Page 27 of Threadbound

Darach mac Craobh-na-Beatha, King of the Sidhe, sat half-reclined on the Sunlit Throne, seeming to listen carefully to the useless reports of his failed agents. He did not care what their excuses were, what reasons they proffered to him like so much tribute.

He wanted that little bastard dead.

Well. Technically, he supposed, his grandson wasn’t a bastard in the literal sense. But Bran mac Cairn was proving to be a surprising threat.

It wasn’t that his grandson was a mighty warrior or over-powerful mage. As far as Darach had been able to tell, his grandson was unremarkable in nearly every way. Not untalented, but not extraordinary, either.

Except that he was one of the threadbound.

And Aosda Odhar, centuries before, had foretold the fall of the power of the Sidhe King.

From rivers bancto cobbels ston,

Ryse Raven’s hart and Weever’s bon.

From their gilded bonded Thred

Woven twixt the quick and ded,

The Oaken King ’neath the Holy Crowne

Will crack and break and tumbel downe.

It hadn’t beena simple thing to sort through the fog of prophecy, but when Cairn’s youngest had been named Bran, born with the glint of golden thread beneath his breastbone, Darach had been reminded of the lines.

He had long since tried to remove his half-brother and rival, Cuileann mac Eug, King of the Court of Shades, King of the Sluagh, the mythical Holly King. But Darach was thwarted at every turn by his own son, spawn of Iteodha, his reluctant and bitter fourth wife. Their mutual distaste had left its mark on the child, his skin mottled like the grave, the stain of it having turned both mother and son against the father.

Cairn, the child he despised acknowledging, had kept his uncle Cuileann, King of the Sluagh, alive long after he should have been dead.

Darach had thus far failed to succeed in eliminating Cairn, as well.

But the prophecy concerned not his son, but Bran.

It was time for Darach to remove his grandson. And if thegeàrd soilleiralso found and killed the unfortunate creature tied to him, all the better.

But first they had to find the cursed boy.

Bran mac Cairn was more of a challenge than any of them had anticipated.

Whispers rushed through the room as a shimmer flitted through the air. The tell-tale sign of a pixie.

Darach sat up straight.

“Fianais.” His voice was deep and a little rough, and the whole Court fell silent.

The pixie, her wings a translucent silver, skin shimmered silver, gold, and blue, bowed, the spikes of her short hair as sharp as the nails on her fingers or the knives at her belt. “My king.”

“What have you found?”

“The youngest son of Cairn is in the human city of Edinburgh.”

Darach sucked in a breath. “The human city.” If Cairn’s youngest child was in Dunehame, it was no wonder that his agents had previously failed to find the boy.

“Yes, my lord,” the pixie confirmed.

Darach leaned back in his throne, his expression thoughtful. Dunehame was a dangerous place for a young fae. Human customs had grown strange as the centuries passed, magic all but gone, and it had become a strange and treacherous land. Fae disappeared on the far side of the Gates all too often.

The King of the Sunlit Court flicked a finger.

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