Teaser Tuesday
The gallery was a lot cleaner than the name would indicate. I was tempted to look around the great granite partition. I could hear the odd tones of the brass-piped organ my grandfather had installed. Hymns were a new thing here, still. Mainly people came to listen to the noises from metal pipes. And for a chance to see the God Queen herself in the church dedicated to their living god.
I was alone in the plain side room. A wall of stone separated it from the chapel. The wall was worn smooth in places by the hands of the penitent. None of them were here now as I reclined on the plain wooden pew, sitting in the front row so I could stretch out my legs.
“Good day, Prince,” a voice said suddenly and I jumped. I sat bolt upright, spinning around so quickly I felt something in my neck spasm. I groaned despite myself.
Dulce Aber walked past me with a little nod. He knelt at the small carving of a woman’s face, tapping his hand over his heart. Then he stood and took a seat next to me. He stretched out his legs to a much greater extent. He wasn’t really much taller than me, but he had different proportions.
“I apologize for startling you,” he said, with the little inclination of his head that most fae would give you with an apology.
“Quite all right. I had just expected your boss.” A boss that refracted the ley lines like any of us with the royal blood, not a nearly invisible cipher.
He nodded, weighing something. “You are looking for Perrin Veith?”
“That’s what I said, Dulce.”
He gave me a blank look. A human might have given a patronizing smile. A fae focused on business didn’t bother with such things. His eyes were a dark blue that bored right into me, underneath a mop of blonde hair caught up in an intricate knotted scarf favored among the Plains Elves.
“Something is going on,” I said. It wasn’t really surprising given the constant mess at home.
“Perrin Veith was sentenced to death for treason against the God Queen. He was hanged by chains.”
“He’s not dead,” I said, before I really thought it through.
Dulce smiled. It was a human expression. It looked odd on his face. Even if he was human, he’d been among the most fae of the fae so long it was hard to recall his origins. “Do you know where he is, Scott?”
He took the familiar tone. I was sure a thousand wayward Ush had crumbled. A harmless human, needing some help and looking so weak. So invisible to our fae senses that we tended to forget just why our ancestors had imported them. Prey our fae ancestors toyed with before eating them whole, we told ourselves, but their metal swords had killed thousands.
“I had a dream where he was alive and speaking with me. The dead don’t appear in my dreams.”
He nodded. He didn’t ask anymore. He knew how we worked. An outsider’s perspective, but a valid one. “He escaped the gallows with the help of some powerful chaos.”
Law & Order would benefit from studying Dulce Aber. The question was posed as a statement. The eyes scanned every inch of me, looking for that flinch, look or sign. Something he’d figured out over a decade watching us and living with us.
“Not me, Aber. I’ve been away.”
“You have a history of meddling.”
“Very true. It is history. Ancient history.”
“Hardly ancient. Simeon has hosted you not long ago.”
“I needed shelter. I wasn’t here to do anything in Sheryl’s kingdom.” I’d said more than I planned and he knew by some flicker in my face. One of the corners of his mouth moved in a smirk, but I wouldn’t have seen it if I wasn’t watching him like a hawk. A parade could have happened on the other side of the room and I’d have missed it; he had so much of my attention.
“And your secret message to Perrin?”
“Was long set as a way for our family to contact him.”
Aber nodded. “Very well. What brings you to the Chapel of the God Queen, Prince Oysha?”
“A sick sense of humor?”
He smiled, briefly. “If that were true, you’d be in the main part. You came to the Gallery of Shame, which would be an acceptable place for even the devil to enter. You show respect.”
“Perrin and I met here before. It was a good location for us both.”
Dulce Aber nodded, filing that someplace. “And why did you want to meet?”
“Because he was in a dream.”
“You know that your sister does not want you here.”
“Very clearly.”
“Good, then,” he said, with a nod toward the face carved into the wall, he stood and walked away.