Grave Visions(97)

“He lies,” she screamed, bashing her fist into my circle.

I squeezed my eyes shut as explosions of pain ripped through my psyche. The circle still held, but barely, and each reverberation felt like barbed wire scraping against the inside of my skull. My circles did a good job of keeping out ambient magical forces and keeping my own magic inside and separate from the distracting pull of grave essence beyond my barrier, but I wasn’t a strong enough spellcaster to erect a barrier that could withstand an assault by magical entities. And all fae were innately magical. I had to get the circle down before it overloaded and snapped.

“Rest now,” I told the shade as I pushed it back into its body.

Falin wrapped his arms around the queen, dragging her back and buying me a moment of peace to reclaim my heat from the corpse. Releasing my hold on the land of the dead, I narrowed the hole in my shields, but I didn’t close it completely—I wasn’t ready to be blind at the mercy of a raging queen.

Climbing to my feet, I approached the edge of the circle. Reaching out with my good arm, I dispelled the barrier. The haze of blue magic separating the rest of the world from my small circle of protected space popped. The sudden assault on my senses was jarring with my shields still open, but I was prepared for it, and forced my breathing to be measured, controlled, as I adjusted to the magical change.

“Bring him back,” the queen bellowed, struggling in Falin’s arms.

He held her firmly, but with a tenderness that caught me off guard. Usually it was easy to forget that they had been lovers once. Most of the time, when he looked at her, I saw barely restrained resentment. Now, with his arms crossed over her chest, pinning her back to his front, I saw only concern and pity.

“Bring him back this instant, planeweaver,” she yelled again, her voice echoing off the concrete walls of the mostly empty parking garage walls. “He lies.”

Now it was my turn to find this mad queen pitiable. Her nephew was behind the plot against her. That had to hurt. “Shades can’t lie, your majesty.”

“We have only your word for that fact.” She leaned forward against Falin’s arms, not exactly struggling, but moving toward me. “Maybe you are mortal enough to lie.”

I wasn’t, but saying as much would prove nothing. Ever try to prove to someone you can’t lie? Yeah, it doesn’t work. Now proving you can is easy enough, you just have to claim the sky is orange or some nonsense, but proving you can’t lie takes years of truths. So, I didn’t bother attempting to prove my own truthfulness.

“Rawhead was fae,” I said, ignoring the fact I was stating the obvious. “Even if human shades could lie—which they can’t—wouldn’t it stand to reason that fae shades couldn’t because fae can’t lie?”

She didn’t even pause before retorting with, “Death breaks oaths. Perhaps fae can lie after death.”

I sighed. A rational argument wasn’t going to work with an irrational person. The queen didn’t want to believe Ryese could be behind the plot against her. So she wouldn’t believe it.

Falin said something in a lyrical language I didn’t know. The language of the fae was beautiful and terrible all at once. I couldn’t understand the words he said, but I could feel the power in them. The words slid around my senses as smooth as silk—but with a cutting edge.

The queen sagged in Falin’s arms. She released a long breath that sounded wet with tears she hadn’t shed. I shot a questioning glance at Falin, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was whispering, the words that same language, but they had lost their edge, and now simply sounded gentle, comforting.

“Release me, Knight. Release me,” the queen said, her voice level, calm.

Falin had no choice, it was a direct command. Lyell moved to my side. His weapon had vanished, and his posture seemed relaxed, but his eyes betrayed his worry. I wasn’t sure if he was showing me support—or just making himself at hand if the queen instructed I be apprehended.

I tensed, but the queen remained still as Falin dropped his arms and backed away. She took several deep breaths before straightening. When she looked up, she appeared more like the distant, frosty queen I’d met during my first visits to Faerie. Oh, she was still disheveled, her skin still sickly and pulled too tight as if from a prolonged illness, but the fevered madness in her eyes had dimmed, her icy gaze cold and calculating once more. She nodded to Falin before scrutinizing both me and the sheet-covered corpse.

“My nephew is spoiled and lazy, but he isn’t without ambition,” she finally said. “I will carefully consider what has been revealed here, but I will not move forward against my own blood without more substantial proof. You are all forbidden to speak of this until the matter has been resolved.” She met the eyes of everyone there—which was difficult, as Maeve had drawn even farther from us and seemed to be avoiding eye contact.