Quicksilver (Fae & Alchemy, #1)

by Callie Hart

All I know is that I stood on the battlements at Gillethrye, watching an entire city full of Yvelian families burn to death while Malcolm’s horde sacked the city, and he suddenly disappeared into thin air!”

“Come on, Kingfisher,” the devil called in a singsong voice. “I know you’re over there. It’s only been a couple of weeks since we last spoke, but what can I say? I miss you.”

“Don’t share food with that prick again, Little Osha.” “What?” “Swift. Earlier. Back in the war room. You were trading that cake back and forth with him for ages.”

The Fae live long lives. We learned a long time ago that holding a grudge was a great way to ruin a decade or two. We hash it out quickly and then call it a day.”

“Malcolm’s a high Fae vampire. The very first. We were cursed thousands of years ago, and the Fae turned into something very like Malcolm. When a cure was found, my great-grandfather and most of the other Yvelian Fae took it. They were horrified by the monsters they’d become and wanted to return to their old lives. But there were those who liked the dark magic the curse afforded them. They liked the power and the promise of immortality.”

Malcolm is the strongest of them. Their king. Of all the Fae who chose to remain vampires, he alone is strong enough to fully turn someone and ensure they remain themselves. What makes them who they are. Their personality and their character traits. When his princes bite and turn someone, their victims die and return without their souls, nothing more than mindless, hungry shells. They obey their masters, and they feed.”

He wasn’t in control. “You’re bound, aren’t you?” I said, dismayed. “You literally can’t tell me—”

“I can want to fuck you and still hate you, Little Osha.”

could count on one hand how many civil words the bastard had said to me. But there was something else tying me to him. Pulling me in like I was trapped. A part of me knew that Fisher himself was the trap, and I was well and truly snared…

Beneath my palms, the wolf tattoo emblazoned across his pecs came to life. The ink flowed beneath his skin, crossing from him to… to… sinners, it flowed along my fingertips, spreading over my skin, flowing just like his smoke over the backs of my hands. A delicate little bird took shape on the inside of my right forearm. It stretched its wings and took flight, its tiny body flitting over my stomach as its wings beat a thousand times a minute.

“I did not ask for a tattoo, Fisher,” I hissed. “I definitely didn’t ask for a bird to be permanently inked right above my fucking boob. You need to take it back.” His gaze remained fixed straight ahead. “It doesn’t work like that.” “Bullshit, it doesn’t. It came from the ink on your body. You touched me. It slipped from your skin to mine. So, fuck, I don’t know, shake hands with me or something and take it back!”

“I can’t have children, Fisher. I was cleansed when I was fourteen.”

“The Third Ward’s the poorest,” I told him. “Madra’s health advisors decided that we shouldn’t be allowed to procreate, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to support ourselves. The policy’s been in effect for over a hundred years. Seven out of every ten female babies are tagged when they’re registered with the ward officials.” I showed him the small black cross tattooed behind my left ear. The mark that meant I wasn’t allowed to breed.

“Did you know, the Yvelian Fae are the youngest of the Fae houses? By a thousand years. There was a dispute between these two brothers, and they splintered off to make their own court.”

“I knew about the Fae, Saeris. My grandmother told me.” “Oh, come on. Be serious. Being told stories when you’re a child is one thing. But none of us ever believed those stories.” “I did,” Carrion said matter-of-factly. He dove back into his book. “You’ve met my grandmother. Does she strike you as the sort of woman who’d spread tales of fantasy and make-believe in her free time?”

“She has this book,” he said, holding up the one in his hand as if it were the book in question. “Has all kinds of pictures. Illustrations. The text’s faded in places, but she knows that damn thing from cover to cover, so it never mattered. I daresay I know it by heart by now, too. ‘Fae creatures of the Gilarian Mountains,’ it’s called. There’s a note written on the first page. It says, ‘Never forget. Monsters thrive best in the dark. Commit all you read here to memory. Prepare for war!!’

Well, that was unexpected. Where the hell had a book about the Fae come from? Madra had burned any literature that even mentioned the Fae or magic a long time ago. It was a curious thing—to find out that Carrion had, in a way, been brought up to believe that this would happen to him at some point. I didn’t have time to ponder on that now, though.

“Don’t call her Sunshine,” he commanded. “Why not?”

“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm. The smoke that rolls across a battlefield before the killing starts. You have no idea what she is. What she could be. You should call her Majesty.”

“It’s not that simple. Danya’s sword was special. It was like Nimerelle once, imbued with old potent magic. It’s…” He winced at the bristling spines of metal protruding from the stone wall. “It was a precious Fae heirloom. Danya’s birthright. A god sword forged by the ancient Alchimeran masters. Such swords are religious icons to the Fae. It represented Danya’s rank and marked her as an original member of the Lupo Proelia.

“Lupo Proelia. Kingfisher’s wolves,” he said, sighing. “There are eight of us, usually. Though our numbers have been reduced of late. We fight as a team, working together, just as wolves do. I’m sure you’ve noticed the wolf on some of our armor.”

We have one year, Danya. Twelve months. If we don’t figure this thing out, by this time next year, Malcolm will have won.”

“When we turn twenty-one, we kneel before the Firinn Stone and make our decision. Every one of us. We have a choice. Bleed on the stone and make our vow. To always be truthful. To always be bound by our word, no matter what it costs us.” “Or?” “Or we choose the Lawless path. A Lawless Fae may lie. They may cheat. They may steal. Useful tools in many situations, I’ll admit. But they come with a price that Kingfisher—and the rest of us, I might add—was not willing to pay.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “And that was?” He shrugged nonchalantly, as if the answer were obvious. “Our honor.”

“Yes, our canines work just fine. The same as a vampire’s would. But blood drinking is very taboo. No, it’s worse than taboo. It’s scandalous.”

“Then why would they do it?” “Because…” He cast another wary look around, shifting awkwardly in his seat. “It’s a sex thing. If a male drinks from someone, it’ll make his dick harder than it’s ever been in his life. It makes you euphoric. Both of you. While you’re fucking.”

“What… did he do?” Lorreth tossed his head back and laughed. “Something I’m sure I’ve given him innumerable reasons to regret since. He made me his brother. By blood. He gave me a part of his soul.”

“Good question. If I die first, the piece of Fisher’s soul returns to him. He becomes whole again. Everybody has a big party. The end. But if he dies first, he’s condemned to wait here for me to die before he can move on. He’d be trapped here, in a non-corporeal state, unable to touch anything or anyone. Unable to be heard. That’s the sacrifice he made when he decided to give me the gift of life.

But if the fates guide the stars in a different direction and our better angels claim him first, I won’t permit a single breath into my body beyond the last one Kingfisher takes. By my own hand, I’ll make sure the piece of soul he loaned to me finds its way back to him.

Our offspring actually age twice as fast as human children. We’re fully grown by twenty-one or twenty-two. That’s when the aging process slows down dramatically.”

A hundred and ten years. I left them for a hundred and ten years. Ren and the others did everything they could to stem the tide. It’s not their fault. I was supposed to be here to protect them. I failed them. So I don’t deserve to be called Lord of Cahlish. I am lord of nothing.”

She’d sensed me coming through the gate? Was that possible? Yvelia was a land of unexpected magic and unique beings. She’d taken one look at me and known I was from Zilvaren. That was pretty impressive all by itself.

She looked an awful lot like Everlayne. And she had Kingfisher’s high cheekbones. Or rather, he had her high cheekbones. Edina of the Seven Towers. Lady of Cahlish. Kingfisher’s mother.

This wasn’t just an apartment Fisher had rented for the night. This place belonged to Fisher. It had belonged to his mother once, maybe, and now it was his.

I wasn’t surprised when the ink beneath his skin drew closer to the places where our skin met. I watched it climb my fingers, forming shapes, and then runes and delicate designs as they inched upward. There was every chance they’d still be there in the morning, but I couldn’t bring myself to care right now.

“My mother was killed, too,” he whispered thickly. “We have that in common, Little Osha.”

Every warrior in Irrín will smell me on you, Fisher’s voice rumbled in my mind. I’m going to make you hoarse from screaming my fucking name. I’m going to mark you in every way imaginable, so that everyone knows you’re fucking mine.

I’d asked for it, and, sidenote, Fisher and I were now randomly capable of speaking into each other’s minds.

The tattoos I hadn’t cared so much about last night were still all over my fingers and the backs of my hands. Except there were more of them now. Many more. Stacks of small runes ran up each one of my fingers. Delicate script wound around my wrists and up my forearms. I had no idea what the fuck any of it said. And the backs of my hands?

“No. The Marks are chosen for you. They won’t be there after a month. If you decide not to accept them, they’ll be gone for good.”

No, I can’t take that back. And I’m sorry for that. He hadn’t been talking about the bird tattoo. He’d been talking about the bite mark at my throat.

And thus begins our tale, The Ballad of Ajun Gate.

The drake, he did stir, Old Omnamshacry observing the world through ink-black, mad eyes.

The wolves ran the charge and at the head of the swell came the proud Fisher King bearing Nimerelle.

You do not claim us, Lorreth of the Broken Spires. We claim you.

Why can I still remember it? I asked. We remember, so the Alchemist remembers.

Resolve settled over the warrior’s features. His hesitancy still shone through, but he placed both hands on the hilt and raised the blade aloft, speaking in a clear, loud voice. “I name you Avisiéth. The Unsung Song. Redemption’s Dawn.”

Fisher let out a surprising whoop, joy shining from his face as he followed the column of energy upward into the heavens. “Angel’s breath, Brother!” he hollered. “Fucking angel’s breath!”

“I was wrong, y’know. You are a good thief.”

We know who she is, the quicksilver hissed. She is the dawn. She is the moon. She is the sky. She is oxygen in our lungs.

“We gave him his life. A boy. Just a boy. He was young when he entered our pool. He should not have survived it. But he was strong, and the grand halls of the universe rang aloud with his purpose. We permitted him to live so that he might fulfill that purpose. We bound ourselves to him that he might survive.”