Cage of Thorn (The Blackthorn Cycle Book 2) Read online

  Dax gave a tiny, almost inaudible sigh. “Humans and Seelie—and all Sidhe, in truth—have ever seemed irredeemably foreign to one another. But long ago, Nature made us all after the same pattern. You and I are blood relations in the truest, most literal sense, Una, but trace the line of any Seelie or any human back far enough, many tens of thousands of years into the past, and you will find that we were all cousins then. I know it is difficult for you to believe me now, when I tell you that I do respect and honor you. You must think, even now, that no Seelie is capable of feeling respect for a human—or of feeling anything at all for a human. Am I not right?”

  Una swallowed hard. “You aren’t wrong,” she grudgingly admitted.

  “But,” Dax said patiently, “our common ancestry has given us nearly identical spirits. We Seelie do experience all the same emotions you humans feel: anger and elation, joy and despair, hatred and love. Respect and honor, too. They strike us all the same way, deep within our spirits. But we approach those feelings by different paths.”

  Una said nothing; she stared levelly at Dax across the table. His bright green eyes reflected an earnestness, an eagerness to convince her, that she had not thus far seen on any Seelie, except for young Forget-me-not. Dax’s betrayal of his regal, cool poise was brief and flickering. But it was there.

  Still, it wasn’t enough to convince Una to trust him, or to convince her that she ought to cooperate with him.

  Dax seemed to sense her skepticism. He leaned back in his chair, giving, Una suspected, as much appearance of relaxing—or surrendering to circumstances, at least—as any Seelie ever gave. He seemed to yield in some small way, relenting to an unpleasantness he’d hoped to avoid, but which he now saw plainly he could not.

  “Do you know what led to our downfall, Una? What was the undoing of the Seelie Court?”

  She shook her head. “How can I know?” she asked rather sharply. “I am not one of you, even if we are somehow related.”

  He smiled wanly. “That is true enough. Then I will tell you plainly: It was love. Love destroyed us; it led us to dilute our power. It took hold of our hearts and made us create children out of ever-weaker magical lines. Even when we saw the error of our ways, still we did as our hearts directed us, not as our minds directed. We bred away our magic because of love

  “And yet, even knowing how that one powerful emotion has caused us to wither and nearly die—even knowing that much, I still writhe inside with resistance and disbelief when I say that love destroyed us. For how can love destroy? How can happiness and belonging and acceptance be a tool for destruction? It defies understanding, yet is must be understood, for it is the truth, Una.

  “So you see, we are not incapable of feeling. If anything, we of the Seelie Court are entirely too willing to feel… to our detriment and despair. Love over sense; heart over mind. And still, knowing what we do about our past, our magic—still we undo ourselves little by little, breeding beyond the boundaries of our own kind. For you see, we made children with humans not only out of necessity, but out of love, too. Those of us who went to the human realm and found mates in your world did what they did because they fell in love. We had no malicious intent; we are guided by the impulses of our hearts, just as you are, my cousin.”

  Una scoffed. She couldn’t help it. “I can’t imagine love motivating such a thing. Sidhe and humans are too different to ever fall in love. The way we think, the way we behave… and even with your powers reduced, you can still do things no human can even dream of.”

  “I had hoped,” Dax said quietly, “that you might come to love me.”

  Now it was Una who leaned back in her chair, stunned to momentary silence. There was no more fog of enchantment clouding her head, but hunger and despair had made her slow and, evidently, nearly blind to what was laid out plainly before her.

  Of course, she told herself. You should have figured out by now who your Seelie mate was to be.

  Why not Dax? Who else but Dax? If he was the prince of his people—these people who valued purity of blood and potency of power above all other traits—then he must represent the least-diluted bloodline the Seelie Court still maintained. The Seelie must have earmarked Una for Dax, and for no one else.

  She scowled at him, never caring how much of her all-too-human fury showed on her face. She was not Seelie; she would make no effort to cloak her emotions with cool detachment.

  “Come to love you?” Una spat. “Why? So it’s all the easier for you to mount me like some damn ewe in a field? Like a broodmare? Your kind may have been tip-toeing through the veil to visit my world for centuries, but you haven’t learnt the first thing about humans, have you? Women in particular!”

  “No,” Dax said smoothly. He lifted his graceful hands in a soothing gesture. “No, no, Una. You misunderstood. I mean you no offense, no disrespect. My desire for your love is honest and genuine. I had hoped that together, you and I could give our family—our shared heritage—renewed hope for the future. That we might work together to raise a child who will create a new future. A future that unites us both… if not our worlds united, then at least our histories, our bloodlines. Or perhaps…” He lowered his eyes for just a moment; the expression was improbably shy. “Perhaps we might have more than one child. An entire family—a rich future that we may share.”

  Una felt a bubble of hysterical laughter building in her chest. She fought it down with an effort. “You have very strange ways of winning a girl’s heart, here in the Otherworld. Trying to lure me in against my will… drugging me with your food and drink, even if it wasn’t intentional…. These things are not done in my world, Dax. At least, not by good men.”

  “It was pure desperation that led me to pursue you so… aggressively,” Dax said quickly.

  “Well, at least you acknowledge that it was aggressive,” Una returned with ample venom.

  “My people have no other options now, Una—no more choice.”

  “And so you tried to take all choice from me? Maybe that sort of thing can be overlooked in this realm, Dax, but there is no good excuse for it in my world.”

  His pale face whitened even further. Una could tell she had struck a telling blow. “It is not excusable,” he admitted. “I do not seek absolution for the ways we have wronged you. And all I can offer is my apology—an apology on behalf of all my kind.”

  “Oh, well that’s something,” Una muttered. She wondered if the Seelie understood sarcasm.

  “Do you not think you would do the same, if you were in my position—our position?” Dax asked. “Facing the total extinction of your culture, of everyone you have ever known and loved? Would you do differently, if you knew that every person you ever respected, every person for whom you’d had the least bit of affection, would soon be gone? And knowing, too, that those who sought to replace you would destroy not only your precious people, but other worlds, too… unless you could find some way to stop them?”

  Una sighed. The truth was, she did understand Dax’s desperation—or at least, she sympathized. But she had her own desperate mission to worry about—rescuing Ailill, and getting back to the human realm before years or decades could elapse. She couldn’t afford to be side-tracked by someone else’s woes, even if that someone claimed to be her distant relation.

  Dax rose gracefully from his chair. He offered a hand to Una. She sat for a long moment, staring at his outstretched palm, his slender, graceful fingers, just a bit too long for his hands. He waited patiently and silently until at last, Una took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

  A wave of dizziness struck her—she was accustomed to that by now. But Dax noticed her swaying, and noticed how she blinked, trying to clear the momentary blurriness from her vision.

  “You must eat,” he said. True concern for her well-being further widened the cracks in his mask of poise and control. “You cannot go on like this.”

  “Maybe that’s the idea.”

  “Una!” Dax took her gently by the shoulders. “Do not speak
that way, please.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? Cry all you like about your desperation and your people’s need. It doesn’t change the facts for me. I’m stuck here against my will, prevented from doing what I came to the Otherworld to do, and here you are, trying to cozy me up to the idea of becoming your… your wife, or your mistress, or whatever word you might have for it in the Seelie Court. But I won’t do it, Dax. I won’t have my destiny chosen for me by anyone. You cannot force me. And if you try, I won’t be around to be forced.”

  When Una stood firmly once more, Dax removed his hands from her shoulders and slowly backed away. “I will not force you. Nor will anyone else. The one thing our two cultures may share in common is a mutual hatred for… that particular act.”

  He paused for a long moment, watching Una with those strange, cat-like, jewel-bright eyes. At length, he said, “But neither can I give up, Una—not now that you are here. It is my hope that you will come to feel our plight as your own, for we are of the same blood—you are one of us, whether or not you have accepted that fact.

  “You will not be held here without your consent, Una—not any longer. Now I see the error in my ways when I thought to keep you constrained. You cannot come to know us and love us if you feel you are our prisoner.”

  “So I won’t be locked in anymore?” She could have cursed herself for sounding so eager, so desperate, when what she needed was a show of fury and strength.

  “No,” Dax said. “And you have my apologies. None of us should ever have disrespected you so.”

  Una watched him suspiciously. His mask of perfect control was back on his face; it was impossible to tell whether he was trying to trick her or not. I’ll have to trust him, she realized. I’m as desperate as he is, now. I have no choice but to take the one and only path before me.

  Finally, she broke their mutual silence. “Thank you,” Una said simply.

  Dax offered her another small bow. “If you need anything, I and the rest of my people are at your service. We will give you whatever you need—whatever is in our power to give—so long as it does not endanger our ends, too.”

  When Dax straightened from his bow, his face was impossibly sad. He seemed to understand that in relenting—in treating Una with the respect any human expected and deserved—he had most likely doomed the Seelie Court to extinction. That knowledge wrenched painfully in Una’s gut as the prince turned away, and she scolded herself for being so weak. She couldn’t afford to give in now to Dax’s whims. Her mission was far too urgent.

  Dax departed from the chamber, closing the door softly behind him. Una listened, but she heard no click of a key in the lock. The prince had been as good as his word; she was no longer confined against her will to the chamber—or even to the palace, she supposed.

  If he was honest enough to leave the door unlocked, perhaps I can trust him about the food, too.

  Dax had said that Una’s Seelie blood may have helped her recover from the food’s effects so quickly. Perhaps she ought to chance it, and eat some more, on the gamble that she would again make a rapid recovery.

  Or perhaps if I do, it will be harder to recover. Maybe every time I put any of this Sidhe stuff in my mouth, I’m playing with hotter fire.

  But what choice did Una truly have? Dax was right; if she didn’t eat or drink, she would soon be in no fit shape to find Ailill.

  With a growl of frustration, Una sank into her chair again and bit into one of the red fruits. Its juice exploded on her tongue, the nuances of sweet and savory dancing together. When she swallowed, warmth spread from her stomach outward, driving back the malaise of weakness that had plagued her. Her hunger commanded her to stuff more fruits into her mouth until her cheeks were packed, but Una resisted that urge. She portioned out two more pieces, and took three pieces of bread, too. She had to find the right balance—enough food to sustain her strength without drugging herself too deeply, or for too long. She ate her meal slowly, trying to ignore how delicious it all was, how the bread melted on her tongue and made her feel so satisfied, so contented and safe. She was not safe, and she should not feel content. She was in the Otherworld, and must keep her head as clear as possible if she were to have any hope of getting out again.

  When she had finished her allotted food, Una forced herself to leave the table and return to her bed. Sleep would bring her strength, too—and with any luck, she would sleep right through the worst of the enchantment, waking with a clear enough mind to be getting on with. As she crossed the chamber, she could feel the effects of the Seelie food taking hold already. The edges of her vision blurred; her eyelids felt heavy, her footsteps slow and dragging.

  Una fell onto her bed and lay staring up at the canopy, watching the transparent green silk ripple gently on currents of air. Dax’s words drifted lazily through her thoughts. Love over sense. Heart over mind. She recalled Ailill in the garden, turning back to look at Una over his shoulder, with the sun bright on his tousled hair and the color of the skies shining in his eyes. She remembered him in her bed, holding her—remembered the smell of his body filling her senses and blotting out all her worries and cares.

  Is it love I feel for Ailill, truly?

  Una thought it was, but she couldn’t answer her own question just now. She was too mixed up, too dazed and enchanted.

  And perhaps, Una thought, love itself was a kind of magic—a compelling power that seeped into a person, body and spirit, just as the magic of the Seelie bread was even now sinking into her, muddling her thoughts and preoccupying her soul.

  If love is magic, Una thought sleepily, then it must be the strongest power of all. The Seelie Court’s powers are depleted, now… almost gone… but they must have been capable of great, overwhelming love in the past, to have given up everything they had, everything they were, for the sake of their own hearts.

  The palace with its fortress-like spells was the last bit of magic the Seelie still possessed. Their ancestors had put every bit of their waning strength into the protective force that surrounded their palace, and did it all to preserve the Seelie way of life—indeed, to save the remaining Seelie themselves—because they loved their own kind so much.

  That is something, Una thought, drifting. Something indeed. Do I love anyone so much? Have I ever done? Could I make a fortress out of the depths of my feelings and use it to protect the people I love?

  More to the point, could Una breach a fortress on the strength of her love alone? Whatever she felt for Ailill, was it powerful enough to propel her back across the circle of stones, through the Seelie barrier… and was it potent enough to sustain her while she wandered alone in the Otherworld?

  If I get beyond the stone circle, Una thought as she yielded to the enchantment and the darkness of sleep closed over her head, maybe I’ll have more force of will. Maybe then I’ll be beyond my cousins’ waning power, far enough beyond that I can do what I must do...

  The circle of stones, she told herself, though even inside her head, her voice was fading rapidly. Remember the circle of stones; it is the boundary of Seelie power. If you can only get beyond it… get beyond it…

  Una fumbled at the hem of her blue gown, searching for some way to remind herself, some means of holding onto her fading thoughts, her desperate plan. She must remember when she woke up… she must remember…

  Her near-numb fingers found a loose thread, and she pulled it away from the gown. She held it up above her face and squinted at it, barely able to make out the little wisp of pale blue against the green canopy above her, and the shadows that lay beyond. With a sigh, Una curled the thread around one finger, rolling it carefully until it twisted and twined about itself, a gossamer ring wrapped just tight enough for her to feel its whisper-thin presence.

  A ring... a circle… a reminder. It was the best Una could do to hang onto her consciousness. She could only hope it would be enough to guide her back to sense and action when she returned from the encroaching enchantment… if she returned from it at all.

  8

>   When Una woke, she found that most of the haze of enchantment had receded from her consciousness, leaving behind a residual grogginess that clung to her mind like an oily film. She felt dulled and stifled, her thoughts slow as mud. But they were her own thoughts. Her mind had returned to her… this time. She was fortunate.

  She gathered the long folds of her blue gown as she rolled from her bed, and shook them out as briskly as she could manage, given her sluggish state.

  How long have I slept? She eyed the sky outside the tall, leaded windows, but it was impossible to say how many hours had elapsed. The Otherworld sky was almost always some shade of diffuse violet-blue; the soft, filtered light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. There was no telling what time of day it might be.

  But it almost didn’t matter, Una realized with a slow chill penetrating into her stomach. It wasn’t the passage of time here she needed to worry about. Time was running faster in the human realm, and that was where her most urgent deadline lay.

  She headed for the door of her chamber, determined to try the gazing pool again. She must contact Kathleen, if she could… that was her best hope of learning what she must do next, how she might hope to overcome the Unseelie creature who held Ailill in her grasp.

  Kathleen… the human realm… Una slowed and faltered with one hand on the door to her chamber. The Otherworld had so penetrated her mind that she barely could remember what her friend looked like, or how the little stone cottage felt or smelled. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and clawed desperately for her memories.

  I can’t forget them—Kathleen, Angus, my home. The moment I forget, I’ll have no reason to return.

  Una’s eyes snapped open; she stared blankly back through her chamber, out the window to the garden beyond. My home. Did she really feel that way about the cottage in Kylebeg? It had been so long since she’d felt as if she had a home at all. She was startled now to recognize that yes, Kylebeg was her home. At least, it was enough of a home to fight for, to fight her way back toward.