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

  And the moment she had labeled it home, vibrant recollections of the place came flooding back. The way it looked in the bright springtime sun, spilling into the garden and touching the twin chimneys with blushing warmth… the flower beds tumbling with sweet-smelling blossoms… the softness of her bed in the room upstairs, with evening shadows playing gently on the peaked ceiling overhead and wind whispering in the thatch.

  Those memories were enough to steel Una’s resolve, enough to reach through the clouds of enchantment and sharpen her wits for the struggle that lay ahead.

  She pushed the chamber door open and stepped confidently out into the long hall beyond. It was empty, as it had been the last time she’d seen it, when no one had stood there beyond her door but Prince Dax. Una gazed down the hall for a long moment, first to the right, then to the left. The white marble corridor stretched its great length, silent as a tomb, utterly undisturbed by voice or footstep.

  It’s so damnably empty, Una thought. The whole palace.

  The significance of its emptiness had never struck her until now. But now she understood that she was seeing more than what met the eye. The palace of the Seelie Court was so grand and spacious that it could only have built to house a much larger population. It was simply huge, soaring—even if the Seelie appreciated vastness of scale and ample space, the place was still much too large for its present population.

  So the Seelie are dwindling not only in power, but in numbers, too.

  Una swallowed hard. Soon she would be without even these distant relations. She would be orphaned yet again, left utterly alone, without any family in her own world or the Other. Yes, she had her friends in Kylebeg; she had her cottage and her garden. But knowing that once the Seelie were gone, she would have no kin…

  Una shook her head abruptly, pushing away the dark arms of loneliness that reached for her. She couldn’t afford to think about that now, couldn’t let herself get lost in melancholy or distracted from her mission. Time was running out. She had work to do, and when it was done, she could take all the time she pleased to meditate on her lonesomeness.

  She made her way back to the garden door, and then along its stone paths toward the grotto and the gazing pool. The dense green garden smelled of dampness and herbal spice; its breezes refreshed her like cool fingers brushed along her forehead and cheeks. Little by little, the clinging daze of Otherworld magic receded from her mind.

  She sank to her knees beside the gazing pool. Her last attempt to use it hadn’t gone as she’d hoped, but now she was determined to keep trying until she mastered the skill. She needed knowledge desperately if she was to maintain any hope, and although Dax had sworn to give her anything she needed, Una was certain his offer wouldn’t extend to helping her confront the Leanan Sidhe. Kathleen would have to be Una’s lifeline from beyond the veil.

  Una stared steadily into the reflection of her own eyes. She looked strong and determined, not worn and weary as she had before. That was a good sign—or so she hoped. She would need every scrap of strength she could muster for the struggle ahead. She concentrated on Kathleen, holding tight to her memories of her friend—the sound of her voice, her bubbling laugh, her halo of fiery red curls and her shrewd green eyes.

  “Kathleen,” Una said softly. “Kathleen, are you there?”

  It was a desperate hope that Kathleen would be conveniently located beside a still body of water; Una knew that. In fact, the hope was probably beyond desperate. “Futile” was a much more accurate word. Yet Una couldn’t discard that hope just because it was slim.

  “Kathleen. Are you there?”

  Again she saw the ripples and stirrings of strange images. She sorted through them, struggling to make sense of the swirl of colors and impressions, but there was nothing firm for Una to hold to. She continued to call softly for Kathleen, staring down into her reflected face.

  The images whirled faster, until it seemed their turbulence would break the surface of the water, boiling it like a kettle on a hot stove. But the surface remained smooth as glass.

  “Come on,” Una muttered. “Come on, Kathleen. Be there… be some place where I can find you.”

  The shifting visions had begun to make Una feel rather ill. She struggled not to squeeze her eyes shut against the swimming, rippling pictures; she didn’t know if closing her eyes would break the spell and shatter the tenuous connection she’d formed with the gazing pool.

  Then, with a shudder and a lurch, the swirl of colors snapped into a crystal-clear vision. A young woman was bowing her head over a clay bowl. It was shallow and small, petite enough to fit in her two hands. A thread of white smoke rose from the bowl; something was burning inside it, and the smoke rose up to mingle with the woman’s curls, which were all Una could make out of her features, bent over as she was.

  But the curls were red—as red as flames.

  “Kathleen?” Una leaned farther over the gazing pool, gripping the tiles of its curved edge hard in her trembling fingers.

  The woman in the water looked up suddenly. Her eyes were wide, startled… and glad. The moment their eyes met, Una’s heart soared with triumph and relief.

  “Una!” Kathleen said. She set the smoking bowl down and leaned closer. “I thought I’d heard you here before, but I wasn’t sure. Is it really you?”

  Una nodded. She was so happy to see her friend again that for a moment she couldn’t speak. A great lump of gratitude sat thickly in her throat. Finally, with an effort, Una swallowed it down and said, “I tried to find you before, but they caught me at it, and—”

  “Who caught you?”

  “The Seelie. I’m with them, Kathleen—living in their palace.”

  A dreamy expression came over Kathleen’s face. “I wish I could see it. Is it lovely?”

  “Yes, yes,” Una said impatiently. “It’s just like something out of a dream, I suppose. But I need to get away from here. And I’ll need your help to do it.”

  Something small, brown, and fluttering drifted over Kathleen’s shoulder. It landed on the surface of the water; ripples spread in concentric rings. Una stared at it for a moment, wondering what exactly she was looking at. The brown thing slid silkily before her eyes, drifting on the other side of the gazing pool’s vision, like a raindrop rolling slowly down the outside of a glass window. The stir of its ripples shivered across Kathleen’s face in the pool. It took Una far too long to realize what she was looking at, but once she saw it clearly, a knife of cold stabbed deep into her heart.

  It was a leaf, dry and dead. An autumn leaf.

  “What month is it?” Una asked breathlessly.

  Kathleen’s face fell. She plucked the leaf from the water’s surface and flicked it away. “October.”

  “October! For God’s sake!”

  “I told you,” Kathleen said slowly, sadly, “time moves differently in the Otherworld. How long have you been there?”

  “It’s… it’s hard to say,” Una stammered. “Two days, I think. But maybe it has been longer, after all.” Her head swam; she felt hopelessly disoriented. She’d thought she had slept for hours, or a night at the very most. Had she napped an entire season away? “You said you thought you’d heard me in the pool before. When? When was it that you heard me?”

  “August,” Kathleen said. “Two months ago.”

  “But that was only yesterday for me. I think.”

  Time in the human realm was running faster than Una had imagined possible. Her stomach lurched with the knowledge; she tried to breathe steadily, calmly, to dispel her fears.

  “You haven’t eaten any of their food, have you?” Kathleen asked anxiously.

  An uncomfortable wave of rue swept over Una. “I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I won’t be any good to myself or Ailill if I starve to death.”

  “But Sidhe food has—”

  “A certain effect on humans,” Una said. “I know. I’ve found that out by now.”

  “I would have warned you about it, if you’d given me a chance to tell
you more about the Otherworld before you went off into it.”

  “Now is no time for an argument,” Una said. She smiled weakly at her friend. “I really need your help, Kathleen. We’ve got to come up with a plan.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Kathleen straightened her shoulders. “Well, what have you found out so far? If you’ve found out anything at all, that is.”

  “I have. I’ve met the prince of the Seelie Court—in fact, you met him, too. He’s the one who came to take me away.”

  “And took Ailill instead. Does he have Ailill, too, then?”

  Una bit her lip. “I’m afraid not. You see, when he got back to the Otherworld with Ailill, somebody else took him—took Ailill, I mean.”

  “Somebody else? Who?”

  “A creature called Etain. Dax—the prince—told me about her. She’s not anyone I’m looking forward to meeting, Kathleen. She’s one of the Unseelie; Dax called her a Leanan Sidhe.”

  As briefly as she could, Una recounted to Kathleen everything Dax had said about the predicament of the Seelie Court: their waning power, their diluted blood, and the Unseelie, who waited for their chance to overthrow the Seelie and command the Otherworld for themselves. But she wasn’t certain Kathleen heard a word of it. From the moment Una had said those words—Leanan Sidhe—Kathleen’s face had paled, her lips had thinned, and she’d never quite recovered from it.

  When Una at last fell silent, Kathleen nodded rather weakly. “Right,” she said. “I suppose at least now we know what we’re truly facing.”

  “How grim is it?” Una asked, even though she had a suspicion that she didn’t really want to know the answer to that question.

  “You could pick an easier enemy to defeat than a Leanan,” Kathleen said, “that’s for sure. They’re a sort of vampire, you know. But they don’t only drink blood. They also drink… creativity. Art. A person’s soul.”

  Una nodded. “Dax did mention something like that.”

  “Leanan attach themselves to artists of all kinds… painters, poets, writers. And musicians, of course.” She scrunched up her face in an expression of self-rebuke. “Why didn’t I see it before? That sad look Ailill always has about him. It’s as if he’s—”

  “Haunted by something,” Una said. “I know.”

  “Well, now I guess we know what it is that’s been haunting him.”

  “Etain isn’t likely to let him go without a fight,” Una said. “He’s still alive—at least, he was the last time I saw him, through this same gazing pool. But I don’t know how much longer the Leanan will keep him. I’ve got to get him out of her hands, Kathleen, before it’s too late. How do I do it?”

  “I… I don’t know, just yet.” Kathleen lowered her gaze, as if in defeat. “I’ll need to do some research—talk to anyone I can find who might know.”

  “You’d best do it fast.”

  “Believe me, I’ll do nothing else until I find the answer. And we must try to talk every day, so I can tell you what I learn.”

  “Of course,” Una said. “I’ll come back to the pool every day—several times a day, in fact, since time runs faster for you.”

  “Good,” Kathleen said. “So will I.”

  They stared at each other soberly for a long moment, neither of them willing to say good-bye, and both reluctant to admit their fears.

  Finally, Kathleen said, “I’d best go on, then, and start my research.”

  Tears sprang suddenly into Una’s eyes. She didn’t want to part with Kathleen—a familiar, friendly, human companion, even if they were in separate worlds. Everything here in the Sidhe realm was so alien, so strange. But she had to be brave and resolute, for Ailill’s sake, and her own.

  “All right,” Una said. “Then I’ll see you again soon.”

  She hoped it was true. It took all her strength to lean back, away from the pool, and let the vision of Kathleen fade into nothingness.

  9

  Two days passed—or at least, Una assumed two days had passed. She had slept twice, delaying rest and food alike until she could resist neither any longer. By eating just before she crept into her bed, she managed to bury the disorienting Otherworld fog in the darkness of oblivion, so that when she woke again she had passed beyond the worst of it and was more or less in control of her own mind.

  Every day, Una sat for hours beside the gazing pool, waiting for another message from Kathleen. There was little she could do except wait, and those long periods of inaction in the midst of her urgent need made her feel sick with tension. Her nerves were wound up so tightly that she felt like an over-tuned guitar string.

  Occasionally, as Una waited beside the pool, doing her best to look unconcerned, Seelie would appear in the grotto and speak to her. They were polite, cordial—they did not seem intent on returning her to her chamber and confining her there, nor interfering with her in any other manner. Una was grateful for that. Initially, after the first handful of aimless, rather awkward conversations with passing Seelie, she was secretly annoyed. She did not want to pretend to smile, did not want to convince these creatures that all was well, that she was content with her lot. But after a while, she became grateful for the distraction the Seelie provided. Una had no way of knowing how much time was passing in the human realm. She could sit and fret for hours on end, hoping she and Kathleen would make another connection by chance. Or she could interact with the Seelie whenever the opportunity presented itself, and try to glean some knowledge of the Leanan Sidhe—and the Otherworld in general—on her own terms. Talking to the Seelie was better than doing nothing but staring into the water and feeling miserable.

  Now she looked up from the pool at the cat-soft tread of Seelie footsteps on the grotto path. She wasn’t sure who she’d expected to see there—it seemed to her as if half the Court had visited her at the grotto already—but she was not prepared for the sight of Prince Dax, tall and lean and strong-looking, with his long, silvery hair flowing down his back like a cape woven of rain and starlight. Una hadn’t seen him since his visit to her chamber; for days, Dax had left her entirely alone.

  Dax paused some distance away, as if he feared Una might spring up and run like a deer or a rabbit if he came too close. He watched her in silence, his bright green eyes barely readable—but Una could detect an air of careful consideration. He was feeling her out, she sensed… testing whether she still rebelled against him, or whether she had begun to come around.

  Una rose, offering the prince a tentative smile. That seemed to encourage him; he strode forward again and gazed down at her from his superior height, frank approval on his face.

  “You like the gazing pool, I see,” Dax said.

  “Yes,” Una answered. She looked away from him, back toward the pool, hoping she appeared innocent—hoping he did not notice the flush she felt burning on her cheeks. “It shows me all sorts of interesting things… thought I can’t say I understand any of them. Scenes from history, I think. Is that what it’s for? To look into the past?”

  Has he already spoken to Forget-me-not? Una wondered, biting her lip. Does he know that she already taught me how to use the pool?

  If Dax suspected Una was lying—or telling only part of the truth—he gave no indication. He only nodded serenely. “That is one of its many uses, yes. A skilled water-reader can see quite far into the past, and can use any still water to do it.”

  “There are so many fascinating things here, in your world,” Una said.

  “It is your world, too.”

  Dax offered his arm; Una took it, and so was compelled to go along with him as he turned his back on the gazing pool and headed out of the grotto. She glanced back, chewing her lip again. What if Kathleen were to appear in the water at that moment? Una knew she shouldn’t leave the pool’s edge—and hadn’t left it, except to eat and sleep and bathe, even when the other Seelie appeared to converse with her. But she didn’t want Dax to know about her plans or her communication with the human realm. Protesting now, or finding some way to convince him
that they should remain beside the gazing pool, seemed futile and foolish.

  “I understand that many of our people have come to speak with you,” Dax said, leading Una through the heart of the garden. Large, bright-red flowers nodded to either side of the path, waving on thin stalks among forests of blade-shaped leaves. Butter-yellow moths flitted from bloom to bloom. “That is good. I am glad the Court finds you agreeable.”

  “I find them agreeable, too,” Una said.

  She had no need to stretch the truth on that count. The Seelie were odd beings, but Una had begun to learn their ways, to detect and appreciate their subtle warmth, their unique displays of wit and humor. The Seelie were doing their best to make Una feel welcome; she couldn’t help but be flattered by their attention.

  “Are they teaching you well?” Dax inquired. “I know many of them are curious about human life—what it is like in your world, how your realm differs from ours. I imagine you have just as many questions about the Sidhe realm.”

  “Of course I do. Everyone has been lovely, Prince, really. They’ve all answered whatever questions they were able.”

  And none of the answers had been those Una was truly seeking. Of course, she’d had to exercise great caution. She didn’t want news getting back to Dax that she was prying for information on how to track down and defeat a Leanan Sidhe. Una had been obliged to approach the subject from odd and haphazard angles, grasping for a thread of information here, a speck there, and trying to piece those odds and ends together into any sort of logical pattern. Knowing next to nothing about Leanan Sidhe, Una couldn’t even be sure she was asking the right sorts of questions. It was all a gamble—one with frightful risks, and one she was bleakly certain of losing.

  Dax led Una along a path she had never taken before. They left the garden behind, entering back into the long marble halls of the Seelie palace—but this hall was carpeted in vibrant, reddish purple, and every door they passed was carved with images of leaping deer.