Gossamyr Part 39

"-to you!"

The Faery lord bowed his head and the gleam of the bronze band about his forehead momentarily blinded Ulrich.

Ulrich touched his right eye, smoothed a finger over the ache, but with a blink he focused on the faery. "I want my daughter back."

"As do I," s.h.i.+nn said loudly and abruptly.

"We both love a child not our own."

"Do not presume to compare two opposite beings."

"Mayhap in flesh and the internal soul we are opposite-" Ulrich pressed fingers to his chest. They shared much! "-but not in heart. I know you love Gossamyr. This alicorn, it is the key to my love."

With a disdainful sniff the Faery lord resumed composure and nodded. "It is not for me to command you, Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III."

Quiet acceptance swept over Ulrich. Glamour seeped into his pores. "Know only I love my daughter as you love your daughter."

The gleam surrounding the faery brightened. When Ulrich thought s.h.i.+nn would flitter away, his light softened and he stood immediately before him. He hadn't seen him move. So close, these faeries, so close.

"Tell me, Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III..." s.h.i.+nn's voice oozed through Ulrich's conscious, touching the resistance and softening with a sigh. "With which eye do you see me?"

"What? I see you plain as any man, standing far too close for my comfort."

"You but see me with one eye, mortal. Which one?"

Shaking his head, for he did not understand, Ulrich shrugged, but then thought to test the faery's suggestion. He closed his left eye. s.h.i.+nn's calm countenance remained before him. So close he could feel the man's breath, warm as a summer breeze and tinged with-the scent of a flowered meadow? Not too close for Faery. So Ulrich opened his left eye and closed his right. He turned his head. Where had the man-opening both eyes, he saw s.h.i.+nn had not moved.

"My...right," he offered. "I but see you with my right eye-"

Before he could finish, s.h.i.+nn's fingers moved over Ulrich's face. Gripped in the faery's hold, he felt a cool touch of breath as s.h.i.+nn blew into his right eye.

A blue ache crackled across his eye and moved around and behind into his skull. Cold, so cold. A momentary wave of pain, and then it dissipated with a jingle of the Dance, a remnant of all that had irrevocably altered Ulrich's life. Never again the same.

But do you desire sameness?

s.h.i.+nn released him. Ulrich wavered then righted himself. Still there, the saddlebag. He could not see the Faery lord standing before him. Had he glimmered off so quickly?

"s.h.i.+nn?"

"Never call me by name," the faery's voice answered from what seemed to be right before Ulrich.

Cupping a palm over his right eye, he searched the dimming light with his left. s.h.i.+nn was not to be sighted. But his presence; he could verily feel the faery's presence in his blood.

"I cannot see you. My eye...what...I cannot see with my right eye!"

"Fair fall you, Shepherd to Lost Souls."

"No." Ulrich lashed out with a clawing hand and touched nothing but air before him. At the periphery of his vision he saw the flash. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You have taken half my sight but you'll not take my determination. I will have my daughter back!"

Basking in the illumination of the multicolored essences, she stretched languorously along the silk linens soaked in myrrh. Puppy tended her desires. Perched at the end of the bed, he lapped at her bare toes, sucking each one inside his warm bud of a mouth. She neared the edge; release s.h.i.+mmied in her groin. Oh, but the lash of his tongue tip along the high arch of her foot!

"Oh, Pup-eeeeeeee..."

He knew not to speak, but to tend her unceasingly until the climax overwhelmed. Clenching thick wedges of silken sheet and pillow in her fists, she began to surrender. The moans of the pinned essences chanted an eerie background. Ah, there. A high, s.h.i.+mmering note vibrated from afar...

"What?" Snapping upright on the bed, she p.r.i.c.ked her ears for the neuma of tone that clutched her pa.s.sion and thrust it to the side. "Cease!" She kicked at Puppy, drawing out her largest toe from his mouth in a tooth-sc.r.a.ping tug. "Listen."

Her lover cowered at the bed's edge, his fingers clawing into the scarlet sheets, his eyes underlined by the rumpled linens.

Drawn from the manic magic that should have enthralled her, she slid off the bed, her parted robe scouring over Puppy's stream of hair. But the tips were black; soon he would be red complete. Red. Then gone. She disliked them after the transformation for they were so obsequious.

Stopping before the marble wall, she splayed out her hands, as if to command the essences to silence. They continued their dirge, unmindful of her efforts.

Tilting her head, she managed to fix upon that unique but so familiar vibration.

"s.h.i.+nn?" she gasped, unbelieving if it were true. "In the Otherside?"

Sprinting out the door and down the marble hallway, she was aware the pin man followed like the puppy dog she'd named him. He remained silent. Good puppy. Pa.s.sing by the seven sleepers, their murmurs halted and the candle flames heightened. Attention drew to her, as it should.

Had the Faery lord come to Paris? To become Disenchanted? No. He would not risk such a fall.

Mayhap he sought her? Could it possibly be after all this time her lover wanted her back?

Flinging wide the doors to the outer streets, she stepped onto the cobbles. The night air gloved her bare flesh, raising p.r.i.c.kles upon her belly and arms and neck.

"Mistress, come back inside!"

Ignoring his pleas, the Red Lady sent out a call. An answer. Come take me, I am here. I have never stopped loving you...

"I will retrieve a dress and call for the carriage," Puppy muttered.

Ulrich paused just off the courtyard that preceded the Pet.i.t Pont. A torn banner whipped in the breeze, belatedly marking the Monday market. It was difficult to navigate with but one eye, but he was determined. Avoiding a fast carriage, he skipped backward and barely managed an inelegant jump over the center gutter. Thrusting an angry fist in the carriage's wake, he suddenly paused. He tilted his head to focus on a sound that did not fit amidst the shouts and brays and clanks of metal.

Insinuating himself between two close buildings, he shuffled the length of them to the opposite end where he stood alone upon the twilight-s.h.i.+ning cobbles. There echoed the most elegant note, wavering and rising and finally settling into his chest.

So lovely the sound. It seemed to say, "I am... here... loving you."

Ulrich searched the sky, one-eyed as he could, unable to determine the direction of the call.

You are being pisky-led!

Pixies-or piskies, whatever the Hades they were-did not possess such beautiful song.

It is the Red Lady.

Well, she must be very beautiful, for her voice rivaled an angel's song. Or so Ulrich wagered. And she sang to him of love. Loving him? How he desired a kind, loving touch, a kiss to erase the bruise that yet colored his face with the sting of an accidental betrayal. This faery song was not the same and never to be the same.

Do not listen! She is evil.

Ulrich ignored his conscience, which sounded much like Gossamyr of Glamoursiege-daughter of his cruel tormentor-and sought out the origin of the compelling song.

He was not blinded fully and kept a wall on his right side, gliding his palm across the plastered limestone to support, for his lack of vision caused him to waver and stumble. Cold, the area surrounding his eyeball. Blinking at the br.i.m.m.i.n.g moisture that pooled in his blinded eye, he shook his head to fling away the wet, then proceeded onward.

The sonorous song filling his ears led him down a narrow pa.s.sage darkened by buildings, four levels stacked one upon the other. Ulrich homed in on the music, succ.u.mbing to the heady surrender to ecstasy. She awaited him. A lover. Her kisses promised pa.s.sion. It had been so long since he had known such. Twenty years. Or merely a week. He did not know anymore.

Sliding a finger under his right eye, he wiped away the stinging moisture.

The hunger for love grew. Already he could verily taste her, slipping across his tongue, gliding like fine wine down his throat and easing the ache in his belly.

Around the corner he spied a black lacquered carriage parked outside a manor stable. Not yet set out on journey, he suspected, for a coachman did not sit upon the driver's high perch.

Ulrich pushed aside the iron gate and walked up the crushed-sh.e.l.l path to the stable. His leather soles crunched the pearlescent shards in squeaking outbursts. If he kept his arms splayed and hands flattened, such did not tax his balance.

Drops of the stinging liquid running from his eye slipped into his mouth. Tasteless, unlike tears. Would he cry a saltless river from this day forth? d.a.m.n the Faery lord, Jean Cesar Ulrich Villon III would not for one moment longer aid his daughter's quest. A mere mortal woman who could no more attract a unicorn than she could fly?

All for Ulrich now. He must focus on his wants.

A lava of pale velvet skirts spilled out of the dark-bodied carriage. The elegant twist of a feminine hand, gloved in softest gray kid, beckoned him forward. Alabaster and clouds and fresh clean eggsh.e.l.l, those were the colors of her gown. Yet- he could not see flesh. Or even a face. 'Twas the costume but no body!

The glove reached for his face. The touch of her, so delicate, s.h.i.+mmered through Ulrich's being, startling him madly. Like a bang to an elbow that vibrates shock waves, but this touch pleasured with its lightning path of pain. Pulling away, she held her finger between them, coated with the saltless tears that glimmered with the sheen of Faery. s.h.i.+nn's trail? The finger moved in a fanning motion before what should have been her face- mon Dieu, but the wake of her movement showed red eyes and nose and smirking red lips! Wherever his tears touched revealed that part of the faery he could not see. She pushed the finger into her mouth and closed her eyes. Jubilation.

Strange as the vision was, to stand before him, partly seen, her costume draped in places where he should see flesh, Ulrich could not deny her beauty.

Banished for loving the cruel Faery lord? He reached to touch the blossom of vibrant red mouth that curled into a smile. His movement dislodged the leather saddlebag from his shoulder. Oblivious to the contents that spilled at his feet, Ulrich held out his hand, pleading for one touch of the delicious skin-so exquisitely pale-and to trace the dotted marking. To recompense for love lost.

Suddenly her crimson eyes widened and she drew in a hissing breath.

Ulrich looked down the sh.e.l.l path to where his seducer's eyes focused. Tilting his head, he spied what held her fascination. The alicorn lay unbound from its wrapping.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Gossamyr strode toward the city walls where she knew Ulrich's uncle lived, her heels barely touching the cobbles. The wound on her knee stung. It was a struggle not to limp, but yet the air lightened her steps. An ever-flowing stream of her mortal tears for a bit of glamour right now- though the tears be valuable only to the fee. Anything to make her less vulnerable. She should have remained in the Red Lady's lair, waiting to end it, to take her out.

Had it been fear for Ulrich that had hastened her away from the marble-lined walls? Nay, fear for herself.

Blight, that was it. She was afraid.

The realization stalled Gossamyr in her tracks. Fear? Ulrich would be most pleased. She pressed her knuckles, half staff in hand, to the stone wall at her right. Heavy breaths huffed from her lungs.

You are not fee. Not even half-blooded!

Believe and you Belong.

Shaking her head, Gossamyr struggled with voices crying out from her past and the future that beckoned with a strange crook of its bony finger.

Believe? In what? And where to belong?

This mortal world-no, she was not fascinated by it-horrified her. It offered nothing but filth and depravity and war. The people were not friendly; they did not look at her with smiles but downturned faces. They did not care about Gossamyr, daughter of s.h.i.+nn. They struggled to survive.

As would she. She could not believe in this mortal realm. But no longer could she believe in Faery. Or the idea that Faery was her home.

When you stop believing you cease to belong.

"I want to return," she whispered. "I do believe. I will always believe."

But she could not return should the alicorn be restored to the unicorn. Could she stop Ulrich from seeking his wish? Had she any right to keep him from summoning his daughter from death?

So important, family. Hers had suddenly been yanked away. Not even a real family. Yet, according to s.h.i.+nn, Gossamyr had family she had not even known.

The d'Anges were murdered.

Verity d'Ange. Such a peculiar name. But it intrigued in that it belonged to Gossamyr. Her birth name. Verity-a secret name that had always been hers.

No!

She could not belong to a family that no longer existed. But there remained a sister-this unknown sister might be all Gossamyr had now. Might she ever hope to find her? For s.h.i.+nn's betrayal had cleaved Gossamyr from Faery.

You love him despite his cruelties. He is all you have ever known.

They did love one another, had grown closer following the departure of Veridienne. Gossamyr had learned to love-the faery way. A surface emotion that never truly rooted. Or had it? She was not capable of hating s.h.i.+nn. Love, the mortal pa.s.sion. "It has always been mine."

She thought now of the decimated castle she had explored. How might her life have been had she grown up on the d'Ange demesne? Would she have romped through the meadows with a sister? Were there other siblings? So much to wonder about.

"I want to know them." The words slipped from Gossamyr's mouth without volition. She wandered forward, not really seeing, her mind stuffed with noise from the past.

"Always mortal?" She tripped, but braced herself, both hands to each end of her staff against a pole fleched with torn public announcements.

To her left the careful clops of horse hooves neared. Measured, almost as if the beast was...looking. Timing its steps. A ma.s.sive animal, for the echoes filled the air with a march worthy of a gallant parade.

Gossamyr straightened, listening. The back of her neck prinkled, akin to fear, but more so, antic.i.p.ation.

A force approached. Be it good or evil? Armagnac, Burgundian, or English? Either would taste her skill with an arret to the skull.

Abandoning foolish wonders about her stolen past, Gossamyr slid her hand down the silk bodice of her gown and unhooked an arret. She began to spin it for release-but immediately relinquished her defensive stance at sight of the brilliant white horse that advanced. No, not a horse. The beast verily gleamed in the clouded twilight, its snow-white hide casting about it an aura of illumination.

A rider sat upon its back but Gossamyr could not drag her attention from the beast. She held out a hand, thinking to touch its pale pink nose. Long witch locks, elegantly braided with fine strands of silver threading, hung between the animal's violet eyes.

And there, between the plaits of mane and above the eyes s.h.i.+mmered an ovular spot, the hide bare of hair and looking pink and open. Like a wound, but not seeping.

Sucking in a gasp, Gossamyr recoiled. Realization felled her to her knees before the magnificent beast. Bowing, she pressed her forehead to the cold dirty cobbles.