Read Online Death's Mistress by Karen Chance - Free Book Online

thing on the wall. It looks sort of like a map with two rivers. One is our world’s timeline; the other is theirs. And they each have their own riverbed, you know? Sometimes they go pretty parallel, while in others, one will bow out in a big loop, taking a lot more time to get back anywhere near the other.”
    “So sometimes time runs faster here, and sometimes it runs faster there?”
    “Yes. I checked yesterday, and it will be a while before anyone can come after me.”
    “How long?”
    “It depends on how long they look for me in Faerie before thinking that maybe I slipped through. The current bend in the river—if you want to call it that—isn’t huge. So yes, a few more days. Maybe a week if I’m lucky.”
    I stared at the yard, unconvinced. “Then why do I feel like I’m being watched?”
    “Probably because you are,” she said sourly. “The fey have spies all over the place, and not all of them are human.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “They can use elements of our world to spy on us. The Blarestri are descendants of the fertility gods, the Vanir—or so they claim. It allows them to connect with plants, animals, that sort of thing.”
    “What about the Svarestri?”
    “They’re descended from the other, rival group of gods—the Æsir, who influence things like the weather.” She wrinkled her forehead. “I’m not sure what they can do. They weren’t a popular topic at court.”
    “I can understand why!”
    She shook her head. “It goes back a lot farther thansubrand’s ambition. There was some war, a long time ago, between the two groups of gods. The Æsir won, and their followers ruled Faerie for ages. Then one day, they suddenly disappeared, with no warning, no explanation. It left everyone to sort things out for themselves. So, of course, there was another war.”
    “And the Svarestri lost.”
    “Not . . . exactly, no. Nobody really won that time. They were too evenly matched, and it just ended up being a slaughter. I don’t know much about it because none of the older fey who were there want to talk about it. Anyway, after a while, the Svarestri settled in the lands they’d been able to hold, and the Blarestri did the same in theirs. And they’ve just gone on hating one another ever since.”
    “But Caedmon let his sister marry one of them?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Not just anyone , the king. And I don’t know about ‘let.’ Efridís was determined she wasn’t going to marry beneath herself, and because she was princess, everyone at her own court would have been beneath her. Caedmon went along with it, thinking the marriage might improve relations between the two camps, foster goodwill and that sort of thing.”
    “But it hasn’t.”
    “Nothing is going to do that! All the Svarestri care about is getting back into power. It’s like they’re obsessed with it. I think they made the marriage because they thought if Caedmon died childless, their prince would rule everything. Only now Aiden is in the picture.”
    “And the Svarestri are scrambling.”
    “They don’t have to—they have Efridís!” Claire got up again, like she just couldn’t keep still. She’d always been the peaceful one between the two of us, but now her nervous energy skittered around the porch, like the distant lightning. “I don’t know how that woman can be Caedmon’s sister. She belongs with the damned Svarestri—she’s as ice-cold as they are. And I tell you, Dory, if she comes after my son, I’ll kill her myself. I swear I will!”
    “Why do you think she’s—”
    “Because she stole the rune! She wants her evil son to inherit, and for him to do that, Aiden has to die. That’s why she really came to court. She told everyone it was to visitsubrand, but that was just an excuse. She wanted Naudiz, and she knew no one else could get to it.”
    “How did she get out with it?” I demanded. “If only three people had access, it shouldn’t have been much of a mystery.”
    “There was no damn