Join the new world

*This takes place many, many years before the events in "Chasing the Stolen Bride".

Edana sat watching. She sat just as she had sat for a very long time, just, as it seemed, she had always sat. The other woman in the room, whose name had never been given to Edana, posed in the corner by the open window. She gazed into the mirror while brushing her hair. Edana’s eyes caught everything before her. The glint of silver from the brush, the arrogant way the woman tossed her hair, and the curtain moving slightly in the breeze. It all fell under her gaze and when Edana witnessed the candle’s flame dance slightly from the moving air the corners of her mouth turned upward ever so slightly.

“I see you have a new hair brush,” Edana said to the woman.

“The Master brought it for me. He says it comes from across the sea. He often brings me things from his trips.”

Edana glanced over the combs and brushes that sat on her own dressing table. A repeating pattern it seemed.

“He can be generous,” Edana replied.

The woman stopped her brushing and turned towards Edana. She was drawn to the sour tone in Edana’s voice.

“He has been good to me,” the woman defended.

“And yet you do not seem worried.”

The woman stood and took a step towards the place of Edana’s confinement.

“Why should I be? He is who he is and you… well, you are where you are.”

Edana stood up quickly and the woman betrayed her unease by glancing at the symbols and the circle drawn on the floor at her feet. When she looked back up, Edana was right in front of her.

“This was not always a prison, you know,” she stared fiercely into the woman’s eyes. “The spells and charms and magiks took years to be put in place. He just had me… I was too distracted to see them working.”

“Well,” the woman said, exhaling a bit too deeply, “he has you inside the circle. I live on the outside.”

“Yes, for now.” Edana continued to stare at her. Her steel blue eyes refusing to release the woman. “When he lit the final Gaiste Candle, I did not even notice.”

“But you are of the Seelie. I am not. He has no need for chalk lines and candles with me.”

“More reason for you to be worried then.”

“I should be worried because he does not need a chalk line?”

This time more than the corners of her mouth turned up. Her lips pulled back and she laughed.

“You should be worried because you left the window open, you stupid cow.” Edana’s hand shot out across the chalk line and wrapped around the woman’s throat. “The wind pushed the candles flame out. It went dark, sweetie”

The woman struggled but found her feet coming off the ground.

“One hundred and twenty-seven years in this room was bad enough. Trapped inside this circle.” She smeared the line and broke it open with her bare toes. “Yes, that was hard to take, but having to watch you parade around here with your airs about you.”

The woman tried to call for help, but Edana tightened the grip and the woman found she had no voice.

“Irony,” Edana said. “That now you can make no sound and that with that candle extinguished and this trap dismantled, my own sound has returned.”

Edana grinned as she saw the woman realize what that meant. Her struggle to free herself increased but Edana held fast. “I am of the Seelie. You are not.” Edana repeated and then opened her mouth and screamed.

The woman’s flesh was ripped off her bones in an instant. Muscle was turned to jelly and bones to ash. Edana no longer held the woman. The woman no longer existed. There was only a splatter, a puddle, and some stains.

Edana shook a bit of mess off her hand and then sat back down in the center of the broken circle. Listening to the sounds of commotion from the lower rooms. She giggled softly to herself. A banshee’s scream often caused a disturbance.

Moments later the sound of footsteps on the stairway floated up to her and they were quickly followed by Tam coming through the door.

She watched his eyes. They moved from the puddle to the splatter to the extinguished candle and then finally to Edana. He smiled The grin came with an ease and sat with familiar comfort on his face.

“You know,” he said calmly, placing his hands in his pockets and kicking out with his foot. “I was thinking it was high time we let you on your way.”

Edana stopped smiling. “You do not get to decide when this is over, Tam. That choice is mine.”

He laughed and winked at her. “Why so hostile? I’ve treated you well. Gave you nice things. Kept you comfortable.” He reached over and picked up the candle that until recently had kept her a prisoner.

“It is out, Tam. You can light it again if you wish, but the circle is broken now. You will not trap me again.”

He tossed the candle away. “Trap you? I was protecting you. I was taking care of you.”

Edana stood up and felt a small bit of satisfaction as she noticed him take a small step away from her. His instinct was overriding his charm.

“You were preserving me,” she said with a simple flat toned voice. No inflection touched her words. “Worse, you were displaying me. I have not forgotten how you showed your fellows the Seelie girl you ‘owned’.”

“So, I made a few mistakes. Best intentions though. I had the best intentions.”

She took another step towards him and this time she could see the fear in the back of his eyes.

“I will not scream at you, Tam. I think perhaps I made a few mistakes in this myself and I have already let my fury sound.”

She saw him release a deeply held breath and then she turned to the window.

“I should mention though that when one of the legion wails all of our sisters hear. I have been missing for a long while now and suspect that my family has been listening for my voice.”

Tam backed up away from her. Even without facing him, she could feel the tension building in his bones. From the distance outside the walls of Tam’s fortress a high pitch wail drifted in to them.

“There she is now. I suppose when Sonja gets here, she, however, may have a bit of screaming to do.”

As Tam turned to run, Edana began to laugh.