Page 121 of Heartsong
The rumble turned into a growl when the fae reached for Anna.
“I’ll rip your throat out if you try to hurt her,” he warned.
The fae’s gaze flicked up to his, cool and assessing. “Likewise.”
He held the fae’s stare for a long moment. The quicksilver shine of his eyes was unnerving, as was the way raw magick saturated the space around him. But if he looked past that, what Frey found was another male protective of his own heartsong yet willing to help Anna.
“What are you called?” Frey asked.
After a moment of considering, the fae said, “Gavren will do fine.”
“We’ve had many names through the centuries,” said Carys. She held out a finger for Captain to sniff and then scratched his ears when he bopped her hand. “But to clan, I will always be Carys.”
“So you’re not Gavin and Carrie Gwyneth, huh?” said Anna.
“We are. But to you, we are just Carys and Gavren. Clanmates. So please, let my heartsong heal you. We have experience treating human patients.”
“You did tell me you were doctors before,” Anna said in good humor. “Though you never did say inwhichwar.”
One side of Carys’s mouth kicked up in a rueful grin. “Too many, I’m afraid. You humans have a penchant for harming one another. Now, let Gavren see to you and I’ll make that tea.”
Twenty minutes later, Frey sat with Anna in his lap, each of them nursing a mug of milky tea. The scent of lavender and honey billowed from the steam, and the drink slipped down Frey’s throat in a silky slide that soothed his very soul. Carys had laid out a plate of what she called biscuits that were hard and crumbly but went perfectly soft when dipped into the tea.
The magick that had healed them still tingled against his freshly knitted skin. His kind healed quickly already, but after explaining that he could coax the magick inherent in Frey to speed things up, Gavren had reached out with his own magick and, in a blink, the slashes and punctures had begun to close.
He’d decided to let the fae treat him first before touching his Anna. It was a little difficult since he refused to let Anna down, even as she protested that she could stand, but the fae had made the best of it and done his work without comment. Frey didn’t wield magick the way Gavren or Glendower could, but there was still a well of it inside him, inside every guardian. That Gavren merely guided and augmented that source to heal him assuaged some of Frey’s fears.
When it came to treating Anna, the fae made quick work of her neck but lingered over her head. “I can dull this headache but not get rid of the problem entirely. It’s something inherent in how your brain is formed, and I haven’t done enough reading to feel comfortable rooting around in there with magick. My specialty is in combat triage, but I’ll do some research into neurology.”
Frey and Anna had looked on with stunned appreciation, and she slumped in his arms with relief when the headache eased.
The four of them now sat around the large sofa, Carys and Gavren having stripped off their body armor and Frey divested of his ripped, bloodied shirt. They all sipped tea and watched as Captain explored the plush expanse. Despite his fright in the apartment, the cat seemed to be curious about their new surroundings, and Anna was content to let him roam when Carys and Gavren both let him climb over them and gave him affectionate pets.
Frey took a few bites of his biscuit and then gave Anna the rest, not content until she’d eaten three and drunk at least half of her tea. He worried that she’d missed dinner, but she insisted she wasn’t hungry, after everything.
“Well,” sighed Carys, setting down her mug, “I suppose we should start at the beginning.”
“The night of the Gorsedd,” Frey said, pulling Anna a little tighter to his chest in preparation for hearing about the horrible night.
“Even further back. Our story, Gavren’s and mine, and the guardians’, is intertwined with the fae.”
Frey’s lips thinned with displeasure, but he held his tongue when Anna patted his chest under his wing. So, setting aside his anger, he listened.
With solemnity, Gavren recounted the long history of his kind. How the seven realms were full of many beings and worlds, Faerie being one of them. Blessed by the goddess Danu, the fae were the only beings known to be able to cross between realms. They often visited Albion, the human realm closest to theirs, and many different human cultures revered them as gods.
But in a dark, watery realm waited the Fomorians, the ancient foe of the fae. Jealous of their powers and magick, the Fomorians broke free into Albion. The fae fought long, vicious wars over Albion, for it was the only realm standing between the Fomorians and Faerie.
Although generations of fae held them back, the Fomorians were relentless in their hunger. They toppled civilizations from the sea, flooded villages and temples, and ate away at the very fabric of Albion. Eventually, even the fae couldn’t hold them back.
Consuming magick itself, the Fomorians grew stronger, bolder. Faerie was breached, and soon after, destroyed. The Faerie Queen Rhiannon couldn’t stop it, but in an effort to save her people, she led them into the Underhill, the realm under all the others. A place of caves and roots and shadow, the fae sought sanctuary in its darkness.
Yet it was a trap of their own making. To defend against the pursuing Fomorians, Queen Rhiannon had used the magick of every fae to seal all the empty spaces of the Underhill, closing it off to all the other realms. Rhiannon’s own sister, Lady Morrígan, sacrificed herself to the spell, and many believed her dead. The fae were safe from the Fomorians—and trapped inside the Underhill.
Over the years, the Underhill grew restless, wary of the intruders inside it and hungry for more magick to shore up its defenses. Fae were lost to the darkness, their magick consumed. Queen Rhiannon took to the eternal sleep to appease the Underhill and search for ways to break free. In her absence, her vain niece Titania ruled the remaining fae.
“It was her cruel mind that thought to take the magick used to create the guardians,” explained Gavren.
“Our kind was created with blood, earth, and magick,” said Carys. “Over the years visiting Albion, the fae imbued it with their magick. Titania believed that the magick was hers, that having it would somehow combat the Underhill. That night, she led a hunt.”
