Page 20 of Through the Veil (Endangered Fae #2)

Chapter thirteen

Mediator

D iego woke to an argument in progress, fierce whispers shooting back and forth over his head.

“…must let me see!”

He struggled to place the velvet soft voice, unable to recall where he was.

“No!” That voice he knew, Finn’s growl unmistakable. “Too many times has he woken alone after these fits. I will not desert him.”

“It is hardly desertion, putting him down for a moment to let us see to your leg.” That one…the voice had a name…Nathair. Yes.

“If the musket ball is iron, it will poison you. Please, Fionnachd.” The purring voice again…Eithne.

He opened his eyes to the three faces hovering above him, the world rushing back with all the nausea and pain of post-seizure.

The Otherworld, Fomorian caverns, the need to bring Tia Carmen through all flooded back.

She sat with the ill fae, Easóg curled in a ball with his head in her lap while she fed something to Faolchú and spoke softly to Lugh.

Angus sat up against a pillar with Sionnach propped against his chest while Scath nestled content in Croi’s arms, all of them sipping mugs of tea and giving Tia Carmen their full attention.

Diego reached up with trembling fingers to touch Finn’s face. “Let them look, carino. Don’t be so stubborn,” he got out in a hoarse whisper.

“You’re awake.” Finn smiled down at him. “Though I hope I don’t offend you if I say you’ve looked better.”

“That’s okay. I know I look like death on toast.” Diego let his head rest against Finn’s chest, the strong beat of his heart comforting. “Put me down, mi vida .”

“No one uses musket balls anymore,” Finn grumbled.

“True, but the bullet probably had a steel tip, at least. Is it still in your leg?”

Finn twisted to look at the wound. “I don’t…believe so. By rights it would hurt more then.”

Diego used Finn’s shoulder to sit up, and would have kept insisting if a commotion hadn’t interrupted.

“No, no and no!” Balor roared from the other side of the Great Hall. “I have allowed two humans in my kingdom, and my benighted, cursed grandson, but not her !”

The her in question stood calmly in the entrance, one delicate green brow arched, lips pursed in disapproval. “You have my people here,” Danu replied evenly. “ My grandson. My herald. My Taliesin—”

“ Your Taliesin! You arrogant, high-handed bi—”

He cut off, startled, when Tia Carmen placed a palm on his chest. Diego had to smile, despite how much he ached. Balor was four times her size, by far the most intimidating being Diego had ever met, and yet Tia Carmen had no fear, gazing up into his tusked face and speaking softly to him.

Diego rose on trembling legs, shaking off Finn’s attempt to drag him back down. “ Majestad .” He motioned to Danu. “I think it’s time the four of us had a conversation. Somewhere quiet.”

“The four of us?” she asked, her expression caught between concern and amusement.

“Yes, you and I, Balor and Tia Carmen.”

“You are hardly able to stand.”

Diego leaned his shoulder against the nearest column, scrubbing at his face. “I won’t argue that, so I hoped we could sit down somewhere.”

“Balor!” Danu called over. “Taliesin calls council.”

“The poor boy’s barely conscious,” Balor growled. He leaned down to hear something Tia Carmen whispered to him. “Ah. The wise woman agrees.” Balor straightened, jaw jutting aggressively. “For her and for Taliesin, I agree to this. Not for you.”

“I did not suggest otherwise,” Danu said with a chill smile.

Balor strode over, scooped Diego up in one huge, hairy arm then quite deliberately turned his back on Danu as he stalked out of the Hall. Diego bit back a sigh. For all their age, the fae could be quite childish.

The Fomorian king wound his way down several corridors and finally stopped in a large chamber with a fire roaring in a central pit. He eased Diego down onto a bed of furs near the fire, and the warmth from the sand floor seeped up to soothe Diego’s aching limbs.

“I have nothing to say to him.” Danu nodded to Balor as she settled nearby.

Balor merely snorted.

“That’s fine, majestads . You don’t need to say a word to each other,” Diego reassured them while Tia Carmen wrapped the furs around him.

“What we need to talk about is this illness afflicting your people.” He smiled at his old landlady, one of his oldest friends.

“It’s good to see you, Tia Carmen. I don’t suppose you have any aspirin? ”

“ Por supuesto, mijo . You think I would pack a bag without it?” She patted his arm and produced both a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of water from her bag.

“Ah, gracias . I don’t know why I doubted.” He downed the pills and half the water before he tried to speak again, his voice shaking slightly less than his hands. “So what do you think? Is it a virus? Something they’re eating?”

She folded her legs beside her and arranged her skirts carefully. For a few moments, she stared into the fire, her expression guarded. “I have spoken to them all. They have told me how it begins, how it feels. The little one with the furred head, he told me of the prophecy.”

“Did it make sense to you?” Diego levered himself up on one elbow.

She poked at the fire with a stick, sending up sparks.

“They are dying, mijo . It will be a slow, painful death. The illness takes those who are most sensitive, like the little butterflies, and those who bear the burden of responsibility for their people. The Champions, who fight for them. The Heralds, who speak for them. The Seers, who look into the dark places no one else dares. In the end, it will take all of them. These two”—she pointed with her chin to the two rulers—“will be the last.”

“Why them?”

“They are the eldest, the fountainhead. With them it began, and with them it will end.”

“You said the Seers would be among the first, but Morrigan isn’t sick yet.” Diego managed to sit up, his head in his hands.

“No. She is not male.”

“Which has what to do with anything?”

Tia Carmen shared a look with Danu. “ Las mujeres , women of any race…we carry the world within us. A piece of that magic inside us. It will keep them well longer.”

“My head hurts too much, I think. I don’t follow you at all.”

“For the fae to live, they need magic as we need air. But without the world in which we were all born, they have only half of what they need. They must have both, the magic here—the fae magic—and the magic of our world—the earth magic.” Tia Carmen pointed with her stick to Danu.

“She knows. When she closed the way between, she knew what would happen.”

An ominous rumble shook the chamber. Balor surged to his feet. “You knew ? You purposefully slaughter your own kind and kin? You heartless, unnatural bitch !”

“What choice was left to me?” Danu said in a weary voice, apparently unconcerned that Balor loomed over her with clenched fists.

“The humans poisoned the outer world. You wished to kill them to stop them. All of them. We could have had endless war and a slow death by poison in the outer world, or a quieter one on our own terms here.”

“You chose certain death for us and gave us no say in the matter!”

“I chose not to watch the slaughter of innocents, you mange-ridden, bloodthirsty brute!”

“My surviving children will die in agony!”

“My son is already dead because of you!” Danu roared as she leaped to her feet.

Ah, finally, to the heart of the matter.

Diego had heard the story from Finn, how Danu’s son Cian had mated with Eithne, without permission from either court.

Eithne’s family had insisted she was forced.

Cian’s family had been furious that he had taken a Fomorian as his life mate.

Balor’s sons had come after Cian, and in the ensuing fight, killed him.

Balor blamed Cian, Danu blamed Balor. There were rumors of trickery and deceit, but to Diego, it had sounded like young, hotheaded males acting without thinking.

Eithne had disappeared for many years afterward, no one knew where.

When she’d returned, Lugh had been by her side, fully grown and a master in all the arts both material and martial.

Some said he was raised among the bane sidhe , the strange nocturnal fae who lived in barrow mounds.

Others said he had been fostered by dragons. Eithne would never say.

“For two people who have nothing to say to each other, you certainly don’t seem at a loss for words,” Diego said dryly into a break in the argument.

They both whirled on him, eyes glowing with red flame.

He went on in a more gentle tone. “ Majestads , you have both lost sons. I am sorry for your loss and for your terrible pain. A parent should never have to face the agony of losing a child. It is something you share, though, as you share this world and the responsibility for the people in it. You do not have to like each other, but maybe it’s time to put old injuries aside. ”

“And what would you have us do, Taliesin?” Danu asked with an uncharacteristic crack in her voice.

“I’m not that first Taliesin, Light of the World.” He used her formal title and got a raised brow. Good. She was thinking again instead of reacting. “He died over two thousand years ago.”

“So. Diego, then,” Balor rumbled and leaned back against the wall. “We are at an impasse.”

“If you look at the problem as having only two choices, then, yes, you are in an impossible situation. Danu won’t let you go through to take the world back by force, and you won’t accept her decision to let your people die in peace.”

“The sun will freeze first.”

“But if there’s another way, would you listen?” Diego looked from one to the other, waiting until he had two nods. “What if I told you there are places still in the world which are not spoiled? True, they’re not perfect like here, but clean enough.”

“After so many years, there are such places?” Danu took a step closer.

“Finn was poisoned when I found him. One of these places made him well again. We live in another one now.”