* * *
After supper that night, Shea and I put her sisters to bed, an activity I had come to enjoy, for the four of us would gather in the younger girls’ bedroom and share tales. Shea was the primary storyteller, although occasionally Magdalene took on the role. I knew from legends within my own land—and from Thatcher’s identification of sky iron—that old tales often had a core of truth, and hearing human versions might give me extra insight into their world. A few of the stories existed in the Faerie Realm, as well, and these I took to have more credibility than the others. If a fable commanded the belief of two separate races of people, it was bound to have deep roots.
“So you see, the woman destroyed herself by trying to become more beautiful,” Shea explained to Magdalene and Marissa, who were sitting on their beds, listening intently. “We’re made the way we are for a reason. You can’t go against nature.”
“Or you’ll end up uglier than before,” Marissa offered, and a round of giggles followed. The girls had been outside during the day, and the clothes we’d hung to dry by the fireplace fractured the light, casting eerie shadows across the floor and walls.
In the spirit of this atmosphere, Magdalene made a request. “Tell us a scary one, Shea. We know about ending up ugly.”
“You do,” teased Marissa, prompting Maggie to playfully smother her with a pillow.
“You don’t need to hear a scary one,” Shea said with a roll of her eyes. “You should go to bed.”
“No!” Marissa implored, breaking free of Magdalene’s assault. “I want a scary one, too. Please, Shea?”
“Fine. Let’s see.... Oh, I’ve got one. Have you ever heard of a Sepulchre?”
Marissa and Maggie shook their heads, while I sat up straighter on the floor. This was yet another myth the Fae shared with the humans; Evangeline had frightened me and our other friends with stories about Sepulchres when we were younger.
“Long ago, before the Faerie War, there were these creatures, these beautiful creatures. No one was sure if they were men or women or even what color they were, they shone so uniquely,” Shea began, separating the girls and moving to sit on Marissa’s bed. “The Fae were friends with them, and used to share their magic so the creatures could stay beautiful. But then the war erupted, and the curse of the Bloody Road stopped anyone who wasn’t Fae from crossing into the magical Realm. So the creatures, in order to survive, had to feast on the next best thing—children, the younger the better, because they were so pure.”
This was met with the expected gasps and shivers, and Marissa pulled her quilt up to her chin.
“It’s said that these creatures, called Sepulchres, slip through windows and cracks in doors and steal children away to their dungeons somewhere beneath the ground. No one knows what happens then, except that the children are never seen again.”
There was silence for a moment, then Marissa whimpered, “That’s not true, is it?”
“Don’t worry. Even if it is, Sepulchres never go after big girls like you and Maggie.” Shea tweaked her younger sister’s nose, drawing a weak smile.
“Shea,” I admonished. “Your sisters are scared.”
“I know that.”
“Then tell them the truth.”
“I did!”
I sighed, feeling presumptuous for challenging Shea in front of her sisters, but hating the fear in Marissa’s enormous dark eyes.
“Not completely.”
“Then by all means, straighten me out! What is the truth?”
I turned to the little girl, ignoring Shea’s tightly crossed arms, and told the story as it was repeated in Chrior.
“A long time ago, when humans and Fae shared the lands now occupied by your race, there were these creatures called Sepulchres. They were nourished by Fae magic, but they never attacked children. And when the Faeries left the human world, all the Sepulchres died. So, you see, it’s actually a sad story, not a scary one. There’s nothing to worry your pretty head about.”
Marissa grinned and curled up on her side. After kisses and good-nights, Shea and I returned to the bedroom we jointly occupied, my mind mulling over her version of the tale.
In Chrior, Sepulchres were just another story told to demonize the humans, who had viewed us as heathens, reprobates, and usurpers, and driven us out of their lands. The Sepulchres had been trapped on the human side of the Road and condemned to death without access to our magic. Humans apparently believed the creatures still existed, while the Fae believed them to be extinct, their species one massive casualty of the war.
“So you really don’t believe in Sepulchres?” Shea demanded as soon as our bedroom door had closed, hands on her hips. “Because I’ve heard of children going missing, back when we lived in Tairmor.”
“Tairmor is a big city, and I have no doubt children go missing. But I don’t think Sepulchres are to blame.”
“How can you be sure?”
I flipped my hair over my shoulders, exasperated. “I’m not sure. But I do know that as long as monsters and demons are taking the blame for kidnappings, they’re providing excellent scapegoats for real criminals. And I’m Fae, remember? I think I know more about magic and magical creatures than you do. Besides, Marissa and Maggie would have been lying awake all night waiting for some horror to slip through the window if I hadn’t told them what they needed to hear. Isn’t that what’s important?”
Shea scowled but said no more, though she prepared for bed with a vengeance. I could tell she was still irked, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of acknowledging it. I was plenty irked myself. Children didn’t deserve to be scared. Illumina wasn’t much older than Shea’s sisters, and she’d lived most of her life in fear. It had led to her bizarre habits, her unpredictability, a desperation, perhaps, to be more frightening than the things that frightened her. It had taken more than a scary story to subvert Illumina’s mind in this way, but the thought of Marissa or Magdalene slinking into the woods to injure their own bodies the way Illumina did was enough to caution me against beginning the pattern.
* * *
Other than collecting the promised map and jerky from Thatcher, I went about my usual business the next day, occasionally ruminating on the best way to find Zabriel. My cousin, according to Queen Ubiqua, had his father’s spirit. I’d seen it in him, though I hadn’t known the human Prince of the Fae whom some had viewed as an interloper, others as a blessing. Zabriel had always been focused on the next thing, the lands he wanted to travel, the people he would meet or, in the interim, the worlds he invented in his mind. There was always that elusive adventure up ahead. Now I wondered if it had been a way for him to escape his painful present. In any case, the current day had never mattered as much to him as someday.
Ubiqua had been afraid to let Zabriel cross the Bloody Road in the aftermath of her husband’s death. Her son had no elemental connection, a deficiency that had been obvious from a young age. Most Fae manifested their element within days of birth and learned to communicate with Nature at the same rate they learned to talk, but young Zabriel had feared water, abhorred the dubious flickering of flames, and been helpless against the cold wind. There had been hope for an Earth connection, since he’d loved the feel of dirt under his nails and the sun on his skin, but an incident with poison berries dashed that hope. Even as toddlers, Earth Fae instinctively knew the difference between kind plants and cruel ones, and Zabriel was oblivious. It was normal in light of the evidence that Ubiqua should fear for her son’s life against the curse of the Road. In her zeal to protect him, she’d forbidden him to go near it, and had kept Zabriel’s birth a secret