Page 41 of Cathmoir’s Sons (Bad Boys of Bevington #5)

Chapter 41

Dancing Wolves

RHODES

“ T hat’s the failed Summer Prince,” Caileán’s sister, Hraena, says, her voice pitched so only Caileán and I can hear her.

With a Crow Queen on each arm, I walk down a long, green-lit corridor packed with glittering fae. I’m still a little puzzled by how I got here.

One minute I was relaxing with Lu at Ty Olewydd, my stomach full of shortbread and my mind rolling in afterglow. The next I was bathed, shaved, stuffed into black leather, and pulled through a spinning blue gate into this entryway to the famous high fae court. Somehow, I missed that Caileán agreeing to attend the Wolf Moon Festival with the Holly King translated into all of us attending the Wolf Moon Festival.

It's not that I object to accompanying Caileán—although it’s a little strange to be part of her date with another man—it’s that I haven’t been directly involved in the politicking Caileán, Law, and Luca have been doing. But I don’t mind stepping up. Whatever respite dying at Jedburgh Abbey bought me is over.

I take in the fae that Hraena’s indicated. He’s a little taller than I am. His skin gleams like he’s been dipped in honey. His eyes shimmer from summer green to gold and back. He’s swathed in formal robes that start gold around his shoulders but fade to midnight blue by his feet. Tiny golden lights flit over the fabric. I really hope they’re not enslaved will o’ the wisps or something.

During our quick strategy session while we were bathing, Law and Luca warned us not to be surprised by seeing wild or Unseelie fae at Ivywhile. They also warned us, with several growls, that the low fae would probably be enslaved.

Caileán’s expression warned that they wouldn’t remain enslaved for long.

Horns and a bow the same gleaming gold as the Summer Prince’s upper robes interrupt my view of the Ivywhile royalty. A centaur takes careful steps through the crowd. Before she reaches the prince, she bends one knee. When she straightens, she flips hair as black as Caileán’s over her shoulders, showing off golden armor plating her shoulders, breasts, and stomach, with panels of midnight blue silk hanging between her forelegs and over her back.

“Sienna,” Hraena comments, nodding at the centaur. “They were paired by the Oak King’s druadh: the millennial bride and groom. When they went to their bower, he was his father’s pawn, and she was a drug-addicted mortal a fisher dug up somewhere. When they emerged from their bower, he’d somehow gained enough of the Mother’s grace that the millennial ritual didn’t kill him. And she became one of the sky archers. There’s no one Emnyre fears or despises more than Liamnh and Sienna.”

Emnyre’s a name I remember from our strategy session. He’s the Oak King’s chief knight since Aranthann became the Holly King. I haven’t seen him in the crowd, but evidently, he’s unmistakable as he’s close to nine feet tall with huge golden horns growing out of his helmet and a burning tree on his breastplate. Luca said we’d know he was coming just from the stink of smoke.

“Possible ally?” Caileán murmurs.

“After the coup, maybe,” Hraena says. “Until the cabal of druadh and knights who tried to sacrifice the Summer Prince to the Green Man are dead or otherwise dealt with, I can’t see Liamnh and Sienna siding with anyone. They’re too wary.”

Caileán hums. “Well, nearly being sacrificed in the name of your father’s continued reign will do that.”

“Indeed,” Hraena agrees. She nods to another fae who swishes past us in a shining cloud of blues and greens, mist and the crackle of lightning trailing in her wake. “Klaya Blackmaben. Former Storm Lady of Bloodelm. She was the only member of her house to escape the court’s destruction.”

Caileán lifts her eyebrows at her sister. “Ally?”

Hraena’s mouth twitches. “Perhaps more.”

Caileán grins. “Are you claiming a consort at last, sister?”

“We’re still negotiating,” Hraena says. “But she’s much happier now that I’ve taken off my mask and shown her my true face.”

Caileán reaches across me and clasps her sister’s feather-mantled forearm. “I’m sorry you had to wear that mask for so long.”

Hraena’s crow-sharp features grow even more predatory. “I’m not. Particularly not since it protected you and Didrane for centuries and allowed me to maneuver unnoticed. I know the courts still need cleansing, but it was much, much worse before the Oak King became so bound in his bark. Your mortals are safe to venture into these halls now. That was not the case even a century ago.”

I grunt. “Hard to believe my family had the right of it.”

I hate it when the zealots are right.”

Hraena tips her head to look up at me. Mighty Fae Queens Caileán and her sisters may be, but they’re pint-sized compared to me. I’m sure they were regal and imposing when the average mortal height was five feet. Now, they’re ... cute.

I’m confident Hraena would not appreciate being described as cute.

“I knew your granduncle. He was mad, but he was not entirely wrong. I am sorry for the injury he did you. I can feel the runes even now. They strain, don’t they?”

I nod. That’s the best description I’ve heard for my uneasy relationship with the sigils carved into my skin. I bear them. I always will. But it’s a strain.

“As mad as he was,” Hraena continues. “He gave you great power. Would you be able to bear the love of a Crow Queen without his ‘gift’? I wonder.”

“Would he have been summoned to Jedburgh Abbey and died there without the madman’s ‘gift’?” Caileán rejoins. “I wonder.”

I turn my head and kiss her temple, brushing the cold metal of the Holly King’s diamond strand that weaves through her locks. “Would you have saved me without them?” I ask.

She looks up at me, not even the light of Faery’s two moons equal to the bright emotion in her eyes. “I came back from true death to fight at your side. Marked, unmarked, your flesh makes no difference to me. Your soul called to me, and I answered. I will always answer.”

There in the stream of fae and their guests joining the high court of Ivywhile for the Wolf Moon Festival, I stop and turn Caileán fully into my arms, and kiss her in front of everyone, so she knows without a doubt that my soul will always answer hers, too.

We find the Holly King standing in a grove bordered by his namesake, flanked by white-armored knights. I reluctantly surrender Caileán’s hand to him. Hraena squeezes my arm and gives the Holly King a smile that would give anyone nightmares.

He looks like the knight he was tonight: gleaming plate mail covering his chest, biceps, and thighs over his silk robes. His horns tipped with silver filigree; his crimson hair bound back from his face with the Crown of the North. When he shifts to take Caileán’s hand, his robes part to reveal a curved sword at each hip.

Despite looking more knightly than kingly, the Holly King bows low over Caileán’s hand and murmurs a gentlemanly greeting.

“There were two moons shining in the scrying pond in Tsara D’Asmodei’s garden,” Luca says quietly from beside me. He and Law have escorted Didrane on this strange quintuple date. Or is it only a triple date when there are three women between us? I don’t know. This polyamory thing gets confusing. “Do you think they’re the same moons?”

“Billions of moons in billions of skies,” I say, tipping my head back to look at the two moons shining over the grove and thinking of the vastness of the space surrounding them. “No reason they would be.”

“No reason they wouldn’t be,” Luca responds with a grin. “You must have missed the theory of convergences during all that White Cloak training.”

He nods at the blue training mantle I’m wearing over the black leather. The twins are wearing almost identical black leather, but Luca’s topped his leather pants with a blue and green plaid kilt and Law’s chest is bare under a black leather duster. I’ve given up trying to find occasions where both of them keep their shirts on. At least the sight of Law’s chest doesn’t turn me on. Erections in leather pants are uncomfortable, I’ve already discovered.

“I didn’t miss the theory of convergences, nerd. I just wouldn’t apply it to demons and high fae.”

Luca’s grin rivals Hraena’s. “Gotta keep an open mind, lover,” he tells me. “Look for interesting intersections. Like demonic additions to the guest list.”

After taking Law on yet another field trip to Hell, Jou and the mohawked demon who made shortbread with Caileán and kept suggesting the most unlikely baby names – Heneage , Madrigal , Garfunkle – went home. And we all agreed that was a good thing. Or so I thought.

“You wouldn’t,” I protest, although I know perfectly well my kit would.

Luca slips his phone out of his pocket and shows me the group chat on his screen.

SpareCat: High fae = boring. Send help.

BaronAsh: Help on the way. Just let me finish putting the babies to bed.

“Lu,” I chide. “That’s not going to calm anything down. Tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

Luca clucks his tongue softly. “You’re proceeding from an incorrect premise. I don’t want to calm anything down. I want to create a little chaos. Turn all these fucking stuffy fuckers on their heads.”

I glance at Caileán, expecting disapproval. She’s talking to the Holly King, but her eyes are on us, and they’re lit with a smile as wide as Luca’s.

Okay, so we’re all aboard the chaos train. In that case ...

I take Luca’s free hand and move toward Caileán and the Holly King. “Dance with us.”

Her eyebrows lift a fraction before she catches Luca’s wrist and takes a skipping step, pulling Lu and the Holly King with her. Hraena steps into me and then we’re all circling widdershins. Law steps in between Hraena and the Holly King before they link hands and our circle widens. Before we make another full revolution, Didrane takes Law’s and the Holly King’s hands, and our circle stretches so wide the Holly King’s entourage are pressed back against his namesake trees.

I’m not sure who starts laughing, but once it starts, it’s contagious. Caileán’s clear, soft laugh is echoed by Didrane’s deeper alto. Hraena chuckles. The Cait purr tickles through the air. Finally, the Holly King lifts his face to the moonlight and laughs with us.

Our laughter provides a beat for our steps. From somewhere in the trees a drum and pipes join in. Will o’ the wisps slip out from between the holly trees and circle us dizzily. Thin streams of Elemental magic, Water, Air, Fire, and from the Holly King, Earth, trail after the will o’ the wisps like ribbons.

In the center of our circle, our Elements coalesce in a glowing ball. The Mother’s magic reflects green and gold from the eyes of the dancers and those who gather to watch: the Holly King’s entourage, nine black-robed fae, the Summer Prince and his centaur, Klaya Blackmaben, and finally, the towering, horned chief knight, Emnyre. The fae watch us with varying degrees of suspicion and scorn.

Caileán’s eyes glow brighter and brighter in response to the glowers. By the time our circle dissolves, she’s brighter than the moonlight and her magic sizzles through the air with the high scent of ozone.

The Holly King bows low in front of Caileán. He lifts his mailed hands and carefully slides the Crown of the North off over his antlers. Kneeling, he offers her the crown.

Caileán takes the crown and settles it on her head, eclipsing his diamonds. Massive wings, black as smoke and as ephemeral as shades, spread from Caileán’s back. The other two Crow Queens unfurl their wings, white and midnight blue, feathers snapping through the electrified air. Crows and magpies swirl out of the holly grove, their metallic cries echoing through the barrow. A thousand will o’ the wisps, freed of whatever compulsion held them in the high fae court, burst out of the trees and toward the moons.

The Holly King rises and offers Caileán his arm. “Let me introduce you to the Oak King, Queen Caileán.”

Law bristles and stalks after the pair. Luca grabs my hand and pulls me after his twin.

As we pass into stands of silver birch, I realize I’ve gained a shadow. When I glance back over my shoulder, I find a demon lord who has finished with bedtime trailing us, his own crown a glowing blue spiral between horns even bigger than Emnyre’s.

“Looks like things have picked up,” Jou observes.

“We’re off to see the wiz-king, the wonderful wiz-king of Oak,” Luca responds with a wink.

“Because of the wonderful things he does?” The demon snorts.

“How in Mother’s name do you know that movie?” I ask.

The demon’s long forked tongue flicks out across his fangs. “Ate too many aficionados of human pop culture while I was trapped topside.”

“D-did you say ‘ate’?”

Grinning, the demon nods.

I glance at Lu who echoes the demon’s expression. I decide that telling either of them we’re deescalating the situation is a waste of time.

The birch grove gives way to ash. Oaks invade the ash grove, growing so close to one another their branches interweave in arcane shapes. The moonlight filtering through the leaves casts skittering shadows over the trees gnarled roots. The ground’s a mat of undecayed leaves that rustle underfoot, sounds that almost become words but fade before they’re intelligible.

“I fucking hate Faery,” the demon grumbles from behind me.

“Except Ceòfuar,” Luca says.

“Especially Ceòfuar,” the demon responds. “Full of fucking sneaky Cait.”

Luca chuckles. “I’m putting you on notice that after we’ve recovered Ulune’s Daughter, I’m moving into Ash Hill. I’m gonna do my Ph.D. on the interstices between the World Tree and the Baroness’ pond.”

“Th’ fuck you are,” the demon growls. “We already got enough pets. No cats in my house.”

“Your wife likes me,” Luca says, his grin even more evil than his twin’s. “She said I could come visit whenever I wanted.”

“I didn’t hear her say that,” the demon objects.

“You weren’t around,” Luca points out.

“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I can hear everything Tsara hears and see everything she sees.”

“That’s not creepy or anything,” I tell him, although I’m slightly envious. I’d like to be that close to Caileán.

“You haven’t been together long enough to know how often your girl gets into life-threatenin’ situations, trainee,” the demon scoffs at me. “Give it a year and you’ll be casting clairaudience and clairvoyance charms on her every morning, too.”

I glance at Luca. He looks at me. We nod at each other.

The demon guffaws.

In front of us, the procession halts suddenly. The black-robed fae who were watching us dance have gotten in front of us and blocked the path to the Oak King.

“What is your intention, bringing this Unseelie creature before the High King, Aranthann?” Emnyre demands pushing through the middle of the line of black robes.

“You’ll speak to the king and queen with the respect they deserve,” the Holly King’s knight squares up with Emnyre. They look like David and Goliath, with Emnyre towering over the smaller knight.

“I answer to the High King, Aehelwen, not a pair of pretenders, and you should remember your place, squire.”

“I was knighted by a king,” Aehelwen flares, his hand straying to the sword on his hip.

The Holly King curls his hand over his knight’s pauldron. “Peace, my rose. Emnyre means no insult, do you, knight? Surely, you don’t look to prevent the Mother’s chosen from conversing together?”

Emnyre’s face, framed by the edges of his helmet, creases in displeasure. “I will never be convinced that the Mother chose you, Aranthann, no matter your current accoutrements.” He tips his pointed chin at the Holly King’s horns. “Nor would the Mother ever smile on this carrion-eater. If you seek an audience with the Oak King, remove all your weapons and enter his grove on your knees.”

Aehelwen begins to protest, but Caileán holds up her hand. She opens her mantle of raven feathers and steps out of it, naked from Crown to her ankle boots. She folds her mantle and offers it to Law, who drapes it over his shoulder reverently. Luca snarls. But both of them defer to Caileán and do nothing to hide their mate’s nakedness.

Didrane and Hraena follow suit, taking off their mantles and standing proudly. Didrane’s skin is parchment-pale, wrinkled, and somehow more elegant for her evident age.

The Holly King lifts his chin at Emnyre before unbuckling his armor and handing each piece to Aehelwen. He hands over his swords last, then unfastens his silk robes and passes them to his knight, before offering Caileán his arm. She takes it with a smile.

“Ready?” Caileán asks brightly.

The Holly King nods at Emnyre, who looks so sour he might have eaten a whole lemon. The Holly King strides forward, leading our procession between the black-robed high fae, who give way with glowers.

The grove of the Oak King is a green lawn, dotted with white and yellow flowers, that leads to a crescent of five oaks, ancient, gray, and knotty. Silver bells chime in the distance as we cross the grass. The moonlight is as bright as a summer noon, except for its silver quality, touching every leaf and blade of grass with luster. Misty arms weave around the oak bark, stroking, picking off tiny imperfections and letting the bark fall to glitter between the exposed tree roots. The central tree, squat and bare branched, is wound around with so many arms I can barely make out the king. He’s almost fully entombed in the tree: thick bark wrapping him in a sitting pose. All of his exposed skin is the knotted gray of bark. His once-golden hair is barely a haze among tangled twigs. His rack of horns merge into the upper branches.

“Brother,” the Holly King says as we approach.

Black eyes blink open between runnels of bark. The bare branches rising above the Oak King’s head rustle.

“What ill wind blows three crows off their course?” A thready voice asks in a snapping of twigs.

Caileán’s smile is feral. “The same wind that ruffled your leaves a thousand years ago. I see you, Gwyn ap Nudd. I see you bound in your bark while my sisters and I fly free again.”

The oak tree shivers and shifts on its roots.

“Autumn’s harvest feeds spring’s planting,” the Oak King replies.

Silvery threads shimmer through the air between the three Crow Queens, who stand in a rough triangle. The threads cross and recross, knot and ravel, dripping magic into the grass below, which scorches in a pentagram, filling the grove with the scent of smoke.

“The seeds you planted so long ago have certainly borne fruit,” Hraena says. “It’s time to reap what you sowed, kin-killer.”

“Sharp words from sharp teeth. They tear the mirror of the past into fragments,” the Oak King mutters.

“Do the fragments reflect the faces of my murderers?” Caileán asks. “Do you remember their names, Gwyn? Dáithi. Ferran. Odhrán. Dominik Iron Hand. Vile Ruadhán. Do you remember? Because I do.”

“The flesh falls away.” A yellowed leaf, the only discolored leaf in the whole grove, drifts to the ground by Caileán’s feet.

“No, the flesh is reborn and stands before you again,” Didrane says, a low, brassy caw. “The flesh bears the memory of its former form. We remember, Gwyn. We remember your sins. We bear witness and call on the Mother to judge you.”

The grove falls into silence.

A hair-ruffling creaking issues from the oak trees. “The Mother’s memory is moonlight,” the Oak King wheezes.

“No, the Mother remembers,” the Holly King says. He reaches into the magickal vortex between the three Crow Queens. His flesh burns away, leaving a long, fused blade of bone sprouting from his elbow. “Admit your treachery. Confess to your court. Submit yourself to the Mother’s judgment, else this blade will dig through your bark until it finds your shriveled heart.”

A great rushing surrounds us, black robes flapping, silver blades flashing.

A screaming wind pushes the Oak King’s servants back. The black-robed fae are pressed down to their knees while Emnyre and four other Darkswerds slash vainly at shades which circle around them like smoke.

“The Mother cries for justice, Gwyn ap Nudd.” Caileán raises her hands to the moonlit sky. I feel the tug on my power, a strange swirling in my chest like heartburn, and then lightning slashes down out of the clear sky, followed by a burst of rain that soaks everything in seconds. A low moaning comes from the oak trees, which curl away from the rain. “Do the Mother’s tears burn your bark, Oak King? They should.”

“I owe nothing to scattered feathers!” the Oak King protests in a creak of wood.

“You owe me a life!” Caileán’s voice booms like thunder. “You owe me a thousand years with the men I loved! You owe me the children we would have had together! You owe me for the pain the Cait suffered in my absence! You owe me everything !”

“I owe nothing!” The trees sway and screech. “I am king! I am the Mother’s chosen!”

“Submit to Her judgment or ready your court for war,” Caileán yells back.

“Truth is the first casualty of war,” the Oak King mutters, barely audible over the wind and rain.

“Your lies are thicker than your bark,” Didrane caws.

“Your seeds fall on fallow ground,” Hraena calls.

“War it is,” Caileán says. “And you will burn, Gwyn ap Nudd.”

“Begone, crow,” the Oak King snarls as roots writhe up out of the grass toward us. “The courts are closed to you.”

Leaves slap against my cheeks, cover my eyes. I bat them away and when I can see again, we’re standing in a snow-covered field with steam rising from our feet. Law wraps Caileán’s feather mantle around her shoulders. Aehelwen drapes the Holly King’s silk robes over his king and bends his helmeted head over the king’s ruined arm.

“Can we heal this?” Aehelwen asks.

“No, it’s the Mother’s gift. Like so many of her gifts, it may be uncomfortable to bear at first,” the Holly King says, his jaw feathering.

His knight touches the Holly King’s face with gentle fingers but says nothing further.

“I didn’t expect you to stand with me,” Caileán says to the Holly King. “Thank you.”

The Holly King fastens his robes on with one hand, swaddling his burned arm against his chest. “As I’m sure you’ve divined by now, I’ve parted paths from my former liege. My oaths don’t allow me to kill him, despite what I said. But I will support you in the war you’ve declared. He cannot banish me from Ivywhile, although he can momentarily eject me. When you’re ready to go against him, I will bring you to him.”

Caileán puts her hand on his shoulder. “Rest and heal as much as you can. The Mother’s crafted that blade for a purpose. If it’s not destined for the Oak King’s heart, it might be destined for Emnyre’s.”

The Holly King nods. “He cannot be allowed to take the Oak King’s crown.”

“Will you take it?” Caileán asks.

Aehelwen sighs. “That is my burden to bear. The Mother visited me with true dreams after She brought Aranthann back. We will end our days as oak and holly entwined. Or in ashes. I have Seen both ends.”

“True Sight is a hard gift,” Law says, standing close behind Caileán. “If you need a place to rest and heal, Cait House is open to you.”

The Holly King nods. “Thank you, Prince. I’ll avail myself of your hospitality.”

Caileán turns her head to look over her shoulder at Law. “I want to return to Ty Olewydd. I know I just declared war and you might need to be with your family?—”

“You are my family,” Law says. “Where you go, I go. Scilla is just as much a den as Cait House. My father and mother can come to Scilla if we need to confer.”

Caileán’s eyes sheen. “Thank you, my love.”

“Anything for you, my queen.”