Page 106 of The Faerie Handmaid

Braithe hadn’t realized tears were brimming in her eyes until they spilled over, and she gave a tiny sob. “I will miss being your handmaid,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

“And I will miss having you,” Morgana said calmly. “But change is the one thing in our lives we can depend upon.”

After Morgana left her alone, Braithe wandered her new chamber, stroking the silky pillows, running her hands over the smooth oak of the worktable. She rearranged the jars and vials and mortar in small and quite unnecessary ways, trying to make it all feel like hers. She stood in the window for a time, breathing the scents of the first autumn fires, admiring the sparkle of the courtine beneath the green horizon of the hills. Braithe of Camulod. She tried saying it aloud—“Braithe of Camulod”—but it didn’t seem to be her own name. Her own title, though the king and Morgana had already spoken it.

If her mam could see her now! The thought brought a smile to her face, but it did not erase the sense that she did not deserve any of this: the beautiful bedchamber, the position with the king, the Blackbird’s own precious scrying bowl.

At last, as the afternoon wore down and the prospect of an official dinner with the king and Sir Lancelin loomed, she took up the pitcher from the washstand and poured water into the blue lacquer basin. She touched the water with her finger, and as she watched the ripples disperse, she whispered, “I will try, sir. In your memory, I will try.”

The light was beginning to soften as evening approached. It glowed on the smooth water, making the lacquer glisten. Braithe wasn’t surprised, bending over it, that she saw nothing. She had never in her life scried by herself, and she had no reason to think now was the moment she would begin.

In unconscious imitation of Morgana, she drew a slow breath through her nostrils, then pursed her lips as she released it. Her eyelids drooped, and her vision grew softer, blurring the edges of the bowl, even the outlines of the table beneath. She took another breath, and as she exhaled, she saw it. She saw it clearly. There could be no doubt.

It was Idhri. He was in the familiar boat. She saw his dark braid of hair hanging down his back, his lanky form with the oars in his hands, his long legs braced against the hull as he pulled the oars with oddly disjointed motions.

Standing over him, with some sort of curved blade in his hands, was Skye.

Braithe cried out in horror, and the image vanished. How did Skye come to be here, and why? This was supposed to be finished! The Royal Council of the fae had dealt with him, stripped him of his magic, banished him from the White City! The fear she had felt for Idhri before returned twofold now, because he was out on the lake with a murderer, and she knew that the fae man was capable of any cruelty.

Alarm shot through her veins until she thought her heart would burst. Idhri had fought for her. He was her youthful champion, everything fine and good and hopeful in the world. She would do anything to save him.

She fled from her chamber and pounded on Morgana’s door.

Master Hugh had sent Idhri down to the dock to check that the boat was ready for the next day. Idhri was glad to escape the irritating smell of pitch he had been spreading. The sun was dipping toward the western horizon as he walked down to the lake, tasting the fresh air that always smelled so pleasantly of fish, noting the first turning leaves glimmering gold among the summer green of the holm oaks and wych elms.

Feeling cheerful and at peace with the world, Idhri passed the other boats tied up to the row of bollards and crouched beside Master Hugh’s. Everything looked in order, but he stepped in just the same so he could look beneath the bench seats and check for unexpected cracks in the pitch. He adjusted a coil of rope so it looked tidier and moved the oars in their locks to be certain they didn’t need grease, but there was little else to do. He nodded to himself, patted the boat’s hull in a possessive manner, and turned to climb out.

A shadow fell over his face. He started, and looked up.

Skye stood on the dock above him, wearing the feral grin that showed his yellow teeth. “Well, well,” he said. “This is convenient.”

Idhri’s hand groped at his belt, but his knife wasn’t there. Emma didn’t like him carrying it, because she worried he would cut himself. Skye, however, held a scythe. It looked well-used, but it wasn’t rusty, and Idhri had no doubt it wasn’t dull, either.

Skye followed his gaze to the scythe. “I borrowed this from some farmer cutting hay. Borrowed his lunch, too. I was half-starved.”

He looked it. Skye had always been thin, but now he was cadaverous. The lines in his lean face carved deeper than ever into his sallow cheeks. His eyes were hollow. Even the bones in his hand, where it held the scythe, seemed more prominent, the flesh shrinking away from them.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Idhri said.

“I have to be somewhere!” Skye growled. “I have no intention of becoming a Roman slave!”

“But you’re forbidden to have anything to do with—”

“Don’t.” Skye made an abrupt gesture with the scythe, and Idhri couldn’t help pulling back, out of its reach. “I know all that, but I’m about to set it right. I want to go home, and you’re going to help me.”

A chill of dread tightened Idhri’s middle. He wanted to drop his head, look away from those cold yellow eyes, but he told himself he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man. He would face his nemesis directly. “How can I help you, Skye? Unless you plan to kill me?”

The fae man’s lip curled, half sneer, half smile. “Willem, whether you live or die is not up to me. I intend to deliver you to the council, and they will decide. If you’re lucky, they will just set you to work in the fields with the other abominations!”

Idhri said, in a low voice that vibrated with loathing, “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“And I thought I had killed you, long ago. But here we are. Now you will pay for your cowardice.”

“I will not go with you.”

“You think not?” Skye’s laugh was as sinister a sound as Idhri had ever heard, worse than the hiss of a snake or the growl of a wolf. “Not only will you go with me, you will take me there in this ridiculous little boat.”

“Why would I do that?” Idhri snapped, in a voice so deep he hardly recognized it.