Dark Faery II: The Mercifuls (DarkFaery Book 2) Read online

  “No. They’re kind of a musical community. There are 12 of them – or there will be once I join.

  Taurig, a light-haired boy a little taller than Flynn, with half-moon brown eyes and a smattering of freckles across his button nose, squinted in thought.

  “They already have 12.”

  “They had 12. Simon had to –” Flynn rubbed his arm. “He had to let one go.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, he was causing some kind of trouble. I don’t really know. They don’t talk about things like that. He’s gone, so they don’t talk about him.”

  “And you’re replacing him?”

  “Sort of. I don’t think I play the same instruments, but everyone plays two or three so we can change around a lot.”

  “We. You make it sound like you’ve already joined.”

  “I have practiced with them.”

  Taurig was impressed, so Flynn knew he’d spread the word among his friends.

  Flynn’s time with his friends was limited, however, and it made him somewhat sad. But it wasn’t simply his work or Shauna Faun. His friends were nearly all apprenticed, so everyone had their time taken up with careers and the seriousness of life. The difference was that once the others’ apprenticeships were through, his friends would go on seeing each other socially, find mates and visit one another. They’d see each other on a daily basis in the village. They’d share an occasional meal, share hobbies, and throw the glimmer together. He’d miss that. They might see each other at concerts – they’d see him anyway – but their society would be banned to him. They were light Faery, and he soon wouldn’t be.

  No, he thought. This is what I wanted. It’s what I still want. And there’s Caelen. Somehow I have to make her want me.

  He hadn’t realized until then that Caelen was part of what spurred him on. Yet, as a thrall, he couldn’t go near her. What if she didn’t want him? Simon had said she was free. But didn’t Simon have his own agenda?

  Simon wasn’t that desperate to replace Ethan, was he? He hadn’t forced Teilo, after all, and Flynn had the impression Teilo was the one Simon wanted. But Teilo wouldn’t have been Shauna Faun. Were any of the coven Vampyres not Shauna Faun? He didn’t think so, but he didn’t know whether or not that was a rule. He was sure once he was initiated he’d learn all of the rules. He was anxious for that initiation to occur.

  14

  The Vampyres sat around a table. It looked like the board meeting of a company except that no one wore a suit. Simon grinned to himself thinking of Humans who ran businesses. He’d never seen a Human having to worry about wings.

  “That boy is amazing,” Luke said. “I’ve never seen a light Faery who understood music so well. I’m stunned.”

  Luke, the quietest of the group, rarely ventured an opinion, although Simon knew he’d been skeptical about letting Flynn play with the Vampyres so soon.

  “I did think you were rushing things,” Fiona replied.

  “I never expected him to learn as quickly as he does,” Simon replied. “But Harry agreed with me about his playing.” Harry nodded.

  “When do the rest of us get to play with the boy wonder?” Aranck asked.

  “Are you sure you can handle a light Faery?” Simon asked.

  His question wasn’t sarcastic. They were all well aware of the danger close proximity to a light Faery created.

  “How will we ever learn if we aren’t given the chance?” Aranck asked.

  “I don’t want him used as a sacrificial lamb,” Simon replied.

  “You’d be there, Simon,” Kele said.

  “He practically sat across the room from the rest of us,” Fiona interjected. “You could barely smell him.”

  A few of the Vampyres closed their eyes, looking like they were savoring the smell of Saturday evening supper after glimmer.

  “That look is what makes me hesitate,” Simon said, and when two of the Vampires opened their eyes they saw him glaring at them. “He isn’t your meal, he’s a guest. And a thrall.”

  They ducked their heads.

  “You can’t form a complete opinion of his versatility until he’s played with everyone,” Kele said. Simon nodded.

  “Next week, then. It should give you all time to prepare and properly feed.”

  “When will you bring him over?” Fiona asked.

  “If all goes well, in a month’s time, I think.”

  “I thought perhaps for Samhain,” Fiona suggested.

  “I don’t think he’ll be ready by then.”

  “That would be an auspicious time,” Kele said.

  “Perhaps,” Simon replied.

  “You sound like you don’t want him brought over,” Harry said.

  “I do. I can’t believe yet that it’s real.”

  “He isn’t Teilo,” Harry said. “Besides, he likes Caelen.”

  Caelen’s look was like a blush, although Vampyres weren’t capable of blushing.

  “You did see his interest, Caeli, certainly?” Simon asked.

  “I did not wish to be teased over a thrall,” she replied.

  “No one wishes to tease you,” Harry said. “I am simply stating fact.”

  “I don’t know that he was expecting to be brought over quite so soon,” Simon said, returning to topic. “I’ll speak to him to be sure he can be ready by Samhain.”

  “Time was when light Faeries weren’t given time. We just did what we do by nature, and let the families wonder,” Kele said.

  “Time was when we were hunted, and the rumor has stuck with Shauna Faun ever since,” Simon reminded him.

  Business settled, the Vampyres dispersed. Fiona lingered with Simon. She waited until the others were gone. He pretended to be busy, looking over some papers that lay in a corner of a side table. Once he was sure everyone else was gone, he looked at Fiona.

  “Something you didn’t want to say in front of the others?” he asked. She nodded.

  “You haven’t changed your mind about the boy, have you? You seemed hesitant.”

  “If you knew how difficult it is to restrain myself –”

  “Oh, I understand that all too well.” Fiona was one of the few in the coven who had brought another Faery over.

  “I want to be sure we don’t have another Ethan.”

  “That was unfortunate. But he wasn’t yours. Who of yours has failed?”

  “Have you forgotten Brindle?”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. She had aided Simon when his first fledgeling had proven to be mad and needed to be destroyed. “I had forgotten. But you have learned much since then.”

  Fiona walked around the table as if trying to see its measure from each of the twelve places. “Do you think Teilo truly would have made a good Vampyre?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps not, since I was willing enough to let him choose not to be. I want everyone to like Flynn. He has a spirit we haven’t seen in some time.”

  “Do you think he’ll be difficult?” Fiona asked.

  “No. I think I’ve frightened him a bit.”

  She smiled. “It’s good to keep them a little fearful, at least the first year.”

  Simon nodded.

  15

  As autumn progressed, Mr. Whitethorn became ever busier. People from all the surrounding clans seemed to have caught the same ailment: a weakness of limbs, tiredness and headache. Many thought they were overworked at first, but as the weakness increased, they knew it wasn’t simply being tired.

  “I haven’t seen this before,” he said to his daughter as they prepared for yet another patient with the same ailment.

  They gave tinctures and salves to help with the pain and to help them rest.

  The priestesses, knowing something was amiss, made offerings to the goddess. The air was tinged with the scent of incense offered for the goddess’ mercy.

  When the first Faery died of the disease – a Celestial named Bilory Starhart – folk became alarmed. It was rare for a Faery to die of an ailment. More often they were crushed by humans or
died of old age. Rarely, someone was murdered by outlaws.

  “What is this plague?” folk asked.

  Doctors travelled to the various clans giving elixirs, making note of what worked and what didn’t.

  When Ella, Flynn’s youngest sister succumbed, Mr. Whitethorn became truly concerned. She stayed in bed, a heated stone keeping her warm.

  Her mother made an elixir of honey, lemon and clover laced with willow bark and ginger. At first she was much worse than the others, and her parents feared she’d overdone things with tending the sick. But after two days of rest she seemed much better than many of the other patients. Her elixir was different from what Whitethorn had given his patients, and when he saw how well she responded, he began recommending a bed stone and the same elixir to his patients. Some responded well, and word went out among the journeymen doctors. Still, some few died.

  Flynn was distracted from his music, especially when Ella first fell ill. Simon gave him a few days off, but Whitethorn was concerned that Flynn would become ill.

  “Tell Simon that, since the sickness doesn’t seem to have affected his clan, it would be better for you to continue your apprenticeship.”

  “I can’t live with them!”

  “No, but it would keep you out of harm’s way for part of the time.”

  “But what if something happens?”

  “I’ll send for you if you’re needed, Flynn. You’re not a healer. You’ve chosen a different path. You’d be little use in a crisis. Don’t worry. No one will die without you.”

  Small comfort, he thought. He didn’t understand how his father could be so glib.

  Simon only nodded the next night when Flynn explained his father’s rationale.

  “We wouldn’t want you to die before your time, certainly,” Simon told him.

  “If I were seriously ill, would you be able to turn me?”

  “Yes, but it would be more unpleasant for us both. Your blood would be tainted.”

  “Would it make you ill?”

  Simon laughed. “I’m no longer living. I have no ability to become ill. But your blood would be lacking and would taste off. I’d rather you in good health. But if you were in danger of dying I could do it to make you one of us.”

  “Why would it be unpleasant for me?”

  “You’d be ridding yourself of poison. It doesn’t leave easily. It’s uncomfortable.”

  “Why do they have to leave?”

  “They cannot live in someone who is no longer living. And they take time to die off. It’s uncomfortable.”

  While the epidemic spread throughout the Western Faery, Flynn continued to go each night to work with Shauna Faun. He kept away from his sister who was no longer doing well. His older brothers and sister worked diligently among the clans they lived with to gain the upper hand, but there were deaths throughout October. When Ella slipped away in the early dawn one morning, Flynn was grief-stricken. All of his father’s skills as a physician, all of his mother’s knowledge of herbs and medicines could not save her.

  Flynn slipped out briefly the following evening to tell Simon he could not practice with the band for a few days and gave him the reasons.

  “Of course,” Simon replied. “Take what time you need.”

  Ella, as the youngest girl, had been more petted and protected than the others, and her mother’s grief was considerable. Like many families, they asked Aoife to preside over the funeral pyre.

  Aoife was busy beyond belief with funerals. And of course, each Faery had to meet the dawn fire individually. No one would consider consigning a loved one to a pyre shared by any other: that would seem a failure of the entire Merciful clan to control the illness, even though everyone knew it was far beyond anyone’s control.

  If Aoife could not preside, one of the other priestesses was sent. Only Moira kept aloof from the funeral pyres. She could only be expected to preside over high-ranking Faeries, such as the head of a clan. She was busy offering sacrifices for the end of the plague and the return of well-being to the Faery folk.

  The Whitethorn family made a circle around Ella, with their friends and relatives standing behind and looking on. Aoife stood at the girl’s head.

  Ella’s entire body had been wrapped in a cocoon of spun spider silk, and laid on a wooden bier. Twigs and sticks surrounded the body. They had all assembled at the stream that divided the Merciful clan from the Celestial.

  Aoife prayed to the goddess, sprinkling an incense tincture over the lifeless body and anointing it with sacred oil. Then at a signal from her, four folk lifted the bier and set it at the edge of the stream. With a final call to the goddess to accept her faithful servant into the afterlife, Aoife set the bier afire and pushed it into the flow of the stream.

  Flynn watched as the flaming bier was pulled downstream by the current. He was overcome. He and Ella were more than brother and sister: they were friends and confidantes. The only thing he’d never told her was the truth about Shauna Faun.

  When the bier had gone down the stream and out of sight of the assembled Faeries, they dispersed to their homes, Mr. Whitethorn with an arm around his wife’s shoulders. The family remained together and only at nightfall did the children go their separate ways.

  All except Flynn. He sat on the porch of their house despite the wind and chill air. He wanted to commune with his dead sister, send his thoughts to her in the afterlife.

  “Come in, Flynn,” his mother said. “Aren’t you going to your master tonight?”

  “No.”

  But he did go into the house, and as the dawn rose he fell exhausted into bed.

  He did not go out to Simon the next day or the next. For a week he stayed at home, wandering in the nearby woods or fixing things for his mother that needed fixing.

  Finally one evening as dinner finished and his father began yet another reprimand about responsibility to his master, the thrall marks began to ache with Simon’s call. He had felt the call before and ignored it. Now the sensation was so intense he nearly cried out. He ran out of the house while his father was in mid-tirade.

  He went to the woods and fell to his knees while holding his hand over the thrall marks. Simon flitted down from an upper branch and landed lightly on the ground. For all of his gracefulness, his face was hardened into a scowl.

  “It’s been two weeks, Flynn. Your sister has long been with the goddess. It’s time to put away your sorrow and return to the business of living.”

  Flynn laughed angrily. “Life? What do you know of life? You don’t live. And you’re only waiting to take life from me.”

  “You offered your life, Flynn.”

  “That was before. Don’t you see? I can’t be one of you now. My family has already lost my sister.”

  “No one took you. You offered freely. You’re apprenticed.”

  “Apprenticed to a demon! You take my blood to bind me to you.”

  “Blood you offered! You were anxious to be one of us only a month ago. What if I’d taken you then? I couldn’t undo that.”

  “Now you don’t have to feel guilty. You can just let me go.”

  “Guilty? I feel no guilt. It is you who should feel guilty for not honoring your contract. You made a blood oath.” He was hard with the boy to release him from grief.

  “I want to be free of it.”

  “No,” Simon said calmly. “We are not servants to be discarded when we no longer suit. Folk die. Young or old, they die, Flynn. It’s the goddess’s will.”

  “You don’t believe in the goddess!”

  “I never said that. I said we are not her servants. You can’t twist things to suit your will. What would your father say if you told him you wanted to dishonor him by breaking your word?”

  “What would my father say if I told him you’re Vampyres?” Flynn replied hotly.

  Simon smirked and waved his hand. “Go. Tell him. Tell him you’re breaking your word and why. I’ll wait here, shall I? Or would you rather I’m there when you tell him?”

  “I
will,” Flynn said, and marched off to his home. He entered the house and closed the door, marching up to his father who sat in a chair by the fire enjoying his pipe. He looked at Flynn.

  “I’ve decided to leave Shauna Faun,” he announced.

  “Because of Ella? That won’t bring her back. Or are you adding breaking your bond to rudeness now?”

  “I have a perfectly valid reason,” Flynn started, rubbing his arm.

  “Do you?” his father asked, putting the pipe aside. “And do you happen to have the money to go along with your perfectly valid reason? Because however generous Simon was when we signed the articles of apprenticeship – and you signed them as well as I – he will not be so generous letting you go. It’s breaking your word.”

  “You don’t understand!”

  “I don’t indeed. You’ve always loved music above all else.”

  “It has nothing to do with music.”

  “No? Has he mistreated you? I don’t know a master around who would allow an apprentice two weeks over a death! A few days, but that’s all. It seems to me you abuse Simon’s kindness. You need to learn responsibility.”

  “Responsibility? I’m trying to be responsible. You don’t understand! He’s –” Flynn stopped. His thrall marks gave no sign of being there. Simon’s voice did not sound a warning in his head. He felt nothing, actually. A vast emptiness surrounded him as his father looked at him with interest.

  “Yes?” his father prompted. “Simon is what?”

  Flynn hadn’t simply signed a paper; he’d given a blood oath. That was far more binding. Simon didn’t have to speak in his head or cause any pain whatever. The knowledge of the thrall, of what Simon was, and what Flynn had promised was enough. He couldn’t form the word: Vampyre.

  “Isn’t it enough that I want to end the contract?”

  “It is not. You gave your word. You’ve spent months in training. He has given you knowledge you didn’t have, skill you didn’t have. You owe him a debt for that, and you had ample time to decide. There is no reason good enough for you to break your vow. Now I suggest you go to Simon and resume your duties, Flynn. We all mourn Ella, but sitting at home weeping will not bring her back. And I’ll hear no more talk of you leaving your apprenticeship unless Simon comes to me with a complaint.”