iron-touched world forever. Yet my Lady was left behind, a changeling, to comb her hair and sigh in a cave ’til Enzembler Laird Druir came to court her—which is why all their children carry her odd blood, bearing the mark of her strangeness, inside or out.
She had more to risk than I, my Black Man said, which is why he sent me to her. That and her dowry, brought up into light from darkness—the Sidhe Stane her gillies take their name from, with which any thing might be accomplished, if there were only enough of similar power to make a circle about it: my coven and her, and Roke’s Laird too, with his book-learning and bad intent.
To my own mind, Lady Glauce never understood the Stane’s worth fully—’twas a thing she stood guardian to, not master of, for all she might profit from its nearness. Yet since I knew she must be present during the working I had planned for it, I made sure to come to her at a weak moment, after her husband’s head was taken for rising against the old Queen, dead Harry’s daughter. My Lady carried it home to sit with his body in state, her get all ranged about her, unsure on how to proceed—for though she sat in regency for his heir, Minion, ’twas a subtle time, as she well knew. So we helped her from that danger, making it so that Laird Enzembler sat again beside her from thence on, cold and silent except to sometimes nod, and gave her all her will.
They will never accept you,
I told her.
Nor your brood neither, once enough time has passed that their fear falls away. Better to alter the balance of things while we still can, then—set fire to the world and watch it burn, to see what else might be grown from its ashes.
And she agreed, or seemed to. Yet this was a lie, and only we three would pay for it, in the end. For those above are ever at odds with those below, no matter what store of evil angels’ blood they share.
Sidhe Stane = Sidderstane,
Dolores watched her hand scribble, through aching, drowsy eyes.
Like the Stane of Scone, Scotland’s destiny—a family totem, the Druir luck. Could be any size, small enough to wear, large enough to lie down on. . . .
Now, where had she read that? (
Look up reference, cf.
) And “gillies” . . . so the Sidderstanes were literal poor relations, former sworn bondsmen of Clan Druir, married into the family proper when Torrance Sidderstane brought his wife, Enzemblance Druir, back from the Auld Sod, an etymological link turned genetic.
(What an odd name that was too, in context—traditional, one could only think. Hearkening back to old Laird Enzembler and his own daughter, sister to Grisell, who married Callistor Laird Roke. . . .)
She probably thought that hard,
Dolores mused,
given she must’ve been the elder. Who marries their younger daughter away first, anyhow? But perhaps she looked a bit too much like her mother for Callistor’s liking.
So hot in here, increasingly, and oh so dreadfully close; the very air seemed book-dry, desiccated, all moisure sucked away by rotten paper, a quintessence of dust. History’s weight hung pendant, pressing down on her from all corners, thumbing every pore open at once. She yawned, jaw cracking wide, fatigue suddenly a mere stretch away from nausea.
Was I supposed to just call out for Keck, and hope he hears me?
Or . . . wasn’t there a bell he showed me, Mister S—Gaheris? Over there, by where he was sitting—
Have to get up to find it, though. And how best to do that when her fingers were already scrabbling their way ’cross the page once more, words trailing behind, screwed and slant as blood from some phantom wound?
The Roke we tempted to our Cause right easily, him being much a man as any other, craving both his name’s advancement and a warm place for his prick, likewise. . . .
I told him what I had told my Lady: that my sisters and I knew seven angels’ secret names, who between them could wreck this world and make it over, all anew. And he chose to believe me,
She had more to risk than I, my Black Man said, which is why he sent me to her. That and her dowry, brought up into light from darkness—the Sidhe Stane her gillies take their name from, with which any thing might be accomplished, if there were only enough of similar power to make a circle about it: my coven and her, and Roke’s Laird too, with his book-learning and bad intent.
To my own mind, Lady Glauce never understood the Stane’s worth fully—’twas a thing she stood guardian to, not master of, for all she might profit from its nearness. Yet since I knew she must be present during the working I had planned for it, I made sure to come to her at a weak moment, after her husband’s head was taken for rising against the old Queen, dead Harry’s daughter. My Lady carried it home to sit with his body in state, her get all ranged about her, unsure on how to proceed—for though she sat in regency for his heir, Minion, ’twas a subtle time, as she well knew. So we helped her from that danger, making it so that Laird Enzembler sat again beside her from thence on, cold and silent except to sometimes nod, and gave her all her will.
They will never accept you,
I told her.
Nor your brood neither, once enough time has passed that their fear falls away. Better to alter the balance of things while we still can, then—set fire to the world and watch it burn, to see what else might be grown from its ashes.
And she agreed, or seemed to. Yet this was a lie, and only we three would pay for it, in the end. For those above are ever at odds with those below, no matter what store of evil angels’ blood they share.
Sidhe Stane = Sidderstane,
Dolores watched her hand scribble, through aching, drowsy eyes.
Like the Stane of Scone, Scotland’s destiny—a family totem, the Druir luck. Could be any size, small enough to wear, large enough to lie down on. . . .
Now, where had she read that? (
Look up reference, cf.
) And “gillies” . . . so the Sidderstanes were literal poor relations, former sworn bondsmen of Clan Druir, married into the family proper when Torrance Sidderstane brought his wife, Enzemblance Druir, back from the Auld Sod, an etymological link turned genetic.
(What an odd name that was too, in context—traditional, one could only think. Hearkening back to old Laird Enzembler and his own daughter, sister to Grisell, who married Callistor Laird Roke. . . .)
She probably thought that hard,
Dolores mused,
given she must’ve been the elder. Who marries their younger daughter away first, anyhow? But perhaps she looked a bit too much like her mother for Callistor’s liking.
So hot in here, increasingly, and oh so dreadfully close; the very air seemed book-dry, desiccated, all moisure sucked away by rotten paper, a quintessence of dust. History’s weight hung pendant, pressing down on her from all corners, thumbing every pore open at once. She yawned, jaw cracking wide, fatigue suddenly a mere stretch away from nausea.
Was I supposed to just call out for Keck, and hope he hears me?
Or . . . wasn’t there a bell he showed me, Mister S—Gaheris? Over there, by where he was sitting—
Have to get up to find it, though. And how best to do that when her fingers were already scrabbling their way ’cross the page once more, words trailing behind, screwed and slant as blood from some phantom wound?
The Roke we tempted to our Cause right easily, him being much a man as any other, craving both his name’s advancement and a warm place for his prick, likewise. . . .
I told him what I had told my Lady: that my sisters and I knew seven angels’ secret names, who between them could wreck this world and make it over, all anew. And he chose to believe me,
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