The Maebown

  More Alliance Fae were converging, and I felt helpless, like a fly on the wall unable to do anything but annoy. Zeus stood and tried to pull Tse-xo-be out of the way, but it was too late. Aether pierced Tse-xo-be’s chest and he dropped. Sinopa turned from the Fae she was fighting and cried out. The African Fae launched himself at her. I screamed a warning, but the two met in the air. She spun as soon as his fingers made contact. From behind him, she shrieked again and tore his body apart at the neck and shoulder. His mouth made a gasping motion, but his lungs, and the muscles controlling them, shredded around the rib fragments, were in her right hand. She cloaked and moved before Aether tore past the spot where the Alliance Fae flashed out.

  The Coalition Fae struggled to dislodge Zarkus from Tse-xo-be, but Caorann was too far away, and none of the rest of them could get past the Aether. I don’t remember willing it, but I placed myself between the two of them. Tse-xo-be struggled to breathe, and Zarkus kept marching towards him. Anger, fear, they yanked at my tether, and I projected everything I felt. For an instant, Aether flashed around me. Did I do that? It severed Zarkus’ hold on Tse-xo-be. He stopped and directed Aether where I hovered. It passed beyond me, doing nothing. At the Seoladán, three Alliance Fae disappeared. Oh crap. It’s too late.

  “They have gone to warn Ozara,” I projected.

  Zeus lifted the much larger Tse-xo-be and tried to get him away from Zarkus. Just a second more, he’s almost healed. The gaping wound in his chest is gone. Transform, Tse-xo-be, transform.

  “No. Escape, while you can,” Tse-xo-be said through gritted teeth. He was hurt much worse than it appeared.

  “We must leave now,” Bastien bellowed.

  Zarkus sent the next Aether attack around me and I tried to react, but it didn’t work. The Aether around me disappeared. I had no idea whether I was actually controlling it, or whether Zarkus had been doing it. No, damn … damn, damn, damn.

  Tse-xo-be blew Zeus clear of Zarkus’ assault. Then the Ohanzee leader collapsed into a white orb and flashed as the Aether blanketed the area. “No!”

  Subconsciously, I knew the scene was chaotic and things were happening faster than I could comprehend, but every movement—every bolt of lightning, every plume of smoke and dust—passed in slow motion. Slowly I was yanked away—like being dragged by a walking bull, I had no control. My tether pulled me a mile from the others while I struggled to return. Then the whirling abyss of movement followed as I lost the struggle. I woke up in the dingy cottage living room covered in sweat and gasping for oxygen—there wasn’t any in the room and I gagged.

  Gavin’s eyes, devoid of any emotion, stared back into mine. Beside them, Avery and Volimar fought with different expressions. Volimar’s green eyes grew too large for his child-sized face. Red veins bulged under their glassy surfaces. Avery closed his eyes and sat back. Candace shook on the couch across from me, and Ronnie’s face contorted as he realized something bad had happened.

  It was impossible to talk. I still couldn’t find air to fill my lungs. Gavin mumbled to me. His voice sounded as though it were coming from the bottom of a swimming pool.

  “No,” I think I said.

  More mumbling, Gavin’s lips moving, and the room began to fill with Fae from all clans.

  “No,” I said again.

  “Say nothing,” Gavin’s voice broke through the fog. “Say nothing until you have control of yourself.”

  I think I nodded.

  “Zeus has returned,” Poseidon said. His voice boomed from outside.

  “Is he the only one?” I asked.

  The question was simple and meant as a plea for information, but it caused a brief flood of chaos. All around us, Fae were telepathically asking one another what happened.

  “Maggie, please,” Gavin said in a whisper.

  Volimar lifted Gavin out of the way as if he was no more cumbersome than a dictionary. “Tell me?”

  “Dana and Bastien have returned,” Poseidon’s voice echoed.

  Volimar seemed to relax, but he had not given up.

  “I…” was all I could say before Poseidon called out Sinopa’s name as well.

  “Where are Caorann and Tse-xo-be?” Volimar asked again, his voice a growl. My temper flared and I knocked him back across the room.

  “Get out of my face,” I spat.

  “Maggie, please,” Gavin whispered.

  His voice gave me peace. Volimar, however, was livid. He got to his feet, face red, nostrils flared, deep lines pressed into his forehead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just…”

  Caorann’s voice echoed in the room. “You do not need to apologize to anyone. Volimar, enough.”

  He glared at me like he wanted to kill me. Gavin stepped between us, radiating heat, and blocking Volimar’s view.

  Bastien’s gentle voice filled the air. “Brothers, sisters, calm down.”

  “You were successful?” Volimar asked.

  “With some things, yes. Horus and Raphael are dead—ten of the Alliance elders are lost, including Rusama, elder of the Asa, and Thiera, elder of the Amazon. We eliminated the most dangerous elements of the force Ozara left in Talemn Alain, save for one.”

  “Zarkus survived, didn’t he?” Avery asked.

  “He did,” Bastien said.

  Avery looked to Caorann. She nodded.

  “What? Where is Tse-xo-be?”

  “Patience,” Bastien demanded.

  “Patience? For what?”

  In the distance, Sinopa broke the news to the Ohanzee. Tse-xo-be had fallen.

  “For that,” Bastien said. “His clan had the right to know first.”

  Bastien’s words might as well have been a Taser for the impact they had on Volimar. He clenched either side of his head and for a second I thought he would crush his own skull. Gavin froze, and then turned to me with his lips agape. I nodded. He vibrated with anger and stormed out of the house.

  “How?” Avery asked.

  Ostara wrung her hands. “Ozara made it back before the deed was complete, didn’t she?”

  Caorann and Bastien exchanged looks, unwilling to tell them the worst news of all.

  “He died saving my life,” Zeus said.

  Every audible conversation stopped for two miles. Every telepathic conversation ended, as well.

  “Zarkus is an Aetherfae,” Zeus said.

  Chaos.

  SEVENTEEN

  CRACKS

  The news that we were facing two Aetherfae devastated everyone’s morale, and Tse-xo-be’s death caused fractures between the clans that continued to widen over the next twenty-four hours. The Ohanzee, predictably, were on edge. Unlike the other clans, they were without a home and they were missing a leader. Wakinyan was the next in line, but he was in Arkansas, hiding my family. That would change the minute I told him what had happened. Sinopa was a dynamic figure, ancient and wise, but she seemed more withdrawn that the others, leaving a vacuum that Pavati, Amadahy, and Enapay were more than happy to fill.

  Amadahy took the shape of a large gray wolf and growled, her ears back, when I ventured close to their camp near Lough Gur. My nerves were raw, my emotions on edge, so it took every bit of strength I had to keep from breaking her against the stones in the Grange circle. And I desperately wanted to break something. Her disdain for me was nothing compared to what she displayed toward Candace and Ronnie. Like all of them, she knew the plan was Candace’s. In Amadahy’s eyes, it was an utter failure, a human failure—it was Candace’s failure.

  Enapay was more civil to me, but he agreed with Amadahy that the Ohanzee needed to reevaluate their association. I have to get Wakinyan back.

  The Ohanzee weren’t the only clan rethinking their participation. The Kobold and the Portune Councils debated the wisdom of further action. Bastien worked with them. The Olympians, however, were in it for the long haul. Zeus spoke with the Ohanzee, passionately pledging revenge and talking about the bigger picture.

  Caorann and Dana were committed as well, and that mea
nt the Sidhe were committed—at least for the time being. If any of the bigger clans left, I knew the rest would follow. I also knew what would happen—I’d just been given a small taste of it. Numbers, the kind that Ozara still had at her disposal, were more than Caorann and I could handle.

  I knew I had to project and let Wakinyan know about Tse-xo-be in short order, but I had something else to do first.

  “Candace, are you okay?”

  Dark circles and dull eyes once again dominated her thin face. She seemed to be holding up much better than I expected, but looked far too small and frail curled up under the dingy, yellowed quilt on the bed—her body seemed to disappear in the folds like the only thing left of her was a disembodied head.

  “I’m nauseated—everything I eat comes back up,” she groaned.

  “I wouldn’t even ask this if I wasn’t worried about you—but do you want help with that?”

  She trembled and rolled over, sobbing. “No, I don’t—I don’t want them in my head…did you see Mom and Dad?”

  Physical pain, like a hot iron in my chest, had me struggling for air. “I did. It wasn’t possible to get them out. They were alive—sealed inside the mountain.”

  Without turning over, she cleared her throat and talked through a sob. “Have you sensed Mom since you’ve been back?”

  “I haven’t.” The pressure built in my chest.

  “So they could all be dead as far as anyone knows?” she asked, with a voice so weak it was hard to understand.

  My throat clamped shut. The only possible answer was the one I couldn’t bring myself to say aloud. Instead of talking, I held my breath and let the tears run down my face.

  Candace never rolled over to see me crying. In a shrill, anguished voice that ripped my heart open, she simply said, “I need to sleep—I want to sleep.”

  “Do you want us to leave you alone?”

  “Never. Please stay with me,” she whispered. In my head, I wrote a note asking for Gavin’s help. By the time Ronnie and I crawled next to her on the bed, Gavin had received my message and compelled her to sleep.

  Ronnie caressed her hair. “She out?”

  “Yes,” Gavin said.

  “What about your family?” Ronnie asked me.

  “I’m about to find out. I need to talk to Caorann first.”

  “Do you think the Kobold are going to leave?”

  I didn’t know, but they weren’t my biggest concern. “I’m more worried about the Ohanzee.”

  “Will Wakinyan come?” he asked.

  I felt nausea. “He’s the only one who can keep them here—he has to come.”

  Ronnie nodded. “And your family?”

  The nausea came in waves and left me light headed and barely able to keep down the contents of my stomach. I concentrated on breathing. “I just have to hope Billy, Faye, and Tadewi can keep them safe.”

  He hugged me. “They can—Billy’s smart. He’ll figure out a way.”

  “As long as Chloe can project, I’m not sure how much he can do.”

  Ronnie’s face went white. He hadn’t considered just how much danger my family was in with Chloe projecting.

  * * *

  Caorann came back from the Kobold camp sometime early in the morning. She seemed human—she looked physically exhausted, even though that was impossible. She looked like she was about to deliver bad news.

  “Oh no,” I whispered to myself.

  “Your Air barrier?”

  I raised it and she continued. “No. It wasn’t easy to convince them, but they are staying—for the time being. The Ohanzee want you to inform Wakinyan. I convinced Sinopa to keep them here until he arrives.”

  I felt a tinge of panic for my family, but agreed. “Okay, I’ll tell him when we’re done. How did you convince the other clans?”

  “They have a unique and, well, less than desirable solution.”

  It didn’t take me very long to figure out what that was. I shook my head at the thought of Volimar or Zeus asking for the secret to Aether.

  “I know,” she said. “The proliferation of Aether is extremely dangerous. They don’t see another option, and frankly, neither do I. Against Ozara and Zarkus, if we met them in battle tonight and you were too far away—even twenty miles...I don’t like it, but it’s hard to argue that a fourth Aetherfae is unnecessary.”

  “Four Aetherfae? Ugh,” I moaned. “And I suppose Volimar wants to be the one?”

  She nodded. “They all want to be the one, all except Bastien, who sees learning Aether as akin to being punished with an eternal sentence of Fae politics. The deep distrust among the clans has resurfaced. Even if Bastien consented, several are opposed—there is no good choice. Dana is opposed to Volimar, who is opposed to, well, everyone but Volimar, and on and on.”

  “Who do you trust?”

  She smiled. “With Bastien’s exception, I don’t want to share the power with any clan. They’re not asking me for a promotion, or simply a means to defend themselves against the Alliance. Bastien is right. The clans want the power to determine a course of action for themselves—Aether means they don’t have to compromise. The Sidhe, my own clan, remained independent because we rejected the Seelie belief that humans should be protected. In one way or another, that is true of every clan in the Coalition. We need to find a long-term partner for the human race. I’m afraid we’ll not find many here.”

  “Then what are you going to do?”

  “Me? No, this isn’t about me. Maggie, this decision may have as much impact on the fate of your species as losing the war. I’ll say it again—there is a reason none of them sided with the Seelie—their reasons have not changed. That is why the decision is yours as much as it is mine. Perhaps more.”

  Her words struck me as odd for some reason, but I ignored the uneasiness I felt and offered a suggestion. “I trust Wakinyan above the other ancients.”

  “He is the second oldest now, and he is a strong contender, but like the rest, he will face opposition.”

  “When Gavin and I were driving to Germany a few days ago, you said that he needed to learn to control water so that he could learn Aether.”

  “I did.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I want Gavin to learn Aether for his own well-being—I know what he will endure when you reach the end of this life. If it were as simple as choosing him, I would. I trust him because he is one of the few Fae who values your species as much as I do. Powerful and charismatic as he is, do you think they,” she pointed toward the clans, “will accept him as a leader? I don’t know. In any case, it’s a tragedy that he cannot control all four elements.”

  “Can you help him?”

  “Once he learns to control the elements, I can teach him Aether—you could do that, but until then it is not possible. He must learn to control Water on his own.”

  “And we don’t have that much time.”

  “No,” she whispered. “Ozara is undoubtedly waiting to see if the Coalition splits, and biding her time for a decisive blow. I don’t believe she will risk attacking us while the clans are still together, or while you and I are together—we still pose a threat. If I were her, I’d draw the Coalition into a conflict where you can’t follow. If I’m lost, and you haven’t picked an Aetherfae, the Coalition would dissolve. That’s probably her top priority. Suffice it to say that we do not have time for Gavin to master all four elements. I’m sorry.” Again, there was something in her voice that had me on edge, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  * * *

  Sleep did wonders for Candace. She woke the next afternoon and treaded on the boundary of normalcy, promising to keep herself busy. Someone rapped at the door. The sound was so normal elsewhere that it struck me as completely unusual. The Fae didn’t knock. Well, usually. It was Sara. I stifled a groan. “Come in.”

  The door creaked as it swung, and Sara’s shadow fell across the dull, worn hardwood. It looked too bulky, causing me to twist my head. In her arms were several bag
s of groceries. Candace sprang to her feet and met Sara at the threshold.

  “Thank you,” Candace whispered.

  “It’s everything you asked for,” Sara said, before shifting her gaze to me. Our eyes met and I considered smiling, but I couldn’t force one onto my face. A fleeting part of me was still peeved. Candace grabbed the bags. She disappeared into the kitchen and began shuffling around, metal clanging sounds echoing out of the small space.

  “Candy is cooking?” Ronnie asked, amused.

  “Yes,” she said from the other room. “Don’t call me Candy.”

  Ronnie laughed. “And I thought dinner was bad last night.”

  “You can scavenge for scraps with the sheep if you want,” she said.

  Ronnie’s face twisted. I recognized the smile. He’d figured something out that absolutely delighted him. “So, girl, what time should I tell Sean to be over for dinner?”

  The kitchen fell silent, sending Ronnie into a silent spasm of glee.

  “Six o’clock. Jerk.”

  Ronnie snorted. “I’ll deliver the message…you know he’s, like, thirty.”

  “So?” The timbre of her voice was laced with the strain of annoyance.

  “Just sayin’.”

  “Actually, Ronnie, he’s just twenty-five,” Sara said. I didn’t look at her.

  “He looks—”

  “Stressed out and underfed,” Candace cut him off.

  Ronnie’s smile disintegrated into a slight grin and he rolled his eyes. He recognized, as clearly as I did, the combativeness in her tone. It was time to stop prodding. Twenty-five—that was much younger than I’d assumed. He did look older—just more evidence of the kind of existence he led. I shook my head.

  “He moved to that cottage with his great-aunt, the former Steward, when he was thirteen. She died five years ago,” Sara said.

  Finally, I turned to her. She looked apologetic, but I wasn’t sure for what betrayal in particular. There was plenty she could apologize for, after all.