Hundreds of moments of seeming insignificance combined to create Bananach’s desired results. She had been the voice urging Beira, the last Winter Queen, to smite Miach—the centuries-gone Summer King and Beira’s sometimes lover. Bananach was the voice that whispered the things they all dreamt in silence, but generally had the sense not to act upon.
Sorcha was not about to have another small problem evolve into chaos-causing troubles. “Mortals have no business meddling with Faerie,” she said. “They shouldn’t be involved in our world.”
Bananach tapped her talon-tipped fingers in a seemingly satisfied rhythm. “Mmmm. This mortal has their trust, all three of the courts-not-yours listen to his words. He has influence…and they protect him.”
Sorcha gestured for more. “Tell me.”
“He lies with the Summer Queen, not as a pet, but as if a consort. The Winter Queen gave him the Sight. The new Dark King calls him ‘brother.’” Bananach retook her seat and assumed a somber demeanor, which always troubled Sorcha—with good reason: when Bananach was focused, she was more dangerous. “And you, sister mine, have no influence over him. You cannot take this one. You cannot steal him as you have the other Sighted pets and half-mortals.”
“I see.” Sorcha did not react. She knew that Bananach waited, holding back something to needle her last reserves of calm.
Bananach added, “And Irial had a pet, a little mortal thing he bound and caressed like she was worthy of being in the presence of the Dark Court.”
Sorcha tsk’d at Irial’s idiocy. Mortals were too fragile to bear up under the excesses of the Dark Court. He knew better. “Did she expire? Or go mad?”
“Neither, he gave up his throne over her…so corrupted was he by her mortality…sickening, how he cherished her. That’s why the new one sits on the throne that should be mine.” Bananach’s 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 her strength 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.