping the marble and skull thudding, and landed the main floor on his back. Parti-colored black and yellow hosen wrapped his legs. One arm splayed above his head. Blood purled from his lips. And there, drawing a slug trail across his cheek, glittered a hint of Faery. It was the man who had earlier kept Avenall-yes, Avenall!-from pinning the essences. The man who accompanied the female-s.h.i.+nn's daughter.
Do you not remember me, Avenall?
Yes...I...I courted you.
”Puppy?”