Fyre: The Faelaw Chronicles, #3

PROLOGUE

The Abyss, Below Faelaw, Above the Earthly Realm

What happened . . . ?

In the depths of the Abyss—a hellish spirit realm deep in the bowels of Faelaw, where the souls of the dead roamed—a lone figure stood in a dark chamber. She was shrouded in shadow as she wove her spellwork, asking the all-seeing mists rising from her seeing glass . . . one simple question.

What happened . . . ?

My dear poppet, my little Fey-King . . . oh, my darling Elrick . . . has died, crushed into oblivion . . . his life extinguished in a moment like a candle flame snuffed at the height of its power.

It can’t be true. It’s simply impossible. I’d given him his crystal heart to hide away, and he took such cares and precautions in concealing it. No one but he and I knew where it was stored. And no one ever suspected.

It was supposed to be indestructible. How did that old fool manage to let it slip from his fingers and into the Divide? Even so, the acids couldn’t melt it down, I’d made certain of that!

She paced about in her dark, empty chamber, moving frantically to and fro, then around and around the looking glass on its pedestal. It didn’t make any sense. Her work was flawless. The late Fey-King had obeyed her instructions so obediently and unquestioningly, just as a good little poppet should.

It had taken her centuries to build him up into her worthy foot soldier, many years more to help him gather and grow an army. All for naught, it seemed. They’d never even seen battle.

For all their—her—hard work had gone up in flames and been dissolved away, leaving nary a trace. It was as if they’d never been, Fey-King Elrick and his many minions.

How is this possible? It cannot be my magic . . . My conjurings are faultless, their dark corrupting force unequaled, and always have been!

The morose figure drew her hood down and righted the thorny crown of gunmetal briar atop her head. Fyre, for that was her name, extended her hands over the swirling, ghost-milk mists rising up from the looking glass, raking her fingers as if through a mane of white hair.

She frowned.

It’s just not possible. And yet . . . this is what you mists clearly show me, with your invisible spying eyes roving over the living land of Faelaw . . . You’ve never steered me wrong, in this time or the next. And yet, I find this hard to believe.

What did I do wrong? How could he have permitted this to happen? No, no, no . . . this can’t be. This won’t do. My army has lost its most important general. It had all been coming together so smoothly, so easily, as my dark magic wove its way in . . . And now my certain plan to seize power over the realm of the fae has been thwarted.

What . . . what’s this? The Lich Queen pulled her hands away and peered closer into the looking glass. A hero of prophecy . . . ? A little slip of a girl? With three mere ruffians to guide her?

She did this?! A pathetic human?! And her half-blood consort?!

With an angry howl, the maleficent Lich Queen stomped her foot and extinguished the wispy mists, making them collapse into the looking glass and disappear from sight. Only her own face—pale, thin, contorted in fury, her eyes flashing the vilest green—stared back at her from its depths.

Gwen . . . Gwen of the Findlays . . . I won’t soon forget your name. Wait and see, little girl . . . wait and see.

Because what I intend to do to you is far worse than anything I could do to this Faelaw nation.

Oh, yes. I will have my revenge. And my new poppet to take beloved little Elrick’s place.

You stole and destroyed his heart, laying waste to my budding empire.

You unsealed the Divide, turning its waters impotent.

Worse yet . . . you brought the separate peoples together, giving more force and credence to Good.

I will not stand for this.

I will not wait idly by.

You pilfered the crystal jewel that gave Elrick life.

So in return . . . as an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth . . .

I shall steal yours.

And make of you a foot soldier ten times what my darling Fey-King was.

Oh, yes . . . I will let loose my wrath upon you.

All those that you love and hold dear will burn.

And you . . . you will be mine.

Where do Faelavians go when they die?

Alas, it is not to a lofty heaven in the sky above the Earth. Nor is it to a fiery underworld bubbling with lava and misery.

The truth is, someone newly fallen in Faelaw finds themselves in a spirit realm known only as the Abyss, where the good, the evil, and the varying gray characters of the in-between find themselves cast for a time.

It is not a final resting place—far from that. Rather, it is a temporary campsite, of sorts, for the dead to come to terms with the loss of their life, and providing preparation for those who are on their way to the Pale Beyond, where no maps chart its territory, for it is a plane of nonexistence where all is energy, none is space.

But back to the Abyss. You may have heard the native Faelaw folk—those still living—swear on its name or utter with finality that it’s the place where those who are no longer living go to. For it is a divine place, or formerly was, before the Lady of the Abyss fell from grace and sank to be its silent ruler. Unknown she was by most even in the Abyss itself, and those in Faelaw? Never heard of her.

Silently, covertly, under cover of smoke and ash, she reigned over the Abyss, keeping an ever-watchful eye over this spirit land. The Lady ensured that the Cat’s Catch corridor ran smoothly, its traffic of incoming deceased uninterrupted and unimpeded. The two twin rivers, Sorrow River in the west and the River of Souls in the east, she kept well-fed with souls who went astray . . . or merely those souls who’d caused her some offense, and no difficult feat, that.

Taking her post in a hidden part somewhere within the spiraling depths of the Abyss, her all-seeing mirror would show her how her subjects were faring, whether newcomers or old-timers ready for their time to pass onward, whether taking some respite or going to the Austreal Forest to hunt. For dead souls get hungry, too, much like the living, and need special sustenance to keep them before their final journey.

And of course, there is the place they call Limbaux, pronounced much like the word limbo in the human tongue, though its purpose and scenery are ever-changing, hard to identify, and dangerous to fall into. For the whole of the Abyss, from north entrance to southern span, is similar to the limbo of which human religion speaks, in that it is a transitional place, a temporary place for souls to arrive, before they are meant to leave and truly pass away forever.

But something was wrong in the land of the Abyss. Lately, the cunning demons and devils that inhabited it and kept its order would note to each other that the Abyss seemed to have a population problem. Why were the older souls still milling about? Why was the pace of incoming souls one day so high, the other so low? Before, the Abyss worked in an intricate balance, simply: a series of dead in, a series of dead out.

In her high tower, apart from all but holding power over everything in this ghostly place, the Lady had been brewing an ambitious plan over centuries long. Her intentions were cruel, and secret. Ruling over the Abyss was not enough . . . when there was the great land of Faelaw just above it, filled with riches beyond compare.

The Lady of the Abyss saw it all, just above her own lowly realm. The forests, the mountains. The rivers, the lakes, and the vast seas. The fae and human folk, the elves and the dwarves. The noble Faelavians milling about its surface, farming, fishing, mining, and plying their trades. The soil, rich with precious minerals and metals. The skies, heavy with promise.

She hadn’t seen a blue sky with her naked eyes in what seemed like centuries but was likely far longer.

But with the help of her mirror, she saw all of Faelaw like a plump apple hanging off a tree . . . and she wanted it for herself.

CHAPTER ONE

The Winterland, Faelaw

Yuriel had told Gwen about the significance of this place. The Hall of the Watchers, he’d said, back at the cabin, where the high priests of my people had once scoffed at my words of warning.

Before they’d come out to this grand event, Gwen had nodded and listened as he recounted that part of his story, and was surprised that he didn’t seem bitter despite everything that had happened. He hadn’t gloated about it at all, though he had ample reason to. Amazingly, he had taken it for granted that he wouldn’t be believed, over and over again, and that he’d have to defeat the Fey-King alone, no matter what they said.

Strange how much could change in only a few weeks.

With a deep, steadying breath, she gave Yuri’s hand a squeeze and brought herself back to the present moment. Here they were, in the Hall of the Watchers, that great cathedral hewn out of the rock of the Griffe Peaks mountains. She looked around long and hard—because it was more impressive than even Yuriel’s stories had described.

The two of them stood, shoulders squared, with their backs to a massive stained-glass window. The soft light warmed Gwen’s skin beneath her ceremonial garb, specially tailored for the occasion. This day, she and her love wore matching robes of sky blue with feathery white trim, much like the orc priests’ garb, but with the added finery of gold and silver threadwork in a swirling paisley pattern along the hem.

From their vantage point on the pulpit platform, Gwen and Yuri were flanked on either side by orc priests and lesser clergymen, while the Head Watcher Priest stood between them, intoning a long, flowing speech. Today was the day that Gwen and Yuriel were to be made ceremonial leaders of the whole, united land of Faelaw. They were to become honorary Watchers, and work alongside the priests to keep watch over the land.

 . . . for it is in stopping the Fey-King, that so-called monarch, that these two heroes were able to bring our once-divided nation into harmony anew . . . the Head Watcher Priest said somberly, his brows knitted above a green orc face that was set like a mask. If he was aiming for a bland, poker-faced expression, Gwen mused, he clearly succeeded. Eyebrows notwithstanding.

Gwen didn’t really want to, but the impulse seemed to churn up to the surface of her consciousness anyway. Inside, in the solace of her own thoughts, she gloated for Yuriel. Maybe he was taking the high road. Staying humble to the last. That was his prerogative. But she . . . she had no qualms letting the thought rise up like a series of bubbles from the mouth of a fish underwater: Nyah, nyah, nyah!

Whenever she looked, really looked, with studied interest, at the priests’ faces, that smug feeling just seemed to bloom unbidden. Though it was a silly thing to think, she had to admit. And from what Yuri had told her, these priests were quite the self-satisfied bunch themselves.

It was a silly mental trick she was playing on herself, Gwen knew it. But she needed the distraction. Badly. Especially since every nerve seemed stretched to its snapping point, and the memories of what had happened to her flashed behind her retinas, unbidden, unprompted, but as real as day.

She’d died, literally given up the ghost, for a moment as long as eternity . . . What could possibly follow that? How could she ever come to terms with something like that? And this . . . this day, this ceremony, with its pomp and grandeur, didn’t seem real to her. Was Gwen dreaming?

She shook her head to loosen the cobwebs and bring herself back to the present. It didn’t help, but it did force her attention back to her surroundings. Good. Anything to keep her thoughts from a downward spiral she might not be able to stop.

And it wouldn’t do to dwell on this now. It could wait until they were back home and she took some more much-needed rest. Because when she looked away from the priests arrayed in front of her, down the long steps leading to the floor of the common area, her heart sank into her boots like a stone. Were there even more people here now? How many more had come in since the ceremony had begun?

She was sweating and felt hives coming on. She hoped nobody would notice. Down from the base of the dais, a long way down the steps from the pulpit where she stood with Yuri, were a hushed thousand or so Faelaw folk, looking up earnestly at them both. It was as if all of Faelaw, the Summerland folk and the Winterland folk, had come here—and all the fae, sprites, and spirits with them, besides.

It wasn’t a coronation, not exactly. Nor was it a wedding rite, though the thought made her blush. But it was pretty close, seeming to borrow a little from both.

Gone were the days of making coffee and managing schedules. If she were to close her eyes and think back, the memory of her life before Faelaw became more fleeting with each passing day, the images blurry and out of proportion, like a movie distorted by a wide-angle lens. Back then, the pressure of everyday life was nothing to complain about when comparing the weight on her shoulders now.

So many Faelavians were here, and their eyes bore into her with such hope. She tried not to look back again, because the sight made her dizzy.

By the serenity vested in me, the Head Watcher Priest was saying, I bless thee, Yuriel of the orc clan and of the human clan.

Yuriel inclined his head and shut his eyes tight, Gwen saw. She could tell this meant a lot to him. Her own feelings were a confused muddle, when she had a spare second to think it through.

The Head Watcher tipped an ornate silver flagon over Yuriel’s head, and a thin trickle of liquid, like indigo-colored quicksilver, ran into his hair. Yuriel opened his eyes, and asked the priest, matching his somber tone, May I?

The priest pulled the flagon away, gave a wide smile, his two sets of large canines