Truthseeker

Fifteen

Within minutes, embarrassment outweighed Lara’s anger. Running away was a child’s trick, and like a child, she’d failed to pay any attention to her path. The citadel’s vast ghostly shape above the trees wasn’t enough to guide her back on the path she’d taken, though she might be able to work her way back by heading toward its graceful spires. Might: the idea of briar rose patches and moats, things of fairy tales, presented themselves to her as likely deterrents surrounding the heart of the Seelie court. The forest seemed improbably thick so close to the palace, wild and grown-over rather than the widespread oak trees and soft undergrowth she’d seen surrounding ancient castles in photographs.

But those were images captured in a different world. Magic bent the rules here; there was hardly any reason to suppose things like forests or landscaping would follow the same patterns they did at home.

The thought felt too big, too unwieldy to be accepted. Lara, overwhelmed, sank into a huddle of moss and branches that softened to make a comfortable seat for her weight. For long minutes she sat with her head in her hands, eyes dry as she stared at the forest floor.

She had no way home except through Dafydd’s goodwill. Scorning him, despite his treachery, had been a mistake, though even as she admitted that, irritation washed through her. He ought to have followed her, for all that she’d told him not to. The contradiction pulled a reluctant smile to her lips: men, whether human or fae, were right to be confounded by women.

“And so we are,” came a voice from the forest. Lara jolted in her mossy chair, too entangled to come to her feet. “Forgive me,” the voice added. “I forget how silent the forest is until the silence is broken. I am Oisín.”

He came out of the trees as he spoke, a bent and ancient man with a heavy staff and filmed-over white eyes, though his step was more certain than Lara’s had been as she’d run from the palace. Like everyone she’d seen, he was dressed beautifully, but there was nothing ethereal or inhuman about the soft robes he wore. The collar was high, the shoulders winged, the colored wraps around his middle of the finest material: each piece was as richly made as anything that graced the Seelie, and yet the whole was somehow imbued with a solidity that made the old man as human as Lara herself was.

Oisín settled into a hummock across from her, smile flitting across lips thinned with age. “It’s only in our youth that they can dress us and make of us a semblance of what they are. You carry Myfanwy’s gown well, better than I ever wore their fashions, and I have not been young for a long time.”

“How long?” Lara cleared her throat, trying to erase the crack in her words and her discomfort at asking the question.

Another smile danced over the old man’s mouth. “Oh, forever, to be sure, by the reckoning of those such as you and I. Eight hundred years,” he added more softly, and gave a shrug as easy as a younger man’s. “Perhaps longer. Time here is not the same.”

“Eight hun—” Lara broke off, staring at the old man.

He spread his fingers, promise of a story, and made a song of his answer. “Another truthseeker of human origin might have sought the heart of ancient legends, delving into their truths, but that seeker would have lived a life unfulfilled, Lara Jansen. Legends are born of men, and men must die, and with them the truths only they can tell. Not even the strongest of magics can draw honest tales from the dead: memory is too fragile, and deeds done to greatness are easier remembered as wonders, even by those who did them. You’ve chosen a wiser path, creating beautiful things for the world around you. There is joy in that, where there is rarely joy in truth.

“But here I am neither dead nor mortal, and so I can give you a truth that no one in the world we both came from will know or believe: it is, after all, only part of another story.

“There are things that open passages between the worlds. Magic, such as that which brought you here, but mortal words, as well: poetry or song, when it’s crafted just so. I was a poet even before I came here, and that gift let me glimpse my lady Rhiannon across the breach between the Barrow-lands and our own home world. I followed her here. They will say in the stories that I fell back to my own world a blind old man, but in truth I stepped back a youth with all my own strength still mine.”

“But time had passed you by,” Lara whispered. “How much time?”

“Enough. Enough that I no longer knew the young men, or even their grandfathers. We were less careful in the keeping of years then, but when I heard my own name in a song about the fair folk, I knew that it had been time enough that I no longer belonged with mortal kin. I began to write again,” he murmured, “and in time the walls faded a second time and I returned to the Barrow-lands. Here I was granted immortality, but even Seelie magic isn’t enough to hold youth on a once-mortal frame.

“I have not been young in eight hundred years,” he said again, then smiled on a sigh. “But I lived among the Seelie, not yet old, for such a very long time before that.”

“Forever,” Lara said in a small voice, and the unwelcome ache of truth rang through it.

“Forever,” Oisín agreed. “There’s my tale, Truthseeker, and now I have yours to spin for you. It’s my own fault you’re here, and for that I offer apologies and gladness. If we have time, I would like to hear what’s become of the world I left; there have been no visitors in so long that I’ve lost all sense of it.”

“I don’t think I’d know where to begin.”

The old man’s smile came again, a comfortable expression, as though he’d long since given up regrets and found pleasure in each moment as it passed. “My story for you is the more important. Did young Dafydd tell you of the prophecy?”

Lara’s eyebrows arched. “Young? How old is he? And, yes, some kind of chant that I don’t remember. Except the part about breaking the world. I can’t do that. How could I do that?”

Oisín, wryly, said, “Here, everyone is young except for me.” His voice dropped into a singsong, losing the music of his earlier tale. “Truth will seek the hardest path, measures that must mend the past. Finder learns the only way, worlds come changed at end of day. I know,” he added, amused. “The poetry lacks. My own work is, I like to think, better, but these are words that come to me in fits, as visions of the world to come.”

“But that’s not what Dafydd said. He said—” Lara pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, trying to draw up the memory. “The first part was the same, but the second part changed. Something about … spoken in a child’s word, because he apologized for that. Spoken in a child’s word, changes that will break the world. That’s what he said. Why did it change?” She glanced up to find a frown etched between Oisín’s eyebrows.

“Prophecy … flexes. It alters as circumstances do. Changes that will break the world, spoken in a child’s word, or finder learns the only way, worlds come changed at end of day. There’s something gentler about the newer version, is there not? Though I fear either way this land will not be what it was, Lara Jansen, when you are finished here. If you meet any other seers, ask them for a foretelling. The differences may be important.”

“If I meet—Am I likely to?” Lara stared at him, uncertain if interest or fear dominated her emotions.

“No,” Oisín said, suddenly genial again. “The gift is as rare as truthseeking, and no one else in the Seelie court bears it. Still, you’ll return to our world, and we mortals have a knack for surprising even ourselves.”

“I think I’ve had enough surprises for one day. What do the rhymes mean?” Lara shook her head before the ancient poet spoke. “You can’t tell me, can you?”

“Not the way you would like me to, no.” He leaned forward, offering a hand. Lara put her fingers into his, surprised at his warmth, and at the strength with which he imparted comfort with a squeeze. “I could tell you of mystical journeys and unfolding power, but I think even the most literal-minded of truthseekers might gather that much from the prophecies.”

“I did finally learn to understand metaphor,” Lara admitted. “‘Truth will seek the hardest path’ sounds straightforward even to me. Truth is always a hard path. But if I’m supposed to be truth, then what about the new line you just said? Who’s the finder? Do your visions show you pictures?”

“Only words, I’m afraid. Stories have only ever been words to me, even before I lost my sight to age. Your path will lead you to the finder, or you will become what you seek, and we will bend or break with the changes wrought.” A finality came into his voice, like a bell tolling the end of some solemn service. Lara caught her breath, searching for questions that could be given quick, easy answers, but the music and the moment passed before she could voice any. Rueful with defeat, she looked around the wooded copse surrounding them and shook her head.

“Well, right now the truth is going to have a hard time seeking the path out of here, because I wasn’t paying any attention when I came in.”

“That,” Oisín said lightly, “I think I can help you with, Truthseeker. There is a path, a true way through these woods, and your eyes should be able to find it. Most could not.”

“All I can do is tell if someone’s lying, Oisín. I can’t even do that if they think they’re telling the truth.”

“Have more faith,” murmured the old man. “Close your eyes and look for the light.”

Lara shot him a skeptical look that went unheeded, his blind gaze serene enough to hint at laughter. She pulled a face, drily certain that Oisín would know it, and closed her eyes as she muttered “Look for the light” to herself.

The forest’s silence closed around her as her lashes came together. Wind trickled through trees, disturbing leaves, but there were no other sounds: no distant traffic, no whine of airliners, no voices raised in laughter or debate as there were at any hour in Boston’s streets. She had never known quiet to be overwhelming, but in the Seelie forest it had a presence of its own, surrounding her, cushioning her, pressing at her.

Look for the light, she reminded herself, but truthfulness had never come to her as light or dark; it came as music. Music didn’t, as a rule, make paths, though “follow the yellow brick road!” popped into her mind at the thought. She smiled, imagining such a road unfolding a brick at a time in front of her, though in an instant its color faded to white: yellow brick was simply too much at odds with the deep forest surrounding her. The music changed as well, shying from the perky traveling tune to a more subtle ringing, so deep inside her that for long seconds she didn’t recognize it as a tone.

Silver: moonlight on silver, so pure it had no earthly counterpart; that was its sound, and in her mind’s eye the brick road she’d built shot forward, drawing a line through the trees. She opened her eyes, unsurprised to find Oisín gone, and even less surprised to find a path leading straight and unbroken toward the ghostly white palace.

Heartbeat queer with the chime’s power, Lara got to her feet and followed her magic back into the heart of the Seelie court.

The glimpses she’d had going to and from Aerin’s chambers had been accurate: there were open spaces large enough to be called parks within the city’s heart, wilderness of the forest beyond tamed by ivory walls and open arches that, had it been a human park, Lara might have called gates or fences. They were neither: even the contained stretches of forest were too much a part of the city to be bound by such words, as if they had all grown up together, part and parcel of one another. She saw that clearly as the sound of the chimes drew her through the citadel’s halls.

Her sure feet led her to an arched doorway more elegant than any she’d seen so far. The music fell away suddenly, leaving silence broken by voices that seemed sharp and uncomfortable after the strength of chimes: Emyr, making demands. Demanding her presence, in fact, in such short commanding words that good sense deserted her and she stepped into the filigree doorway.

The king’s private chambers were chilly, silver-woven tapestries on the walls doing little to catch heat and keep it from escaping. The windows were rimed, and the floor beneath her feet crackled with hoarfrost. Heatless light rained from the tall ceiling as Lara had seen everywhere in the citadel, but in the heart of Emyr’s domain it caught silver and ice and brought the room to a shining, cool brilliance that only reinforced its chill. Looking around, Lara wondered if Dafydd had any real desire to assume his father’s icy mantle, or if he would as happily let that relentless cold power pass to Ioan. But then, they were Seelie: immortal in almost all ways, and perhaps a king’s heir was that in name only. Neither child might ever rule.

The second son stood a few yards away from his father, his whole body tensed for action: he was already turning toward the door, no doubt to do Emyr’s bidding, when Lara said, drily, “Don’t bother. She’s here.”

Both men flinched, a more gratifying response than Lara had expected. A smile swept Dafydd’s face, then disappeared, leaving a boyish hope in its wake. He didn’t want her to be angry with him, and Lara, searching for the emotion, found that it had largely washed away in the forest. Wry exasperation rose in its place: Kelly would say a man she couldn’t stay angry at was a keeper.

There was no such friendliness in Emyr’s gaze. He turned away from a basin-topped pedestal, mouth tight with displeasure. “How far did you go?”

Lara caught her fingers in the delicate archway to keep herself from backing up. “I went into the forest. I don’t know how far. Ten minutes or so, before—”

“Before?” Emyr glared down at her, such a picture of lordly pique that the impulse to retreat faded. She’d been second or third tailor to men who reminded her of the Seelie king: men whose self-worth was so invested in how they looked that they jumped on imagined slights. Emyr, she had no doubt, had the confidence those men didn’t, but the similarity was enough to let his irritation sluff away without bothering her.

“Before Oisín found me,” she said steadily. “We talked for a little while and then he showed me how to find my way back.”

“Oisín.” Distasteful resignation slithered across Emyr’s features. “That explains much.” He returned his attention to the basin, silver hair falling over his shoulders as he leaned in.

Lara muttered “Oh good,” and felt discordance race over her skin, inborn talent not caring for the sarcasm in her own voice. “What’s explained?”

“The Barrow-lands have only known one kind of mortal magic for a very long time. Yours is new, and disruptive. When it met Oisín’s—think of it as two waves coming together to create a larger one.” Dafydd brought his hands together in demonstration.

Lara looked between father and son, her gaze finally settling on Emyr’s stooped shoulders. “So you can’t do magic? I’m sorry. Is there anything I—”

“You do too much already,” Emyr snapped. “I had thought a simple spell to isolate your power would do, but with mortal magic met, there is a tide that would take a great binding to hold back. To work it would require the willingness of the land, and the land,” he said bitterly, “is very fond of Oisín. I cannot fight it to set you apart and work the scrying magic at the same time.”

“Can’t Dafydd—”

“The scrying spell is one of ice and water,” Dafydd murmured apologetically. “Neither is my element.”

“What is?”

The golden Seelie prince turned his palm upward, fingertips curved in. Electric sparks flew between them, lightning made miniature before it faded away. Lara made fists against sudden embarrassment. “Right. The sword you fought the nightwings with was electricity. I should’ve known.”

Dafydd arched an eyebrow, the expression sympathetic. “Hardly. Truthseeking gives no hint to the elemental strengths and weaknesses of Seelie magics.”

“But the doorway you made to bring us here. And you healed yourself. Those weren’t lightning.”

“The healing is a matter of what we are. We die, Truthseeker, but not easily. Poison magic felled Merrick. And the doorway,” Emyr said sharply, “is a magic of the Barrow-lands itself, as setting you apart would be. Without its agreement, Dafydd would never have opened a passage to your world or back again. It’s a deeper magic than any he has ever worked, and it is an unwelcome one. Once we passed easily between the worlds, but no longer. The iron and steel of your world damages ours, and to open a pathway risks our very being.”

Lara swallowed an oh and wet her lips, hardly daring to look at Dafydd. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Am I—” Nerves closed her throat and she swallowed a second time, trying to clear it. “Am I going to be able to go home?”

“Oisín wouldn’t have sent me for a mortal truthseeker if he believed traveling between your world and the Barrow-lands would endanger us,” Dafydd said with quiet confidence.

Changes that will break the world. The last line of the rough poem whispered in Lara’s mind, freezing her thoughts. Never mind being able to go home; she wasn’t sure she’d dare, with the truthseeker prophecy hanging over her head. The life she’d lived there was hardly worth risking an entire world over.

Regret seized her at the idea, sudden tears blurring her vision. Her life wasn’t worth risking a world for, but the idea of never saying good-bye cut deeply enough to take her breath. Her friends, Kelly and Cynthia especially, would never understand; her mother would never stop grieving.

The need to move, to break away from the promise of a future that threatened to lock her in place, seized Lara in its grip. She jerked forward as though she’d been pushed, crossing the room with rough steps and only stopping when she came to Emyr’s side at the tall basin. She caught its edge, cold rising through her palms to make her wrists ache, and she lowered her head, blinking furiously to force tears away.

They fell regardless, striking the frozen surface of the pool and hissing. Heat spread, thinning ice, and Lara caught a glimpse of her own wide-eyed expression before blinding sunlight shot out of the basin. The reflection was painful, ricocheting migraine auras through her vision, and she jerked a hand upward, trying to cover her eyes.

Instead, Emyr’s hand came down over hers in an icy, unforgiving touch that forbade her to move. She yanked, trying to pull free, and his grip tightened, numbing her fingers until she thought they were frozen against the basin’s edge.

He nodded, one sharp silent motion, when her eyes met his: nodded toward the basin, returning her attention to it. Both furious and frightened, she gave up trying to free her hand and looked back into the brilliant water.

Sunlight still glared around the basin’s sides, but it had faded from the center, leaving a gem-blue sky over fields seething with green and black and white and red. It took long seconds for the writhing images to resolve in Lara’s mind.

Then, as if someone had taken blinders from her eyes, the inexplicable mass became men and women, hundreds of them, even thousands, all clashing together beneath the clear sky. Fewer than half the warriors had the light-colored hair that marked the Seelie. The greater number had darker hair, black and brown and deep copper red: the Unseelie army, Lara guessed, whose coloring made them look like the other half of the too-pale Seelie people to her eyes. They looked complete, even coming together as enemies instead of as a homogeneous whole.

And to play up their differences—it could only be deliberate—the warring factions wore armor of moonlight and of sable, drawn together by nothing but the spatter of red blood as bodies fell. In the abstract, it was beautiful.

In truth, it was terrible. Lara cried out, a sound of protest she couldn’t stop, but her hands refused to obey a command to release the basin’s edge. Across the battlefield, the warriors stopped, looking skyward, as though they’d heard her voice and were searching for its source. Heartened by the idea that she could be heard, Lara drew breath to demand they stop.

Her words were blocked by fingertips over her lips, Dafydd’s eyes regretful as he shook his head. Lara jerked her head away, looking back to the basin, but the moment was lost: on the field, battle heat overtook the brief pause, and soldiers again began to fall beneath swords and arrows.

An arrowhead of midnight-armored warriors appeared, coming out of the massed ranks as though magic had guided them to thrust deep into Seelie territory. It wasn’t impossible that magic had. Seelie warriors fell on the dark-clad soldiers, but their leader caught Lara’s eye, drawing her attention.

The images in the basin shifted, closing in on the arrowhead like a lens pulling in for a close-up. Once; then a second time, narrowing down to a youth in black armor who used his sword as though it were a part of himself. It took a moment for Lara to understand why he’d caught her attention, and then her breath disappeared from her lungs. He was fair-haired, fair-skinned, and leading a host of fighters much darker than he was. She knew who he was, knew it with the ringing clarity of truth that dogged her even when she might have preferred ignorance. Knew it, and knew that Emyr would not forgive her for showing him what they all now saw.

Ioan ap Caerwyn, son of the Seelie king, led the Unseelie army against his own people.