Truthseeker

Nine

Lara’s vision flared to gold, color blinding before it faded out to leave shimmers around the edges of the doorway Dafydd had cut into the air. She caught a startled breath, stayed from making it a shriek by Dafydd’s fingertips against her mouth. “This would be hard to explain to your neighbors, so please don’t shout. I should have warned you.”

Lara moved her head away and cast him a skeptical look. “Should have,” she agreed. “But that would have taken all the fun out of it, wouldn’t it.”

Amusement creased lines into the thin skin around his eyes, then faded without leaving a mark. Rather than reply, he nodded toward the doorway, and Lara turned her attention that way, aware she’d been trying to ignore it.

Starlight shone through a sky of blue shadows and black trees beyond the door’s golden edges. A grove of darkness, hollowed earth dipping low, lush-looking grass blue with moonlight. It invited with the cool comfort of an autumn night, wind rustling branches full of leaves. Even from the far side of the door, the quiet land seemed a sanctuary, drawing Lara to it. “Where does it go?” The question came out hushed, as if speaking aloud might disturb the world beyond the door.

“Wales,” David said, utterly prosaically, and laughed as Lara turned an injured expression on him. His reply had the same wrong tone to it that his name did, playing on and on as it searched for accuracy in an answer that wasn’t entirely wrong. “The Barrow-lands,” he said more softly. “You don’t like fairy tales, Lara. You might not know the stories of my people and our lands under the hills. Let me show you.”

He took a step toward the door, extending his hand toward her as he moved. Lara slipped her fingers into his, surprised to feel that her own were cold with excitement. She thought the idea of stepping through a doorway made of magic to a world that wasn’t her own should be terrifying, but the endless truth in Dafydd ap Caerwyn’s words sang to her. All it left behind was the belief that she would forever regret not daring this exploration.

“Show me,” she said, suddenly decisive. “I said I’d help. Let’s go.” She put words into action almost before she was finished speaking, stepping ahead of Dafydd to cross the door’s threshold first.

Something changed as she stepped across, the weight of the world somehow releasing some of its hold on her. Misty, cool air swept Lara’s cheeks, dew alighting in her hair, and the first breath she drew was tinged with its own sweet flavor, as if it had never gone through an endless cycle of breath. Under the starlight, silver sparkled off her skin, lifting hairs and sending a chill of delight through her. It felt like power, that sensation, lending Lara a confidence she’d never known. Curious, she tried to reach out with it, searching for what it could tell her about the alien truth of the world she now stood in. She felt Dafydd’s weight shift behind her as he, too, crossed over, and she turned toward him with a smile already on her lips.

Hell unleashed itself.

The sky above Lara tore, wings and claws coming from the darkness, fiery eyes stealing the color from the stars to shoot bolts of heat at her. She screamed, flinging herself toward the door, but even as she did so its golden frame shattered under the weight of night. The space she pitched herself through held only nighttime and trees, no safe passage home. Momentum carried her forward into a dive, dew and grass staining her shirt as she skidded across the slippery meadow.

Dafydd bellowed in a language she didn’t recognize, warning clear in his voice. Thunder clapped in the clear air, carrying his shout far beyond the strength of an ordinary cry. Lara twisted back toward him, her fingers digging into the dirt, fear a painful thing clawing at her chest in an attempt to escape.

Lightning came on thunder’s call, shards of electricity shattering the night and briefly—mercifully briefly—illuminating the shadows that poured from the darkness. Lara had no name for them: demons were creatures of substance, not the wraith-thin shadows whose wings swallowed the lightning’s brightness. They were barely more than wing and tooth and claw, a mockery of bats, black skin stretching from jaw to wing to foot, all distorted with each beat of the monstrous wings. One dropped its mouth open to gout flame and Lara screamed again, meaning it to be a warning to Dafydd.

He flinched, but didn’t lose ground, only lifted his hands as if he held a sword. Lightning gathered between his palms, a blade of jagged brilliance cutting apart the horror’s flame, splicing it to either side of him. His blade lasted no longer than that, fading as quickly as its element did, leaving him empty-handed once more. His voice, though, remained steady, almost cajoling, and Lara lurched to her feet, scrambling for the narrow window of protection offered by the Seelie prince’s form. The breadth of his shoulders suddenly seemed much greater than it had in the confines of her home, his elfin delicacy abruptly filled with all the strength and confidence a warrior could need. Perhaps it was the same difference she’d felt in herself on stepping through to Dafydd’s world: a completion that had been lacking in her own.

Lightning streaked the sky again, tearing Lara from her brief contemplation of Dafydd’s shoulders. One of the monsters darted to the side too late, blue power exploding through its black form. It screamed, a birdlike sound of rage, then was gone, nothing more than a handful of sparks drifting toward the damp grass. Beneath the scream’s echoes, Lara heard Dafydd’s voice, soft and steady, making liquid words that meant nothing to her.

The air flexed around them, as if responding to Dafydd’s calm speech. Another nightmare dove down, claws extended. Lara flung her hands up in a panicked attempt to protect her face. She only half-saw the monster bounce back with the same force it had attacked with, just a few inches away from Dafydd and herself. Dafydd staggered with the creature’s impact, and the shoulder of his suit jacket dimpled, as if claws had hooked into it without managing to touch him.

Silence rose up, shocking as the screams had been, leaving nothing in the night but stars and moonlight. Lara dragged in a breath and stumbled from Dafydd’s side, staring at the sky. “What the—”

“Lara!” Despair shot through Dafydd’s voice and caution flared too late. Winged darkness fell from the sky again, red gaze searing into Lara’s. Instinct went to war in her, the struggle between fight or flight leaving her frozen. Death awaited her in the clutches of vicious black talons, and even as she threw off paralyzing fear she knew she’d hesitated too long, that she could never move quickly enough to escape the nightmare. The admission rang with truth even inside her own mind, even barely made into words, and she thought she might be able to die well, not screaming.

Dafydd smashed into her, knocking her aside. Lara screamed after all, more surprise than terror, before horror tore another raw sound from her throat. The nightmare blackness didn’t care which target it hit: Dafydd howled as its claws slammed into his ribs, ripping his clothes, tearing his skin. Lara closed a hand in the wet grass, furious that she found no fallen branch or stone to use as a weapon there, and surged to her feet, white rage replacing her fear. She tackled the nightmare, knocking it free of Dafydd. The world became pounding black wings and the scent of ashes in the back of her throat. She rolled with the monster, both of them trying to gain the upper hand.

She was somehow astonished when the winged blackness came out on top.

It slammed forward, jaw gaping, and she strong-armed it, driving her hand into what passed for the thing’s throat, holding it back from tearing her head off. It was far more solid than she thought it should be, and much smaller when she had it in hand than it had seemed. From jaw to wing tip, from wing tip to clawed feet, it was less than the length of her arm, but she trembled holding it away from herself. For all its small size, for all that it looked like little more than a sheet of blackness cut away from the night, it had substance, a demon after all. It shrieked and swept its wings in, clawing at the ground around her, unable to gain purchase in her flesh with her hand at its throat.

Chimes sounded in the back of Lara’s mind, clarifying and ringing together until they became the deep continuous toll of church bells, carrying with them a memory and an unquenchable sense of truth.

“I exorcise thee, unholy spirit.” Lara could barely hear her own whisper beneath the captured demon’s screams, but it flinched at the words. Confidence shot through her, strengthening her voice. She shoved herself forward, moving the devil’s weight, and shouted, “I exorcise thee, unholy spirit, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

The thing caught in her hand went first, an explosion of sparks that left behind a keening that raised hairs over Lara’s body. From there light shot out, pure and white and hard, turning the trees to bleached daytime colors, it seared the nightmares, then faded again, leaving Lara blind in the wake of the banishing. Silence reasserted itself as her vision worked its way back to normal, before a new sound cut through the quiet, so rough and dry it took Lara a few seconds to recognize it as laughter.

Dafydd’s laughter.

“Dafydd, oh my God, are you all right?” Lara slid across wet grass to his side, holding her hands above him uselessly. Another dry chuckle escaped him.

“An exorcism. I’ve brought a Roman Catholic among us.” Dafydd laughed again, his forehead wrinkling with pain. “Someone’s had a nasty shock. How wonderful.” He took a careful breath, opening his eyes to study Lara in the moonlight. “How did you know what to counter the spell with?”

“I … I remembered the baptism ritual, the casting out of demons. They seemed like demons.”

“They weren’t,” he assured her on a breath. “But my people, Lara … we don’t bear the name of your creator easily. You couldn’t have chosen a better counter to the attack.” He hesitated, then said, delicately, “It would be easier on me if you didn’t invoke that particular trinity again. The nightwing attack was quite enough. Staggering under the weight of your white god’s name is more than any Seelie, prince or not, should have to face in a single night.”

“Nightwings?” Lara’s voice shot high with fear and confusion even as she recognized that she was focusing on one bewildering thing over another. She could hear the truth of what he said in Dafydd’s voice, but his half-wry plea to keep her from repeating the name of the Trinity went beyond bizarre. Easier to focus on the monsters, on the brief battle. “Is that what you call those? What were they? Why did they attack me? How could they know I was here?”

“They didn’t.” Dafydd’s reply was low with pain. “They couldn’t have, Lara. The spell was set to detect my presence, not yours.”

“But—” Confusion wrinkled Lara’s forehead so hard her head began to ache. “I thought you were a prince. Why would anyone attack you?”

“Why would anyone murder my brother?” He reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips and imparting comfort when, Lara realized sharply, it should be she who offered kindness. Dafydd was injured while protecting her, and her thanks was to hurl questions so frightened and bewildered they verged on accusations.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, but he shook his head, accepting her apology but waving it off.

“Time in the Barrow-lands doesn’t move the same way it does in your world. I told you I’ve been searching for you for a century. That’s true. In your world, it’s true. But in mine, I’ll have been gone—ten days, perhaps two weeks, no more. The wounds of my brother’s death are still fresh, and someone has a secret to protect.”

“But why attack you? Why set a-a spell to sense your arrival?” Lara stumbled over the concept even as she understood that it was a true one; she’d seen magic used repeatedly in the last few minutes, alien but real.

“Because whoever is behind this has to know I wouldn’t return without a truthseeker,” Dafydd said quietly. “Because my return sets into play events that someone wishes not to see explored. Now.” He took a cautious breath, tightening his hand around hers. “Now, if you’ll help me sit up, and forbear from repeating that phrase again, I think I can take the edge off these wounds.”

“That phra—you mean the Fa—”

Dafydd gave her such a sharp look that Lara clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “What does it … do to you?”

“You saw what it did to the nightwings.” Dafydd grunted as he sat up, strain making his hand tremble in Lara’s. “I have thought, substance, presence that they do not. It might take a full exorcism to obliterate me. I’d prefer not to find out.”

“But why?”

Dafydd lifted his gaze to hers, eyes weary in the moonlight. “Because I enjoy living, Lara.” Amusement creased the corners of his eyes at her obvious exasperation, and more carefully he said, “Our courts, our people, are effectively immortal. We can die through violence but not through age. The—” He drew a breath through his nostrils, sweat against his cheeks, and Lara realized that as he spoke to her he was carefully exploring the edges of the nightwing-made wound against his ribs. “The price we pay for that,” he said tightly, “is a lack of a soul, as your people see it. It makes the name of your creator painful to bear in the best of circumstances and deadly in the worst. Forgive me,” he added, and ceased explanations to whisper again in the liquid tongue he’d used before.

Firefly sparks of gold glimmered and gathered with his words, until they seemed to reach a critical weight and dove beneath his clothing. Lara held her breath, leaning in to catch a glimpse of torn and bloody skin weaving itself back together under the light’s guidance. Long moments passed, injury mending before Lara’s eyes. Then Dafydd took a deep breath, straightening. “Better, I think. I’m sorry, Lara. I—”

Lara leaned forward and stopped his apology with a kiss.