Shadowfever - Moning Karen Marie (читать бесплатно книги без сокращений TXT) 📗
V’lane sighed, in perfect human mimicry. “One day you will wish to talk of me. You will have as many questions of my existence and my place in Fae history. It is majestic, far more so than Cruce’s. He was a fledgling prince. I have more to offer.”
I tapped my fingers, waiting.
He ran his hand along my arm, wove his fingers with mine. His hand was warm and strong and felt just like a real man’s. He was seriously putting on the human today.
“I have already told you more about ancient Fae history than any human has ever known.”
“And I still know only the barest sketch of events. You say you want me to see you as a man, to trust you, but trust comes from sharing knowledge and finding common ground.”
“If others of my race were to discover how much I tell you …”
“I’ll take that chance. Will you?”
He stared out at the sea, as if seeking wisdom in the turquoise waves. Finally he said, “As you wish, MacKayla, but you must never reveal your knowledge to another Fae.”
“I understand.”
“Once the Unseelie King was satisfied that he had sufficiently improved upon the initial, imperfect efforts of his experiments that resulted in the lesser castes of Unseelie, he began to replicate the Seelie hierarchy. He created four royal houses, dark counterparts to the Seelie royal lines. The house of Cruce was the final one he made. Cruce himself was the last Unseelie ever brought into existence. By the time the king began to work on the fourth royal house, he was a virtuoso at bringing into being his half-life children, even without the Song of Making. Though with their raven hair, black torques, and haunting melodies, they would never pass for Seelie, they were still a match in beauty, eroticism, and majesty for the highest-ranking light Fae. Some say the king stopped with Cruce because he knew if he made even one more of his ‘children’—much like in your own mythologies—the child would kill the father and usurp his kingdom.”
I nodded, remembering my Oedipus from college.
“In the beginning, the king rejoiced in Cruce and shared his knowledge freely. He had found a worthy companion, one to work with in his efforts to make his beloved concubine Fae. Cruce was clever, learned quickly, and invented many things. The cuff was one of his first creations. He made it as a gift for the king to give his concubine, so that when she desired his presence, she had only to touch the cuff and think of him to make it so. It also protected her from certain threats. The king was delighted with the token. Together they forged several amulets to grant her the gift of weaving illusion. The king alone created the final one he bestowed upon his beloved. Some say she could deceive anyone with illusions woven from it, even him. He gave Cruce greater access to his studies, his libraries and laboratories.”
“But how did you get Cruce’s cuff?”
“My queen gave it to me.”
“How did she get it?”
“I assume it was taken from Cruce when he was killed, then passed from queen to queen to be protected.”
“So, while the king was trusting Cruce with everything he knew, the prince decided to overthrow him and steal his concubine?” I said. I couldn’t keep the note of condemnation out of my voice.
“From whom did you hear that?”
I hesitated.
“Trust must be reciprocal, MacKayla,” he chided.
“I saw Christian in the Silvers. He said he’d learned that Cruce hated the king, wanted his concubine, and cursed the Silvers to keep the king away from her. He told me Cruce planned to take the king’s woman and all the worlds inside the Silvers for himself.”
V’lane shook his head, tawny hair shimmering in the sun. “It was not so simple. Things rarely are. To use a human word, Cruce loved the king, first and above all. The creator of the Unseelie is a being of unbearable perfection. If he is indeed Fae, he is from the most ancient, most pure line that ever existed. Some say he is the Father of All. Some say he had outlived hundreds of queens before the time of the queen he slew. Many of the forms he can take are beyond even Fae ability to absorb. He has been described as having enormous black wings that can enfold the entire Unseelie Court. Were he to attempt to take human form, he would have to occupy multiple bodies and divide facets of himself. He is too vast to be contained in a single mortal vessel.”
I shivered again. I’d seen the hint of those wings in the White Mansion. I’d felt the concubine’s awareness of them, had empathically shared her fascination with their feathery touch on her naked skin. “I thought the queen was the most powerful of your race.”
“The queen is heir to the magic of our people. It is a different thing. That magic has never accepted a male of the True Race, although …”
“Although what?”
He gave me a sideways look from beneath his lids. “I tell you too many things.” He sighed. “And enjoy it too much. It has been a long time since I knew another worthy of confidences. There is an ancient myth that, should all the contenders for the matriarchal throne be no more, the magic would likely gravitate toward the most dominant male of our race. Some say our rulers are your Janus head, your yin and yang: The king is the strength of our people; the queen is wisdom. Strength draws from brute force, wisdom draws from true power. In harmony, the king and queen lead a united court. Opposed, we war. We have been opposed since the day the king killed the queen.”
“But other queens came along. Couldn’t the king make peace?”
“He did not try. Again, he abandoned his children. Upon finding his concubine dead, through his act of atonement he did what he had sworn never to do. By pouring all his dark knowledge into the pages of an ensorcelled tome, he inadvertently created his most powerful ‘child’ yet. Then he vanished. It is rumored among Seelie and Unseelie alike that he has been trying to—as you humans would say about a lame horse—put it down ever since. The Hunter that killed Darroc was allegedly the king’s own for hundreds of thousands of years. It carried him from world to world, hunting his nemesis. The king, like any Fae, loves nothing so much as his own existence. As long as the Book is free, he knows no peace. I suspect the Sinsar Dubh was amused to take the king’s steed. I also suspect that if the king is no longer using that Hunter, and that Hunter is here in your city, then the king is, too.”
I gasped. “You mean in Dublin?”
V’lane nodded.
“In human form?”
“Who could say? There is no predicting one such as he.”
He would have to occupy multiple bodies. I thought of Barrons and his eight. I shook my head, rejecting the thought. “Back to Cruce,” I said hastily.
“Why this fascination with Cruce?”
“I’m trying to understand the chronology. So the king trusted Cruce, worked with him, taught him, and Cruce betrayed him. Why?”
V’lane’s eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared with cool disdain. “The king’s devotion to his concubine was unnatural. It is an aberration in our race. Humans prize monogamy because they have a mere blink of an eye to suffer each other. You are born beneath the shadow of death. It makes you crave unnatural bondage. We do not spend more than a century, perhaps two, with a partner. We drink from the cauldron. We change. We go on. The king did not.”
“Speaking of which, how do you know any of this?”
“We have scribes and written histories. As one of the queen’s High Council, it is my duty to recount our past, on those occasions she passes an edict. She insists I be able to recite any part at any time.”
“So the king was faithful, and fairies don’t like that.”
He gave me a look. “Spend a thousand years with another and tell me it is not unnatural. At the very least, tedious.”
“Apparently the king didn’t think so.” I liked the king for that. I liked the idea of true love. Maybe, just maybe, some people were lucky enough to find their other half, the one that completed them, like a Janus head.
