Page 58 of The Vanishing Throne

‘It’s part of the truce,’ she says softly. ‘They pay their end of the bargain in blood and service.’

What do you promise them in return?

Just then, a low light from the other end of the field draws my attention and the question dies on my lips. There’s adoor there that’s illuminated around its frame. It towers about ten feet high, constructed of heavy, scorched wood. Symbols are carved into the panels that remind me of those I had seen on Aithinne’s seal. My gaze roves over the inticate etchings. As I draw closer, I notice the door is slightly ajar, the light behind it flickering as if coming from a fire. Laughter echoes frominside, then heavy drumming starts slow. A bagpipe joins the steady beat; the high drone from the pipes echoes off the walls. The song is beautiful, with the most immaculate piping I’ve ever heard, each note formed together in a seamless lullaby.

I close my eyes and try to place the song. There it is, like a memory long lost. I recall a night spent in the country as a child. The bonfires burned before Hogmanay, when people carried torches throughout the village. They played the pipes and sang as I watched from a window of the estate.

I edge closer, the taste of fae powers stirring together so strongly that I can’t distinguish any single type. When I finally reach the threshold, I press my palms to the thick door. The energyin the symbols is so strong that I shiver.

‘Aileana!’

Catherine is there, grasping my arm firmly. I start. The music is suddenly gone, as if it had never been there to begin with. The door before me is tightly shut, without so much as a light burning through the slits in the wood.

‘What the bloody hell was that? ’ My tongue is heavy, burning with power.

Catherine pulls me away. ‘We don’t go in there.’ Her grip on me tightens. ‘Nevergo in there. They vowed not to harm us when they come to our side, but we have no protection if we visit theirs.’ She shakes me, lashing out in her concern. ‘Do you understand?’

I almost tell her that I don’t understand a damn thing, but the power is still so overwhelming that it’s difficult to speak, or to concentrate on anything else. I glance up at the door and the taste returns again, this time in a lingering brush of flower petalsalong the roof of my mouth, less potent. I swear the etchings in the door pulse and glow.

I touch the wood again and the power beats more strongly there. ‘I can sense them. For god’s sake, how many live in there?’

‘Hundreds, maybe thousands. You heard the music?’ At my nod, Catherine tugs on my arm again and I let her pull me away from the door to the comparative safety of the path. ‘It’s different for every person. It stirs up a pleasant memory so you can’t resist.’

I suddenly recall the stories when people were convinced they could hear music in the hills or within crags. There is no music; it’s simply one of the many waysthe fae manipulate humans. Sorcha once made me think I heard my mother singing.

‘Aye,’ I say bitterly. ‘A faery has used it against me before.’

‘That’s how they took people when we lived in the ruins,’ Catherine tells me. ‘We heard the music almost every night. Some people could resist – the Seers are almost entirely unaffected – but most couldn’t.’ She sighs and releases me. ‘My mother couldn’t.’

Perhaps Daniel and Gavin were right not to trust me. Being unable to access my full Falconer abilities had left me open to Sorcha’s influence, and just now the fae could have manipulated me into walking through their door. Lonnrach used the same weakness against me twice before, and I just barelybroke our connection.

‘How do you handle it?’ I ask Catherine. She was so easily faestruck by Kiaran back in Edinburgh; I can’t imagine how she managed to protect herself without any natural resistance. ‘How have you withstood this long?’

Catherine sets her jaw. Without a word, she lifts the long sleeve of her thick wool shirt to bare the pale underside of her forearm. There, marked into the skin, are fingernail scratches, some long and jagged, others half-moon marks pressed hard into her arm. Some are faded, scars that look years old. Others are scabbed over and dotted with dried blood, as recent as a few days.

‘Christ,’ I breathe.

She lowers her sleeve and I don’t miss how her fingers shake. ‘I won’t let them control me,’ she says firmly. ‘If pain keeps their influence at bay, then I’ll do whatever I need to survive. I won’t end up like my mother.’

I won’t end up like my mother. I’ve lost count of how many times I made the same vow. I promised myself that I would never be murdered as my mother had, in the street, torn up and bloodied. My heart a trophy to whatever faery managed to slay me.

How can I tell Catherine to stop doing the very thingthat has kept her alive? After all, I’m a less than sterling example for her to look up to. Seeing what happened to my mother mademeinto a killer.

I stare at the door again and ask, ‘Why would you allow them to stay? They’re not safe.’

Catherine lets out a frustrated breath. ‘Because we need them. Their blood keeps the thistle alive. They hunt for us and grow food and help us build. They even keep the fae on the outside from sensing that we’re here. It’s not an alliance we ever wanted, but we can’t survive out there.’

‘But they always want something in return,’I snap. ‘It’s not in their nature to help without payment.’

‘Aileana—’

‘Don’t. I think I understand.’ The effect of the fae power is still so strong that it churns my stomach. ‘Why there’s no protection for humans who enter their door. Why the truce doesn’t extend to their luring music.’ I can barely say it. ‘If people do hear it and can’t control themselves from coming down here, you let them, don’t you? You all look the other way in exchange for what they’re willing to give you.’ At Catherine’s silence, I step away. ‘That’s –I can’tbelieveyou.’

Catherine’s mouth snaps shut. ‘Don’t look at me like that. Do you think I haven’t lost sleep over it?’ She looks away. ‘I deliberately put this field here to keep them safe. As long as they stay in the city, the thistle makes it impossible to hear the music.’

‘Then what else do you give them?’ I laugh bitterly. ‘Because you can’t tell me the fae are content to wait for their occasional human victim.’

‘Shelter,’ Catherine says sharply. ‘Protection.’

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