Fragile Eternity Read Free

storyteller’s guise was still in play, but her temper was growing uglier. The emphasis of words, that rise and fall of tones she adopted when telling tales, was fading. Instead random words were emphasized. Her covetousness over the Dark Court’s throne upset her; her mention of it didn’t bode well for her state of mind.
    “Where is she?” Sorcha asked.
    “She’s of no influence now….” Bananach fluttered a hand as if to brush webs from in front of her.
    “Then why tell me?”
    Bananach’s expression was unreadable, but the constellation in her eyes shifted to Gemini, the twins. “I know we’ve shared…much; I thought you should know.”
    “I have no need to hear of Irial’s discarded pets. It’s a deplorable habit, but”—Sorcha shrugged as if it didn’t matter—“I cannot control the depravity of his court.”
    “I could…” A yearning sigh followed those words.
    “No, you couldn’t. You’d destroy what little self-control they have.”
    “Perhaps”—Bananach sighed again—“but the battles we could have…I could come to your step, blood-dressed and—”
    “Threatening me isn’t the way to enlist my help,” Sorcha reminded, although the point was moot. Bananach couldn’t help but dream of war any more than Sorcha could resist her inclination toward order.
    “Never a threat, sister, just a dream I hold dear.” In a blur too fast for even Sorcha to see clearly, Bananach came to crouch in front of her sister. Her feathers drifted forward to brush against Sorcha’s face. “A dream that keeps me warm at night when I have no blood for my bath.”
    The talons that Bananach had tapped so erratically took on a regular cadence as they dug in and out of Sorcha’s arms, pricking the skin with tiny moons.
    Sorcha kept to her calm, although her own temper felt close to surfacing. “You ought to leave.”
    “I should. Your presence makes my mind blurry.” Bananach kissed Sorcha’s forehead. “The mortal’s name is Seth Morgan. He sees us as we are. He knows much of our courts—even yours. He is strangely…moral.”
    Some whisper of fury threatened to surface at the feel of her sister’s feathers drifting around her face; the calm logic that Sorcha embodied was only challenged by the presence of the strongest Dark Court faeries. Neither Summer nor Winter faeries could provoke her. The solitaries couldn’t ripple the calm pool that rested in her spirit. Only the Dark Court made her want to forget herself.
    It’s logical. It’s the nature of opposition. It makes perfect sense.
    Bananach rubbed her cheek against Sorcha’s.
    The High Queen wanted to strike the war-faery. Logic said Bananach would win; she was violence incarnate. Few if any faeries could outlast her in direct battle—and the Queen of Order was not one of them. Yet, in that moment, the temptation to try grew strong.
    Just one strike. Something.
    The skin of her arms had begun to sting from so many small wounds when Bananach tilted her head in another series of short jerky moves. The feathers seemed to whisper as Bananach pulled back and said, “I tire of seeing you.”
    “And I you.” Sorcha didn’t move to stanch the blood that trickled to the floor. Movement would lead to pitting herstrength against Bananach or angering her further. Either would result in more injuries.
    “True war comes,” Bananach said. Smoke and haze filtered into the room. Half-shadowed figures of faeries and mortals reached out bloodied hands. The sky grew thick with illusory ravens’ wings, rustling like dry corn husks. Bananach smiled. The not-yet-there shape of wings unfolded from her spine. Those wings had spread over battlefields in centuries past; to see them so clearly outside a battlefield did not bode well.
    Bananach stretched her shadow-wings as she said, “I follow the rules. I give you warning. Plagues, blood, and cinders will cover their world and yours.”
    Sorcha kept her face expressionless, but she saw the threads of