The Winter Long
Page 68
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“Eight years old and not broken yet,” said the Daoine Sidhe, without hesitation. She had finally reached me. She looked down at the version of herself who slumbered on the bier, and then turned, looking at the Raysel who was still struggling through the roses. “So that’s what I look like if I take after Mom, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m really . . . pink.” Raysel wrinkled her nose. “Like really, really pink. I thought that color was reserved for plastic toys. What’s it doing on my skin?”
“Fae genetics are weird.”
“I guess so.” The Blodynbryd was speaking now. She stared at her Daoine Sidhe self and said, “I look like my father.”
“Not entirely,” I said. “You still look like yourself.”
“So I’m just one more Torquill.” She shook her head. It was starting to get hard to keep track of which one was speaking, impossible as that should have been. They were both her, and this was her dream, after all. “I don’t think he wants me to look like him. I don’t think he ever wanted me. You were the only daughter he needed.”
“That’s not true, Raysel. Your father loves you. He always has. He just doesn’t know how to help you, and he’s a hero. He doesn’t deal well with not being able to fix things.”
“I guess.” The two waking Raysels looked at each other before turning to me. The Blodynbryd asked, hesitantly, “Which would you choose?”
I paused. “In your position?”
She nodded.
“Probably Daoine Sidhe. I’ve always been best at blood magic, even when I didn’t want to be, so that would be the easier way for me to go. But that wasn’t my choice. It never has been.” I lost a little more of mortality every time I had to make one of these decisions for myself, and every inch I lost carried me closer to my Dóchas Sidhe heritage. There had never been a choice about that, not where I was concerned.
“My mother loves me,” said Raysel thoughtfully. “She always will, I guess, if she was willing to send you here after I almost killed her. But I think if I were a Blodynbryd, we’d always be a little bit connected. I don’t know if I could take that. And I don’t know if the parts of me that are broken and the parts of her that are broken would be able to coexist.”
“That’s definitely a risk,” I agreed.
“My father doesn’t know what to do with me, but he always tried to let me find my own way. There are more Daoine Sidhe in our world. It might be easier to learn how to be whole.”
“That’s true.” I felt like all I was doing was agreeing with her, offering meaningless sounds that couldn’t possibly simplify such an impossible decision. It was all I had.
Raysel bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth for a moment before she asked, “If you were in my position . . . what do you think my parents would want me to be? The royal, or the rose?”
“I’d say your parents both have their flaws, and you should be choosing for you, not for them. You’ll have an easier time of it if you’re Daoine Sidhe. There will be more people who can help you heal, and who’ll understand the way your magic works.”
“I’ll have magic?” She sounded almost amazed, and I realized this, too, would be a big change for her: she’d never been trained, partially because her heritage was so strange that no one knew how to teach her, and partially because of her stolen childhood. She could disguise herself from human eyes, and that was about it. “Like my father?”
“If you choose to be Daoine Sidhe.”
“But I’ll be betraying my mother again,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll be leaving her alone.”
I thought of Gillian, and the way she’d looked at me when we’d been standing together in her equivalent of this rose-strewn field. “You’ll never leave her alone, and she knows it,” I said. “Our mothers can betray us, and we can betray them, but they’ll always be our mothers. Nothing takes that away.”
The two Raysels nodded, very slowly. The Blodynbryd turned her face away as the Daoine Sidhe offered me her hands. I took them, smelling blood on the air, coiling like smoke through the mingled perfumes of a thousand roses.
“I choose Daoine Sidhe,” she said.
I’d been expecting that. I still mustered a smile. “This will hurt,” I cautioned.
“I know,” she said. “And Toby . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
There was no way I could answer that, and so I didn’t try. I just reached into the cool, thorny field of her heritage, grasping the roots of what made her Blodynbryd, and yanked as hard as I could.
I was getting better with practice: I was able to keep going even when Raysel began to scream. Her blood didn’t fight me, which made things easier. She had come to terms with what I was here to do, and even if she had never been much of a blood-worker before, every inch of her that turned fully Daoine Sidhe added a sliver more strength to her power. She fed that power into me, and I took it greedily, turning it back on her in a continual, cleansing wave.
The field of roses was blackening around the edges. The part of my mind responsible for keeping me alive noted dispassionately that it hadn’t been that long since I raised the dead, nearly drowned, and sobbed myself to the verge of dehydration, all without eating or sleeping or doing anything else that would allow my body to replenish its resources.
This will hurt, I thought again, and then the last thin tendrils of Raysel’s Blodynbryd heritage snapped off in my hands, and I was falling down into the dark, and nothing particularly mattered anymore. Not even, I was relieved to discover, the pain.
EIGHTEEN
THE MIXED SCENTS of burning wood, warm fur, and roasting chicken assaulted my nose, drawing me up out of a sound sleep. I struggled to keep my eyes closed, dimly aware that as soon as I fully woke, I was going to have to start dealing with the world again—and given how long it had been since I’d slept, that wasn’t something I was in a real hurry to do. My head was throbbing, but nothing else hurt. That was a nice change.
Even forming that thought was too strenuous to be safe. The shredded remains of sleep wisped away into a sigh as I pushed myself up onto my elbows and opened my eyes on the Court of Cats.
This was one of the smaller bedchambers, and it was different from most of the others I’d seen in that it only contained a single bed. It was a huge, four-posted thing, with a clean, if moth-eaten, canopy stretching across the top of it. I was in the bed, naturally, covered by a thick patchwork quilt. The center of the room was occupied by a small dining table. A fireplace took up most of the far wall. Tybalt was crouched in front of it, prodding at a chicken on a spit.
“Yeah.”
“I’m really . . . pink.” Raysel wrinkled her nose. “Like really, really pink. I thought that color was reserved for plastic toys. What’s it doing on my skin?”
“Fae genetics are weird.”
“I guess so.” The Blodynbryd was speaking now. She stared at her Daoine Sidhe self and said, “I look like my father.”
“Not entirely,” I said. “You still look like yourself.”
“So I’m just one more Torquill.” She shook her head. It was starting to get hard to keep track of which one was speaking, impossible as that should have been. They were both her, and this was her dream, after all. “I don’t think he wants me to look like him. I don’t think he ever wanted me. You were the only daughter he needed.”
“That’s not true, Raysel. Your father loves you. He always has. He just doesn’t know how to help you, and he’s a hero. He doesn’t deal well with not being able to fix things.”
“I guess.” The two waking Raysels looked at each other before turning to me. The Blodynbryd asked, hesitantly, “Which would you choose?”
I paused. “In your position?”
She nodded.
“Probably Daoine Sidhe. I’ve always been best at blood magic, even when I didn’t want to be, so that would be the easier way for me to go. But that wasn’t my choice. It never has been.” I lost a little more of mortality every time I had to make one of these decisions for myself, and every inch I lost carried me closer to my Dóchas Sidhe heritage. There had never been a choice about that, not where I was concerned.
“My mother loves me,” said Raysel thoughtfully. “She always will, I guess, if she was willing to send you here after I almost killed her. But I think if I were a Blodynbryd, we’d always be a little bit connected. I don’t know if I could take that. And I don’t know if the parts of me that are broken and the parts of her that are broken would be able to coexist.”
“That’s definitely a risk,” I agreed.
“My father doesn’t know what to do with me, but he always tried to let me find my own way. There are more Daoine Sidhe in our world. It might be easier to learn how to be whole.”
“That’s true.” I felt like all I was doing was agreeing with her, offering meaningless sounds that couldn’t possibly simplify such an impossible decision. It was all I had.
Raysel bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth for a moment before she asked, “If you were in my position . . . what do you think my parents would want me to be? The royal, or the rose?”
“I’d say your parents both have their flaws, and you should be choosing for you, not for them. You’ll have an easier time of it if you’re Daoine Sidhe. There will be more people who can help you heal, and who’ll understand the way your magic works.”
“I’ll have magic?” She sounded almost amazed, and I realized this, too, would be a big change for her: she’d never been trained, partially because her heritage was so strange that no one knew how to teach her, and partially because of her stolen childhood. She could disguise herself from human eyes, and that was about it. “Like my father?”
“If you choose to be Daoine Sidhe.”
“But I’ll be betraying my mother again,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll be leaving her alone.”
I thought of Gillian, and the way she’d looked at me when we’d been standing together in her equivalent of this rose-strewn field. “You’ll never leave her alone, and she knows it,” I said. “Our mothers can betray us, and we can betray them, but they’ll always be our mothers. Nothing takes that away.”
The two Raysels nodded, very slowly. The Blodynbryd turned her face away as the Daoine Sidhe offered me her hands. I took them, smelling blood on the air, coiling like smoke through the mingled perfumes of a thousand roses.
“I choose Daoine Sidhe,” she said.
I’d been expecting that. I still mustered a smile. “This will hurt,” I cautioned.
“I know,” she said. “And Toby . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
There was no way I could answer that, and so I didn’t try. I just reached into the cool, thorny field of her heritage, grasping the roots of what made her Blodynbryd, and yanked as hard as I could.
I was getting better with practice: I was able to keep going even when Raysel began to scream. Her blood didn’t fight me, which made things easier. She had come to terms with what I was here to do, and even if she had never been much of a blood-worker before, every inch of her that turned fully Daoine Sidhe added a sliver more strength to her power. She fed that power into me, and I took it greedily, turning it back on her in a continual, cleansing wave.
The field of roses was blackening around the edges. The part of my mind responsible for keeping me alive noted dispassionately that it hadn’t been that long since I raised the dead, nearly drowned, and sobbed myself to the verge of dehydration, all without eating or sleeping or doing anything else that would allow my body to replenish its resources.
This will hurt, I thought again, and then the last thin tendrils of Raysel’s Blodynbryd heritage snapped off in my hands, and I was falling down into the dark, and nothing particularly mattered anymore. Not even, I was relieved to discover, the pain.
EIGHTEEN
THE MIXED SCENTS of burning wood, warm fur, and roasting chicken assaulted my nose, drawing me up out of a sound sleep. I struggled to keep my eyes closed, dimly aware that as soon as I fully woke, I was going to have to start dealing with the world again—and given how long it had been since I’d slept, that wasn’t something I was in a real hurry to do. My head was throbbing, but nothing else hurt. That was a nice change.
Even forming that thought was too strenuous to be safe. The shredded remains of sleep wisped away into a sigh as I pushed myself up onto my elbows and opened my eyes on the Court of Cats.
This was one of the smaller bedchambers, and it was different from most of the others I’d seen in that it only contained a single bed. It was a huge, four-posted thing, with a clean, if moth-eaten, canopy stretching across the top of it. I was in the bed, naturally, covered by a thick patchwork quilt. The center of the room was occupied by a small dining table. A fireplace took up most of the far wall. Tybalt was crouched in front of it, prodding at a chicken on a spit.
